Going Bold

The first warning was a distant rumble. The conversation on the hill top stilled for a moment as they all stopped to listen. Andrea ran a quick check and noted that the high altitude drones hadn't detected any signs of a lightning storm forming nearby. And their audio systems triangulated the source of the sound to the area near the meeting point. Just to be safe Andrea pinged an alert to the network, letting Lin know something odd was happening, and tasked the nearest high altitude drone with conducting a search of the area looking for large amounts of motion or significant changes to the landscape compared to initial mapping.

Unla-Ela turned to Andrea "No like sound, morning signs say no storms." Andrea and her translation software both had a very basic grasp on Unla-Ela’s language, but she was able to understand the gist of Unla-Ela’s meaning. Before she could respond the rumble came again, not as loud as the first time, but this time it didn’t stop. The sound continued and as it went on it grew louder and louder until after just a few seconds it dwarfed the initial noise. Now shouting to be heard over the sound, Unla-Ela called to their subordinates and guards directing them to retreat the way they'd come, before turning to Andrea "Something dangerous come. Andrea come with Unla-Ela, big group more safe!"

By The time Unla-Ela was making her invitation, Andrea's tasking to the high altitude drone had already returned results, part of Andrea's vision was now occupied by an overhead view highlighting her location and highlighting what was both a great deal of motion and a visible mark on the landscape. A massive collection of the herd animals that Lin had observed cracking rocks, through some anomalous ability, were stampeding. Though perhaps stampeding would give the wrong impression, It was obvious at a glance that rather than one body of animals several distinct groups appeared to be engaging in a running battle. Ultimately that didn't matter, the result was close enough and posed a definite hazard. Andrea was not worried for her own sake; she knew her physical abilities would allow her to easily outpace the stampede even if she chose to run ahead of it rather than simply get out of its way. She also knew that the contingent of combat drones staged nearby could drop lifting cables and a pair of them working together could easily provide enough lift to pull her out of harm's way, if needed. Andrea's main concern was the safety of Unla-Ela's team. Aside from all of the major social and political issues that would arise from having all of her points of contact with a new alien species killed during a meeting with her, Andrea was not the sort to stand by and let others die if she could do something to stop it.

The first thing Andrea had to do was change where Unla-Ela's party was heading. The view from above was showing her that the running battle / stampede was rapidly barreling down on them and would sweep directly along the path of retreat that Unla-Ela and the others were intending to follow. Most of Unla-Ela’s group was holding firm waiting for their leader as she tried to invite Andrea with them, but two guards had clearly lost their nerve and begun sprinting back the way they’d come. By this point Lin had focused her attention on what was happening and was able to estimate about 150 seconds till the leading elements of the stampede reached Andrea and the rest. Lin directed the contingent of combat drones to lift off and attempt to redirect the course of the stampede through a judicious application of force, at the same time she directed the Donkey Andrea had ridden on earlier to Sprint at its best pace to rendezvous with Andrea and Unla-Ela's group. Andrea noted Lin's plan as it populated their shared combat coordination space. After just a moment's consideration she indicated her agreement with Lin's decision to drop some of the subterfuge about their capabilities. Andrea had decided that revealing some of their tools and blatantly demonstrating the level of threat she could pose wouldn't be nearly as big an obstacle to good relations as letting all of her new acquaintances die on her watch.

Within a couple of seconds of lift off the combat drones had a firing solution on a region about 400 meters away from the leading elements of the stampede, and nearly 2 kilometers and a covering ridgeline away from Andrea and the rest. With a standard engagement range measured in dozens of kilometers Lin had easy point blank shots for the heavy weapons systems on the combat drones. A series of loud cracks whipped out across the rocky field followed near instantaneously by a cascade of detonations sending fountains of dirt and shattered rock dozens of meters into the air as a dozen hypervelocity kinetic impactors blasted a long strip of rocky field into a dust choked moonscape. Unla-Ela and her party all stumbled from the sudden stunning force of the bombardment. As rock and dirt began to patter down, the rumble of the stampede continued to grow louder and Andrea waved to Unla-Ela “Follow me, your way danger. My way more safe.” Unla-Ela stared dazedly at her for a moment before shaking herself, glancing towards the now distant figures of the two guards who’d fled already before glancing back to Andrea, after holding her gaze for a moment Unla-Ela appeared to make a decision she called out for everyone to follow Andrea. As soon as Andrea heard this she began running, Unla-Ela, their students, and the four remaining guards began to run after Andrea.

Lin noted the stampede had altered course negligibly due to the bombardment, while the leading animals were trying to shy away from the noise and the looming mass of ejecta. The problem was that the larger stronger members of each of the groups in the stampede were farther back and seemed preoccupied with fighting amongst themselves, sending shockwaves at one another that tore into hides and shattered rock. The noise of their clash and the focus it demanded meant that they didn’t react to the explosions at all. This resulted in the main mass of the stampede continuing to barrel forward along their original course, indeed some of the leading animals that shied from the blasts were promptly sucked under the hooves of those behind them, a grizzly fate that the two fleeing guards were in grave danger of sharing. After spending half a minute sweeping the combat drones in closer to observe and considering available weapons Lin concluded that nothing else she had loaded would be able to safely delay or divert the stampede. She redirected four of the six combat drones to try and pick up the panicked guards and carry them to safety. While she could slaughter the entire herd and stop the danger dead in its tracks, that sort of solution would be entirely anathema to the ethos of the Surveyor Corps, wanton slaughter was a solution neither Lin nor Andrea would accept, if it even occurred to them at all.

The remaining duo of drones diverted towards Andrea and Unla-Ela’s group. They were in less dire straits than the lone pair of guards but still faced deadly danger. Andrea’s knowledge of the path the stampede was likely to follow let her lead the group on a run perpendicular to the oncoming torrent of destruction. This meant they had a shorter distance to cover in their pursuit of safety but they had less time before the ground they were covering would be churned into a rocky slurry. Fortunately for them the Donkey came into sight, sprinting at a relentless pace directly toward Andrea and the others. Anticipating their reaction to the strange and intimidating form running towards them, Andrea waved in greeting towards the Donkey and called out to the rest of the group “Friendly animal tool!” As the Donkey skidded to a halt and crouched in front of Andrea she gestured the four guards and Baluk-Nual, the largest and heaviest looking of Unla-Ela’s students, to climb onto the metal beast.

Without the time, training, or equipment Andrea felt trying to get any more of them out on the Donkey would be almost certain to end in someone falling off, as it was she worried they’d fail to stay onboard. Pointing to hand holds Andrea yelled “Hold hard, stay middle!” As they nervously scrambled aboard the Donkey, the two combat drones Lin had directed their way came to a hover close overhead and dropped their tow cables. Unla-Ela jumped a bit when the falling towing lines dropped into sight. “More friendly animal tools!” Andrea reassured before gesturing over Unla-Ela’s two remaining, and far smaller students. Both combat drones would be needed to lift Andrea effectively, she was extremely heavy with numerous implants and a heavily bio-engineered body that altogether had her weighing at least as much as the rather large muscular guards. Luckily for Unla-Ela’s small statured students their lighter weight meant that a single drone each should just be able to carry them to safety.

Quickly looping the towing lines into lasso like configurations Andrea slipped them under the arms of Trophirte and Ela-Nu, this was going to be a painful ride but it would keep them alive. As she was arranging their lines, the group climbing on the Donkey finished perching themselves on the cargo/passenger platforms. As soon as she noticed they were ready Andrea pointed to them and shouted “Hold animal tool hard, move fast, GO!” As she shouted go in their language she sent the Donkey the command to begin running clear of the stampede’s course. The unsettlingly nimble artificial beast stood up and carefully accelerated into a pace just fast enough to safely get clear in time. The slower Andrea could have it move, and the more gradually it accelerated, the more likely the poorly secured passengers were to actually stay aboard. It was a matter of a couple dozen more seconds to finish getting the lines secured on Trophirte and Ela-Nu, Andrea waited to send them both at once because she didn’t want to panic Ela-Nu by having them watch Trophirte yanked rapidly into the sky, if they didn’t realize what was about to happen they wouldn’t panic and fight her. As soon as both were ready to launch, Andrea told them “Scary, safe.” then signaled the combat drones to head out. As it was the pair let out high pitched shrieks of terror as they were rapidly dragged up and clear of immediate danger by the combat drones.

This left Andrea and Unla-Ela with about 50 seconds before the herd was upon them, Andrea reached out to Unla-Ela who gave a startled yelp as Andrea swung them into a fireman’s carry while saying “Andrea run fast.” before beginning to run as fast as she could, harnessing all of the power her altered body and enhancing implants could bring to bear. As the first of the charging animals swept into view over the ridge Andrea began her race to escape the onrushing avalanche of flesh.