The screams of the wounded danced around inside her helmet, the snow fluttering around in the air almost giving their howls a physical form, of course she was focused on the ones who weren’t making any noise and weren’t moving, the ones who’d met their ends in the opening moments of the ambush along another mountain road in Colorado.

Her name was Corporal Samila, a towering Rakiri legionnaire who’s unit specialized in mountain warfare, the perfect little group to send up here and chase the various bands of humans who refused to come down and rejoin civilization. Not that she could blame them, not after everything that had happened over the last twelve years to them.

She felt a tug in her stomach as she looked out at the nine covered forms on the frozen asphalt. She’d known three, three unlucky souls among twelve others who’d been riding in the front APC when an EFP off route mine blew and sent a piece of molten metal moving at nearly two kilometers per second spearing through the vehicle. Her three friends had been ‘lucky’ in that they’re bodies were still intact, the rest had been turned to chop by the hypervelocity spalling or been burned when the fuel cell ruptured. That scene had repeated six times along the line of their little formation, one overturned truck and half the supplies of their little milk run lay out in the snow. But there wasn’t much she could do for any of it now, letting out a sigh she turned back to the controlled chaos of the ambush site.

All around her it swirled, mixing with the growing snowfall that left dry white powder on every surface. Six pods were spread out around the stalled convoy as the contractors and human staff scrambled around their vehicles to see what worked and what didn't.

Her pod was oriented toward the mountainside, the trees hanging heavy with ice and snow, the various tracks from the shooting positions leading off and over a shallow foothill.

“Mar'kes” She said, their pod level COMs cutting out most of the frantic noise that was bouncing between dozens of helmets around them, she took a knee next to the slightly smaller Rakiri.

Mar'kes didn't move, her head still slowly panning back and forth, the attached optic of her helmet down as she scanned for anything that could wreak havoc on the stopped row of vehicles, so far nothing had seen fit to pop up and end itself in her sights. A moment later she spoke.

“Nothing, the damn kashaks slipped off, didn't even try to get their dead and I only managed to get one.” She growled, the younger more brash woman was in a silent rage, she was closer to the three in the lead APC than Samila.