Death Politics

"There is nothing in there just medical waste and instruments." Deliah had pulled out some instruments from her roller and was preparing to go inside the arkfall, Xanthiana felt the need to try and tell her not to bother and they should just blow it up before it caused more pain.

"To you and your EGO device I'm sure it looked like nothing, but the Earth Republic has been tracking this fall for a while and if our intel is right there is very important things inside of it." Xanthiana wanted nothing to do with it. The smell was getting worse than it had been when she arrived.

"So this is what you do, track down ark falls and kill raiders?"

"Mostly the ark falls, I'm a scientist at heart, but you can't be that in this world and not have a fast trigger finger." Deliah attached a gas mask in front of her face and offered Xanthiana one.

"No thanks I've been inside, no need for a return trip."

"Going to watch my back I take it."

"Sure we'll call it that." Its not like Xanthiana was in a rush to go kill Rushard, she wanted to of course, but wanted to savor the moment for a bit, let the dumb bastard think he's going to achieve victory, and then kill him without him ever knowing she was there. The fantasy was one thing that kept her going. Xanthiana didn't suspect anyone would be coming not with the smell from the ark fall and the smoke from the burning bandit vehicles, that usually tells people even in this shitty place to stay away.

"She might be right, there could be something VBI might want in there."

"And if I cared about that I'd go inside, but since I don't, and extension you don't Elly, we stay out here." Xanthiana was way more interested in picking over the corpses of the raiders.

"Why are you ok with picking over these corpses but not the ones in the arkfall?"

"Because these ones are fresh and I sort of know where they've been, the ones in the arkfall are gross and I have no idea where they have been or what killed them." It made sense to Xanthiana, but not Elly. Xanthiana had fully picked over all the corpses when she began to worry about Deliah. She hadn't heard from the human in what felt like a couple hours and she figured there would have at least been occasional chatter about something.

"Elly I'm going to regret this but scan for Deliah for me."

"She's in the arkfall same as she was, hasn't moved in like thirty minutes though."

"Shit." Xanthiana checked the magazine on her rifle and turned on her flash light, something was wrong in that Arkfall and sadly she was going to have to be the one to check it out.

Shootout at the Old Arkfall

"My name is Deliah by the way." The Erep soldier was dug in by the arkfall, Xanthiana was up top providing over watch with her rifle. The bandits looked to be in the twenty to twenty five range based on vehicles and the limited scans Elly could provide.

"That will come in handy, I can mark your gravestone now."

"It's better than we did for you Votans, mostly just left you rotting, maybe pissed on the corpse."

"In Castithan pissing on the corpse is considered a great honor." Xanthiana could see the raiders coming over the hill, she took a breath and sighted up on the lead car's driver.

"Really?" Xanthiana fired and the drivers head evaporated, his roller swung wildly out of control and smashed into the one next to it causing a bit of a jam up. It didn't stop the raiders from coming, but it would at least slow them down and make it easier for Deliah down below to handle.

"Oh yeah, its why I always tell every Castithan I run into I intend on pissing on them when they are dead, sometimes even before they are dead." Deliah laughed and then the sound of her voice was drowned out by the sound of gunfire. The raiders had pulled their remaining vehicles into a barricade, and they were trying to figure out Xanthiana's position when Deliah hit them from below. She managed to kill a couple before they adjusted to her firing position and pinned her down.

"You still up there?" Deliah croaked out, she sounded a bit hurried.

"Doing my best to kill these guys, but they are dug in very deep and keeping out of my scope."

"Well if you can figure out a way to help me out I'd surely appreciate the effort."

"Just like a human asking a Votan to help them out of a rough spot." The raiders were dug in tight. She had sniped them as best she could from where she was, but trying to relocate somewhere else might put her in the line of fire for the raiderss. But if she didn't Deliah would certainly be dead and as much as humans bothered her, that grizzled erep lady entertained her and that was more than enough. She slid down the embankment and came up firing she caught a couple surprised raiders who hadn't position to adjust to her firing from a different place. Deliah seeing her chance as they turned to face Xanthiana popped up from her fortified position and caught the raiders in a cross fire, she threw some grenades in for good measure The few raider who survived attempted to flee and Xanthiana killed them before they made it very far.

"Glad you didn't take too long to help me out there." Deliah looked a bit dirty, but otherwise unhurt.

"Didn't have enough of a bladder load to send you off in style, figured had to save you until I did."

Always Harder Than It Looks

The erep's roller was not exactly standard issue. All the windows and doors had been reinforced with big metal plates and the tires were larger with traction meant more for off road than trail driving. Xanthiana couldn't make out how many were on board, but the roller was small, so no more than two. She was laying prone with her rifle trained on the roller as it approached the arkfall. Elly could tell her the passengers didn't have EGO devices or even active radio signals, and they appeared to be alone. The roller stopped and one woman in armor got out, she had her hands up cradling a rifle above her head, it was the universal signal for surrender.

"I'm not here to harm you." Xanthiana was kind of surprised, while she wasn't in full cover she thought she'd hidden herself well enough. The woman's voice was broadcast from a speaker somewhere in her armor, she was wearing a facemask, so Xanthiana couldn't make out what she looked like.

"Can you tap into her com system to respond?"

"Affirmative, one sec let me connect you, and go ahead."

"This is Xanthiana Roeyka of VBI industries, we claim this salvage." The fact she didn't actually work for VBI as much anymore was something she just left hanging there, its not like VBI would notify the ereps of that. The soldier lowered her rifle and took off her mask, she looked old, probably around fifty, which was a bit strange for a foot soldier even in the shitty world they lived in.

"Thank god you weren't some raider, I caught site of your rifle glint and took a chance, I figured if you were a raider you would have just opened fire to start." The older soldier walked toward the arkfall, Xanthiana kept her rifle trained.

"I could shoot you you know, no one would know."

"You could, but you aren't, you VBI sorts are jumpy, kind of dick holes, but not flat out murderers. Besides you'll need my help." Xanthiana laughed, whoever this old military chick was, she had guts.

"And why do I need your help?"

"Because there are raiders coming, I got in front of them, hoping to check out what's here before they got here, but I can see its way too big to snag it and take off, so we'll have to defend it until support arrives, and it's easier to defend with two than it is by yourself." It was a fair point, and Elly confirmed the Erep's statement, there were more people incoming.

"You have a deal."

The Scent of Death

The smell was overwhelming. It was a rancid odor of burnt metals and plastics, combined with something organic burning. It was enough to almost have Xanthiana retch. Elly offered to turn off her olfactory senses, but she knew that would put her at a disadvantage versus whatever remained in the arkfall. The interior looked like a lab of sorts, or it was before it crashed, there were all kind of tools and tables scattered around, the smell appeared to come from whatever they had been experimenting on.

"Elly scan the equipment in this room, give me your best guess on whatever it was they were doing in here."

"That's going to be difficult to determine with my data on file Xan, the Earth Republic only has rumors of Votanis experiments, no actual proof, you might know more about this than I do."

"I rather doubt that Elly, I was a foot soldier, a good one in my own estimation, but I just used the weapons, I didn't design them." Xanthiana didn't want to take another step in the room, if what was being developed in there was biological weapons she didn't want to get infected by whatever they were testing, even if most of the votan's biological weaponry seemed to target humans to the exclusion of Votans, there could be other horrible shit in there like hell bugs.

"This appears to be a morgue of sorts, most of the instruments are used in autopsies, I don't believe you have anything to be afraid of for biogenic weapons."

"Unless what they were investigating was the cause of death in a bio weapon."

"There is always that." Xanthiana smiled to herself, making Elly question herself with regards to her analytic analysis was always funny to her, even if it was frustrating to the EGO device. For the most part there didn't look to be anything to salvage, other than the bags of waste that Xanthiana was not in anyway going to root through. She was just about to leave when a blooping sound went off in her head.

"What in the hell is that noise?"

"I was alerting you to the presence of an intruder approaching the arkfall." The ego device seemed cheerful, Xanthiana was less so.

"Couldn't have just told me?"

"You have your way of doing things I have mine." Xanthiana shrugged knowing that much like she enjoyed frustrating the EGO it did the same to her. She exited the arkfall and took up her rifle, she could see the runner in the distance it looked military, possibly earth republic.

"Looks like we're about to have a visitor." Xanthiana racked the rifles slide and readied herself, even if the arkfall had nothing inside of it, she wasn't just going to turn it over, not without someone paying for the privilege of course.

Arkfall

"SHIT!!!!" Xanthiana swerved the car out of the way as a large piece of ark wreckage smashed into the ruins of the highway directly in front of her. She slammed on the brakes and swung the car to the side, she could hear the tires spinning and failing to grip what was left of the road. She narrowly avoided the crashed ark wreckage and ended up putting the car into a ditch. The smoking wreckage in front of her did not lookinviting or safe. Whatever it had been in orbit it was now a twisted metal ruin which could have something good or bad inside of it.

The car was pretty well stuck in the ditch, Xanthiana tried to get it out by throwing it in reverse but she was going nowhere fast. She frowned at the steering wheel, she was about a hundred miles north of paradise and didn't know of any locals who could help her with the car. She also knew that ark's tended to bring out ark hunters, and other local scum. Not to mention whatever was in the ark itself.

"Sorry about that Xan I didn't have my ark tracker online." Xanthiana couldn't be too angry with the AI, the only reason it had gotten as sloppy as it had been was because of her interference and humanizing the device to herself.

"Next time a little more warning than arkfall imminent." Xanthiana's neck hurt from the sudden stop, but she'd deal. She was just glad she had started wearing her seat belt or things could have been a lot worse. She opened the car door and surveyed the site. The wreckage was letting of a huge plume of smoke alerting just about anyone in the area to its crash site. It looked like part of a ship instead of a full ship, but Xanthiana wasn't the best at determining votan ships to begin with despite having traveled on one.

"I'm updating my files to reflect that, do you want to check it out?" Xanthiana had her rifle out, it wouldn't do much good inside the cramped quarters of the wreck, but it was the only weapon she had bullets for.

"Not really no, this always feels like tomb robbing to me, but better us than the next asshole, so I guess we'll be going in." She made her way to what looked like an access point and took a deep breath, she really didn't like stepping back on the ark ships, it reminded her of a lot of bad memories.

"Scans on full, good luck Xan." And into the belly of the beast Xanthiana went.

Just Like Old Times

The sign out front of the ruined convenience store read "Ammunition" there were a couple guards and a thin as a reed human behind the counter. Xanthiana needed sniper bullets, her rifle had a couple magazines, but she knew she'd need more if she hoped to kill Rushard and his men. The ammunition store just happened to be near by. The reed thin man had a name tag on that said Andrew, he looked like the result of years of inbreeding, his guards were probably family as they shared similar appearances even if they were bulkier.

"I don't see anything here worth buying miss." Xanthiana had the rifle and pistol she had gotten from top notch, as well as some magazines of pistol ammunition. It should have been enough to get a couple magazines of sniper ammunition, but Andrew thought differently.

"Come on, this is top quality merchandise." He looked at her with an unsettling stare, she felt revolted just being there. Elly was similarly grossed out by Andrew offering her all sorts of bio indicators he was a scummy person.

"You're top quality merchandise, these guns are just pieces of shit you stole from someone else, but if you want some bullets well I'm just sure there are things you can do for them." His smile gave way to rotten teeth and even from across the counter she could smell his breath as foul. She was about to tell him where he could stuff his additional services when a whoop came from outside, it was the kind of call raiders made. The two guards ducked behind the counter, Andrew did so as well.

"My aren't you three the bravest bunch."

"Fuck you lady, raiders killed my whole family." Xanthiana smiled, she saw an opportunity.

"Well I'm sure hiding behind the counter will scare them off, tell you what Andrew I need to check my sights, but I'll make you a deal, if I kill these raiders you'll give me the ammunition I want for free, and as a showing of my affection I'll let you keep the raiders gear." It was a more than fair deal that the weasel had to think over. Such was the problem with humans outside of cities, they all wanted to get more than they deserved.

"What about a fifty percent discount?"

"How about I leave the raiders to kill you and your guards and then take what they leave behind?"

"I see your point, kill them and I'll give you the bullets." Xanthiana would have shook on it, but the guy's hand grossed her out in ways she didn't want to enumerate. She went outside with her rifle and went prone. Elly gave her the indicators of the raiders. There were five of them on a busted up roller approaching in a straight line. It was pretty much shooting idiots in a barrel, but she would have to adjust the rifle's sights, hopefully the sound of the roller would cover the sound of the bullets missing their mark.

"I'm ready to provide telemetry Xan." Elly showed a line from the barrel of the rifle to its intended target. Xanthiana took aim and fired, the bullet whizzed to the right of the intended raider. She adjusted her sight, took aim and fired again this time it hit dead on and the raiders head vanished. The raider to his right noticed a second too late as the next bullet took his head off as well. The other three bandits were in the roller themselves, noticing the blood sliding down the rear window the driver swung the roller wide right, but it just brought it skidding to a halt and lined up the final bandits perfectly. The bullet exited out the drivers window after having splattered the remaining occupants.

"I believe we have a deal." Xanthiana said with a smile.

"I think I see why you had to bury your rifle Xan." Elly sounded almost scared.

Ellensburg

There wasn't much to Ellensburg anymore, even after the battle that burned the town to the ground no one had seen fit to rebuild. A row of half working wind generators slowly turning in the breeze seemed to be the only motion in the area, not even hell bugs wanted anything to do with the burned out town. Xanthiana killed the engine at the city limits, her memories of events there still raw.

"Ellensburg?" Elly asked like the child like entity she was.

"A human settlement, mostly refugees at the time, my commander suspected there was a militia force inside the town, we had it surrounded. The people tried to tell us there were no soldiers here, but we did not believe them."

"And then a fire started?"

"We set the fire, it was the optimal solution, burn the town down, kill everyone trying to leave, I was the one put in charge, Rushard had plans somewhere else, he told me for every soldier we lost I'd get a lash on my back. I didn't want anymore wounds, so I chose the route that put no one at risk. Well no one from our side anyway."Xanthiana made her way from the car to a small graveyard, she had acquired a shovel along the drive and began digging at the grave marked "Quigley".

"I'm still at a loss as to why this caused you to stop using sniper rifles."

"It was my last battle Elly, at the time, I figured I wouldn't be needing it again."

"That can't be it, you've killed several people when I've been with you, didn't seem to have a problem doing it either." Xanthiana sighed, the little EGO device just loved to pry.

"I haven't killed a child since I've been with you Elly. And that's what I did here, there was a mother running with her son, she made it pretty far before I got her, the boy couldn't have been more than three didn't even try and run, he just sat their crying at his dead mother, I killed him too, one right through the head, figured it was better to kill him than leave him to the ravages of this planet. I didn't know their names, but the mother had a dog tag of 'Quigley.' And so I buried my rifle and defected. I left the military shortly before the conflict ended anyway, in a way I've been doing penance ever since." She dug up the rifle, it seemed to still be in working condition. Down the side she had inscribed until peace in irathient. Sights were off, but she could adjust them.

"Wow that's horrible."

"I know, but I was wrong, the war never ended, it just changed it's focus, its now us against this planet, and I assure you Elly, I play to win." She took the rifle and ammunition and left the grave dug up, someone coming by might think bad thoughts, but Xanthiana didn't care, she had a mission, and she planned on fulfilling it, one high powered bullet at a time.