ONN BREAKING NEWS: On The Ground Coverage at X-17
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Originally Published on May 15th, 2493
Orbital News Network/Lucretia Thompson and Huntsman Cairo Reporting
Thompson: "Welcome back, this is Lucretia Thompson bringing you our ongoing coverage of the siege of X-17 with a special report from our own field correspondent Huntsman Cairo reporting in from the X-17 site, we go to him now....Huntsman, what is the scene like for our viewers at X-17 now?"
Cairo: "Thank you, Lucretia... I should advise that I am not presently at X-17 now, but a few miles south... as you know Armitech declined to provide further assistance for embedded reporting in the field so I contracted a team from Aspic Solutions to act as my guide... while collecting what information I could we had the misfortune of being spotted by one of the Petras which quickly moved to engage... of the two APCs Aspic brought to assist in this expedition, one of them was destroyed easily with a loss of all souls onboard, their sacrifice barely gave us time to flee further away from X-17 into the wastes beyond where we are now staying mobile but out of range of the brunt of the warmech assault...."
Thompson: "Well, our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those slain in that other APC, Huntsman, what can you tell us about what you've been able to witness?"
Cairo: "Moving along the outer perimeter of the assault on X-17 you can see the paths each of these ancient war machines took to reach this area, long trails of destruction mark each of their journeys to the site from wherever they were located previously as every living thing they've come across has been summarily terminated upon detection, of course there is a great deal of dead chimera.... we came across a large Bull Dovib carcass that looks as though it was splattered easily across the landscape which goes quite a way towards the idea of the raw power these machines have... we've also found the horrifying remains of ramshackle habitats and other dwellings for the mutant populations that made up the areas around X-17 who were the first to suffer if they weren't able to flee fast enough. It can be easy for some of our viewers living on Luna to forget that while humanity fled Earth during the Transcendence War, all of humanity certainly didn't escape, and the descendants of those left behind have lived a life of perpetual fear and survival though I have to believe their harsh lives didn't prepare them for this...."
Thompson: "I'll bet, Huntsman, are you finding many salvagers or other corp personnel in the areas just beyond the siege? We'd heard reports that Armitech had been helping get many evacuated out of the area..."
Cairo: "I... don't know why anyone would normally wander this far out, Lucretia... but I haven't really seen any who looked like they weren't native-born to Earth dead in these areas... those I have found are scattered in piles of limbs and biomass, blown apart, melted down, or even stepped on. Those unfortunate souls who still had faces bear horrified expressions frozen in terror... and while their DNA may be different or altered by radiation over time it is nevertheless a horrific repeat of the expressions their ancestors who didn't flee Earth successfully must have had the last time these war machines were on a coordinated march..."
Thompson: "So then you would say Armitech has been successful in ensuring they had evacuated corporate personnel from the surrounding X-17 site? That would be a patch of good news I am sure our viewers would like to hear...."
Cairo: "I.... am... not seeing evidence of non-mutants among the dead in the places my protectors and I are moving around, if that is what you are driving at, Lucretia... I think we may have different views on what constitutes 'good news', but I have the last stories and files of some I have encountered, a few files to up-"
[the audio goes silent]
Thompson: "Looks like we lost the feed with Huntsman Cairo, we will establish that and bring you more coverage from outside X-17 when we get him back...."