The campsite they chose was a cave at the base of a cliff. It was a good location to wait out the night, as the forests of the badlands are home to creatures they are not equipped to take down. They had one truck that was parked outside of the cave while they all chose to rest inside.

“Hey, I’m starving over here. What happened to the food?” An enforcer said as he came back after he relieved himself on a nearby tree.

“Carsen and Jorin, the lazy bastards, were supposed to make dinner.” Another one replied.

Most of the enforcers lazed around in the cave as they surrounded the large fire they had made. There were twenty of them. Some played cards, slept, cleaned their weapons, or counted money.

“Well, where are they?” The enforcer sat down near the fire to warm himself.

“Must still be out there hunting. Rookies can’t do anything right.”

“How’s the package?”

“We put her in the back so we don’t have to look at her.”

“Anyone standing guard over her?”

“We've got Dolf and Keyon over there. Plus, we tied her up pretty well; she won’t be going anywhere.”

The two of them relaxed near the fire. At the front of the cave, one of the enforcers spotted something in the distance. On the alert, he grabbed his rifle and squinted his eyes, but when he saw two men carrying a body of a deer, he announced their arrival.

“Food’s here!”

The enforcers inside the cave cheered as the two men entered and brought in a freshly hunted deer. They immediately got to work preparing it, and soon the air in the cave was filled with the smell of roasted meat. Once it was ready, it was picked clean by the enforcers, with barely any meat left.

“Hey, you think we should have given the kid any food?” One of them said as he licked his fingers clean. One of them uttered a curse.

“Right, I need to check up on her.”

The enforcer took some bones with little meat left and headed to the back of the cave. It was darker, with barely any light or warmth, and the two guards that watched Elizabeth left her as they ate at the front. The child had her hands and feet bound in heavy ropes with a cloth gag over her mouth. The enforcer got out a piece of paper from his pocket and put it on the floor, then placed the bones on top of it.

“If you make any sort of noise or try anything, you know what comes next, right?” He drew out his gun and placed the barrel on the child’s cheeks. “You don’t want to be like your friends from before, right?”

Elizabeth had tears rolling down her cheeks, but she weakly nodded.

The enforcer removed her gag. “Eat up.”

He saw the star-shaped diamond pendant on the child’s neck. He wanted to take it for himself, but they were under strict orders that the child or anything she wore not be harmed or touched in any way. He headed back and left her alone in the dark. He returned to the front of the cave, where most of the enforcers had finished eating and lounging around.

“Make sure to throw out the bones well away from the cave. The last thing we want is some wild animals sniffing around.”

Two enforcers got up and started to collect the bones. Once they finished, they left the cave and dumped the bones near the trees a few meters away.

“Think we should bury the bones?” One of them asked as they walked back to the cave.

“Too much work.” The one beside him answered. “We’re leaving at dawn anyway.”

=0o0=

Luna has been tracking the tire tracks on the ground for an hour now. She wondered where they would be heading as the trail led deeper into the forest. The forest was dense, and she could feel even her off-road tires getting bogged down by the soft earth and the uneven terrain.

When she reached a stream, Luna stopped on the other side and checked her compass.

The tracks of the vehicle were heading northwest, and she could see what they were trying to do. The vehicle was headed to Yeten but chose to go through the forest rather than around it. Luna rummaged in her bag and found a map. She tried to match where she was and found that they were close to the base of a mountain. The map was outdated, but Luna was sure there was a ravine to where the group was headed; either the group was lost or trying to kill themselves.

Another half hour passed as she followed the tracks of the vehicle when she encountered footprints that seemed to be following the vehicle as well. Luna stopped her steambike to take a closer look. The new prints were large, reptilian, and pressed down heavily on the ground. The spacing of the prints made it clear it was an apex predator, either a basilisk, throngar or a voltagh.

She hesitated going further. But she knew Ketil wanted her to follow them for a reason. Luna revved her bike and, hopefully, by the time she caught up, the group was killed off or the predator was badly wounded for her to simply finish off.

=0o0=

As she got closer, a loud screeching roar dominated the area, which made her ears ring. When she got to the source; Luna could hear the sounds of men yelling and cursing, along with gunshots and explosions. She stopped her bike and opened the trunk.

“Servo wake up!”

The automaton in the back of her bike fizzed and hissed as it sprang into life. Automatons are the same height and build as humans. While most automatons wore heavy plating, hers was lightly plated, with the steam engine on its torso being the most protected. Her combat automaton was armed with a long baton in one hand and a large round shield in the other, which unfolded along with its body. Its head is where servo was perched, and by the time it finished unfolding, the little bot was protected inside a metal-plated skull.

“Servo shadow!”

She took out a large hand-held launcher and a satchel bag full of glass canisters filled with various brightly colored liquids from the trunk. Both of them ran towards the fight, and when they got close, Luna climbed a large rock in order to get a vantage point on what was happening.

Based on their uniforms, it was a group of enforcers. They were the same enforcers that were supposed to have been part of the convoy, and they fought a towering beast.

It was a Voltagh, a giant reptilian creature that was as tall as a fully grown pine tree. It was covered with thick scales that acted like plates, and its massive four legs were covered with enormous claws that crushed their truck and tore through the enforcers with ease. It had a large flat head that had six eyes and a massive mouth filled with hundreds of sharp teeth. When it opened its mouth, a long barbed tongue shot out like a bullet and snatched one of the enforcers. It wrapped around him and swallowed him whole.

The enforcers opened fire and used their fire grenades against it, but it seemed to do nothing against the creature. Luna took out her telescope and got a closer look. She could see that the voltagh was covered in pus-filled boils. Its skin underneath the scales, even in the faint light, seemed red and bled heavily, and its six eyes were so bizarre that Luna had to take a second look. It was bright yellow, like the sun, and the creature cried blood.

It let out its loud, screeching roar, which made Luna cover her ears. The enforcers below were disoriented, and the Voltagh slaughtered them without mercy. Some of the men ran towards a nearby cave while those that tried to fight were crushed, eaten, or split in half by the creature's claws. But the enforcers seemed to hold their own. The fire grenades they were using started to ignite the creature’s body and it reeled back in pain as it let out another ear splitting roar.

Below, Servo chimed and pointed to the cave. Luna shifted her focus and found that the enforcers who ran out and escaped towards the trees carried-

"Elizabeth…"

Luna immediately recognized the blonde-haired little girl being carried over the shoulder. She was bound heavily in ropes and had a gag on her mouth. Luna started to piece together what happened in the convoy.

Guess the kid was right about her being in danger.

The Voltagh let out another roar and began to attack again; however, the enforcers began to retreat towards the trees, with the creature pursuing them.

"Servo isolate and restrain the enforcers. Keep the child safe. I will deal with the Voltagh. "

On command, the bot’s chassis seemed to seal itself, as it hid the hissing noise of the steam engine. Then Servo, as quiet as a breeze, quickly gave chase and left Luna behind as she armed her launcher.