Chapter Nine - Spalling

I didn’t take all that much time lining up my shot.

The goal, if I could even call such a spur-of-the-moment act, was to put a dent in the turret of the lead gnomish mech. Just something to rattle them, and maybe give that elf a chance to get out of there.

My sights crossed over the top of the mech, and I pulled the trigger in my control gauntlet. Rusty jittered as a round shot out ahead. I pulled the rifle’s lever, old reflex taking over.

The round traced a red line through the air that slid past the gnome standing out of the top of the turret and through the opened hatch behind him.

I held my breath. “Oh, shit,” I muttered.

The gnomish tank exploded.

I turned Rusty’s face away as a wash of sand blasted past, and raised an arm as bits of metal started to rain down around me.

Had I hit something inside the mech? A core, or their ammunition belt?

It didn’t matter. My warning shot had hit something vital and volatile.

The rain of sand stopped, and when I repositioned to look down again, I found that everything had been covered in a fine layer of dust. The mechs hadn’t shifted much, owing to their weight, no doubt. Where the gnomish warmech had been was a smoking carcass, blackened and sparking with unstable magics.

I couldn’t spot the elf below. He should have been a ways off to my right, but maybe he’d been blown back by the explosion.

I was so busy looking that I only noticed the other gnomish mech moving when its barrel started to swing my way.

“Ah, sand spit,” I said as I started to move Rusty back.

A ring of magic as wide as I was tall appeared around the mech’s turret as it started to tilt back to aim my way. Whomever was in that thing wasn’t rightly pleased with me, if the amount of magic they were pouring into that shot was any indication.

I didn’t waste time staring, that was something people who were about to die did. Instead I backed up as quickly as I could .

In the end, it didn’t matter. They weren’t aiming for me. They were aiming below me.

A green flashed filled the area, and I felt Rusty rocking back a moment before my mech’s footing slid. The top of the slope I was on shifted, then started to rumble as everything crumbled.

I planted my feet on the pedals and started to shift them around, Rusty’s free arm waving behind me to counterbalance as we started to fall down the collapsing side of the dune. Sand sprayed up and around, and my fight to keep balanced took a turn for the worse when something snagged at one of Rusty’s legs and I found myself being thrown around the inside of the cabin as I started to roll down the hill.

Gritting my teeth, and clutched onto the nearest rails as hard as I could as I was flung around and around. The ride stopped with a jarring boom and I was thrown to the back of my seat with a hard shove that kicked the air out of my lungs.

I coughed and had to hold down the water I’d drank earlier as my stomach shifted.

I was on my back. Rusty was on his back.

Blinking, I tried to look out of the periscopes, but they were out of alignment, and all I could see through them was the bright blue sky above.

I was still connected to Rusty. A minor miracle, that. I could tell that he was hurting in a few places, and that was without looking at the gauges arrayed out before me. “Oh, damn,” I said.

How long would it take for that mech to aim right back down at me?

I tried looking out of Rusty’s eye, but it gave me nothing but the impression that someone was shoving a fuzzy knife into my skull.

“Dammit!” I yelled. “That fucking elf had better be loaded!”

Swinging a foot out, I pushed the lock on the side of the cabin door off, then folded my leg back and kicked as hard as I could.

Rusty’s front raised a handspan, then thumped back down. That was enough to let some sand in and undo any good Rusty’s temperature control had done.

I groaned and shifted so that both feet were up against the door, then kicked. The cabin opened, then fell back down. My next blow had me stretching as hard as I could to shove the entrance back. Finally, it swung aside and crashed against Rusty’s side. Dry air swept down on me, and the sun glared.

I was still connected to Rusty, and now I could see.

If something shot at me, I was screwed, but now I could shoot back, which was nice.

Stretching the harness around my head as far as it would go, I looked out and around. The gnomish tank’s turret was lowering and turning, turning in my direction. Had they noticed that I wasn’t entirely done for?

I fell back down into my seat and pulled both foot pedals up and back, Rusty’s knees coming up close a moment before I swung the mech’s left arm over its head and pushed.

Rusty rose up and I found myself tipped up and forwards just enough that I could see the tank turning my way.

I raised my mech’s rifle, still in my right arm, and grimaced at the state my sights were in. Not that I could use them.

The first shot missed, and it almost left me deaf. I swore and turned my head to the side so that one ear was against the cushion behind me. My left hand wasn’t needed on the controls, so I pressed its palm against my other ear.

My second shot hit the edge of the gnomish warmech and glanced off the armour over its front with a dull, thrumming bong.

The third dug into the sand before it, and the fourth rammed into the side of the turret and burst apart. There was a dent there now, but little more.

I pulled the trigger again, but I was out. Five shots, counting my lucky one earlier.

The turret rattled a bit, then started turning again.

I tossed the lever action mech rifle to the side where it thumped into the sand, then reached to my waist and grabbed Rusty’s revolver.

It was chambered in a smaller caliber, and loaded with bullets that weren’t meant to deal with anything armoured. I’d need the gods’ own luck to hit anything important.

Rusty’s hand wrapped around the revolver’s grip, hydraulic lines snapping into place. I pulled the revolver out and whipped it towards the tank. I had to stretch my neck out to aim it. My ears be damned, I couldn’t afford to miss.

The gnomish mech was damaged already, with a few dents in its armour and a rent broken into the back. I aimed that way, judging as best I could where my next round would go.

I spun the dial up on the amount of power I would put into the shot, and fired.

The mech shifted a little as a round thumped into its rear, but that was the whole of it.

“Come on!” I screamed as I cocked the hammer and fired again. And again. And again.

I was nearly desperate as I came to my fourth round. Only one left after that one.

Aiming as best I could, I shifted Rusty’s arm a little and fired.

The round rammed into the edge of a dent right in the mech’s stern and poked a hole through its armour.

I fired my last shot, and almost cried when it winged off the top of the turret.

Sitting back, I waited to die.

And nothing happened.

I leaned up and looked over to the mech and found it just sitting there. The turret wasn’t quite aiming at me, but it wasn’t moving anymore.

Had something happened?

I shoved my feet down, lending what strength I could to the hydraulics of Rusty’s legs while turning over. The mech rolled onto its weaker right arm, but that momentum allowed me to place a foot down on solid earth and shove Rusty up until we were standing.

The cabin door swung around and slammed against the lock, then back open. If my ears weren’t already ringing...

That didn’t matter. I searched for the pouch with my quick loaders, then found one of them and replaced the rounds in my revolver while stumbling along. When I turned back to the gnomish tank, it was to see it still entirely immobile.

I stared. Why?

An opening appeared on the side of the mech, a square only big enough for a child to squeeze through. A gnome woman crawled out of the hole and crashed to the sandy ground. She was wearing a pilot’s rig, and had sick all down the front of her uniform, sick and blood.

The dozens of little cuts and wounds across her front explained that.

Spalling wounds?

The gnome didn’t move from her rapidly-growing red puddle in the sand.

I lowered my arms, and Rusty did the same.

What the hell had happened?

I leaned my head back and let the ringing in my ears compete with the wild beating of my heart.

***