Snap Crackle Pop Dead Bandits

"Well that was easy." Xanthiana had made the jump to the guard tower, snapped the neck of the bandit closest to her and buried his knife in the guy across from him with little effort. She felt pretty good so far.

"Fantastic we have taken the guard towers, now exactly what was the plan?" Elly was less convinced the plan was a fantastic success.

"Now we ring the dinner bell." Xanthiana snagged a grenade off the dead bandit at her feet and gave a shout to the bandits in the mine. They came out running just in time for the grenade to hit the ground and explode taking out the initial wave. Xanthiana opened up with her rifle scattering the bandits near the mine entrance only to be completely caught off guard by a couple bandits emerging near the cars.

"This structure is not structurally secure!" Elly announced as the guard tower buckled under gun fire and started to tip.

"Elly activate the adrenaline burst." Xanthiana tried to keep her footing, but the tower was definitely falling over and if she didn't get off it soon it would take her with it. Elly activated the adrenaline and everything went in slow motion. Xanthiana jumped off the structure and brought the butt of her rifle down on a bandit's head caving it in. The assorted bandits were too slow, far too slow, with the adrenaline pounding in her blood Xanthiana moved around them like they were standing still. One bandit even ended up shooting his friend in the melee. Xanthiana didn't even notice the bandits were all dead until she almost collapsed from too much adrenaline. She could feel her heart hammering in her ears with each beat, she had become something else for a brief moment, she wanted to blame it on the EGO device, but she knew the truth, it was all her.

"Are you there Xan you aren't responding." Elly's voice sounded concerned.

"I'm here I was just tired for a moment." It was a lie and she knew the EGO device probably picked up on the lie, but she didn't want to admit or believe the truth.

"Bandits are 100% accounted for all dead, do you wish to proceed into the mine?" Elly seemed chipper in the face of all the murder.

"Yeah we're here to do a job lets get it done." Xanthiana hardened her heart and moved forward. She didn't see any among the dead that looked particularly leaderish, but bandits weren't exactly supporters in strict military rank showing. The mine didn't exactly look safe, probably a product of being hastily assembled post Ark fall to extract the new minerals from the ground Xanthiana surmised.

"Xan we have a large group of people up ahead, be aware." Xanthiana checked her rifles magazine, and moved forward. She was surprised at first the bandits had not moved forward, but when she came to the group of people she wasn't that surprised, they weren't bandits at all but Votan miners.

"Put your gun down." The muscley leader was a Sensoth, from his outfit it looked like he had probably been a miner prior to taking over the mine with the bandits.

"I believe that's the leader Xan."

"Ya think Elly?"

Bandit Tower Removal

"We should not have let that bandit go." Xanthiana was approaching the area the bandit had told her about. It contained he claimed the local bandit leadership, she didn't entirely trust him, but his fear of her at least told her something would be actually at the location, and it was a lot better than just killing every bandit camp with the hope that one of them actually mattered.

"He did what I asked of him and he's wounded, bandits are like wild dogs, when he returns he'll be killed by them anyway."

"That's horrible."

"That's Bandits Elly, have to harden your heart to the horrors, no need to bloody my hands anymore than they already are." The camp was of course set into a mine as they all had been, but this one definitely did have a lot of bandits outside of it, and vehicles, some of the vehicles even looked like they were still working.

"I think your heart is hard enough for both of us." Xanthiana shook off the AI's mind set. She had to, because the world post Arkfall was a shitty place and getting lost in all the horrors did no one any favors.

"Any word from Cobb?" Xanthiana did not like being out of contact with Cobb, especially not before she tried to pull off a difficult operation, but he hadn't exactly given her great instructions or any back up to begin with.

"Negative Sgt. Cobb is not returning my requests for communication."

"Fantastic I just love all the help I'm receiving while a member of the Earth Republic."

"Technically we are contractors to the Earth republic."

"Even Better, all of the having to bow to superiors, none of the actual job protection." The bandit base also had a couple guard towers, though the guards in them looked to be pretty terrible to Xanthiana. They weren't keeping their eyes open for ambush points from the cliff next to the mine, nor were they looking toward the canyon area that cut in front of the mine. Instead they were just jawing at each other like humans generally did in Xanthiana's experience. Xanthiana made her way around the guard towers, making sure this time to be more stealthy for fear of metal men. Thankfully neither guard picked up on her presence and kept on talking about something Xanthiana couldn't hear, but she figured was probably awful.

"What's our plan Xan?"

"Well first we kill these two bandits, I'm thinking snap one guys neck, and then take a knife and kill the other."

"Do you have a knife?"

"No, but the guy who's neck I snap will probably have one, if you can scan for that it would be great."

"The bandit on the right has a knife that will sufficiently kill the bandit on the left when thrown."

"Excellent."

"And then?"

"And then what?"

"What do we do after we have killed those bandits?"

"Hadn't exactly gotten that far Elly."

"I sense no way this plan will fail Xan."

The Worst Plan

"I don't feel this plan is going to be successful." Xanthiana was laying down in the middle of some wreckage she had pulled from one of the several collisions that pock marked paradise. She had attempted to make it look like a fresh collision with herself as the sole surviving wounded victim.

"I feel you aren't giving it the proper credit."

"What if a local farmer comes by? What if the authorities in the area? What if literally anyone, but bandits show up?"

"We're in the middle of bandit territory, anyone who comes this way is a bandit or has bandit like tendencies, and if someone else magically shows up we'll apologize for the incovenience and go about our way, to try this somewhere else." Xanthiana had to admit ti wasn't the best plan, but she figured a good ambush would lead the way to killing a roving band of smaller bandits so she could capture one and interrogate him proper.

"We have no cover."

"It's an ambush Elly, if we were behind cover it would be obvious that we were ambushing. Trust me, I know bandits, and I know idiots, this is plan will work flawlessly! I mean we used this in the war all the time."

"I can assume in the war you had more than just yourself doing the ambushing?"

"Hush Elly." Xanthiana did not need a robotic AI second guessing her brilliant ambush. She waited for at least an hour before she started second guessing her own plan. The sun was falling over the horizon when she heard some kind of vehicle coming close.

"We have incoming, scans show at least three men on an atv."

"Bandits?"

"Well they are all men and what little I can glean with my limited sensory capabilities appear to be dressed raggedly."

"So either bandits or.."

"WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE BOYS!"

"Bandits." The voice was loud and gutteral. She waited till they were fanning out before she rolled over with her rifle and killed two of the bandits outright and wounded the third by blowing out his knee. He threw away his weapon and begged for mercy, seeing as he had dead friends next to him it was the smart move in Xanthiana's opinion.

"Like I said Elly, most of the time this plan works."

"Most of the time?"

"Speak bandit before I send you to whatever god you believe in." Her rifles barrel was still smoking, the bandit pissed his pants.

"Whattttttttttttttttttt, do you want to know?"

Xanthiana smiled, "Everything."

Bandit Plan Revision

"And so you disobeyed my orders to save a small girl who got killed anyway and you don't know where her body was, nor if there were other people in the area who might be held hostage." Xanthiana had met up with Cobb on the cliff where he took his shot, he had the rifle held in his arms like that of a small child. Xanthiana could see a sequence of marks down the butt of the rifle, with a fresh scratch for the Sensoth, Cobb clearly had issues.

"Not buying any of that are you?"

"Roeyka I may sound like I'm some dumb farm boy, and I may have once been a dumb farm boy, but I'm not that stupid, let me guess you thought you were in a better position than you turned out to be and they found you, you fled because you didn't have a weapon capable of piercing the metal guy's armor and I saved your stupid ass against my better judgement." Cobb was alone, he had apparently also been sent to scout bandit hide outs, though he didn't have to walk like Xanthiana did, he had a nice atv nearby.

"Sounds about right, though that last part is a bit insulting, my ass is not stupid at all, its quite smart the rest of me is where the stupid resides." Cobb did not smile, Xanthiana thought him quite incapable of smiling most of the time. Cobb sighed, and looked around, she could tell he was trying to decide what to do with her, for a moment she thought of drawing down on him and killing him, because with his state of mind she didn't know if he was thinking the same thing.

"Ok heres the problem. You reported to a bunch of bandit camps, I found a bunch of bandit camps, and the Erep high command does not want any bandit camps." Cobb was thinking out loud, "The issue of course is that command doesn't want to give me a real force of anyone as this trip is already a public relations nightmare and we've lost a lof of good men of earth already." Xanthiana did not like the way he said men of earth, it was an implication that losing Votans was perfectly fine, which from what she'd heard of Cobb was the exact implication.

"So where does that leave us Cobb?"

"Fucked Roeyka." Cobb spit and then went back to get on his ATV.

"I'm going to need orders sir, unless you want me to just hang around until you figure it out Cobb."

"Do me a favor and kill some damn bandits, try not to burn down any more farm houses while you are at it."

"Any other suggestions Cobb?"

"I'd say act like a soldier for once Roeyka, but I believe you are incapable." And with that Cobb rode off leaving Xanthiana to wonder where or how many bandits Cobb wanted her to kill.

"I don't think he likes us very much Xan." Elly was the master of the understatement.

"Nah he had a bad day I'm sure in a few hours he'll calm down and apologize for being a dick."

"Really?"

"No Elly, not really."