Fighting Iron

by Jake Bible

  Not that anything was designed for mech use anymore. Once the treaty was signed, there wasn’t much need for the battle mechs. The sparse military units that each side were allowed to keep in peace time didn’t have the resources necessary to maintain a full mech cavalry. Too much maintenance and upkeep. Something Clay was acutely aware of each and every day.

  “Marvelous machines,” the Captain said, stopping to look back at the mechs with Clay. “You would think I’d be adverse to their presence, considering.” She waved a hand at her scarred head. “But once a pilot, always a pilot.”

  “What are they doing?” Clay asked. “Training for battle?”

  “Training, yes,” the Captain said. “Not for battle. Not yet. All for the tournament in October.”

  “Tournament?” Clay asked. “With mechs?”

  “With mechs,” the Captain said. She grimaced and yanked on Clay’s chains, pulling him back towards the mess hall. “You sure are a curious one. Remind me of someone. You got me all chatty. I’m not usually so free with information.”

  “I put people at ease,” Clay said.

  “We both know that’s not true,” the Captain snorted. “Rough mug like yours would send children whimpering behind their mommies’ skirts. I’m guessing the young ladies like ya, think you’re something wild and untamed. But that ain’t true, now is it, Clay MacAulay?”

  “No, it’s true,” Clay said. “The young ladies do like me.”

  “I meant about you being wild and untamed,” the Captain said as they approached the four long steps and wide double doors leading into the mess hall. “Your hat. Your revolver. Military. MexiCali issue, for sure. Not you, too young, like I said. But your father was military, am I right? That means wild and untamed were not how you grew up.”

  Clay shrugged.

  “Let’s get something for the road,” the Captain said.

  “The road?” Clay asked. “Where are we going?”

  “To see General Hansen,” the Captain said. “If you got me curious then you are sure to make the General doubly curious.”

  “We need food for that?” Clay asked.

  “The General doesn’t stay here,” the Captain said. “You’ll see.”

  The Captain walked in and half the people seated at the long tables and benches stood up and saluted. The rest saluted from where they sat, most with mouthfuls of food. The Captain gave a half salute to the entire room then stomped over to the wide table against the far wall that was loaded with a strange mix of food and drink.

  Clay studied the table, seeing the spread for what it was. An attempt to look rich and plentiful when it was very clear the compound was rationing. Clay took another look around and saw how some of the men and women’s uniforms hung from their bodies, loose and slack. They may have fit snugly a few months ago, but not anymore.

  Worn clothes, tight provisions, jumpy guards when anyone steps foot in their fields, an overeager hatred for scavengers. The compound wasn’t as stable and strong as they wanted folks to believe. It puzzled Clay. Not the smartest move to show him their weaknesses. Not if they planned on keeping him alive. Which maybe they didn’t. He couldn’t tell with the Captain.

  The woman barked an order, pulling Clay out of his thoughts, and a short, meek-looking woman scampered about, stuffing hard rolls and hunks of cheese into a hemp bag. She filled a jug with steaming hot coffee, the smell of which made Clay’s mouth water.

  The smell of everything made Clay’s mouth water. He’d been living off his water stores and salted meat for two weeks straight. Not even a crab apple in the mix to break up the monotony. Salted meat and warm water. He could feel his teeth rattling in his jaws from malnutrition.

  “That real coffee?” Clay asked, careful not to let any drool drip from his lips. “Smells real.”

  “It is,” the Captain said. “The General has a source.”

  “Getting low,” the meek woman said as she handed the jug and hemp bag over to the Captain. She received a sharp glare for her words and she ducked her head fast. “Sorry, Captain. Didn’t mean to speak out of turn.”

  “Best not to speak at all, dent,” the Captain snarled. “You’re here to work off your debt, not make conversation with guests.”

  Dent. Clay shivered at the word. He knew it well. He’d been right where the woman was, counting the days until the debt owed was paid in full. Plus the interest. There’s always interest. Clay hadn’t been particularly keen on paying the interest. Good thing Gibbons had found him.

  Swallowing hard, Clay thought about his powered-down mech on the other side of the hemp field valley. Up on that ridge, not the one that overlooked the massive cooling tower, but the next one over. It would be fine, he told himself. Gibbons had it under control. Gibbons always had it under control.

  “You looking a little peaked there, Clay MacAulay,” the Captain said as she shoved the bag and jug into Clay’s hands. “Carry these.”

  “Time to hit the road?” Clay asked.

  “Time to hit the road,” the Captain said. “We’ll take my personal roller. You’ll drive.” The Captain looked at him sideways. “You do know how to drive, right, Clay MacAulay?”

  The use of his first and last name was getting on Clay’s nerves, but he’d been called worse in considerably more dangerous situations, so he let the irritation go. No need to start something if something didn’t need started.

  “I know how to drive,” Clay said.

  “I figured you did,” the Captain said and led him out of the mess hall, ignoring the few salutes that followed in her wake.

  Clay was fairly certain a couple of muttered expletives had followed as well.

  They made a straight line for the huge garage by the mech fight ring. Clay was glad for that, it gave him an unobstructed view of the action. He watched as a dull grey mech, rusted and pitted along most of its armor, but gleaming bright in the joints and pistons where it mattered, brought a hard right hook against the cockpit of the opposing mech. There should have been a deafening crunch and clang of metal on metal, but Clay only heard a dull thump as the attacking mech backed off and reset its stance.

  “Regulators,” the Captain said.

  “What?” Clay asked.

  “Regulators,” the Captain said. “I could see your surprise. We put damage regulators in the mechs while they practice. Can’t afford to have the pilots destroying valuable property while they spar, now can we?”

  “I suppose not,” Clay said. Clay wanted to ask several questions, but he held back. Questions revealed just as much as answers did most of the time. But, there was one he couldn’t hold back. “Why aren’t I dead?”

  “Do you want to be dead?” the Captain asked.

  “Not particularly,” Clay said and shrugged.

  “Then ask that question again when we get to General Hansen,” the Captain said. “You may not like the answer you get, but you’ll get one. General Hansen loves to talk, that’s for sure.”

  As they got closer, the garage blocked Clay’s view of the mechs. The Captain held open a door in the back and gestured for Clay to walk through. He did and expected to step into darkness, but the far side of the garage was wide open, a direct view of the fight ring and the six mechs. He couldn’t see the seventh mech, the one being serviced, but he knew it was off to the right, just out of sight.

  The Captain led him over to an armored roller, a good-sized one with eight wheels, four on each side. The body was jacked up fairly high on tall shocks, telling Clay the vehicle was used to going cross country. No need to waste time on roads and trails with a roller like that.

  “Driver’s side,” the Captain said as she took the provisions from Clay and tossed them up through the passenger’s side door. She waited for Clay to shuffle around to the driver’s side before pulling herself up and in.

  Clay grabbed the handle by the driver’s door and placed a foot on the short step welded to the frame. Even with the manacles and his chain still affixed to him, it wasn’t hard to pull up int
o the driver’s seat. The Captain was waiting in the passenger’s seat, giving him a sly smile. She didn’t say a word as Clay looked at the dash and the controls.

  A simple steering wheel. Automatic transmission, which wasn’t unheard of, but was unusual for an off-road roller. A bank of switches with various abbreviations marked above them. Armaments. Defensive, offensive, whatever kept the scavengers and undesirables at bay. No scan screen anywhere on the dash which told Clay the vehicle was used only for short trips, not for long hauls where a person needed to know what may be lurking just over the far side of a blind hill.

  “Go ahead,” the Captain said. “Start her up.”

  Something in the way she said the words irked Clay. It was like she was testing him, putting him through his paces, but he couldn’t figure out why. It was just a roller. Clay glanced at her and figured that if she had eyebrows, they’d be raised, waiting for him to get to work, waiting for him to start her up.

  So he did just that.

  He pulled out the choke and made sure the brakes were set as he gave the roller some diesel with a quick stomp of his foot while simultaneously turning the ignition switch. As soon as the vehicle caught and flared to life, he pressed down on the accelerator and revved the engine several times before he eased the choke in and released the brakes.

  The Captain gave a short, harsh laugh then reached over and pressed the horn three times. A woman ran from the darkness of one of the corners and opened the wide garage door behind the roller, allowing Clay to put the vehicle in reverse and ease out into the sunlight. He was about to twist the wheel and put the roller in drive, but something caught his attention and he froze.

  There was a high-pitched twang of metal. It was almost over before it had started, but Clay knew he heard it.

  “That mech is about to lose its right outside strut,” Clay said, pointing out the roller’s windshield at the still visible mechs sparring in the ring. “That one there, with the rust. If the pilot keeps twisting on that leg, it’s going to snap and send a couple tons of shrapnel ripping through your garage.”

  “That so?” the Captain asked. “What makes you say that?”

  “Hunch,” Clay said.

  “Hunch,” the Captain echoed. She reached over and killed the engine then looped Clay’s chain through a convenient hoop of steel set into the floorboards. “Stay.”

  She had no sooner gotten out of the roller than there was the sound of crunching metal collapsing in on itself. The metal crunch was instantly followed by screams and shouts of warning as the sparring mech’s right knee gave out and a literal ton of metal sheared off, flying this way and that as the huge machine began to topple.

  The Captain dove out of sight, headed straight for the ground. Clay ducked down as low as he could get. He didn’t have enough slack in the chain to cover his head with his hands, so he shoved the back of his shoulders up against the bottom of the steering wheel and prayed the dashboard would protect him.

  His world became nothing but shattering glass and the ripping of metal. Clay bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood as he waited to be torn apart. He felt several hot stings across his back as he hunched down low. He also felt a heavy whoosh of wind and then the hot sun beating down on him. Then it was all over and the sounds of panicked men and women filled the air where there had been screeching metal before.

  Slowly, Clay straightened and wasn’t too surprised to see that the entire roof of the roller had been torn right off. He craned his neck around and saw the roof, plus half the broken mech strut, lying a few meters behind the roller. Most of the compound had bolted from their buildings and were standing in the square, mouths agape and eyes wide. Clay looked back around and watched as a quarter of the garage roof collapsed down into the wreckage that was before him.

  “Good thing you got yourself that wide brimmed hat, Clay MacAulay,” the Captain said as she dusted her uniform off and hauled herself into the roller. She brushed the broken windshield glass off the passenger seat then settled in and gave him a wide, scarred smile. “Looks like our trip is now with the top down. Always did like the feel of open air when I travelled.”

  “You aren’t going to stay and oversee all…all this?” Clay asked, waving a manacled hand at the carnage that lay before them.

  “Nah,” the Captain said. “I got people that know how to make things right. It’ll be as good as it used to be by the time I get back here tonight.”

  Clay grunted and started the roller back up. He eased it back, watching for loose metal or anything that would tear into the heavy duty tires. They were solid rubber, but still could be damaged if a big enough piece of shrapnel ripped into one of them and decided to take the tread right off.

  With the way ahead clear, Clay put the roller in drive and aimed for the main gate, the obvious way out. The Captain nodded and pulled out a long bandana from her pocket and wrapped it over her head, tying it up snug under her chin.

  “Sun’s no good for my skin,” she said in explanation, not that Clay needed one.

  The explanation he wanted was why she had said I return tonight. Not “we,” but “I.” He didn’t like the sound of that.

  He pressed down on the accelerator and the roller shot forward into the dust and smoke that wafted off of the damaged garage, the sound of the hemp diesel engine loud, but not as loud as the shouts of the workers as they scrambled around to get the compound cleaned up. Clay watched everyone scurry and scatter. No one was in his way as he got to the compound’s gate and a guard opened it, giving the Captain a snappy salute.

  Five

  Even with the hat, the sun still handed down a heavy beating on Clay. It handed down a heavy beating on everything. It was just a downright abusive son of a bitch, sitting up in the sky like a nuclear bully.

  Clay had heard tales that the land hadn’t been so harsh once, but that was many centuries earlier before man had destroyed the land with pestilence and war many times over. How many times? The historians guessed that there had been several apocalypses. Yet the world kept turning and man, nature’s true cockroach, kept on living.

  Not that Clay gave a crap about how it had been in the past. The heat of the present was more than enough to occupy his attention.

  “Drink some of this,” the Captain said, handing the jug of hot coffee over. “Makes you sweat and the air cools the sweat.”

  “Straight water is better for you,” Clay said. “Sweat cools you down, but it also dehydrates you.”

  “We aren’t going on a trek across the Mobius Desert, Clay MacAulay,” the Captain said. She took back the offered jug and drank deep from the mouth. “There’s plenty of water at our destination.”

  She offered the jug again, but Clay shook his head. He wanted a slug of that coffee bad, it had been a long time since he’d tasted some real bitter beans, but he knew the relief of the cooling sweat would be temporary and he’d just end up miserable in a couple of minutes.

  So he drove. He kept the roller aimed in the direction the Captain pointed, pushing the vehicle over the rugged and harsh landscape, swerving only to avoid clumps of scrub brush and stray stacks of rocks and boulders.

  The roller’s top speed was fifty kilometers an hour, but even still it took them close to two hours to reach their destination. Top speed didn’t mean consistent speed. By Clay’s calculations, General Hansen’s ranch was about sixty kilometers due east from the compound. By the time they rolled through the heavy steel gate, guarded by four armed men on each side, the sun was directly overhead and almost boiling Clay’s brain right in his skull.

  He was relieved when the Captain pointed to an eight-door garage off to their right, a few meters from a stately two-story ranch house made of old wood and rock. A guard lifted one of the garage doors and Clay drove the roller right inside. The Captain reached over and killed the engine then hooked a thumb over her shoulder.

  “Hop out and wait outside for me,” the Captain said. “Be nice and I’ll take those manacles off before yo
u meet General Hansen.”

  Clay hesitated then nodded as he shoved open the warped roller door and jumped down to the hard-packed earth that was the garage’s floor. He eyed his surroundings, but the less than subtle cough from the guard that had opened the garage door pulled him away from his spying. Clay walked the couple meters outside and back into the heat of the day.

  The guard eyed his hat and grimaced.

  “You too young to have fought in the Bloody Conflict,” the guard said.

  “I could say the same for you,” Clay replied and shrugged. “But here we are.”

  “What that mean?” the guard asked, pointing the carbine he held at Clay’s belly.

  “Doesn’t mean a thing, pardner,” Clay replied. “Doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.”

  The carbine was old, but looked well cared for with a sheen of oil coating the exposed metal. Clay caught a whiff of the gun oil as a small breeze kicked up, cooling the sweat from his neck and face. The oil was fresh, the carbine recently cleaned. That could mean the gun needed cleaning from use or disuse. Either possible reason wasn’t good.

  “Mind if I wipe my brow?” Clay asked the guard.

  “What’s it to me?” the guard responded.

  “Didn’t want you to get jumpy and empty that carbine into my guts when I moved,” Clay said. “Thought I’d do my intestines the courtesy of double checking first.”

  “You ain’t worth me wasting bullets on, scavenger scum,” the guard said.

  “Thank you,” Clay said and pulled off his hat. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm then set the hat back on and gave the guard a wide smile. “Mighty hospitable of you.”

  The guard grunted a reply and looked back into the garage. He stepped to attention as the Captain walked out. Her head was turned and she was barking some order to someone inside, but Clay couldn’t make out what she said or who she was talking to.