alright, first off, this story is connected to a story by Cybroid and Drac0tam3r Rod called War For Freedom. and yse, those links should bounce you to their profiles and the other story. i will not say how they are connected, but it may come up in War For Freedom before it does in Liberation.
anyway, now that that is out of the way, i hope yall enjoy this and i am begging you to review the crap out of this.
"No matter how close we are to another person, few human relationships are as free from strife, disagreement, and frustration as is the relationship you have with a good dog. Few human beings give of themselves to another as a dog gives of itself. I also suspect that we cherish dogs because their unblemished souls make us wish - consciously or unconsciously - that we were as innocent as they are, and make us yearn for a place where innocence is universal and where the meanness, the betrayals, and the cruelties of this world are unknown." -Dean Koontz
Wanderer, North of Denver, Colorado, December 2031
I sighed as I sat down in the dining room of an abandoned house, having just narrowly dodged a Korean People's Army patrol. The small home was torn and tattered, looters having ripped anything of value out of the home likely years ago, but even then, the furniture was in fairly decent condition, making the padded dining room chair still comfortable next to the wooden table. I rested my near century old M1 Garand on my lap, my small ruck sack already dropped beside me. My eyes closed as I slouched in the chair, not for the first time simply wanting to give up my one man war against the KPA, feeling like I hadn't even made a dent in the KPA's power. A wet nose poked my hand, making me smirk. A one man one dog war. I opened my eyes and leaned forward, rubbing the top of the gorgeous German Shepard's head, even though there was a rig strapped on it. The rig was a battery, centered on the top of her head, with a pair of straps dropping on either side of her ears. Over her right ear were two small cylinders, one a camera, one a small signal flashlight. Running behind and into her left ear was a small earbud and mike, allowing me to give her commands over the radio and hear her make any alert noises. She was also wearing a tight faded olive vest with Kevlar soft plates in it, covering her chest and ribcage. On this vest was a radio as well as small vibrators and gentle shockers, designed to allow someone to remotely give her movement commands. She wagged her tail as I scratched behind her ear, a pleasured expression on her face. I smiled again and stopped, earning a pair of licks from her.
"What do you say girl, should we keep trying to find a way into Denver?" she barked so softly that one might have thought it was a recording. It was something that was special to her, being able to change the volume of her bark. Her bark was almost like she was saying yes. She always seemed to understand what I was saying, something that had always annoyed her original handler to no end.
"You sure Roxy?" she barked in confirmation again, drawing another smile to my face and earning her another ear scratch.
"Alright gal. let's go. Maybe if we go back north on twenty-five, then west on one oh fourth, that will get us out of their patrol areas and let us drop down to the west side of the wall." I shrugged as I spoke aloud, almost to myself as I did my best to picture the Denver area in my head. I grabbed my ruck sack off the floor and headed for the shattered glass door leading to the back yard. She followed me out into the yard, a simple hand gesture telling her to be on alert. I walked over to the back fence and rolled the sleeve of my leather jacket up to reveal a thin, clear flexible polymer covering my forearm. One press of a black button caused a blue light to flood the screen, a camera overlay projecting into the right lens of the built in ballistic glasses on my helmet. I could see myself in it and smirked, knowing the camera on her head was still working before I lifted her up high enough to see over the fence.
"Scan." Her head traversed back and forth at my whisper, letting me see the deserted back yard beyond. I set her down and took a few steps back, the fresh snow crunching softly under my feet. I faced the fence and slung the rifle so that the strap was diagonally across my chest, then ran at the fence and leapt. I managed to get high enough with my jump that my arms could easily lock over the other side. My leg swung up onto the fence and I used it to drag myself over and drop to the other side. After a sharp whistle, Roxy's brown paws appeared on the fence, catching her own leap at the fence. Her paws scrabbled against the wood for a second before she managed to haul herself over, dropping right into my waiting arms.
"Good girl." She wagged at my soft whisper and we moved through a collapsed section of fence, into the next yard over. I was about to step into the house when a faint growl slipped out of her. I held a fist down to her before shouldering my M1 and cautiously stepping into the house. As soon as I had a view of the front window, I could see a half dozen KPA soldiers marching through the street, weapons raised and scanning. I almost swore when I saw them, knowing that if they had foot patrols this far out, then cutting north would do me very little good.
Lone Sniper, North of Denver, Colorado
Anya Wood adjusted her grip on the old bolt action rifle she had balanced in her hands. As little about weapons as she knew, she could still admire the beauty of the nineteen forties weapon, with it's deep crimson wood, the barest trace of a sheen on it. she had also wrapped some rough wool over it, hiding most of the wood and the metal of the old scope attached to the Russian rifle, only recognizing it as such due to the soviet factory mark just in front of the silver bent bolt, almost hidden by the raised scope. The raised up scope allowed the user to still use the iron sights on the weapon, in case they were two close for the scope. She kept her finger well away from the trigger as she walked, having learned the hard way what it meant to have a weapon with no safety built into it, unlike the handgun on her hip or the assault rifle on her back. The hand gun was a fair sized forty caliber made by Berretta. She assumed it was called the Px4 Storm, given it was written along the side of the weapon.
The assault rifle on her back was only known to her because of the person she had gotten from, being the sole surviving soldier from his unit. It was a military M468 assault rifle. Ammo for it was less common than it's five point five six millimeter brethren, but, at the same time, ammo was easier to find for it. Most of the five five six ammo was quickly scooped up by resistance fighters or Korean People's Army soldiers. Whereas, six point eight millimeter ammo could still be found on store shelves, left there due to the rarity of six eight chambered rifles. But, although rarer, the six eight rounds hit harder than other assault rifle rounds, punching through KPA body armor like a knife through butter. Her particular rifle had an EO tech holographic sight on it, floating quad pictinny rails for various attachments, fold down magpul back up iron sights, a flashlight, vertical for grip, and a green/Infrared laser assembly. It was also on a single point sling, connected just below the stock, behind the trigger and main grip. Aside from the different caliber and floating rails, it looked very much the same as the M4 and M4A1 that was the standard of the KPA.
Anya shivered slightly as she marched down the street, her assault rifle bouncing on her back. She knew the thin grey hooded sweatshirt she was wearing was hilariously inadequate for the cold winter that was starting, but it was all she had, aside from the thin shirt and tight, ratty jeans she was wearing. She had a belt loosely around her thin waist, a few pouches for her pistol magazines lining it. a small twin double pouch hung off the belt, strapped to her thigh. The larger pouches held four full twenty-eight round magazines for her assault rifle, and she had a bandolier over her shoulder, running under her M468's sling. The bandolier had sixty rounds for her sniper rifle on it, all tucked into individual sleeves. Although the amount of ammo she carried was heavy and somewhat cumbersome, she had slowly learned over the past few years to manage it, even in a direct firefight, although she tried to avoid those at all costs. Her eyes were scanning the street ahead of her almost constantly, trying to see any sign of life. After a while, and a turn into a smaller neighborhood street, she could see a small KPA patrol, consisting of at least half a dozen soldiers. She quickly slid beside one of the houses, noticing a knocked over ladder half buried in the snow. She quickly propped it up on the wall and crawled up to the roof. Once up there, she carefully crawled across the roof to the edge, resting her rifle in the snow so she could line the scope up on them. The scope itself was very simple, just having three pointed bars pointed toward the center, one up from the bottom, and two horizontally from the left and right. She focused on the patrol, noticing that they were full blown soldiers, their armor and helmets colored black and white to help hide them in the snow. One of the soldiers stood out in the group, wearing a deep red beret instead of a helmet. This marked him as an officer of some rank.
Suddenly, all seven of the soldiers jumped, their rifles raising to one of the houses as a loud bark echoed to Anya's ears. Confused, she focused on that building, seeing a black and brown dog in what looked like an olive green vest at one of the front corners. Before the KPA soldiers could move closer, a booming rifle shot rang out, one of the KPA collapsing. Anya hadn't seen the muzzle flash, but the soldiers had all snapped toward a house just three houses down from the dog. She could see a splash of crimson in the snow from the fresh corpse. Movement suddenly caught her eye as the dog darted across the street and behind the hulk of a stripped car. Another bark issued to her and half the KPA flipped around, rifles still raised. Anya took this as her chance to help and focused on the soldier in the beret, lining his head up dead center of the three prongs before she slowly let her breath out. One gentle squeeze of the trigger later, and the rifle was bucking up against her shoulder with a resounding crack. She couldn't see through her scope, but she could clearly see one of the soldiers drop with her naked eye. As soon as she had finished working the bolt, she stared through the scope again. The red bereted soldier was now lying face first in the snow. She lined up on a second soldier, a white puff of smoke already surrounding the muzzle of her rifle. She hesitated, unsure if she should fire again and likely reveal her position. She suddenly decided to sidle over to a small furnace pipe and backed down the roof enough to rest just the barrel of the rifle next to the pipe, on the roof. This forced her to crouch to aim, as she lined up on another soldier. All of them had attempted to find cover from her first shot, one taking cover right next to the dog's cover. But, the dog had smartly flattened to the ground, making it impossible to be seen by the KPA. One of the soldiers peaked up to look for her and she reacted, aiming and firing at his exposed chest. There were shouts as she slid down the roof a small way before she sidled even farther over, pulling a pair of binoculars out of her shirt. She peeked over, just as another shot rang out, seeing the muzzle flash in one of the buildings. Evidently, the KPA had seen that flash, but not hers, given all three remaining soldiers were now running toward the house it had issued from. At that same moment, the dog snaked out from behind the car and ran full pelt at the soldier that had been hiding on the other side. The dog leapt into the air and slammed into the soldier's back, grabbing his neck in the dog's jaws and torqueing. She didn't need to hear the neck snap to know it had. Although the dog had been silent up until the attack, the snapping neck caused one of the soldiers to spin around. At that exact moment, two more muzzle flashes flared out of the house, along with the cracks of the rifle. The first shot clearly hit the turning soldier dead center of his back, his arms going wide as he face planted. The second merely slumped into the snow. The dog was sniffing the air for a second, before it seemed to zero in on her. A pair of flashes flared from the side of the dog's head, causing her to raise an eyebrow.
"I guess it wants me to come say hello?" she shrugged before sliding off the roof and back onto the ladder, headed toward the corpses in the street.
Wanderer
I watched as blood seeped into the white snow around all but one of the seven corpses. Roxy rested her chin on my knee where I was crouched in the house, the but of my rifle firmly on the floor. After a few minutes, Roxy suddenly growled softly, letting me know that the unknown person was close. I put a fist in front of her eyes before fading deeper into the house, rifle raised and ready. A feminine figure stopped outside, crouching at one of the corpses. She had on a thin hoodie that looked horribly inadequate for the winter weather, the hood up hiding her face from me, and three separate firearms on her. An assault rifle was on her back, an old, cloth wrapped sniper rifle in her hands, and a small handgun on her hip to complete the ensemble.
"Bark." I very softly whispered the command to the German Shepard beside me, a bark instantly echoing out of her. The woman outside looked up before trotting over to the door and sliding in. I placed a hand on the top of Roxy's muzzle, telling her to stay silent as the girl started to move through the house, clearly confused, the second her back was turned to me, I stepped forward and prodded her back with the muzzle of my M1. "Don't move. Weapon on the ground, hands up. Slowly." She complied as the dog growled beside me. "Who are you!?" I let a bit of anger bleed into my voice as I spoke, more just to intimidate her than anything else.
"I… I my name is Anya. Don't shoot, please. I saw your dog and I thought I would try and help you." I lowered the weapon and clicked the safety in place. Roxy stopped growling the second the safety clicked on, yet another signal for her.
"What the hell are you doing out here?" I could see her quivering in fear, or from the cold.
"I'm trying to find my brother. The KPA captured him and are holding him in Denver." I grunted and walked past her, hearing her suddenly scramble for her rifle and jog to catch up to me.
"Wait, who are you?" I didn't even look at her as I stepped into the street.
"Wander. And this here is Roxanna. Or Roxy. And I'm here to kill every KPA bastard I can." I trudged away, not noticing that my harsh tones had frozen her in her tracks. I heard a faint whimper from behind me and looked down at Roxy, confused. She was looking back at the woman, then looked up at me and whimpered again, wagging her tail slightly, almost as if she was asking for the woman to come with us.
"What, do you want her to come with?" she did one of her quiet bark before lowering her front half as she wagged, looking like she was ready to play.
"Where are you going anyway?" I glanced at her now, seeing her pull the hood she was wearing down, revealing her deep almost brown crimson hair and deep emerald eyes that I couldn't look at without them being reminiscent of the ocean. Her hair was wrapped up in a tight bun resting on her neck, but a pair of rogue bangs showed her hair as being well below shoulder height, and surprisingly well kept. Her angular and sharp features would have been something to behold before the war started, but were something I had stopped caring for.
"Denver. Trying to find a way in to wreak havoc." I turned to keep walking on when she hollered.
"Wait! Let me come with you. I could help you, and I need to get into the city." I stopped and let her catch up to me. "Deal?" she held out her hand as she spoke. Roxy startled me yet again, nuzzling my hand toward her instead of growling at her as she usually did.
"Alright, deal, only because Roxy seems to want you around." I grabbed her hand and was about to shake it. "One condition though, you do exactly as I say, when I say it, no excuses. Do I make myself clear?" She confidently nodded and I roughly shook her hand before stalking off, forcing her to try and keep up.