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You follow dirt roads to paved streets, your feet only adding to the cracks in the streets that artillery, bombs and footsteps of other inferior creations left in their traversal in ages past. The open spaces and sparse trees give way to bombed-out ruins of skyscrapers and blown apart hab-blocks. This isn’t terribly far behind the theoretical ‘front line’ of claimed territory belonging to the Tamar Alliance.
Most vehicles and mechs would be towed off by recovery crews from one side or another, leaving only the truly unsalvageable left to languish in place. Sights like the turret of a Predator tank buried half into a building, or a crater and limbs left behind of a Stalker speak to the ferocity of the conflict that was fought here.
There’s probably unexploded munitions scattered all over this city, even in the outskirts. You slow your pace slightly, your own visual sensors keeping eyes out for remote bombs or other surprises.
Yes, you can see why the raiders would pass through here. It’s a perfect place to lose track of mechs, with mag-sensors half-blinded or giving false positives from the ruins and blown up husks.
Your pilot’s anger has dwindled to sadness by this point. She keeps rewinding your footage to focus on odd things while you push through the city. Like a line drawn between two buildings in an alley, clothing hung up. Or a blue square tarp, stretched over the front of a building.
Her focus isn’t here, but your timer is marking 45 minutes since you contacted the drone, and a data packet is incoming. Behind schedule. Considerably.