Rayna knelt near the top of the ramp, rifle tucked into her shoulder. She was focusing through her scope, and as I approached, she fired. The gun bucked and she worked the bolt. I noticed she caught the shell casing and set it down carefully before loading the next shell. She crouched down and turned to face me as I approached and held out a hand.

“Back, boss! They not that dangerous, but still might shoot you.” When I stopped near her she shook her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “Nice helmet.”

I frowned.

“What did I do? I seem to have pissed off everyone with this thing, but I just want to protect my head.”

I pointed across the yard to another group, where a Hobb wearing a Vietnam war era combat helmet was hunkered down with his group. “Some of you guys have helmets, what the hell?”

Her face went through several changes while I spoke, but at the end she just nodded and raised her hand for me to stop. “That different. The helmet from our wish-list, Tolya wanted it.” She indicated the Hobb clutching a shotgun across the courtyard.

Understanding flooded through me. I had committed some social faux pas by buying an item off their wish list for myself. “Oh. Oh no! I just took a BuyMort suggestion.”

Rayna nodded, then leaned back out to take another shot. She aimed, fired, and then ducked back as return fire peppered the air. One of the shield Hobbs stepped in front of us, crouched low and braced against the shield. Rounds pinged from the top of it, and they crawled back a step.

“Be fine, work now.” She waved me back, but I climbed up a little bit to peek over the lip of the wall. Rayna and the shield Hobb moved together, and she picked off one of the things that was marching toward the wall.

I focused on them, whatever they were, and wished we had flood lights. The desert was dark, even in the early evening. Especially now that almost nobody had power. But then they opened fire, and I could see them clearly.

Clay robots. As many parts on the flimsy looking battle droid marching on the front gate as possibly could be were made of ceramic. Most of the metal was in the arms, where two slow fire repeating guns threw slugs at us with poor accuracy. The things were bare bones, but each of them had a small red dot glowing in the center of their ceramic heads. They moved at a walk, making slow but steady progress as they all swiveled and opened fire.

Bullets spattered against the wall, pinged off from the shield, and whizzed through the air above our heads.

A Hobb came running from the back wall and climbed the ramp behind us as I watched. He tapped Rayna on the shoulder, and she hustled down the ramp. The new Hobb took her place with his AK-47 and moved to take a few shots from behind the shield.

Rayna jogged down to the other side of the gate, then climbed up on the ramp and began belly crawling forward along the ramp. The other shield Hobb crouched and followed but stayed at a distance.

Rayna got into place in the middle of the walled section and began firing into the crowd of clay soldiers. Between her and the Hobb by me with the rifle, they started chewing through the enemy’s toys.

Clay soldiers sparked and shattered, sending ceramic chunks flying. The combat bots tried to fight back, but they sucked. Their guns were just not well machined, and that made their barrel accuracy quite poor. Couple that with bottom-of-the-barrel targeting computers, and you had a pretty two-star service on your hands. They were certainly no match for the elite BlueCleave soldiers, who looked almost bored as they dealt with the attack.

Fat, slow moving rounds pattered against the walls all around me, and I ducked back down. The Hobbs were making short work of the clay robots, and I was starting to wonder about what was next.

An explosion sounded in the campground, and I looked to see a fireball rising into the sky.

Phyllis was either going to work or getting worked over.

I hoped it was the first option, as our next problem drove up on the road outside the main gate. A trio of pickup trucks roared in the near distance, filled to the brim with good old fashioned Arizona humans.

Arizona humans carrying guns.

Rayna waved for all the Hobbs to get down, and I followed suit. We all hunkered behind the walls as the trucks approached.

The night became quiet again, as the single surviving clay soldier bot clanked against the closed metal door. It raised its guns above its sides and started dry firing as it attempted to get through the door by repeatedly walking into it at a low rate of speed.

The machine was out of ammunition, but not programmed to recognize that situation, so the guns just clicked over and over again, and it bonged into the door between clicks.

“What happened to the rest of em?” An unfamiliar voice sounded from the other side of the gate as the trucks pulled up.

Headlights washed over the area and cast everything in strange shadows. Boots crunched in the gravel and dirt outside the wall, and I heard weapons click metallically as they were primed.

I glanced at Rayna in discomfort, but she held up a hand and shook her head. The Hobb with the shoulder mounted grenade launcher crept into position behind us on the ramp and moved up slowly at Rayna’s waved command.

Once in position, the shield Hobb and launcher Hobb moved as one. They took a few rapid steps out, and a voice shouted from below. “On the wall, contact!”

Then an explosion lit up the night, and the gate rocked inward against its hinges. Oily black smoke began rising from two ruined pick-up trucks, and the third made a run for it.

Rayna stepped up behind the shield and picked off the driver with a single careful shot. It swerved violently and flipped.

Bullets began to snap and hiss through the air around me then, as the remaining militia members opened fire. Their muzzles flashed in a variety of shapes and colors, annoying me immediately with their inane modifications.

I clutched at my shotgun and started crawling down the ramp. Rayna and her Hobbs were engaging, using the shields and careful aim to fight off the opponents. That was their job, after all. What good could I do up there?

Not to mention that I was upset at watching these Hobbs kill humans, in my name.

Well, Mr. Sada’s name, but I was managing the entire thing.

I went below to avoid having to watch my Hobb squad mop up the good ol’ boys out front. The smell of burning meat from in front of the gate was bad enough.

The battle went well, and Rayna was walking down to talk to me just a few seconds later.

“Boss! Humans with guns running. All vehicles destroyed.”

Another explosion sounded from the campground and I grabbed Rayna’s binoculars. I ran up the ramp and focused on Molls’ campsite.

A troop of vehicles was surrounding the sandy bunkers, and two smoldering wrecks were blocking the driveway. Molls was nowhere to be seen, and Phyllis was pointing her fusion cannon at any movement atop the privacy barricades. When she turned to face me momentarily, I saw smoke leaking from the interior of her helmet.

Then I got a phone call. The psychic phone showed me a still photo of Molls. It was odd, seeing her face on my screen, and as I looked, the image shifted. It became a different angle of her, but nude, and looking over her shoulder at me.

“Woah, not cool!”

I concentrated, and the picture returned to a serene image of Molls during our meditation session together. The physic creature’s face scowled at me, replacing the image with an impatient glare.

“Do not keep making her naked!” I hissed at it, and then hit the green button to answer Molls. His face distended as it became a tunnel, and Molls replaced him quickly.

She looked terrible. The Nah’gh woman had obviously been crying, and she squeaked in fear when another explosion went off. I saw it, Phyllis had smoked a humanoid figure in armor that was trying to sneak over the ridge to get a shot off at her. All that remained of the figure was some partially slagged armor, and a giant burn scar from the fusion cannon.

Molls sobbed and huddled down further. It appeared as though she was in the car, but very low, and covered with blankets.

“Tyson!” She started, fear straining her voice. Her scales were a vibrant mix of orange and yellow. “Tyson, I am so sorry. You were right, can you please come get me?” She was sobbing as she spoke, and I hesitated.

I looked through the binoculars and counted. There was about a dozen enemy forces still, with two vehicles remaining. Rayna was at my side and pushed my shoulder. She pointed at Molls and then nodded at me.

I turned back to speak, looking into my psychic phone. “Yeah Molls, we’re coming. Just hang in there, Phyllis will protect you.”

Molls pushed back a blanket, and Phyllis was there, leaning in the car window. Her helmet was open, and she was staring at us from the inside of the mech. The smoke had been from a joint she had dangling from her lips.

“Well, hurry up then,” she said.

Her helmet clanked back in place, and the mech rose. I looked through the binoculars again and saw Phyllis raise her fusion cannon to another creeping figure on the ridge.

Her shot flared over his head this time, but it had the desired effect and he scrambled back down the ridge in a hurry.

I saw an Orc’s tusks glint in the moonlight as the small figure roared something and retreated. A group of similarly armored figures clustered around one of the remaining vehicles and argued. I guess they hadn’t been expecting a nonagenarian in a war mech with a fusion cannon. They were backing off for the moment.

Molls disconnected, and I pocketed my phone. Rayna had already summoned all her people, and the Hobb squad was lined up in front of us. She raised a hand and got their attention.

“New mission! We go, stretch to campground, save priest, escort back.”

Rayna turned to their shotgunner and clicked her long fingers together. “Tolya!” Tolya was staring at me and didn’t answer. “He new, Tolya, bought what BuyMort suggest. It not insult.”

I shrugged out of my jacket and dropped it on the pavement. Now I was wearing a pair of flared cuff jeans over reed boots, my starfish suit, and a medieval metal helmet. My dream apocalypse outfit was really coming together.

I looked directly at Tolya and nodded my helmeted head. “I’ll buy you one after we get Molls, Tolya, I promise.”

The Hobb’s eyes went wide for a moment, and then she glanced between me and Rayna, before turning back with a nod. Rayna walked among us, barking quick orders, and then she came back to my side and slid a fresh round in her Mauser, flicking the bolt closed.

“Okay. We go. You stay with me. Sniper guard.” Rayna tapped my shotgun with the butt of her rifle as she finished, and I took her meaning.

We moved, and Tolya opened the gate. She slid it open a crack, just enough for us to slip through. The entire Hobb squad aside from Tolya slid out in single file. They covered the charred corpses and wrecked vehicles out front, but nothing moved aside from some guttering flames.

I followed with Rayna at the rear, and as we marched through the desert, she began stationing her people.

We didn’t move by using the road, like I always did. We cut right through the desert and went over the campground fence. The little six foot wrought iron barricade was nothing but a minor obstacle, as those who remained in our group vaulted it with little effort.

I was starting to like these Hobbs.

Rayna had stationed the shield Hobbs back near the mansion, with a rifleman each. The two groups huddled down behind cover that mostly concealed them as we left. They were meant to secure our route back, and Tolya was door guard.

The rest of us went to ambush some alien mercenaries and save our snake priest.

Rayna took control over us the instant we left the gates. I recognized and molded into her authority automatically before I even recognized that I had.

She was good. An excellent commander.

So when she suddenly called for a stop and went flat to the ground, so too did we all. There was a patch of cacti and shrubbery between our group and the privacy barrier of my site. We approached on our bellies and took cover behind the wall of scrub, all within earshot of Rayna.

She shifted and turned back to face us as the enemy patrol vehicle slowly rolled by. It shot a beam of light out at the cactus patch, but quickly shut it off when a blast from Phyllis’ fusion cannon sent the vehicle scrambling.

“We go now. RPG vehicle, shoot for heads. No prisoners.”

There her soldiers started belly-crawling around the patch of scrub and Rayna turned to look at me.

“You secure VIP. Not wait, when you have her, you go back to base.”

I nodded my understanding and she started crawling after her people.

I grimaced and pulled my phone out of my pocket. The face appeared and glared at me. Then I whispered Phyllis’ name and thought of her face. The head leaned sideways and became a tunnel. Phyllis appeared in front of me. The view was inside her mech, and she was staring at something in her view screen.

“Hey Tyson, you come to save the day yet, dearie?”

Phyllis snarled and reached for something, and a fireball shot overhead into the night. Then she looked at me, and I could see her face contort. She was trying not to laugh. “What is that new hat?” She half snickered out.

“Go ahead Phyllis. It’s me, I’m wearing something stupid, you can laugh all you like.”

I laid in the dirt behind a patch of cactus and waited as she cackled. When she took a breath I jumped in. “I’m coming over the wall, you need to stop shooting for a minute.”

Phyllis coughed at her next laugh, and then stopped and looked at me. “You? Oh, he came Molls, he’s here. I owe you five bucks.”

“Thanks Phil! You gonna let me over?” I was struggling to keep my voice low, and I was getting worried about how much light the psychic phone was producing.

Phyllis put on a serious expression and nodded at me, lips pursed. “Yes, Tyson, you are clear to approach. You and your helmet.”

I ignored her and shut the phone off, looking around hurriedly. My little section of the desert was still, and I was alone. That made me more nervous for some reason, and I scooted hurriedly to the sloping privacy wall around my site.

It was weird, I never saw it from this angle, and it made me feel kind of lost, even though I was so close to where I had called home for the past few years.

Once I made it to the wall, I looked around quickly to make sure nobody was coming, and then I scrambled up to the lip. A roaring fireball flew at me when my head peeked over the ridge and I tumbled gracelessly back to the bottom as Phyllis belly laughed.

Another, shorter climb this time and I was staring at Phyllis from inside the privacy wall. The mech was bent over and she was still laughing, trying to catch her breath, one giant metal hand pointed at me.

I hurriedly moved over to them but held my position as an explosion lit up the sky just on the other side of the wall. Gunfire started immediately after, and Rayna shouted orders between the cacophony.

Molls uncoiled herself from inside the Lincoln but kept her body very low. My blood boiled at the expression of fear on her face, but I just approached and crouched down beside her. She was clinging to the car, her scales vibrant yellow.

“Hey Molls.” I said. I reached out gently for one of her hands, and when she met my eyes through the slits in my helmet, I smiled at her. “It’s going to be okay.”

She had been crying, her eyes were puffy and red rimmed. But when I told her it would be okay, the color in her scales softened a bit. I just rested my hand on top of hers, and she took a deep breath. Phyllis suddenly moved, her mech’s legs whirring and thudding against the ground.

A vehicle fled the combat behind them, its back end in flames as it crested the privacy ridge. Phyllis took a wild shot at it, but the driver saw her and dodged, and the wire frame buggy threw up sand as it slid around the ball of fire.

Phyllis lunged for the vehicle, her mech’s legs churned the desert sand as it moved. She and the buggy crashed into each other, and the mech went down in a burst of sand and scream of metal.

The buggy’s tires whirred, and its engine screamed as it teetered on top of the war mech’s chest. My focus was on staying between Molls and what was happening, and I moved to the front of the car.

I turned to see Phyllis heave, and the buggy crashed onto its side. She came up over the side of it and her giggles mixed with terrified screaming as one of her metal hands ripped into the vehicle. Her legs heaved and the buggy bounced.

The passenger fell free and rolled away in a tumble. They rose in an aggressive run, directly toward Molls. As Phyllis physically tore apart the buggy and its driver, I raised my shotgun and fired at where the dark streak of movement was about to be.

Whatever it was went down with a squeal, thrashed heavily in the sand for a few seconds, and then stilled as Molls stared at it with wide open eyes. The headlights of the buggy washed over the scene in the sand, and I saw the body.

It was Retha, the Nah’gh woman from before, who had threatened us. She was gripping a knife and pistol in her hands, and her face was frozen in her final expression.

Molls turned her head away and tucked it into the side of the car with a sob.

An Orc mercenary from the other side of the ridge roared toward Molls and I, rifle gripped in his hands. I rose with the shotgun pressed to my side and put the car between myself and Molls before I squeezed the trigger.

The triple-aught buckshot slammed into the Orc’s chest plate and he squealed in pain as jet black blood dribbled from his midsection.

At least one of the balls had gotten under his armor, and I grit my teeth as I racked the slide on my Mossberg.

He raised his rifle and I shot him. This time I aimed for his head, and we were significantly closer to one another. The buckshot splashed into his face and he dropped to the sand.

Rayna chased him over the hill, with the rest of the BlueCleave mercenaries at her back. She looked down and grabbed the rifle from the dead Orc. Then on her way past me, she grunted and shoved my shoulder.

“Good work, boss.”

The rest of the Hobb squad marched past, some carrying recently looted items. The final trio over the hill was slower. One of the Hobbs was being carried by two others and had a big smear of dark gray blood across his midsection. They each had an arm slung across their shoulders and were helping the partially conscious tribe member.

Rayna pointed at a patch of ground near the Lincoln, and they set the injured Hobb down. He grunted and grit his teeth, but otherwise remained still.

Rayna pulled her medical box and got to work as the rest of the Hobbs worked on stripping the two dead mercenaries of their armor and weaponry.

One of them checked in with Rayna, and at a quick word from her, a group of them returned across the hill to do the same on the other side.

I looked at the two aliens I had shot and felt a little sick, remembering them from earlier in the day. The Orc and Nah’gh in armor on the sand had been with the priest when he threatened our plot of land.

It upset me that they were dead, but it didn’t upset me that I had done that to them.

It was an odd feeling, and I didn’t get a lot of time to process it before Rayna and her troupe of Hobbs were back and urging us to move.