16:45 April 29, 2105
Chambers Cybernetic Armoured Division hangar, Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Londinium Ark
See, it wasn't the neural link that made piloting an Arachnoid difficult; the Faustus Interface was user-friendly and once one grew accustomed to the eight legs and the 360° view, it was relatively straightforward. No, the mechanics of the machine were not difficult to master; Grell Sutcliff was the problem.
Trying to pilot with her as the AI rather than relying on the genderless, almost childlike voice of the Faustus Interface, was akin to driving long distance with a screeching banshee.
Eric passed all training programs with ease and found himself reunited with his hotblooded Captain despite his protests. It wasn't anything personal, but he did fear for his safety a little. They had always butted heads over even trivial things- what more when they would be out on the battlefield?
"Try not to get hot flushes this time, Red." The Scotsman grumbled, easing himself into the cockpit of the newly repaired Trooper Arachnoid.
"Shut it, you big oaf." Her voice hissed, the cockpit suddenly lighting up as she logged online. "I pilot; you shoot."
"You pilot; I shoot. Got it." Eric sighed, fidgeting impatiently as the Arachnoid was cycled through three security airlocks before the Wastelands came into view. "What are we doing out here?"
"Troubleshooting." She managed to make the Arachnoid shrug, and Eric's brows rose. "Little Lotte's out here with the Pack and even Will's with them since the reports about the rebels flooded in."
"Oh yeah?" He grimaced, idly observing their bleak surroundings. "They manage to build one of these things yet?"
"They've built one, or so the surveillance satellite tells us." Grell hummed in thought, and Eric watched in amusement as one foreleg was brought to the equivalent of the machine's mouth as if in thought. "Your clever cookie discovered their encrypted transmissions, so thanks to Alan we know they want to attack the food silos and let the city starve."
"Alan's the best thing to have happened to Intelligence Operations." Eric couldn't help but puff up in pride. "Sharpest mind in the Division."
"Well, I'd agree but Will-" Grell trailed off, initiating the cloaking shield as warm-blooded life forms beaded on her radar. "We've got heat. I'm turning on the combat systems."
YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON OUTLANDER TERRITORY.
"Show yourself." Eric barked.
SURRENDER AND WE WILL GIVE YOU A SWIFT DEATH.
Intelligence Operations, London Reaper Dispatch Londinium Ark
It was a little disturbing when one's colleague resembled a corpse when working alongside them. Alan glanced over briefly at Grell's body laid out on a reclining seat; the artificial creation was plugged into the VIOLA mainframe via a thick cable at the nape. Essentially the body was just a shell, as Grell's consciousness was uploaded into cyberspace in order to control the hulking metal spiders that could traverse the Wastelands safely.
She was instead just a voice and, as Alan observed with great amusement, a rather animated Arachnoid. Somehow, even in a faceless weaponised machine, she was still Grell. Oh how he'd missed her liveliness.
"The scouting party is just up ahead, but exercise caution." Alan warned, feeling a little unnerved. "There's highly irradiated patches all around you and it's making surveillance hard."
"Can you give me Will's location?"
"The Director's GPS co-ordinates are being sent through now." Alan tapped out the numbers and hit send. "The Outlanders regularly patrol through this area, so be careful."
The rebels were causing both the Division and the Ark population a grand headache as of late. Desperation made them violent, and violence led to increased unscheduled deaths, and unscheduled deaths led to overtime.
The trick was to stay one step ahead; Death awaited all mortals, and it was up to Alan and his team to instruct the dispatch crew as to where to lie in wait.
"Alan," a different voice piped up, "are we getting closer at all?" Charlotte's monitor fed a live view of her surroundings, and he could spot the rest of the Pack dotted around her.
"Yes. Eric and Grell are headed your way with an ETA of three minutes." A warning light flashed for attention and Alan fought the rise of panic in his chest. "Outlander patrol team incoming!"
In a way, she understood their motives; the Outlanders lived on the outskirts of the Arks and struggled to eke out an existence in the decaying, contaminated landscape. Theirs was an arduous existence and the mortality rate was through the roof, needing the establishment of a dedicated Reaper taskforce just to cope with the deaths.
Charlotte pitied them and knew that living so close to safety yet not close enough must have driven them to such extreme action. Revolution was the word whispered in the Arks, and the sympathisers boldly stated it wouldn't be long before a new status quo was initiated by the Outlanders.
Still, Outlander or Arkist, none were immune to Death.
Beside her, Director Spears was hard at work running a scan of their surroundings. Stragglers from battles fought long ago often lingered in the debris, their souls left unharvested due to the chaos at the time. Left to fester, they would amalgamate into fearsome Pit Beasts capable of bringing down Reapers in one foul swipe.
"Boss, I'm pickin' up a mechanized form on my scanner." Mackenzie reported through their intercom, waving at them from up ahead. "Captains Slingby and Sutcliff are supposed to meet up with us, right? In one o' them spiders? Heat signature is fucking massive, it can't be anything else."
William nodded. "Yes, I requested their support. We can cover larger ground if we have them piloting an Arachnoid."
Charlotte pulled up her link with the Intelligence operatives. "Alan, are we getting closer at all?"
His friendly face came into view, framed as a small thumbnail video feed in the bottom left corner. "Yes. Eric and Grell are headed your way with an ETA of three minutes." A sharp gasp and a look of shock crossed his face. "Outlander patrol team incoming!"
She barely had time to react before an explosion threw her off her feet. Scrambling upright, Charlotte turned on her suit's infrared vision, unable to see through the smoke herself. Laser rounds burst all around them, and her training kicked in as she brought up her EMP shields.
All around them shouts erupted as Outlanders swamped the scene. Drawing her gun, she readied her Scythe in her other hand and fell into an attack stance.
The ground trembled beneath her feet and for a moment she felt relief as she heard the rhythmic thudding usually created by the grand metal spiders her dear Aunt Red commanded.
"Lotte, look out!" Ryan, their Junior Field Medic, tackled her out of the way as one giant mechanized leg thumped down where she stood but a heartbeat ago. Not her Aunt, no- this spider was not one of Chambers' creations. It was taller and cruder; unpainted and unfinished, it was covered with armed rebels using its height to their advantage and raining bullets on them.
SURRENDER AND WE WILL GIVE YOU A SWIFT DEATH.
"You picked the wrong fight, mortals." Mackenzie growled, his Scythe cutting through their weak armour like butter. There was a whirring sound, growing higher in pitch as the spider charged something Charlotte knew would be dangerous even for them.
"Agents take cover!" William's voice boomed in their helmets.
A blinding burst of white light and the sound of deafening thunder filled her senses, and her world blackened.
When the darkness receded there was a high-pitched whine drilling right through his skull. It was a constant, piercing pitch that made his ears ring and his head pound; shellshock. Eric coughed, groaning as the sound faded into muffled speech.
"-ME?! ERIC?!"
"Stop screeching, Red!" He clutched his head.
"DO SOMETHING! I CAN'T DO THIS ON MY OWN YOU FUCKING LUMBERJACK!" Grell shouted, and it was then that Eric finally noticed the chaos all around him. Mortals in crudely fashioned armour were shooting at the Arachnoid and attempting to break in with brute force.
A bomb must have gone off right beside them, he realized, judging by the smoke and fire. The metal spider shook, Grell using its front legs like arms, grabbing and swatting at whomever it could reach.
"SHOOT! SHOOT THEM! EVERYTHING IS ONLINE! USE THE FUCKING WEAPONS SLINGBY, THAT'S OUR SCOUTING PARTY DOWN THERE!"
Snapping back into reality, Eric rapidly tapped instructions into the touchpad and the Trooper jerked into action. Missile launchers and cannons made short work of the foot soldiers but the crude metal doppelgänger looming up ahead momentarily stunned Eric.
"The fuck is that thing?! That's the bloody Destroyer! How the fuck did they manage to replicate that?!" Slamming his hand on the control panel, he brought up the H.V. Rifle and forced a sizable chunk of the Trooper's energy levels into it.
"Steady, Red!" He warned, and Grell manoeuvred her metal body to brace itself for recoil. A barrage of ferrous nickel-alloy slugs erupted from the rifle, the thunderclaps following moments later as the rounds broke through sound and metal as one. The replicated spider stumbled, beginning to collapse in on itself as it was torn apart by the bullets.
"FALL BACK!" Grell screamed, managing to sweep William out of harm's way before falling debris could pin him. Mackenzie grabbed his wrist, forcing him back onto his feet and yanking him beside him. They both ran towards her, intent on escaping the crumbling Outlander spider. Reaching one of the Arachnoid's legs, they clambered up onto safety.
"Where are the other two?!" Eric demanded, and Grell threw a sweeping scan, spotting Charlotte and Ryan perilously close to the teetering remains of the doppelgänger.
"THERE! They're near its head!" Grell outlined them onscreen before assessing the situation. The spider was falling to pieces and what remaining live rebels were being crushed by the raining metal parts.
Eric kicked the hatch open and hauled himself out of the cockpit.
"You," he pulled William towards him and all but jammed him into the seat, "be her co-pilot. You," he grabbed Mackenzie's shoulder, "cover them. You," he shouted into the cockpit at Grell on the interface, "get me as close as you can and be ready to leave at a moment's notice. Got it?"
Charlotte leapt over the fallen bodies of the rebels, not breaking pace as she too ran for cover. At her side was Ryan, and she reached over to grab his hand to ensure he wouldn't fall behind.
A sharp whistling sound sailed overhead.
She was on her back, for some unknown reason.
Her helmet visor was covered in red.
She couldn't feel her leg.
Broken glass? She brushed the shards off her helmet, smearing the red away in the process. Ryan's face came into view, his eyes bulging with shock as he shook with the effort to remain over her on all fours. His visor was broken, and his mouth was covered in blood. It dripped onto her steadily.
She tried to sit up and wriggle out from under him but found why she couldn't move her leg. A piece of the spider's torso had fallen, crushing her foot beneath it, and the only reason she hadn't been crushed wholly was due to Ryan bracing it upright with the failing hydraulics of his armoured suit.
Upon closer inspection she spotted a large metal rod clean through his shoulder, but a hair's breadth from her cheek.
"Ryan-"
"I don't have much time." The medic gasped, breathing laboriously and gritting his teeth against the pain. "Can you get your feet out?"
"I can wriggle my left foot out, but my right one's stuck."
"You'll have to cut it off. They can fix it at back at base. Can you reach it?"
She strained forward, before collapsing with a shriek at a sudden stab of pain in her side.
"My shoulder's dislocated and I've broken a few ribs." Fear. There was an emotion she hadn't experienced in a while. "Ryan, what are we going to do?"
"You're going to get out of here." Eric informed them both, skidding to a halt and dropping into a crouch beside them. He pulled out an atom dagger, sawing as fast as he could through the metal rod pierced through Ryan's shoulder. When enough was cut he placed the dagger into the Medic's grasp. Carefully he eased himself to take Ryan's place, the weight of the metal immediately slamming against his back.
"I'm no Medic. You'll have to cut her foot off." Eric shakily ordered, though his demeanour was calm. "You're her best chance. Grell will take you both back to base."
"No." Charlotte shook her head. "No, not without you. Don't pull this bullshit on me, Eric, don't you bloody dare-" She screamed in agony as she felt white hot pain race up her leg.
Hooking his hands beneath her arms, Ryan pulled her out from beneath the looming metal slab, leaving her crushed foot behind. Above them, the skeleton of the spider groaned, swaying dangerously.
"ERIC!" She sobbed through her pain, reaching out childishly for him. He gave her a tender smile.
Grabbing her head, Ryan slammed her against a rock to knock her unconscious, and Eric nodded gratefully. This, of all things, she had to be spared from seeing.
"You get my girl home, Ryan, you understand?" His limbs shook as the suit began to power down, unable to cope with the weight distribution.
"Yes sir."
He watched as mechanized arms scooped up Ryan and Charlotte, Grell tucking them safe inside the cockpit. She paused, hesitating as if to reach for him, before backing away hastily as the doppelgänger finally toppled over in a cascade of burning debris.
Eric closed his eyes and welcomed the darkness.