Tales from Silicon City

Wrath of the Wrecker

By Psion

A Silicon City Story

All Rights Reserved

The problem with creating a universe that realistically mirrors our own is that occasionally one must make a decision whether or not to address a particularly vile issue or a very big event that changed thousands of lives and not necessarily for the better. This is never an easy proposition, if done without conviction it can feel cheap, like the author is attempting to "cash in." Something that always should be kept in mind but at the same time, I wouldn't have gotten to where I am by keeping to the "easy" road so I guess it's time to kick things into off-road and see where they go...

The harsh Central African sun had only started to rise above the horizon, it was still many hours before the people of the region were subjected to the full intensity of its baleful glare. In the grasslands below, a small convoy of trucks began to make their way along the dirt roads running through the plains. Off in the distance, partially hidden by a low hill, a lone mech watched silently as it waited for the right opportunity to strike. As the sun continued to rise, the boxy, homemade armored vehicle slowly roared to life and prepared to move out. An expertly assembled Frankenstein construct built from the parts of several salvaged vehicles, the Wrecker Mech was a reasonably fast raiding vehicle ideally suited for dealing with this kind of vermin.

Wrecker tapped her fingers against the dashboard as she watched the caravan progress across the grasslands through the vision slit of her mech. Since yesterday she had been following this convey, ever since she heard about the raid in the west. In many of the African states, warlords were a regretful fact of life. For every freedom fighter that rose up against a corrupt regime, there were several would-be tyrants that only sought power for themselves. Most of the time there wasn't even a good side to back in a given conflict; both sides were willing to do horrible things to achieve their ends.

The saddest part of the raid was that it would have been completely unremarkable were it not for the sheer audacity of its scale, dozens of young females taken from their homes in various villages to be sold to slavers for a pittance just to prove a point. Obsidian, apparently visiting family in the area while this was happening, was the first hero to give chase, losing track of his target just after the slavers split up and fled with their living cargos. Yet not all was lost, the four-hundred-pound mountain of raw Elephantidae muscle easily... persuaded the foot soldiers that were oh so heroically abandoned by their firebrand warlord. Not surprising considering the stranded rebel militiamen were facing down a bulletproof jet-black elephant with super strength and pyrokinesis. Able to give a description of the trucks, as well as their final destination, Obsidian called in favors with the handful of African supers he knew, Wrecker being one of them. Their goal was simple, the convoys were trying to make their way to a port city somewhere in Somalia, make sure they didn't make it to their destination...

The red panda riding shotgun in the rear guard buggy did his best to not grumble about the impending heat as he cradled an American-made M4. Gods above and below, he never thought he would miss the cool air of the Cambodian mountains like he did now. This close to the equator, it if wasn't a dry heat that made him sweat like an over saturated sponge, it was an oppressive muggy one that made it impossible to breathe. He was pretty sure the enforcers for the European and American rings were thinking the same thing. Still, none of them could argue with how cheap those stupid religious firebrands were willing to go or their willingness to deal with anyone in order to unload in short order. Apparently the fundies weren't so stupid that they didn't learn from the last time they tried something like this...

So when the foreign mobs all ran into each other at where the Africans wanted to deal, there was an unspoken agreement that they would just put their personal grudges aside and proceed to empty their wallets as fast as they can before some local heroes showed up. In the end, it worked out well, they all got what they wanted and had plenty of time to beat a hasty escape before that elephant brute showed up. Now all that was left was to drive through the no man's land of the Central African brush, load a haul of African women ranging from 14 to 18 years old into the ships waiting for them in Somalia, and then set sail for ports in the Arabian Peninsula, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the western coast of the United States...

Shaking his head and scanning his surroundings as much of a way to relieve boredom as to do his job, the long-tailed panda cast a lazy pair of eyes on the endless acres of waist-high grass, the herd animals frolicking in the distance, the unidentified mech coming up on their left, the friendly cargo trucks... wait, unidentified mech?

"Wrecker's come to take back our cargo! Evasive action!" One of the other guards exclaimed over the radio as the red panda began to notice identifying marks on the mysterious armored vehicle. The tracked "centaur-like" mech appeared to be a hodgepodge of parts from various vehicles and homemade robotic limbs. A Russian chassis married to a kitbashed mech torso pointing a pair of giant metal claws at the armed convoy, a small black flag with a white canine skull chewing on a gear flapped in the morning breeze as the treaded chassis easily kept up with the convoy and its escort force of off-road buggies. The Asiatic enforcer had heard of Wrecker, a crafty vehicle mechanic and heroic scavenger making life miserable for bandits and slavers in Northern Africa, a mysterious driver no one has ever seen outside of her vehicle. Probably no one would have known she was female were it not for the speaker system she strapped to the exterior of her vehicles.

"Pull over and surrender your vehicles now slaver scum!" The mech boomed with a snarling female voice, snapping its hydraulic claws at the lead escort vehicle for emphasis. Yes, this was definitely a woman, a bitchy one too. Then again, with two giant claws that looked suspiciously like salvaged Jaws of Life on her side, the red panda was inclined to listen to her demands.

Unfortunately, their local counterparts needed to learn a lesson in humility. "Piss off and go back home whore!" One of them shouted before spraying the mech with light machinegun fire. The metal bullets bounced harmlessly off the vehicle's armored carapace as the heroine returned the favor, lifting the buggy up and tearing it to shreds in a shower of sheared metal, sending its occupants flying into the tall grass along the road. Idiots... The armed red panda thought to himself as his driver swerved to avoid the raining wreckage.

"Does anyone have a rocket launcher?" One of the other escort vehicles asked as the radio chatter devolved into panic. Other buggies opened fire on the attacker with automatic weapons as Wrecker lived up to her name, destroying targets and leaving the grasslands littered with wrecks as her tank advanced up towards the front of the convoy.

A rocket launcher would have been nice; a well-placed C4 satchel would have worked too. Unfortunately the convoy escort unit was equipped for dealing with lightly armored vehicles and infantry, not a treaded mech that kept pace with the heavy trucks and laughed off machinegun fire like it was rain. Some continued to fight, a gesture that was as effective as hitting a stone with a tree branch, others attempted to flee with their lives. Some of them even managed to succeed, leaving the truck drivers at the mercy of the angry woman and her speedy mech.

Turning her vehicle at an angle, Wrecker abandoned her attack on the escort to ram the cab of the lead truck. The passenger side crumpled under the impact, destroying the engine and killing the "coachman" riding shotgun as the vehicle came to a stop. It was a testament to the skill of her opponents that the other cargo haulers loaded with manacled captives stopped without damaging themselves or their freight. Survivors promptly abandoned their vehicles and attempted to flee on foot; the vehicle mistress let them escape, they weren't her target anyway...

The imprisoned females cowered when they first heard the rear hatch creak open and sunlight flooded the metal container. Standing in front of them was a stout female canine dressed in cargo pants, a white shirt that didn't come close to covering her large beer belly, work boots, and a black balaclava worn over her face. "It's all right, I've come to take you home." Wrecker replied as calmly as she could manage. Just another day as the mysterious masked wheelwoman fighting evil across Africa, just another damn day...

Later...

Adeola Ayomide sighed as she drove her pickup truck into the cavernous garage that made up her workshop, the homemade vehicle chugged under the weight of the enormous pile of scrap metal she brought back. The broad-bellied jackal female brushed the locks of her short black Mohawk back in exhaustion as she finished a long day of hauling off the scrap metal left by "Wrecker's" rampage. Finally it was over, at least for now. The girls were returned home true, but there were still too many loose ends for her or the others to tie up before they lost the trail. The fundamentalists had gone to ground; disappearing to somewhere only they knew, and the government of the country in question was livid that outsiders had meddled in what they considered to be an "internal affair." The only good thing from this adventure was that this particular group of slavers was now painfully aware of the hidden costs of doing their business in Africa. Meaning whoever came next was either going to be more desperate or, unfortunately more likely, much better armed.

Brown boots landed on the ground with a barely audible thud as pale blue eyes blinked with fatigue as the mechanic climbed out of her truck and shut the garage bay doors behind her. At one point her large workshop had been a hanger for a smuggler operating in Chad. When her native government shut down his operations, the hanger and the adjacent runway was forgotten about until she bought it up to open a mechanic's shop. It was remote, difficult to reach, and she often had to leave to reach her customers, but it was the perfect place to tinker in peace and build vehicles that might raise a few eyebrows... like the Wrecker Mech hidden in the back of her shop.

Looking at the tried and tested little tank, a rare smile crossed the grumpy canine's face as she reflected on her most recent adventure. If the next group was going to be tougher then this outfit then perhaps a new build was in order, she always did want to play with designing her own tank after all. If only she could figure out how to handle the crew requirements....