Enter the Siren – Part 7
They rolled up and stopped at the gate to Overlook and were getting out of the vehicle when their ECHO communicator came online.
"Hello? Is this the c-correct frequency. Can anyone h-hear me?" A weak familiar female voice stuttered, sounding sick.
"Hello, Karima. How can we help you?" Maya asked the afflicted woman, whom they were familiar with and helped out in the past, including blasting a rude fellow towns-member off the cliff along with his house. They tested the town's shields against cannon-fire and they were 'accidentally' turned off for the first shot.
"Oh, good. A f-few of the townspeople saw you and s-since you were so helpful, in the past, I was h-hoping if you c-could be of assistance, again." she requested.
"Of course." Maya replied immediately, through her own device as Lilith folded her arms, looking like she would have refused the woman before even hearing her out.
"Excellent! You p-probably recall the skull-shiver medicine I sent you to c-collect. Our supply is r-running low. Our p-people spotted a Hyperion transport, m-much like the last one, but with more g-guards." she explained and Maya saw Lilith's expression darken, but her eyes actually gleamed as she probably got interest.
"Say no more." Maya responded. "We'll take care of it." The opportunity to waste more Hyperion soldiers and assets seemed to give Lilith reason to stay.
"Thank you! The c-courier left the dam facility and they're heading for the b-bridge." Karima added.
"Thanks! We'll take care of them!" Maya replied and they walked towards the rocks that would give them a good view of the bridge.
"Time to put this baby to the test! See what makes it so special." Vian grabbed the Morningstar sniper-rifle strapped to her back and Maya suppressed another laugh. They all gone prone and crawled to the edge of the rocks and spotted their targets as they approached the bridge. There was an engineer in the middle, with cybernetic augmentations and a supply machine strapped to his back, flanked by four armed men around him, plus two loaders at the front and back. They were led by a single soldier that looked markedly different from the rest, with wings on his legs and back. Gaige sneered as she recognized the type of unit it was, from afar.
"What?" Vian wanted to know why the girl was nearly blowing steam from her nose.
"That's a Hawk." Maya identified it.
"Those guys are bastards." Gaige whispered through gritted teeth. "They gave me and DT real trouble the first few times we ran into 'em."
"They gave all of us a hard time." Maya corrected her.
"Shoot that guy first!" Gaige told Vian.
"Will do. You ladies go on and get down there!" Vian told them and all three gave her a look. "I wasn't thinking about that." she defended herself. "Or was I." she considered out loud, on second thought, when all three were still in earshot. She stayed on the cliff and waited until the others got into position, skirting around a small area that was on lower ground, off the side of the road, with rocks arching over a small part of it. They were lying in wait, flat on their stomachs, on the side of the road, behind the rocks that gave them just enough cover, until Vian made the first shot and they could spring into action. She had her target in the crosshairs of the rifle and fired. The energy beam penetrated whatever shield the man had and went straight through his head and the right knee of one of the soldiers, on the main target's left. Vian was about to comment on the shot, but to her surprise, the rifle did it for her.
"Wonderful shot, murderer!" said a high-pitched, mocking female voice.
Vian was blinking dumbly at the weapon in her hand. Dozens of bullets came flying her way, with only a couple of them actually hitting her shields and it was enough to make her focus. The others came out of hiding and opened fire to draw some off from Vian, who did not waste her chance with the enemy's momentary lapse in concentration, as they realized it was an ambush from two spots. She already knew which one to go for. Three of the soldiers took cover behind crates that were tied down on the bridge. The forth one, who's knee was shot, knelt from the pain and soon felt none as the second shot came with another remark from the weapon.
"Good job ending that life!" it said and Vian already had her third target lined up. The man with questionable training thought it was a good idea to try and peek from cover, when he was dealing with a sniper, who was on elevated ground. He did not have a chance to find out just how bad an idea it was, as his vision went black, when a third shot echoed throughout the mountain, the second he leant forward from the side of a crate.
"Someone is now an orphan and doesn't know it, yet." The Morningstar wailed.
"Seriously..." Vian groaned as she held her position. Three of the loaders advanced along the bridge, shooting at the women, who ducked back into cover to periodically return fire. One loader's AI led it to conclude that firing on a single target on higher ground and at long range, largely protected by natural cover, besides a shield, was a viable combat strategy. Its processors timely recognized the fault in it, when his legs were shot from under itself and it hit the metal of the bridge.
"Oh!" Screamed the rifle, in horror.
Not ten seconds have passed since the first shot and the engineer held his robotic hands in front of himself and kneeled to make himself less of a target, counting on his armor to protect him. He did not even seem to be a threat, so the four women concentrated on the single soldier and three and half loaders. Vian missed a shot as the soldier pulled back into cover and could not get a clear line of sight on him, as he seemed keen on not budging from what he thought was a safe spot. She moved her sight on the bots and shot the legs off from one, getting another whine from the rifle. She attempted it, again, when they suddenly went airborne, pulled into a singularity created above them, by Maya. Her shot missed, but the loaders were pulled together in one spot and the soldier got dragged out of cover by the gravitational force, presenting and easy target for Vian. With only one round left in her clip, she made it count, sending it through the man's head.
"You're a bad person!" The weapon kept chastising her and for her further annoyance, it even had something to say about changing clips, too. "There are children on Promethea, who can't afford ammo you know!"
Vian quickly snapped the next clip in place, after a moment's pause of letting that last sentence sink in, while also noting the reloading mechanism and she observed the seen. The loader that was suspended in the air was blown apart by Gaige, along with the two legless ones that were crawling along the pavement. The three women laid down some suppressive fire as they ran towards the bridge and got behind crates. They came out of cover, standing upright, at the same time, all pointing their weapons at the one remaining loader and Vian was ready to take a shot, as well, when it suddenly said "You'll never take me alive!" and ran off the side off the bridge. They were expecting an explosion a couple of seconds later, but it never came. They looked between one another in bewilderment at the behavior that was peculiar even for a Hyperion bot and saw Vian pointing frantically towards where it attempted a suicide-jump from. They went to the edge of the bridge to see the loader lying face down on a metal walkway, a few feet down, with its limbs twitching now and again. Gaige guffawed at the silly machine and it was heard by the bulked up engineer, who lowered his arms to stand from his defensive stance, as he was angered from the loss of his entire protective detail. He took a step forward and the laser mounted on his forehead began to glow. The three women on the bridge turned to see the imminent attack and dodged to the side in time to avoid the beam that burned a line along the pavement, cutting a few crates in half and set them on fire. Through his high-tech visor he could probably see Vian preparing to shoot as he brought his cybernetic arms in front of him to shield himself. He was expecting the force of a bullet, hitting his armored limbs, but felt a sharp pain in the stomach, instead. His arms fell to his side as he stared at something he never thought he would see.
"Gut punch!" Gaige cheered, waving her assault rifle and Vian made a face, looking through the scope at the state of the man. She thought she would spare him the effort of getting familiarized with the anatomy of his own intestines, no matter how many seconds it would have actually taken him to pass out and die. Mercy, someone would have called it, putting him out of certain misery, even if it would not have lasted long. The man's head jerked back as an energy beam passed through it, entering through his lower lip and severing his brain stem, so there was no reflex, like an accidental pull of a trigger or push of a detonator from a twitch in the fingers. The latter would have been unfortunate and would have damaged the machine with their objective inside.
"Most serial killers thought they were good people, too." came the annoying voice, again.
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Vian exclaimed and stood to holster the weapon on her back, which it protested.
"You can't ignore me." It told her and Vian let out a frustrated sigh.
"Shut up!" She growled at it and opted to keep the weapon in her hand as it seemed to stay silent, if it was not being holstered.
The three on the bridge were walking back and made it off, when they heard Vian's voice coming from the lower road they previously avoided for a reason. Maya had a feeling her complaint was directed at her person, specifically, for letting her take the rifle, without any detail about its rather unique and annoying properties. Vian was holding it up with one hand and pointing at it with the other as she yelled, walking towards them.
"Hey! This thing's a guilt-tripping nag! I'm so having your-...!" She was cut off and side-stepped with a bend backwards as a stalker missed her with its clawing attack, from the side. She stared the creature down and Maya looked on with even more worry when she saw a red, thin streak appear across Vian's face and blood began to slowly trickle from the cut. She began to glow as the stalker prepared for a second attack. Energy concentrated in Vian's hand and the stalker leapt towards her. There was a brief flash of blue light and the stalker was crawling on the ground in agony, with a javelin-shaped mass of energy sticking through its body. Vian did not have time to aim and throw the javelin, so she turned it towards the beast and let it jump right into it and then have it fall on the ground. She figured from earlier experience that there had to be more and a second javelin was already forming in her hand as she dropped the rifle. The second it hit the ground, she saw a flash from the corner of her eyes, to her left and threw the javelin without hesitation. It caught the stalker in mid-air, skewering it and it hit the ground with a painful shriek. She formed a third javelin and her eyes glowed as they traveled along the terrain. At the same time, the two mortally wounded stalkers were in their death throes and seemed to glow with a faint blue energy that flowed towards Vian, as if she was syphoning it. The others watched in astonishment as the fresh, thin cut on the left side of her face rapidly healed. There was apparently one stalker left and it made its presence known, briefly making itself visible as it fled, crawling over the rocks, perhaps being intelligent enough to realize it was outmatched and also outnumbered.
"Hmph." Vian let out a sound and made a turn as she threw the javelin away, towards the bridge. It arced all the way to the engineer's corpse, embedding itself where his stomach used to be. The others gaped at her aim as Vian walked towards them and clenched her fist, making all three javelins explode, as if the scene was not gruesome enough. "Could've made it in the javelin throw, I guess. If it and the Olympics would still exist." she commented on what became history in their age. "So, where's this shivers medicine? In that?" she nodded towards the vending machine the engineer put down on the ground, midway across the bridge, before engaging them. Its back was spattered with blood and quite possibly a good amount of brain tissue. They went to the front of it, stepping over bodies and loader parts and none of them flinched when they walked through the blood and what little remained from the engineer. Only the smell was unpleasant. Maya and Gaige looked for the medicine inside the machine as Vian stepped closer to the side of the bridge and peered down in the sandy pit, seeing small threshers going for the body parts that fell. She started whistling to them, as if she was calling a dog and kicked a chunk down to them, which they eagerly snatched from the surface and took with them underground.
"I don't want a thresher following us home." Lilith commented, not thrilled with the idea of ending up with one as a pet.
"You think these things could actually be domesticated?" Vian asked in disbelief, but then she remembered where she was. "Wait! Don't answer that."
"We got 'em." Gaige exclaimed and they helped carry all the packages back to the town.
"Hey, Maya? I noticed something when you were shooting. The bullets you fire fly really fast. Faster than any I've ever seen, anyway." Vian told her the observation she made.
"Oh, uh...it's...from my powers. The others noticed it after a while, too. Even before I did. I don't understand how it can influence bullets. It's just...does. My powers have grown since I came to Pandora, so...I'm still learning." She explained to Vian, a little embarrassed.
"It's okay. If there were Sirens before us, I bet they lived and died without figuring everything out." she told Maya, with a shrug and upon seeing the latter's expression she added "Okay, that sounded a lot less comforting out loud." She gave a sheepish smile and Maya appreciated her intent with the comment. "So where do you think these guys were headed, anyway?" Vian asked, after a few second of silence.
"Opportunity, I guess." Gaige replied.
"Opportunity?" Vian repeated the word, as she could not decide whether it sounded good or bad as a name for a place.
"It's a city, out on the water. Still under construction. The bridge on the other side of the tunnel leads to it." Maya told her.
"Nice place?" Vian figured being on water, off from the land meant it was less hectic than what she had experienced so far.
"It would be if it wasn't being built by Hyperion." Lilith commented, having visited the location, herself, once. "Reminds me of Concordia, actually." she said and gave Maya a glance. "Except for all the loaders…and cameras." she added.
"Ha! We took care of those, too!" Gaige told them. She took it as a challenge to find and destroy all of the surveillance cameras around the city.
On the way, Vian flipped the Morningstar up from the ground with her foot and caught it, by letting it fall onto the package in her hands. She was half expecting it to say something about being treated like dirt. Despite the guilty conscience speaking from it, the weapon was excellent. They walked back to Overlook and filled up the medicine machine with the packs. As if the face on it actually had eyes, their ECHO communicator came on and Vian recognized the voice on the other end was the same they just heard from the machine and the others knew it meant another small errand that could potentially result in shooting creatures or people. Or both. And harvesting their organs, likely.
Author's note: Because fuck Hyperion Hawks/Raptors/Predators and their light-speed rockets. You can be level 72 with full shields and they can still down you with 1-2 hits. Bastards.
