Extensis Vitae: The Shattered Land

by Gregory Mattix

  A number of vehicles were congregated in front of the rag-tag western wall surrounding the town. Reznik counted one large semi truck, a vehicle that looked like an RV, and eight smaller vehicles, two of which were patrolling around the walls as if looking for a weak point. The semi had what looked like a cattle trailer hitched to it. A gun nest with a minigun was mounted on top of the trailer, the gunner well protected by a large, wraparound gun shield. Several of the smaller vehicles resembled dune buggies with large knobby tires while the others looked like SUVs and pickup trucks. One of the pickups had what he guessed was a .50 caliber machine gun mounted in the back, which was currently unmanned.

  Resistance from Planter’s Ridge appeared to be fairly minimal. Reznik heard the occasional rifle shot followed by hearty return fire from the attackers’ vehicles.

  “Looks like a slaver band,” Rin commented. She lay next to him on top of the low hill. “That’s pretty brazen of them to mount a frontal assault on a town like this. Slaver bands normally look for easier prey—these wasteland settlements are usually fairly well defended.”

  “Doesn’t look like much resistance from the town,” Reznik observed. He panned the Tachibana’s scope around some more. A tiny figure jumped out of a watchtower on the far side of town just as an RPG blasted into it. Flaming pieces of the watchtower rained down inside the town. He thought at first the defender was injured or killed, but a moment later, he or she got up and ran between a couple buildings, and Reznik lost sight of the person.

  “Maybe the townspeople know they are heavily outgunned and are trying to spare the town from being decimated from a drawn-out fight.”

  “If they had anything heavy to hit the slavers with, they should have used it by now. It makes no strategic sense to let them get right up to their walls. What do you think the best way to hit them would be?”

  “Hit them?” Rin looked surprised. "Don’t you think we should wait until the slavers are gone? With their numbers and superior firepower, it would be madness to take them on.”

  “I realize that it’s an ugly situation. If we wait though, they might carry off our damsel in distress or at least anyone that might know what happened to her.” His mouth tightened as he watched a moment longer. The resistance seemed to have died out. A couple slavers were running a cable from a truck to a portion of the wall. “I just can’t watch these scumbags kidnap innocent people like this.”

  Rin sighed. “I was afraid you might say something like that.” She didn’t disagree with him, though.

  “Let’s see what our metal friend has to say.” Reznik scuttled back down to where the Ares 13 waited by the hoverbikes.

  “What did you see?” came Ichiro’s voice from the Ares 13.

  Reznik had been surprised when the hacker had taken control of the heavily armed robot. It was weird since he had already come to think of the yellow SB-17 robot as the hacker. He hadn’t expected this bot to be under Ichiro’s control as well. He wondered if the SB-17 sat around idle while Ichiro controlled the Ares 13.

  Their progress had been fairly slow getting from the silo to Planter’s Ridge due to the robot’s slow speed. The Ares 13 lumbered along at a top speed of roughly thirty-five miles per hour, which made the trip about twice as long since they didn’t want to leave the bot too far behind.

  “It looks like a slaver band is attacking the town. There seems to be minimal resistance right now, so I think we should move in and blindside the slavers before they wipe out the town and carry off our best chance of finding Anna.”

  “Agreed,” Ichiro replied at once. “We just have to be careful of civilian casualties.”

  “Right. We’ll draw their attention away from the civilian population, I’m hoping. Do you think they will scare off relatively easily, or will they put up a fight?”

  “I’m afraid combat situations are not really my area of expertise.”

  “If we hit them hard enough, they should scare off,” Rin said. “But if you want to take their slaves away from them, then they might grow a spine and stand and fight.”

  “I want that cattle truck disabled so they can’t get away with the slaves. They’re free to take their other vehicles and flee.” Reznik thought for a moment. “The only heavy-caliber weapons I see are that minigun and a .50 cal mounted on the back of one of those trucks. Ichiro, I want you to lay down suppressive fire—just be careful not to hit the trailer where the slaves are. Don’t let anyone take control of that .50 cal either, but don’t destroy it if you don’t have to. It might be nice to be able to upgrade our rides. I’m going to try to take out the minigun operator and move in to secure the slaves. Rin, do you want to try to circle around and get in the town from the back side? You can try to flush out any slavers inside and protect the townspeople.”

  “Sounds like as good a plan as any,” she allowed.

  “Suppressive fire sounds like something I can handle,” Ichiro said, and the autocannons clacked loudly as the Ares 13 fed its 30mm ammo belts into them. Before leaving the silo, the bot had donned a unit like a backpack loaded down with ammo. Reznik knew that ammo was heavy, especially such a large caliber, and the robot probably carried roughly ten thousand rounds.

  “Try to conserve some ammo. We might still need your guns after this is done, depending on what we find in town.”

  The Ares 13 moved its head up and down, and it took Reznik a moment to realize the robot was nodding.

  “Is everyone ready?” Reznik asked. When they both nodded, he continued. “All right, let’s give Rin a couple minutes’ head start. Ichiro, if you see them start to key in on her, then light them up. Otherwise, wait for my signal. You and I will start advancing slowly down the old road. I need to get in range before I can get a shot at that minigun operator. Hopefully, they won’t see us until it’s too late.”

  Reznik and Rin mounted up and pulled around the side of the hill and out onto the open plain. The Ares 13 was a reassuring presence clomping along behind them. Reznik just hoped the advantage of surprise would be enough.

  ***

  Marcus watched nervously through the slats in the side of the cattle truck. The gunfire had died down for the time being. One of the slavers finished attaching a cable to the wall and whistled to the truck driver. He waved his hand over his head and stepped clear.

  The driver revved the engine, and the truck spat dirt from its tires before it got traction. The wall groaned, and then a section snapped off as the truck hauled it away. Twenty or so men charged through the breach into the town with guns ready. It’s now or never, Marcus thought.

  He reached through the slat and felt around for the bolt holding the door shut. He could only get about half of his forearm through before his arm got stuck. Shit, of course it couldn’t be that easy. I need to find something to slip through.

  “Liu, find something I can use to hook the bolt with,” he whispered over his shoulder. He pulled his arm through and tried the next slat down. The knob of the bolt teased his fingers, but he couldn’t get his arm far enough through to move it.

  Liu desperately searched the trailer for something to use. The other slaves watched them with a mixture of hope and fear. Other than unwashed bodies and tattered clothes and blankets there wasn’t anything available—nothing could be used as a weapon or could slide through and hook the bolt.

  “Anybody have a belt or a rope?” Liu asked. A few of the slaves shook their heads, but most didn’t reply.

  “What about your splint?” Marcus asked.

  Liu looked down. “Oh yeah, that might work. But I won’t be much help without it.”

  “I’ll just slide the bolt back at first. I’m not gonna make a break for it right away.”

  Liu was already sliding down the wall to the floor. “Just take it. We can figure out what to do next once you get that door open.”

  Marcus grasped the top of the piece of scrap metal and wriggled it around, trying to loosen it. Liu winced and loosened a couple of the rags that secured it to his leg. The piece o
f metal slid free. Marcus ran back to the door.

  As Marcus reached through the door, the metal scraped off the knob of the bolt, and he almost dropped it. His breath caught in his throat as he barely recovered and held the thin piece of metal between his fingertips. He carefully secured the metal in a firm grasp and tried again. This time, the piece of metal hit the knob solidly. Taking care not to let it slip off and shoot out of his hand, he slightly increased pressure on the knob until it finally began sliding open. The rasping of metal on metal sounded as loud as a gunshot to his ears. He expected Pokornoy to lunge through the door and start hacking them apart with his machete. Several agonizing seconds later, he saw the bolt completely clear the gap between the door and the wall.

  Marcus finally exhaled. He pulled the scrap of metal free of the slat and handed it back to Liu. That was when gunfire erupted again.

  ***

  What the hell have I gotten myself into? This is not a smart move at all, Rin thought. It might not have been a wise move, but somehow it felt like the right one. She thought about the vow she had made to her brother and herself. The path to redemption is long and hard, but I have to begin making up for past mistakes sometime. This little town in the middle of nowhere is as good a place to start as any, I suppose.

  She had swung her hoverbike into a wide circle toward the rear of the town but made sure to keep it in sight so she could get there quickly should the need arise. Fortunately, there was a Datalink signal here by the town, which would make it easier to coordinate their actions.

  Rin was just cruising parallel to the north side of the town, almost out of sight of the main group of slaver vehicles by the gate, when a buggy came around the east corner of town. The buggy swerved and began racing right toward her. She lay low over the body of her bike and punched the throttle, making straight for the town, where she hoped to reach cover. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the gun turret on the cattle truck turning in her direction. This might get ugly, she thought as the first bullet from the buggy whizzed past her head. And then the minigun opened fire.

  ***

  “There’s a light vehicle moving to engage Rin,” Ichiro reported.

  “Light it up,” Reznik said. He glanced over and saw Rin cutting hard toward the town. The gun turret on the top of the cattle truck swiveled in her direction. They haven’t seen us yet though.

  Thoomthoomthoomthoom. The Ares 13 cut loose beside Reznik. Brass sprayed everywhere like a swarm of angry bees around the bot as it concentrated its fire on the dune buggy. Rounds stitched the ground just past Rin, the sprays of kicked-up dirt tracing a line across the stony ground. Then the bullets punched through the light vehicle. The windshield disintegrated, and body parts and pieces of the buggy were ripped loose into the air. A small explosion erupted from the vehicle and it drifted to a stop, smoke rising from the back end.

  “One vehicle down,” Ichiro crowed through the bot’s speaker. Smoke poured from the twin autocannons as the robot stopped firing.

  “Watch out for that minigun!” Reznik shouted over the Datalink. Rin didn’t reply, and then the minigun’s barrel lit up as it began firing roughly four thousand rounds per minute at its target.

  Come on, Rin—get out of its sights! Reznik cursed in frustration as he could see now that the gun nest was armored 360 degrees around. He fired a shot from the Tachibana into the side of the gun turret in frustration. The .308 round didn’t even make a dent that he could see through the scope.

  The minigun’s rounds tore up the ground as the stream of fire neared Rin’s path. She veered away from the path of the bullets and then made it to cover behind the corner of the town’s wall. The gunner began firing into the top of a low building as he tried to get a bead on Rin.

  She made it. He could see her from his location, but the gunner on top of the semi was firing blindly at her position behind the wall and low buildings. Splinters of debris flew off the building as the minigun tore it apart.

  “Let’s take this fucker out,” he said. “Cover me.” He punched the throttle of the hoverbike, seeing that the gunner was distracted. Another dune buggy began moving in his direction, but the thundering of Ichiro’s autocannons sounded behind him again. The buggy tried to swerve, but all it succeeded in doing was to present a wider target as its flank was exposed. The bot’s 30mm rounds carved into the vehicle, and blood sprayed as the slavers flopped around like puppets in the cockpit. The crippled buggy continued to putter back toward the cluster of vehicles parked in front of the town at little more than walking speed.

  Reznik looked back up at the gun nest and saw a head pop up from the turret. A burly man hoisted a gun to his shoulder and took aim. It had a wide barrel and a canister with a belt of ammo feeding it. The weapon flashed on his HUD as it was identified as a Russian-made AGS-17.

  “Shit… grenade launcher.” He hit the handbrake of the bike and raised the Tachibana, but it was too late. The canister was rotating full-auto as the man lobbed grenades over the buildings toward Rin.

  She swerved as explosions began blooming around her, but then she went down a short distance from the wall as the result of what appeared to be a direct hit. Oh, shit—no!

  And then Reznik had the gunner in his sights. He squeezed the trigger just as the man moved. Blood spurted from the back of his head, and the man crumpled into the gun nest.

  “Got him. Go check on Rin—I’ll secure the truck.” The Ares 13 lumbered off in the direction of their fallen companion. He briefly weighed leaving the slaves to their own devices so he could go help Rin but then decided against it. By the time he pulled up beside the cattle truck, he was regretting his decision. Slavers began spilling out of the breach in the wall, and he didn’t have time to think about it anymore.

  ***

  Marcus kicked the door open as Liu leaned on his shoulder. The whole truck rattled and vibrated deafeningly as the machine gun on the roof fired and shells rained down everywhere. At least whoever is shooting up there can’t hear us, he thought. He wondered who was attacking the slavers since he had heard the distant rumble of weapons fire before the slavers responded.

  There weren’t any slavers in sight, so Marcus gripped Liu by the forearms and lowered him to the ground. The splint was stuck back through its bindings, and his friend wobbled before he caught his balance against the side of the truck.

  Marcus hopped down. The breach in the wall of the town was about a hundred feet away to their left. He thought about hiding inside the town but decided against it almost immediately. The majority of the slavers had just gone in there and were no doubt searching for hiding townspeople. That left taking their chances trying to run and hide in the wasteland or stealing a vehicle.

  Most of the trucks were abandoned around them. The buggies and the gunner on top of the semi were keeping lookout.

  “We’ve got to take one of their trucks,” he yelled to Liu over the clamor. “Come on.”

  Liu grunted noncommittally and hopped along with one arm on Marcus’s shoulder. Marcus looked back into the trailer when they reached the rear, expecting the slaves to be pouring out of the open door right behind them. He was shocked to see them hanging back.

  “What are you waiting for?” he cried. “Run for it!”

  One of the slaves pointed behind Marcus just as the machine gun on the roof of the truck stopped firing. In that brief moment of quiet, a single gunshot rang out.

  Liu suddenly gasped and sagged weakly, nearly pulling Marcus to the ground. Marcus twisted as he tried to turn around and keep his friend from falling at the same time.

  “Where do you cocksuckers think you’re going?” the weasel-faced man was yelling.

  Behind him, Marcus saw several more slavers run back outside the town, attracted by the gunfire. The small man was pointing his pistol at Marcus, whose eyes were drawn to the smoke curling from the barrel.

  “Liu?” He had just put two and two together and looked down at his friend when the gun barked again.

  Marcus
didn’t even feel the bullet strike him in the head. He just saw the world spin around him, and then his face was in the dirt. Darkness closed around him.

  ***

  Reznik swerved his bike just as five men rushed out of the break in the wall, firing pistols and SMGs. The targets seemed to go into slow motion as his HUD picked out and highlighted each of them. The men stopped and took aim. Reznik put a bullet through the chest of one of the men with the Tachibana before he swerved behind the cab of the semi, putting cover between them. Bullets peppered the ground and then the hoverbike before he reached cover. His HUD flashed a damage indicator as a round hit him in the shoulder.

  Dropping the rifle, Reznik let off the throttle. He pulled the AK-47 from its makeshift holster near his foot and dove off the slowing bike, rolling under the trailer. He took up a good prone position and tucked the assault rifle into his shoulder.

  The slavers rushed around the front of the truck. Reznik opened up with the AK, firing a burst and hitting the first two slavers center mass. Those two dropped while the second two men scrambled backward, firing wildly. He could just see their legs below the cab as they retreated. Reznik squeezed off a single shot and kneecapped each of them. The men cried out as they fell. Rolling out from under the truck, Reznik double-tapped both of them: one bullet to the chest, one to the head.

  Reznik got back to his feet and advanced, cautious in case any of the men had body armor. One man was wearing a Kevlar vest and suddenly sat up, firing a burst from his SMG at Reznik. A bullet to the forehead dropped him back to the ground before his shots got close. The other three were dead, along with the first one he had shot with the rifle.

  Peering inside the trailer, Reznik saw a large number of people huddling in the shadows. The enclosed space reeked of unwashed bodies and human excrement.