Wasteland Survivor – Incursion - ch15
#16 of Wasteland Survivor
You will find the new characters I introduced in the last story were not just for show, they have their own plot :)
Also note the speaking in the second part of this is not in english, just a heads-up.
We had spent the month since arriving at the airport securing as much of the city as we could and uniting as many people as we could.
When some people complained they were not doing enough, Captain Jennings arranged to form a militia, overseen by the excess of officers we had, they were working patrolling the streets and escorting teams of workers bringing supplies back.
The first warning we got that something bad was on the way was one of our signalmen reporting that some unidentified ships were approaching the coast and would reach Batemen's Bay within forty-eight hours.
When we started hearing radio chatter in a foreign language, on known non-Australian, military frequencies, we realised we had a problem.
"Can anyone understand what they are saying?" Jennings asked.
The voices went quiet for a while, they had sounded expectant.
"It sounds Philipino, don't think we have anyone who can speak that, Sir." The signalman commented.
"Well, whoever it is, I hope they are ready for a... a-" And the Captain stopped, everyone stopped, it was the song we could hear just quietly, it was calling us.
-
We made good time, there were relatively few roadblocks in this city, that spoke well of the coming harvest.
"Come on you dogs, lets get this bitch into position and get this over with." I ordered my squad impatiently.
"Sir, we are in position now." Our radio operator said.
"Good, stand guard but be ready for anything, we have to do this quick." I said, already making my way to the back of the flat-bed truck. I lifted the tarpolin from the cage that was secured in the middle of it grinned at the beast within. The thing had been human once, still bore some signs of that in its limb structure and its torso, but its head was more bird than human now and it had masses of feathers covering its body.
"Time for you to do your bit." I snarled opening the cage and grabbing the thing by the shoulder, "Come on, sing your fucking song so we can go home."
The creature didn't respond. I drew back and punched it in the other shoulder hard, it only needed its lungs, neck and head intact to do its task.
"Sing you fucking harpy!" And it opened its beak and began.
The first obvious effect was in the soldiers around me, unlike me they were affected by its voice. I had found I was immune to most of the tricks these beasts used.
The soldiers dropped their weapons and walked over to the vehicle, curling up slowly in front and going to sleep. I grinned, it was only a matter of time now.
Sure enough, within five minutes a whole horde of people and beasts started wandering toward the truck. The last, a red fox in army fatigues stopped short when a huge roar sounded from the sky.
I muttered some dire things as a dragon swooped down, roaring again when it reached the fox, let it mount, and flew off.
I chuckled, "Another dragon. Well we have killed two already, lets see how tough you are." with that I spat over the side of the truck, pushed the creature back into her cage and covered it. It cut off its song with a squawk when I covered the cage once more.
Jumping down I reached into the truck and grabbed the radio, "We are done here, about a hundred and thirty all told. Seventy-thirty human to beast. Should get some good slaves from this lot."
"Good work, we are bringing the Null up just in case any wake early. Over."
I looked down at a few of the human females, "A good haul indeed."
-
I woke from the sleep slowly, and could feel weight at my wrists and feet.
"You awake at last Nicols?" Crystal was chained up similarly beside me.
"Yeah, what the fuck was that?" I asked her, head slowly clearing.
"Not sure, think it was some kind of hybrid singing, don't try and use any power, it seems they have some way of neutralising them." She muttered.
A soldier standing beside us yelled something and hit Crystal in the head with the butt of his rifle. I knew it would be pointless to leap up myself, instead I grabbed Crystal and wrapped myself around her, shielding her with my back. Two more blows came before the soldier was satisfied we had been subdued.
Fuck it, this was not looking good.
This close however, Crystal could talk without anyone hearing, "When we were hit, there was a squad outside, lead by Cope, they were escorting some of the teens to a mall." She grinned, "There were some SAS with them."
"If anyone can do something about this, it will be SAS." I said proudly, "We are not an easy bunch to push around, and we shove back hard."
Crystal only nodded against me.
-
He was a bit nervous at first, maybe he thought I was going to be turned off by his fangs, but after a week of making my thoughts obvious to him Kevin realised I liked him for who he was, and what he was didn't matter one bit. The fact I was one of the few who could always hear what he said, no matter how loud anything else was, helped me get to know him much better.
We were hanging out at the mall, god that sounds tacky, but it was fun. Fox had been the one to suggest it, she was the best.
~"Hey, Lyl, you in there? We got a problem and may have to cut this sshort."~ Sergeant Cope, possibly the second coolest adult called to me.
~"What's the problem?"~ I called back.
~"Headquaterss hass gone dead ssilent, not replying to transsmissssionss at all."~ He said, and my power could tell me he was a lot more worried about that than he was trying to let on.
"The fuc-" I started as a new mind joined our conversation, did it roughly, uninvited, and was very very angry about something.
~"Little cousin, some one came and took all the others, I saved my sister, but could do nothing for the rest!"~ It had to be Drathnial, he accepted anyone with scales as a 'cousin'.
~"We are here Big One."~ And Cope flashed an image to the dragon of the building where we were, ~"Come and we will sort out how to remedy this situation."~
I broke contact with an acknowledgement aimed at the Sergeant.
"Hey, we gotta go early, some thing's happened at the airport." I told the others, we nine wandered out the main doors of the mall to find Cope, his squad on alert, along with Fox and Drathnial, both looking very very pissed about something.
"... and thats when Drath's call broke me out of the song." Fox was saying as we walked up.
~"It was all I could do to resist the pull and fight for Fox as well, the others were beyond me."~ Drath added self-inciminatingly.
"Well, if the Captain wass felled by it too, that wass no ssmall feat then." Cope tried to console the dragon.
I had been explaining the summery to the others as we were leaving the stores behind, letting them know it may be some bad mo-jo we had gotten into.
"Anything we can help with Sergeant?" I asked, I knew he wouldn't want to get us involved, but he only had six men under his command at the moment, not a good starting point.
"You will need to leave any extra thingss behind, we will need ssome food but the mosst important thing we need at thiss moment is intelligencccce, Lyl you are the longesst range telepath we have, can you ssensse anything?"
I sat down and started to focus, going for distance would take every bit of concentration I had. I started to sink my mind into the task when I felt a pair of clawed hands on my shoulders, recognising Kevin's touch I relaxed into it and let my mind roam freed of even the need to balance upright.
"I can feel something, they are about twelve clicks south-south west of here, but..."
I woke up a few minutes later, still sitting upright, held tight in Kevin's arms.
"Argg, there's something there, it's... blocking me from doing anything within that area, might be some kind of power?" I told the distressed looking faces around me.
"Well, ssome knowledge is better than none. Thankss Lyl, I will let you know if we need anything further." The snake-man told me.
"Sir." I responded with a little grin.
-
She was so fragile, as I held her in my arms I couldn't imagine what the lengths I would go for to protect her might be. But for this moment holding her was enough, it seemed.
The Sergeant sent Fox and Drath off to see if they could discover what or who it was who took the others.
I organised some of the others to get a meal sorted for ourselves and the soldiers, it was something we could do while they kept watch.
"Hey Kevin, your pretty good with that." Jenny, one of the others said, admiring my work on the gas powered barbecue we had set up in the mall.
Lyl laughed, "He said he used to be a cook at Mc Dees, but that he will try and do a better job here than he did back then." She translated for me a lot, anyone without augmented hearing could barely hear me when there was complete silence, and with the hissing of the steaks on the grill my mind was about the only thing audible.
Jenny sighed and looked over at Brian, he had been rejecting all her advances to take their friendship further. ~"He is gay you know."~ Lyls voice reached to me, ~"Has a thing for that guy David back at headquarters. I think he has a thing back but he is harder to read than most people.
I managed not to startle at her voice, particularly when it revealed things like that. Having a girlfriend that can read your mind was tough, at first I got embarrassed every time I thought something lewd, then she started reciprocating with her own thoughts, that of course didn't help with the embarrassment.
I pulled her to me with a spare arm and gave her a peck on the cheek. "You're the best thing that has happened to me Lyli." I said knowing she would be the only one to hear it.
Her reply was cut short with Fox, Cope and three other soldiers coming in.
"He says 'Foods done!'" Lyl supplied to them.
"Great, I am starving!" Fox replied, and gave Lyl a look that I couldn't decipher. Every time I saw these two together I couldn't help but think there was something being planned by them that would have left Machiavelli at a loss.
We served the food, making up three extra plates for the soldiers still on watch and headed out with them.
"Sso, there is a camp of roughly a hundred ssoldiers, they appear to have our colleaguess chained up in the middle. They have good anti-air weaponss, as Drath can attesst, and ssome sort of hybrid keeping anyone from ussing powers inside, or projecting powerss into, the area." The Sergeant surmised for us. "If only we had more people with sstrong hybrid formss, we could maybe get in and sshut down that neutralisser."
"Well, you have us." Lyl stated, gesturing to herself, me and Michael, who was a rabbit hybrid.
"While we appreciate the offer, we cant ask yo-" Fox began, but Cope cut her off.
"What wass that Kevin?" He asked me.
"Uh, I think I can make people turn hybrid..." I said quietly, "I, I just have the feeling that If I concentrate and do..."
With that, Jenny looked at me and grinned, reached out and touched me, immediately scales grew over the visible parts of her, and a vicious set of claws tore through her shoes, one huge claw raised like a knife. A tail led from her rear, pushing out underneath the short dress she had been wearing.
Her lizard like eyes blinked a nictitating cover, and she hissed.
"Sssweet." The now very dinosaur-like girl murmured.