Opening the hatch and entering the Drone’s cockpit, I am welcomed by a simplistic but very well refined control system, no connection ports but 2 joysticks for maneuvering and a keyboard plus a few switches for system functions. It has been ages since I piloted anything manually instead of connectors. But I think I can handle the basics.
Flipping a switch to turn on the cockpit power I place my fingerprint on the scanner,
The rest of the Drone turns online. “-Access authorized, welcome unit- ...R-4-2 M-U-2 -” A familiar mechanical voice chimes in the cockpit. They never got to wiping me from their registry, good.
“Run system diagnostics.” I say in a clear voice.
“-All systems nominal, warning, no connection to Main Hub, extreme caution recommended-” Main Hub, that has not existed for decades you know? ”override hangar gate.” I say.
“-Hangar mainframe, unpowered, supplying emergency power, opening hangar doors-” The Drone responds.
Guiding the machine out of the hangar, I help Alicia into the cockpit, It is rather stuffy with both of us in here, but what can you do? There is no spare space in these thing.
I open the area map on the Drone terminal. It is at least 70 years out of date, but it is miles better than nothing. So using it, I plot a route to the relative location of ìrota. Turning on the travel mode in the drone to save power, we set off.
Unsurprisingly we had indeed veered off track whilst travelling blind and had to backtrack for an hour, but aside from that, the distance left was not too bad, it wasn’t even that long until we reached the vicinity of the station and began encountering hostiles again.
No mediums this time, just a lot of Lessers. I might be driving a clumsy drone and I might be rusty in doing so, but it shames me to admit that I still dispatched them faster than average simply due to the greatly increased firepower that inbuilt assault rifles offer in comparison to a single shot rifle.
Stolen story; please report.
That being said, I am quite certain that if I had encountered even a single Medium it would have been my end, a Drone is simply too clumsy to control for that kind of combat.
Carefully exiting through the station I found myself In a relatively short distance from the arcology, just some 10 kilometers. So I continued my journey and soon enough I was within the safe zone maintained around all arcologies.
*BANG*
A high caliber bullet passed right by me, digging a large hole on the ground next to me, that could have just killed me! After taking cover just in time to avoid rapid fire and realizing it is most likely the Arcology security mistaking me for a hostile, I hastily contacted them by the onboard radio.
“Stop shooting at me goddamnit! Can't you tell a difference between friend and foe!?” I yelled into the radio, as machine gun fire peppered and chipped on the concrete pillar of some wrecked building I chose for cover.
“..” Firing stopped as a voice responded in a surprised tone “Sorry about that, your Walker hasn’t got its signature changed from the Old-Gov signature, that combined with its size made us assume it was most likely a rare Medium.” The voice was gruff and bordering middle age, probably been in this line of duty for quite a while.
“No problem sir, I lost my own Walker during combat and hijacked a hostile one that I found, I am part of the Commission's Group. My ID is XXXXXX ” I informed the security squad leader in a friendly tone, no need to piss off the officials.
“…Your ID checks out, you can move on, but change your unit signature before leaving” he responded after a minute.
Relieved, I got out of cover and continued onwards to the Arcology, to finally rejoin civilization again.
Author's note:
I know I know, its a tad early... (just barely the next day for me) First chapter of the day, posting a side chapter and another proper chapter later on.
Please notify me on any mistakes I make. Thank you.