Slumdog Hero

The convoy looked like something cobbled together from a junkyard's fever dream. Six vehicles ranging from barely functional to aggressively modified, their mismatched armor plating catching the pre-dawn light in dull flashes.

Fii ran her hand along the nearest buggy's roll cage, feeling the subtle vibrations where welds had been reinforced with salvaged steel. The whole convoy was like that—old technology repurposed, adapted, and reimagined to suit the harsh environment.

"Beauty, isn't she?" Tev grinned, patting the vehicle's flank. "Built her myself from three different chassis. Engine's from a corporate hauler, suspension's military surplus, and the armor..." He shrugged. "Whatever we could find."

The buggy squatted low on oversized tires, its frame stripped down to essentials. No comfort, no style—just function wrapped in scavenged metal. Exactly what you'd expect from people who'd learned to make do with scraps.

Fii climbed into the passenger seat, noting how the worn padding had been shaped by countless previous occupants. The dashboard was a patchwork of gauges and switches, some original, others jury-rigged into place. Through the reinforced windscreen, she watched the other vehicles finish their loading.

Luke emerged from Haven's entrance carrying his bundled armor components, the essential systems he couldn't afford to leave behind. Without the full suit, he moved differently—lighter, more human. The undersuit still gave him protection and enhanced strength, but he'd shed the walking tank persona that had defined Diamond Ace.

"Still think we should have waited another day," he said, securing his gear in the buggy's storage compartment. "Give your powers more time to stabilize."

"They're stable enough." Fii flexed her fingers, feeling the muted response of her gravikinesis. Like trying to lift weights while wearing thick gloves—clumsy, limited, but functional. "Besides, the longer we wait, the more likely those things establish a permanent nest around the crash site."

Serena approached their vehicle, golden light already flickering around her hands as she tested her constructs. The hard-light formations held steady, though Fii noticed they took more concentration than usual. Desert heat played hell with everyone's abilities, apparently.

"Transportation fit for royalty," Serena observed, eyeing the buggy's spartan interior. "I feel like I should be wearing leather and wielding a flamethrower."

"Don't give Tev ideas," Fii muttered.

The older man just grinned wider, cranking the ignition switch. "C'mon, start for daddy," he coaxed. The engine coughed and sputtered before catching with a low growl. Raw power, without finesse. "There she is!"

Soren's voice cut across the convoy's prep noise. "Gather round. Final briefing."

The expedition members clustered around their leader—fifteen Collectors plus the three outsiders, all armed and carrying enough supplies for a week in hostile territory. Vera stood at Soren's right, a tactical tablet in her scarred hands displaying their route.

"Sector 7 is broken country," Soren began, her voice carrying easily in the still air. "Box canyons, shifting sand, and unstable ground that'll swallow a vehicle if you're not paying attention. The crash site's here—" she tapped the tablet "—twenty kilometers past the last reliable vehicle access."

Fii studied the route, her gravity sense already mapping the terrain from the topographical data. The area looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the landscape, creating a maze of ridges and depressions that would channel both wind and predators into killing zones.

"Environmental hazards?" Luke asked.

"Everything," Vera answered dryly. "Sandstorms can kick up in minutes. Ground gives way without warning. Water sources are rare and often poisoned. And that's before we factor in the wildlife."

She pulled up a different display showing movement patterns around the crash site. Dark clusters marked where scouts had detected Netherling activity, concentrated in areas that offered the best ambush opportunities.

"Phase-shifters have been active in the region for three weeks," Soren continued. "Small packs mostly, but coordinated. They're learning to work together, which makes them significantly more dangerous than solo hunters."

Marcus raised his hand from near the tech crew. "What about the cargo? Any chance it's been compromised?"

"Visual confirmation two days ago showed containers intact. But phase-shifter activity's been increasing around the site." Soren's expression darkened. "Whatever they're doing there, they consider it important enough to guard."

Fii absorbed the information, cross-referencing it with her own encounters. The Netherlings she'd fought had been intelligent, adaptive. If they'd had weeks to study the crash site and establish territorial claims...

"Rules of engagement?" Luke's military training showed in the question's phrasing.

"Survival first. We're not here to exterminate the local wildlife." Soren met each person's gaze in turn. "But if they threaten the mission or our people, put them down hard and fast. No heroics, no unnecessary risks. Everyone comes home."

The briefing broke up into final equipment checks and last-minute preparations. Fii watched the Collectors move through their routines—weapons maintenance, vehicle systems, supply distribution. Every action efficient, born from experience and necessity.

"Nervous?" Serena asked, settling into the buggy's back seat.

"Always am before something like this." Fii tested her headset, ensuring clear communication with the other vehicles. "Difference is, this time I can't just punch my way through problems."

Serena chuckled. "And here I was hoping I'd get to see the unstoppable force in action again."

Across the base, Luke tightened the final strap securing their gear. "If this all goes bad, stick with me. I'll get us clear."

"Aww, our own personal protector," Serena cooed, her tone dancing the line between sincerity and sarcasm. "And here I thought you only cared about your 'civic duty.'"

"You're insufferable."

"I aim to please."

The convoy rolled out as the sun crested the horizon, six mismatched vehicles kicking up trails of dust and exhaust. Fii watched Haven disappear behind them, swallowed by heat shimmer and distance.

No fanfare, no dramatic speeches—just people heading out to do a dangerous job because it needed doing.

For the first hour the terrain stayed mercifully bland, but the sheer tonnage of engines and cargo thrummed in Fii's chest like a subwoofer, fuzzing the edges of her gravity sense. She pressed two fingers to her sternum, breathing through the static until distinct ripples emerged; the sensation was a wire plucked behind her ribs, tasting faintly of pennies.

A hollow fluttered ahead—empty space where soil should be.

"Sinkhole, fifty meters on the left," she said, voice clipped over the radio.

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The convoy veered. A fresh vibration—needle-thin, lengthwise.

"Ground's solid here, but a fissure runs east–west under us."

Tev weaved through the obstacles, following Vera's lead, the steady growl of their buggy's engine underscored by the creaks and groans of stressed metal. Beside her, Serena maintained a shifting hard-light barrier that encased the vehicle when necessary—deflecting debris, reinforcing impacts. Each jolt made Serena grit her teeth to keep the construct coherent.

Another signature surfaced—a broad shelf, brittle, maybe only surface-deep. She wasn't sure.

"Ridge ahead feels wrong," she muttered, thumb hovering over the mic. Crust or culvert?

She keyed in anyway. "Ridge is unstable. Recommend we go around if we can."

"Copy," Vera answered. Tev swung them wide, buggy suspension squealing.

A minute later the ridge collapsed in their rear-view, slabs sluicing into a gully. Relief hit Fii so hard her vision speckled. She chewed a glucose tab and forced her focus forward.

"Drop-off coming up. Keep right or we'll lose suspension," she warned, sensing a sudden cliff of density where the bedrock sheared away.

"Got it—hang on." Tev angled downslope; red sand rooster-tailed as the buggy slid, bucked, then steadied.

In the rear, Luke absorbed every jolt and shudder without complaint. His attention remained focused outward, scanning for threats.

The sun climbed higher, turning the desert into a furnace. Heat radiated from every surface, creating thermals that Fii felt as much as saw. The buggies' cooling systems worked overtime, fans whining as they fought to keep engines from overheating.

"Water break in ten minutes," Soren announced through the radio. "Standard protocol."

Standard protocol turned out to mean pulling into the shadow of a rock formation, engines off, everyone out to inspect vehicles and drink carefully measured amounts of water.

Fii climbed out of the buggy and immediately regretted it. The air was hot enough to feel solid, pressing against her skin like a physical presence.

Serena didn't look much happier. Sweat glistened on her exposed skin, darkening the gold at her temples into tarnish.

"This place makes the slums look like a health spa," she said, taking a measured sip from a canteen.

Fii nodded. "I'm pretty sure I just felt my life expectancy drop by a decade."

Luke popped the hood and began checking fluid levels and coolant systems. His undersuit had turned a dull tan under the grit and dust.

"What'd I tell you?" Tev grinned, offering Luke an oily rag. "Built that baby to run through anything."

"Almost makes me not want to dismantle it." Luke accepted the rag and started wiping down components. "For, you know, defensive purposes."

"I'd like to see you try," Tev shot back cheerfully. "That buggy's survived worse than you."

"Really? You think scrapyard parts from fifty years ago—"

Fii tuned them out. Her gravity sense was still on edge from the last hour. It was a nonstop flow of information, constant calculation, reading ahead for danger, recalibrating for every bump and jostle. A mental marathon.

She closed her eyes and simply breathed for a minute. Not enough sleep, not enough energy, and a job that needed her at the top of her game.

A shadow fell across her, offering a modicum of relief. Serena held up a hard-light parasol over them both.

Fii glanced up at her. "Thanks."

Serena shrugged. "Not really a fan of melting either."

"By the way, it's been bugging me for a while now, but who exactly does your power block out light when it goes through transparent material? Wouldn't it pass right through?"

"I don't really understand either, it just does, okay," Serena said, her voice a bit tired from the heat and activity. "Besides, I'm a celebrity, not a scientist."

"You're telling me that you never thought about how your own power works?"

"It's just me fighting and looking fabulous," Serena said, twirling her parasol. "I'm like an 'in the moment' kind of person."

Fii smiled. "Well, I think that being a celebrity is a perfectly valid reason to block out the sun."

Luke leaned around the buggy's frame. "Keep chatter to operational details, people."

Serena sighed. "Sorry, Mom."

Vera's voice crackled over the radio, calling the break's conclusion. As the convoy refueled—water, coolant, spare parts—Fii returned her focus to the terrain ahead. Nothing yet, just the looming, empty distance.

When everyone was back in place, engines growling, Soren's order crackled through the radio: "Ready... move out."

Hours bled into noon. The rolling dunes sharpened into broken lands—jagged ridges carved by forgotten floods. Each canyon mouth roared against Fii's gravity sense, hidden rivers yanking at her gut like an elevator drop.

"Welcome to the broken lands." Vera's transmission crackled with static. "Sector 7 border up ahead."

The terrain fractured into a maze of deep canyons and scoured plateaus. Sheer cliffs plunged in places; jagged spires rose like teeth elsewhere. The landscape looked as if giant hands had rent it apart.

"How often do the scouts come out this way?" Fii asked, trying to judge how reliable their maps would be.

"Once or twice a year," Tev said, eyes on the terrain. "Mostly when there's word of a new salvage site or major wildlife shift."

Luke: "Lovely."

"What kind of shift?" Serena leaned forward between the seats.

"Oh, you know—mass migrations, new breeding cycles, previously unknown predators." Tev grinned. "Keeps life interesting."

"Interesting as in life-threatening?" Serena clarified.

"Exactly."

After another kilometer, the engines dropped to a rumble as obstacles thickened.

"Visual on the storm," Vera's voice crackled. "Bearing northeast, fifteen klicks out."

Fii squinted at the horizon, picking out the dark smudge of weather. A dry pop equalized in her ears—the pressure tumbling fast.

"Bloody big storm," Tev said. "We'll need shelter soon."

"How long until it reaches us?" Soren asked over the radio.

"Half an hour, maybe less. Terrain's chewing our speed, but the cell's moving quick."

"Copy that. All vehicles increase speed where you can. We need to reach the waypoint before it hits."

Suspensions groaned as drivers pushed across cracked ground, often forced to crawl. Fii gripped the roll cage through a stretch of shifting dunes.

"Contact!" The call from the lead vehicle was urgent but controlled. "Movement, bearing two-seven-zero, half a click."

Fii extended her awareness, sifting convoy rumble from storm mass. There—multiple signatures, fast and coordinated. Not random predators—deliberate positioning. One silhouette tapped its forelimbs against a boulder in staccato code.

Netherlings.

"I count four, maybe five," she reported. "They're paralleling us, maintaining distance."

Serena's hands brightened. "Want me to discourage them?"

"Negative," Soren cut in. "Save your energy. As long as they're just watching, we keep moving."

Ten minutes crawled by. The Netherlings kept pace, darting between boulders, slipping into crater shadows, always watching.

The storm front loomed—a wall of churning sand and debris. Lightning flickered inside, sketching Netherling silhouettes in harsh white.

"Waypoint ahead," the lead driver announced. "Rocky outcrop, good shelter from the storm."

The convoy angled toward a cluster of weathered stones. Fii's gravity sense grappled with the engine roar and onrushing pressure trough. Angular voids shimmered at the edge of her range—too many hollows, too regular.

"Wait," she radioed. "Something's off about those rocks."

"Elaborate," Soren snapped.

Fii pushed to the edge of blackout. Pain lanced behind her eyes, but the pattern clarified: cavities cut by hands, tunnels braced by unfamiliar alloy—a honeycomb trap.

"It's not natural. Rocks have been hollowed out—looks deliberate. I'm only catching broad voids from here, but it's a kill box."

Silence draped the channel. The Netherlings hadn't paralleled them; they'd herded them.

"Alternate shelter?" Luke asked.

"None within range," Vera replied. "Storm's too fast. We take the rocks or face open ground."

Sand now obscured half the sky. Wind whipped grit against Serena's half-raised shield.

"All vehicles, defensive formation," Soren ordered. "We're going through, but go in ready for trouble."

The convoy tightened up, fighters sliding to point while tech rigs tucked into the middle. The Netherlings melted into the broken ground ahead—no longer hiding, simply waiting.

"They know we don't have a choice," Fii muttered.

"Then we make the best of a bad situation." Luke's knuckles whitened on the wheel as they rolled toward the outcrop's shadow. "Everyone ready?"

Serena's constructs locked into overlapping shields around the buggy. Across the net came the whine of capacitors, the snap of charging coils, and the collective breath of people shifting from travel to combat.