Chapter Forty-Two - Standing in Defence

There were three of them. Two I pegged as follower-types. One was practically a kid, hugging a mare’s leg close as if it was a fresh pup, the other was older but not by much. Scruffy, the both of them.

Their leader looked a mite better. Tall and self-assured, just shy of cocky. He had his thumbs looped to his belt as he came over. “Who are you folk?” he asked.

“Could ask you the same,” I said.

“We’re friends of Caroline,” he said. “Good friends, even.”

“So am I,” I said. “Now what are three good friends of Caroline doing out here at this kind of hour?”

A distant explosion punctuated my suspicions.

The leader worked his jaw. “Where’s Caroline?”

“Busy,” I said. “Is this a shakedown, because your timing is gods awful.”

He blinked, surprised for a moment before settling into a near-glare. “No, we’re here for a few things, but not like that. We need mechs.”

“And I need a palace made of gold next to an oasis that’s ice-cold,” I said.

His expression turned fully into a glare and I saw his hands shifted. He had a revolver by his thigh, worn the way a pilot would.

My fingers itched, and I noted Clin shifting his jacket open from the corner of my eye. Did he have that pea-shooter still?

“Shane!”

We both froze up, and I found myself carefully glancing over my shoulder as Caroline came over. She was washing her hands off with a rag.

“Are you here for Timothy?” she asked with a sideways nod to the mech sitting in the sun.

“Aye ma’am,” he said. “Town needs it more than ever.” Another distant bang gave truth to that.

I shook my head and let my guard lower a little. “Could have gone about that better,” I said.

“None of that, Charlie,” Caroline said. “Come on, I patched him up nice and good. Just needs to be walked around a bit to test things out. Hopefully you won’t trip again.”

“I didn’t trip, I was... nevermind.” Shane shook his head and followed after Caroline, his buddies trailing behind him. I followed too.

“You going to join the defence?” I asked.

“Not at the wall. That’s a mess waiting to happen,” he said. He was more right than he knew. “Sheriff’s getting everyone gathered in clumps here and there. Blocking off the roads and moving the folk nearer to the centre of town. All well and good, but he’s thinking about the people first and the town second.”

“That’s not a bad thing, is it?” Clin asked.

Shane scoffed. “Shows what you know, elf. You ever see the train pull in?”

“No?”

“Hmm, new then. Station’s just a ways down from here. Little place. Nothing special. Behind it’s the tracks to switch the trains around, and behind that’s the place where the fuel for the trains are stored.”

“That’s a ways from the centre of town,” I said. I tried to fit all of it in my mental map of Daggerwren. I’d never had need to take the train though, so I hadn’t been around that part of town much.

Caroline froze mid-step. “The core storage.”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “Told the sheriff and he brushed us off. Thinks we’re dumb just cause we’re local.”

“Right,” I said. “Caroline, what’s the core storage?”

“The trains--which they never let me near by the way, it’s entirely unfair--they run on a lot more fuel than your average mech.”

“They’re much larger and heavier,” Clin said. “Magic is well and good, but the square-cube ratio still takes its due, especially with fuel consumption.”

I’d vaguely heard something like that before.

“Trains are wonderful. So big and powerful,” Caroline said. “And having tracks instead of legs or threads means they’re fairly efficient, all things considered. Still, they weigh a lot, which means a lot of cores.”

“Are we getting to the point?” I asked.

Shane walked around Timothy, inspecting the mech in a hurry before he climbed up and into it. “Caroline, you don’t have any other working mechs around, do you?”

“Not really, no,” she said. “Sorry?”

“Damn. It’s fine. Dave, Bill, head on back. Get my guns ready, we’ll be needing them.”

I looked to Caroline, and she finally decided to spell it out, though I had my suspicions. “The storage isn’t far from here. Plenty of houses around it. It’s got heaps of cores, enough to keep every mech in Daggerwren going for a year.”

Rusty used... maybe a container a week. He was decently efficient with fuel. That was fifty-odd containers a year, for one mech. A pile that big was impressive, and dangerous. A stockpile large enough to keep the entire town’s mech’s operating was downright stupid. “If a goblin punches a hole in that,” I said.

“Then we’ll certainly be feeling it,” Caroline said.

Shane must have overheard, he was still settling into his mech’s seat. “It’s built tough,” he said. “But no one’s guarding the damned thing.” He pulled up his jacket, the sleeve loose already, and placed a leather cuff over his bicep, one fitted to a familiar sort of tube. Then he jabbed a needle in.

The man leaned back, pulled a crown down around his head, then jabbed something with a foot. The door hissed shut. Fancy pneumatics, that.

It took a moment for Timothy to start moving. The mech veered straight for the exit and shouldered the door aside on the way out. Seemed he was in a hurry.

“What do we do?” Clin asked.

I hesitated. Right then and there, I wanted out. Out of Daggerwren, and out of this mess. I didn’t have the time or inclination to stick my neck out. Still.

“We need to keep Caroline safe,” I said.

“Oh! You’re coming with me!” Caroline said. She grinned right past my flat look. “I lied. I do have a mech. Come come! It’s a big secret.”

Clin and I looked at each other, but we followed her.

Things were calm, even with the rattle of gunfire in the distance and the occasional explosion. Those weren’t here. In a strange way, they weren’t our problem yet.

Caroline literally skipped to a shed tucked up against the side of her garage and started working at the padlock over the door. No key, I noticed, just some exposed tumblers she fiddled with. The lock came off, and the doors opened.

I blinked at the machine within.

It was a smaller mech, only tall enough to reach Rusty’s chest. Legs, but legs that ended with threads, and a small, squat body with only one arm on the left side. The right had a gimballed gun. A three-barreled chaingun.

“That’s a dwarven mech,” Clin said.

“It is!” Caroline cheered. “Her name is Sally, and she’s wonderful! A dwarven Guardian Mark S. She’s a patrol mech.”

A proper warmech, though one not built for any sort of front line. Its origins and purpose weren’t hidden any. Sharp angles around its squat frame, a cockpit with two mechanical eyes set on the sides to give the viewer a wide angle of sight, and... “Is that a gun in its head?” I asked.

“It’s a twenty-eight milimeter Rockhead. It’s liquid-cooled, and it has a pneumatic reloading system,” Caroline said. “It took weeks to make all the parts.”

“How’d you get it?” I asked.

“Took it as payment,” she said. “It was mostly just a shell. I didn’t restore most of it to its original specs. Those were dull, and I couldn’t find out much about it anyway. Not many dwarven mech mechanics around here.”

“Can you pilot it?” I asked.

Caroline shifted awkwardly. “I can?”

“You sound awful sure,” I said.

“It hurts,” Caroline admitted. “And it’s hard?”

I wanted to rub at my forehead, but that wouldn’t have been kind to Caroline. The woman loved her mechs. Too much even. Being a poor pilot had to rub a little raw. “Well, get in. Clin and I will close up the garage, gather a few things.”

“Um, are you sure?” Caroline asked.

“You’re planning on running after that Shane guy, right?” I asked.

“If the supply goes, half the town will go with it,” she said. “The half we’re in.”

“Right. I’m keen on that not happening too. Clin, you got that gun of yours?”

“I do,” he said.

“Get it, and load up. If we’re lucky, we won’t be encountering any goblins. But I’m not going to bet on any amount of luck falling our way. Just doesn’t feel like one of those days.”

Clin nodded. “I think I’ve had my share of those lately.”

“Hmm, mine started after meeting you. You piss on some god’s favourite statue?”

“I’ve never been a religious sort,” he said.

“Good, less time wasted praying. Come on, let’s close up. Caroline, get Sally started up. We’ll see what’s what in a bit.”

***