“You know what I heard earlier today? Ever since the incursions started North America has lost more than fifty percent of its native flora and fauna. That’s a conservative estimate.

Cascadia on the other hand, has managed to maintain more than eighty percent of their local forests. You know how? I’ll tell you! Those socialists are antithesis sympathisers, and have made a deal with the aliens!”

“Honestly? If our government offered free housing and healthcare in exchange for working with the aliens, I’d consider it.”

- Jalex Homes, Misinformation Battles

—

As soon as I stepped out of the oversized vehicle I came face to face with a hideously orange abomination of a vehicle. I’d been expecting a deep muted orange, but the vehicle in front of me was just a couple steps shy of neon orange.

“Very subtle, maybe I should just strip naked and paint a target on my back, I’d probably attract less attention,” I muttered.

“Although I’m sure many of the soldiers around here would love to see that, it actually wouldn’t work,” someone replied. I turned slightly, and caught sight of a relatively small woman with vibrant orange hair to match the vehicle, and wearing full combat armor, round the end of the vehicle. “The antithesis do not take color into account while prioritizing targets, just threats and biomass, so having this eyesore is actually an advantage. Much easier for our allies to pick it out, and avoid friendly fire,” the woman said, slapping the vehicle on the side.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I mumbled. “I assume you’re the outfit that’s supposed to ‘escort’ me into the combat zone?”

“That’s us!” The woman stepped forward, and stuck out her hand. I couldn’t help but notice that it was a prosthetic, and a good one at that. “I’m Emily Barker, commander of these misfits. Come around back, I’ll introduce you to my squad.”

I followed her around to the back of the metal coffin, to find a lowered ramp in the back. Inside the vehicle actually looked surprisingly comfortable, with room for about a dozen people along the padded benches that lined the sides of the vehicle, and obviously customized reclining pilot and gunner’s seats. There were four people waiting inside, a woman with a mop of black hair, bouncing around in the driver's seat checking dials and pushing buttons, a woman with a long brown braid and overalls sleeping in the gunner’s seat, and two men, who couldn’t be more different standing in the back. The first man was a mountain of muscles with a shaved head, who was busy feeding a long belt of ammunition into what I could only assume was the turret, and the other man was a small, shifty looking man with a patchy goatee, who was checking the rifles.

“Meet the squad. Up front we have Jockey, the one sleeping on the job is Ratchet, the big one is Bulldog, and the one checking our weapons is Terrier,” Emily said, slowly pointing at each crew member in turn. The crew all turned and looked at me as they were being introduced.

“This our new charge captain?” Terrier sniffed. “She doesn’t look like much.”

This earned a smack to the back of the head from his massive companion. “Moron, didn’t you learn your lesson last time? Don’t judge samurai by their looks! You keep running your mouth like that and someone’s going to make you regret it one of these days,” Bulldog growled before turning towards me. “It’s nice to meet you ma’am.”

“And you,” I replied, stepping into the back of the vehicle, letting Emily close the hatch behind us. “The name’s Reina Tanaka.”

“No codename yet?” Jockey called from the front. “We’ve got a fresh one here!”

“Shadup…” Ratchet slurred from the gunner seat, “trying to nap.”

“No time for that now,” Emily replied as she pushed her way towards the front. “We’ve got a job to do.” She leaned down to say something to Jockey, although I didn’t catch what, before glancing back towards me. “Do you have anything you want to do before we leave?”

I shrugged. I could probably buy some new gear, but I didn’t have any specific ideas at this time, and could do it while we traveled too. “Not in particular.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Then sit down, we’ll get moving in a second,” Emily smacked Ratchet until the other woman moved, slipped into the gunners seat, then I felt the vehicle lurch forward.

I slipped onto one of the rear bench seats, along with the rest of the team, as the bumpy vehicle surged towards our destination. “So, what did you lot do to get stuck with babysitting duty?” I yelled to be heard over the revving engine. “Lose a bet?”

“Hell naw!” Terrier yelled back. “We volunteered.”

I stared at the scraggly man in shock. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

“We didn’t at first, but there are a couple major advantages to volunteering for ‘babysitting duty’, as you call it,” Emily shouted from her seat near the front. “First time we did it was for the cash. Triple rate is a lot when you’re desperate, but as time went on we found there were a lot of advantages to escorting samurai too.”

“Like what? I can’t imagine the survival rate is great when you drive right into the edges of an incursion,” I replied.

“With a samurai around? You’d be surprised. It’s probably higher than sitting on the perimeter. Sure, we’ve lost a few friends along the way, especially when the samurai wants to abandon us, but thanks to the other perk, it’s never been that bad,” Emily explained.

“And that is?” I asked.

“Any samurai gear that’s abandoned on the battlefield, and unclaimed by a samurai later, becomes property of the Cascadia government to be reverse engineered. Sucks for the scavangers, but the advancements typically get rolled out to the troops, and eventually for the loyal PMCs to purchase. However, if a samurai decides to give some of their tech to someone… the government can’t touch it once we register it as Personal Protection. Most of our small arms were ‘gifted’ to us by a samurai we’ve escorted before, and even the turret is a custom job by one of our previous charges.”

“Well… considering how specialized I am, I doubt you’d appreciate anything I have to offer. Unless one of you wants to abandon your gun for a sword, or bow,” I said with a smirk.

“We don’t expect anything from our samurai charges,” Ratchet muttered, yet somehow making her voice easy to make out over the sound of the engine. “If you try to be greedy around samurai you’re pretty much asking for your life to be cut short. We’re not that stupid.”

I started to nod, but paused as the vehicle began to vibrate, and shake. Outside there was a massive grinding noise.

“They’re opening the gates,” Jockey explained. “Those massive metal slabs sit fine while open, or closed, but they sure don’t like being opened, or reset, easily.”

“We’re about to enter the conflict zone. Full readiness everyone!” Emily snapped.

Bulldog and Terrier both grabbed a rifle, before sliding open some armored shutters so they could see out the windows. Ratchet even sat up, checked her pistol was in her holster, then grabbed a tablet off the wall.

“How long until we reach the first location?” I asked, standing up and staggering up towards the front.

“Five minutes! Even if there’s a blockage in the road this baby can plow right through it, so we won’t have to make any detours if the roads are bad,” Jockey reported.

“Just don’t overdo it. I just got the Jaguar running smoothly again!” Ratchet growled, without looking up from her tablet.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked Emily.

“Just let us do our job,” she mumbled. “Once we get to the first shelter, you’ll be on point.”

I nodded, then slipped away, returning to my seat.

[Anything you can tell me about the first location?] I texted Artymis.

Only what was provided in the data file they shot over while you were in the command center. Locations, basic information about who would be inhabiting each, and the estimated chances that each one would be open, or breached.

[Do any of the locations stand out?]

Well, there are two sets of statistics. One contains the chances that a specific shelter would fail to close when power is available, based upon maintenance records. Cascadia takes shelter reliability really seriously, so there are only two locations that have been marked with having over a three percent chance or greater of failing to close. Both private shelters. I’ll mark those on your map.

The other set is for shelters which may experience issues if they tried to close without power. Unfortunately this list contains a lot more problematic locations. Shelters which have older, failsafe doors which may lock people out, or may not be able to close very effectively on internal backup power. There are a dozen or so of these locations.

[Any of those close to our initial destination?]

There are two within the first block of the search area.

[Fuck! Well, I guess we know where we’re going to start. Thanks Artymis.]

The armored vehicle lurched to the side as it connected with something I couldn’t see, but considering that no one reacted, it must not have been important. Since there were only a few minutes until we stopped I dug into the information Artymis provided. I wanted to be prepared for what was to come.