The Song of Steel

Upward and upward Kohma trudged through the muck, until at long last he broke even with the horizon...

... And wasn't particularly thrilled with what the saw.

"Clearjaw!!" Kohma shouted, diving back into the crater just as the plasma began hurtling through the air. Narrowly missing him, a dangerous hail of fire made it's way toward the rest of the group as the fighter executed it's strafing run.

"Get out of the way!" Kohma shouted to the people below, hoping they had time to react.

"shit!!" kadin dove into the muck and covered his head as two plasma bolts nearly missed him.

kadin turned his head in time to see a bolt his the gas tank of the truck and it was imediatly engulfed in flames.

Kohma stayed on the ground until he was certain the fighter wouldn't be coming back for more.

"Yeah, you better run!" He shouted towards the sky as he got to his feet and brushed himself off.

Colby's head bobbed as his piece of crap jeep went over another large bump. He thought he had heard the approaching sound of aircraft a few times but it seemed that they always were a ways away from him.
He'd been driving for a while now, it was hard to push his jeep very fast on terrain like this. and as a farmer, he couldn't well afford to buy another.

In the distance Colby suddenly saw an aircraft. Probably a fighter from the looks of it. It fired upon a large hill as it passed. Colby swore he could make out small men in that direction. Colby accelerated past what a safe speed would be in these conditions, as he headed straight in the direction of the men that were fired on.

In all the excitement he didn't even notice that the fighter had circled back around.

"Come one, the quicker we get to the airbase, the quicker we get of the planet and can get the Zustin 1 in the air"

Ethan doubled timed it to the top of the crater, laid down at he edge and lowered his hand to pull the next person up.

There was a roar of an a car in the distance.

"Hurry, there's a car coming, we cant miss it."

"Sounds better than walking." Kohma remarked as he pulled himself over the edge. With any luck, this driver would get to keep his face.

kadin had reached the top of the crater. he could see an incoming car

the car was being thrown around by the craters like a toy. somehow it continued on its way

"we need that car if we are going to make it out of here alive" said kadin to the others as the clearjaw was getting ready to make its next pass

Ryan punched Kadin, saying, "We are being bombed, and the planet is on fire. This is NOT the time to make ENEMIES!"

Kohma sighed. At this rate, that dreadnought Barlaw promised was bound to leave without them.

As Colby had started nearing his destination he finally noticed the fighter turning around and making other swoop, and it was coming towards him. Driving in an incredibly lopsided S pattern and keeping as low as he could Colby drove on as plasma rained down upon him.

He came up and looked back at the road, taking his foot mostly off the gas pedal. The men were in a group very close up ahead. Colby focused on getting there but was than distracted as he felt an intense jab of pain in his shoulder. He looked down and was horrified as he saw that his armor had melted to his skin at his right shoulder. He brought his left hand over to touch the spot and pulled back as he felt the armor was still incredibly hot.

Just than the jeep collided with a large rock, with no hands on the wheel it went over an angle and toppled over, Colby inside.

Ethan scrambled over to where the jeep had flipped.

"We have to help him, he risked his life driving over here."

Ethan made it to the jeep looked under and saw that the man was still alive.

"Hurry, we have to get this thing off him"

He then looked up at the jeep and saw that it was pretty much it working order, the plasma had hit only the man, and melted some of his seat. Looking towards the sky he saw that the clearjaw had flown off, having though it killed the man and ruined the jeep.

"If this is going to be how all of the vehicles we come across end up, I don't think I want to be getting on any spaceships..." Kohma thought to himself bitterly as he tried to help Ethan with the unconscious driver.

Giving the man a few brisk slaps to the face, he shouted, "Oi, wake up!"

Ryan looked up at the sky, watching for more Clearjaws, when he heard an enormous ruckus behind him. He turned, and saw an upturned jeep at the edge of the crater. Jogging towards it, he witnessed as Kohma crawled into the jeep and started slapping the man silly.

Dragging Kohma away, Ryan said, "Oi! The guys got a burning hole in his shoulder! Slapping him wont make him heal!"

Crawling down, Ryan looked at the man, oler then the other in his group from the looks of it, and examened the plasma burn on his shoulder. Reaching into his coat, Ryan retrived one of his regeneratives and opened the packaging. Dragging the man out, Ryan set him down about five feet away, then dumped the contents of the regenerative down the mans throat.

Standing up, Ryan brushed himself off, then said, "Alright! We gotta tip this thing over if we want to get on that ship before it leaves! Lets go!"

Kohma made an indignant noise. Slapping unconscious people always worked in the picture films...

"Alright. Let's do it to it." he said, bracing himself against the jeep and pushing with all of his might.

Ethan joined in with pushing the jeep over. As it tipped over he inspected the jeep and saw everything was in working order.

"Get the man in the back, I will drive."

With that he hopped in the driver seat.

Quickly and quietly, Kohma hopped into the passenger seat and hoped for the best.

Ryan climbed into the back, dragging the unconsious owner of the jeep in with him. Propping him up on the other door, Ryan scrounged around for whiskey, hoping he was driving under the influence.

"Floor it!" Kohma said to Ethan, bracing himself.

Ethan turned the started and the engine purred to life. He then dropped his foot on top of the pedal and smashed it to the floor.

"If we can stay on main roads, we should be there in in 8 minutes"

Colby woke up to find that his shoulder felt much better, and that he was in his jeep now once again right-side-up.

"Ugh...what's going on?" he said out loud to no one in particular.

He glanced around the jeep and than his eyes fell on a man pulling his baggie of pot out of the glove compartment.

"Hey!" He said firmly. "Put you put that back! I...It's for back pain. I got it real bad!"


However, just as he finished his sentence he felt the vehicle come to life, than start rolling.

"lets get the hell out of here!!" kadin yelled as he was scanning the sky.

kadin turned around to face the skybase he could see some ships starting to lift off "floor it!! i have no intentions of getting turned into a pile of goo because we didn't drive fast enough" yelled kadin

As they sped along the shattered road, Kohma was in a constant state of awareness as he scanned the skies for any incoming fighters. Luckily none came, and it wasn't long at all until their destination was upon them.

A sudden spike strip in between two towers on either side of the road forced them to stop. "Halt!" A soldier atop the left wall began to shout, until he recognized that someone with a higher rank than his own was in the jeep below. "Ahem, move along." He said as he pushed the button on his control panel, causing the spikes to lower.

As Ethan drove though the roads, he finally put the jeep to a halt in a line that had formed at the entrance to the airbase.

"We better walk from here."

As he set off he flashed his I.D. card several times to get them waved though any checkpoints.

Kohma had expected there to be a huge crowd of civilians desperately pushing and shoving to get to safety. He was wrong.

"Where's the rest of the evacuees?" He asked a passing soldier. "You're pretty much it." the man responded. "But what survivors we managed to round up are already aboard the Zustin-1." And with that, the man hurried back off toward his duty.

For the next minute Kohma simply followed Ethan, who appeared to know where he was going. But rather suddenly, they were accosted by a gruff looking man with a colonel's insignia. "You lot are civilians." He said flatly, in reference to everyone but Ethan. "Evacuees are to report to the Zustin-1 immediately."

"So we were told." Kohma replied.

"Take-off's in a couple minutes." The man continued, eying them uncertainly. "You'd better start running, unless you want to stick around with the rest of us down here."

With a rather vulgar exclamation, Kohma and the others did as the colonel suggested. Turning a mad corner by the barracks, they came upon the shipyard, which was still full of vehicles defending their position while preparing for take off. Almost immediately, his eye was drawn to the enormous vehicle with the word "Zustin" painted along it's hull, and the number 1 under the S.

"We made it!" Kohma shouted, quite relieved. Then the massive dreadnought fired up it's engines, throwing a terrible wailing noise through the air. It was at that moment that Kohma began to comprehend the ship's size; A football field would have been hard-pressed to contain it. What at first seemed so far away now seemed miles away once again.

Ryan stared with awe at the enormose ship, then with horror as it's engines started up. Shaking his head, Ryan said, "We need to find a way to get there, fast, or else We're gonna be nothing but a pile of ash!"