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There have been a lot of decisions that I have regretted. This was just another of them. It was, of course, another fucking planet. It was Preservation, so not usually so bad, but there are exceptions to everything.
I had been visiting Preservation when a wildfire had broken out. It grew unusually fast, fueled by unusually dry weather, and a wind storm. All of my humans had gone to help how they could. So I did too.
Arada and Ratthi were helping in a temporary “animal shelter.” Many parts of Preservation have farms like Dr. Mensah’s. And many of those farms have a variety of domesticated fauna.
Mensah, Gurathin and Pin-Lee were working on logistics. They were helping figure out what supplies were available, what was missing and how to get them where they were needed.
Volescu was helping humans whose homes were threatened by the fire find other places to stay. Hopefully temporarily.
Overse and I were on an active evacuation team. It sounds more exciting than it is. We were in a small town going door to door and making sure people knew they were in an evacuation zone. Yes, not only was it not exciting, it also involved a lot of talking to people. So it was basically Hell.
Not all parts of Preservation have good feed access. Some of them have no feed access by choice. (Yeah, I know. Who would do that? But Preservation is weird.) This is more of a problem in the smaller towns like this one. Additionally, feed relays can burn like most anything else. Smoke, wind and heat can create problems for space based signals too. So physical markers it was. As people left, we were marking the windows with marker paint that said the house had been evacuated. We left normal feed markers too, but they were less reliable in this situation.
I was with Overse because some humans are stupid. And some of the stupid humans are violent, even with people who are just trying to help keep them safe. (Yes, welcome to basically my entire life before Dr. Mensah bought me.)
A few of the humans who lived in the evacuation zone were refusing to leave their homes. Which was sort of fine, if you ignore the whole part where when they stay and their home actually does wind up in the path of the fire that the firefighters then have to stop fighting the fire and start trying to rescue the stubborn asshole who is now hindering the whole process. People get hurt and equipment and property gets destroyed because of humans like this.
We were in the middle of dealing with one of those assholes on the edge of town nearest the fire when I got a weather alert. The wind was changing. I sent Overse back to the ground vehicle, and tried one more time ti reason with this stupid human.
“Sir, please. The winds are shifting, and the fires will be heading in this direction. We really need you out of here so the firefighters can do their job.” I spent years speaking respectfully to people who were worse than this. I was capable of it. Even if I really wanted to pick his stupid ass up by the collar and throw him in the back of a ground vehicle.
“I told you! This is my home, and I ain’t leaving!”
And that’s when he fired an energy weapon at me. It would have burned a human pretty badly. For me, it stung, but didn't do any actual damage other than to piss me off. I shoved him backwards into his house and slammed the door.
Yeah, that fucker can stay.
I ran back to Overse and the ground vehicle.
“There are three houses left here, I’ll get them. You go back.”
“No, we should stay together.”
“I can run faster than you can drive this ground vehicle. It’s three houses, and the winds are shifting. Fire crews are already entering the neighborhood. These houses should already be empty by now anyway. Go.”
And they should be empty. You’d have to be pretty clueless not to notice the fires from here. They were really close. Definitely closer than I wanted Overse to be to any sort of wild fire. Especially with the wind shift.
She debated for just another moment then nodded and pulled away. She didn't go far, but it was better than nothing. I ran back toward the last three houses that needed to be checked. The first was already empty. Good. That made my life that much easier. I didn’t have to talk to any stupid humans there. I just painted the window, and ran to the next house.
Two older humans were getting their last bag. I helped them to their ground vehicle and they were also on their way. I was tagging their house with the EVAC paint as they left.
The wind shifted as I made my way to the final house. It was also (thankfully) empty. I tagged it with the paint and hurried back toward the roadway.
The winds hadn’t just shifted, they had shifted fast. Oh, this is not good, Murderbot.
The fire equipment was already on location as I made my way out of the area. There was little line for them to defend given the wind shift, but the team of bots and humans would do what they could. The diggers were already working on a new firebreak. The flames had jumped the previous one when the winds shifted. (Yes, I had gotten into their local feed and comm channels to keep an eye on things.)
Water and flame retardant vehicles and bots were next. I should have already been out of here. The humans were pulling back and letting the bots and drones do their jobs.
The fucker who wouldn’t leave earlier was spraying down his home and property with water from a tiny hose. I’m not sure what good he thought that would really do if a fire this large shifted toward his house, but I wasn’t going to try to stop him again.
Except the winds blew embers this way, and some of the taller trees near his property caught. The smaller plants at the next house started to burn. And I couldn’t just leave at that point. Even if the guy was a fucker.
One of the water equipment bots came over to attempt to put out the small spot fires, but with the minimal feed, I don’t think the bots realized the human was there.
“Watch out!” I yelled as I raced toward the man and tossed him out of the water’s path.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been hit by a firehose spewing water at 3000 liters/minute, but let’s say it doesn’t feel great, alright?
I got the human out of the way, but I didn’t quite clear the path myself. I caught the stream on the left side of my body and it slammed into me harder than a hauler bot. I was thrown clean off my feet and tossed like a rag doll. I was lucky I didn't lose any limbs. Or my head. There was definitely damage to pretty much everything. Even without it actually removing any of my parts, the water did hit me hard enough to throw me into involuntary shut down.
When I came back online, the bot operating the fire hose was pinging me frantically. Overse was also frantic. I pinged the bot back, letting it know I was okay. Banged up, needed a MedSystem, but I would be fine eventually. Then I sent Overse basically the same message.
I sat up and glowered at the fucker who still hadn’t left. He was staring at me. Yeah, I was probably a sight. I stared right back. I might not like eye contact, but I was good at this kind. Ratthi calls it a "Death Glare."
“Will you fucking leave, now?” I asked.
He nodded, still staring then scrambled away toward his ground vehicle.
I got back to my feet, found some marker paint, tagged his house as evacuated then walked back toward incident command.