A Personal Discovery.
25 Oct 2017Hersilia
A foul sound blared from the speaker system which dotted the mining base, to the mind of a child, it could have been a demon awakening from an aeon long sleep. Breaking from the surface of this dusty planet to destroy all life. The bass shook Hersilias clothing while a high pitched whine sounded over the top. She turned to face the main building of the mining facility, the center source of the alarm. "Imperials..." she sneered and reached around to the small of her back for her custom hand cannon. She rested her hand on the handle for a moment, scouting the horizon and the sky for any sign of movement. Her bright blue eyes shined from behind dark lenses of her dust goggles, she adjusted her mask to keep as much of the sand that was being whipped up by the strong winds out of her face. The alarm pierced through the air and shook the pebbles on the ground. Again her clothes vibrated from the dreaded noise. Federal guards were running from place to place trying to get their gear ready. Over the din of the wind and the howling alarm she could hear muffled orders being shouted from across the courtyard.
"East! They're coming from th-" a young federal soldier was cut down by Las-fire. Shot in the back, a large smouldering hole was all that was left of his chest. Hersilia gritted her teeth.
"Bastards!" and pulled out her hand cannon. She blinked hard which caused her goggles to do a sweeping scan of the area.
"Six of the bastards...Is that it?" she muttered to herself as she ducked behind a large cargo container. After a couple of seconds Las-fire pock marked the container, she waited a couple more seconds, then leaned round the edge, aimed at the closest aggressor and discharged her weapon twice. The recoil of the large weapon would have broken a normal arm but the shock absorbers within Hersilias' forearm and wrist made it manageable. A torrent of flame leaped from the end of the barrel with each shot, she saw a red mist come from the victim of her first shot. Then she quickly ducked behind the container again, satisfied with the kill. Another barrage of Las-fire this time hitting the floor next to her foot. She peaked round again, another round zipped past her, singeing her hair. She moved back in surprise and cursed. She wasn't having that. Stepping out into the open she stared straight down the sights of her gun, focused on one of the attackers. She squeezed. He fell. Another one sighted. He fell too. She gritted her teeth tightly together as she fired shot after shot. She was angry. She had only come here to deliver a few units of domestic supplies and now here she was exchanging gun-fire with an Imperial raiding party. She ran over to two Federal guards who were sheltering behind one of the smaller buildings. The two men were young and panicking.
"Where the fuck did these guys come from?" one of them spluttered. A large chunk of concrete spun past the boys head. The look in his eyes was of pure terror, Hersilia knew she had to get him out of this frame of mind.
"You boy!" she shouted over the din of gunfire.
"Get into that building and get me more ammo!" she pointed to the small armoury on the outskirts of the base. The boy paled even more when he saw where he was being told to go. The route he had to take was scarcely covered, littered with old mining machinery and a couple of dead workers. The most dangerous section though was one where he would have to go across completely open ground for about 25 yards.
"You can do it, lad. What's your name?" she gripped him by the shoulder.
"R-Roark....Max Roark." he stuttered and threw up a shaky salute.
"Alright Max, get yourself across to that building as fast as you can and get me as many .45 rounds as possible." she flicked open the cylinder of her hand canon and loaded six more large hand crafted cartridges. The boy hesitated for a moment before plucking up his courage and finally sprinting as fast as he could towards the armoury. Bullets pinged and ricocheted around him. Somehow he dodged every single shot. He skipped and weaved even dove onto the floor at some points. Eventually, he managed to enter the armoury unharmed. Hersilia turned back to the remaining soldier with a sigh of relief and with a flick of the wrist closed the cylinder.
Max stood just inside the doorway. He looked back over towards Hersilia as she returned fire upon the attacking Imperials and he breathed a deeply. Glad to still be alive. He was only a young man, fresh faced and eager to support the glory of the Federation, his superiors would tell you. What they wouldn't tell you is he couldn't shoot for toffee and that he was only accepted into the Federation ranks because of his blundering father. The reason he was in this mess in the first place was because of his fathers money. Who is strangely a ranking member of the Sirius Corp.
".45 rounds!" Max remembered out loud, forcing himself to try and not forget. He found himself surrounded by metal ammo crates, all labelled in thick black paint with the corresponding cartridge size. He hurried around the room searching for and repeating the round size that the curious masked Federal officer had told him to get. After a good few minutes, and a couple of loud explosions from outside, he finally found the ammo crate marked "Pistol Ammo: .45". He jabbed at the panel with a deep grey, padded finger. No response. He cursed and tried again. Nothing. He let out a high-pitched, childish whine before finally thinking and then struggling to remove his glove. Moments later the lid to the crate popped open. Max grabbed as many boxes of ammo as he could, which in his case turned out to be three. By the time he had finally managed to get back to Hersilia and the now deceased guard, he had only two in his possession.
Hersilia glared at the pitiful amount of ammo then up at the shaking boy. She sighed and chose to ignore the boys incompetence. More important matters were at hand. It turned out there were more than six attackers. It felt more like sixty but was probably more or less around fifteen or twenty. By the time Max had returned the Federal forces had managed to whittle the Imperial attackers down to about nine or ten. This however, did not mean they were winning. Somehow the bases defense weapon systems had been shut down and it was poorly manned. On a good day ten guards would be on patrol. Today was not a good day, only five guards had been stationed at the base, a total of six defenders. Hersilia had no idea how many of them were left but it couldn't have been many. She closed her eyes for what she thought could be the last time and breathed in slowly. Quickly she stood up, opening her eyes moments before, and instantly aimed her weapon towards two attackers. Her arm retracted from the weight of the recoil as she fired, motors whirred and gas hissed as the arm moved back into position ready to fire again. Both of her targets dropped, the familiar red mist confirming the hit.
"Stay here and give me covering fire! We need those turrets back on!" Max stared right into her eyes, he didn't trust her completely but he had no other option. He nodded. Hersilia turned and ran as fast as she could with the sound of automatic gunfire behind. The weight of her arm was becoming noticeable and uncomfortable. Her back slammed against the hard concrete of a barricade causing her to wince and hold the join of metal and flesh. Chest heaving she tried to catch her breath, the control panel to the turrets was only meters away. Peaking round the edge of the barricade she saw a group of dead Federal guards and two well kitted Imperial raiders. Sighing she rested her head back against the concrete pondering what to do next. The sound of automatic gunfire from Max seemed relentless, she smiled softly to herself.
"Maybe one of us could get out alive, or at at best rid this place of thes-" her thoughts were cut off by a huge crackle of gunfire from the direction she had just come from. The loud cacophony of automatic weapons was over quickly and left and eerie silence. She knew what had happened the silence told it's own story. Fury swept over her face and she charged towards the two Imperial raiders. She fired her weapon once, the round pierced one of the men's necks. His hands flew up to the gaping wound as he dropped to the ground. Another squeeze of the trigger but she was met with a click. It had jammed. She growled and jumped towards the remaining raider, the look of surprise on his face would be etched into her memory forever.
She pulled herself back onto her feet as she dusted herself down. A glance down at the raider didn't reveal the cause of his demise. You would have to study him for a while longer for that. On the face of it he looked asleep. Slouched against the turret terminal with his rifle by his side, he seemed peaceful. Although if you were to look more carefully you would notice that his head had been spun like a top. His neck was a twisted mess. Hersilia sighed as she gazed down at him for a moment before scouting around for the turrets activation panel. Finally she found it. Luckily the raiders didn't have enough time or the know-how to fully disable the whole terminal. After a few seconds of tapping on the panel a loud mechanical whine forced its way inside of Hersilias mind. The shrill screaming of gears crashed like waves into her mind causing her to fall to her knees, hands clutching over her ears begging the noise to stop. An instant roar blocked out the whining of the gears as the turrets sprang into life. Targeting and destroying anything without a Federal signature. Her mind was a mixture of chaos and fear. The chattering of the gears brought back horrible images which had been long suppressed. A terrified ground crewman covered in blood. A prisoner with a caved in skull. A Nurse, an expression of pure surprise and anguish spread across her features. Hersilia peeped out through her fingers which were now covering her face. The twisted raider lay in front of her. Her lower lip trembled slightly as she remembered part of her past.
Suddenly a figure rushed across the courtyard towards Hersilia, screaming his final death-charge. Time seemed to slow. His feet crashed down onto the earth creating plumes of dust which enveloped his feet with each long stride. The only weapon in his possession was a broken iron bar. He was the last member of the raiding party and some how he had manged to avoid the brutal ferocity of the bases turrets. His clothes were ripped exposing his bare bloodied chest and right arm. The sleeve had been completely torn off, his once white uniform was now horribly stained by dust and blood. He was getting closer by the second. Hersilia had no idea what to do, she felt dazed. Before she could react properly to the manic charge he was on top of her. Smashing the iron bar down onto her over and over again. He continued his vicious onslaught until without any warning. His face was turned into what resembled to be a red canoe. A metallic forearm pushed the lifeless husk to the side and Hersilia sat up right. Her face and upper body were drenched in red, she lifted her left arm to see that her hand was hanging down on a hinge. As she peered down inside her arm she noticed that her arm had been bored out, inside thin lines twisted downwards and a dark soot like powder covered her wrist. This caused her to grin maliciously.
"Didn't know I had that.."