Point of Documentation: Marshall, Phoenix 11
Their methods may be slightly abrasive, but Marshall didn’t draw too many similarities to his prior training camp brutality. It was a simple walk out into the outside of the ‘Mule’, as they called it, to defuse this mine that had been spotted. Someone had set up some kind of explosive device ahead and was planning on taking out anything that came across it. From the sounds of the conversation between Cadence and the Captain of Betty from the communication device: this was possibly placed for their specific model of Mule.
Cadence had just finished slipping on her suit when the entire Mule rocked with some kind of explosive. Marshall immediately started to panic with the thought that they had just taken a hit from something. He grabbed onto a hold nearby and braced himself for the crash he was very much expecting by now. He received some confused looks by both Robert and Cadence, who shared a look between each of them.
“Hey uh… Marshall? You good? You already getting the combat jitters just hearing a cannon go off?” Cadence said incredulously.
It was Marshall’s turn to be confused. He looked at both of them before replying. “Wait, that was us? Do you all still use explosive-based propellants in your firearms and cannons??” The question came out a bit more surprised than he was intending. He released his grip on the bar and stood back up fully.
A confused look shot across Robert’s face, but a more knowing and irritated look went across Cadence’s face. She responded with “Of course we do, you Outlander. Er– Marshall. We don’t all have the funds for gauss or, fates forbid, laser technology.”
Marshall’s hand drifted down to his service pistol on his side. His hand stopped before it landed on the thing and instead rested on his hip. The firearm suddenly felt very, very heavy now. “Right. Then let’s get along with what we need to do then?” His words lacked any kind of conviction. Mostly because he had fuck all in ideas of how to go about defusing a bomb.
Cadence gave a node and turned to Roberts. “We need you on the guns to help Gwen. Keep an eye out and let her do the heavy lifting.” Roberts nodded to her words and left without another moment wasted. These people seemed to have rehearsed these moments at least a few times now.
Both Marshall and Cadence moved towards the exit hatch after that. Cadence looked over her now suited shoulder, her mask blocking any facial hints to emotion. She seemed to look at him for a moment, then turn back and continue out the hatch. It cracked open with a hiss and revealed the outside world as it was. A still barren, but not as desolate view as he had scrambled through a week ago. There were tufts of grass poking out from the cracks in the pavement and the remnants of roads that had been laid down. While a small hill of terrain ran along the side of the road they faced and blocked the rest of the view, Marshall could tell from the sparse tops of trees poking up over the hill’s top that this place wasn’t as dead as the Wastelands was.
The first thing Marshall noticed that was out of place, long before they ever got to the ladder that Cadence was attempting to use, was the now-smoldering crater in one part of the hill. A man laid beside that crater, unmoving, with a strange object in their hand. It was hard to tell at this distance. They were basically only a hundred feet from the mine they had to defuse.
That wasn’t a bad sign. No, not at all.
Marshall gave a shake to this head, as if to clear the bad thought from it. No, this would be fine. His hand rested on the grip of his firearm like a comfort. If any crazy shit happened, he could rely on his old, trustworthy pistol.
Cadence turned once again and gave a tap on the right side of her neck. “Press here and turn on your radio. Robert says he’s been trying to reach you.” Her voice was mechanical through the suit, a sound that reminded him a lot of the chatter you’d hear over the flight-radio when they were out of effective range of the devices.
His finger went up to his neck, feeling for the button he needed to press down on. He found it and, as the radio cracked to life in his suit’s enclosed helmet, Robert’s voice came through like a static snowfall.
“-id? Kid, come in.”
A sigh heaved from his chest once more. Robert scared him, admittedly. The brutish man was like a gorilla in strength and an ox in a porcelain shop with his subtlety. Whatever he had to say to him better not be related to his shots or… the illness. Right, the illness. He had nearly forgotten about that already in all this craziness. Was there any real reason for him to wear this suit outside now? He had already gotten infected with the thing that they were so afraid of, right? “I hear you Robert. What’s going on?”
Robert let out a curse in response. Marshall’s eyebrow raised slightly in confusion, but the confusion would be dissipated quickly after. “Another one. Track that Gwen. Right, Marshall, I need you to listen carefully. We’ve tracked two heat sources already on the knolls around us. They vanished soon after, so we think they are using Lizard Suits. We call them that, but they’re like tactical gear that the old-world used to use in their special forces. Heat dissipating armor that makes you match the environment around you. We’re gonna need to rely on you a little bit more here to keep Cadence safe. I know you only have a pistol, but I need you to at least call out or fire at where you see baddies. Anyone out here wouldn’t be our friends, as Wastelanders like us usually announce ourselves if we spot each other pretty obviously.”
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Marshall was a little overwhelmed by the information being fed to him, but he understood the gist of it. “I got it, Robert. Where were the two sources spotted?” He unfastened the gun’s holster-guard and drew the weapon. The weight of it wasn’t too much, but it weighed more than a standard pistol did. Standard to them, most likely.
There was a pause that Marshall didn’t like from Roberts. He resisted calling back instantly in his haste as he followed a little closer behind Cadence. The reply did soon come through as Robert said “It seems like the first one was to your 2 o’clock, and the second was to your 11 o’clock.” His voice was uncertain as he said this. Marshall did not like that.
“So they’re on both sides. Thanks.”
He jogged up next to Cadence and started to tell her what Robert had said before she held up a hand. She then spoke and said “The comms are shared. I heard everything, I just didn’t say anything.”
Marshall’s face flushed for a moment in embarrassment before he regained his composure and nodded. “Right. So what does this mine look like?” Marshall had looked around as they walked forwards and had yet to spot anything that screamed ‘mine’.
Cadence stopped and pointed a dozen feet ahead at the ground. Marshall’s eyes followed it to see a hub-cap of an old Terran-style motor transport laying face-up on the ground. “See that? It’s under there. So cover me while I get this defused.”
The pistol in his hand was switched off safe as he nodded. He took a few steps back and knelt down as she did the same over the mine. She set down her kit she had with her and started to get to work on the explosive device. His eyes went over the terrain around them as she worked. This place… it looked close to what he had seen in his classes about normal life on Terra. Raiders, Wastelanders, the small Nation-States that had developed after Terra fell. Yet, they said that they were heading to the wall, a place that was supposed to be where civilization properly started. So why did this place appear in so many classes of ‘Terra Civilizations’ he had to take? That just did not line up with what he understood.
Cadence pulled on something on the mine and a wire came up from the ground. Her helmet pivoted to look at it, then seemed to follow a path from it to the knoll. A curse came from her microphone as she spoke. “This thing has a detonator somewhere. Luckily I was able to–”
Marshall’s attention was instantly snapped up from her words when a glint came from the knoll to his right. Down the road, some few hundred feet, was someone laying on the ground with foliage laid over them. The rifle was poking out, glinting in the afternoon sun. Marshall raised his pistol as he yelled out the man’s position to Robert. He saw the shot long before he heard it. The flash of the muzzle and the spray of blood from Cadence as her suit ruptured. It was followed by a much louder, and much more violent detonation behind Marshall as the cannon on Betty opened up on the man.
A few splashes turned that man’s hiding spot into more of a moon-like crater of barren life and explosion burns. Marshall didn’t wait over-long to stare at the sight of the man’s remains. No, he rushed to Cadence as fast as this constrictive suit would let him. He slid next to her, looking over the damage that had been done. She had taken a shot in the upper arm on her left arm. While not in the direct body, Marshall knew there was a vein in the arms and legs that could mean you’d bleed out in minutes if untreated.
Cadence was nothing but vulgarities as she attempted to stand back up. Marshall was having none of it and hefted her over his shoulders. Training, he had to use his training. He had been trained for ship combat, not fucking fire-fighting in the middle of a decrepit and ancient highway!
A hissing filled the air as a rocket soared from over the hill’s edge. It came short and detonated ahead of Betty, but showed what kind of heat that the raiders were packing. All guns on Betty began to fire indiscriminately at any open surface on those hills as Marshall ran Cadence back towards Betty. Getting up the ladder was the hardest part of the journey, but it wasn’t the only one. A ricochet slammed off the metal next to Marshall as a round nearly missed his head. He looked back at the top of the ladder to see nearly a dozen men and women armed in small arms and rockets poking up over the hills on each side of the pathway.
He barreled down the walkway on the side of the mech to the hatch. With a quick tug, he yanked it open and both him and Cadence spilled down into the armory’s floor. He made it, and the pallor color that Cadence’s face was taking on told him it was none too soon. Robert burst into the room from the cockpit and pointed to it. “Get in there and help Gwen and the Captain. I’ll deal with Cadence.”
Without another word, Marshall picked himself up and entered into the cockpit to this mech. It was larger than he was expecting, but was filled with monitors, displays, and stations on each wall. He didn’t have time to marvel at how advanced the primitive Terrans could get and yet still be primitives. The Captain gestured to the seat next to him and told him to sit. “Take the guns, I’m going to try to get us the hell out of here.”
Marshall slid in next to the Captain, only now realizing how much blood was on his shoulder, arm, and hands. He hoped that Cadence would make it even as he grabbed the controls for the guns.
The monitor showed the same figures on the hill, now four less than before with either a crater or blood stain marking where they once were. Something else alarming had shown up, however. Another Mule, one torn to hell, retrofitted with a large barrel on its back, and multiple banners of gears hung off its side. And spikes. Fucking spikes.
The barrel on its back began to warm up, and the monitors warned that that wasn’t the only thing to worry about. An emplaced gun rolled onto the hill as well where the men were at. Marshall felt a shiver down his spine as he saw this on the monitors. How were they supposed to make it past all this with three guns and a slow Mule?