His own ragged breathing was loud inside his helmet, a frantic rhythm that betrayed the fear he was keeping in tentative check. He was alone, he was unarmed, and he was pursued. Men so recently his allies now intended to kill him for the tiny thing in his front pocket- his willingness to surrender the object notwithstanding.

Gravel and sand crunching softly under his boots, he rushed down the slope of a hill, causing miniature landslides as he half skidded his way to the bottom where bare stone resumed. This area was deep in the yellow zone and the land was mostly arid, baked stone- a wide, empty desert of brown rock. But adding to his current misfortune: there seemed to be a great bit of sand before him that he had no choice but to trudge through.

Even a complete moron would have no problems following his trail because the steadily increasing wind wouldn't cover the tracks in time!

Sand or no, the little depression in the land in which he found himself was a lifesaver. If he didn't keep aware of the terrain behind him, even a complete moron could shoot him dead at 500 meters with a rifle. Since it was Grusser's crew that was hunting him, he knew there were at least two utter morons with long rifles behind him, and three other assholes besides- and Grusser himself. One against six, just the kind of odds Grusser loved best.

"Kovacs!" An electronically enhanced voice blared out from somewhere behind him. Way too closely behind him. Grusser sounded like he was just on the other side of that hill he'd just descended!

"Kovacs! You got me all wrong! I ain't going to hurt you! You're just the mechanic, right? We could use you!"

The ragged breathing in Kovacs' helmet broke rhythm as he chuckled grimly at the absurdity of that statement. Why waste the breath on such an obvious lie?

Kovacs increased his stride and attempted the fastest running he could manage, aiming to get himself across this tiny stony valley and on the other side of some terrain before his pursuers could crest the hill he'd just descended. If he didn't, they were going to light him up and there wouldn't be a damn thing to do about it.

Grusser and his men had been the second squad of their joined raiding party, but when all the convoy's guards were dead, the loot had proven to be much more valuable than anticipated. In true bandit fashion, Grusser's men had literally shot all of Kovac's comrades in the back- the promise of profit thicker than their loyalty to their fellow Varjagers. Now, those murdering bastards were eager to eliminate the final witness.

Kovacs pushed himself to maintain his pace, trying his best to jog despite already being well past fatigued. His gear was heavy, the standard varjager stuff: a basic kit out of canvas and kevlar, with straps at wrists and ankles to seal against the sand and the fine dust, or "fines", that billowed about in the air out here.

Sand grains and fine dust particles, blowing in the winds, could flow into areas contaminated with collapse fluid, which was the alien juice that had fucked the entire world. Then those same grains get blown back out of the fluid areas again, but now they carry the corruption with them, turning them into flying granules of corruption. The concentration of the stuff in the air was not enough to worry you most of the time, but if you needed to pass close to a concentrated area of collapse fluid… a sand-sealed outfit could save your life.

Deciding he needed to depend on his kit to do just that, Kovacs took out his C-counter and moved it before him as he jogged over the stony landscape. He could barely hear the crackly noise of its sensor over his own breathing and the thunder of his own pulse in his head, but it was plain that there was a larger concentration of corruption in the right-ish direction. Kovacs turned towards it, the steadily intensifying crackling of his sensor confirming he was going the right way.

Kovacs held onto two distinct hopes in this desperate moment: That Grusser and his men would naturally assume he would avoid areas of concentrated collapse fluid (you know, like any mostly sane person); and second, that the storm brewing on the horizon would hit before Kovacs got spotted and shot. He just had to maintain his lead until then.

Dust was billowing ahead of him, curling over the tops of the hard stone ground. Sand was beginning to flow in some areas like water. The horizon seemed very close, ominous grey clouds stretching up to the sky like a wall defending the heavens. Clearly, the storm wasn't here just yet, but the wind of its vanguard had arrived.

A storm like this in the yellow zone naturally blew lots of dust and sand about, and a lot of the dust and sand could be corrupted, and then you had what was called a collapse storm. The very air turned into a maelstrom of corruptive particles, the concentration becoming life threatening even with clothing sealed against sand. The high winds could force dust and other fine particles right through the miniscule holes of the fabric. So, no one wanted to get caught in a collapse storm without shelter, Grusser included. Hopefully, the bastard wanted to not be in the storm more than he wanted to shoot Kovacs as soon as possible.

It was a desperate hope that would only buy Kovacs a bit of time, since he would also be trapped by the storm. But with time, he could maybe think of some way to get out of this. Or perhaps his tracks would be covered by the storm's passing and Grusser's men would lose the trail and be forced to give up- before Kovacs died of thirst in this desert.

A bit of ground stone just ahead of him exploded abruptly into shards of rock. A half-second later, Kovacs heard the distant crack of a rifle. Fuck! Those rifle-morons had line of sight on him!

He turned instinctively towards the nearest topography he could find- a little downward depression in the land. There was another little explosion of stone where he'd just been standing, and again the distant sound of the rifle shot followed in the air.

Turning his head, Kovacs could see three humanoid figures on the crest of that hill he'd so recently descended. Two of them were clearly pointing guns in his direction. One of the rifles flashed at him briefly, then something that sounded like an angry hornet buzzed past Kovac's helmet. Crack!

Fuck! They had him dead to-

The ground suddenly wasn't where Kovac's right foot expected it to be. He fell forward, his head traveling a terrifying distance forward and down until his body slammed onto the sharp downward slope. With all the grace of a tumbling stone, Kovac's descended the arroyo into the canyon below. His world was a rotation of grey sky and brown stone, he couldn't hear anything but his own body crunching downward with the flowing earth and his own grunting. After the longest tumble of his life, he finally came to a stop, the rocks and dirt that he'd outpaced arriving to bury a portion of his body.

Kovacs breathed deeply, his eyes blinking rapidly as his heart thumped in his chest. The adrenaline from the fall and the fear from the gunshots began to ebb slightly. Logical thought returned sporadically. He'd fallen. He didn't seem to be badly hurt. He was in a canyon. There was a storm coming and people were shooting at him. He needed to get up and keep moving.

Oh, and his C-counter was still in his hand and it was going fucking nuts.

Raising himself out of the earth, Kovacs glanced at the sensor's read-out: a bit in the red and it sounded like a rattlesnake. Shit. To get a reading like this, he would have to be practically inside the collapse fluid! He climbed to his feet cautiously and looked around. He was eager to get away from the corruption, but he wasn't yet sure what direction it was in!

He found himself at the bottom of a steep ravine, into which several steep arroyos emptied- one of which he'd just tumbled down. There was only one way to go now, and that was down the main wash into the larger ravine below him. Luckily, the source of the corruption wasn't in his path, but he still wasn't sure where it was. Perhaps somewhere above him in the cliff face? Collapse fluid tended to entangle where it landed, so it did not always flow downhill like an actual liquid- making the name something of a misnomer.

Sore and bruised, Kovacs set off. The fall into the ravine was only a temporary reprieve. He might be away from Grusser's men for now, but he'd essentially caught himself in a trap. His pursuers would know he was down here, so they would also know there was only one direction he could possibly go.

The wider wash emptied out into a yet larger wash, and that into what appeared to be the main ravine itself. The cliffs were wide enough here for a little dry riverbed to have carved its way deeper into the earth, leaving a long, wide, flattish bottom to the canyon alongside it. Wind was billowing here, puffing dust around and around in this end canyon.

The C-counter was still crackling grumpily but the needle had backed a comforting distance away from the red, but with the wind billowing the dust and fine particles all around, there might be more danger in the air than was readily apparent. Kovacs needed shelter and he needed it soon.

He scanned the area for a cave, but saw none. Most of the center of the canyon was taken up by an enormous, squarish stack of boulders that- wait. Those… those were treds! Kovacs rubbed his fingers aggressively on the visor of his helmet, clearing his vision a bit.

Not boulders! It was… it was a… tank?! No.. way too big for a tank. It barely fit in the canyon itself! Was it a giant train engine? No. It had treads. What the fuck was this thing? A giant, steel tank-train-ship-building… Oh! It was a fucking Mobile Base Vehicle! A MBV!... But- why was it here?! And who was the crazy asshole who had backed the thing into this box canyon?!

Whoever it was, Kovacs just hoped the guy was friendly, because he needed to get inside that thing. The wind was starting to groan as it moved through the canyon, and the sunlight was beginning to fade as the massive towers of clouds above began to cover the sky. He carefully picked his way down and up the dry riverbed and to the side of the MBV.

It was dusty as all hell. Dried mud was caked and thick against the treads, as if more than one flash flood had washed past this thing. The MBV probably hadn't moved in a long time. Kovacs craned his neck to try and look up to where he thought the operation center was, but the steel blast shields were engaged. She was locked up tight.

No sign of running lights. No hum of engine or generator that Kovacs could pick out, but between the wind, his helmet, and his own breathing- he probably wouldn't be able to hear those sounds anyway. But where was the door?

He found it between two of the MBV's massive treds. Not a door you would want to use when the thing was moving, that was for sure. Expecting it to be locked, Kovacs put his hand in the depression of the metal that was the door's handle and he pulled. To his surprise and glee, it opened! It wasn't locked!

Why wasn't it locked? Was this a trap? Kovacs hesitated, wishing again that he'd had the presence of mind to pick up a gun when he'd heard all his comrades getting shot. But he was the mechanic! He didn't do the shooting, he just repaired the stuff after it got shot up!

Well, the storm would surely kill him if he stayed outside, so taking his chances inside the mystery MBV was preferable. He opened the door and stepped into the darkness, shutting out the storm and the last of the daylight behind him.

Kovacs stood still in the darkness, listening intently. Other than the low whisper of the growing winds outside, it was dead silent inside the MBV- or at least in this part of it. The thing was at least three stories tall, so people could be on the upper floors and he would not be able to hear them moving around. They might even be looking at him through some thermal security camera or something, right that very moment!

Well, if they were, there was nothing he could do about it now. Kovacs ripped off his helmet and breathed the open air with relief. Then gagged. It smelled like old meat! Shit. Was there an ELID in here?!

Kovacs fumbled in his vest pockets for his flashlight. He pulled it out and turned it on, revealing the bare steel entrance area he'd briefly seen when he'd opened the hatch. He flashed the light around. Other than a few open gear lockers, there was a single closed hatch. Lacking other options, Kovacs grabbed the hatch door and opened it wide, shining his flashlight into the darkness beyond.

A human skull stared up at him, its mouth screaming.

"Oh! FUCK!" shouted Kovacs as he literally jumped a half-foot into the air.

He dropped the flashlight, it tumbled through the air, he grabbed for it, missed, it tumbled, it hit the steel floor with a deafening clang and began rolling away from him.

"Shhhit!"

Kovacs scrambled after his light, snatched it up, and took a calming breath. Well- it didn't look like he needed to worry about whomever owned this MBV. He went back to the hatch and directed the flashlight over the human skeleton. The bones were pretty clean…

The inside of the MBV was likely a pretty sterile environment...

Kovacs was no expert, but he was pretty sure this person needed to be dead a long time to be bones now- though they did seem a little… moist.

The corpse's clothing, hanging in limp tatters on the ribs, clearly had bullet holes in them. Kovacs raised his flashlight and saw a cluster of bullet impressions in the steel wall. Shot right through at close range. Brutal.

Well, then: this was likely the fate of anyone else in here. Which meant no one owned this MBV. Right?

Which meant…he owned this MBV… right?!