ICC- Kilrick Salvage Chapter 2- On the Road to NYC

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*Maggotville*

As the team worked, Eric was ever vigilant in scanning for hostiles.

Come on come on, lets just finish the job and move on, Eric muttered to himself.

Though the party had the firepower to repell a large number of invaders, staying in one place too long would compromise their position.

If trouble were to come from all sides, the task of defending the team would be much more difficult.
 
I was still hanging around the rig. What alcohol I had started off with was gone now.

Adjusting my gloves, I moved off to where two people were guarding. I didn't really know anyones names, except Jakes and Kilricks but oh well. Who knows? maybe they've got some grog.
 
Reik was watching the bridge. Blowing through the blocade and led to some secondary fires. Hopefully that would keep the maggots back. He glanced up the hill.

The Rig had positioned itself above them, the big .50 giving cover fire. But down below them, with a few hundred yards of open ground, Reik felt exposed.

Rama was working the lock on the door. He removed a small can and sprayed a coating on a rusted lock. Then he hit it with the butt of his weapon, shattering the metal. Wolf was next, trying the door and then cracking it open with a crowbar. Years of weathering and warped the wood so that was nearly sealed shut.

The door open, the two went in. Again the crowbar over the manhole cover. The cover was heavy and it took both men to move it open. When finally they removed it, they saw little but a dark abysis below.

Both men paused, listening.

A scrapping.

It could be rats.

Wolf took his flare and tossed it down into the tunnel. Nothing down there.

Rama asked, "Are the charges ready."

"Yeah." Said Wolf. Nervous.

Reik was outside the little hut above the manhole cover. "Hey, let's be quick about this. The longer we are here the more attention we'll bring."

It was simple. Mine the tunnel above and below the manhole, return to the surface, blow the tunnel and then reunite with the rest of the group.

But now they had to crawl down into the dark tunnels below. Now it was personal, different.
______________________

I looked over the positions. Eric, Edden, Aaron, Deeds and Jasmin providing cover. On the tower, the boy Ellroy had climbed up the town and was working it losse already having set up the ropes and pulleys to bring down the parts of the turbine. Clara had also climbed up and was doing what she could.

As they prepared to bring down the turbine, Jake and Gally had already begun to dissemble the generator.

I looked at Jake and then down at the midpoint station. Jake looked down as well. Nodded.

"Keep and eye on them." I said. "It should only take a few minutes."

"Ya going to mine our end." Asked Jake.

I nodded. One had to be sure. The maggots were fast, too fast. If they could get up through the tunnel they would be amongst us. At range we had the edge, but in hand-to-hand, the maggots would shred the lot of us. Our only advantage was to keep them at a distance.

I went down to the conduit tunnel that stretched from the generator to the mid point. It wasn't hard to find, I need only follow the electrical lines down three flights of stairs into the rock. Then past a grate into the crawl space.

The conduit tunnel was only about three feet by three feet. Big enough for a man to crawl through, but little else. No room to manuever and very cramped.

I shined a light down but saw nothing. Loaded my 40mm with a flare and fired it down the tunnel. It hit a corner bounced and bounced some more. The tunnel would turn a few curves until it came back to the midpoint.

Confident that there was little down there I quickly went to work planting enough C-4 to bring the tunnel down from here if those at the midpoint failed.
 
OCC- Welsh here. Some edits. Stokes, this is better but if the maggots had wiped out a squad of heavily armed grunts, your character wouldn't have stood a chance.

The night before had been brutal. The maggots kept coming and coming and would not let up in their fight against the tall, muscular man, cornered in a run down building. Even so, he let his fists loose against their horrible, mangled shapes. In the end he had been able to escape into a metal cabinet and been able to keep it closed through the night. That alone had saved him.
Bloated, squishy maggot heads, ripped off at the neck, littered the doorway, but their bodies were nowhere to be found. Still, the smell was getting pretty terrible. And his hands, well, they fucking hurt. His scaly, broken skin was now covered with blisters. Most of them had popped and were oozing a green puss. A couple of fingernails on his right hand had fallen off. Things were not looking good...for a while.

But the rest of him was in worse shape. His legs were bloody from the tears of Maggot claws. One had tore a gash through his arm that would require stitches. ANother had torn through his leather armor, now useless, and tripped open his chest nearly to the rib. He had barely had enough bandages to stop the bleeding and now his head was aching and he felt dizzy. Blood loss and infection.

It was mid-day when he saw them up on the hill. "That's them," he explained to the maggot skulls. Wether or not he would survive getting within shouting distance of them didn't matter to him. His hands were in bad shape and all that mattered to him now was to get them fixed up and fixed up fast. It was unlike them to travel without a medic so he would take his chances. If only he could make it up the hill.

"Fuck it."

He stood up and walked out the door quckly and quietly to the side of the house facing away from the hill. "Just where I left, ya. Good." His gear was all there, including his "bike."

He straddled his dirt-bike and turned on the ignition. His body ached and he could feel the blood begin to flow again under his bandages as the wounds tore open. What followed was one of the worst feelings of pain he had ever felt. He had forgotten about how much the motor vibrated and how damaged his hands were as he gripped them around the handlebars. It had taken all his sanity not to scream out in pain. He felt a wave of nausea and dizziness, and nearly fell. But if he did, that would be the end of him.

"This had better be worth it."

With that said he sped up towards the hill, sure he would be dead in less than 30 seconds.
 
Down in the conduit tunnel my hands quickly did their work. I could hear the hiss of the flare I had fired down the pipe. Closer in I had another flare for illumination as my fingers worked to tie the wires together. I quickly placed the charges against the top of the pipe, trying to find the places where the metal roof of the conduit was thinnest.

I kept listening for the sounds of violence. I expected them, further down the pipe. The crew was very close to the town and the maggots would move through the pipe quickly if they knew that there was potential food there.

I was counting on the flares and the light to keep the monsters at bay. If it didn't work, well, then I wouldn't have to worry about New York anymore. I wasn't worried about screwing up the explosives. This was something I had done numerous times. Nor did I worry about the other crew. If they were still in the tunnels when the charges blew, there wouldn't be enough left of them to feed the maggots.

My mind turned back to the mission, to New York and what I had learned. We still didn't know what this was about, only that the Major had made this a top priority to be paying what he was. That Spengler was doing the same mission meant they were willing to lose one of us. They couldn't trust their own least they give away who was involved in the mission. Jasmin and Deeds were just our overseers on the trip.

But what was it about? Maddy Stowe and Dr. Edwards knew. If I wanted to, I could get it out of either one, but they might not be as useful.

The war had reached a stale mate. With the Greys controlling the coasts and the Greens controlling the country, neither side was making much headway. Niether side had proven strong enough to finally destroy the other, and so they had settled into an uneasy peace divided by no-man's land. Each was storing up, resting, getting stronger to finish of the other. As they had done before, for a hundred, perhaps two hundred years. For ever.

The war. It didn't make any sense, not for those that cared. Supposedly it had begun shortly after the great war, what ever that one had been about. THe war had been ethnic and racial, but over a few score years, and as the sides blurred, the reasons had been lost. All that had been remembered was that there was war and revenge. If they had guns they would use them, if not, knives and stones would. The war was total but without reason or logic. It just was.

Done. I tied up the last of the wires and crawled back up to the hatchway, rolled the wires together and prepared the plunger. THen I yelled up the stairs. "Fire in the hole." and turned the plunger.

Two muffled blasts. A spray of dirt and dust through the tunnel. I waited for the dust to settle than looked back in. The tunnel was closed for business. My blasts and set off a cave in. Hardly felt on the surface it had managed to shut down one avenue of attack.

I returned to the surface to see how the work was proceeding.

Jake and Gally were using a cart to move the generator on to one of the tinker wagons with the muscle of a few of the others in support.

I asked Jake. "What's with the way-point."

Jake shook his head. "Nothin yet."

Above, the blades of the propeller had been brought down. I could see Eric in the tree. He was watching something

"Eric?" I asked.

"Got something coming up to the way-point. A man on a plasma dirt bike." He said.
 
Rama kep a steady eye, he could hear it too. Though he doubted any maggot had a single brain cell to help them ride a bike, but even if it wasn't a maggot, didn't mean it was friendly.

That was the thing of the wastes, it was filled with friendly foes.
 
OCC- Note the edits to Stokes' character.

Kilrick watched from near the turbine, telling the others, "Keep focused. We got a schedule to keep."

The biker navigated along the bank of the river from an old stone farmhouse a few miles down the bank. The bike wobbled as the rider seemed to be having trouble keeping it straight. The engine sputtered and then purred, then sputtered again. Low on plasma, probably.

"Aaron, keep the .50 trained on the road up." I said.

"Got it."

The biker was coming for us, probably looking for help. He kicked up a cloud of dust behind the bike, but I couldn't see any maggots on either side. Not yet. Still, to have survived the night, even this close, was remarkable. If the maggots hadn't gotten him, than the Dire should have.

Reik was up top at the midway point. What was taking Rama and Wolf? They should have been done by now.

_____________

Rama could hear the engine through the air vents. Down by the river the conduit was nearer the surface and vents had been put near the conduit to assure that rain water wouldn't flood conduit but would flow down into the river.

'A biker." Said Reik. "Looks like shit."

That wasn't very helpful thought Rama, He had gone down into the conduit to provide protection for Wolf. It was the position that was most dangerous, but in this circumstance, there was little he could do. The conduit, little more than three feet high by three feet wide, offered little in the way of movement.

Reik waited for the biker to get close before halting him. A glance up the hill revealed that Kilrick was also watching, and Aaron with the .50 would cut the man in half if necessary. Eric, in the tree with his rifle, also had a bead on the man.

But before Reik could ask a question the biker stalled and cycle and man both fell to the ground. Then Reik could see the man's extensive wounds.

"ah shit, we got a man down here."

Rama thought about going up to help, but then, down in the dark of the tunnel, he thought he heard something long and sharp scratch the metal of the conduit tunnel.

Wolf was still working his fingers with the charges. But time was up.

In a hoarse whisper Rama said to Wolf, "We're not alone down here anymore."

___________

OCC- guys in the conduit- we are waiting for you. Remember 5 days to post or you die. Patience is near up.
 
The shadows began to stir. Three blurs Rama could make out.

Rama helped with the setting of the charges, placing two near the blast points.

"Five minutes people." He ordered.
 
“5 minutes people” Said Rama.

“Ok, let’s get going, we still have to charge bellow the manhole, let’s get this bloody thing done so we could catch some fresh air!”

“Hurry up down there!” Yelled Reik

Again I heard something in the tunnels, I looked at Rama, he signaled me with his hand, raising three fingers…

I raised my sawed-off and proceed into the darkness to plant the last charge… the clock was ticking; we had to do it fast.

We started crawling quickly in the tunnel, until, a few seconds later we were there. Until now nothing had attacked us, but we both could feel them watching in the darkness.

“I don’t like this…” I whispered in the dark. Rama said nothing.

We were on the spot. We had little more then 3 minutes to plant the charges and leave in a big sodding hurry. Planting the first charge I was nervous and took a long time doing it (that and the fact that I haven’t done it in a bleeding time). But now I planted it in a few seconds.

And still no reaction from the maggots

“Alright, let’s go!” Said Rama.

We started crawling back into the exit, 30 seconds, 45 seconds… 1 minute…we still had about 2 minutes, enough time.

But then a loud noise, shadows in the dark, a loud shriek. They were here.

Rama and I started bursting away. Him with his AK-47, I with my shotgun.

An incredible pain hit my right leg! I screamed with the pain. A fucker craved his claws in me!

Rama killed him, the others were dead too… but now I could barely move. And we had about a minute before all tunnels collapsed.
 
The fall was harsh, but not unexpected. If anything it provided him with a much safer chance of survival upon the meet and greet. His hands were full of blood; It seemed as if every blister on his hand had popped. They now throbbed with every beat of his chest. Mindful of his situation, he lifted his head from the ground to scope out the look out group. It did not seem as if they would open fire...yet. Slowly, carefully, he used his elbows to prop himself up into a crouching position and then stood up. (nervous?)Movement, but still no action. His rifle, which amazingly did not shoot off in the fall, was still slung around his left shoulder. He slung the rifle around so it hung at his elbow and lifted it away from his body. Making sure they had his attention, he lowered his arm and the gun slipped off.

"See? I'm not armed," he whispered to them.

Mindful of his plasma bike's position (and condition while we're at it), he walked to the look out group, hands splayed out in front of him for the full dramatic effect.

Within shouting distance after a hearty "STAY THE FUCK WHERE YOU ARE," he looked up to them and began his speech.

"Hi there. Name's Stokes. One of you a medic? Sure could use one. Damn maggots ripped my hands to shreads..."
 
Rama didn't waste a second, "Hang on," He rasped as he crouched and picked up Wolf, heaving him on his shoulder. "Just watch my back and I'll get you out of here." Rama said, as he hoisted Wolf across his shoulders, caring him the way he was taught in the Rangers corp.

They wouldn't make it, so Rama decided to break left for a corner that wouldn't be in the primary blast zone. A little ringing in the ears, but they're lives would be saved.

No time to think twice, it was just to act.

Dropping Wolf down, Rama covered him, and the next thing that they both heard was the sound of the world collapsing around them and everything went hazy black.
 
All collapsed and we were in pitch black, covered with dust.

Rama lighted a flare.

My legs was bleeding and throbbing with pain. I hadn’t brought my bag with me so I improvised a bandage and injected some quick stimpack Rama carried with him.

“Thank you.” I said to him. “But you could’ve made it if you left me behind, you know?”

“Don’t be stupid.” He quickly replied, without a second thought.

We were trapped. The others probably already knew about it, after all, the bombs exploded before Reik seeing us coming out.

But now we had to get out of here.

The pain in my leg was starting to worry me, I had to get to my bag quickly or it could get infected.

“So.” I started. “What do you think? I still got some explosives with me. Do we blast us a way out of here?”
 
"Sure," Rama began, "unless you intend to turn us into ground round." The ex-ranger began to feel the wall, hoping he'd find some weak spot he could at least claw his way out of.

"Does your radio work?" He asked Wolf, holding up his damaged one.
 
The surface

Edden saw others flew from the explosion but didn't see Rama or Wolf. "Where's Stryfe and Wolf?" Edden asked, her voice rattling with concern.
 
Aaron was the first to say what everyone was thinking.
"Fuck."

Murphy's Law once again.

First a stranger on a bike.

Then the explosion from below. The conduit had caved in for about 20 yards from the manhole towards the town. But no Rama or Wolf. That meant both were in the tunnel when it exploded.

Perhaps they had been turned to ratburger in the blast.

Perhaps they had been crushed to death before they could escape.

Perhaps they had suffocated in darkness.

Perhaps they had been taken by maggots and it was the maggots that set off the charges.

Murphey's Law.

They were probably dead. This was just foolishness. Sunk costs. We had lost two people for the turbine. It was all done with so just leave them. Already managed their burials.

But that wasn't how I did business.

"Jake?" I asked.

"Yeah. We got the generator mostly done. The turbine is coming down quick. But we got a few hours yet to go." Said Jake. He had also seen the plume of dust rise in the air through the manhole cover. Like me he was seeing Reik, alone, with a stranger and not sure what to do.

"I'm taking down the rig with a few people with me. Jamin, Deeds, Edwards and Stowe stay up here with you. We need this position secure." I said. "Let's be as quick as we can."

"Got it."

I turned to the others. "We're in a dangerous spot here, so stay sharp. However, I want to take a few people down with the rig and see if we can dig out Rama and Wolf, or anything that's left of 'em. Only a couple of volunteers. the rest stay here."
 
“I think it’s busted, but maybe you can do something combining parts from the two of them… but I’m no mechanic” – I answered Rama, handing him my radio.

As he had a look at it, I tried to get up and perhaps start digging the dirt with my own hands, but the second I sustained some weight in my right leg I collapsed like a doll.

“Bugger-all!” – I complained with the pain.

The claws went deep, but yet the pain I felt wasn’t entirely from the wound, but probably from the bloody infection it was starting to make. If I had a change of getting out of the cave alive, I had to figure it out quickly, or the wound would finish me off.

I went to my coat finding my flask intact. I took a sip then poured the rest in the wound. It burned like hell but at least it would buy me sometime before really infecting.

I looked around, rocks everywhere, there was no way out… in the debris I noticed something… something made of metal… I approached and found out my crowbar!
If we had to dig, it could help out a bit.
 
Edden checked nthe oily black M9 Berettas and her combat knife, which she sheathed in the scabbard on her right breast and the Shotgun was fully loaded.

"Well, what are we waiting for. Let's go dig out our hommies." Edden stood at Kilrick's side. She was ready to save her comrades, and perhaps get some blood between her teeth. The blood of those filithy maggots.
 
The Hole

Stryfe began to sweat beads under the darkness of the chamber with his torch light between his teeth as he worked on the radio. It was always good he was prepared, he had a small pocket screw driver and a small combat knife as a small wedge.

After some surgical cutting, Stryfe moved the Transmitter to the radio and used the mors code chip to Wolf's own. No words, but a couple beeps and clicks should get the message across that Wolf and Rama are alive and where they can be found.

Beep, click... beeep.... Click....

"Well, if they haven't already left, they should at least know we are alive." Rama said, his cold voice holding little comfort. "Here, let me give you a hand," He helped Wolf shift the rocks, pulling the pebbles and small granite chunks out of the way.

A small wisp of air cut in, and though they could see no light, the scent of the air helped. "Half way there."

Outside the shuffling of feet could be heard, and the sound of snarling. "Looks like we have company." The hands were shifting the rocks too.

All Wolf heard was the snap of Rama's Desert Eagle's slide being pulled back.
 
*Maggotville*

"Count me in", Eric replied.

Sure the shit could fly if the other members suddenly developed a penchant of extreme greediness.

Thats was before Eric imagined going into scum york undermanned, not a good idea.

That was also before thnking about running into an NAC ambush.

In the end, the other members were a bit more trustworthy then the dangers of the waste lying in wait.
 
I've been watching the crew for a long time when I realized that I should be watching the area. I didn't even notice the biker coming along. I looked around once again. Clear.

But no, there was someone in the window watching us... Or maybe not? I closed my eyes, shook my head and looked again.

No, it must be my imagination. I took my flask and almost drunk everything. It helped.

I turned my head looking through the rifle scope at the horizon. I saw there some grey spots. They were surely animals. "Dire!" - I thought. I called for someone.

Deeds came.

-"I think I see Dire about a kilometer this direction" - I pointed him the direction.

-"Are you sure? I'm going to talk it over with Kilrick. You stay here and keep eye on them!"

-"Wait! I think we shouldn't do anything until they had noticed us. Tell it whomever you are going to talk with about this"

I looked again there. I felt the heat on my back. It was slowly killing me. I turned the way my side was in sunshine.
 
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