When Natalie woke up next morning, the young man had already left. Of course, breakfast in bed for two would have been nice, but as she knew from their conversation yesterday, he worked on the fields most of the time, and that meant getting up at the crack of dawn. She squinted towards the window. The sun had already risen quite a bit, making it somewhere around 10 o'clock. Except that this planet had a different rotation time and axis tilt, and she wasn't exactly sure what latitude they were on. And there was no way to verify it; she was't wearing a wristwatch (noone on the surface would be), and her pod wouldn't be able to guess the time until it was powered up. Since a pod was allowed no electricity at all during power-off mode, one could only record timeless data on some mass media. When powered up, a pod would read where it supposedly still was from disk, and then guess at the time from the sun's position.
Anyway, the time didn't matter. What mattered that it was still morning (it was, if she remembered the hut's orientation correctly) and therefor almost time for liftoff. She got out of bed and put her clothes on, smoothing the worst wrinkles with her hand. As usual, she didn't bother to put on any makeup. It didn't fit her picture of a Scavenger anyway, and as she had seen yesterday, she could manage very well without it.
She spent a few minutes looking around for something to eat, until she remembered someone had told her all meals were shared in the village center. She stepped outside, took a few seconds to stretch and relax in the warm summer air, and headed for the large tables in the middle of the village.
When she arrived, there were only a few people sitting around them, and most of the food was gone, too. She managed to find some bread and jam, though, and an earthern pitcher of water, which made a filling breakfast after all.
Since both the landing site and the guest house were close to the village center, she could watch the others getting ready. In the doorway of the guesthouse, Sarah was busy rolling up a sleeping bag. She noticed Natalie and gave her a rather sour stare. It could have been just the early hour, or the tedious preparations, but Natalie suspected that Sarah had been hoping she wouldn't be sleeping in the guesthouse last night, and was rather annoyed that Natalie had found someone else's bed to slip into, while she hadn't.
Natalie decided not to fret about it and watched the others instead. Most of them were busy around the pods, loading cargo for the most part, while Red was talking with an important-looking Settler. John was standing nearby, partly listening to them and partly looking bored. Then he spotted Natalie and trotted over.
"Good morning! Had a good night's rest, I hope?"
"Mrning", Natalie replied through a mouthful of bread. She glanced up to him, squinting a bit against the bright sunlight, until he sat down across from her. He took a slice of bread with jam she had prepared and popped it in his mouth. She scowled at him. He ignored it.
"We're about ready for liftoff. Do you have anything to prepare?"
"Nope", she said, "I spent most of my money on my pod, and what little I have I didn't bring along. I hadn't really reckoned on us trading. Ah well, there'll be other times." She took another bite of bread.
"Don't spend too much time on breakfast," John said, getting up and heading for the pods, "we still have to get your pod ready!"
Natalie swallowed hastily. "Hey, wait a minute! What do you mean, 'we'?" She jumped up, grabbed a last slice of bread, and hurried after him.
"Sure", he said when she had caught up, "I'll be coming with you. You're the only one without a full cargo hold. We just need to make room for a back seat. Now, before you complain", he added quickly, "this means I'll be paying you alone for the last leg. You'll have to split the fare for the way here, since you all detoured for my sake and had no cargo at the time. But the way from here's between the two of us only."
"I guess that settles it, then", she said, "what do we need to do?"
"Not much", he answered, "your cargo bay is directly behind your seat, unless you have an unusual setup. We should be able to move the seperating wall and put up a second seat without any problems."
Natalie hadn't heard about this, but then, she had only flown military pods so far. They were actually able to fold the wall behind her seat back and to pull out a chair from the floor. When John sat down, he had to lean forward to be able to look out the side window, but he still had a pretty good view towards the front over her shoulder.
The other Scavengers had all boarded by now. Red was keeping an eye on the flagpole, but nothing else seemed to be happening.
"What's happening?", Natalie asked over her shoulder.
"Nothing much. The Settlers are taking an extra careful look at the countryside. If all's clear, they'll raise a blue flag, and we're clear for liftoff. Still, wait for Red's pod to power up before you start your own."
After a while, a blue flag was being hoisted up, and Red's thrusters started to whine. Natalie pressed the power-on button on her own panel and her pod hummed into life. A few seconds later, they were in the air and heading away from the village.
No sooner had they hit their cruising speed than John pointed out of the window to their right, with an air of concern.
"Scan the area at about... 50 to 60 dgrees", he said. "I think I saw something..."
Natalie punched a sequence, cursed, and punched almost the same one again. A small rectangle appeared on her HUD, and within the rectangle... something...
"Contact!", John shouted into his mike, almost before the rectangle flared up red. "There's a contact at 55 out, closing fast!"
"Good eyes", Red replied. "We're going in, so get ready!"
He veered off to the right and accelerated. The others followed him. Suddenly, a big cloud of red smoke burst from the top of Red's pod. "It's just a signal", John said before Natalie could react. "The village will fly red flags now, for several hours."
"Look", John continued, "we'll be entering combat in a minute or two. Have you done this before?"
She shook her head. "Not here", she said. "What are the differences?"
"It's mostly two-dimensional, for once. I'm not an expert, of course, since Scouts don't fight much. Just keep your shields up and set your weapon banks to burst energy to the shields when you're hit. Check the weapons systems, there. Third from the top. That'll reduce the damage you can do, but it'll save your behind. Just keep in mind that an autoeject isn't always safe, especially if you've got a passenger. So watch yourself for my sake as well."
The Bots were clearly visible now, speeding towards them. The pack spread out so each of them could get a clear shot. Natalie did the same.
"Get ready to fire when Red fires, even if you have no fixed target. Then pull up and back after a few seconds; we'll join the brawl from the outside."
A few more nerve-wreaking seconds, and suddenly Red's guns blazed up. Natalie squeezed her trigger and sent a stream of energized particles towards the dark shapes in the distance. The Bots started to return fire, and Natalie broke upwards. The other pods weaved and dodged, then closed for a wild dogfight.
Natalie was only a few seconds behind, and had soon picked out one of the five dark shapes that was easily in her sights, at the edge of the sprawl. She fired several short bursts, and was about to adjust her speed to her target, when a red streak across her HUD startled her and caused her to veer off.
"Don't panic!", John called over the sonds of the battle. "Red streaks are another Scavengers weapons path, green is someone's predicted flight path. Just don't cross them and that takes care of friendly fire."
Natalie nodded, and turned back into the fray. Inside the knot of flying machines and bright weapon streaks, there wasn't much time to think. She avoided the HUD streaks and enemy shots as well as she could, and fired an occasional shot at a black Bot who happened to fly across her weapons path. From time to time, a shot grazed her pod, jerking it aside, but not causing any real damage.
Suddenly, smoke began to billow from one of the Bots, and it plummeted downwards like a black-tailed comet. "Got one!", Oliver's voice came over the intercom, together with shouts of encouragement from the other pack members. They were now fighting eight against four, with another of the Bots having trouble manourvering, if Natalie saw correctly. It certainly would make a good target, if she could find it again.
Just as she had spotted the flailing Bot, though, a strong blast tore through her pod, slamming her sideways.
"Break, break!", John shouted unnecessarily. Natalie slammed the throttle way open and zoomed outwards in a straight line.
"No, dammit!", John yelled, and reached over to knock aside the hand on her flightstick. "Swerve! Dodge! Or we're done for!" Stunned by his outburst, she nevertheless got a pretty good look at the twin bolts of ionized particles that just missed them. Natalie jerked her controls back and started weaving about in a complicated pattern.
A few seconds later, though, Red's voice came over the intercom. "That's it, another's down and the rest are fleeing. Regroup and prepare for orbit."
Natalie turned her pod around and headed back towards the others. Off to the side, three black specs were rapidly moving away.
"Won't we follow them?", she asked over her shoulder.
"No", John replied, "they called for reinforcements as soon as the battle started, and they're heading for them now. If we followed them, we'd be in deep trouble before we could bring down another one. Sorry about before", he said, "but you were headed away from them in a straight line. As you know, we're not shielded very well around our guns and our thrusters. In space, I bet you can handle that somehow, since you don't have any friction, but down here, that's a very vulnerable point. One good hit there, and we're history. Hm, seems we're all still here, with barely a scratch. The other guys must be real good fighters"
"Not really", Natalie said. "Down here or in space, numbers are more important than you think. If there's even one more friend than enemies, there's always someone who doesn't have a Bot on their tail. Then that guy can help pick off one enemy, which moves the numbers even more in your favor. At eight to five, the Bots really didn't have a chance. Remember that if you ever decide to become a Hunter."
"Not likely. I think Scouting's more for me. Thanks, though, I guess if nothing else, that information will help me run even faster when I meet another patrol again."
Since everyone's pods were undamaged, and Natalie's was only slightly bruised, they decided to head into orbit immediately. During the slow, steady ascent, Natalie talked some more with John, Red and all the others about Scavenger combat. She didn't learn many new things, though, but mostly hints and tips for special situations which didn't sound as if they popped up very often.
After a few hours, during which most of the pack members slept while on autopilot (except that John's snoring kept Natalie awake), they reached the station and docked. After seeing to their pods, the pack members promised to meet in the bar the next day and dissappeared one by one. John handed some money to Red, and some to Natalie, and said goodbye. Natalie exchanged a few words with Red, then she headed for the small room she had rented at the station, which was to be her home from now on, to take a shower and a long, long nap.
One refreshing nap and a now rather dissappointing artificial meal later, Natalie set out to the pod decks again. After all, her pod had taken quite a hit during the battle and needed to be repaired. But when she got there, she found Michael already patching it up.
"Hi there", he said, looking up from his work. "Sorry if I went ahead without asking you, but I figured you'd want to get your pod back in shape as soon as possible, and that dent here alone took two hours."
"Thanks. How bad was it? I had wanted to take a closer look at it, but I was to tired when I came in."
"Oh, no problem!", Michael said, motioning her over to a diplay on his mobile repair unit. "You can still see the damage on the ultrascan. See", he said, pointing at the stress lines, "it was quite a hit. Pierced the outer hull, in fact. Probably a B-type shot. How were you flying at the time?"
"What? I don't know, I was looking for a target, I think. Why, what does that have to do with a Bot weapon type?" A-type shots were fast, yet weak, and were the Bot's primary attack method. B-type shots were slower, but packed quite a punch. C-type shots were slower still, required some time to energize before they were launched, and were even influenced by gravity, though Natalie had never been able to verify that in space.
"Well, if our observations are correct, a Bot will often fire B-type shots at a pod flying in a straight line. That might have been the case here. If you want, I can set up your system to track Bots with a constant bearing to your pod, but it will occupy some of your camera resources, so most people don't do it."
"Yeah, that'll help. At least until the Bots think of something else. How about that, by the way? Are the Bots making any advances?"
"Actually, no, come to think of it", Michael said. "They use A- to C-type shots only, from the same weapons since the beginning of the war. Some Scavengers even use Bot weapons, since they're very energy efficient. But most folks use custom built weapons, for more damage."
"Well", Natalie mused, "if the Bots are using the same configuration all the time, evolution will eventually wipe them out. How are we doing with weapon design, by the way?"
"Oh, we're increasing weapon strength and energy capacity at a rate of..."
"No, no", Natalie interrupted, "I mean new designs. New ideas. For example, we can't shoot backwards because our thrusters take up too much space, right? But what if we could launch something into our flightpath to deter followers?"
Michael shook his head. "Nothing's worked so far. Some people have tried parachute mines, but the Bots avoid them. And a smokescreen just isn't effective at those speeds."
[Chapter will continue here]