Little bit of fic to start my Arboris campaign...
Fog hung close to the ground like a dirty coloured shroud, almost totally cloaking Nena Bešlić. Like a phantom the woman slowly rose to her knees, centring her Liao-made FM-30 submachine gun on the ranch building ahead of her.
The O’Malley ranch was a big, rich one and while Stone’s rule had done much to equalise Arboris’ social parameters, the O’Malleys were lords of the area in all but name.
Lords, keeping the true Capellan people down just because they got citizenship. Dis da revolution ma friends, lording end now.
The owners of the ranch had erected a tall, electrified fence around the compound which consisted of the big, two-storey ranch building, a bunk house, several barns and outbuildings. Further back the bulk of several agro-domes blocked out the night sky.
The fence aimed to keep introduced predators out and away from the ranch’s herds of big Erandi cattle. But most predators didn’t come equipped like Nena and her band.
Barely moving her lips she spoke into the mic wrapped around her throat.
“Goes,”
Immediately the night lit up with flame and flashes as several small charges attached to the compound’s generator and radio tower inside the fence exploded. Tracers cut from the darkness all around her as half a dozen insurgents opened up with small arms.
Over the roar of the autorifles all around her Nena could hear the distinct sound of smashing glass and a high pitched feminine scream from the building.
A new sound overran everything else as the big diesel engines of the two all terrain vehicles parked nearby started up.
T he two vehicles quickly surged forward and Nena got a quick glimpse of dark figures standing with their hands wrapped around the butterfly grips of a semi-portable machine gun mounted atop each vehicle, before the two ATVs smashed through the now useless fence.
Lights spilled from the bunk house as the main door was flung open and dark figures stumbled out – only to be cut down by the barking hack of an autorifle – from behind.
Good thing we bought off about half of dem boys.
The sounds had retired to just the occasional crack and the insurgent leader pushed herself up.
“For Liao! For freedom! C’mon me boys – move, move!” she yelled. Levelling the little bullpup SMG she let off a long burst at the main house.
She knew the heavy Ironbark trunks that made up the building’s wall would easily deter the 10mm rounds of her weapon but certainly made her feel better.
Within five minutes the insurgents had rounded up the survivors – a dozen vaqueros and ranch hands, half again that many women and children and the O’Malley family: a tall rangy man in his 50s with dark skin, his wife who was almost two decades his junior and two young boys who shared their mother’s butter yellow hair.
One of her men approached Nena a compact sat-phone in his hands. He was one of her original cadre, trained by the Mask offworld.
Most of this group were newbies – disenfranchised farm workers, labourers and the like along with students radicalised at the Kansas Plain University and a handful of Militia deserters.
“O’Malley managed to get a call out on the phone. We’ve traced it right to the Constabulary barracks in Townsend,” he said.
Nena grinned. “Dis good – all part of the plan,”
Taking the plastic phone she stalked forward like a bug jungle cat. She was born and raised on a planet with a high gravity that Arboris’ sickly 0.98 gravities and could easily overpower most of the local weaklings.
“Listen in. All you boys and girls now freed from tyrant Stone and his Republic. This patch of land officially now the property of the glorious Capellan Confederation and the Arboris Freedom Army.
“You don have to bow and scrape to dis man anymore – you free.” She indicated O’Mally with the barrel of her weapon.
She could see now that he was sporting a serious shiner and his wife had a shallow cut just above her right eye.
“Anyone who wanna stay with his kind can do so now. The rest – you free now.”
There was much shuffling of feet until, eventually two of the older ranch hands and their woman stepped over to stand behind the master. One younger boy tried to move but was held back by the gnarled hand of one of her insurgents.
Nena turned to her second in command. “Lock the women and children in the bunk house - and lock them in there tight. Any recruits we get, gather up and get them straight to Lung Wang base. And make sure no body goes too far this time or they answer to me.”
Already the former ranch hands and servants were looting the compound, emerging from the main building with armloads of liquor and valuables.
Two men – both former trusted supervisors snatched the O’Malley woman away from her husband, who yelled out and tried to stop them and received a quick chop in the throat for his efforts.
Raising her SMG Nena cut the ranch owner down with a short quick burst.
“Let’s get this show on the road.”
Ten kilometres north a small convoy of Constabulary vehicles screamed down the highway. In the front passenger seat of the second vehicle Major Killian Mai Lee tried to read the map projected onto the small LED screen in front of him all the while trying to keep his dinner down.
“Dammit, kid – can’t you keep this thing steady?” he growled. The convoy was still at least half an hour from the O’Malley homestead – they’d only got a brief, garbled report of bandit activity and had no idea what to expect.
“Bandit activity my arse – there’s a whole bloody revolution going on that the Legate is still ignoring,” he growled.
Peering out the truck’s front window he squinted to try and see the lead vehicle through the gloom – when the light suddenly exploded with flames.
The lead vehicle was now a flaming wreck, laying on itside.
All around him the night opened up with explosions and gun fire.
Someone was screaming about mines when Lee’s windscreen exploded inwards, peppering him with shards of glass, and the vehicle lurched to onside. “Kid! Kid! What are you doing?”
Lee reached across and grabbed his driver by the scruff of the neck as the truck spun further out of control.
His hand came away slick with blood but Lee only had a second to process the information before the vehicle smashed into a roadside berm. For a second everything jumped and threw itself around.
Sitting, dazed Lee stared through the shattered windscreen as the rattle of gunfire intensified.
“We’re under attack! Zero Alpha this is Townsend Central – we’re being overrun here,” the radio suddenly squawked.
Painfully the Constabulary officer reached forward to grab the radio. “Dammit, i know we’re under attack – I’m laying in a bloody ditch here,” he yelled, groping at his seatbelt’s quick release button.
“Zero – this is Central. I aint talking about you guys – this is Central station, we got multiple hostiles shooting at us right now. It looks like they’re going for the vehicle park.”
Another attack? These sure as hell aren’t bandits!
