Chapter 1
As she trudged through the desert, taking dry, hot gasps of air and struggled against the blazing desert sun, she was unaware she was a party to her own murder. You had to watch yourself out here, the desert plays tricks with a persons head. But she trusted her crew, they were like her family...in times these tough, you had to rely on something. And for her, it was her crew. They used to have hover crafts that whooshed over the dunes, allowing them to patrol these wastes like kings. But times change, the cost of fossil fuels increased every day, resources were dwindling and with the climate so unstable budgets were being cut in every sector of government. A few years ago, her Mother has gotten very sick with pneumonia. She had been caring for them both on her tiny salary for years and there was simply no money for medication. Her Mother pleaded with her to sell an organ on the Black Market to fund the antibiotics that would save her life: however, trafficking in organs was illegal, and she would not do it. As her Mother died in her arms, her eyes pleading with her to be saved, gasping for her last breath...her primary thought was, wow this world is fucked.
But she had gotten up the next day and gone to work, because really, what else could she do? As they reached the rise of the next dune, they dropped to the hot sand, unhooked their canteens from their belts and refreshed themselves. Some of the crew liked to pour their canteen over their heads the heat was so bad, but she was older, more cautious...she took a small sip from her canteen, and swirled it around in she mouth before swallowing. It felt fantastic, but she controlled herself. She had been caught out here too many times and run out of water to be wasteful of such a precious resource...for precious it was indeed. She shook her head as she thought of how as a child she used to shower in drinking water...how times had changed. And not for the better. She lifted her hand to brush back a strand of her hair and cringed at the oily horror. She tried to keep it as clean as she could but she could barely afford the product that kept it from smelling...groaning she raised herself up again and scanned the landscape for any threats. Off to the southeast, something caught her eye as it glinted in the distance. She immediately dropped down and signalled to her crew. They took combat positions and crawled to the top of the rise to assess the threat. She took out her binoculars and gazed into the distance, uncertain what she would find but on high alert none the less. Can't be too careful she thought to herself as she saw what looked to be a caravan being pulled through the sand by emaciated looking horses. Many figures, their gender unclear as they were cloaked in the desert styles of many layers of billowing clothing roamed around the caravan mounted on more horses. That did not concern her. What concerned her was that they were all carrying high powered semi-automatic machine guns and the caravan bore the symbol of the vulture: scavengers of the desert, these sand pirates roamed the wastes, braving the sand storms and harsh conditions to eek out a living pecking off the corpses of those forced to travel these wretched stretches of damaged coastline. She looked at her crew, and did a quick calculation in her head about their chances...it didn't look good. However protocol clearly demanded they immediately arrest the group: displaying the vulture symbol alone was a felony, an invitation to be arrested as far as she was concerned.
"Okay guys, listen up. We have to do this, we have got no choice. We all signed up for this when we took the job, so no moaning or chicken licking, you got it? we are going in, and you guys are going to make me proud, no matter how this ends. I'm just going to get a better look and work out what angle we should go in at...I would kill for a set of comms to call back up, but I should quit dreaming...those things never work out here..." she sighed wistfully as she turned and put her binoculars back on, to survey the group of bandits. As she heard the motor on her first officers plasma rifle start to whir up she started to turn, but felt hard hands grip her shoulders, her arms, her neck..."We have got families, you don't understand..." Rick stammered, or at least she was pretty sure it was Rick...the wavering, adolescent voice was a give away. Looking through the binoculars at her only asset, she said "The vultures will hear the shot, and you will be pecked clean just like everybody else..." with only a slightly odd pitch to her voice. Damn the recession, it claims another victim she thought, almost letting out a dry chuckle but was aware it could easily turn into a sob. She tried to lower her binoculars to wipe the gritty sand from her eyes, but the hands that painfully gripped her arms prevented her. The harsh taste of betrayal stung her mouth and the sand chaffed her eyes, but it was the sand she blamed for the single tear that ran down her cheek. Her crew was not her family after all, and were in fact now her killers. This world is so fucked. Maybe oblivion wont be so bad after all she thought as she turned her head up sharply to stare directly into the sun, resolute to the end...and then everything exploded.