Raiders

Beginings:

Where do the Raiders come from, why, all over the world lines of course. We are the survivors, the ones who have dared the cauldron of flames, the ones who have looked into the abyss and if not laughed, then at least staggered back alive to the rest of the universe. Me, I was the first of us to dance back and look to the future. I had seen the quote, “Good intentions” my nation had, had believed in what they said they wanted to do. What they did instead sickened me. I was a history major in college, I never graduated but I did learn that colonialism didn’t work for anyone but the parent nation, and usually bankrupted the emerging nation after they threw off the shackles of the parent. I couldn’t do that to someone else, so I resigned. Others heard my message on the day I left. Either that, or came to the same decision on their own, and from elsewhere they came. We don’t necessarily fight our own nations, but we fight what they are doing, what they are allowing to be done in their name. It was because of that we found the Draka.
My raiders weren’t the first to run across the Draka, we had read the open intelligence files though, so we had some countermeasures against the baseline Draka troopers and their pheromones. It didn’t keep us all alive against them however;
**
Worldline 982 Codename: Tovarish 912
December 02, 2021


James ducked behind the busted concrete of a bombed out building as automatic gunfire peppered his backtrail. “Run,” he said looking at the pair of locals that had been helping him, the last of a resistance cell that might, if they were lucky find another cell that would help and hide them. The boy of the pair, maybe ten years old took off in a sprint for the sewer cover half a block away, the short barreled pump shotgun slapping against his back as he ran. The girl was all of sixteen, blonde, and sweet on James he could tell, she opened her mouth to argue but he stopped her with a finger to her lips. “Go, I’ll lead them off and lose them away from you. I’m from the south, we have our ways.”  He said with a crooked smile. She held his hand against her cheek for a moment and then took the AK-74 carbine in her hands and ran to catch up with her younger brother who was disappearing down the manhole of the embattled city.

Hefting the M240 machine gun that he had taken from the locals armory, James waited for the Draka soldiers to stop shooting before rolling out from behind the wall and hosing the area with bullets. The gun burped short fairly clean bursts each time James pulled the trigger causing several of the genetically modified soldiers to do the dance of death before dropping to the ground. The surviving four of the squad managed to find cover as James backed away and as the last of them hit the ground and he was sure the manhole cover was drawn closed he took off running down the street the way the three of them had originally been running. He did have a way out of this world, a pick up gate that would take him home through two other variations of earth before being able to get back to the convention and make his report. The problem was that he had to lose the invaders first, and they were about as tenacious as a bull dog at an itch.

James chuckled, he had come into this world with a four person team, and their purpose had been to recon the area and find out what had hit the explorer team that had initially investigated this world. He had found out alright, by his team stumbling right into a draka command post just as a resistance cell was striking. Caught in the middle of the resulting firefight his people had been pinned down until the leader of the cell had fought over to them and pulled them out. Over the course of the next week the resulting counterstrikes due to the cell’s unsuccessful attack he had lost his entire team and the cell save those two kids and himself. Now he had half a squad of Draka on his tail and a timetable to meet the next portal so he could get out of this world. Why they looked like they belonged in “Quantum Leap” James didn’t know and he really didn’t care so long as the next portal took him out of this hell hole.
**
I made it out, even managed to go back and get the kids that I had left there before the Draka caught them. That was five years ago, the boy is in school, wants to be an engineer. The girl, well she went to school for a couple of years as mandated but she didn’t really fit in so she joined the Raiders. It’s an unfortunately common with child soldiers that they cannot let go of conflict; they make great mercenaries though when they have the proper training. Having Gertrude watching my back the last three years has saved my hide more often than not.
**
Worldline 645 Codename: Kanon 963
December 02, 2024
“Mein Gott,” James heard Gertrude grumble next to him as machine gun fire pinned the two of them down. “Don’t those ass hats have anything better to do than shoot at us?”

“I highly doubt it sweetheart,” James answered as he slid another grenade into the launcher on his assault rifle and closed the slide. “Get ready, when this goes off, we’ve got to run and run fast.”

“Right,” She answered, “Danielle, you understand where we’re going right?”

“Yeah, I understand,” the voice of the cocky local freedom fighter answered in their radios. “And when your little present goes off, I’m taking one shot and then I am out of here for my own people. See you soon.”

“Yeah kid,” James answered back. “Mikhail, take your shot when Danni does and then move for our rally point. We are out of here in twenty.”

“Da boss, I understand.” The former Amerikana Republika sniper answered.
**

I’ve seen many world lines out in the multiverse, red ones where the Soviet’s have taken, or are taking over, green ones where the Nazi’s are or have done the same, and blue ones where the American government has gone imperial. Oh you think we of anyone would be innocent of that but no, America went imperialistic just as easy in some world lines, in fact almost every nation that has become a superpower of its day has a world line where it goes imperialistic. Have I been to all of them, no, but I’ve been to many, and I will go to many more to see my work done.