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Chapter one The Sandman

It was a dessert. Nothing but sand and dust in any direction except for the outpost. It looked deserted. It wasn't. The sniper on the hill nearly a hundred meters away knew this. The sniper was named David Waters, though, everyone knew him as The Sandman. He was a hawk. Defeathered through torture, he was flightless. He was thirsty. He lost track of time laying there, eye looking through the scope, aimed at the outpost. He was waiting for someone, anyone to peek outside. The water he sipped through a straw was gone for an hour now. Heat and exhaustion tried to blur his vision, though he ignored it. His squad was dead. Ambushed on the road. David followed the ambushers to this outpost. Sneaking to this hill before dawn. He counted three in the building. They were preparing to leave any moment. Men in the rags worn but the local rebellion were carrying boxes to the building from a truck. Stolen goods from David's caravan. The hawk's heart beat faster, adrenaline taking effect now that his moment was at hand. To put these men to sleep. The men were canines. And they were now dead. David only had to pull the trigger three times. Looking back through the scope, David only saw the red splatter on the wall where the men stood. On the floor lay the dogs, shot through the head. With a sigh of relief, the sandman got up, covered the scope and got up. He dusted himself off and walked down the dune, heading towards the small building. He was half way down when he saw the flash. There was a sniper on the roof. He hissed to himself, "You fool.." he jumped to the side, hearing the shot go off, the bullet barely missing him. Within a second aimed his own rifle, looking through the covered lens instinctively firing the shot. His eyes were wide with shock. He blindly fired at an impossible distance. He stood there, waiting to die for his mistake. Nothing happened. Slowly he looked through his binoculars to see the dead body of the sniper on the roof. Hanging off the edge, blood dripping down to the floor below. He put the binoculars away and laughed out loud, "That's right! No one fucks with the Sandman!" He then walked to the bodies, keeping an eye open for any signs of life. The dead men all had assault rifles, which now belonged to David. He slung one over his shoulder, taking a few grenades and most importantly, water. He drank a full bottle that he took from the bodies. They weren't carrying too much else that David could use. Armed with one of the rifles he found, he slowly walked into the building. Thanking no one in particular that it was only a couple rooms big. There were computers and maps all around. They were hackers. He looked around for anything useful. The letters on the screen were in no dialect he understood. He figured it was sold to them on the alien black market. Looking at the maps, he noticed something odd. He turned his radio on and talked into it. "Anyone there?" The bull he knew as Jacob's voice came through the radio, "David?! You're alive! I thought you were a goner!" "You have no faith in me. My squad was ambushed. Are the satellites being jammed?" Jacob responded, "As a matter of fact they are. We can't find you anywhere. Where the Sam hill are ya?" "I found a bunker." He looked on the screens, maps of Earth from now and before the apocalypse were shown side by side, "I think the little rebellion was using it to hack into our satellites." There was a small pause, "Where do you think they got the money for that?" "I think someone's funding all this. I found maps of the wastelands on Earth." "Earth?" The bull paused, "What does anyone want on Earth?" "Hell if I know.." David looked over the maps, "But they are probably the ones behind these groups popping up. I'm gonna do some snooping, hopefully I can stop the jammer. I think they're looking for something." "Alright, sir. I'll send a whirlybird your way when we find you. Be careful, they might be listening in." David nodded, "Alright, Sandman out." With that he turned the radio off. He knew he didn't have much time before he'd be swarmed with guns. He worked quickly, trying to get the computers to do what he wanted. They were a technology he didn't understand. Nothing like the American Tech he was used to. He eventually got to a map of the local area of Mars. It showed the locations of all the outposts in the region. It was a very important piece of information. He scrambled for a way to plug his PDA into the machine. Giving up on that idea, he took a picture of the screen. He then scrambled to grab anything that looked important before heading to the roof to grab any ammo from the sniper rifle. He looked around. By the map on the screen, he knew he still had a few minutes before more rebels would show up. On his way down from the roof, he had an idea of how to get the machines off. He strapped C4 to anything inside, armed it and ran back to the top of the hill before setting the bombs off. It was magnificent. The building went up in a blaze, David stood there and watched, enjoying his handiwork. He turned his radio back on for a moment, "I blew the building, took some pictures, stole some things." Jacob answered quickly, "God dammit, David! Don't just up and turn your radio off like that!" "I needed to concentrate." He sat down on the sand, "Can you see where I am?" The bull paused a moment, "Yeah, you're showing up on our map, you're way off the road." "How soon can someone be here?" "I dunno. Ten minutes, but you probably have half that seeing as how bad you pissed them off." "Hmm.." David thought for a moment, "I'm heading south, I'll send a flare in five. Please hurry. I'm leaving my tracker behind." Jacob laughed, "Already half way there." David ran south. The more distance he put between him and the explosion the better. He had to risk his radio being tracked by another one of these outposts. He was on the brink of exhaustion. Only adrenaline keeping him going. It was a couple minutes before his legs gave out. He was out of breath. He reached into his vest pocket, pulled out the flare and launched it into the sky and collapsed.