Failure

Rushard paced in front of the assembled bandits. His own Arkhunters were off on their own tasks, feeling it important to delegate he felt they could handle things without him while he worked on accessing the ship that was buried deep in the Frisco bay. He did not know how the rest of his unit had faired, but as far as the task of even getting to the ship, he had failed. Not him personally, of course not the Great Rushard, but the bandits with whom he had trusted to accomplish what he had felt was a simple task, had been completely unable.

"Men, wait that's not right, you're not men, no, you're more like schtako, and not even good schtako," The men shifted uneasily, Rushard gripped the rifle he had brought with him tighter he could see their eyes followed him as he paced in front of them, at least they had formed a consistent line, "You have failed me in every aspect of what I had asked you to do.  I had asked you to aquire a boat, no such boat was acquired. I had asked you to get diving gear or at least be able to find out who in this shit sty of an area would be able to come up with some, this too did not come to pass. I HAD ASKED YOU TO KEEP YOUR FUCKING MOUTHS SHUT! And still you could not even accomplish this simple gods for saken fucking task and so every stupid bandit from this shit hole to probably a whole geographic area over thinks they can become a part of my crew. And so it has come to this." One of the bandits raised his hand like Rushard was teaching a school lesson.

"Sir."

"Yes what is it?"

"How do you know it was us who failed you?" Rushard's grip on the rifle tightened. He almost wondered if he could bring the hilt with how angry he was.

"Because I trust my guys and the only other people I told, were you FUCKING IDIOTS!" He gunned them down, turning around and just opening up. Two of the bandits attempted to run away and after he reloaded he walked up to their struggling corpses and emptied the fresh magazine into the two, they couldn't even stand and die for their failure correctly. He was so angry at the bandits he didn't even notice his EGO was trying to get a hold of him.

"What is it Sorn?" The Sensoth had been tasked with disrupting local ranchers near the beach he had hoped to extract the downed warship towards.

"I have a problem with the ranchers." Rushard breathed out, trying to calm himself, another failure.

"What is the problem Sorn?" He hoped that the communication while conveying his anger, didn't fully show how little cool he had left. If only so that his men didn't think he was completely unstable.

"I got the ranchers out, but now damned Hellbugs have moved in, looks like a damned nest of them." Rushard smiled, and then laughed.

"Well then looks like we'll have to find a place for those poor little buggers to go now won't we?"

"You know how to relocate hellbugs boss?"

"Yes, yes I do." Rushard looked over the bodies of the dead bandits and sighed, he had hoped to be getting a warship and its votan tech out of a body of water, but plans change, and now he was going to have to just cause some havoc with hellbugs. At least seeing helpless ranchers eaten by the little buggers would cheer him up a little bit.

Hellbugs

"Hellbugs can come in multiple varieties based on their job within the hive, skitterlings serving as the more drone like servant to the hive are small, where as warriors and archers are defenders of the hive and can be larger up to the size of live stock, where as a monarch..."

"EGO skip the biology lesson and give me a scan for a fall back position. She had been firing the rifle in bursts, killing the smaller skitterlings and keeping the two warriors she'd seen at a distance, but ammo was going to be a concern soon. She also couldn't simply run out of the bunker as her initial entry point was behind the swarm.

"Attempting to connect to a central server, please stand by." The muzzle flashes from the rifle were blinding, Xanthiana cursed that she did not have sunglasses to lessen the impact. She had forgotten the stink of Hellbugs, especially when they died, it was nauseating, especially in the tight quarters she found herself in. She had heard they do not have eyes and find things by smell, which made the stench of the bastards even more confusing, how could they smell anything over themselves?

"Connection established, wow surprising this bunker still has a functioning central computer, that's good news for the Erep personnel, wow all sorts of readings coming in, I don't think anyone has connected to the server in a while."

"EGO door now." One of the bugs had taken a leap at her, she had used the butt of the rifle as a club and crushed it, but she could see the warrior bugs moving forward and by her count she was down to a magazine of ammunition.

"Right Operator Roeyka accessing door commands, look to your left there should be a door opening." One of the heavier bulkhead doors opened and she ducked inside, the bugs smashed against it but for the moment she was safe. The room she had ducked into was darkened, probably from when it had been abandoned in the past, without having to say anything to EGO the room became illuminated. It was the usual abandoned military bunker environment, no carpet on the floors, over turned tables, and no other exit other than the one she just used.

"Brilliant EGO you just trapped me in a room without another exit." Xanthiana looked to the ceiling, but did not see any access ports above, even if there were, it's not like she could reach them.

"You did not specify a room with another exit."

"Point taken thank you."

"Structural integrity on the access door is falling Operator Roeyka, the Hellbug will be in the room shortly."

"Fantastic, and I'm down to my last magazine, this day just keeps getting better."

"Might I offer a suggestion Operator Roeyka?"

"Please EGO, and no I've never been one for suicide."

"Killing yourself would kill me Operator Roeyka I would never suggest that as a solution. No my files indicate this room was a security bulkhead for the outer corridor, per regulations there should be a light machine gun and ammunition supply still here, back wall behind an access panel." Xanthiana rushed over to the panel and dislodged it, behind it was a light machine gun and it looked to be in working order with a good supply of ammunition; things were looking up. She fed the belt of ammunition into the slide and took the light from her rifle and attached it underneath. The LMG was heavy, Xanthiana never quite understood why the damn things were called "Light" machine guns, but that was a discussion for another day, she used the available strap to help steady it and then readied herself near the door.

"Open it."

"Processing command Operator Roeyka, good luck."

Bunker

"Do you prefer human weaponry?" The EGO device had been quiet up to that point. Xanthiana wanted to be annoyed, but as odd as it was to think it, she was hurting for conversation, even if the conversation was in her head.

"Its not so much a preference as it is necessity, in the war Votan weaponry was hard to replace, repair, and reload. We had to make due, which meant using the dropped weapons of the human forces which was plentiful especially ammunition." The Bunker so far had been empty, which was scary, there was no good reason for the mutants to leave an empty bunker unless of course something else had taken residence inside of it. Xanthiana had to rely on the flashlight on the end of her rifle, which cut her visibility to uncomfortably narrow.

"Makes sense, another question?"

"I hope you are actively scanning right now while you are asking me things."

"With what limited equipment I have yes, I'm currently scanning and finding no hostile targets, you have what most likely is a rodent fifteen feet to your right. I am capabable of doing multiple tasks at once Operator Roeyka."

"Noted, what was your question?" The bunker was fairly deep, probably a relic before the war. Xanthiana didn't know a lot about humans, but she had learned that prior to the Votan's arriving they sure did like building bunkers and stockpiling weapons.

"Why don't you associate with your own kind?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you go south after the war, I'm sure with your place in the Votan military you would have been welcomed into Brazil."

"You don't know much about the VC if you think an Irathient soldier would have been welcomed anywhere, let alone down in Brazil." It amazed Xanthiana how naive the EGO device appeared to be, then again from her experience humans in general were completely unaware of social castes within Votan culture, or even within species.

"Care to elaborate?" EGO almost sounded hopeful.

"No, keep scanning." Xanthiana didn't want to go over how she was more or less pressed into service from servitude and that she hated her own kind more than humans, there wasn't any point, it was all just baggage she carried around everywhere she went, and she was getting tired of carrying the problems on her back. It was one reason she signed up for ARK hunting in the first place, a chance to do something new away from her own kind.

"Operator Roeyka there are multiple dog sized creatures on the way, most likely hellbugs"

"Which direction?"

"All directions."

"Shtako."

Supplies

"It's not a size six and the buttons won't close, but I guess I'll have to make do." Roeyka's uniform was more appropriate a stripper than a soldier, but it at least would help keep her warmer than her current outfit.

"I also got you a coat, its not like we are running on a surplus right now, especially not after that Casti blew through and took a bunch of shit, the Captain isn't too happy with Arc Hunters right now." Sgt. Cobb offered her the coat, it was the opposite of the uniform in that it was a bit too big, but it did have some nice pockets she could store things in.

"Casti?"

"Yeah some dick Richard, Rushdie? I can't remember for sure, took a young private with him and disappeared, he was supposed to be helping us establish a perimeter."

"Wouldn't have been Rushard was it?"

"What?"

"The casti's name Rushard?"

"Yeah that sounds about right, you know him?"

"Yeah I do."

"I get the impression its not an association you are fond to rekindle." Sgt. Cobb handed her a semi automatic rifle and some ammunition. Unlike the sniper he tried to give her before, Xanthiana took it and slung it front of herself. The erep camp while more secure thanks to her effort with the snipers, had already been attacked by the mutants twice since she'd been there, they were a long way out of being out of the woods.

"Oh I'd like to connect with Rushard plenty fine, as long as his head is in my cross hairs, what's the rifle for just being polite Cobb?"

"Got you another job from the captain, we have some of you ark hunters chasing down some transmitters up the road trying to establish a connection to the greater Paradise area, he wants you to check on a generator complex nearby and secure our power situation."

"Great some place dark and full of assholes."

"Didn't say it would be easy Roeyka, but it'll go a long way to making the Captain happy, besides rifle has a flashlight underneath the barrel, so you've got that going for you."

"Be still my beating heart Cobb, anything else?"

"Got a hat, might help keep the sun out of your eyes." He handed her over the ball cap. It was all black with the logo of a crudely drawn gold hell bug and Hellbugs written underneath it.

"I hope this isn't some foreshadowing of what I'll find in that bunker." Xanthiana put the hat on, it fit rather comfortably which was a relief, something she was wearing should fit the way it was supposed to. And it did help keep her hair out of her eyes.

"Well if you do find any of those little bastards let us know ok, we've seen signs, but nothing definitive if we're sitting on a whole nest of hellbugs this mission is going to get a whole shit ton worse than it already is."

"Ok sarge point me to where I've got to go." He showed her on a map and EGO noted it and the map itself, so she got a better idea of where she was in the paradise territory as far as the Ereps had maps for. Things were looking up, even if she did have to go off on another solo mission without much intel. In a way it reminded her of how things went during the war, and that thought sent a shiver down her back.

Blue Man Bang Bang

The explosion threw Xanthiana forward. The Bioman's grenade was probably intended on cutting off her escape, even though throwing herself off a cliff fifty plus feet to her doom was a poor escape plan any day of the week. She collided with the ground, knocking the wind out of her and sending her pistol skidding across the ground behind the Bioman. The Bioman stomped over to her, its veiny skin barely containing the mass of muscle underneath, she could feel the vibrations from each step, but was unable to move away before it snatched her up off the ground. It cast the grenade launcher aside prefering instead to hold her with one arm and pummel her with the other.

"Accessing Bioman files, I'll attempt to identify a weakness you can exploit Operator Roeyka." EGO chirped in, Xanthiana could see it manifested behind the blue creature.

"You're a real help." Xanthiana thought as the creature slugged her in the chest and she felt one of her ribs break. Xanthiana, not wanting to be punched into pulp, swung her legs up wrapping them around the flesh giants head. She tried to snap its neck with all the force she could muster, but only seemed to distract it enough for it to let go of her. Which brought her own head swinging down near its crotch in a position that surely would have looked comical to any one who happened to be passing by.

"Operator Roeyka attempting to snap the neck of a Bioman is a physical impossibility, the creatures bones have been reinforced specifically to prevent this." Xanthiana was about to make a sarcastic thought in response when the creature snatched her up and hurled her off its shoulder. Once again she collided with the ground, her ribs ached with pain making her accutely aware one possibly two were broken. On the plus side she found herself near her pistol and away from the cliff, on the negative side the Bioman had regained his grenade launcher and fired another one in her direction.

Xanthiana snatched her pistol up and started to make another run for it, the grenade landed behind her and exploded, she could feel a bit of the shockwave brush her back, but it was far enough away she wasn't hurt. She turned around and opened fire, emptying her entire magazine into the Bioman did nothing, she could see the pock marks from where her bullets had hit his skin, but no actual damage.

"Operator Roeyka your pistol is not of sufficient caliber to penetrate the skin of the Bioman, if you had perhaps brought a sniper rifle you would have much more success."

"Thanks EGO, any other words of wisdom?" Another grenade collided near her, Xanthiana decided fleeing was better than standing and dying and she made her way down the path away from the Bioman.

"If you strike the Bioman over his left buttock you can turn it off."

"Fantastic I'll remember to kick him in the ass next time he shows it to me." Another grenade zinged by Xanthiana's ear and blew up some rocks nearby, and knocked her to the ground.  The Bioman's aim was improving and as much as Xanthiana hoped he'd run out of grenades, she knew that was not an optimal solution to her problem. She got into a shooters crouch, reloaded her pistol and took aim at the Bioman. The Bioman was a good forty feet away, but he was moving up on her and reloading his grenade launcher as he went.

"Operator Roeyka I informed you earlier this is an ill advised line of attack." EGO's voice in her head Roeyka fired, her first shot went wide, but her next hit its target dead on. The Bioman's eye exploded in a blue goo and the creature did a small drifting dance before it collapsed to the ground dead.

"Skin's tough, eyeball much less so, and with the increased skin and bone strength the bullet bounced around in his brain like a pinball EGO, update your records accordingly." Xanthiana smiled as she holstered the pistol and made her way back down the path. She had to see a Sergent about some promised supplies and get some tape for her ribs, but she was alive, and that was more than she could say for the snipers and the Bioman.

Sniper Nest

"This is a sub optimal route." The EGO device chirped in Xanthiana's head. She was climbing up a ridge, each finger strained from the exercise as the rock face she had chosen was extremely steep, and lacked for proper finger holds. Which made it perfect for an ambush position, but terrible for actually scaling. Xanthiana really felt the extra weight from the ammunition magazines she was still carrying, she also regretted not getting something to eat, her stomach growled more than a few times as she went.

"Only other route was up a mountain path with plenty of cover for the snipers to put a bullet in me six times over."

"You could have taken the snipers rifle, I could have helped you aim if you lack for weapon knoweldge."

"And stay out in the open trying to countersnipe people behind rock faces? That's a suboptimal solution." Her hand slipped and for a brief moment Xanthiana wondered if all that religious bullshit about Irzu was true, and then she found a better grip and went back to the argument with the voice in her head.

"They will have guarded this path Operator Roeyka."

"Highly unlikely, these mutants are former humans and if you humans have shown me one thing over the course of repeated conflicts its that they overestimate their cover, and underestimate the ability for the enemy to flank it." The EGO device took a moment to calculate a response, Xanthiana didn't want to call it thinking, because despite the device having a personality and ability to learn, she didn't believe it actually thought in the way a person did, more like came up with a response based on computation.

"Data processed will update records to match Operator Roeyka's experience with human enemies." It was the closest thing to an admission she was right she was going to get from the EGO device and it brought a smile to Xanthiana's face.

She ascended the rest of the cliff face without further input from her EGO. When she got to the top it was as she expected the mutant snipers were unaware of her presence. There were four of them covering different site lines all tightly grouped next to each other. Xanthiana cursed her luck that she didn't have a grenade, but she did notice a nice ammo cache between them that did include grenades. EGO also noticed the grenades and highlighted them in red.

"Why would they have grenades?" EGO asked confirming Xanthiana's suspicion the device was installed without any kind of combat programming.

"They are positioned to cover sight lines in front and a frontal assault up the path you suggested as an optimal route, rifles for distance, grenades for anyone who gets close enough."

"The grenades will not explode by gunshot."

"Obviously." Xanthiana cursed her luck for not having a knife, but she did have the adrenaline rush the EGO could provide her and that would have to do. "EGO iniate Adrenaline Overdrive please." She could feel her heartbeat accelerating and her muscles previously aching from making the climb were super charged. Rushing forward she got the drop on the first sniper and brought her booted heel down roughly on its neck, she heard a snapping noise and her precence hadn't gone completely unnoticed, the other snipers had turned bringing their rifles to bear on her. She could feel the Adrenaline Rush's effects fading when she snagged the pins off a couple of the grenades and sprinted, hoping the fuse's on the grenades would explode before the snipers could line up shots. Xanthiana made it to the cliff face she'd scaled and thought of throwing herself off it hoping only for a broken leg when the series of explosions took out the remaining three snipers.

"Objective completed Operator Roeyka." Xanthiana smiled the smoldering corpses of the snipers was a welcome sight after all the climbing.

"What happened to my friends?" She hadn't noticed the bit of bunker the hulking figure of the Bioman emerged from, but she did immediately notice the grenade launcher he was carrying when he did emerge.

"Objective updated Opeator Roeyka." The EGO device had a unique way of saying they were fucked Roeyka thought to herself.

Earth Republic Camp

It took over a day for Xanthiana to travel to the recovery point the Ereps had set up outside of the crashed carrier. It had been slow going, there was a lot of foot traffic of the mutants and apparently hellbugs were in season, she had seen more than a few of the little bastards, attacking the mutants.  Sometimes the mutants won, sometimes the bugs; all times Xanthiana wanted nothing to do with either of them.

The "camp" the ereps had set up was more a triage tent for a multitude of wounded and dying than any kind of established position. There was hardly a perimeter when Xanthiana approached, just a couple bored looking men in beat up uniforms holding their guns at half mast not even bothering to check people coming or going. She couldn't fault them, from her short time observing; people were running in and running out with varying states of urgency and purpose. The men were not guarding so much as making pretending that there was some order to the chaos. The main hub of the camp was a cobbled together group of com terminals inside a particulary more solid part of the destroyed carrier. Xanthiana could see techs still trying to get com signals or really any kind of signals, while other techs were working hard to set up more terminals and keep the ones they had running. Pacing between them was the former Captain of the ship, a man named Grant, he had a half smoldered cigar clamped between his teeth as he moved from operator to operator hoping one of them had gotten through.

"Reporting for duty Captain Grant." Xanthiana or any of the ark hunters for that matter were never directly underneath erep command, but at this time with Von Bach missing and the operation in shambles reporting to the only command structure she could seemed like the best idea.

"Great another stripper, as if Ducar was not enough, honey if you're looking to turn tricks my men don't have the scrip nor the time to deal with you, if you're one of Von Bach's asshole ark hunters see Sergent Cobb, otherwise I got more important shit to deal with than you." Grant turned back around to yell at a technician and Xanthiana stepped out of the makeshift communications area.

"That was entirely rude." The EGO unit materialized if only to voice her disapproval.

"Grant's a busy guy and Von Bach and by an extension Ark Hunters put him into this position, I'm sure we're not his favorite people." It was still weird think talking to her ego device, but Xanthiana had gotten the hang of it, even if she probably looked strange standing out in the open while other people moved around here talking to themselves

"Still no reason to call you a whore." Xanthiana looked over her just drying tank top and shorts and could see where the confusion came from, she looked like a stripper. It was her own fault really she had dressed in comfort clothes that would be easy to put body armor over, but the ship got hit too fast for her to even get any body armor or even a standard uniform to put on.

"No, but I can't blame him, I really could do with a uniform change." Just then someone snapped in front of her eyes, it appeared Sgt. Cobb had been summoned from whatever duty he had been assigned. Cobb was in the usual blue army camo of the Ereps, but instead of their blue helmet, he had on a cowboy hat. He was also smoking, which was also probably not regulation.

"Do all you Ark Hunters just drift off into space like that?" His voice was a bit of a drawl that denoted he was from the south at some point or liked to pretend he was, there wasn't much of a south anymore in the new world.

"Sorry Sergent I was communicating with my ego device, I was told to see you about finding Mr. Von bach."

"Sure you are, just like all the rest of you, but seeing as the last group of you assholes that blew through here took some atv's, some supplies and we're supposed to help us with a group of snipers and never did, command ain't really looking to help you until you help us." Cobb snatched up a discarded sniper rifle and handed it toward Xanthiana.

"I've got no use for that."

"Well you better learn fast if you want to take out that nest." He pointed to an encampment that overlooked part of the carrier wreckage, "Near as we can tell there are five to six of those mutant assholes up there just picking off our boys."

"And you want me to take care of it?"

"That's correct." He smiled and offered her the rifle again, she shook her head and started to leave camp.

"Have some supplies waiting for me when I get back down, and a damn uniform of some kind I'm a size 6!" Xanthiana started to make her way towards the sniper's nest, it seemed she had to walk before she could drive.