The cannibals - Team black part 2

Egill puffed on his cigar while the groups set up camp. Lou had brought them close to the city, but they needed to charge up their vehicles and get some sleep before they continued. It's time lost, but it was necessary. Egill gave a quick nod to Ásbjörn, who nodded back, the group needed to talk about what happened to Arnor, they needed to decide on how to handle it, sure Arnór was the least liked member of his group, and he caused problems for them before the incident at the Craig, but he didn't deserve what Lou did to him.

After the groups finished they gathered away from prying ears and talked.

“We need to figure out what we are going to do about Lou.” Egill said as he ground out his latest Cigar.

“I think we need to kill him!” Eiríkur said, with a scowl making his scar ridden face even more scary.

“Kill? You can't be serious?” Kristján said, nearly dropping his papers.

“He killed one of us in cold blood, I think that a little retribution would be in order.” Egill proffered.

“Yes, I agree, but I don't think now would be a good time to do it.” Ásbjörn chimed in, “While what he did id intolerable, I think it was done to keep people in line, for now I think we should go along with his plan. Once we make it across, he is fair game.”

The group looked down at the LEM lantern that was lighting the area, there was a bit of silence as the group began thinking. Kristján went for a mug of beer, clearly shaken, since he normally dosn't drink much.

“I agree with Ásbjörn, we will take him out once we make it across the wastelands, if the wastelands don't kill him first. In the mean time, we got a keg to drain.”

Eiríkur just grunted, then turned away from the group as they started drinking. He thought he noticed a shadow move, but dismissed it as his imagination.

* * * * * *

Lou sat in the bus as a bell rang behind him, he turned and saw Shaka sliding past Grabby, causing the little bells Lou had attached to him, to ring.

“So?” Lou asked.

“They appear to have decided to kill you after we make it across.” Shaka said.

“Hmm, well at least they are thinking, we can't have to many more deaths, or we wont get all the vehicles across.”

“Why do you keep that thing?” Shaka asked motioning to desiccated mutant body, lou calls Grabby.

“I don't know, I just like it. I don't know what they did to it, but it doesn't smell and the bells make a passable warning system.”

“I could get past it if I wanted.”

“Yeah, you probably could, but what about the rest? Most couldn't even approach this car without me knowing.”

“I agree, they do tromp around like restless horses.”

“They are auto-duel drivers, not thieves or assassins, or bounty hunters.”

“You still want me to check out the scavenger camp? “

“Yes, they can cause us problems, depending....”

“Very well.”

Shaka quickly exited the Bus, this time not causing the bells to ring on Grabby.

* * * * * *

Maryana sat back in he tent, they didn't have any many beds in the bus, it was more designed for research and entering in dangerous environments, so tents were the best place to sleep. Not that many people could sleep in the bus anyways, the jostling and noise would keep most awake. She got into the tent and set up the bug screen. It was designed by Garry to keep the bugs out, by emitting an unpleasant vibration that would keep most things away. It could draw in Huskers, but she was told that most of the Huskers lairs are farther south. She could feel the vibration, but could perhaps ignore it. She really didn't want to sleep in the car.

A Large shadow passed by her tent and moved to the direction of Inga's tent. She got out of her tent and quickly noticed the smell of alcohol. She moved quickly to Inga's tent. When she got there she saw Ásbjörn trying to hold down Inga while unzipping his pants. Maryana pulled out her pistal and pointed it at Ásbjörn, it's nozzle nuzzling the back of his head.

“I would put that away and get out of here if I were you.” Maryana said in a casual voice.

“What? It's what she wants, don't you?” Ásbjörn said slurring his words heavily.

“No, you misunderstand, I know what she wants, my warning is the nice way. If I didn't show up Inga would have introduced you to the not so nice way.”

Ásbjörn looked at Inga as he felt the cold touch of metal on his nether regions.

“I personally think you could go without, but the screaming may attract unwanted attention from mutants, so consider this your one and only warning.” Maryana said

Ásbjörn quickly zipped up his pants and ran out of the tent, with a string of curse words from Inga giving him incentive to leave.
“I can't believe him.” Inga said after Ásbjörn left.

“I sort of expected it, alcohol can cause men to behave like animals. We just have to protect ourselves from one more hazard than everyone else.”

“Perhaps if there isn't any alcohol for them to get drunk on?”

“You want to destroy their drink? I wouldn't recommend that, we are already short on rations, we don't want to lose even more.”

“Humph. The amount we are getting is still more than we normally eat. Tastes better too, we might have a problem when we make it through this, might gain a couple pounds.”

“I am sure it will be fine.” Maryana said as she left the tent for her own.

* * * * * *

Shaka arrived at the Scavenger camp to find it was turned over and a couple bodies were strewn about. There was an upturned van, with the contents strewn about the place, the lantern was broken, leaking chemicals into the soil. She saw tracks, several of them leading away from the camp.

Shaka took a moment to consider what he next move would be, then she started following the tracks.

* * * * * *

Benny was carefully monitoring his readouts, he saw several of the small vibrations from the anti bug devices that was set in tents, but he was more interested in bigger vibrations. He had set several monitoring device around the camp, they should let him know of an Huskers approaching the camp. After satisfied that everything was working properly he decided to take a nap, in his battle suit, as that was where he felt most secure, he just had it lean back, to make it more comfortable.

It wasn't long before his armor started beeping at him, and he saw there was a large vibration approaching. It was coming from the east of the camp, it looked like a Husker. He quickly got the battle suit up and running an went to engage.

* * * * * *

Shaka followed the tracks to a Mutant stronghold not far from their camp. She took out her grapple, and shot it onto the top of a wall, being careful not to alert the guard nearby. She scaled the wall quickly and quietly. The wall was only about 15 feet high and it was made out of clay, as that was about the only building material out here. The guard on top of the wall was busy chewing of something, and didn't notice her approach. A quick slice of her knife resulted in the guard spewing his blood all over the top of the wall.

Pulled out her night goggles and saw a couple vehicles and a cage, in which were several people. A couple of them were missing limbs. She saw several others walking around the outside of the cage, they were clearly cannibals, she saw one of them eating some fingers, probably from on of the captives. She suppressed the urge to vomit.
The camp was too close, they would have to move or risk being discovered. She climbed quickly back down and started back to camp, just in time to hear an explosion from her camp. She cursed as the lights from the Cannibal fortress came on. Several people began yelling and shouting, it woke up the fort, now there was going to be problems.

She moved to the side, she saw a couple of vehicles in the fort, and knew they would beat her to camp, so she needed to hide. It wasn't long before three vehicles came from the Fortress, it's large doors made of scrap metal opening just long enough for them to leave and for Shaka to slip inside.

She started to make her way over to the cages, not many people were left in the fort, and they were mostly standing on the walls. It was only a matter of time, before someone noticed the dead body she left up there, so she had to hurry. She saw a few weapons and grabbed them, making sure they were loaded, while sliding over to the cage door. The people inside hadn't noticed her. She pulled out one of her lock picks and went to work on the lock. There was a shout as the dead guard was found. She opened the door and threw the weapons on the group.

“If you want to get out of here, grab a weapon and lets go! If you would rather be food, you can stay.” Shaka said as she pulled out her knife.

The people in the cage all grabbed whatever they could and ran out of the cage door.

* * * * * *

Benny sat in his battle suit and observed the destruction. The rocket hit just right showering the area with gore from the dead husker. The decoys Garry had developed worked like a charm. It drew the Husker to the surface and allowed Benny to destroy him. He just hoped that they wouldn't encounter to many more, Garry only made three. The original plan was that Garry would create extra as needed. But that is no longer an option. At this rate, they will need to stop the Bug repellent devices and start sleeping in the vehicles. No one wanted to sleep like that. Benny started considering remodeling the bus to be more friendly to sleeping people.

One of the sensors started going off. Something was coming, it was either several huskers or something else. Either way, people needed to be alerted, so he sent out a general alert. Not that many people were sleeping after that explosion, but you never know, some can sleep through several explosions.

It didn't take long before he saw what set off the alarms, vehicles, three of them, two armed to the teeth and one holding several mutant combatants. Benny quickly launched a rocket at the lead vehicle, showering the area with debris, but not stopping it, it was clearly armored.

The Bus's anti-tank gun on top started popping off shots at the vehicles, and he saw several people running for their vehicles.

Erwann picked up a machine gun and started setting it up, while Daniel and Hanna ran for their vehicles. He saw the arch angels getting out of their tents and start running for their vehicles. It was chaos and he hoped that they could pull though it.



Machine gun fire started Peppering the camp, Erwann was struck several times, but the bullets just bounced off his skin, although it did knock him off his feet. Laverenti, one of the Archangel's mechanics fell as several bullets punctured in the body. Benny leveled his vulcan machine gun at the vehicle he shot at last when he saw a mortar sailing through the air, heading for him.

* * * * * *

The escapees took to the remaining cannibals with gusto, one cannibal fell to an ax embedded in his skull, another had a pistol shoot him in the back, and a third got stabbed in the back by a one armed escapee, unfortunately the escapee was unable to escape the dropped live grenade.

Shaka crept from shadow to shadow, while shooting at the cannibals as the opportunity presented itself, she was far better at blades then guns, but she was a decent shot. Many guards and escapees fell before she saw one of the doors to one of the building open and a large man heavily augmented by cybernetics came out holding a Gatling gun as easily as most would hold a chainsaw.

The Gatling gun began spewing bullets, several of the escapees fell quickly as the bullets flew at them, sending blood spurting out of their bodies in several locations like a hose based lawn sprinkler. Shaka knew she had to deal with him, or they were all going to die. She pulled out her circuit scrambling gun, only two shots left, she was hoping to use it to deal with some of the robotic friends of her target, but it was needed now. The gun shot out a burst of electricity, surprising the Cyborg, striking in the left arm, suddenly, his left arm appeared to loose all it's power and the gun dropped to the ground, bullets continuing to strike the ground as it fell. Shaka pulled out her blade, and hoped she could find a weak point before his arm got it's power back, then she lunged at him.

* * * * * *

The readings were flashing, Benny noticed several systems were down, he still had visual and could move, but the mortar hit had taken out his rocket launcher. The heat was slowing building up as his venting system was damaged. He had maybe five minutes left in the battle suit before he would be cooked alive. He felt something hit the sit of the suit, one of the cannibals had stuck him with a large club, so he kicked him, sending his body flying over one of the Archangels cars.

Benny had noticed Erwann driving by, running over the unlucky Cannibals to be without a vehicle. He car was covered in blood, he just hoped none of it was one of their team. He once again pointed the vulcan at a vehicle, and started spray bullets at it. They returned fire with their machine gun, but weren't able to shoot at the Archeangel's vehicle that pulled up next to them and shot their flamethrowers thought the open window.

A couple of the cannibals got to the door and started prying it open. Benny moved to help, but his battlesuit was moving clumsily, something must have been damaged during the fight. He saw Agata get pulled from the vehicle and one of the cannibals raise a ax up and swing down on her, a;; Benny could see clearly was a spray of blood. Erwann drove up and let Talon out, who had real skill with his blades, killing those on Agata, but it may have been too late.

Benny quickly realized that he needed to get his head in the battle, He turned just in time to see one of the Cannibal vehicles heading straight for him.

* * * * * *
Shaka moved quickly stabbing the cyborg in the elbow of his powered down arm, leaving the blade there to preventing him from using the arm until it was removed. The cyborg bellowed in pain, carelessly lashing out of the nimble woman. She slid around behind him, he attempted to follow but the Gatling gun was dragging on the ground and not letting him move swiftly. Shaka stuck her second knife in the back of his knee, knowing that most cyborgs have weak points at the joints. He bellowed again and collapsed to one knee. He let out a quick backhand, which Shaka was unable to avoid, it struck her in the abdomen, knocking the wind out of her and sending her sprawling to the ground. She tried to get up quickly, but felt pain in her chest, probably a broken rib. The cyborg grinned as best as one could with only half a mouth and pulled out a pistol and pointed it at her. A gun shot rang out and the cyborg fell to the ground lifeless, one of the Escapees standing behind him with the gun pointed at where his head was.

“I think that is the last of them, here let me help you up.” The escapee said as he moved to help.

“Thank you, I have some friends who can help. We should get to them, and maybe we can get some of you home. How many are left?”

“Just three of us, Me, Jack and Prius. Prius is missing a leg and Jack, well I hear he was crazy even before he got put in the cage. Can you walk?”

“Yes, but I fear I have a broken rib, I will have to move carefully.”

“Well lets get someplace safe and I'll see what I can do, Name's Nickolas. I used to be in the military, Special forces, I have some knowledge of medicine, I might be able to help.

“I am Shaka, we need to move quickly, I fear my friends may be under attack right now.”

The four moved out of the fortress and headed for the camp.

* * * * * *

Benny woke to find Lou standing over him.

“You okay?” Lou asked, with concern in his face.

“Ouch, yeah, I think I'll live. We win?” Benny asked as he flinched from pain shooting up his leg.

“Yeah, but we lost some.”

“Who?”

“Laverenti, and Kristján was killed. Agata lost her arm, Shaka got a broken rib. Overall we got off pretty good.”

“You have a different definition of pretty good than I do.”

“Well Shaka managed to raid the fortress these guys came from, and found us some allies. We got three more people, one of them has some medical skills, so we shouldn't loose anyone else.”
“Think you can repair it?” Lou motioned over to his battlesuit.

Lou looked at it seeing there was a broken stick in one of the servos in his leg, probably what kept it from moving. The thing was dented badly, but could be fixed. The rocket launcher was trashed, unless he could scavenge a replacement that arm would be useless. Otherwise, it looked repairable.

“Yeah, it wont have the rocket launcher, but it's still work. By the way, who pulled me out?”

“I did, after blasted their last moving vehicle, killing the driver, it swerved and hit you straight on. I thought things looked well in hand so I went over to check you out. When I opened the suit up, it let out a lot of heat. You leg has a bit of a burn on it, Nickolas said it's not to bad, so nothing to worry about.”

Lou looked up as a shadow moved over him, seeing several of the remaining members of his teams.

“We need to get a move on, repair the vehicles quickly, scavenge what you can...” Lou began

“Before we do anything we need to make something clear.” Daniel said.

“What's that?”

“We are removing all the junk in the Bus and making us some sleeping quarters in there. We are all agreed on this.” Maryana said.

Lou looked at his bus, it was unscathed, he knew the stuff they are throwing out is worth some money, lots of research, but safety is more important, he nodded wordlessly to the group.

About two hours later, everything was ready, and they moved on, tired and injured.