Prologue

It was an average morning.

As average as a morning running with a group of raiders in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The meteors hit… eh, a while ago. Don't remember how long it was. Haven't seen the sun in a while. Haven't really been counting the days either.

I was "rescued" by a group of raiders led by a former soldier who now is only known as "The Beast." They said join us or we'll kill you, well, what would anyone have done.

The first few, I guess you could call them "weeks" (no way of telling anymore) were a bit rough. I had to yell at innocent civilians, take everything from them then either kill them there or leave them for dead. Needless to say, I didn't like it.

I got a bit more used to it though. Never fully adjusted to the idea of cold-blooded murder. However, it was my only chance at survival. If I showed any sign of weakness or disobeyed the Beast, I would be killed for sure. If I managed to get away, then it'd be a few hours before I was crawling back. If I had the resolve to not go back to them, then I'd be spending my time with corpses until I inevitably starved to death.

So, it was the Raiders or nothing.'

Eventually, I took up the name Stormdog. It was storming when they found me. "Dog" was a common name that the Beast used when shouting orders. I picked up the name shortly after.

This particular morning, (I was guessing it was morning anyway) we were tasked with raiding a local village of civilians trying to live in peace. There was no such thing as peace anymore. We could live like kings, just had to take what we wanted. I was a simple guy, though, all I wanted was what I needed. We had raided this village many times before.

As we advanced on the ruins, something was different. The air smelled of diesel fuel, the kind that tanks used. There weren't any of the civs wandering about. That's when we spotted them.

The Rubinelle Army.

Fuckin' hell, I thought the meteors tore the Rubes apart.

Guess I was wrong. But, whatever, how much trouble could a ragtag remnant of a battalion of Rubes be?

The Beast shouted to us over radio. "Take what you want, roaches, kill em' all!" Then, it was up to our unit commanders to take control of us dogs.

Our sergeant marched us right in. We ran through artillery fire until we saw the first infantry, raised our weapons and shot.

I couldn't confirm any kills but we made our way through, didn't lose a guy, but that was just the beginning.

Next, we hit a recon unit, lost 4 guys. We had 6 left. We ran into enemy tanks, a shell hit the ground in the middle of our unit, and took our sergeant and heavy gunner. Fuck, this was going to hell, and fast.

Thoughts of death crossed my mind. I didn't want to die, but it seemed like paradise compared to this battle. The tank got hit by one of our artillery units, but that wasn't the end of it. We got hit by more artillery ourselves, I saw the last three guys go. Jammer, Tick, Killcage. They screamed as the shells hit. I saw one come straight for me.

I turned and tried to run. I got about 8 feet, then I heard a sharp crack, followed by a blast.

Then I was flying.

Then I wasn't.

I hit the ground, face-first, and that was all I remember.