toward her ‘landing’ site, was pure agony. She had, again, left her armor and it’s environmental control systems behind while it trickle charged on its organic solar collectors, and was sweating bullets as she and the others marched through the jungle heat.
The people Jerry had gathered for the task seemed to be better off, though few of them were in a state of physical fitness that compared to Aida’s own. This was their world, however, and they were acclimated to it. The slight difference in oxygen levels, combined with the heat, and her injuries, were making every step a torturous ordeal for the woman, for the human, in her. The Operator she’d trained all her life to be, however, refused to let that slow her down.
When they stopped, more than fifty klicks from the camp, she pulsed the radio identification frequency (RIF), its range setting kept to a mere hundred kilometer range. According to her maps, and the locals input, there was nothing but jungle in that entire range, so it was the best she could do to minimize the danger of being detected.
Only one hit came back off the signal, and it was quite a distance off. Sorilla sighed, then looked off in the appropriate direction and nodded. “That way.”
Several hours of march later they stepped into a clearing that had a huge hole in the canopy and a matching supply container sitting lop sided against a boulder.
“It looks intact,” Sorilla said, relieved. She’d been worried, actually, though the containers were among the most solid items in the fleet. They broke cover, approaching the large container slowly as Sorilla looked for damage.
Just as she reached it a local avian screeched, her HUD flashing to life with a red warning blinking into on her right eye. Sorilla spun, dropping into a crouch even as a sound of wood splintering erupted into the field.
“Incoming!,” She screamed, throwing herself to one side as a pattern of splinters erupted out in her general direction, and a tree began to topple.
One of the men yelled in shock and horror as a lumbering form suddenly rushed out of the jungle foliage, its massive size dwarfing him as it loped in on all fours. It reached out with a forelimb before he could move, plucking him up like a toy, and threw the man across the path of the others as Sorilla hit the ground, shoulder first.
She rolled, swinging her rifle up as she came to a stop in a crouch near a thick tree, her eyes focusing in the thing for the first time even as her processor finished pattern matching it against local predators.
Warning! No Matches Found!
She noted the red flash as her rifle buttstock pressed tight to her shoulder, the beast dropping into her sights as she squeezed off her first shot. The round hissed through the air, almost silent as the magnetic propulsion sent it on its way, and slammed into the target with an eruption of black smoke as it exploded on contact.
The creature roared, but didn’t go down as it backhanded another of the local men hard enough to send him sprawling through the brush, well out of sight. Rifle fire erupted around her then, as she squeezed off the next round, and Sorilla could see the heavy hunting rounds sparking off the thing without affecting it in the slightest.
She flipped the lever that converted her battle rifle to full auto mode, locking the creature into her targeting HUD, and squeezed the trigger down. Twenty rounds erupted from the weapon in under a second, erupting into a cacophony of explosive percussion as each of them tore into the thing without mercy.
It paused in mid motion, and then fell over without moving again.
Slowly the members of the group appeared from the brush as Sorilla moved toward the thing, her weapon trained constantly on it. Behind her, Jerry was calling out orders to the others, his voice urgent.
“Ben, check on Mike! Sam, you go see if Trent is ok! Keep your eyes open everyone!”
In the back of her mind, Sorilla approved of the
The people Jerry had gathered for the task seemed to be better off, though few of them were in a state of physical fitness that compared to Aida’s own. This was their world, however, and they were acclimated to it. The slight difference in oxygen levels, combined with the heat, and her injuries, were making every step a torturous ordeal for the woman, for the human, in her. The Operator she’d trained all her life to be, however, refused to let that slow her down.
When they stopped, more than fifty klicks from the camp, she pulsed the radio identification frequency (RIF), its range setting kept to a mere hundred kilometer range. According to her maps, and the locals input, there was nothing but jungle in that entire range, so it was the best she could do to minimize the danger of being detected.
Only one hit came back off the signal, and it was quite a distance off. Sorilla sighed, then looked off in the appropriate direction and nodded. “That way.”
Several hours of march later they stepped into a clearing that had a huge hole in the canopy and a matching supply container sitting lop sided against a boulder.
“It looks intact,” Sorilla said, relieved. She’d been worried, actually, though the containers were among the most solid items in the fleet. They broke cover, approaching the large container slowly as Sorilla looked for damage.
Just as she reached it a local avian screeched, her HUD flashing to life with a red warning blinking into on her right eye. Sorilla spun, dropping into a crouch even as a sound of wood splintering erupted into the field.
“Incoming!,” She screamed, throwing herself to one side as a pattern of splinters erupted out in her general direction, and a tree began to topple.
One of the men yelled in shock and horror as a lumbering form suddenly rushed out of the jungle foliage, its massive size dwarfing him as it loped in on all fours. It reached out with a forelimb before he could move, plucking him up like a toy, and threw the man across the path of the others as Sorilla hit the ground, shoulder first.
She rolled, swinging her rifle up as she came to a stop in a crouch near a thick tree, her eyes focusing in the thing for the first time even as her processor finished pattern matching it against local predators.
Warning! No Matches Found!
She noted the red flash as her rifle buttstock pressed tight to her shoulder, the beast dropping into her sights as she squeezed off her first shot. The round hissed through the air, almost silent as the magnetic propulsion sent it on its way, and slammed into the target with an eruption of black smoke as it exploded on contact.
The creature roared, but didn’t go down as it backhanded another of the local men hard enough to send him sprawling through the brush, well out of sight. Rifle fire erupted around her then, as she squeezed off the next round, and Sorilla could see the heavy hunting rounds sparking off the thing without affecting it in the slightest.
She flipped the lever that converted her battle rifle to full auto mode, locking the creature into her targeting HUD, and squeezed the trigger down. Twenty rounds erupted from the weapon in under a second, erupting into a cacophony of explosive percussion as each of them tore into the thing without mercy.
It paused in mid motion, and then fell over without moving again.
Slowly the members of the group appeared from the brush as Sorilla moved toward the thing, her weapon trained constantly on it. Behind her, Jerry was calling out orders to the others, his voice urgent.
“Ben, check on Mike! Sam, you go see if Trent is ok! Keep your eyes open everyone!”
In the back of her mind, Sorilla approved of the
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