"So you said it's okay for me to shoot anyone with a gun?" Murakumo shouts into her mic, making sure Damon hears her over the high-speed winds that she is subjected to from the truck rushing at its top speed, a measly fifty miles an hour that's nowhere near as fast as Damon wants it, but whatever. She is riding on top of the utility truck canopy as usual, prone, this time armed with Damon's MK-14 Rogue Chassis, accompanied by Amatsukaze, who cocks back the charging handle of Murakumo's AK-47. The noon sun is shining brightly through the hazy apocalyptic clouds
"Anyone you see with a gun, yeah! If they even so far as point those things at us, you pick 'em off, understand? Thirty seconds!"
Murakumo and Amatsukaze spy the slowly enlarging barricaded checkpoint and ready their firearms. Once they draw closer, they acquire their targets.
"Two in front of the barricade, armed!" Murakumo reports. "So much for trying to avoid these guys, Admiral!"
"If you want me to drive straight through Atlanta instead, I'm more than happy to do that! Ten seconds!"
The armed guards, seeing the truck hurtle towards them at an alarmingly breakneck speed, raise their guns. However, Murakumo and Amatsukaze simultaneously fire off a bullet each, and the two guards drop their weapons and topple over. Before they can hit the floor of the highway, Damon ducks underneath the wheel, and the two ship girls cover their faces with their weapons. The truck bursts through the lightly reinforced barricade on the highway with a spectacular crash, sending wood splinters and scraps of metal everywhere on Eisenhower Parkway.
"You girls okay?" Damon calls, straightening himself and quickly brushing away the debris that entered the cabin of the truck through the broken front window, which Damon had removed the previous night because the shattered glass would obstruct his view.
"Yeah, we're fine!" Murakumo calls, plucking out a large wood splinter from her hair. "But it'd be nice if we could get a shower soon!"
"We're driving right through enemy territory, and you're bitchin' 'bout gettin' a shower?" Damon roars. "Girl, what the hell is wrong with you!"
The truck continues its frenzied run down the highway.
"Are either of you picking up anything outta the ordinary? Like a concentration of bio readings or vehicular activity?" Damon asks, the Westgate Mall Shopping Center ruins pulling up into view.
"Picking up audio traces of gunshots towards the north!" Amatsukaze reports.
"Same here," Murakumo confirms, "lots of small-arms fire occurring further north. What should we do?"
"We're gonna investigate it," Damon asserts. "There's two ways across the Ocmulgee River up ahead, and the only reason why there's gunfire is 'cause most likely, the people runnin' this place're tryin' to put down a rebellion or something. I've seen this kinda thing before..."
Going onto the interchange for Interstate 75, Damon carefully maneuvers the truck and nearly tips it over trying to maintain as much speed as possible to avoid taking fire from potential snipers like earlier. The destroyers shriek briefly as they feel the truck threatening to tumble over to its side, but Damon keeps it upright. Soon, the gunshots come within audible range, and Damon, slowing the truck, peers at the location from where the gunshots are coming.
"Hang on, I'm taking us up above onto the highway just over us!" Damon pulls the truck onto the on-ramp to change highways to US Route 278 and slows the truck, trying to get a good look over the Mercer University campus grounds, where the gunshots are coming from. But as he continues driving the truck up the ramp onto 278, the Hilton Garden Inn building at the southwest corner of the university campus starts blocking their view, so Damon, stopping the truck at the top of the on-ramp leading into 278, opens the driver-side truck door and hops out with his light machine gun on his back and his sniper rifle in his hands, flips down the bipod of the sniper rifle, and sets it on the side of the highway. Murakumo and Amatsukaze jump down from the truck, and Damon tosses Amatsukaze the pair of binoculars.
"Amatsukaze, use these binos to spot enemies for us. Murakumo, you can toggle the sight on that thing to zoom in. I'd say this is about a two or three hundred meter shot, depending on where we find our targets."
As Damon quickly shows Murakumo how to switch zoom levels on the CRS-468 sight, Amatsukaze peers through the binoculars down at the university grounds.
"There're a lot of people running around in the parking lots," she reports. "Some of them are hiding behind those derelict school buses, and some of them are closer to us."
Amatsukaze hands the binos back to Damon, who quickly peers down at the parking lots. He can see a group of well-armed militiamen with M-16 assault rifle variants firing at another group of younger teenagers, who are much worse armed and desperately fighting back with Molotov cocktails and pistols and a scrappy civilian rifle here or there.
"Ready up, Murakumo," Damon orders, returning the binos to Amatsukaze, and Murakumo snaps down the built-in bipod of Damon's marksman rifle and sets it down on the side of the highway like Damon's DSR-50 sniper rifle. "We're gonna hit those guys closer to us. Do not engage the people hiding behind the buses. Understood?"
"Roger that," Murakumo nods, putting her finger on the trigger mechanism.
"Give it to 'em."
The thunderous boom of Damon's fifty-caliber sniper rifle is followed almost immediately by a small implosion of the head of one of the attacking men, and the sharp crack of the MK-14 Rogue Chassis rips off the left arm of another man.
"Two down!" Amatsukaze confirms the kills, watching the body of the decapitated man splat against the ground and twitch erratically in death. The armless man slumps against one of the run-down cars he was taking cover behind, wailing out in pain and entering shock, staring at his dismembered limb in horror. Damon and Murakumo manage to fire off another volley that shreds through another two men before their remaining comrades realize that they are being flanked and divert their fire towards them. Damon and Murakumo duck for cover as bullets snap over them.
"Amy, give them suppressing fire!" Damon yells, and Amatsukaze swiftly pops her head out over the side of the highway and squeezes off a couple shots, not hitting anyone but scaring the attackers into ceasing fire for a moment. Murakumo uses that brief ceasefire to emerge, acquire another target, and hit a clean headshot with a single bullet before ducking for cover again in time to dodge the next volley of incoming shots. Soon, however, the volume of incoming fire dies down quickly soon after it started.
"I'm hearing more shots from beyond our attackers' position," Murakumo reports. "Those other people must be moving in on them!"
Damon peers over. Sure enough, the surviving teenagers are closing in on the attackers, whose numbers are significantly thinned out. One of the boys lights his last Molotov cocktail and hurls it perfectly right at the feet of one of the attacking bandits, and it bursts into a ball of deadly flame and engulfs the man in the jaws of damning fire. His comrades dive away to avoid getting swallowed by the flames and briefly watch him squirm and writhe horribly as his body is cooked to death before trying to fight off the teenagers, but with only the two of them remaining against the group of nine teenagers, they, too, are dispatched easily and without difficulty.
"Cease fire," Damon says quickly as the teenagers cheer over their victory. "Let's go down and meet 'em...see what's up."
Damon drives the truck down to the university parking lot to meet with the teenage boys and girls they had helped. One of them, a nineteen-year-old boy wearing a bandana, armed with a simple Beretta M-9 pistol, approaches the utility truck as Damon hops out again and holds out his hand.
"'Sup dude, I'm Chad. You guys really helped us out here, thanks a bunch."
"I'm Damon." Damon looks around, inspecting the group of young men and women either his age or slightly older as Murakumo and Amatsukaze bring up the rear. A motley of boys and girls of all sorts of nationalities come to see and greet the people who helped them.
"You guys got like a leader among you?" Damon asks, and Chad points at himself.
"That'll be me, buddy."
"Then tell me what's goin' on, 'cause we're tryin' to reach the coast and we have to pass through town first to do that."
Chad frowns. "The coast? I don't recommend that, but I'll explain why later, 'cause we got a situation."
"Then let us in on it."
"Alright," Chad beams and motions over to the university grounds. "See this? A couple 'a years ago, those fuckers over in Atlanta decided to turn Mercer Uni into some sorta holding compound for guys 'n girls like us. Anyone our age, from like, let's say from fifteen to twenty, that they find and capture get sent here. From here, dudes from all over the South come here, and we get auctioned off to them."
Damon glares at him. "What, like fuckin' slaves?"
"Damn right, dude! They've brought back fuckin' slavery. And this time around, they don't give two shits if they sell off blacks, Asians, whites, Indians, whatever! Kids our age, not one of us are safe if they live anywhere near here."
"We've even heard that they've been sending bandit raids outside the area to see if they can drag more teens over here," one girl with a large bandage patch over her cheek says, holding a Colt .38 Special.
Damon shakes his head. "Hey, I knew those guys were assholes, but I didn't expect slavery to be back in full force..."
Chad smiles darkly. "Hey, just look at us. Everyone here - we've all been just chattle for the past couple months. Some of us have even been stuck here for a year, maybe two years. It's fucking ridiculous."
"So I'm assuming you broke out? You had some sorta rebellion?"
"Hell yeah, dude! We ain't gonna just sit around rottin' or ending up working our asses off for some fuckin' douchebag slob! We gonna bust some skulls or die trying, you know? We busted out a few weeks ago - some of our boys overheard the guards talkin' about a weapons shipment they had to bring here for a night 'cause they didn't have anywhere else to store it, so we snuck in and hijacked it and gave everyone guns and took over. But they've been sending down people to shut us down, but see, their problem's that they don't know this place, while we do. Pays to be holed up in a shithole like this 'til we call this home."
Chad smirks, then laughs.
"Fuckers don't know what hit 'em, straight up. But hey, since you're friendly 'n all, can I ask you to help us out just one more time?"
Damon crosses his arms. "We got our own agenda here, and it's nice we ended up helping you all, but we gotta run. What is it?"
The young man scratches his head. "Well see...just before we kicked out those douchebags, they took some of our guys over to another place and locked 'em up in a building across the river. You know about the Coliseum Medical Center?"
Damon nods.
"Yeah, they're being held there. We'd been plannin' on storming across and getting our guys out, but it's been too risky. We've tried, but the guys we sent barely got out alive. Our main problem is this shit we've been using." Chad motions at his pistol. "I mean, the best guns we've got are a couple AK's and maybe an M4 with a red dot. While you..." Chad's eyes peer with excitement at the menacing fifty-caliber bolt-action sniper rifle strapped to Damon's back, "...you've got 'em big guns. You could help us out. You're the only ones who can, since there ain't no one with balls quite as big as yours to drive through and help us like you did."
"Well, for starters, you could just loot the guys we took out," Damon points at the dead bodies surrounding them. Chad jumps a little, as if the notion had never hit him.
"Oh! Yeah...um...guys, just take whatever you want from these guys," Chad instructs hastily, and his comrades hurriedly begin to loot whatever weapons and ammunition they can off the corpses. While they are occupied with that, Chad draws closer to Damon.
"Hey, man...there's another reason why I want your help. You gotta listen to me."
Damon, too, draws nearer. "Okay, then what?"
"One of the people we're tryin' to save...my girl's in there. Kassia's in there."
"Is Kassia your girlfriend?"
"Yeah. She was one of the people they took just before we took over the place. I swore I'd save her, but never got the chance, and we're running out of time. I'm really fucking worried, you know? It might already be too late, but I'm just hoping to God she's still alive."
Damon scratches his head. "I guess I don't have a choice. There're only three ways across the Ocmulgee, and I'm assuming you guys know them better than we do. We'll give you a hand, since we need to cross too."
Chad's eyes light up. "Holy shit, man, thanks a bunch! Now, we can - "
A walkie-talkie on Chad's belt erupts with loud chatter, and a scratchy voice screams out.
"Chad, Chad! Muthafuckin' Chad, you hear me, my nigga?! We got more 'a 'em cocksucka's comin' down the parkin' lot west 'a da baseball field!"
Hastily grabbing his walkie-talkie and pushing the talk button, Chad yells back into it, "Which baseball field? There's two, ya know!"
"The - The...ah, shieeet, nigga...the Claude Smith one, yea, dat's it! We takin' crack shots out here, maaaan! Gitcha asses over here 'fore we all get our asses fucked!"
"My buds're in trouble," Chad says quickly to Damon, slapping his walkie-talkie back onto his torn jeans waist. "Follow me, we need to help 'em. Guys, c'mon, we gotta go, Dee Jay and his crew's gettin' shot up!"
Damon retrieves his light machine gun from the truck, and the defenders, now armed with military-grade assault rifles and ammo, rush across the street to enter the next parking lot just north of them, and already bullets are beginning to whizz past. Damon sees another small group of teens, the most conspicuous of which is a gruff-looking black man who looks more like a UFC fighter than an average eighteen-year-old teenager. Damon also notes that he has a goofy but fierce-looking grin on his face at all times. The reinforcements quickly take cover behind the masses of rusted metal hulks that used to be cars.
"'bout muthafuckin' time, my nigga!" the black man, presumably Dee Jay, laughs as Chad puts his back next to the same car as his. "Listen up good, bud. We got cocksucka's over there, there, 'n there," Dee Jay points in the general direction of the enemies. "They be comin' in three different groups, ya hear me? 'Bout like a dozen of 'em in total. I saw 'em fucka's on the left move dat'a way. They gonna try 'n flank us, so we need peeps over there to watch out for 'em, got it?"
"Hey, you three!" Chad hollers over the sporadic gunfire. "Move that way and watch for flankers!" Three of his comrades hurry off to their left to watch their flank behind a big trailer truck. Damon, listening in on their conversation, lifts his light machine gun, emerges from his cover, and fires in the general direction of the attackers with a steady stream of suppressing fire. The fearsome chugging of the machine gun alarms the attackers into submission, and the volume of incoming fire almost immediately evaporates.
"Wat da fuck? Chad, you know dis dude?" Dee Jay points at Damon, who is still standing and squeezing off caseless rounds steadily to preserve ammunition.
"Yeah, dude, he helped us out over at the other parking lot! C'mon, everyone, shoot 'em up while he's suppressing 'em!"
The defenders emerge from their cover and begin pummeling the enemy positions with a wall of their own lead. However, both sides are well protected by the masses of scrap metal lying all over the parking lot - even if the bullets rip through one layer of metal, many more layers lie behind them to stop the bullets from ever reaching anyone.
"Murakumo, Amy!" Damon yells, still pulling the trigger of his L.S.A.T. one bullet at a time, the electronic ammunition counter on the side of the machine gun reading 136 and counting down one by one. "Move in for us! Murakumo, you cover Amy while she gets in there and shotguns everyone, understand? Go, go!"
The two ship girls rush straight towards the entrenched enemies towards the north side of the parking lot under the cover of Damon's deadly and accurate suppressing fire, which has caused the enemies to not fire a single bullet for fear they might accidentally catch a machine gun bullet somehow. Murakumo, flattening her back against a large wreck of a school bus, motions forward to Amatsukaze.
"I'll stay here, move up!"
Murakumo, now having a better angle at the attacking bandits, opens fire with Damon's MK-14 Rogue Chassis and downs three men before being forced to withdraw to avoid getting shot. But this has distracted them from noticing Amatsukaze, who slinks sneakily among the piles of derelict vehicles and flanks a particularly large group of six men. With Murakumo's AK-47 in her left hand and the AA-12 automatic shotgun in her right, Amatsukaze lays waste to them all before they can even turn around to see what is hitting them and quickly dashes away before the comrades of the men she has killed can return fire. At this point, the three defenders on the left flank have already slain the small group of men trying to flank Chad's small army, and with them dead, the leader of the teenage army sends some of his comrades forward to close in on their attackers while Murakumo climbs on top of the school bus and pummels the remaining enemies further with DMR fire. Right as the teen soldiers safely lodge themselves in their new pieces of cover, they hear a dreadful scream of pain and the whoosh of the ignition of fire, and Chad and Dee Jay see a flying body that has been sent on fire, punched in the chin by Amatsukaze and slapping against the ground some thirty meters away, burning to death.
"Da fuck, I can handle flyin' bullets, but flyin' bodies on fire?" Dee Jay shakes his head. "Dayum. Maybe 'em nukes be droppin' again."
"Er, yo, Damon, what the hell are those girls doin'?" Chad asks hesitantly.
"Don't worry about it," Damon replies coolly, lowering his light machine gun and checking his ammunition count. "They should be wrapping this up now."
The bandits now begin to flee, trying to retreat to minimize their losses, but Chad's friends strike them down as they run away, and only one or two manage to escape their fire. Murakumo does not let them live, however, as she picks them off easily from her elevated position on top of the school bus.
"Hostiles eliminated," Murakumo reports to Damon, remembering to click on the safety.
"Chad, I'm going to bring my truck over here," Damon says. "We're going to load those weapons that the guys we killed dropped and distribute it to your guys. Afterwards, I'll need you to give me information on the three bridges crossing the river."
Chad and Dee Jay lead Damon and his ship girls to their headquarters at the Macon University Center after distributing the stolen weapons to more of Chad's comrades.
"So how many people you got?" Damon asks, looking around the University Center. Young men and women, ranging from the ages of fifteen-ish to twenty-ish, can be seen resting, some lying down on beds or couches recuperating from gunshot wounds. Others are playing card games or sleeping.
"This place held around a thousand or so of us when we took over," Chad says as Dee Jay fistbumps one of his friends passing by. "Over the last few weeks, we lost a lot from fighting...now we're floating around six hundred posted around the university grounds. We ain't got a lot of medical supplies, much less do we have very many people who know how to use 'em to begin with," he adds grimly, glancing at the wounded. "These guys...I don't wanna say this, but they ain't got much time left. Not when you've been shot in the gut or something..."
They enter the makeshift headquarters that has been furnished out of the cafeteria.
"...why is your HQ located in the cafeteria?" Murakumo wonders aloud.
"Baby, it's 'cuz this place can't be bombed out!" Dee Jay laughs. "Jus' look, will ya? Walls on three sides. Ain't no way in but the front. This place's a fortress by itself, girl."
They sit down on rickety chairs and a desk that seems like it will collapse at any moment. Chad retrieves a foldier labeled messily, "Bridge Access", and sits down as well. Damon notices that the back of the headquarters is surprisingly very well organized with what appear to be folders and binders filled with papers and notes.
"We had some of our guys go out and take pictures of the bridges," Chad says, opening the folders and sliding a few messily-developed photographs to Damon, who examines them. He manages to make out the heavily guarded barricades set up across the bridges, restricting all traffic passing over the Ocmulgee River. "I also sent some guys to spy on 'em for a few days, and this is what we know." Chad also passes a piece of paper to Damon, who reads it thoroughly.
"So the bridge on Highway 80 is the least defended, if I'm reading this right," Damon remarks. "Guards shift every three hours...gun emplacements, barbed wire, your standard conventional barricade shit."
"Yup," Chad nods.
"And you're sayin' you don't have shit to attack 'em with."
"Nope."
Damon looks at the photos and the information for a few minutes in silence.
"Like, we been tryin' ta come up with some shit to bust through," Dee Jay explains. "Obviously jus' throwin' bodies at 'em ain't gonna fuckin' work. We tried night raids, but that fuckin' failed like shit, 'n afterwards they installed 'em nightlights on the bridges in case we tried that shit again. The river ain't too bad to swim in, ya'll still live - but thing is, they see you, they shoot ya straight outta da water like they're fuckin' fly fishin', ya know?"
"We're bombing the place out," Damon concludes quietly, pushing the photos and paper back to Chad, who takes them while gaping at him.
"Bombing? Bro, what the hell are you talkin' about? We only got small arms like rifles 'n pistols 'n shit. Where the hell are we gonna get bombs from? Does your truck have 'em, 'cause we as sure ain't gonna have anythin' to make 'em with."
Damon grins like a fiend. "Whaddya know? Our truck's got a few IED's. I was wonderin' when we'd get to use 'em..."