Jamie - Wastender (Bush Cn)

  “Jamie, you will go guide Rollo and his entourage to the war council,” The old dy in front of him, who was his cn leader, commanded.

  Invite that city-dweller back? Why? He’s the reason we’re even having this war right now.

  “...Are you sure, ma’am?”

  She turned to him despite being unable to see. She took a puff of her pipe and leaned back into her rocking chair before she responded.

  “I know what you young ones are thinking. Do not be mistaken, the war was inevitable to begin with. It had only been accelerated.”

  “But—”

  “The friction was already there. The cns have never been united and only put on a front to oppose our common enemies. The only thing we should focus on now is how to get through the challenges ahead and come out in the best position for our cn as possible.”

  “...I understand.”

  “And your reply to my earlier request?”

  “Yes ma’am, I’ll do it.”

  As much as my brain understands she is right, my heart won’t let me accept those outsiders. But I will carry out my duties as expected of me.

  He exited the leader’s tent and rendezvous with his party. They headed off to where the war council would be held, a neutral area belonging to no cn. Each cn had sent people there to set up the perimeter, and it should be finished soon. They needed to go there to finalize their cn’s assets first before he went to fetch the city-dweller.

  When they arrived, Jamie spotted an old friend from the Wells cn.

  “Jane, long time no see. Did they send you out to take care of your cn’s area?”

  “Jamie. Yep, and way ahead of you too. Your Bush Cn’s areas are right over there, besides ours. Hurry up and set up your tents and give us a hand with the defenses.”

  “Just because we are faster at setting up our shelter doesn’t mean we’re an extra bor force…”

  “Quit compining and get to work,” She smirked.

  He proceeded to help with setting the tents up in our area before fortifying their position with machine guns and mines around the entire area. The cns were sparing no expenses as they mobilized for war.

  The Bates Cn and their allies could attack at any time. They had already confirmed at least two other cns had rallied with them. At least there hadn’t been any surprises yet. Their two allies were well known to be anti-corporations.

  Even though they outnumbered their opposition, it would take unacceptable casualties to defeat them. That was exactly why he would have to guide those outsiders here to supplement their forces.

  I need to be more mature. Keep my emotions in check and do what I need to.

  For the cn.

  Three days ago, we received a message from the Bush Cn that the war council would take pce today. The Wells Cn was the furthest away from the meeting point, so they decided to send someone from the Bush Cn to escort us.

  When we arrived at our outpost in the wastend, I found our familiar guide, Jamie, waiting with his group.

  “Rollo, allow me to guide you to the location of our war council. Are you ready to leave?”

  “Yes, that’s why we’re here.”

  We followed Jamie’s dune buggy, leaving behind the portion of our convoy that was here to supply our outpost and carry out the daily scavenging activities.

  Our convoy was a dozen Vanguards strong for this campaign. It wasn’t our entire force, but we weren’t about to commit everything to this.

  With a seasoned veteran of the wastend guiding us, we trekked through the wastend without any trouble. We didn’t even encounter any mutants before we arrived at the ruins of what seemed to be a prison.

  The fences stood strong even in the sandstorm, with a watchtower at each corner of the complex. We drove through the gates and into the courtyard that was shielded from the sandstorm. The pce was filled with tents and small houses that appeared to have been built recently.

  Once we parked in the area we were assigned, we were then led to one of the old prison buildings. Inside was a refurbished room was a rge meeting room with a rectangur table that could easily fit two dozen people.

  “So you have arrived. Please take a seat, our people outside should be accounting for all the resources we have brought together. Once we know what resources we have to work with, we can then begin pnning,” Said Kelsey, the old leader of the Bush Cn.

  I listened and exchanged nods with all the acquaintances I recognized around the room.

  After half an hour, several of their assistants entered the meeting room, carrying a projector and a few terminals.

  They began going over the forces we had on hand and the information we had on our enemies, which were the Bates Cn plus two others. They discussed several assault pns, and I remained a spectator, as wastend warfare wasn’t our specialty.

  Eventually, they polished and revised the pns until there were only two left. One had us act as bait to lure out their forces, while the other involved a three-pronged on all three of the enemies’ settlements to spread their forces thin.

  “As much as we trust you with our forces, we refuse to be the decoy, distraction, bait, or whatever you name it. Let us go with the assault. You wastender will be able to employ hit-and-run if you encounter a rger force, right?”

  “We can. We’ll need your forces to be the hammer to our anvil that will destroy their weaker forces quickly, though. Are you willing to have your forces in the thick of the fighting?” Eugene, the leader of the Wells Cn, asked.

  That sounds a lot better than serving ourselves up on a ptter, waiting for the opponents to make their move once they are ready. This way, we would be fighting where they were weakest.

  “Yes, I’ll leave it to your forces to distract and hold the enemy in position. Just send along a few guides to direct us.”

  With the strategy set, the meeting soon ended after going through the details of it, which I left to Vin and Thorne.

  We spent the night here, in some rooms they assigned us inside the old prison building. We would be carrying out the attack the next morning, so I forced myself to an early bedtime.

  In the early morning, the united cns’ forces set off to the st known location of where our enemies were. They had been keeping track of their movement the day the Bates Cn attacked us, so they couldn’t hide away like they did against the corporations. It was a feat the corporations couldn’t pull off without the same familiarity of the nd as the wastenders had.

  We set off with a wastender guide assigned to each of our Vanguards, with Jamie joining the one Thorne and I rode on.

  “We meet again. Thanks for doing this, Jamie,” I offered him my hand.

  He hesitated for a moment before he shook it, “It is my duty. We will be on standby until the three forces make contact with the enemy. Would you like to wait in the command post?”

  It sure beat sitting around in the car all morning.

  “Sure, please lead the way.”

  I had Thorne and Vin come along, entering a room with a rge table in the center, with a map and chess-like pieces on it.

  “These attacks we’re carrying out. What are your customs on how to deal with the non-combatants?” Thorne asked from beside me.

  “War between cns isn’t as uncommon as you think. Our people are trained from an early age on our responsibility in these situations. All the non-combatants will stay away from the fighting, where they shall not be disturbed.”

  “And what happens to them after you win?”

  “We do not believe in senseless sughter if that is what you’re getting at. We are already outnumbered by your city-dwellers, so we cannot afford to. Our custom is to exile them to other cns, away from here, where the survivors will be absorbed into those distant cns.”

  “That doesn’t foster enmity and have them coming back for revenge?” Vin interjected.

  “It is our people’s rule to forgo all enmity once we are defeated. If they do such a dishonorable act of disregarding this rule, other cns will unite like we have to punish them.”

  As they chatted amongst themselves, I paid more attention to the table where several wastenders periodically came in to move the pieces around.

  I definitely have seen this before in old medieval films when they waged war. Is this what they reverted back to with communications hindered in the wastend? I would love to see those high-nosed corpos try to imitate this.

  Two hours into it, the tension in the room suddenly spiked with the next update to the war council map.

  “All three forces have spotted the enemy and will be engaging them shortly. Once they update us on the numbers on each battlefield, it will be time for us to move out,” Jamie informed.

  Vin notified our men to prepare while me and Thorne double-checked our weapons.

  Ten minutes ter, the update we were waiting for arrived.

  “It seems like they have concentrated most of their forces in one pce. We shall attack the Bates Cn, which is further away from their army. Let us go, it’s time to join the fight,” Jamie said.

  Just as we exited the room, a loud explosion rang out.

  “Shit, are we under attack?” I excimed.

  “Rollo! Get behind me,” Thorne instantly stood in front of me.

  A moment ter, gunshots rang out from somewhere in the building. It was on a different floor, so it was hard to pinpoint exactly where.

  “Wait in the war room, Jamie. We’ll go check it out.” I exchanged looks with Vin and Thorne.

  We ran down the stairs and when the sound of gunfire was close enough, all three of us turned on our active camoufge.

  Two floors below us, we spotted one of the wastender guards in the middle of a firefight. His opponent was also a wastender, but I had hung around them long enough to tell which of them wasn’t from any of our allied cns.

  We were in a tight hallway, so we weren’t able to close the distance without risk of catching a stray bullet. Instead, I threw a grenade toward the enemies.

  They recognized the threat and the shooting instantly stopped. As soon as the grenade exploded, we took the opportunity to peek out into the hallway with our guns at the ready. Our foes soon poked out from their cover to resume the fight.

  They were a moment too te, though. Everyone on our side was ready for them and immediately unleashed a flurry of bullets in their direction.

  +10 EXP

  The remaining foes started to retreat, and our allies swiftly pointed their weapons in our direction.

  I guess it makes sense from their perspective. Random, invisible people appeared out of nowhere, right beside them. I would be on guard too.

  Thorne had already sped away to chase after them while Vin and I called out to our allies to identify ourselves.

  “Easy, we’re friendlies,” I decred as we came out of stealth.

  The wastenders visibly rexed when they saw us, but then shots rang out and drew all of our attention. It came from Thorne’s direction and stopped just as quickly as it came.

  We moved over and found Thorne standing near several bisected corpses.

  Okay, I need him to move separately or something. How am I supposed to get any experience points with him around…?

  I tried attacking the corpses in the hope they still counted as being alive, but as expected, they were very dead and provided me with no experience points.

  We let the wastender guards deal with the aftermath and regrouped with Jamie.

  “I’ve heard there were a few intruders that managed to smuggle in?” He asked immediately upon seeing us.

  “Yeah, there weren’t a lot. The guards are doing a thorough sweep right now, though. Should we still be leaving?”

  “Of course, the battlefield there is more important. I assume we may have a few traitors amongst us that allowed our enemies to sneak into our headquarters. We’ll have to deal with them ter. We don’t have the time right now.”

  “Understood, let’s head out.”

  It was time to bring the battle to them.