Post by J.O.N ((Dragonwing)) on Jan 12, 2013 3:17:48 GMT -5
Entry One
<removed>
Entry Two
Ten minutes after the deadline, the other squad had still not shown themselves. Ben shrugged the delay off with a mild sense of unease. Anything could have happened to rationalize the reason for their tardiness, from having to avoid passing patrols to being forced out of the sky.
Thirty minutes marched passed and the man began to calculate the amount of time it would take for the others to return from the enemy encampment unbothered by patrols. If they flew, they would be no more than ten minutes late. If they walked, though, it could possibly take them upwards of forty-five minutes to reach the rendezvous.
It was an hour later when Ben finally admitted to himself that something had gone wrong.
He rose from his place in the steamy underbrush, and the seven glassy-faced Servitors which accompanied him mimicked the motion. The lithe automatons would have happily stayed still for another hour--or until the heat death of the universe--had Ben wished it, slaved as they were to the commands of his nervous system. The Servitors were all built on a common chassis, but each one sported slightly different equipment, scavenged and hard-won over the course of the season, much like Ben's own apparel.
He wore bulky, oversized boots, and a patchwork ensemble of leather and canvas that left his arms bare and itched terribly after a rainstorm. A sort of metal harness partially girdled his torso, and enclosed a number of useful systems, including the jump cannon on his back. Fingerless leather gloves and a chunky steel armband covered his hands and left wrist. On his head he wore half of a pair of aviator goggles, fashioned into a sort of monocle, as well as six days of unshorn beard. The comforting weight of The Ball hung from a carabiner at his left hip, while the discomforting lightness of a nearly empty sidearm hung from a holster at his right.
The Servitors wore mismatched armour plating that tried, but did not wholly succeed, at covering their scrawny pipe-cleaner bodies in a more robustly human shape. The resulting silhouettes resembled something like a linebacker with sizable holes blown out of him at random. Their heads were smooth ovoids with a tinted lens covering almost the entire front half, and were identical from one unit to the next, except where the team had drawn faces with whatever writing materials came to hand. Each Servitor also bristled with a pelt of (mostly useless) gizmos and trinkets; some bought with a clear goal in mind, most awarded incidentally for some worthless achievement, and grafted on for the hell of it.
The other squad, led by Rachel, but supported by an additional human complement of Maxwell, Coles, and Sarina, had also been bolstered by Servitors, and had carried a rather heavier arsenal than what could be spared for Ben. The plan had been for them to cause the loudest diversion possible, while Ben looped around and absconded with The Ball. Then everyone had been meant to meet up here and push for the EZ.
Ben moved to the edge of the atoll on which he stood, and weighed his options. The thick jungle swept off in rolling hummocks in either direction, pierced occasionally by great spurs of grey stone. Even with the maximum zoom setting afforded by his monocle, Ben could still spot no motion either above or below the canopy. And with the obfuscating enemy WarFog still in place, he couldn't even radio for a sitrep. It really seemed that he only had two choices: he could either stay here and wait for reinforcements that might never come, or he could head towards the EZ on his own and pray for luck.
A bullet whizzed by Ben's head.
Scratch that. He could either stay here and get his face blown off, or he could run like hell.
Ben dove for cover as more rounds hissed and spat around him. He landed behind a rotten stump, but it quickly began to disintegrate into a cloud of sawdust, so he scuttled over to a nearby boulder instead. His Servitors, who had been less exposed to begin with, were already happily ensconced in a ditch, and had begun to return fire with the low-yield bosers most of them carried. The dull red matter beams thrummed in bass tones as they flickered methodically through the trees, but their paltry energies were only useful as suppressing fire; they wouldn't be able to drop a target without scoring a sustained hit.
Ben still couldn't see his attackers, but he had a rough fix on their direction, at least, and ordered Servitor #3 (Happy) to lob its two remaining incendiary charges into the general area. He felt the bloom of hot air a moment later as it came whistling between the tree trunks, and took the opportunity to join his Servitors in the ditch.
Keeping his head well below the earthy rim, Ben scrunched up his eyes, and mentally plugged his sensorium into that of Servitor #6 (Grumpy). He peered out through Grumpy's face, the fisheye view only slightly obscured by the angry cartoon scowl that someone had drawn on the lens in magic marker. He could see flames licking up the sides of tree trunks, and Grumpy's pattern recognition software occasionally picked out a smudge of movement that had a 76% match for a bipedal target. A tooltip let him know that there were probably between eleven and fourteen contacts, at least two of which were likely human.
He also noticed that the smudges seemed to be moving further and further apart, which implied that they were going to try and flank him, which implied that he was about to be well and truly fucked.
Ben's vision snapped back into his own body, and he swore he felt a few blood vessels in his brain burst. Tomorrow that was either going to be a migraine or a stroke, and Ben wasn't sure which he'd prefer. In any case, it looked like a few of his Servitors wouldn't be making it that far, because he was going to have to leave them behind if he wanted to get out of this.
Literally thinking quickly, Ben prepped Happy (who was now out of useful ammunition) and Sneezy (who had a faulty exhaust unit) to be his sacrificial lambs. With the suicide orders set, and the remaining five robots ready to flee with him, Ben flipped open a screen on his wristband, and tapped through several nested menus; bullets and energy beams still zipping overhead.
He quickly found the tab he wanted, and flipped through the attached list until a picture of a medieval kite shield popped up, fronted by the image of a closed padlock. Ben punched the padlock with his thumb, and then impatiently punched YES when a second window popped up asking him to confirm. He watched his credit total skydive with a sigh, but felt better about his purchase a second later when a heavy gamma laser came scything in from a new angle and melted Sleepy in half.
Ben stabbed his wrist screen again to activate the upgrade, and a hidden panel on his back harness opened, releasing a swarm of defense fog into the air around him. The trillion-odd nanobots hung around him like a heat haze, slightly warping the view of his surroundings. As soon as the cloud had fully settled about him, Ben was on his feet and running full sprint towards the nearest edge of the atoll. He immediately heard a hail of bullets and beams zero in on him, but the fog congealed adamantly in their way.
At the same time, Sneezy opened up with both bosers and a rocket pod, while Happy ran straight towards the enemy lines. The weaponless robot--face graffitied with an anime cat done in pink lipstick--bounded forward with abandon and lived up to his name by grabbing one of the opposing Servitors in a great bear hug.
"I love you," he crackled over his rarely used speakers, immediately before the fuel cell in his chest went up like the fourth of July.
Ben felt the blast wave rip past him, but managed to stay on his feet. He counted slowly to three, then ordered Sneezy to destruct as well. As an afterthought, he sent the same order to what was left of Sleepy, and was gratified to hear two explosions in quick succession a moment later. It was tempting to look back and admire his handiwork, but he reminded himself that his attackers had been widely spread out, and he had likely done little more than confuse them.
This suspicion was confirmed a moment later, when a Servitor appeared in his peripheral vision and fired a missile at him. The weapon shrieked forwards and detonated a few meters behind Ben's running feet. The defense fog took the brunt of the blast, but couldn't stop the shockwave from knocking him down. Ben fell hard, but scrambled painfully back upright; the fog was wearing thin, and he could sense more enemies emerging from the underbrush nearby.
Ben staggered forwards, a spray of bullets chewing through the last of his shield, and emerged onto the edge of a cliff, blue sky above and green trees below. He heard the whoosh of another missile being fired from behind, and desperately slapped the button on his chest. The button was red, it was round, and it had the words "PLEASE DON'T" written on it in black marker. As soon as he pressed it, a much more impressive whoosh rang out, and the world dropped away.
Most of Ben's team had opted for conventional wisdom, and purchased the reliable TX-48 "EezyGlide" jet pod: a popular, smooth-flying unit with ample fuel and decent pickup, which allowed them to cruise above the landscape with ease. Ben, however, in a fit of outside the box thinking, had chosen the Z-666 "Widowmaker" jump cannon: the equivalent of strapping a howitzer to one's ass, pointing downwards. It forced him to travel in wild, flailing parabolas, either well ahead or well behind of his much slower teammates, and had caused no end of trouble and ridicule since he had bought it.
In situations like this one, however, it was very handy indeed.
The jump cannon roared like a jump cannon, because damned if there was anything else that loud. Ben's vision blacked out under the sudden acceleration, and when it returned he was close to a mile away, and falling fast from two hundred meters up. Luckily, this was not one of the 0.58% of occasions when the Widowmaker's patented gravity cushion failed to deploy, and Ben coasted to a gentle stop as the air beneath him took on the consistency of thick custard.
He put another few jumps between him and his pursuers for good measure, and soon all he could see of the atoll was a far-distant smoke column, from the three Servitor explosions. His surviving Servitors, who all bore the EezyGlide system, would scatter widely to throw off any tails, and then slowly regroup and catch up, guided by the encrypted signal that connected them to Ben's brain.
He breathed out slowly, and brushed away the dust of pulverized wood and dead nanobots that had settled into his clothes. That had been a doozy. It was clear that he was on his own now. Even if a few of his teammates were still in play, any chance of a rendezvous had been compromised by the ambush. And with the WarFog still disrupting general comms, there was no chance of setting up another meet.
Ben started to run his options again. Maybe a resupply? The team had captured a zone rich in Niobium the previous week and were still swimming in heavy metal credits. All he had to do was make it to a neutral refinery, cash in for some industry credits, and he could order up more ammo and a few new Servitors. Maybe there'd even be enough left over for a good sized plasma cannon or some quark-gluon grenades ...
Ben breathed out again, and ran his fingers through his hair. It was going to take too long. The Ball would go into sudden death mode within the day, and then its GPS would pull in everyone within fifty miles. He had to act more quickly. Maybe if he? ... No. But what about if? ... Definitely not. But with enough Vespene Gas he could ...
Ben pressed his palms into his eyes. There was just no way. He only had one option left: get the ball to the EZ. Alone. Undersupplied. And with hostile forces no doubt already moving to intercept him. If he only had an EM shroud, or a few holo drones, that would be something, but he'd spent all his upgrade credits on the defense fog. It was going to take a bloody miracle for him to get anywhere near the EZ undetected.
Just then the sky tinted to a dull red and a voice boomed out from the heavens like the word of God.
"PREPARE FOR GLOBAL FIELD CHANGE. RANDOM SELECTION."
There was a deafening clatter that Ben felt in his fillings, as a pair of holographic polyhedrons the size of apartment buildings rolled eerily across the sky. They came to a stop with the numbers 6 and 17 pointing downwards, and the voice spoke again.
"PREPARE FOR GLOBAL FIELD CHANGE. JUNGLE-DAY TO CRYSTAL-NIGHT."
The sky returned to its regular colour, and then immediately changed again as the sun began to speed across it in fast motion. At the same time, there was a whistling roar from far off in the distance, and a cloud of constructor nanites came whipping in from the horizon like a colossal sandstorm. They chewed up miles of jungle like some titanic woodchipper, and spat out new shapes in their wake. Ben hunkered down and squeezed shut the eye that was not covered by a goggle. The nanite cloud ripped past him with an angry hornet buzz, and trees and boulders alike disappeared like shredded paper.
By the time Ben came to his feet again it was night time, and his surroundings had changed entirely. He now stood on hard-packed earth that had a faintly purplish hue, and was ringed by gleaming crystal spires that glowed from within, and refracted their own light into coruscating fractals. Other crystals had glossy chrome exteriors, and caught weird reflections in their many facets. Overall, the landscape now resembled something between a hall of mirrors and an LSD trip. Distance became hard to judge, long dark shadows stretched between the patches of scintillation, and phantom movement constantly tugged at the corners of your peripheral vision.
"Wow," Ben said. "Okay. One miracle. This will do nicely."*************************************
In the current field configuration, the EZ occupied a flattened plateau set deep within a dagger-edged mountain range, shot through with luminescent crystal. Smaller blooms of crystal burst up from the mountains' rocky crust at intervals, and rendered any night vision or motion tracking optics absolutely useless. This was good, because from where Ben and his four Servitors hid, halfway up the slope, they could see dozens of enemy robots, commanded by at least four humans.
Ben whistled softly, and a moment later his metal companions echoed the noise in eerie harmony. Element of surprise or not, this was going to be tough. The other team had him outnumbered, outgunned, and were operating from an entrenched position. What's more, all they had to do was sit tight and shoot him, whereas Ben had to worry about both evading them, and getting The Ball to The Goal. He drew his depleted sidearm and shook his head ruefully.
Screw it. Let's go for the highlight reel.
Ben vaulted over a slight lip and landed on a bed of pulverized crystal scree. The vitreous pebbles moved under his boots, and he began to slip down the slope with mounting speed. Grumpy and Doc followed close behind him, while Dopey stayed put, and Bashful began to cut sideways across the mountain.
Dopey--whose face was etched with googly eyes and a buck-toothed grin--stood up slowly and turned to face the entrenched enemy. A snub-barrelled cannon ratcheted into position on his shoulder, and cranked a round into the chamber. There was a moment of pregnant silence as Dopey waited for Ben, Grumpy, and Doc, to near the bottom of the slope, and then he fired a dozen roman candles and a holographic disco ball into the air. A thousand crystals caught the light and returned it ten-thousand-fold, even as a set of oversized speakers unfolded from Dopey's torso, and started playing a booming, echoing techno track. The entire mountain range was now a giant, incomprehensible rave.
Who says all those cosmetic bonus items can't be useful?
Two Servitors came into view just below Ben, and he neatly popped ragged holes in both of their heads while still sliding down the crystal slope. He hit flat ground, and turned the momentum of his descent into a run. Another Servitor appeared and Ben delivered the same treatment as before. A killstreak bonus popped into life on his armband, but Ben ignored it and kept running, Grumpy and Doc close behind. They leapt over crystal hurdles and purple boulders, and dispatched two more Servitors before anyone knew what the hell was going on.
A missile crunched into a stony pile nearby, and Ben stumbled sideways as bits of shrapnel cut his cheek. Grumpy and Doc fired their bosers back along the missile's vapour trail but failed to score a hit. The trio leapt over a trench without slowing down, and the confused Servitors that occupied it watched with blank stares as they sailed overhead. They were equally impassive when Doc left his only grenade behind with them.
Ben's killstreak was becoming truly gratuitous.
Bullets whizzed out of the colourful darkness and blew off most of Grumpy's shoulder; an antique car horn and 250 feet of steel towing cable went spinning off into the night. Another bullet grazed Ben's thigh, but he barely slowed down. He raised his weapon and fired towards whoever was shooting him. It was his second last bullet, but it also happened to be a high explosive round, and it brought a shattered crystal monolith crashing down on the whole area.
Ben and his Servitors rounded a corner, and Doc was immediately slagged by the same gamma laser that had taken down Sleepy. Two Servitors and a human were bunkered down ahead, and there was absolutely no cover to be found on the bare expanse of ground that separated them. Ben began to serpentine out of sheer reflex, but it wasn't going to make a difference.
Luckily, Dopey and Bashful were going to make a difference, for even as one fired another volley of fireworks, causing the invisible laser to miss, the other settled into a comfortable flanking position, and raked the bunker with boser fire. The three attackers were forced to scatter, and Ben juked sideways up a narrow defile, away from danger.
Away from the apparent danger, at least, but straight into a rifle round that took him through the shoulder. Ben stupidly fired his last round in blind rage, missed, and took another shot in the leg. Grumpy laid down cover fire and helped Ben get behind a cluster of boulders as yet more bullets pinged around them. Ben slapped a medical patch on the wounds to stop himself from bleeding out, but they still hurt like hell, even though the topical anaesthetic. What's more, he was now weaponless, and whoever had shot him wouldn't be deterred long by Grumpy's boser. Even now he thought he could hear crunching footsteps getting close.
Very close, in fact. Close enough to try something stupid.
Ben hit the release on his tactical harness, and shrugged painfully out of it. The damn thing was heavier now that it was off his back, and it took some doing to wedge it into position with one arm. With seconds to spare, Ben offered a whispered apology and ordered Grumpy to stand up and fire. The loyal Servitor immediately took a bullet that shattered his face, and crumpled to the ground. Ben's attacker, emboldened by his kill, raced forward and darted around the edge of the interceding boulder with his weapon raised.
Ben hit the big red button. The jump cannon pancaked itself into the ground. The echo burst Ben's eardrum. The recoil sent his attacker half a mile into the air.
"That was for Grumpy you son of a bitch."
Ben staggered up and kept going, The Ball swinging from his belt. His leg wound throbbed, but he was far lighter now, and moving quickly. As he slid down into the broad crater that held The Goal, he wondered why he'd never heard of anyone ditching their harness before. It made this a cake walk.
A bullet smacked into Ben's back, right where the harness would have normally covered.
Right. That.
He fell hard and stayed there. When the world returned to focus, he saw from his prone position that a human enemy was jogging towards him, while a Servitor with a sniper rifle kept watch from nearby. You got more points for taking The Ball off of a live opponent, Ben dimly remembered.
The human reached him, and rolled Ben painfully over. From this position, Ben could make out other figures gathering behind, high-fiving and fist-bumping one another. The guy standing over Ben watched him for a second with his head tilted to one side, then knelt down and reached for The Ball. It was affixed to a carabiner that had to be unscrewed before it would release, and he set to work doing so.
"Buddy," the man said. "That was one hell of a play. Seriously. You'll make the replay for sure. Maybe some kind of record or something."
He shook his head ruefully, and the carabiner clicked open. "Hell of a play ..."
"Damn right it was," a voice rang out. "Time for the Hail Mary."
Bullets slammed into the man over Ben, then into his Servitor, then tracked across the ground towards the shadowy celebrants in the distance.
Ben's head snapped around to see Rachel, his teammate, hard-lined in the glare from Dopey's light show, and from the muzzle flash of the giant machine gun in her hands. She was covered in blood and grime, and her eyes had a manic glint as she rained destruction upon their enemies.
Even so, tracers of return fire were edging closer to her already. That is, until Ben thumbed the blinking killstreak button on his wrist and brought an artillery strike down on the area.
The world turned to fire, and time seemed to slow. Blossoms of heat and light curled languorously up into the air, while Rachel's gun discharged angry steel with metronomic punctuality, and her defiant scream dopplered out into a throaty wail.
Ben came to his knees with agonizing slowness, and reached clumsily for The Ball. His fingers closed around the rough leather, and he cocked it behind his head, sighting with his free arm. He exhaled slowly, and focused on The Goal: a metal hoop barely larger than The Ball itself.
Ben's arm whipped forward and released; the Ball traced a lazy arc through the air, sailing ever further ... and it was going to miss. He could see it already, the shot was wide. It was going to miss and go off a freaking cliff! Son of a fuck damn! This was so typical. Why could life never be poetic? Why could life never play out the interesting way? Why could life never--
A mangled Servitor exploded. Its body bloomed with yet more fire, and a rippling blast wave spread out, caught The Ball, altered its path, sent it spinning straight through--
"POINT. RED TEAM. END OF ROUND TWO."
Rachel helped Ben up, and they leaned on each other as they walked away.
"You know we're still down by, like ten point, right? There's no way we're going to pull out a match win."
"Oh yeah, I know. I swear to god, Rache, if I don't get a professional draft out of this I'm retiring. This is too much bullshit to still be the voice of 'Pete's Discount Organ Warehouse.'"
"If you can find a cheaper spleen, you buy it!" Rachel intoned. "I hear they've got kidneys on sale right now, actually," she said, patting her heavily medicated torso. "I should probably look into that."
"Yeah, I definitely have holes in something important. Let's get Pete to hook us up."
"Dinner afterwards?"
"Hell yeah. Have to carboload for round three, right?"
"Oh, most definitely. Carbs are very important."
