Wasteland Survivor – There - ch7
#8 of Wasteland Survivor
Back again with more.
Oh, for those wondering, "chook" is Aussie slang for chicken ;)
Are people even reading these? Please comment on what you think of the story so far, theres currently two differant story lines that can lead off from the next few chapters, I am unsure which will become the one I write in, am testing out both as far as they can go but time will tell.
We were entering the 'Lakes Entrance' area, a big tourist site and were approaching one of the myriad of little towns dotted around this when the the private in the gunners seat called our attention to a road sign.
'You are approaching Sea View, population..' and the number one hundred and fifty had been scrubbed out along with several other hand painted numbers starting at about twenty but finishing with 'eighty and counting'.
"Seems we have found some civilians." Jennings stated dryly.
"Seems that way, we need to first of all find their intent and, if amicable, establish communications and WHOA!" Crystal was planning, just before a dozen people, all human, stepped out of the trees.
"Hybrids, keep your arses down, we don't know their status yet." Crystal ordered us, and followed her own advice. "Jennings, we need to find out their situation, and if they are doing the right thing here, help them as we can."
"Yeah, the Major briefed me along those lines too." the echidna officer replied.
"Right, Nicols!" She called into the inter-truck intercom, "We need a squad of human-looking regulars out there to look tough, you have site command until we can establish their hostility to hybrids. Try to avoid starting anything. Jennings out."
"Sir, yes Sir!" the indomitable sergeant replied.
We watched through the tinted windows on the bushmaster as six soldiers and Nicols climbed out from the second truck and approached the humans. "Can we hear what's going on out there?" Crystal asked.
The soldier in the turret started to give a running dialogue when Jennings ordered him, "Pay more attention to the civvies damnit, if this turns to shit I don't want you explaining it to me as it happens!"
"Sir" was his response.
-
The people looked reasonably well fed, only two of them had weapons, and one of those was a single-shot shotgun.
"How ya going!" I yelled to them, and watched as the tension went right out of them, their two gunmen easing back from their triggers. Hopefully my soldiers were doing a fair job of looking more laid back too, though they were trained to be ready no matter what.
"You boys from the Army?" One of the men in front of me queried.
"Mostly, a few from navy with us, we on our way to pick up some more, how you folks holding up out here?" I asked, trying to get them to answer the question.
"Oh we gettin' by. You lads part of that group up north, what was it, Major somethinorother?"
"Yeah, you heard the broadcasts? Transmitter not working?" It was a battle of questions it seemed, the winner would be whoever got the most answers.
"Oh we got some good listening gear, but nothing biggeren a C B to send with, if we had heard you lot coming down the highway we would have invited you in." They were still looking nervous of something, and that's when their eyes widened, focusing on something behind me.
I turned to see Fox had fallen out the back of the first truck, obviously trying to hear what was going on.
"Ahh, by that gal in uniform I gather you are not hostile to people who have met with a... furry ending?" The old man, stated, obviously he already had his answer.
"Yeah, the cat, or, Fox as the case may be, is out of the bag, err truck." Grinning we walked closer and shook hands, just as I noticed five other civvies wander out of the trees, all hybrid.
"Damn handy folks if you ask me, Howard's my name by the way..."
"Nicols, sergeant Nicols. And that young lady is, well, Fox." At his inquiring glance I had to add, "Seriously, that's all she will let us call her, her friend might know her full name though, never seen a need to push it. Some people like their privacy, and letting them keep it when it don't hurt others is not a problem for me." I clarified, trying to set Howard's mind at rest in regards to our interests in them.
"Towns about another five hundred meters down the road around the corner, will send Greg here with you so the folks there don't get panicky." He said, pointing out 'Greg' to me, as he wanded back to his trees, "Well, we still on guard duty out here, have a nice day!"
-
My pride was wounded more than anything else, the fall would have to be much harder to dent me. And the laughter from inside the truck was not helping.
".. and then she... Oh cripes did anyone happen to get a video of that?" Crystal was having problems staying upright in her seat. A common problem it seemed.
"... and this is, as you can see, the lady who fell on her arse a few minutes ago." the Sergeant was telling the guy walking with him, "Fox! Always a pleasure to witness your prowess at balance, its, truly, a sight to behold!" the Sergeant commented, attitude very droll ... Soldiers...
"Yeah yeah, laugh it up, next time you have a dingo chasing your arse I will stop and remember this moment, Sir!" I tried to make it sound threatening, but it just sounded silly.
"Oh, I am sure you will, but if we find more dingos, well, it will be an improvement over just finding your feet." Always got to be a wit, "This is Greg, he is going to be our tour guide, he will be pacing our trucks as we drive in, so there are no accidents, you want to walk with him Fox, get you your 'land legs' back?" The Sergeant ordered.
"Yeah, sure serge." I know he hated that name, and his face showed I got a return point in the little scuffle.
"Hey Greg, my names Fox, yeah, really." I said to the townsman.
"Well, we better make a start, the trucks seem to be pretty quick for their size." The man replied.
We walked a minute or two in silence.
"Yeah. So what you doing out here, lived here a while or just wandering through?" I enquired, trying to make conversation.
"Oh, I lived down Traralgon way, but ended up here trying to get away from the city, a few crazies managed to get into the gun shop there and are passing time trying to snipe anything moving. Anyway I was riding my bike along the road, just trying to put some miles between me and that hell hole when I found ol' Howard keeping watch from the other way. Figured it was as good a place as any to settle, I don't have any family, even before all this, so nothing was tying me down. What about you, been in the army long?"
"About, hrmm, six weeks?" I laughed, "Yeah I joined up with my girlfriend Crystal when we helped them out getting some supplies to them from my home town in Bendigo, the Sergeant has been getting us up to speed with these things." I patted my steyr "We been doing odd jobs for them since. I originally came from down this way, my family live a bit north of Traralgon."
"Girlfriend? Oh, you and her are..." I almost forgot one of the reasons I left 'rural Victoria' until the up-till-then very agreeable Greg tripped up.
"Yeah, we are." And after I said that a little snappishly we walked in silence the rest of the way.
"So that's 'Sea View'?" I asked Greg, who seemed to have been spending the last minutes trying to think of a way to restart the conversation.
"Yeah, not much to look at from here, but we are doing ok. We have contacted a few of the closer-in farmers and they brought us some food in trade for people to help them work and protect their farms. Been a few problems with wild animals, some really unusual ones too." He almost exploded with, thankful for a reason to re-establish talks.
"We had some problems like that ourselves, we got some dingos attacked us." I held up my arm to about nose height "About this tall at the head, nasty bits of work."
"Wow, we had nothing that big here, a few, uh, wolves. Hey the soldier won't feel bad about that will she? The wolf chick back there?" He asked.
"Nah, she won't. That's Crystal by the way, she is kinda the brains behind this part of our operation. The soldier in charge is the Echidna, Second Lieutenant Jennings, she is handling the logistics of keeping us all safe and moving everything, with Sergeant Nicols being in charge of the men. Hang on, wolves? Wild out here?" I replied, sceptically.
"Yeah, we were a bit freaked out by it too, don't know where they came from, there seems to be a fair few of them too, enough to be a pest." And with that he started waving to folks who came out of their homes to see us.
"Its fine, Howard checked 'em out, its some of the soldiers from up north!" He called.
A few people started walking forward introducing themselves, "Sure is good to finally have someone official around!" one person was heard to say, others around them agreed.
"Who is in charge here?" Came Jennings' voice from the now open truck behind me.
And with that she closeted herself with a few townsfolk who considered themselves to 'be in charge'. A few of the others chuckled at that when one local wit commented on just that.
We spent the next half hour checking our trucks, watching over them to make sure no one had an accident being too curious.
Jennings and the 'elders' came out and were smiling and patting each other on the back, well, not Jennings of course, apparently I was the only one resilient, and crazy, enough to do that.
"We are going to spend a few days here, we will give these people some weapons, ammo and two radios. We will spend that time teaching some of them how to use them. They are going to stuck us up with meat, grain and some legumes." She announced, a fair few townsfolk cheered at this, obviously a link to the 'outside world' was going to be a big thing for them.
"But first we will show our new friends some country hospitality!" One of the women 'elders' stated in a loud voice, which got a cheer from pretty much everyone. Say what I may about country peoples views on particular things, their cooking and friendliness is second to none.
It was the second day, when I overheard a report from one of the farms come in claiming to being raided by some kind of 'critter they never seen before'. I wandered closer to the conversation, and heard the description. "Kinda like a chook, about meter 'n' a half tall, with nasty claws and it has a lot of scales on its underside. Moves damn fast for something that size too!"
"Cockatrice..." I mumbled to myself. Remembering the legends of monsters out of English myth.
"What was that? You know what it is?" Someone questioned me.
"Yeah, they were a legend in England and Europe about nine hundred years ago. Supposed to be able to turn a man to stone by looking at them too."
"Don't know about stone." The farm hand stated, "But when it locks eyes with someone a cold feeling comes over them and they can't move."
"I could help with it if you want?" I offered.
"We would take any help we could get!" The man exclaimed.
Crystal walked up beside me at that point and called out, "Dibs on a leg!" Which got a laugh from everyone and put them into much higher spirits.
We set out almost immediately, giving the farm hand a chance to grab a bite to eat, the farm was less than five clicks, hopefully we wouldn't return to find it empty.
I had grabbed a Minimi from the bushmaster, while Crystal just opted for an extra few magazines for her steyr to keep us moving lite.
We could hear gunshots as we approached the farmhouse, but all the action seemed to be out of view on the other side, we all broke into a dead run.
Spread out before us was quite the battlefield, five of the beasts were running rampant, one I noticed had a woman stunned against the house and was moving in to disembowel them. In one fluid move I dropped the big automatic weapon and charge at the beast, praying I would make it in time, bayonet in hand, a snarl already coming from my throat.
-
Fox dropped her gear and charge in using every ounce of her speed, as she closed with her target the reason became evident, she met with the thing and had it in pieces just before it would have torn a woman in half, and before you could blink was moving to the next target.
I raised my rifle, flicked it to full auto, and braced my Will against the soon to be very active weapon.
-
I stepped away from my second kill and was bringing my senses to bear to find the next when I realised the fight was over, Crystal had brought down two of the things and the woman I had saved had pegged the last with her own gun.
"Helen's my name, nice to meet some friendly strangers in these parts. And at these times!" The woman behind me said, introducing herself, although sounding a little perturbed, apparently not by my appearance, but by the turn of speed and reflexes I displayed, "You move pretty quick, that a fox thing?".
"My names Fox, and the lovely lady over there reloading her rifle is Crystal, nice to be able to meet you." I replied, and we shook 'hands', "Oops, sorry about that." I said as I looked down to the squishy handshake and we both laughed at the blood that was caked up to my elbows.
"Don't worry about it, a good handshake under the circumstances." Helen replied apparently a strange friendly person was much better to have in front of you than a hundred kilograms of claws and fury.
We finished up making sure the things hadn't nested nearby and headed back to town.
The next day passed reasonably uneventfully.
And with a big farewell from the towns-folks, we headed off to complete our mission.
"The base is just ahead, will radio through and let them know we are here" Jennings stated.
"East Sale RAAF base, this is Second Lieutenant Jennings under Major Davis, requesting permission for our two bushmasters to approach your position, Over."
"Second Lieutenant Jennings, this is East Sale RAAF base, permission granted to approach the north gate, that is gate zero three, with two bushmasters, we will have some troops meet you there, over." came back from the radio.
"Copy that, Jennings out."
As we approached the base, we noticed not only spent casings from weapons fire at the gate, but also what looked like burn marks and lots of broken glass.
Two soldiers were at the gate as we approached. "There's five more with rifles aimed at us, and a pair with an A T missile behind the bushes to the north" Jennings commented, obviously she had been working on the extent of her power.
I smiled at her for that, she tried to make out it was nothing, but I could see the way it lit up her face to be able to use her power to help.
Ashfield, who was driving at the time, opened his window and called down, "Nice day for a drive lads, mind if we drop in and have a cuppa?"
A typical response came back, "Oh sure mate, will get mum to break out the good china and some biscuits!" As his partner opened the gate.
We rolled into the base and directed to stop beside a building marked 'Administration'.
Climbing out, none of the soldiers even remarked on our hybrid members, Jennings stepped forward and introduced herself, "Second Lieutenant Jennings reporting. Sir"
"At ease, I am in charge here, Lieutenant Greves is my name, glad you could make it."