"Maybe," she said cautiously. "I had a lot on my mind, plus, I was pretty sore..."
Remi smiled broadly in response, turning away to tap at his little console. Trix made a game of spotting the occasional tree in the scrubland. Now that they had passed the last forested area, the land was a uniform yellowish-brown color. The rare trees looks fairly unhealthy. Jagged cliffs were even more prevalent now that there was nothing to break up the landscape. They rose against the horizon line to the west, menacing the vehicles a little more with each kilometer.
"Water soon," Remi observed. Trix looked down over his shoulder and saw that he had a map on display over most of the screen.
"There," Ida said, pointing her left hand to the east.
Trix looked over the top of the buggy and saw a huge expanse of blue just beginning on the horizon. Geologists had suggested that the desert and the ocean that bordered it shifted regularly based on time-lapse studies they had performed with the current data. As they neared the large equator, the command vehicle would be actively mapping the terrain for the cartographers, geologists and myriad other environmental scientists. Trajectory^Up's mission plan was to travel south until they reached impassible ocean then parallel the mountains as they returned north in search of a defensible site with arable land. Once found, the team's engineer and mechanic would assemble the command vehicle's artillery into stationary units set into the cliffs. Once the site was secure, the team would return and escort volunteer pioneers back to the new city. That was the plan at least.
"It looks like a
lot
of water," Trix commented absently, half distracted by her own daydreams of injecting Thor with doctor-prescribed roofies and kicking him, a lot.
"Yes, I think we may be turning back faster than anyone anticipated."
"Ida, break off and move southeast, 45 degrees from current heading," Remi said, inputting trajectory commands into his map. The whole thing was linked between all of the vehicles in the convoy and they'd been given free reign for the time being.
It didn't take long for them to reach the coast, and Trix could see that it was in fact a coast, not the edge of a lake. In the distance, blue water faded all the way to the shimmering horizon. She had noticed the air temperature rising in the upper left of her HUD but hadn't really paid attention. Their armor had internal cooling and warming mechanisms and would keep a human body at a tolerable temperature for days if the systems weren't damaged. It was a little disconcerting to be walking around with flammable lithium-ion batteries in various places throughout the armor, but the benefits far outweighed the risks. The suits had been tested and retested, armor reinforced in places where it was needed, and overall, state-of-the-art combat gear would hold up far longer than the body inside of it. You could be dead five times over before a battery burst its fuel cell and lit you on fire.
Not as reassuring when you think about it that way
, Trix mused.
"It looks like there's nothing but ocean as far south as we can see," Remi said thoughtfully as Ida tracked along the coastline. "Aerial, what's it look like from up there?"
Trix perked up, curious if they had finally reached the turning point.
"Same as you can see, no land for miles, if at all, before the landmass south of the equator. There are some odd rock formations that run straight down into the water. They don't look natural."
"Tech-8, this is Isaac in APC-2, come alongside while we reposition."
"Aerial is deploying automated scouts," the co-pilot's deep voice cut into the comm.
"All ground units, close formation," Thor growled, "Headings uploaded, we're going to get closer to the mountains for the return trip."
"Faster than I expected," Trix commented as Ida spun the wheel to return to the main body. They were still a kilometer away when the first landmine erupted beneath the buggy on the farthest western end of the formation. The comm exploded in orders and chatter, Trix switched immediately to their fireteam channel, not wanting to get distracted. Ida let up on the accelerator and they glided along the tightly packed dirt and sand. When another explosion ripped through the afternoon, Ida braked completely.
Trix watched as fire engulfed two of the technicals in the distance. They were fairly close to the unnatural rock formations, and now she saw what the pilot had been referring to. Each rock was spaced about two hundred meters apart and they were fairly uniform in size and shape. They sliced up through the horizon like miniature Washington monuments, obelisk-like in appearance. Suddenly, as if following a coordinated order, the bases of the nearest ten pillars slid up. Ejecting from each, fast-moving land vehicles swarmed around each other before revving toward the human convoy.
"Shit!" Remi cursed, readying his grenade launcher.
"Aerial, come around and strafe them,
now
! All technicals free, fall back with command team. Form up and prepare anti-vehicle armaments," Thor bellowed on the comm override channel, his voice reaching every helmet that was still active.
Trix checked her magazine and cleared the bolt, just in case. She quickly swapped out her Sharps for Drills, hoping that she had enough armor-penetrating ammo to deal with this many vehicles. They had primarily loaded Sharp and Burn, thinking their main enemy would be infantry. Previous encounters with the aliens hadn't indicated that they had any advanced mobility options. The vehicles screaming toward them were small and sleek, a main shaft with curving arms on either side. She wasn't sure how they were propelled, but it looked as if something like jets gave them lift, with a main propulsion flaming behind each. They streaked along only a meter or so from the ground, forming into little clusters of four or five. When they engaged the trailing APC, Trix saw larger versions of the ground weapons they had already utilized.
As Ida creeped up to rendezvous with Isaac's APC, Trix saw four of the slumpers loose weapons on the other armored carrier. Three of them fired chunky kinetics, the reports thumping over the growl of engines. The other stopped in midair and an array of tubes extended before popping mortar rounds into the sky. The APC's automated defenses snapped into action, little red lasers streaking into the air to intercept the mortar shells before they could land. Trix was distracted by a series of airborne explosions like fireworks as they connected. The APC and technical nearest it had engaged with their own weapons and two of the slumper vehicles took huge swathes of machinegun fire across their main cylinder. The kinetic weapons they had fired rocked the APC in quick succession. Trix could see that they hadn't penetrated the armor when the dust settled, but they had to have done some damage. The hit slumper vehicles wobbled out of the air, slamming down in the dust.
She barely had time to process the implications of that brief encounter when a cluster of little ships streaked into range. Trix held down the trigger and let her compensators absorb the recoil as she led the nearest one, finding her range and then her target. While the slumper she hit went nose first into the dirt, the others scattered, spinning in different directions with hugely superior mobility. Ida was in full defensive mode now, accelerating to at least sixty kilometers per hour and making random movements to avoid incoming fire. Trix hadn't heard any weapons reports from their attackers yet, but it had to be coming. She heard Remi's grenade launcher burping below her as he peppered the ground with proximity charges. A slumper vehicle unlucky enough to try to get behind them ran over one and then went up into the air in two pieces as the grenade split it in half.
The comms were oddly quiet and Trix was lost in her own world of cracking machinegun fire, explosions, and the roar of engines. She rotated the turret to the right and tracked another airborne enemy, letting a stream of heavy rounds loose in its path. It ate most of them, flipping end over end as some critical lift component failed.
"Ida," Remi yelled, "It looks like they are the same type of design as old, Earth fighter planes, weapons only deployable from the front or above. I bet they can't hit us accurately with mortars if we keep moving like this, try not to let any get a clean angle on us though!"
As he spoke, Trix watched another slumper vehicle slide into place directly behind their buggy. Her HUD beeped as Ida spun a sharp 90 degree turn. Trix's aim was fouled and she let up on the trigger, her muzzle searching for another target.
"Mortars!" Ida warned, braking completely.
As the buggy skidded around, anti-lock brakes trying to get traction on the dirt, Trix hunkered down. A roaring series of explosions slammed her around like a ragdoll but no debris or shrapnel hit her, and their technical seemed functional. When she looked up, a series of craters dotted the ground only meters in front of them. Trix found the offending slumper quickly, its tubes still deployed as it hovered near the coast. Right as she loosed a burst, she heard Remi's launcher burp and clenched her eyes shut at the result. When she looked again, the vehicle was slagged debris, flames igniting auxiliary explosions as the vehicle's own munitions burst.
