Joel raises his binoculars and watches the ancient battle
van traverse the old logging road. The
busted shocks on the machine barely stabilize its armored chassis as it dips
and sways toward the clearing below.
Joel curses Luna for taking such a chance with the only armored vehicle
in the Boneheadz possession, but it’s her vehicle, and the rest of the tribe
was impressed with her moxie, so he can only watch and wonder.
A shadow falls to his right and Joel turns to see Mary and
Jeff finish pushing their “Fast Attack Vehicle” into place. It’s a lightweight tubular framed vehicle
from the last century. The TOW missile
launcher sitting atop it barely clears the ridgeline. They only have three reliable missiles left,
but they shouldn’t need more than one.
“Where the hell’s Skeeter?”
Mary asks. “He should’ve radioed
his position by now.”
Joel only nods. He’s
been trying to reach Skeeter for the last five minutes. The idiot is probably sitting on his bike
half stoned and trying to realign the chopped down M-60 he has lashed to his
handle bars. Either that or he wandered
off into the woods totally forgetting the situation at hand.
The situation at hand?
Only two open top, assault trikes and a 30-foot armored motor home. Yes, it appears some Yuppies from the valley
have decided to have a picnic here in the mountains of New Idaho. Seems they’ve forgotten these hills belong to
the Boneheadz, but they’re about to be reminded.
Once again Joel puts the binoculars to his eyes and scans
the clearing below. The two open top
trikes with their pintle-mounted machine guns are set up right and left of the
clearing. The motor home is parked in
the middle and appears to be heavily armored, but not armed. Six unarmed people
and three armed guards stand beside it.
The guards have positioned themselves in a triangle while the unarmed
people have spread a blanket on the grass and have begun to toss a flat, bright
colored disk around. As Joel is
pondering the significance of this ritual, Luna arrives on the scene below in
her van.
Immediately the two assault trikes close to within 50 yards
of her, one to either side. Luna calmly
comes to a stop and begins broadcasting her demands over the van’s
loudspeakers.
“You are trespassing on the land of the Boneheadz.” “We will allow you to leave peacefully if
you turn over all your alcohol and ammo.
Just dump it all in a big pile in the clearing and go.”
Before the Yuppies have a chance to respond however, the
high pitched whine of Skeeter’s bike can be heard. Suddenly he bursts in left of the clearing
and fires his M-60 at the nearest armed target.
7.62 mm rounds punch through the body armor and body of a reeling guard. Chaos reigns.
Both assault trikes open up on Luna’s van spraying it’s
sides with light machine-gun fire. Luna slams her accelerator down and tries to
close with the nearest trike as Frankie spins the van’s ball turret around and
lets go with a ten round burst from his medium machine-gun.
A flash beside Joel tells him Mary's fired the TOW and he
watches as the missile does a slow spiral through six hundred and twenty five
yards to it’s target below. Mary
skillfully guides her high speed “gift of death” into the left hand trike. A fire ball vaporizes it’s front plasteel
armor, power plant, and driver, and throws the gunner out to land stunned under
a nearby pine tree.
As Skeeter mows down
another guard, two turrets pop up on the motor home and bright red beams cut
across the battlefield smoke. Skeeter
lets out a berserk yell and turns to charge the RV as bits of his body armor
melt and flow like wax. His only hope is
to align the front of his bike so its thin armor can take the beam hits.
Mary and Jeff perform the fastest reload of the TOW in
Bonehead history, then Mary sights in on the oversized bus, hoping she’s not
too late. The second missile leaves its
tube in slow motion acceleration. Four
seconds later it contacts the back of the RV.
The ensuing blast knocks the Yuppies to the ground and dumps Skeeter
from his bike. Mary leaps up to cheer,
but realizes to her horror that the motor home has hardly been damaged. Bits of armor flake off revealing the
advanced honeycombed plasteel beneath.
Jeff openly weeps as he begins to load his final missile into the TOW.
Down inside her van Luna watches the bulletproof windscreen
slowly splinter and crack. Her vehicle
can’t close with the last trike fast enough to ram and Frankie’s rounds aren’t
getting through its front armor. She
looks over in time to see the third and final TOW missile crash harmlessly into
the ground. On the hill above, Mary lays on her back blinded by laser flash,
weakly clutching the guidance system in her hand. Skeeter’s down and Joel can’t be reached on the
radio. Luna has had enough.
“Frankie! You Bonehead, aim for the exposed gunner!”
Immediately, a line of rounds stitch their way into the
gunner, leaving three messy holes in his chest.
The trike starts to back up, but the battle van is finally upon it,
pinning its wimpy frame beneath the massive front bumper. Hoping to be ransomed
rather than killed, the driver meekly raises his hands and surrenders. Luna breaths a sigh of relief and gently
fingers one of the holes in the windshield beside her head.
Meanwhile the driver of the motor homes realizes his Yuppies
are down and not moving. Figuring
there’s no profit in guarding corpses he guns the power plant and takes off,
never realizing the Boneheadz don’t even have enough fire power left to scare
flies off a dung heap…
Joel chuckles to himself as he surveys the battlefield. They’re going to make quite a haul on this
one. The one trike can be salvaged, and the surrendered driver and knocked out
gunner will bring a small ransom. Five
of the six Yuppies were only stunned by the blast and are even now getting to
their feet. They alone will be worth
more than could be made in two years worth of raiding.
Best of all none of the tribe was really hurt. Mary’s sight is slowly returning, Luna and
her van are O.K. and even Skeeter is getting to his feet. He appears stunned
and confused, but that’s not unusual. Neither is the live grenade in his
hand. What is unusual is the accuracy
with which he lobs it into the midst of the surviving Yuppies 15 yards away.
“Noooooo! Skeeter you
Bonehead!”
Afterward: The above
story was based on an actual Car Wars battle fought by the Boneheadz, during
their triumphant return to world dominance on their 12th rise to
power. Joel, Luna, and Skeeter are all
player characters. While Mary, Jeff, and
Frankie were NPC’s that are part of the group the players’ characters lead. Other than Mary being
blinded by laser fire (in the game the third missile’s to hit roll was simply
missed) everything happened just like it did while playing. Which goes to prove we truly are Boneheadz,
and that Car Wars is good for more than just arena battles.
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