Cure for a Nation

Chapter One

Claire woke up to the soft chirps of songbirds high in the trees above her. She smiled and opened her eyes slowly, looking up at the deep blue of the early morning sky between breaks in the tree canopy. The sun had yet to rise and the forest floor was still shrouded in darkness. She sat up slowly, hearing her joints pop and feeling her sore legs burn. The small embers of the campfire she had made the night before glowed slightly and it didn't take much work for her to get a small fire going. She sat with her legs crossed next to the fire, rubbing her hands together over the flames. In the darkness to her left somewhere a small stream gurgled along peacefully and the birds above had taken flight in search of the suns warmth. The forest was silent save for Claire's quiet breathing, the stream nearby, and the crackle of her fire. Suddenly, an glaring orange light exploded over the horizon, blinding Claire for a moment. Instinctively, she flattened herself to the ground and covered her head. "Artillery!" She thought to herself. She waited and waited to hear the whistling missile come down on her camp but it never came. She felt warmth against the side of her face and on her hands and she relaxed. She opened her eyes for a split second only to squeeze them shut tightly again. It was sunlight. She sat up, rubbing her sore eyes and making sure to face the ground. Slowly, she opened them again to make sure she wasn't staring at the sun once more and looked at the moss glistening with dew upon the ground at her knees. The surrounding forest was run through with the occasional shaft of sunlight and Claire sighed. She watched birds dance through the air overhead and a jackrabbit hopped about in the distance. "Today is going to be a good day," she said softly to herself.

Claire scowled as lightning forked across the sky and thunder rocked the landscape. Rain began to pour, trickling down the leaves of the great trees and running in little rivers down their bark. While the forest floor was still mostly dry, Claire was still soaked in no time. Her march through the forest was slow going as she tried not to slip and fall into a gorge or into a puddle. There were more crevices and ruts in the ground, she noticed. She came across a fallen tree resting against some rocks and she climbed it carefully. She stood atop the rocks and surveyed her surroundings. "Where are you.." Claire mumbled to herself. A rain drop splattered on her nose, making her flinch. All around her were similar fallen trees and more ruts in the ground but not a single sign of what she was looking for. A droplet of water ran down her face but it wasn't rain. She dropped her chin to her chest. She sniffed and wiped another tear. She sat down and slid down the face of the rock, and her foot slipped off of something hard and cylindrical. She cursed beneath her breath and stooped to see what she stepped on and pulled it from the wet earth. With a grunt, it came free from the mud and she squinted at it. It was as long as her forearm and much wider. She wiped dirt from its side and revealed gleaming brass that showed her her reflection. She gasped as she realized what she was holding. "A shell!" She cried out. "An Imperium shell! Yes, finally!" She dropped the shell and looked around eagerly. Slowly, she began to realize that the fallen trees didn't occur naturally along with all of the holes in the ground. It was a battlefield! The trees were knocked over by Imperium guns and the holes in the ground were from the Imperium Battle-Walkers that must have marched through there at one point. "But where are they now," Claire wondered. She noticed the destruction was almost like a path through the forest, a path she was inclined to follow. Along the way, she noticed there were many more holes than before along with fallen trees. She stepped on more shells and noticed they weren't all artillery shells like the one she found before. She saw some from the weapons Imperium infantry carried and saw bullet holes in the trees that were still standing. "So they were fighting on the run," Claire thought aloud to herself, "but were they on the offensive or on the retreat?" And then she came upon the first fallen robot. It was covered in moss and laying face down in the dirt. Claire knelt next to it and noted the Imperium insignia on its shoulder. The robot was the size of a man and covered in rusted armor plating. Claire ran her fingers across a slash mark that ran deep down its back. "Tech Warriors," she whispered. She didn't bother trying to turn the robot onto its back to further inspect the damage, she knew it was at least triple her weight. She pressed on and began to notice more and more fallen robots, all laying face down with their heads pointing the direction that the trail of destruction went. "But where are the soldiers," Claire asked the severed head of a robot that was lodged in the trunk of a tree. She saw a clearing ahead and couldn't keep herself from jogging to it..and wishing she hadn't. She found the soldiers..or what remained of them. "Oh no.." she mumbled. She stood at the edge of a huge meadow littered with discarded suits of Imperium armor, destroyed robots, and even a few old Battle-Walkers. The rain began to lighten to a soft drizzle and Claire's breath fogged before her face. At the center of the meadow was a short, concrete building that Claire only assumed was a bunker. She took a cautious step into the meadow, careful not to slip on a pile of bullet casings. She stopped at a suit of Imperium armor and knelt next to it. At one point, a soldier might have worn it proudly. But now, Claire knew, it would serve as their coffin. The soldier was laying on their back, their arms and legs spread as though they were blown away even though there wasn't a crater before them. Claire rested a hand on the tinted visor of the soldiers helmet and closed her eyes. She stood up slowly and opened her eyes before continuing her approach to the bunker. She walked past a disabled Battle-Walker and noted that it had exploded from the inside, rendering it inoperable. The Walker was built in a humanoid shape and would have stood on two massive metal legs and carried a cannon in its metallic hands. Standing upright, the machine stood eight meters high and an Imperium pilot or soldier would sit in the machines torso and provide cover for their comrades. Rust crept up the machines back and stopped just before the melted opening in the Walkers chest. Claire spotted its cannon not too far away, sticking straight up with its barrel embedded in the earth like a javelin. Claire pressed on and she passed more and more Imperium soldiers and she began to wonder if she would find any fallen Tech Warriors. That's when she slipped. Her foot fell into a hole with a crunch and she recoiled instantly, snapping something white that flew into the air. She gasped as she realized what had happened. She had stepped in the ribcage of a fallen Tech Warrior that had been covered in mud. She gulped. The closer Claire got to the bunker, the more fallen soldiers and Warriors she saw. There was another Battle-Walker ahead, bigger than the last sprawled against the side of the bunker. It's cannon was laying just out of reach of its outstretched hand. Claire jumped over a trench and tried not to look at the piles of Imperium soldiers and discarded weapons that lay with in. Finally, she was at the bunker. There was a semi circle of metal barricades in her way set up with mounted machine guns hanging loosely from their rusted swivels. A fallen Imperium soldier was slumped over the wall, their carbine hanging loosely in their hands. Claire carefully jumped the barricades and paused before the bunker. The Battle-Walker resting against it had its hand next to the barricades, frozen mid grab for its weapon. It looked as though it were pointing at Claire and she gulped. She noticed there was another Imperium soldier she didn't notice but this one wasn't fallen over like the others. They were squatting against the barricade, their carbine resting against their right shoulder and their hands limp over the space between their knees. Something was different about this one to Claire. She couldn't see any wounds and they were surrounded by their own bullet casings. Their grey and blue armor was scarred and burned but there wasn't a single break in the armor. Claire knelt next to the soldier, noting how big they were compared to her. Almost two heads taller than her. Big, even by Imperium standards. Their head was bowed and Claire looked hard at the visor. "You were brave, weren't you," Claire mumbled to herself, "you didn't yield to the Tech Warriors. You fought to the last bullet, to the last bit of strength, to the last breath. Rest easy, soldier." She stood and went to the bunker door, setting about turning the wheel to open the steel door. It finally opened with a horrible screech as it swung slowly open on rusted hinges and Claire stepped slowly into the room. "Hello," she called softly, "is anybody in here?" The bunker was pitch black and Claire relied on the faint light pouring in from outside to see. Suddenly, she heard a clunk outside and a quiet hiss but when she whipped around, nothing was there. She backed further into the bunker, her eyes locked onto the door. She could hear more clunks and another hiss getting closer and closer to the bunker. A shadow began to grow in the doorway and the clunking was getting louder and louder. A hand reached into the bunker and held onto the doorway, followed by a grey boot. Claire gasped. An Imperium soldier shuffled into the bunker, almost dragging a carbine against the concrete floor of the bunker. It stopped and turned to look at Claire. She held a hand over her mouth in shock. The soldier didn't move, apart from the unsteady rise and fall of their shoulders as they breathed. Slowly, the soldier reached a weak hand out to Claire and there was the sound of static as the soldier attempted to speak. Claire began to take a step towards the soldier when it collapsed with a bang, falling into a heap of metal.