The rest of the freed-up space had been filled by a 10ton infantry bay and a 13ton cargo bay. They should have loaded Nighthawks for the scouts to use, but instead they were loading 8 of the lower tech Weasels that were based off of a recovered Inner Sphere design. The rest of the space for the missing suits was being filled up with extra spare parts, tools, extra ammunition, and small arms. The same was true of the large cargo bay that had been added to the old warship. All so that they could stay on mission longer. A mission that only had 8 shots out of its main long ranged weapon, should not be called a long mission. But they had not asked him for his opinion when the mission had been thought of and then planned out.
He gave a snort as he thought about their mission, and that he had volunteered for it. It had taken two full days to get from the drop point in the open ocean, until they pulled into this small bay. A small bay that was on this small island, that would be their base of operations. It was a very nice island with about 150 acres of hard woods covering the land. It even had a long dock that went into the deepest water of the bay that they had just entered. The key was that the sea dock had a metal covered area that was meant to keep a mega yacht out of the weather. That covered area, with a few select modifications would act like a small sub pen from any Cylon over flights.
Robin Wenutu had given the location of this 150-acre island to the SLDF, for a price. The fact that she knew about this mission caused SLIC to take a hard look at information handling. Still it was too perfect for this mission to take a pass on, not after they were told that it was only a day’s sail from the capital of the whole planet. The cargo shuttle and two Raptors that had come off the old liner had dropped off a lot of cargo. It was a list of items that had been selected from what had been left on the Ragnar anchorage.
In some of the now open space on those three craft, where spaces filled with items taken from the large home build into the wood line. The scouts had landed and looked around the island, to make sure it was “safe”. They had not found any Cylons or living humans on this one time awfully expensive hideaway. They had found four skeletons that had died from unknown causes while they were looking for threats. Clan grade systems had taken DNA samples from those four bodies, and they had gone with all of the personal items from the home into the cargo shuttle.
The newly named SLDF ship Sneaky would stay under that metal covering for the next few days. The 7-person crew and the 8 scout troopers would use this time to break up the cargos that had been dropped off from Ragnar. It also would give them some time outside and under green trees. Both of those items would be in short supply while they were on mission. It also gave them some time to get to know where they would be living for the near future.
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Sargent Van Barfoot’s eyes popped open. Normally you would scout in pairs, but thanks to the abilities of both sets of PA(L)s that the SLDF had access to. You could spend a few days alone while on a mission. This let you cover a lot more ground with the same number of people, if they were good and they had the right kind of support.
Lt John Basilone had spread out his 8-man unit over a huge area. Van was currently over watching a coastal highway, that looked to have been used in the recent past. It was only a set of wheel tracks going over a small landslide, but it was a sign that someone had been using this route between major rainstorms. The armor that covered Van’s suit was not as high tech as the Nighthawks, but it had been proven effective in testing against Cylon weapons and sensors. If you were still enough, and the light was right it was very effective. Even the human eye would not notice you, and that was the gold standard of hiding.
Van reset his alarm and went back to scanning the local area. He would doze off in a while, that was just the nature of the job. Two hours later his eyes opened again, but it was for a different alarm. This time it was because of his acoustic and then motion detectors had sent an alert ringing in his ears. Something was coming, and Van shifted just a little to get a better view of were his systems were saying that the threat was coming from.
A package truck, that was clearly well past being on its last legs came smoking around a distant corner of the highway at about 20 or 30kph. It was not moving fast enough to make the amount of smoke it was leaving behind. Its engine was just that far gone, as it left a cloud of unburned fuel or as the Colonials sometimes called it Castellumeline, or Eline and oil in a grey/black fog behind it. This was the first real sign of surviving Colonials, that he had seen since being dropped off the bottom of the low hovering liner.
Van had been ordered NOT to make contact with any Colonials. He was to report when safe and then await orders to come from the LT. They could always track them down later, to wherever they were hiding from the Cylons. That would not be easy, not if they had been alive this long. There was a good chance that this could always be a Cylon trap. The Ex human form Cylons had provided a huge amount of information on Cylon counter human tactics.
Van watched the delivery truck as it passed right below where he was perched, and thankfully it kept going for another few hundred meters. And then it came to a slow stop. Van went on edge, as he worried about if he had been spotted or not. An older man and two kids exited the truck not long after it had slowly coasted to a stop in the middle of the weatherworn highway. Van noted that the man was not a human form Cylon, and the Cylons did not make kids. Well unless it was under very special circumstances, which usually ended up with a glowing red spine, then all bets were off. The middle-aged male went to the front of the truck, and he quickly raised the dented hood. Van lost sight of the man, as he seemed to be working on the engine of the rolling wreck.
Van was watching the near threat of the man and truck and he made a rookie mistake. It was the yelling kid, that brought him and the man working under the hood of the truck out of the focus. Both men turned to look were the yelling kid was pointing. Van’s heart froze as his eyes turned to look down the road. A full platoon of Centurions was less than a half a Kilometer away. One part of Van’s mind made a note, that these Cylons looked to be just like the ones that had led the second war against the humans. They did not seem to be up armored or the carrying armored shields types of Centurion. That was strange enough, that Van noticed this bit of information.
Van’s head came back around snake quick, as the man yelled. The two kids jumped back into the old delivery truck in between eye blinks. As Van watched, he could tell that the man was working as fast as he could to fix the engine and save his “family”. There was no way that a human could outrun a Centurion, and everyone knew this as a hard fact of life. Van was still working out what he should do, when the hood slammed down, and the man jumped back into the truck almost as fast as the young kids had done
Van was moving before his mind knew it. He was going to buy enough time for the civilians to escape or he was going to die trying. Rules be Fraked, he was not going to sit around and let them be overrun by these soulless metal monsters. The nice thing about being in light powered armor, it was that you could carry a lot more firepower than a “normal” person. Besides a special backpack, that let Van live away from support for a week without needing to eat any of the local wildlife. He also was packing a Vibroaxe in his right hand and a heavy, if cut down, Mauser pulse laser in his left. He landed in the middle of the road with the truck at his back, and the on rushing Cylons were to his front.
He only waited until his systems stabilized from his jump out of cover onto the road, before he started to charge into the gleaming blades of the on-rushing Centurions. He led his attack by firing his Mauser until he was overwhelmed with the enemy metal ranks. Then he would bring his high-tech ax into play. The vibroaxe was considered one of the hardest melee weapons to learn how to use effectively. But if you spent enough time training with one? It was not that bad, and the ax was designed to be a close in weapon for a few thousand years of human history. This was something that the Cylons were about to learn, the hard way.
When Van was done? He pulled one of the two heads of his ax out of the hips of a Centurion laying on the ground at his own metal covered feet. He had lost track of time in the battle madness. As he looked back down the road, he saw nothing, but metal bodies spread out behind him. Some were blown apart, and others he could tell were cut apart. The truck with the two kids was long gone from where his suits systems could reach. Van didn’t know if he should be upset or thankful, that they had fled while he took out the attacking Cylons.
There was not much else Van could do, so he went back to his overlooking position to survey the whole battlefield from a higher vantage point. He changed the depleted battery in his pulse laser from an extra one in his pack. He had to spend a few extra minutes removing a Centurion blade finger, that had broken off in between two parts of his outer armored cover. Then with his supply pack in one hand, the ax over a shoulder, and the pulse laser with a fresh battery in the other hand. He went up deeper into the tree line for a few hard seconds of running before he adjusted his path. He could do one of two things now that his cover was blown. He could try to track the fleeing humans in the truck, or he could report them to the LT and “Captain”.
In the end, he did a little of both options. He tracked the truck for about 5kms down the coastal highway. He never once saw it again, before he turned and started to slowly make his way to the check in point that was in the opposite direction. He needed to let the rest of his chain of command know about the survivors in this local area, and that he had a run in with Cylons.
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Tiamat walked through the forest covered camp at a carefully measured pace. He made note of a few things, as he walked. One was that he needed to make sure all of the covering sod was watered, and that the latrines smelled like they were full. Tiamat was not his real name, and he was not even the first person to carry that name in this camp of 80 permanent residents. They had learned a long time ago that they needed to make sure that groups of survivors didn’t get to large. This camp was only the center camp, that worked with a few others of a like sized spread out in the local area. It was like the town square of a very spread out village.
And just like in any small village. If something happens out of the norm? The word would spread around like a wildfire pushed by a windstorm. He was on his way to check on what had happened with one of his best scavengers. What rumors had said was so far out there, that he was wondering if someone had slipped something into the village water supply. They had learned a long time ago. That you had to take care of the wildest rumors the fastest, or they could bring a whole camp to its knees or worse.
Tiamat walked into the center of the Village, and to the local bar. As soon as he entered the “bar” he could see the person he was looking for. He took a seat next to the other man and watched him as he drank with shaking hands. Tiamat could tell that the other man was shaken maybe to the breaking point. When the glass touched the bar top, he went fishing.
Tiamat spoke. “Okay, Lee. What happened out there?”
Lee looked at the local leader with wide eyes, almost crazy eyes to the trained observer. “We had a run in with a heavy Centurion patrol. The truck broke down, the fuel filter was fraked up. I think the Eline is going bad, again. While I was working on it. Frog was keeping an eye out for me, and she saw them coming down the road.”
Lee did a head nod towards two kids playing in a dark corner of the room with some hammy down, recovered, and handmade toys. They were left just for kids to use while their “family” let off some steam or just did a little deal of some kind in the center of “town”. Three Tiamats ago had stopped the Quillar traders in this very room. She had done it in such a way, that they had not had to worry about them again.
Tiamat looked over at the kids. Like most people, that survived the first few years of the new Cylon war. Families were more of who had found each other than of blood or marriage. He knew for a fact, that those two kids were not genetically related to Lee in any shape, way, or form. But they were his kids in all the ways that matter to the people in this area. Tiamat noticed that in the way that only kids can do, they knew that they were being talked about.
In a blur of movement one of the kids came flying over. When the slightly dirty kid was within a few feet of the two men, she was almost yelling. “DAD ARE YOU TELLING HIM ABOUT THE WARRIOR OF Hephaestus?” The two men were lucky that the kid automatically adjusted her voice volume down, as she had closed the distance on the bar stools.
The kid flew into Lee’s arms, but quickly Lee sat the maybe 8 year old girl back down on the rough cut floor boards. “Now Frog. You know it’s not nice to interrupt adults, when they are talking. Go back and play with your sister.”
The girl didn’t go all the way back to the play area, after her legs had been put back on the floor. Tiamat used that time the interplay took, to think. Hephaestus was the Patron god of his world. He was known to make things. He was most famous for making the Lightning Bolts for Zeus. He also makes mechanical things that ranged from owls to mechanical soldiers. When Greystone’s Cylons had first came onto the market, they were often referred to as the Guards of Hephaestus. It was only after a lot of money was spent, that the name of Cylons stuck as a name for those devices, and the name Hephaestus Guards fell out of even reference usage. Maybe that had turned out to be a good thing after all.
Lee turned back to the bar and drank the last few swallows of his moonshine. When the empty glass hits the bar top, he was ready to finish his story. “When Frog let me know about the Cylons. I told them to get the frak back into the van. I broke all records getting my clean spare fuel filter put back on, and I hopped in after them. I knew we were not going to make it. The beast is not as fast as she used to be, even if we still had the right fuels for her.”
Lee’s head was shaking to match his hands and a tear went down one cheek. “Tiamat, I didn’t fraking think we would escape. I Fraking knew that we were all dead. Then this Hephaestus’ Guard just jumped onto the middle of the road big as day. Now Tiamat. I had looked around when the engine fraking stopped and I had to work out what I think was an air bubble. We were alone! Then it was there, and it charged right into the wave of running Cylons. It was like it was being guided by the hands of the Gods!”
“Come on Lee. You really believe that?” Tiamat had been listening to what the best salvager in the area had said. He was a very good listener, as well as being able to make the right decision when it mattered the most.
Frog had been just within earshot, and she had not liked it that the leader didn’t believe her father or her. She took it kind of personal, like some kids who have seen too much of the horrors of the real world do. “He even had a singing ax!! And he shot lightning bolts out of his other hand! I saw the whole thing!”
Lee quickly turned around and raised is voice just enough. “GIRL!! GET BACK To Your Sister!! OR you will go to bed without supper!”
When the girl known as Frog jumped wide eyed, and then fled to the other side of the room. Lee locked eyes with the human leader of this area of the planet. “Frog is not totally wrong. It was a metal man, but not a Cylon. It had a two headed ax, that hummed, and as crazy as it sounds. He did shoot some kind of lightning bolt weapon out of his other hand. They were watching to see if the Cylons were still coming after us, and I saw it out of the side mirror. I swear it was a Hephaestus’ Guard! And that was before I started to calm my nerves.”
Tiamat was on guard. “Why didn’t you fraking call for help?” He had to get to the bottom of this. This was the type of story that could lead to blood on the ground. If he did not get ahead of this and talk some sense into this man, before it blew up even more around the camp? There would be blood on the ground by night fall.
Lee sat his glass down one more time and gave the leader a level look. “I tried!! Frog’s ear wigs couldn’t pick up my box radio from the back door of the Fraking van. It was like the hands of the gods had cut off all communication, until we were a good way away from that thing!!” The last words were muffled, as Lee went back into his drink to try to kill the memories.
Lee held up one finger, and the bartender refilled his glass with about two fingers deep of the clear liquid. Lee picked it up, smelled it, and then took another long pull with still slightly shaking hands. When the bartender had walked out of earshot, to refill someone else’s empty glass. Tiamat made eye contact with the head bartender, who was sitting at the other end of the bar top. He held up four spread fingers. Lee was going to get four more fingers of white liquor on Tiamat’s tab, all without a single word needing to be said.
The leader left the bar and walked back to his office. He knew that Lee believed what he saw, and he was scared bone deep. This little camp depends on Lee and his family, to make those high-risk scavenging runs to cities and towns now dead. If Lee didn’t make another run to do some scavenging for the needed items? This camp and the others nearby were in serious trouble. He also needed to find out what really happened out there.
When he got back to his office, he sent for the commander of the defenders. By now everyone knew how to use weapons. But some were better than others with the few weapons they had. And then there was the group that had the right mind set to do this kind of job for an extended amount of time. Over the last few years, the number with both the skills and mindset had been reduced to only the good, lucky or both.
He had been in that group before becoming the local leader, after the last one had let the power get to his head. When he gave the mission to the defender’s leader. He had wanted to go along with them on this mission. That had not gone over well with the current military commander. It was pointed out, that he was too important to risk on a mission where they might run into Cylons. If someone had taken down a few Centurions? Then it was a good bet, that reinforcements would be sent from the handful of Cylon bases left on the planet or in orbit.
The reaction team took off on the few trucks that both worked, and that they had “good” fuel for. Even with the trucks, it was accepted that they would not return until sometime the next morning. Only a fool would drive at night with head lights on, and their last set of night vision devices had long since given up the ghost. When they left the camp. All Tiamat could do was walk around the camp some more to reassure everyone, that the guard force leaving was not that big of a deal. The fact that they had left to check out the story would leak out soon enough.
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Tiamat didn’t sleep very well while most of the defense force was away from “his” camp. It was not that he was afraid of an attack by the Cylons. It was that something was up. And he had no idea how it was going to affect the people, that looked to him to both stay alive and be somewhat safe. Before the sun was up, he was waiting at the main gate out of the camp with his hand shoved deep in his light coat’s pockets. He was just starting to wear a path across the dirt road, that had led everyone to this location deep in the mountains from the seacoast and city slums.
When he heard an engine straining to make it up the muddy, steep, and more of a trail than a road. He knew that his waiting was over. The leader of the mission jumped out of the first truck and waved for it to go the rest of the way without him. He did not have to take more than two steps, before Tiamat was at his side.
