By the time the sun rose, Asuka was well into the Drone Zone. Her body was moving on instinct, and her conscious mind was floating above and away, coming down on the rare occasions she needed a less feral assessment of her surroundings. Repeatedly, she caught sight, in the distance, of the shadowy trackers. Their intentions could be mundane, but the doggedness with which they pursued her made her think otherwise.
At least once, she heard a pack of wild dogs in the distance, and shoehorned her trail away from them. They had begun to disappear with rising prominence of wolves, but wild dogs were in many ways more dangerous. They lacked the subtlety of wolves, and the complete disregard for self-preservation that a wolf had. She herself had been fortunate to never encounter a dog pack, but she always found the remains of their attacks. It was simply best to avoid the nasty creatures whenever one could.
When the daylight finally brushed her shoulders, Asuka paused, briefly. It was only long enough to take in the morning scents, and readjust to the changes in her environment, as the night simmered away and the daylight creatures began their shuffle. As she stood, something buzzed by like an irate insect, and a tree three feet to her right snapped as a small hole blew into it. She fell backwards, letting the weight of her ruck carry her, and she rolled into a nearby clump of ferns. Popping off the release tabs of her straps, she scurried under the cover of the bushes for about ten feet before risking her head up.
"Should have died my hair black," she murmured. Out here, her brilliant red hair, short as it was, would act like a beacon. In the very least, the intentions of her followers had been made clear.
Her binoculars were still strapped in a case to the ruck, but she had a single-lens monocle on her chest. Raising it to her eye like a telescope, she gripped her wrist to steady the view, and scanned a small patch of smoke in the distance, on a ridge she had been previously. She didn't see the shooter, but she saw one of the shapes coming up and over the ridge. It was still hard to make out, but with the brighter day, and seeing them in the clear, they appeared to be men, in form shrouding ghillie cloaks and hoods. Their faces were covered, and their eyes goggled.
"Not so mundane," she said, banishing the fears of the supernatural from her mind. That left the fears of the mundane behind, though. Men could kill her just as readily as monsters, and one of those men had taken a shot at her with no provocation. Only the great distance had saved her.
She scanned the area around her…it was generally flat, with many trees and chest level clumps of ferns, broken by deer trails, moss patches, and tall grass. This would be a good a place for an ambush as any. Asuka had no idea if there were more than the four she had seen following her…but she couldn't allow them to continue pursuit, especially if they were going to keep taking potshots at her. She glanced over at a tree that had a good vantage on the spot where here ruck was…that was the last place the saw her, so that's where they would head, to try and pick up the trail. She slithered over to the tree, and propped up just enough so she could command a view of the field.
Who were they? It was only a mild thought, but a pressing one. It was always a pertinent thought to wonder who wanted to kill you, but it was simply unknowable this far north. Death out here wasn't personal…it simply was. Still, their arrangement, the speed they had found her trail…
It was probably coincidence, but it still spooked her.
For thirty minutes, she braced against the tree, fighting the urge to close her eyes and sleep. She was exhausted, and the Drone Zone vibe was harder to hang onto when stationary. Her efforts were rewarded when she saw one, three…all four of them advancing in a wedge towards the spot she had been. She could make out their weapons now, the way they held them. A hodgepodge of hunting rifles, military carbines…all at the low ready. That, combined with the method by which they moved, indicated at least some military training.
The two at the center converged near the tree, scanning it as the flanks adopted an outer security position, one looking east, the other west. Asuka was only thirty or so meters to their north, and that was close enough. She raised her rifle slowly, and waited, sighting the one nearest her ruck. As she expected, he spotted it, and waved over his companion. When the second fellow was five feet away, she fired.
The advantage of a 7.62 round over a 5.56 round was not distance, nor was it the ability to pierce armor. The smaller, lighter round so popular with the old, pre-Impact NATO countries could travel well over two hundred meters more than a 7.62 round, and it's smaller size actually gave it an edge in piercing body armor. What it lacked was the coveted ability known as 'knock-down' power. A 7.62 was a hammer to the 5.56's needle. It didn't need to penetrate body armor, because it simply bashed the wearer to the ground. It demonstrated its further abilities in fights between unarmored opponents, common in the countries that so often used the 7.62. You could survive a 5.56 round if shot. In fact, you could take multiple hits from a 5.56 round and probably be all right. Asuka knew this for a fact, having seen a man hit in the head with the lighter bullet, get up, and keep running.
You would be lucky to survive a 7.62. And Asuka sent three four-round bursts towards her targets.
The first men collapsed with all the grace of a puppet whose strings had been cut. The second men skidded to a halt and fell to a crouch, a bad mistake. If he had gone prone, he might have survived. Asuka had already sighted him and fired as he fell, and he slid as though the earth had shifted under him. He did not stand up.
As soon as she fired, she was down and cutting east. The tree above her puckered under rifle fire. She made it to a second tree, and risked a glance up. They were being smart, now: the one with the military style carbine was laying down a steady stream of fire while the one with what appeared to be a bolt-action (incidentally, the one nearest to her) advanced in the high ready. Asuka rose to a standing crouch, and snapped of two targeted shots at the carbine wielder. The first zipped by his head, and the second impacted in the center of his forehead. At this range, she was not worried about a ricochet: that shot would have penetrated.
The other man froze and whipped his weapon around, snapping off a hurried hip-shot. She threw herself on her stomach, and fired three more shots. They penetrated a spot on her opponent's chest no wider than a child's palm, and he fell backward as though a cable had jerked him off his feet. She lay very still, her ears ringing from the weapon exchange. No shuffling. No movement. No return fire.
She stood, and slowly circled to each man, clearing the bodies as best she could. You really weren't supposed to do it by yourself, but when one had to, one did. By the end of it, she confirmed all four dead, at an expenditure of seventeen rounds from a thirty-round magazine. Asuka ejected the magazine (sixteen now, she told herself), and tucked it into the 'possibles' bag on her hip. Best not to leave a good magazine behind, and better still not to live a half-empty one. She loaded a fresh mag, and let her rifle hang loose as she began to line up the bodies.
She gazed at the men, laying on their backs shoulder to shoulder. She had removed their homemade cloaks, which were little more than strips of old clothing and loose cloth with leaves tucked into them, and studied them.
Four very ordinary looking men. They had the most meager of possessions and a varying assortment of military-style equipment. One bolt action rifle, one pump shotgun, two carbines, and a revolver. She understood, somewhat, why the strong pursuit. What she didn't understand was how they picked her up, or why they were so far out here.
There was nothing worth salvaging, and none of the bullets they had matched her weapons. All in all, a senseless, nasty little firefight where four men died.
That made more sense than she cared to admit; the world was now one of risk and reward. They had risked a lot for potential reward, and they had suffered for their attempt. That was that.
Asuka spat, tasting bile in her mouth. This journey had started off on a bloody foot, and that was a bad way to begin. She considered burying them, but that would already delay her longer than this firefight did. She did not want to linger her anymore than she had to, and if this was just an advance or scout party (likely considering their light load), she did not want to be around when their friends came looking.
As she turned to the north, she saw the Figment in the distance, a blue flame in a green world. Asuka grimaced.
Look at how well I break things. Give me a match and I can burn the whole world down.
Asuka looked back at the corpses, wondering again briefly who they were. It didn't matter, really. They're story had ended that day, and something about that had left Asuka feeling strangely sad. She shook her head, and followed the Figment.
She headed north at pace, leaving the bodies and their mysteries behind.