Chapter Seven - Purple Flare

I hissed as I touched the pads of Rusty’s control system, then slowly raised them off my head. I’d turned off the mech’s eye, of course, and shut off everything I could in preparation, but the feedback, and worse, the lack of feedback, still left my head splitting.

Yanking the needling out of my collar left me bleeding all over again, but I was long used to that. I tugged my scarf on tighter and pulled my coat up.

I was done.

The goblin camp, what little of it hadn’t burned down, was a trampled mess. Still-steaming bodies littered the ground, some of them still twitching a little.

I’d shot the last goblin half an hour ago, while the sun was straight up above and at its hottest. If there were any left, they’d be some of the most patient goblins I’d ever seen.

Rusty’s engines came to a slow, humming stop, and I pushed the front hatch open.

The shock of warmth to the face had me hissing. It burned. A familiar sort of burn though, one that was almost welcome. I pulled the waterskin from the side of the cockpit and took a few good gulps.

Reaching over, I grabbed my mask and slung it on. No need to give myself glass lung. The goggles came on next, then my trusty hat.

When I leapt out of Rusty and sank my feet into the shifting sands, it was as someone ready for the desert.

The first thing I did was inspect my mech. Rusty had gotten dinged up in that little skirmish, but by the looks of it, it wasn’t too bad. A few little dents in the side, some paint peeled off from the heat of that thermogun. None of the lines were leaking, though--at least, not more than usual. I found one set of cables that had been chewed into, but I’d long ago wrapped any exposed wires in steel cable. It saved them from that kind of trouble.

“Not bad,” I muttered as I finished my cursory inspection. It wasn’t perfect, but Rusty would get me home in one piece.

I tapped the mech on the knee, then turned towards the camp.

I’d parked a little ways from it, in case some goblin lived and decided to make a run for me. It’d give me time to hear and react. And if there was one that wanted to take a shot at me, well, their aim was usually crap.

Taking my time, I headed over to the tents and over the bodies. There was no going fast, not around noontime. The sun was baking the ground and turning the desert into a wavering mess.

I made my way over to the closest goblin and kicked it for good measure. Dead as a doornail.

Kneeling down a little, I surveyed the whole camp before making up my mind. I was a methodical kind of woman, at least most of the time, but I didn’t feel like pulling out every body and laying it out, not under this heat.

That was the kind of work you did if you wanted a stroke.

I yanked my knife out from my thigh holster and got to work on the nearest goblin.

As I moved around the camp, I pulled every mana core I could find and dropped them into a satchel. Sometimes I found goblins with some guns, but they were in the state I expected goblin weapons to be in.

I did find a nice old breech-loading rifle. Dwarven make, with a 14-millimeter bore. Probably still in good shape because they couldn’t find rounds for it, if I had to guess. The stock was cracked, and the varnish worn off by use, but the mechanism still clicked fine.

“Loot is loot,” I muttered as I tossed it to the side. It was soon joined by a few other guns, those that weren’t in too bad a shape. Most were cheap things. People with nice arms didn’t get ambushed by goblins. Well, they did, but they weren’t usually the ones to lose that fight. Most of the rifles and revolvers and even old muskets I found were the cheaper sort. Barely worth their weight in scrap.

Ammo I found plenty of. Goblins used it as a sort of currency, though they had no respect for the rounds, and most I’d have to toss. I loaded a bag full of those that didn’t look like they were about to burst, and when all was done, I strapped it to Rusty’s back.

Then came time to look over the day’s big prize. The goblin mech.

It was in bad shape. One of my shots had hit something important and volatile on the inside that had blown a hole out of the opposite end and splashed the interior full of shrapnel. If the mech was enclosed like a proper mech, that explosion would have been under pressure, and would probably have been worse.

Didn’t matter. Point was, the mech was done for.

The real prize, though, was the thermogun. That thing was worth more than the entire pile of junk mech.

It was also, I discovered, crushed under the weight of the mech when it fell.

“Gods smite this filth!” I swore as I tugged the thermogun free. It was dug into the sand, which made it somewhat easy to pull out. That didn’t improve things. The barrel, with all of its delicate rune work, was bent, and the outer casing that held its firing mechanism had been crushed. I almost flung the gun away in frustration, but held back.

No point in letting my anger get in my way. Not when it was this hot out.

There might have been some value to the gun, wrecked as it was. Some of the wizards in town might want a poke at it, at least. Not every day that we got gnome-made weapons out in the vastness.

I found one more treasure.

It was out by the rocks on the edge of the valley, a little hut, with wooden walls and a tin roof. Untouched by the quick fire. I almost missed it. If it wasn’t for the sun reflecting off the roof...

Kicking the door in revealed a little room. Swelteringly hot. And humid.

Four big tanks lined the sides, each one as big around as I was. At the back, a larger tank, one that I could have squeezed Rusty in.

Water.

I barked a laugh as I loosened a rusty tap and let clean, sparkling water leak down onto the floor. There was enough here to keep the goblins going for a while. By the smell of it, it was pure too. Storm water. Probably collected from the runoff in the valley, or maybe the goblins had a few water trawlers that I’d failed to notice.

It didn’t matter.

I sniffed at the liquid, then gave it a taste. It wasn’t too bad. Even goblins knew better than to piss in their own supply.

The sun was starting to drop back down from its zenith when I began packing things away onto Rusty. The better things, few as they were, went into the cabin, the rest I hung from the straps and bandoleers around the mech. I filled my waterskins, then dropped some cleaning tablets in, just in case.

I wouldn’t have to drink my own piss any time soon. That was nice.

What wasn’t nice was the booming explosions I heard from afar.

I paused, nearly done with my loading, and looked to the sky where a red ball of expanding smoke appeared over the horizon. Then another, green this time.

“Ah, shit.”

I waited for a third burst, but nothing came.

I started packing things faster. I’d been meaning to grab one of the water tanks. It would be a nice haul, but heavy and unwieldy, and likely to slow me down.

The flares put paid to that idea.

I did run back over to the waterhouse, dropped to one knee, and splashed water across my face and down my collar, the tap opened to full. It was lukewarm, but I’d been sitting in a dry mech or standing in the more-than-dry desert for over a week. Not much of a bath, but it was refreshing all the same.

Drinking my fill, I got up, feeling a little waterfat, then I headed over to Rusty and closed things up. The burst had faded from the sky by then, but that didn’t mean the trouble was gone.

One red burst meant attention. Green meant that someone needed help.

But no follow up colours.

Was a caravan caught up in an ambush? More goblins, maybe?

It was only the desperate or the confident that used a flare like that. They tended to grab the attention of the wrong sort.

I wasn’t one of those.

I shut Rusty’s cockpit up and sat down before running my checks. I wasn’t going to get involved. That wasn’t part of the plan.

Another burst, only faint, and almost missed as Rusty came awake.

I glanced through one of the periscopes, and could only just make out the haze of colour in the distant sky.

Purple.

War. Someone was calling for help, and there was war afoot.

“What in name of all the cursed gods,” I muttered.

I started moving faster. I had an inkling that I shouldn’t be around when whatever that was blew my way.