Barren Dawn

November 15 2280
Tar City, Hollow Song

Kel figured it will be a hell of a ride. As it turned out, it was hell indeed as the convoy rode across the bumpiest landscape Kel had ever seen. It was his first time heading so far up North, pass the Outlands and pass the Grim Canyon, and Jackson is already showing signs of vomitting. The terrain was merciless, and so was the driver of the truck. Every second or so they wouldhit a pot hole, and everybody would be suspended in mid air for a fraction of a second before their organs crashed into their bowels. And they expect us to fight like the tough bastards they advertise us as!

“I think Jackson’s gonna go-” Josh did not get to finish his sentence before a hail of vomit poured forth from Jackson’s mouth. “Ah… well, lucky he’s on the last row.”

“God bless Manny,” Kel said, to the chuckles of the team. He took a glance at his team - there were rookies in the squad, and they did not have any time to break the ice with veterans like him. Sitting at the rearmost is Jackson Remphis, the team’s demolitions specialist, and beside him is his partner Duran “DC” Carbara, a tribal who spoke little but commanded respect for his piercing eyes and icy calmness under fire. Rumors had it that he was the only survivor of the dreaded Velvet Sand raid, where entire tribes were wiped out by the raiders. Tribals in the squad, now that’s a rarity, Kel thought.

Next was Josh Ironhouse and Sar Moras, the team’s designated marksman and the radioman respectively. Sar Moras was assigned to the squad as a coordinator, and will leave once this mission is done. Moras… I think I heard that cell before, Kel thought. Oh yeah, that’s the one on the far east. What did they call them? The blades or something.

He kind of hoped that Sar Moras would stay longer, for it was not common to find people of the same ethnicity as him. Like his race, he had a red tattoo over the back of his neck, in the shape of a scorpion vaguely posing in the shape of an “M”. Kel had one too, which is a phoenix in the shape of a “T”.

Next up is Manny Keldrich and Ian “Flashfist” Thunders, team leader and rifleman respectively. The oldest in the team, they were often looked up by the rookies as role models for their ferocity in combat. Ian was deadly with both the gun and without it, and so far nobody, not even the Delta boys had ever won in a hand-to-hand sparring session against him.

Opposite of Kel sits Brandon “Barney” Orclave, a fresh rookie straight from the academy and like all freshies, always eager to proof himself. A little too eager though, to the point where the entire team voted him as most likely the first to get shot in this mission for his consistent recklessness in combat.

What a nice mix of rejects and elites, Kel snickered.

His train of thought was halted abruptly as the truck stopped, and Manny yelled at them to get off and form up. Jackson hauled his fatigued body off the truck first, and almost crashed face-first into the ground if not for Duran’s timely assistence. The squad was assembled in a matter of seconds, visors in their power suits down, guns locked and loaded.

“Alright men, today’s gonna be big. Five clicks further north, there’s a raider stronghold, and intelligence confirms that Warlord Skullpit’s hosting a ritual of ascension, which means the bulk of the raider forces will be gathered there today. Intel estimates at least four splinters gathered, so this means we’ve got about close to a hundred of bad guys to run through.

“Delta will take point - as always, while Charlie and Bravo will circle around the stronghold and attack from the flanks. The reserves will be arriving shortly to secure the perimeter, so that no raiders will ever get away. Now here’s the important part - we’ll be entering the stronghold through the western court, which is an ancient graveyard full of tombstones. There’s a passageway that leads into the stronghold’s kitchen and commons room through one of the catacombs, and that’s where we’ll split up.

“Ian, Brandon, Sar and Kel, the four of you will take the catacombs while the rest follow me. We will advance by foot in a loose formation once Delta is-” before Manny could finish, Delta squad was already on the move, to his annoyance. “Damn the purples. Shoot to kill, and leave no survivors. I’ll relay tactical goals to you all through COMRAD. Move out!”

“HUARRRGHHHHH!” came the reply, and the squad fell in behind the Deltas in two files, with Manny and Ian leading.

November 15 2280
Tar City, Hollow Song

“You sure this will work?” Barel asked. His eyes were locked in a deep frown, and a scar across the bridge of his nose gave his otherwise boyish features a grittier look. His hair was brunette and ruffled, and along with his unshaven chin fit his rugged image well, if not for the squeaky clean lab coat he had on his body. In his mouth hung a toothpick, a habit that he caught on after going cold turkey on cigarettes five years ago.

“I’m very sure, young man,” Damion replied, in a tone that is both subtlely dangerous yet comforting at the same time. Like Barel he had a clean lab coat on, and he was in his late sixties, but his marvellous skin spoke of the fact that he had never been in the sun for his whole life. He looked sickly pale, but his eyes shone with a kind of maniacal brilliance often linked to mad scientists in old legends. “She is the best speciment so far and I am willing to bet my life’s reputation upon the very success of this operation.”

“Whatever you say doc,” Barel said with a shrug. “Just looks to me that her heart stopped pumping five minutes ago.”

“What?” Damion snap turned his head towards the heart beat monitor behind him, but before managed the turn he was already crouched on the ground with one arm squeezing his neck and the other on his back. “ARGHHHHH…”

Barel laughed out loud, and reconnected the sensor cable. “Gotcha old man.”

“Arghh… I’m too old for this Barel. You almost snapped my neck with that!”

“Correction - YOU almost snapped your own neck. Which if you did, I would have saved the recording from the CCTVs as the greatest moment in history.”

“Cut that crap and help me with this, will ya? Ouch…” Damion painfully made his way across the room and grabbed a handful of instruments, and handed them to Barel.

“Alright, so what am I supposed to do again?” Barel asked.

“Didn’t I briefed you about that last night?”

“Yeah but that was… like, last night. I wasn’t awake enough to remember everything.”

Damion breathed out a long sigh, shook his head, and said, “You should pay more attention if you want to pass your entrance exams. We will need to connect this speciment to the automated prosthetic limbs, or APL, by splicing her nerve endings to the bio-linkage on the APL terminals. I’ve printed out the mappings, so it will be a no-brainer: cut nerve, link to terminal. Got that?”

“Yep. One thing though.”

“What?”

“Can we put a blanket over the girl? She’s awfully pretty and I’m awfully horny.”

“For GOD’s sake-”

“Okay okay! Let’s get onto it.”

Shaking his head and mumbling curses underneath his breath, the duo went to work.

November 15 2280
Hollow Song Outlands

Kel wondered if this was real. The sun in his face, the dust in his hair… but most importantly, no patrol today. No, it was something much more, and from Josh’s devillish grin he knew it must be good. Manny walked in their cell an hour ago and announced that they will be joining Charlie and Delta on a siege. A siege! That sounded good, that sounded big.

Your equipment will be readied in the armory, and today’s mission will be codenamed Rattlesnake. After receiving your power suits and rifle, I want each and every one of you here to strip both of them apart and put them back together again, and if I find even a hint of dust on either equipment I assure you the punishment will be something even masochists would fear. Mark my words.

Kel smiled inwardly at Manny’s uncharacteristic seriousness. He had never seen Manny that serious before; he was always calm and laid back until bullets come his way. It’s the Deltas - Manny’s got a serious ego issue when it comes to the purple boys, said Josh earlier after Manny left, and Kel figured the man’s got a point. There was serious competition between the squads, and Delta always came in tops. But then the Delta had the best men, so that was to be expected.

“Alright men, rifle check,” Manny barked as he stormed into the commons.

A power suit check call was issued seconds later, and when they were done the camp was filled with the roars of trucks coming in by the dozens. It smelt like war.

A poor man has to find his own way to live. That I did, and here I am, in the Hollow Song.

They say Hollow Song’s the last place for a broken man. I’ve been beaten, framed, whipped, and finally exiled, so this cursed place might as well open up its pearly gates and welcome me with rows of topless angels in thongs. Female ones.

But regardless of how or why I got here, the main concern right now is survival. Back in the cells I had rations; here, I have nothing. Not even a goddammed lizard for god’s sake! Well not everything is dead here of course - we have giant boars, giant scorpions, giant ants, giant spiders, and what else… oh, giant rats. So big that my little piece of table leg won’t do much to convince them to part with some of their ass. Ah well, not that I like eating spiders or scorpions or ants anyway. No sir, I’d rather die starving that shove carapace down my throat. Besides, I don’t think they are edible too (save for the boars, if only they had just one head).

Thinking about food, I’m starving. Hollow Song is supposed to be a refuge for outcasts like me, but where are the fucking outcasts? Unless the map is playing peekaboo with me, I’ve pretty much walked all the way across horizontally and vertically, and have yet met any living humans. Lots of bones though. What happened here?

Oh, there’s a village upfront. I hope they’re not empty huts again. So far I’ve ran into five of such abandoned villages, and what a shame! Strange thing though - it seems as though somebody had actually ransacked all these villages. Whatever resources they used to have, it’s gone now, and that’s pissing me off. Can’t they at least leave a C-bar for old lops like me?

Wait, I think there’s something happening upfront. First rule of survival in the wasteland - hide when you sense trouble, even remotely.

The village is not empty, but I don’t think it’s doing well either. I can’t make out much from this distance, but it seems as if there are huge creatures walking around and smaller ones running away from them. From experience this means the smaller ones are in trouble, but from what I see the smaller ones resembles humans while the bigger ones… well, humanoid, but not really… or I should say, giants.

Oh shit, one just got ripped apart! Shit shit shit, what the hell is this? What the fuck is happening in this fucked up place?

Now gun shots. Okay, I’ve seen enough. Time to get the hell out of here.

Slowly, silently, and… shit what was that? Bullets wheezing my way? Oh shit, they’ve seen me.

Run you old fool, run… ru…

Betty… Bet…

November 02 2280
Mourning Alleys, Hollow Song

She woke up with a splitting headache. As she blinked away the fog that covered her tired eyes, she noticed that she was sitting in a pile of rubbish, and immediately following that visual revelation the odors hit her. The stink! She had to get out of this place.

How did she got herself into this mess? She had no memories of her past, and the last thing she remembered was… nothing. Must have hit my head pretty hard, she thought, as she crawled painfully on all four away from the rubbish dump. Pain… wait. Something was not right. What is that pain about?

She quickly checked her arms, and to her horror, two bloody stumps - cut off three inches after the elbow - greeted her eyes. No, no NO! She bent down further, and found out that her legs were of a similar fate. Then the pain slammed into her brain full force.

She had lost her memories, and now her limbs!

Infection is the most dangerous threat to an open wound. Therefore it is an imperative rule that before treating any exposed wound, antibiotics and sterilization gels must- she mind spun as the words rang in her head. She couldn’t make out the rest of the sentence, but one word remained etched in her psyche: infection.

Okay, calm down girl, calm down, she repeated that in her mind like a mantra. First the breathing… then the heartbeats… the ten seconds seemed like an eternity to her before she wrestled her rapidly rising panic back into control. Let’s do this step by step.

Firstly, the wounds. She took another glance at the horrendous stumps, and choked back vomit and panic. Oh dreadful lords of midnight, I’m crippled! I’m… no, focus on the wounds first! She opened her eyes and looked around. She was in a back alley, and it was evening. The temperature will plummet in a couple of hours, and she’ll need to find something warm to… where are my clothes?

To her shock she realized that she was naked. No no no… focus on the wounds. Other things can come later. Taking a deep breath, she looked around. Check if the wounds are still bleeding. Assess the wound’s conditions first.

Gods give me the strength… she carefully rose her left arm, or what was left of it, up and examined it. Approach the matter in a systematic manner - no emotions, no morality, no distractions. Look at it from an engineering standpoint - there are problems and you need to fix it. To fix the problem, there is but one way to do it and that way has steps that you will need to follow. Step by step. Analyze, Design, Implement and Review.

Step one, stop the bleeding. In amputations, the fastest method would be to cauterize the wound. In the absense of proper tools, look for substitutes but - wait… there is no bleeding. She took a closer look at the bloody stump, and realized that there were no fresh blood. The stump HAD already been cauterized, albeit in a crude fashion. She checked her other limbs, and found out that they were also promptly cauterized.

The one who did this to her wanted her to live. That bastard! Now it was a question of infection. Look for symptoms - itch, ache, pain and such. There was pain, but she suspected that the blinding pain she felt just moments ago were psychological: the brain tricked into producing the accompanying pain signals in response to the missing limbs and open wounds.

The pain… no, it was more like an ache, and that was… muscle fatigue? The ache did not come from her limbs - in fact, she had no feeling in the stump endings. The throbbing ache was from her neck, shoulders, torso, back, waist and buttocks. It felt as if she had been physically stressed ten time beyond her physical capabilities.

Ok, I’m still alive. I might not be if I stay here in the alley. Need to find help.

Then she remembered that she was naked, and looked around for something to cover the last vestiges of her dignity. A torn piece of cloth served the purpose well, and she wrapped the dirty fabric around her body with a combination of rolling on the floor and pulling with her teeth. Tears welled up in her eyes as she realized how hard it was to do even a simple thing without her arms or legs. I’m crippled… a monster, an abomination…

Suddenly, she heard faint footsteps. Alarmed, she turned around and tried to scream for help, but to her horror all she managed was a raspy hiss. Her voice! No this cannot be… help, HELP! PLEASE!

In the darkening alleys she saw a couple of shadows moving towards her in a slow but cautious pace. She knew they had seen her.

Lords of midnight, save me. Deliver this loyal servant of yours from pain and suffering, oh I beg of you. Please, I don’t want to die, she thought. Then she saw one of the shadows raise a gun-like device.

The last thing she saw was a white puff and a sting on her neck, before darkness engulfed her once again.

November 02 2280
Hollow Song Outlands

The truck veered to the left and started down a barely visible track through the wastelands. The sun shone harshly upon the barren ground, and through the torn canvas that the truck had as a sorry excuse for a roof Kel squinted into the blinding light.

It had been two years since he had applied for the militia, and he could still smell the stench of death the day he entered bootcamp.

None of you will walk out of this camp unscatched, their sergant announced, and a jog through the Baking Mile was all that was needed to convince the new recruits that he meant it. That day alone more than half of the rookies were sent into the MEDFAC for dehydration and heat stroke.

As an archonite you must understand sacrifice; the true meaning of it. Running into a maelstrom of lead with your guns blazing does not equate to bravery, much less sacrifice of any honorable meaning. You are a warrior, and warriors are valuable only when they are alive. Sacrifice does not mean abandoning your sanity, does not mean ignoring your reason. Sacrifice must be well calculated, justified and serves a purpose - an economical purpose. You will not understand it now; therefore, remember this instead: stay alive, and survive. By doing so you will eventually understand the true meaning of sacrifice.

And stay alive we did, Kel grinned. His maiden mission almost was his last, when his squad was waylaid by raiders during a patrol in the dangerous outlands of Hollow Song. They came from nowhere, and before they knew it two men had already been shot. The rush for cover, the spray of splintered rock in his face, the wheezing bullets that would have taken his life if not for sheer luck… he remembered it all vividly. When the dust on the battlefield cleared they had won the battle, but not without some loss.

You were right, Kel. We should have taken the APC. Those were the last words of Shane, the only person in his life that Kel ever looked up to. He was a great warrior, and excelled at perhaps everything, but one mistake cost him his life, and that was it. In the perillious outlands one little slip would end a person’s life. No warning, no mercy, no second chance. Survival became a gamble, and in gamble most people lose.

“Alright boys, there’s a waterhole in two miles. When we stop I want you guys to secure the perimeter, and keep an eye out for hostiles!” yelled the driver over the roaring engine.

Like dice games, calamity often strikes without warning.

Over the engine roar Kel heard a faint crack, and immediately he knew what was going to happen. The windshield of the rugged truck shattered, and the back of the driver’s head exploded in a spray of brain matter, gore, hair and bone fragments. The truck veered violently towards a ridge, struck it, and flipped. Several men were thrown clean off the truck and one of them was torn apart as the seven ton vehicle dragged half of his body across the gravel road before the side of a clift stopped its momentum abruptly.

Trained to anticipate surprises, the surviving men scrambled out of the wreckage, and immediately scoured the terrain for cover. Sniper! Kel’s mind screamed. Nobody spoke a word, nobody shouted. They all knew where the shot came from, and in that split second each individual had already found a suitable cover to hide behind. The sniper never got off a second shot.

“Sonna’ bitch,” muttered Jackson two feet away from Kel.

“Alright people listen up: let’s find this bastard,” said Manny, the new squad captain. “Everybody stay in your cover. Josh, give ‘em something to shoot at.” Josh was the squad’s marksman, armed with a huge 8mm M53-A1 Gauss Rifle, and had the eyes of an eagle. Taking his steel helmet off, he placed it on a stick and slowly edged it out from the boulder that he was hiding behind.

Nothing happened.

“He’s gone, captain. Left after the first shot,” Josh remarked.

“Son of a bitch,” Manny hissed. The first fundamental rule of a sniper - shoot, kill, and leave. Kel kept his eyes on Manny, wondering what his next move would be. It was a hard decision, and the frustrated look on Manny’s face confirmed it.

“Captain, he’s probably hiding in the clifts about half a click northeast. There ‘aint many spots that you can hide there, and if he is as smart as I think he is it will take about ten minutes for him to move to the next spot,” Josh said calmly, but Kel could see the thirst for combat in his eyes. Unlike the rest of the team, he loved the hunt.

“Alright Josh, stay here and cover us. Kel, Ian, Jackson, Caleb, follow me.” Manny stood up from his cover, and quickly moved northwards along the clift face. The rest of the men followed behind, slightly spread out, and everybody moved erratically from cover to cover, variating their movement speed to increase their chances of survival.

The second shot came as unexpected as the first. Caleb was in the open when the bullet struck his neck, obliterating his entire vocal chord.

Before he even hit the ground the rest of the men had already ducked for cover, and Manny was already firing. “Three o’clock behind that ledge! Keep him pinned!”

The rest of the men knew what they had to do. Kel and Jackson alternated fire upon the lone ledge that the sniper was taking cover in, and Ian followed Manny in a short dash to close the distance. Then Kel saw a glint of sunlight between the rocks, and instinctively he ducked behind his cover just in time to hear a deadly bullet wheez by.

“Let’s go Kel! Move out!” Jackson yelled, and dashed towards the next cover, and Kel followed suit as Ian and Manny laid down suppressing fire at the general direction of the sniper. What a waste of ammo, Kel thought. Leaning out of his cover he took aim at where he last saw the glint, and fired.

The bullet exited his rifle’s barrel, and drilled through the air in a deadly spiral that led it straight into the scope attached to the sniper’s rifle. It torn into the first layer of the polarized glass, shattering it and destroyed the entire inner mechanisms of the scope as the bullet fragmented into pieces. The impact jolted the entire rifle and instinctively the sniper jerked his head upwards and away from the sharpnels of the destroyed scope, and that split second was all Josh needed to put a solid 8mm slug right between the sniper’s eyes.

“Cease fire!” Manny shouted. “Ian, confirm the kill!”

The rest of the squad held their positions as Ian proceeded carefully up the rocky terrain to where the corpse was. Kel breathed a sigh of relief as Ian leaned out from the ledge and gave everybody a big grin and a thumb’s up.

“He’s raider, captain. Nothing much on him - must be operating on his own,” shouted Ian.

“The bastards,” Manny hissed, and Kel was surprised by the sheer amount of hatred in that one word.

Raiders are scums of the Hollow Song. You will get to know this the hard way when you get out of bootcamp, for you will be spending a great most portion of your career hunting them down. Like dust mices they are crafty, cunning, but badly equipped and poorly trained. As long as you remember the things that you have leant here, you will have no problem dealing with these pests.

No problem at all, Kel thought, ‘cept that everytime we see ‘em some of us die. He took a glance behind him, and realized that Caleb was long gone. Jackson, who was tending to Caleb moments ago, looked at Kel and shrugged. People die in war, no big deal about that. Yeah, no big deal about that.

“Kel, Jackson, go clean up. Get the truck upright again, and see if it works. We’re gonna be late for the party,” Manny said. “Get Josh and Can to tend to the wounded. Ian and I will secure the perimeter.”

“A lone raider out of nowhere?” Jackson asked, as Kel bent down to help him drag Caleb’s dead body back to the truck where the other dead bodies lie.

“Welcome to the outlands,” whispered Kel.