RE: Lock and load
"Crap, I really don't need this," Quinch thought as he climbed back into the cave, away from the light.
Two raiders stepped into the cave and immediately started advancing, looking around in a perfect search choreography. Strangely enough, each of them now carried a stun grapple, a police weapon dating back to the pre-war era. Behind them stood another man, standing as a supervisor among his minions. Even though there was what resembled a PPK Gauss pistol at his holster, he didn't seem interested in assisting his two comrades.
"Curiouser and curiouser," he thought to himself, not daring even to mutter the words aloud, as he pressed himself into a small crevice on the side. Thick stalagmites, undisturbed for decades, helped him hide from the two raiders, but that was an advantage that would vanish once they got too close. A whirr outside told him the second vehicle left, leaving only this trio to deal with him. They were confident. Quinch hoped they really were overetimatimg themselves.
"Damn..." he breathed as he quickly checked the ammo in his .223 pistol. Two bullets left. Oh well... with any luck, two bullets would be all he would need. If not... well, you can only die once, right?
He allowed the duo to take a few more steps, waiting for the moment neither of them would be looking his way. He aimed carefully....
NOW!
The rightmost raider shot his grapple as a gunshot resounded off the cave walls and his partner's face split like an overripe watemelon. His concentration broken, the tension making him fire at a shadow, the grapple harmlessly ricocheted off a wall, the thin cable uselessly trailing after it, he didn't notice Quinch launch himself from his hiding place and bring his right hand out to shoot at his stomach, his momentum propelling him forward as he grabbed the fallen raider's grapple...
Quinch looked at the body in front of him.
"Christ, that was stupid," he said, the first words spoken aloud since he entered the cave. The grapple's clamps were holding the third raider's head, and nonlethal as this weapon was supposed to be, the electrical jolt probably turned this guy's brain into jelly. No captives here.
He reached into his holster. He was right; a Gauss pistol, polished to a shine - the guy must've really loved that gun.
Quinch took the other raider's grapple and walked out of the cave, into the sunlight. He ignored the raider vehicle and strode towards his car. There was a four-foot circle in the middle of the car, the metal sticking out in dull spikes in a perfect pattern. He walked around to the other side - yes, a circle of dents in the same pattern. He frowned, looking around for his radio. He never saw a weapon do something like that. He had a pretty vivid image of what it would to to a human being.... bones and organs stretched out of shape...
He shook his head, and saw his radio on the ground. The thing was positively useless now, broken and bent plastic with a glimmer of molted metal. He threw it back over his shoulder as he ran to the cave, a crude decoy to draw a few bullets and buy him a second or two he needed to survive.
He opened the trunk of his car and pulled out some more ammo for the .233, and his sniper rifle from the back seat. Gauss was good, but he had no bullets for it. The raider vehicle was parked some distance away, its polished ochre surface gleaming in the early afternoon sun. As he neared it, he noticed it had no wheels. This was odd... hovercrafts were fast and maneuvrable, but they were also energy gluttons. He jumped into the driver's seat and frowned again. The dashboard, if it could be called that, was filled with buttons and knobs he had no idea what purpose they served. There, however, was a few things he was pretty certain about.
As he turned the ignition key, several displays lit up, direction, a local topo map and yes, a mid-range radar. So they did know where to look. He looked at the fuel gauge and gave a low whistle; it was reading less than twenty units and the full tank was thirty. That either meant these things had a really low range or someone managed to boost the engine. And if it was the first.... their base must be close by.
Quinch shrugged the thought aside.His radio gone, he had to find the others. Who knows, one of them might even be able to dig out the exact base location.
The hovercraft whined and turned northwards. Quinch took one last look over his shoulder and jacked the acceleration lever.
--------------------------
The sun sets. Shadows left by boulders scattered around the wasteland turn longer and slowly start to melt with the falling darkness.
In the cave, a figure stirs.
It shakes his head a little, eyes hardly focusing. It stands up gingerly, clumsily and stumbles toward the cave entrance, brushing the stunner's clamps off it's head. Thousands of stars greet it, but nothing else. Its vehicle is gone and only dust stretches for miles around it.
The man taps his temple and starts to speak.
