Wasteland Survivor – A road not travelled - ch6
#7 of Wasteland Survivor
Well, another installment, have the next few chapters worth of plot kind of organised, will see over the next few days if they change much.
Please vote and comment, even if just to say "I read this", the more reaction I recieve the more incentive I have to continue.
One thing, doing all the research for this story, I never realised all the funky stuff the Aussie military uses, these troop transports, the bushmasters, are pretty amazing vehicles.
"So, we have Jennings running the military side, Nicols handling the squad, then we have..." I tuned out to the rest of Crystal's role call and just watched her, I am not sure at what point it happened but I now found that canine mouth absolutely irresistible, ".. Private Banana and General Failure. You didn't hear any of that at all did you babe?", oops, sprung.
"Uh, we have about three quarters of all the SAS guys, a signalman from the navy and a fragile package running the show." I replied with a dead pan voice,"Get it, handle with care?" I had her now, she was trying not to laugh and losing. Things were about to proceed to tickling when a voice interrupted.
"Whatever it is that has your humour up, I hope it holds, you are moving in an hour. The two Bushmasters we have are geared up and Private Johansen has made sure the rations you specified to him are all loaded in addition to what your squad will need. You have decided who you are taking in right?" Sergeant Nicols stated.
"Yes Sir we have and almost all the soldiers have been notified, there is only one left. Sir, interested in going for a drive later?" Crystal asked with her best attempt at 'coy', as it turns out, wolves don't do 'coy' very well at all.
"Damn it, I thought you might, I have a-" he started to retort.
"I am sorry soldier, it wasn't a request." Crystal butted back in.
The Sergeant snapped to attention, "Sir! Yes Sir!", at which point I lost it and threw a pencil at each of them.
"You! You have been gloating about this list for three days. And YOU! Your rotting your arse off here like a race horse hitched to a dray. You're both going and you are both going to enjoy the hell out of it!" soldiers, they are almost as infuriating as girlfriends.
"A very astute observation, one I share." Added the voice of the Major. Entering the planning room unannounced "Now, the Sergeant was correct in stating that you have, uh, HAD an hour to make yourselves ready. By my watch you now have fifty five minutes."
"Sir!" we all snapped together and took off at a dead run.
All our equipment was packed, and when we arrived at the front gate we found it was already loaded, along with Nicols and his gear.
"Ahh, now our illustrious leaders have arrived, we can depart, maybe even on time!" the prickly officer Jennings observed.
"Hey Fox, you should see these things, even you could drive one without crashing, much!" Crystal called to me over the sound of the engines as she started climbing in the back.
"She won't be will she? I Saw her driving that truck when you two first arrived..." a wise arse pointed out from the hatch as we were climbing in, "And, uh, it would be good to get there in one piece."
I gave him a weak punch in the arm as I got in. Soldiers!
I was perhaps a little surprised when the the hatch closed up and the air conditioner fired up. The wise arse, noticing my impressed look stated, "Yeah, apparently they figured that if the troop transports were this comfortable, we would work harder to end wars so we could enjoy the ride back home."
"Yeah, but all that happened was the troops never leave the damn things long enough to fight! Private Ashfield by the way ma'am, and this here is Private O'Brian." a new soldier said, gesturing to 'private wise arse'.
"I would be pleased, but your jokes are worse than mine." I countered, holding out my hand, uh paw, uh thing.
They shook it in turn and Crystal muttered in 'comically under your breath but loudly' tone, "No, no jokes are worse than hers." and preceded to sigh.
The first day passed reasonably easily, it was mainly spent travelling south-south east to reach the coast just south of Sydney, that was one traffic jam we wanted to avoid, especially in vehicles that can travel at over a hundred clicks.
We set out after an uneventful night and started down what was called 'The Great Ocean Road', basically a windy highway that kept near the sea and threaded through tourist traps every hundred clicks or so.
About eleven thirty we heard the driver yell, "Sirs, we have a situation ahead!"
I climbed into the gun mount and popped the opening. There was a tangle of cars on the road ahead and a lone human standing in front of them, head bowed.
"We have a road block and one guy standing on the road, looks young and unkempt." I called down into the vehicle, this was a military matter, and for that Jennings was in charge.
"Keep your gun on him Fox. O'Brian, Ashfiled, Larson, head out there and detain him, I will organise some others to move the block.
The soldiers approached the man, keeping their guns raised. "Sir. Please step to the side of the road." O'Brian ordered.
It was then the three soldiers fell to the ground groaning, I could see tufts of fur spreading over the head of one of them. The man straightened up and I could see his glowing eyes. "He's hostile!" I yelled.
The man's face snapped to look at me, then to where the soldiers were gathering to assist with clearing the block, I didn't hesitate further. Thankfully the gun mount meant there was very little stutter to the gun as it cut the man down with precision. I then lept out of the top of the truck running to the three stricken soldiers. A very cat like face looked up at me from the body of Private Ashfield.
"Fuck, what the, fuck! Arggg" he yelled grabbing at his head, I looked at the body in front of us, the hostile had managed to lever himself onto his un-shredded arm and was glaring at the soldier. I drew my bayonet and walked the four paces closer and, trying to blank out that it was a human I was doing this to, braced his shoulder with my knee and cut completely through his neck, throwing the head into the ditch beside the road.
I turned and got back to the soldiers as Ashfield was getting up, well, sprung up, he leapt the few meters to the man's body and drew his side arm, emptying the clip into the corpse.
I moved to beside him and took the gun from his hand, "What happened, I didn't hear what he said at the end there, just as you went down?" I asked him.
"The bastard, he said, 'Dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me', prick was quoting bible verses, and then, as we changed, I could feel his voice, inside my head, he was telling me to turn and hunt you all..." I hugged him and he said, very quietly, "I don't know if I could have resisted, but then, just before you finished him, I felt something else, another voice, it told me 'You're a soldier, no civilian can break you down'" he pulled back from me and looked in my eyes, "It was a female voice, I know the voice, if I could only hear it again."
"How is h-" Jennings started.
"THATS IT!" Ashfield shouted and dropped to his knees on the tarmac before the Second Lieutenant. "You stopped his voice, you protected me when he was ordering me to kill." He looked up into his commanding officers eyes, "Thank you... Sir..."
"Yeah, that's how it felt to me too." piped in O'Brian, a very sleek muzzle and face pattern identifying him as a Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger.
"Same" volunteered Private Larson. Who at first I thought was another snake hybrid, but when he opened his mouth and a large flat very blue tongue was evident and identified him as a lizard.
"Well, thats going to throw a spanner in the works with our rations." I concluded.
Private O'Brian was the first to recover from his groan, looked at Crystal as she arrived and said, "Your right, her jokes are worse." which got the few of us who got the joke laughing and helping each other back toward the vehicles.
"... and none of the others were affected, when he turned his gaze toward us the Lieutenant's eyes started to glow and she pushed past us glaring back at that guy. Sir." one of the soldiers was reporting to Nicols.
"Yeah" I piped in, "Seems Jennings' has just had her quickening, she has some kind of telepathy thing going on."
"Well she saved us from becoming fur balls, begging your pardon ma'am." the soldier noted.
I grinned to show no offence, then thought I better say something, there is very little difference between a snarl and a grin with a muzzle, "No sweat Private, its not something I would wish upon anyone. But it does seem she saved us in more than just that, the guy had some kind of mind control, Ashfield, here, was saying he felt himself being ordered to kill everyone, then the Lieutenant's voice told him not to and he could fight it."
The Private in question nodded his agreement to my wording of the situation.
"Well, lets clear the road and keep moving, would be good to make the RAAF base by nightfall." said the Sergeant, ever practical.
"Sir, yes Sir!" the soldier replied, returning to the job he was assigned before all the excitement.
And now I am off to try and find out what Tazzy tigers eat, well, ate ;(