Chapter 7
The Talons had spent the last few days taking down their campsite and condensing it all into Dynamo's old truck and some of the dune buggies that weren't destroyed after the previous attack. Dynamo was doing some final adjustments underneath the truck. Rusty was getting into his dune buggy when Captain showed up. "You aren't coming." she said bluntly. "You're nothing but a risk for our survival. If I find you following us, we'll shoot you down without hesitation." Rusty didn't respond, he just looked at her.
The sounds of vehicles could be heard in the distance. Captain thought it was other outlaws, coming to scavenge or finish the job the STRI-KRs started. "Get the truck started!" Captain ordered. "We can't go for another half hour, the truck's not ready!" called Dynamo. Captain growled and snatched her gun from the cab of the truck and ran towards where the noise was coming from. Past the pile of wrecked cars, came Bullhide's dreaded assault rig, along with most of his army's cars following behind. They all stopped a few yards away from Captain. Bullhide climbed out on one side of the truck, without any weapons on him.
"There's nothing for you here, Bullhide!" called Captain. "We've been through enough, so go back to whatever hole you came from!" "None of us are here to hurt you!" called a familiar voice from the truck's loudspeaker. The Talons knew who it was. Dynamo crawled from underneath his truck to see what was going on. Out from the other side of the battle semi's cab was Slayer. He too was also unarmed as he approached Captain. His right shoulder that was shot was now repaired, with the hole being covered by a rusted piece of metal. "So now you're on their side?" asked Captain, who was still pointing her gun at the group. "We aren't here to do any harm," said Slayer. "It's clear we have not drawn our weapons, so we suggest you drop yours." Captain still held her ground and didn't raise or lower her rifle. "Besides," Slayer continued, "we aren't the only ones here."
From both sides, more gangs of road warriors emerged. Vehicles of all types stopped and joined the group. Up in the skies, a few Thunder Warrior fighters flew overhead and circled the group like hawks. Some of the gangs even arrived on horses or simply on foot. Ten thousand, maybe more, survivors from miles around who heard Slayer on that radio had come together and stood before the last of The Talons, who couldn't tell whether they were dreaming or not. Despite this, Captain still remained in the same position she had been in for the past few minutes. "We were all wrong to fight each other," said Bullhide. "We were all more concerned about what we wanted that we forgot about the real threat." Rusty, Dynamo and the rest of The Talons walked towards the enormous group of outlaws and stood behind Captain. "The STRI-KRs have been capturing and torturing people to death at their main base of operations." Slayer said. "They currently have their hands on ballistic missiles and are likely ready to speed up the extermination of your kind as we speak. If we are going to put an end to all of this, we first need as many hands as possible. So Captain, would you rather remain a coward and get picked off by the STRI-KRs, or join us and live to see another day?"
Captain surprisingly was still holding the gun at the group. Rusty was the first to start walking past her and stand next to Slayer. Dynamo soon followed. Eventually, the rest of The Talons walked towards Slayer's side, while Captain just stood there and watched. "You with us or what?" Slayer asked. Captain slowly began lowering her gun down to the ground and walked towards Slayer. Slayer reached out his right hand towards Captain. The two shook hands.
The commanders of each gang gathered around with Slayer as their marauders prepared their weapons and made adjustments to their vehicles. "First thing's first," Slayer began "Your choices of weaponry are not going to work on the STRI-KRs. Does anybody have access to any laser or plasma pulse weapons?" "We have a bunker stashed with rifles and pistols much like yours and Rusty's." replied the Thunder Warriors general. "Our aircraft is equipped with plasma pulse cannons already." "Well that's one problem settled." said Slayer in relief. He then looked up at the battle semi. "Can that truck break through a thick metal gate?" Slayer asked Bullhide. Bullhide smiles with pride. "That gigantic hunk of pure mayhem was built for riot control by Buy N' Large before STRI-KRs were thought of, and its armor is stronger than any STRI-KR bodies! Makes for a good gatecrasher!" "Wonderful!" replied Slayer. "I'll be on the riot control semi. We'll lead the charge and crash through the entrance, while accompanied with half of the marauders we have. The Thunder Warriors will take care of any threats that ground armies cannot attack. The rest of the marauders will take care of the STRI-KRs outside of the headquarters and save the prisoners, while I, Rusty, Dynamo, and Captain will arm the missiles with chargers to rig the base to explode. We get out in time, the base and plenty of STRI-KRs will be destroyed, and we reign supreme." "Sounds like suicide" said Captain. "You sure this'll be a successful attack?" "We won't have another chance at this, Captain." replied Slayer.
General Hammer was at the main hangar at the STRI-KR base where transport trucks, the missiles and the launchers were stored. Some transport trucks hung from crane arms on the ceiling above the rest that were sitting in an orderly fashion on the ground. The missiles were moved to another part of the hangar, and so were the launchers, which were undergoing much needed repairs. Buy N' Large FIX-IT robots were hard at work on the launchers. "How long until the launchers are ready?" asked Hammer to one of the STRI-KRs. "The FIX-IT bots are doing the best they can." the STRI-KR acknowledged "One more day and they'll be fit for service." Hammer sighed. "Good enough at least. I would've preferred them to be finished now." He began heading back up to his office.
When he arrived back at his watchtower office, he noticed that he received a message from the Buy N' Large robot factory in Southern Africa. They had completed the construction of the first STRI-KR 2.0 designed by General Hammer and were taking it through test runs. Once approved, it will be sent over to its main base and will be put on trial. Hammer couldn't have been happier. "Excellent!" he exclaimed "After we put this on trial, we'll mass produce them and have all current STRI-KRs' memories and hard drives into these new shells!" Hammer grabbed a cup of water that had been sitting on his control desk and sat back on his chair, feeling as if he had the world by the balls.
Out of nowhere, the door swooshed open and a STRI-KR rushed inside. "General Hammer sir!" it said "We have a problem!" General Hammer flinched and almost spit out the water he was drinking and jumped out of his chair. "What, what's wrong?!" he asked. The STRI-KR pointed out the window. Hammer turned and looked out the window with the STRI-KR, and couldn't believe his eyes. "You have got to be joking." Hammer muttered under his breath.
