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Ain't life grand?

Fealty Lost Slaughterhouse: Bloody Remains Darkwind Guru Renegade Group: Subscribers Posts: 1,258 Joined: Jan 6, 2009 The Gila Monster looked up from its breakfast of pulpy cactus as the desolation of the desert was broken by the screaming of a big block 5 Liter engine. The lizard tensed, hissing at the thing that hove into view across the top of the dune to its front. As the huge predator flew through the air, the Gila knew it was outclassed, sensing death approaching it threw clawsfull of sand into the air as it scurried under the large rock it called home to escape the thundering monster. Smoke mixed with sand was sucked up behind the hurtling vehicle into twin swirling horizontal vortexes as the wounded Buzzer tore off the top of the dune and 'caught air.' The driver, Patricia "Pile On" Dalton, surrogate leader to the remnants of her former gang, screamed above the howling 5 Liter and grinding gears of the wasted transmission. "Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii_!!!" The Buzzer tilted crazily, its ass-heavy design not made for flight, towards the left rear. Its nose rose to the sky. Dalton gripped the wheel so tightly her leather gloves cracked across her knuckles. "I'm sorry John, I'm sorry!" she yelled to the man crumpled in the gunner's seat, his chest covered in blood. The left rear tire caught the ground just then and the big war machine slammed awkwardly back to earth, but just for a second. The suspension compressed and rebounded, launching the Buzzer airborne again. It slewed sideways in the air. There was nothing Patricia could do. The dune behind her erupted again as another Buzzer tore through the loose sand at its top, spraying sand before it. Much healthier, however, this one launched and landed flat, bouncing also, but maintaining its course. The driver could be seen fighting the wheel to keep it that way. "Oh hell!" the driver yelled. "She's going in!!" The crew of the second Buzzer watched their Leader's vehicle slice through the air out of control, yawing dangerously towards the ground rushing up at it. "Come on Patty! Smack that ass!" Brooks Dance hollered over the steering wheel. Her crew, Heavy Gunners Patrick "Blue Balls" Edwards and Angela "Angel" Allen strained against their restraining 4-ways, eyes wide as they watched their twin assault vehicle sail clumsily towards certain disaster. Behind them came the remainder of their hunter/killer squad, nicknamed "Demon Horde." A mix of what had been 14 Apaches, LandRunners and one big-arse pickup, but which now numbered only 12. Behind them, plowing up the uneven ground, came their ammo-hauler, a dual-reinforced ram, flaming-death spewing Lorry, making enough dust to block lasers. Patricia's Buzzer slammed into the ground, threatened to go airborne again, twisted, miraculously to the right, straightening its track and bottoming out against the sandpaper ground. Dust and sand billowed out from under the chassis, obscuring the Buzzer for a second. Beside her, John "Tom Tom" Collins flopped like a rag doll. As he slammed forward against his harness, pink, frothy blood erupted from his nose and mouth. "NO Tom! NO!!" she screamed, mashing the accelerator. The shot-up engine protested but wailed in response, the shattered transmission barely hanging on. A piston snapped its connecting rod and shot through the head, spraying shrapnel across the engine bay. A fuel line ruptured. Flames engulfed the motor. "SHE'S ON FIRE!" screamed "Angel," pointing across her driver's shoulder. Ahead, their compound loomed out of the glaring, heat-shimmered landscape. "How we looking back there?" Brook yelled into the com-link. "We copastetic back here, baby." came the calm response from the Lorry-jock, Patrick Ferguson. "Last of them dropped off about a mile back. Guess they got tired of driving through hell." He grinned and his crew laughed, bent over the big flaming oil jet fuel cannisters at the rear, looking at the black smoke roiling up behind them, orange flames reaching out of the inky dark. "It would seem our purusers have lost their heart. Oh, and tires." The Lorry crew broke out in laughter again. Ferguson made sure to mute the comms. They might be having fun, but it wasn't a picnic for the rest of the crews, espescially their Leader's Buzzer, "RakShasa." Hard to believe it had all happened not 15 minutes ago. Under yellow skies, something Ferg' was still not used to and wondered every time they traversed this portion of land why the skies here were tinged so, the SlaughterHouse crew had been making a food run from Badlands Truckstop. They'd met their usual trader convoy there, offloading all the goodies they'd need for the next month, from the seller's vehicles to his Lorry. Things had gone smoothly until they'd gotten about 5 klicks from their bolt-hole, the newly refurbished entertainment facility they called home. The usual shucking and jiving going across the comms was interrupted by their boss's voice. "Dust cloud behind us." she'd said. She didn't miss much, Ferg' thought. He'd strained to look through his own trailing cloud of sand and dirt, thrown up by the big fans on the 8 liter pushing his wagon from the rear. He had caught a glimpse of sun-reflection flash off glass. "Oh ya, we got company!" he'd barked into the comms. His crew had hopped out of their jump seats and scrambled back through the tied down supplies to their Heavy Flaming Oil Jets, priming the pumps and bringing the pressure up on the fuel cannisters. He looked to his left and caught the eye of his 'little partner' in mayhem, the Apache named Harkonnan, also a flame-spitter. Its driver, Jessica Fordham, with the cajones that had not been supplied her gender, was already sliding towards his rig. She came right up to him and scraped paint, grinning madly. They trailed the fighting vehicles by scant meters. She pointed to me, clasped her hands together as if in prayer, then arched her fingers back and let her hands split apart, one left, one right. I nodded my head. She held up three fingers. Two, one. "Light 'em up!!" I yelled over my shoulder and eased the big wheel right a bit. Jessica aimed her Apache away from us and behind, a 15 meter-wide patch of ground was engulfed in orange and yellow flames. Across the comms, Patricia was snapping out orders. The gun-boats were moving fast through a depression, hugging the edge of a big lake of nasty-looking chems, heading for the high ground of the ridge and vertical cliff that was the northern edge of the lake. Ferguson knew it was his and Jessica's crew that were expected to make pursuit, difficult. Their initial drop had lain directly across a small gap between small hills that their gang had just passed. Jessica would spew her molten death along the lake's edge. He would take the direct path into their Leader's chosen position. Anyone who lost control coming through the original drop that slid down towards the lake would roast in the subsequent little presents Jessica's crew was leaving in their wake. Any idiot crazy enough to try and close with the Lorry would suck hot flaming horror into their engine's intakes. Tires would go away. If they wanted us badly enough, he knew, they'd pay a price. He watched as Jessica's HFOJ's exhausted their fuel. His crew's weapons ran dry at the same time, but they carried reloads. His guys immediately started unstrapping the spent tanks to make room for fresh ones. Glancing left, he saw Jessica closing up on his Lorry, still grinning at him. She gave him a quick thumbs-up and eased in on his flank. Ahead, the Apaches and the big-arse truck were slewing left and taking up firing positions on the escarpment. Death from above, baby! Ferg' thought, smiling despite the tension. They might be a group of rookies, but they had their chit together. The twin Buzzers, RakShasa and Buffrication had slowed, taking up covering positions at the turn. Roaring up a small hillock above the Buzzers went two Apaches and their support Apache, Baalpheggor. As it slid to a stop between its squad mates, Ferg' saw the firing hatches pop open. There were a pair of vehicle-mounted grenade launchers nestled in the Apache's cargo bay. They'd open up well before any other weapons in the crew, having longer range. Nothing more unsettling than ballistic ordnance, he thought. "How we doing back there!?" he'd yelled. "We be good! System back online in 5 seconds!" Good to their word, 5 seconds later they were laying down another swath of flaming horror. He slowed the Lorry as it approached the team's position, making sure the oil blocking entrance to their position would be thick and unbroken. Their job finished, he'd slung the Lorry through the team's position, taking up station behind the hillock, slowly moving around it. Anybody that tried to sneak around behind them would meet the rams at the Lorry's front. Then the comms came alive. Teams calling targets, spotting for each other, handing off fire lanes and targets as the enemy moved before them, trying to bring their weapons to bear while avoiding incoming fire. "The mad minute." It had all been going well. "That's a kill! That's a kill!" he'd heard again and again. How many of them were there? "On your right! Your right!!" "Reverse! Get your nose away from the ridge! ROCKETS!" "INCOMING!" As the nose of his Lorry came around the hillock, the air had been filled with the contrails and flaring paths of incoming rockets. There had to have been 10-15 in the air at the same time. It was a scary, yet impressive sight. He wondered who was on the receiving end? And then "Pile On's" voice had come over the comms, frantic. "I've high-sided! Damn it!! I'm stuck!" "Get out of there!" he'd heard the other Buzzer's driver, Brooks, yell. And then the sunbursts lit up the encroaching evening light. The 'kerwhump' of exploding rockets rolled across the ground. Even as the noise began to subside, another screaming horde of rockets arced away from the enemy's vehicles. Their Leader's Buzzer was taking all that fire, he knew. He'd floored the accelerator, the big 8 liter howled and the heavy vehicle lurched from around the hillock. He'd hoped he'd be able to make it in time. He hadn't. He didn't think it was possible, but he'd seen the big machine flipping through the air like a tumbleweed. An on-fire tumbleweed. He couldn't see where it landed or what happened next. At that instant, bursting forth from the smoke trails of all the rockets, came a little sedan. He smiled, leaning forward. The Lorry was doing 50. He got the satisfaction of the looks of horror as the crew inside it realized what was looming before them. The impact had shattered the sedan. Fire licked and slid across the Lorry's front as it smashed through the remains of the sedan. "Holy HELL!" he heard behind him. A quick glance showed his gunners bouncing around on the floor of the cargo bay. "How about a heads up next time Kimosabi?" Millard yelled, scrambling to his hands and knees. Ferg' just grinned larger and centered up an enemy Apache sliding sideways just 50 meters to his front. It was then the enemy realized he was there. He had to close his eyes and squint against the incoming fire. Impacts laced down both sides of his Lorry. "What the hell!!??" came the hollers from behind him. "SUPPORT VEHICLE!" one of them screamed. Ferg' could see impacts dents on the inside of his vehicle. That wasn't good. That meant the armor was getting chewed up. With a ton of flammable fuel in the bay, rounds entering the Lorry were not welcome. It was time to go. He had just enough time to clip the ass-end of the Apache, sending it slewing sideways into the flaming oil he'd left coming in. It caught fire nicely, the oil, thrown up from the planing tires, sliding all flamey and sticky into the breach his ram had caused. Ferguson imagined the screams. And grinned. He'd managed to get out of LOS and back behind the hill when the order to withdraw had come. He'd watched gunners jumping from SlaughterHouse vehicles to sprint over to wounded and out-of-commission enemy vehicles, either dragging out corpses to take possession or firing hand weapons through firing ports to clear out stragglers. They'd have some loot to carve up later. If they survived. Ferguson broke from his memories and saw their hideout looming before his windscreen. He slammed on the brakes and reached up to his left, grabbing the lanyard for the air horns. The way was clear into the vehicle bay, a mech' scrambled across in front of his Lorry, hands to his ears. "Dumbass! Move it!" he screamed against the armor, scanning through the firing slit to make sure he wasn't going to run anything important over. He slid the big hauler into its spot. He could see people bailing out of their rigs. They had injured; dying, and dead. He knew. Unjogging the latches at his left, he slid round in his seat and kicked open the entry hatch, sliding to the ground. His crew was already jumping down from the side loading hatch. Dowling was running his hand across the mangled armor at the Lorry's side. "Any news?" "Collins is bad. He was trying to reload one of the Rak's cannons when they got blanketed with rockets. Brooks said there were so many the Buzzer disappeared under the explosions. The cannon broke loose, slammed Collins up against the bulkhead. Crushed him." Dowling said. "Ibrahim and Leibowitz are dead." added Millard. "What?" he said, shocked. "What?" "Ya, believe it or not, near the end there, before we broke out, they bailed and went after fleeing bad guys on foot. Ibrahim has a crossbow bolt sticking out of her chest. Leibowitz walked into a bullet, dont' know from what." his second gunner, William Millard said. Across the bay, the shot-to-hell RakShasa sat, smoking. Her left side was ripped open. Mechs scurried around with fire extinguishers, fighting the conflaguration that used to be its engine. "That thing gonna blow?" I'd asked. "Nah, they got it, I think." Millard said. "And if it does, hey, short work week." Ferguson looked around the bay. Crews slumped against their machines, letting the adrenaline slide away. Some not. Not a few helmets were slammed against vehicles, or landed some distance away, bouncing into whatever was in their ballistic path. A couple crew walked around, dazed, hands to their heads or stood clumped in two's and three's, holding each other. Tears were nothing to be ashamed of. You might have to fight to stay alive in this world, but we were all still people. Mostly. He looked away. Whose idea was this, anyways? he wondered, and proceeded to holler for help unloading. "Welcome to the SlaughterHouse," he muttered. {{ hi everyone. was told i needed to let everyone know i was here and the way to do it was with a story. so with a LOT of help, i put this together. loving the game so far, despite me idiot rookie mistakes. i'm almost not losing vehicles now! }} ......................... vet wv Posted Apr 11, 2011, 4:21 pm

*Rev. V* Cestus Dei Darkwind Guru Civs Faction Group: Marshals + Contributors Posts: 3,208 Joined: Aug 4, 2010 (OOC...nicely done!!!) ......................... vet wv zom marshal paintladder cont Posted Apr 11, 2011, 5:04 pm

*JD_Basher* Gearjammers Darkwind Guru Renegade Group: Marshals + Storytellers Posts: 2,728 Joined: Feb 11, 2007 (OOC) Almost as good as my stories!.... Just kidding.... VERY well written!... If we had pages, it would be considered a "page-turner". JD ......................... vet marshal wv cont Posted Apr 16, 2011, 12:03 am Last edited Apr 16, 2011, 12:04 am by *JD_Basher*

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