Sofia let go of the rusted metal hood, letting the metal sheet slam down into place and latch shut. "Fuck me, it's worse than a summer on Indar here," she thought, letting out a sigh as she crouched down to pick up the pair of fuel canisters she had taken from the ship's workshop, now filled with fuel that reeked in the scorching mid-day sun. Between the mild headache from the gasoline fumes and the all-encompassing, sticky sensation of her sweat-drenched jumpsuit clinging to her body underneath her heavy armor, she felt sick to her core. "Eating two-century-old cryo-preserved MRE's for dinner last night probably didn't help," she thought. Gritting her teeth, she stuffed her internal pain far into some deep corner in the back of her mind and went about her job, carrying the two heavy twenty-liter jerry cans of fuel back to a small stack of fuel cans in the shade of the massive ship, at the base of the ramp that led up into the common room they had taken over the night before.
Setting the two full cans down next to the others, she took a seat on the ramp, gazing out over the small fleet of rust-covered vehicles. At the far end of the carpool, Tony and Juliet stood up next to a vehicle they had just finished siphoning fuel from, the young girl dwarfed in size by the exosuit-clad soldier. "She's gotten her strength back pretty quickly for just a few meals and a good night's sleep. I'm surprised she can even carry one of these things," she thought, watching as the young lady weaved her way through the vehicles, struggling to carry a single can at her side. "She did insist to help, though, and I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I didn't appreciate it…"
Juliet approached the collection of fuel cans, setting down her contribution. Sofia could see that her hands were shaking from overexertion — she was clearly pushing herself just to help out with the already-miserable job in such heat. "Hey, come take a seat," she said, gesturing for the girl to join her on the ramp. Juliet glanced over to her, her eyes immediately averting Sofia's gaze. "Jeez, I'm not gonna eat you," the captain added, rolling her eyes.
After a moment of unsure thought, Juliet joined the Terran captain on the ramp, hugging her knees close to her chest as her hands nervously played with the hem of her tattered dress. The two women sat on the ramp for several minutes before she finally dared to speak up.
"Are you… not hot in that armor?" the brown-haired girl quietly asked.
Sofia chuckled. "In these under-armor jumpsuits, you get swamp ass like you wouldn't believe," she said, "but it sure beats the hell out of getting sunburned or chafed by baggy clothes under your armor." Grasping her helmet by the neck, she gently removed the hefty headpiece and set it aside, then pulled off her armored gloves and set them beside her. "Hey, I need an honest answer for this, no bullshit. Why do you hate the Terran Republic so much?" she asked, gently probing with her fabric-covered hand underneath the tight, flat-pressed bun in her hair to scratch an itch.
Only silence greeted her question. Juliet raised her head, but didn't dare look Sofia in the eyes as she still nervously played with her dress. "The Terran Republic has always treated us poorly… even the raiders like the Motorheads can be bribed, but the Terrans always get their way..."
"So it's true, that they holed themselves up behind some big walls and are demanding money from others?" Sofia pressed on. She reached for her belt, removing a small water flask she had taken from the supplies in the ship's common room earlier that morning from a carabiner. Taking a sip, she could see that Juliet was watching the flask with interest, so she held out the container to her to have some.
"Thank you," Juliet replied meekly, taking the flask and lifting it to her lips to take a small sip before continuing. "Yes, the Terrans make their rounds once every few storms to take collections. They take as much as they want, and if we don't give them what they want, they…"
Sofia nodded. "I see where you're going. No need to explain."
Stretching her legs out, Juliet slowly laid back, resting her head against the warm metal ramp and placing a hand against her head. "You not feeling great?" Sofia asked. The young girl only nodded in response, setting the metal water flask aside and resting her free hand on her stomach, on top of one of the many small holes torn in her dress where one of Daniel's bandages showed through.
"Here, one sec, let me steal one of these," Sofia said, slowly undoing one of the gauze wraps around Juliet's lower left leg. Folding the length of fabric several times to reduce its size, she took the metal flask and took one final swig of metallic-tasting water before pouring the rest of the container's contents over the gauze, soaking the fabric through. Unfolding the long strip of fabric a few times, she swung the length of fabric above her head for about fifteen seconds, until the damp fabric had cooled down significantly. Folding the fabric up again, she pushed aside Juliet's hand and set the fabric on her forehead.
"Thank you," the girl replied, gently resting her hand on her forehead once more, pressing the damp fabric against her skin. "That feels great… I will need to remember that trick."
"Don't mention it," Sofia said, laying back against the ramp and closing her eyes. "Seriously, don't. If Tony gets word that I'm actually being nice to someone, he'll never stop bitching. I treat my squad like my family, but he hasn't earned that privilege yet."
"He seems like a kind person."
"That's because you don't have to teach him and hold him to any sort of standard," the squad captain grumbled. "He's as lazy and stupid as they come, most days. Six months he's been in my squad, and I can count on one hand the number of days I didn't catch him gambling or doing some jackass shit with the other recruits. Honestly, I'll fork over my rank and a year's paycheck if you can find any redeeming traits of his worth writing up in a report."
Over their idle conversation, Sofia could hear Tony slowly approach in his heavy exosuit, each thundering footstep louder than the last. Cracking an eye open, she could see in the bottom edge of her vision that the soldier was carrying six full jerry cans of fuel. "Aww, come on, starting break time without me?" he said, hindered by the heavy battle suit's limited mobility as he squatted down to drop off the fuel cans. The Terran captain simply smirked and raised one hand, middle finger extended skyward. "At least your suit has climate control," she said. "We're dying out here, unlike your ugly mug."
Tony only shrugged. "Perks of the job."
"So's a boot to the ass, unless you go get us some more water."
"Fine, fine," the soldier sighed. Stomping past the two reclining women, he disappeared into the ship for several minutes before returning, free of his MAX suit and with a few metal flasks of water and a packet of candy from an MRE in his arms. He took a seat between the two at the bottom of the ramp, passing them each another water canteen before ripping a corner off of the cellophane package of candy.
"Are you just going to pick out all the best parts of our food every time you get a break, rookie?" Sofia asked, extending an open hand.
Tony held the package of candy away from her, a look of mock offense on his face. "I can't believe you're going to rob your own squad members for something so petty!" he exclaimed, an air of drama in his voice. Turning to Juliet, he held out the bag of candy as an offering. "I told you she's a bully!" he "whispered", more than loud enough for Sofia to hear as he took the girl's hand and poured some of the small hard candies into it. Juliet smiled, giggling slightly.
"Maybe if you respected rank and rules for three fucking seconds at any point in the past six months, I'd be inclined not to bust your balls so often in front of the squad," Sofia stated, her hand still outstretched where she lay.
Tony grinned. "What's the magic word?"
Without even opening an eye, Sofia deftly reached for the belt about her waist with her left hand, withdrawing a red and black, oval-shaped grenade with flat ends, her thumb poised over a small button protruding from the end. "Pulling the pin in three, two, one-"
"Fine, fine, no need to kill us all," Tony conceded, pouring as little of the package's contents into her hand as he thought he could get away with. "Jeez, and I thought your little secret-police second in command Johann was cold… bet you wouldn't have pulled the pin, though."
"Try me," Sofia said, still holding the grenade aloft as she popped the candy into her mouth. Only after Tony seemed to back down did she return the device to its slot on her chest bandolier, then reached for her fresh container of water and took a swig.
Several minutes passed in silence. Suddenly, in the distance, the sound of an engine sputtering to life filled the dead-silent air. Sofia rose to her feet, shoving her helmet back onto her head as she looked around for the source of the noise. Finally, she noticed a small dust cloud arising from the front end of the ship; to her surprise, the heavy Sunderer transport rolled out of the thin dust cloud, belching dark, smoky exhaust as it lumbered its way around the ship, toward her. "About damn time!" she thought, taking another sip of her water canteen. The brakes of the vehicle whined as the the heavy transport came to a stop just at the edge of the shadow cast by the massive spaceship above, the roaring engine clattering for a brief moment before spooling down and falling silent. The passenger-side door flew open as James hopped out of the seat, dropping to the ground. "Hell yeah, she runs fine!" he remarked, affectionately slapping the armored side of the vehicle. "This ol' war rig's got life in her, yet!"
"Then let's get loaded up and get shipped out," she said, pocketing her half-empty water flask. "The sooner we get out of this shithole and find that Terran base, the better."
After about an hour, the Sunderer was loaded down with as many spare cans of fuel, MRE packets and canisters of water as they could fit in the spare troop transport seats, leaving the rest stashed away on the catwalks of the hangar workshop where no one else could reach them.
"Is that all of it?" Daniel called, setting his gauss rifle against a drink holder on the front console, climbing up into the dusty, sun-hardened driver's seat of the Sunderer. "No stoppin' for bathroom breaks, if we can help it. We're in for the long haul tonight."
Pausing to double check that she had all of her gear, Sofia looked around, making sure that everyone was present and accounted for. "That should be it… wait, no, we're missing that damn Vanu techie. Now where the hell did he get off to…"
"Right here," a voice called out. Turning about, Sofia found Edward and Charlotte strolling down the ramp up into the ship, holding up a keycard. "Turns out the keycard we found had pretty wide-reaching clearance. Not all of the doors had power, but Charlotte and I found a way up to the comms center. Most of the ships' comms are fucked from the landing, but one of the distress signal modules was working, so I rigged up a little randomized timer to send out pings between two days and two weeks apart, on a very specific set of frequencies."
"Why'd ya wanna do that?" Daniel asked, casually adjusting the rearview mirror with idle curiosity. "Don't that mean someone'll just find the ship 'n leave us with more space hobos to kill?"
"Because I found a few of these in the comms deck, or to be specific, four of them," Edward said, reaching for his belt on his backside. He withdrew four disc-shaped objects, about three inches across and bordered with a bulky age-hardened rubber case. "You've probably seen these things before if you ever had to do an orbital drop on a spawn beacon," he said, tossing one to the New Conglomerate soldier through the open passenger door.
"Ah, yeah, these… not like we ever needed 'em. Just kick down the drop pod door 'n start shootin', to be honest," Daniel replied, looking over the device.
"Yeah, well, they're basically fancy compasses that read several radio frequencies at once. Boot it up and punch in eighty-nine point six, ninety-two point three, and one-oh-seven point five," Edward said, handing one to Sofia as she walked up to the back of the Sunderer. Booting up one of the devices with a tap of the touch screen, he gently poked at the device's digital buttons until the three frequencies were set, then pressed a physical button on the device's edge. With the frequencies locked in, the screen went black once more.
"Good catch," Sofia grudgingly said, stashing the device on her grenade bandolier. "Any luck getting to the armory?"
"No, no fancy toys yet," Edward said with a shake of his head. "That's gonna take a lot more manpower to run around restoring power to every door, or a lot of time snaking our way through the doors that do work. We can get to that after we drop them off at their village," he added, nodding toward Shanna, Juliet, and Comere.
"Then we head toward the Terran Republic camp," Sofia stated, staring at Edward intently.
"Now hold up there, lady," James objected. "Don't think for a second you're drivin' all of us head-first into some Terran compound without expectin' them to light us up like some scumbag CEO's cigar. 'Specially me, my brother, 'n these two spaceballs," he said, nodding toward the two purple-clad Vanu soldiers. He climbed up into the passenger seat next to his brother, removing his shotgun from his shoulder and setting it on top of the dashboard before leaning back in the seat, hands behind his head. "Either way we can figure that shit out once we get on the road. I just wanna get the hell outta her before someone else shows up. I can't believe just a few dozen people are all they had in this raider gang, ya know?"
Sofia began to object, but Tony put a heavy, mechanical hand on her shoulder. "Let's just get going, Captain," he said.
"Fine," Sofia grumbled.
The sqeaking of the ancient Sunderer's suspension filled the roomy cabin as the vehicle bounced its way over another small pothole in the dusty trail. When the vehicle reached a straight section of road, Daniel took a moment to release the latch at the back of his head-encompassing helmet, hoping to get it off and get a sip of water. Setting the helmet aside, he immediately regretted his decision as he squinted against the harsh sunlight filtering through the vehicle's windshield, blindly reaching for his water flask in the vehicle's cupholder with his free hand. Against the blinding light, he could see a fork in the barren trail coming up. "Which way you wanna turn, ma'am?" he said, glancing back into the passenger area of the armored bus as he fiddled with the screw-top of his flask.
Juliet hopped up from her seat, stumbling forward until she had a hold on the headrest of the driver's seat as she peered at the upcoming paths through squinted eyes. "Uhm… right?"
"Don't seem too sure about that, huh?" James remarked. As he began to put his feet up on the dashboard of the vehicle, Daniel jammed his flask into the cupholder once more and punched his brother in the shoulder, a little too hard to be deemed "playful". "Stop bein' a dipshit for three seconds, wouldja? You couldn't even navigate your own hand to wipe your own ass, and she's here tryin' to remember stuff from God knows how many years ago to get us in the right direction," he said, pulling gently on the steering wheel of the Sunderer as he returned his focus to the road. The heavy vehicle lumbered around the turn, causing Juliet to stumble slightly as the vehicle rocked. "Sorry 'bout that, shoulda' asked ya to take a seat first, ma'am," Daniel said, locking eyes with Juliet's gaze in the rearview mirror.
"Oh, no, it's fine, really…" Juliet said, returning to her seat between Shanna and Comere. "Why do you call me that?" she hesitantly asked.
"What, you mean ma'am?" Daniel said. After a moment of thought, he simply shrugged. "Hell, that's just basic manners. Maybe you didn't get none o' that growin' up bein' beaten every day, but unlike them assholes, I've got standards."
Blushing slightly, Juliet let out a quiet "oh" and returned to her seat between Shanna and Comere, leaving Daniel to his thoughts. Pulling the steering wheel once more, he guided the heavy vehicle around another turn in the dusty trail, leaning forward out of instinct to try and get a better view around the turn. To his right, he noticed that his brother had started digging around in the glovebox of the passenger seat, fiddling with something deep in the armored compartment. "What'cha got there?" he asked.
"Eh, I got curious 'bout this lockbox I found at the back, here," James replied. "It ain't easy pickin' locks in a movin' Sunderer, ya know."
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he sighed, scratching the back of his head.
Several minutes passed, until finally the younger brother let out a triumphant "Haha!" as he stashed his makeshift tools and promptly threw the old, now broken lock out the window. "Let's see what we've got… aww, hell yeah!" he muttered, withdrawing what appeared to be a sealed letter and several plastic rectangles with protruding metal plugs and faded labels taped onto the front. "Dan, take a look! Some jackass stole a bunch 'a briefing data cards and loaded 'em with music, looks like!"
"Aww, thank Jesus. I was 'bout to lose my damn mind starin' at all this endless fuckin' dirt and rocks with everyone else back there sleepin'," Daniel said. "I dunno how Sam used to do it, bein' the squad driver. Hours of silence while we were all dozin', must've been hell."
"Let's see here…" James said, looking over the labels. "Three sets of twentieth-century rock, two for twenty-third century prog, a couple labeled country, an-"
"Ain't even a contest," Daniel interjected, glancing over at his brother with a grin on his lips
James raised and lowered his eyebrows, matching his brother's smile. "Rock it is." He selected one of the thin black rectangles, labeled "20th Cent. Rock No.1", and pushed it into a small, well-concealed slot on the dashboard plugs-first until it clicked into place. With the buzz of ancient speakers coming to life from the roof of the vehicle, an acoustic guitar rang out as the mystery player strummed out a walking bassline, instantly rousing the passengers in the back from their sleep. Daniel couldn't help but nod along with the music as the vocals kicked in, singing about summer and ice cream and all the pleasantries of a bygone life as the Sunderer rumbled along through the dusty ravines.
The New Conglomerate soldier felt something small bounce off the side of his head. A small piece of pretzel landed on the dashboard, skittering off to the floor underneath James' feet. "Turn it down, asshole!" he could hear Sofia yell.
"Fine, fine… buzzkill," he thought, reaching for the volume knob. The plucky sound of guitars faded as he rolled back the dial, stopping when the volume was suitable. Idly drumming along to the music against the steering wheel with his fingers, he shuffled about in his seat, getting comfortable for the long ride ahead. "At least it's something."