9. Strider: Tensions

A few weeks of surviving this place one morning in the middle of preparing with Flux for a day's hunt while Bishop and Hazard began planning potential raids from the PDA map’s voices could be heard from a room further down the hallway. An agitated debate preparing to turn violent at the drop of a pin or gunshot by the sounds of things.

Promptly paying the trader we moved to the end of the hall just outside a door to listen in properly. An outlaw of supposed renown argueing with one of the veteran pioneers who founded the camp. The veteran threw accusations of bringing outside interest into the zone bringing risk onto us all while the outlaw continued his furious rebuttal of how the threat had targeted them first. With the argument reaching it’s peak a gun was heard being cocked under a threatening growl as Noah bustled past us into the room before a shot could be fired. The veteran turned his attention to his intrusion immediately continuing his rant.

“(I don’t give a good goddamn how wronged you feel. Mercenaries run amok throughout the area because of your actions.)” The outlaw brought both hands down onto the table his voice laced with rage.

“(Your sanctioning the murder of all of us then regardless of the protection we provide. Is this a declaration of fucking war? My boys are eager for blood after the massacres and they don’t care whose it is.)” Noah now arriving at the edge of the table stalled the argument in a calm tone.

“(The recent massacres have been felt by both sides rest assured. These attacks are targeting to set us upon ourselves so the worst thing we can do now is murder each other. If we cannot face this threat we can at least deny them their objective.)”

An uneasy silence was shared between the two as they processed the facts they knew themselves seemingly correlating with Noah’s proposed theory. With a grunt of frustration the veteran left the room scowling displeased with the lack of results from the argument as the outlaw sighed.

“(I know we don’t agree on how to survive but you’d think a common threat would unite us. If you want to do something about it the merc’s are executing and dumping the bodies into the scar. We’re too disorganized in all this chaos to stop them but if something's done about that I’m sure it’d ease tensions.)”

With a nod the outlaw left the room as well, closing the door hiding away the crowd that’d gathered as Noah threw a map over the table.

“If they start a war a lot of good people will die and you four need to make a name for yourselves. I have a job for you.”

Running his fingers over the map he tapped a location far down the river totaling a nine and a half kilometer hike which would take roughly two hours to traverse. He described the scar as a fissure in the earth that a gravitational tear had caused ripping the area apart leaving deep shafts in ravaged ground. The forces raged fluctuating the soil blowing it out of the ground forming massive caverns and cramped twisting tunnels for hundreds of meters.

Even though the gravitational tear remained its forces had consolidated around the main entry into a large cavern that the fallen had taken as their home. Only the most hardened expeditions returned to report the occupants presence. Though his descriptions were vividly accurate nothing compared to seeing the devastation for ourselves.

We marched stepping carefully over the soft dirt giving way throughout the irregular rolling hills hiding treacherous pitfalls discovered by Bishop as he almost slipped down into the depths. Hazard quickly diving forward managing to grasp him by his webbing just before the ground gave way underneath him pulling a shocked Bishop back from the brink.

“Jesus… How’d you react that quickly?”

“Thought about that beartrap you got stuck in and knew you weren’t going to be watching your step you clumsy dickhead.”

“Who expects someone to bring a fucking bear trap to a gunfight?”

“Someone trying to trap a clumsy dickhead, obviously.”

Frustrated trying to shove Hazard Bishop found himself over the hole once more as Hazard pulled him round in an effort to irritate him further resulting in a growl coming from below. Throwing Bishop behind him Hazard shouldered his shotgun scanning the depths of the darkness for any movement. Flux now taking notice of the commotion himself formed a perimeter as Bishop steadied his assault rifle in cohesion with the rest of us. Waiting for only a minute we decided to move on with grave vigilance against any fallen that might rise from the depths below.

“Not the time to fuck around. Keep an eye out and move slowly.”

Alerted to the threat below our pace decreased dramatically as we scanned the dirt for any disturbance. The soil became harder and harder to maintain a foothold on as it became less dense as if it had been sifted. Advancing up the hills became difficult while maintaining an overwatch using one hand to pull myself up to make sure I wouldn’t slide down to the base once more. Without any stable terrain reaction fire would be hell with this rifle.

Coming to the top of another hill gunfire erupted from across the river. A shot cracking by caused Hazard to lose his footing and slide down the hill with Flux sliding down to help him. Bishop set his rifle a few meters away from mine as I scanned the forest from the best cover available on a bare dirt hill finger wrapped around the trigger while Flux cried out to Hazard.

“Hazard! You hit? Come on say something at least move.” Hazard looked back up towards him with a shaken look in his eyes.

“I felt that shot breeze past my balls…”

Bishop could be heard chuckling from the other side of the hill as I relaxed my finger alongside the gun. Further inspection down the scope displayed the shot was not meant for us but had gone stray from the firefight raging across the river. Cerberus and Crusader forces were engaged in a skirmish over an area filled mostly with gravity tears. The Crusader forces appeared to be winning at first in a display of superior tactics and raw power until a few became trapped within either acid pockets or gravity fluctuations.

The troops died either writhing on the ground vapour slowly coming off their bodies until nothing was left of them or compacted into balls of crushed bones and gore while others were launched into the noxious lake by competing gravitational forces or the complete lack of them.

It wasn’t long until the Crusaders retreated seeking to set a cordon around the minefield of tears while the Cerberus forces took cover amongst them navigating the lethal pockets with ease. Some even began to collect the crushed piles of gore in lead containers while others ran tests quickly before vanishing into the forest once more. With the firefight over we continued on now there was no risk of catching anymore stray rounds.

Moving in proper formation with absolute caution we arrived at a cluster of buildings and large fracture in the ground where two mercenaries marched a pioneer towards the hole. Rapidly advancing to cover I was able to catch a glance of our adversaries covered in armor head to toe. My rifle would probably penetrate the helmet of one of them however Bishop and Hazard wouldn’t be able to defeat their armor. The fire would be able to disable the other mercenary for just long enough for Flux to close in however.

Lining up the shot Bishop and Hazard took barricade positions to fire on the other mercenary as Flux closed in with the knife. As a cohesive machine we all took part in the ambush as the mercenaries shot the pioneer in the back of the head leaving him falling into the hole.

Squeezing the trigger the bullet crushed through the helmet projecting a spray of blood, bone and brain out the front of his visor. As the mercenary fell I began bolting another round while Flux charged and Bishop and Hazard fired upon the mercenary. Bullets and buckshot stumbling him blowing out a mist of blood as shots grazed underneath his armpit.

Recovering from the ballistic shock Flux was already on him swinging his blade aimed for his unarmored armpit. The mercenary however ready for his strike interrupting his swing and while it still struck a lethal blow the mercenary continued to fight grabbing Flux running for the hole. Watching in horror as I finished bolting the round and sighted my target both Flux and the mercenary were already flying off the ledge. The shot futile regardless of the fact that it made it’s mark as both men fell into the depths.