Ravens of Eternity

54 Running Hot

The ground whipped by quickly as the tractor sped towards the chaos.

It had reached maximum velocity and was cruising at a relatively good pace. Its main display showed that they had topped out their speed, which fluctuated between 24 to 26 meters per second. Although it wasn’t fast compared to space superiority fighters, it was definitely rather quick for any land-based vehicle.

Especially for something that weighed as much as the tractor did.

As they neared, the sounds of gunfire became clearer and more recognizable.

“Should we continue flying over there, or walk?” asked Amal.

Dareon shook his head.

“Walking will take way too long,” he replied. “By then... everyone would... I couldn’t...”

He let the sentence hang in the air before he quickly hopped up from his seat.

Dareon then turned around and shuffled some of the items behind the technician’s chair. After moving a few things aside, he swiftly pulled out a short hunting rifle from among the other tools.

.....

He dug around a bit more and found a box of rifle rounds, which he opened up and poured out onto a tray on the dashboard. He let roughly a dozen rounds tumble out before he set the box aside.

His hands shook as he tried to load the rifle with ammunition, but was having difficulty keeping himself steady.

Suddenly, loading a weapon became the most difficult thing for him.

He kept shaking from fear, from anger, from helplessness, you name it. More than that, his mind was plagued by dark questions, which interrupted the rest of his being.

Are my parents OK? Are the kids alright? Who would attack us? Why would they attack us? What’s the point of all this?

Amal reached over and comforted him with a touch.

Her efforts helped immensely, and after a moment he had stopped shaking. With his heart and hands calm, he became able to load his rifle again.

She put her hand back on the yoke, to ensure that she kept the tractor steady as they flew.

Once the rifle was loaded, Dareon slid the window next to him open, and leaned out with the rifle in hand.

He shouldered the rifle then peered through its scope once he felt stable with it. They were going rather fast, and the wind whipped at him. If he didn’t have a good grip, it would have been easily thrown right out of his hands.

What he saw through the scope shook him deeply.

More than two dozen armed marauders in smoke-grey armor had sped up to the farm in various antigrav vehicles. Most of them were single-seater bikes, while a few were in open-air assault boats.

Some had already reached the farm and fired their weapons while they hid behind cover. One of them had a grenade launcher, and he lobbed grenades into the textile mill.

Who knew what kind of damage he had wrought.

Dareon then turned his sights to his family and farm hands, and found many of them simply running away from the fighting. Though most were able to get away, some were caught by the marauders’ wild attacks and fell face-first onto the ground, dead and unmoving.

Although many ran, a number of them remained behind. They fired back at the marauders with their own rifles. They were severely outgunned, and wouldn’t last long without any help.

But it didn’t matter – they knew they were as good as dead. What mattered was that they gave everyone else enough time to get away.

They did their best to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves, and Dareon was choked up by the sight.

He ducked back into the tractor in a complete panic.

“Family’s getting shot at!” he proclaimed. “We need to get there fast, so we can help out!”

Amal immediately understood. She had become a part of the family, and she wasn’t just going to leave them to their fate.

She had been in this kind of situation before, and knew the stakes. Every moment counted, and any that passed brought more loss than just time.

Last time, she ran. This time, she was going to help shield those who did.

She veered the tractor towards where he was pointing, which was where some of the defenders had posted up.

Once they were roughly a thousand meters from the fighting, Dareon leaned out of the window yet again with his rifle. He took a few shots, but none hit – they were still too far away.

He huffed as he plopped back into his seat and reloaded.

“Save your ammo,” she advised. “Keep your cool.”

But he was too riled up, and needed to take action. Dareon was starting to suffer from the mental and emotional stress, it was plain as day.

Though he was a wreck, she kept her nerves.

It wasn’t as though her own mind wasn’t awash with questions, but she had learned to quell them in order to stay calm. She learned that a quiet heart resulted in a sharper mind, and that was necessary to stay alive.

Those lessons came to her the hard way.

“Put a few rounds in your pockets,” she said calmly. “Stuff a few in mine while you’re at it. You never know.”

His heart was swept up in a chaotic storm, and she was his only beacon. Not knowing what else to do, he listened. Her voice was calm yet strong, and helped center him.

“I know it’s tough,” she continued. “Bet your thoughts are everywhere right now. But don’t do that. Just focus on right now and nothing else. Just one foot, one step at a time, got it?”

He nodded as he listened, and did his best to follow what she advised and put a few spare rounds into each of their pockets.

He then looked around and grabbed a couple MealBars, and stuffed those in their pockets as well.

Just in case, you never know.

Amal began to swing wide as they approached. The tractor was a sluggish beast, and they wouldn’t be able to stop on a dime.

“Gonna circle around the fight, alright?” she said. “We can’t stop easily and we can’t sit still. What you can do is pick off as many as you can and help out.”

“Alright,” he responded.

“How often have you shot before?”

“Lots of times, but only while hunting, and only on the ground.”

“You know more, so I don’t have any advice to give,” she said. “But I’ll try to keep steady. Just take your time and focus on what’s right in front of you.”

Dareon nodded, then leaned out the window again.

They had reached the 300 meter mark, which gave him more confidence in his aim. He bore down on the marauder with the grenade launcher, and adjusted his sights for the distance and their speed.

Then he exhaled slowly, and stopped breathing right before he pulled the trigger.

With a BANG, the bullet flew through the air in a long arc and forcefully embedded itself in the marauder’s chest.

It blew open in a cloud of red mist, and all that was left of it was a hollow crater.

The marauder was thrown to the ground from the force, and was dead before he even realized it. Not that any of his buddies realized either, as they were rather engrossed in their murderous rampage.

As the two approached where the family had put up their defenses, they saw a few more of the bolder family members and farmhands run up with their own rifles. They had felt the absolute need to defend their land, their home, their people.

Lives more important than theirs were at stake.

Their weapons were just like Dareon’s – short hunting rifles with scopes. Though they weren’t anything complicated, they were rather powerful, and they shone in the family’s hands.

Not that they were winning by any stretch of the imagination. They were just farmers and hunters, and had little experience in a fight like this. Of course, some had military training, though even fewer actually saw live combat.

Still, their experience had plenty of merit, and they used their knowledge to rally their friends and family in combat.

They were even able to pick off some of the more careless marauders and thinned their numbers.

In contrast however, the fiends who attacked them were somewhat chaotic and disorganized. But they were equipped rather well, and had a variety of projectile-spewing weapons

Most had automatic rifles, while others used SMGs. Regardless of what they held, their objective was to simply smother the whole area with bullets. They weren’t concerned with strategy – their only desire was to sow chaos.

And hopefully people would die as a result. They couldn’t ask for any better way to have fun and make profit at the same time.

Amal swung the tractor just over the defenders, and took some of the fire away from those on the ground.

Though they were circling, the tractor was still going a steady 25 m/s. It was definitely fast enough to throw the marauders’ aim. But certainly not all of it.

Some of the smarter ones were able to compensate, and began to lead their target in order to hit it.

Rifle and SMG rounds peppered the tractor’s thick hide, but did little damage to it. A couple of the bullets did slip through and cut through one of the coolant lines, however.

Temperatures started to rise and hit red, but Amal quickly shut off the damaged pump and redirected the coolant to move around it.

The tractor was wounded and ran a little hot, but she still flew.

Dareon leaned out and fired his rifle at one of the overly zealous marauders. The thug’s head burst open like a ripe melon, and red matter splattered everywhere behind him.

“That’s two,” he said.

Dareon didn’t like this violence, not even a little bit. He hated having to take someone else’s life even more. But that didn’t matter right now. These people were attacking his home, his family.

They needed to be stopped, no matter what. In no way was he going to simply watch and let these people have their way.

He aimed at another marauder, and with the squeeze of a trigger, took his life.

“Three.”

Amal also wasn’t keen on any violence whatsoever. Her life had been filled with it.

But now that she had found something that she desperately wanted to keep, she was as willing as Dareon to fight for it.

.....

Dareon exhaled one more time, and executed yet another of the marauders.

“Four!”

Seeing Dareon’s actions emboldened the family who was there at the skirmish. They cheered with every kill he took, and their morale soared.

They too did their best to take down as many of the attacking marauders as possible. Their aim became steadier, and their hearts grew bolder. Over half a dozen more marauders died to their rifles.

But their advantage was short-lived.

Whoever was leading the marauders had realized that the tractor’s presence had subtly shifted the tide of the fight. He ordered a bunch of them to focus their fire on it.

“Bring it down!” he screamed.

A number of the brutes quickly turned their attention to the circling tractor, and fired round after round at it.

Bullets suddenly riddled the tractor; and Amal had no choice but to yank the yoke. She turned the belly towards the marauders and kept Dareon out of their line of fire.

They both felt and heard as dozens of bullets struck the tractor’s underside. It was terrifying as the metal that surrounded them was continuously pelted. The marauders had struck multiple systems and caused a great amount of internal damage.

The marauders had essentially perforated most of the drive system, and power to the main thrusters was greatly reduced. Most of the coolant lines were severed in the barrage.

Moments later, the whole thing began to shake and shudder. Internal temperatures climbed as the tractor began to fall from the sky.

Amal pulled up on the yoke to keep the nose upwards, but it barely responded.

In response, she cranked out as much power as she could to the thrusters and applied as much lift and drag as possible. She did her best to give the thing more time to slow down.

She also aimed the tractor towards an open field nearby. The tractor moved as she wanted, but only just so.

It was shuddering violently at this point, and the two of them were knocked around in their own seats.

The ground came closer and closer, which greatly alarmed Dareon.

“Gonnadiegonnadiegonnadie,” he kept repeating.

He was clearly scared out of his wits. Hell, they both were. But Amal kept a calmer head.

“Stay loose!” she yelled. “Don’t tense up!”

She grabbed his hand and entwined her fingers around his.

“Don’t let go!” she said.

Then, they hit the ground with a CRUNCH.

The tractor’s nose dipped into the ground, which threw crops and soil into the air as it chewed a trench through the field.

At some point the nose dug deeper into the ground which violently stopped the tractor. But because they still held a great deal of force, the rear simply sailed right over them, and caused the tractor to get into a roll.

Every single side crumpled with every vicious revolution. Though it had only rolled a few times, it felt like hundreds to the two inside.

Just like being g-locked, their blood was thrown to their outer extremities, and their hearts and minds were deprived of fresh oxygen. Their vision faded as they fought to stay conscious, but they quickly lost that battle.

The tractor rolled onto its side, teetered slightly, then settled quietly. Smoke streamed out of its lacerated metal hide as sparks flew from its devastated modules.

The sounds of gunfire and death continued as the marauders surged further into the farm.

And the two were out like a light.