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.

Villains

"I believe your people had a phrase for moments like this, convert or die." Rushard was the only Castithan in the group of men standing around the Erep soldier. There were ten of them now, up from the five he'd set off with post carrier crash. It had been a day since the event the group now numbered two Sensoths and seven humans, all male though that was just coincidence not out of any desire to prevent females from joining. Rushard liked being the only Castithan, it felt right, just like when he lead Votans during the war. He liked being in charge and he liked not having to deal with someone from another caste trying to establish dominance through some bullshit play, they were on Earth now and castes were like everything else from their doomed galaxy, lost to the cosmos.

Rushard was physically not really remarkable at all, his white hair was cut short, his muscle build was lean, and if anything he was under sized for even his own race (he stood just over five feet tall). What he lacked in physical stand outness he made up for with visciousness. In the war he tortured and massacred, his military unit was known for their uncompromising nastyness, even amongst the Votanis Collective. When the ceasefire ended the war, Rushard was disgusted with the VC, he disbanded his unit and refused to report to Brazil as ordered, and so he made his way, first as a bandit, and now an ark hunter.

"I don't know what you people want." The Erep soldier had been granted him by Captain Grant of the crashed carrier, he had also given them a couple of bikes and supplies.  Officially it was to find Von Bach, but to Rushard it was the start of his new empire. Now the Erep soldier had outlived his usefulessness as he didn't have an EGO device and thus was not as genetically superior as the other Ark Hunters. The others also were not aware of it, but Rushard had also hijacked their EGO signals, so any attempt of theirs to overthrow him would be met swiftly and horribly, another thing against the Erep, he could not be controlled.

"Convert or die." It seemed simple to Rushard, though he was toying with the young man, trying to find out what Captain Grant knew about the Ark Hunters Rushard was leading, it appeared nothing from his interrogation of the Erep.

"Co co co convert?" The Erep's voice cracked in such a way that showed more of his weakness. Rushard turned toward one of the Sensoth's a burly eight foot tall  orange haired baboon of a man named Sorn. He drew his thumb across his neck and the Sensoth nodded. The Erep's scream right before his neck was broken was music to Rushard's ears. Rushard turned around to face his group of 9 men, they didn't look put off by the murder, which was why Rushard had chosen them to be with him.

"Boys they call this place Paradise and it will be, starting today we are going to run this town. Drugs, prostitution, even the damned ark hunting will be all ours for the taking." They all cheered at that and Rushard turned around and smiled to himself. It was always easy leading brutes and bullies, and they would serve his purpose just fine for now, but if any of them got out of line Sorn would be snapping more necks. Rushard accessed his EGO device, different from the other ark hunters in that his did not come from Von Bach, but he had been granted his by the VC during the war.

"Now Ego," Rushard thought calling up the Casti construct in front of his eyes, "Where did you say that warship went down again?"

Conflict

"Adrenaline overdrive activated good luck Operator Roeyka." Xanthiana felt a surge of power, her muscles tensed and flexed and she surged forward her eyes singularly focussed on the pistol near the fire. Time seemed to slow down, every minute felt like ten, and still she felt too slow. Nearing the pistol she rolled and snagged it and came up shooting. The mutant EMC personel were caught unaware, between the darkness and the fire it was a basic shooting gallery. EGO made it even easier by outlining the mutants in red, Xanthiana quietly thanked whoever invented the device even if it was more than a little creepy to have some kind of onboard HUD in her brain.

There were four dead and her pistols slide had racked back indicating it was out of bullets. She thought it a bit strange she'd counted five but only saw four dead until the large arm wrapped itself around her throat. The last mutant was shorter than her, but he had lept onto her back and was using his weight and gravity to pull her to the ground. She went with his momentum and slammed him into the ground hoping to dislodge him, it did not.

"Operator Roeyka oxygen deprivation will start in less than a minute you'll lose your ability to function."

"Thanks for that really it's helping." It was weird being smarmy to a robot in your head telling you your dying, but that was Xanthiana's new reality and she just had to roll with it. EGO wasn't wrong though, she could feel light headed just from the short period of time the mutant had started strangling her. She cast the empty pistol aside and stuck her thumb out like she was going to go hitchhiking before shoving it backwards into what she assumed was the mutants eye. Her thumb hit something gooey and the mutant howled in pain and released her. She got to her feet and the creature still rolled in pain on the ground. She brought her soggy boot up and brought the heel of down forcefully on the mutants chest and heard a crack the creature stopped moving, but she could still hear breathing. She retrieved the empty pistol from where she'd cast it aside.

"Subject is critically injured, but not dead Operator."

"I'm aware of that EGO." Xanthiana moved from her position by the fire to the makeshift camp the mutants had been using. Their weapons were older and looked in disrepair, but their bullets were still in working order, she managed to locate some in the pistols caliber and removed the magazine to load some fresh ones in. EGO helped out by highlighting any useful equipment its limited scans could pick up in white. Xanthiana managed to recover a couple more magazines for the pistol, three magazines worth of ammunition for it, and various other bullets for others calibers of weaponry. She made sure to take them as in her experience ammunition was worth more than any paper money in the badlands.  Ammunition was the one universal currency in the new earth economy. She snagged a beat up backpack from one of the dead ark hunters to store her ill gotten gains and made her way over to the dying mutant.

"Operator Roeyka I'd recommend a tactical retreat there may be more of mutants in the area, I'm also getting reports of an erep position not far from here, it would be a safe location to regroup with other ark hunters and start the search for Mr. Von Bach."

"Agreed." She put a bullet between the mutants eyes, there was no reason for the creature to suffer anymore than it already had. She wasn't sold on searching for Von Bach while there seemed to be a new war starting in Paradise, but she had taken his money and signed on to be a bodyguard, and a deal is a deal even if Von Bach was a piece of shtako best left for whatever scavengers could find him.

Arrival

The first thing that was apparent to Xanthiana was that she had not hit the ground but instead had landed in water. The second thing was now the very real threat she'd drown in a metal coffin. She told herself not to panic as she frantically slammed the release button. It wasn't opening of course and despite all of her attempt at remaining calm the prospect of drowning was not one she relished. She didn't even have a weapon commit suicide with to prevent that horrible death from happening, though she theorized if she had a weapon she'd be more likely to just blow the doors open with it than take her own life. The pod hit the bottom of whatever water source it landed in and fell backwards disorienting Xanthiana briefly before the doors triggered open and dark water flooded in.

At least because of the drop pods position she could accurately judge which way was up (and she thanked whatever luck she lived by that it rolled over backwards and not forwards). She emerged from the water into more darkness.  The op as she remembered it was planned to be an evening drop because Paradise was an independent state. Though technically it was VBI industries who arranged the operation, they were on an Erep ship and the few independent areas in North America weren't exactly receptive to the Ereps. None of that helped Xanthiana see any better in the dark. From the shore she could make out a small fire and what appeared to be some men at it, something about the way they were positioned had her cautious though, too relaxed to have just been pod dropped into a hot zone, and the camp looked a little to built in for recent construction.

Xanthiana made her way to the shore quietly. Her initial suspicions seemed to ring true when she could make out EMC uniforms on the men around the campfire and what appeared to be a couple dead ark hunters on the fire. The EMC soldiers didn't look fully human as well, their features were twisted and mutated clearly not friendlies. Xanthiana was wondering what to do about the situation when her vision blurred, her ears popped and her head felt like a radio signal suddenly exploded inside of it. At first she was worried it was some new enemy weapon she'd never heard of, but then she recalled the EGO unit they'd installed in the base of her neck and what Von Bach was talking about prior to the ship exploding and crashing into the wilderness. As if summoned by the thought the EGO appeared in front of her, it looked like a young woman, though its appearance shifted and adjusted while she watched it.

"Hello operator Roeyka I'm your EGO device." Xanthiana was about to tell it to get down before realizing only she could possibly see it since it didn't have a display device on its own, "Scanning equipment," The EGO's body pulsed for a second and then the it returned to how it looked before "I see the personal defense shield, did not make it, you also appear to be completely unarmed and we are not near other ark hunters, one moment." Xanthiana was grateful and entirely weirded out by a robotic voice talking to her in her own head, but if it meant she had a higher chance of survival she'd get over the weirded out feeling. "Hostile subjects near by, they appear to be using EMC communication frequencies, I'm also getting a signal from south of us of an Erep crashed vessel and other live ark hunter EGO devices, no word from Mr. Von Bach or his staff at this time." The Ego clicked off after stating the situation and then stared at Xanthiana, she didn't know if it wanted her to talk back or what. "If you'd like to respond please do so by thinking of the response I can read the brain activity and respond accordingly you do not have to vocalize."

"So I just think and you can read it?" Xanthiana was completely taken back by the idea of having to talk in her own head to something else, if not for technology she'd swear she'd gone crazy.

"Correct Operator Roeyka."

"Ok EGO suggestions?"

"Acquire weaponry, personal defense shielding, and then sync up with Erep personnel south."

"Sure that sounds easy enough considering there are at least five targets in front of us and we currently have no weaponry, no personal defense shielding, and no transportation." The five EMC mutants at least did not appear to have noticed Xanthiana's pod crash landing, nor did they seem to be at any state of alert, which was good, they did appear to be armed though, which was bad.

"Scan's indicate a pistol near the fire that is unattended, unknown amount of ammunition in the magazine."

"So you want me to run toward a pistol near a fire, with an unknown amount of ammunition in it, and hope that it has enough to kill five men before they return fire?" The EGO shimmered twice and then returned, Xanthiana took that to mean it had just thought something.

"The EGO is hooked into your adrenal system, for a short time I can boost your adrenaline response to increase speed and reflexes, it should give you enough time to get to the pistol prior to the EMC mutants becoming aware of you, from there its up to you."

"And then the pistol will be out of bullets, ok I like this plan this is a great plan not at all a complete failure that will immediately cost me my life." Xanthiana readied herself, she thought for a moment that she could have just swam to the opposite side of whatever water source she was in and hope no mutants were over there, but that would take time and she didn't know how long until the sun came up and she became an even easier target.

"Lets do this." Xanthiana said it out loud if only to have said something before the end.