Makinzy (Mac) Ignacio
13:46 CST
November 3, 2030
Walmart Distribution Center
Kansas City, MO.
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I glared at the faulty refrigeration unit attached to Cain’s truck, muttering curses that would’ve made a sailor proud. The damn thing was as temperamental as a cat in a bathtub. It would run perfectly for thirty minutes, then decide to shut down without warning, leaving me to figure out why. First, it was a fuel leak—air sneaking into the lines and choking the engine to a halt. Fixed that, only to find the next culprit: an electrical glitch in one of the injectors. After another hour of tinkering, I thought I’d conquered it—until I discovered the compressor was nearly bone-dry on refrigerant. Of course, I didn’t have the right kind.
So, I called Stoneclaw, who was kind enough to fly me over to the nearest Thermo King dealer. Watching the employees gawk when a dragon touched down outside their facility was probably the best laugh I’d had all day. But the real show started when I climbed off Stoneclaw’s back, calmly strolled in, and asked for a canister of refrigerant. For a minute and a half, they just blinked at me, looking between me and my enormous, winged ride. Finally, Stoneclaw let out a jaw-cracking yawn, showing off teeth that would make a great white jealous. That got them moving.
I paid with my SkyTeam credit card, but they wouldn’t take a dime, practically shoving me out the door with my canister of refrigerant in hand. Back at the truck, I managed to get the refrigeration unit humming—cool air blowing at last. Now it just needed to stay that way.
Heading back to the FRS, I spotted Lyra pacing in front of Battle Wagon, her expression as stormy as the clouds rolling in. She’d been on edge the whole time we waited for Walmart to load the trailers. Since we weren’t one of their regular trucks, they were taking their sweet time. But Lyra, never one to sit idle, pulled a few strings and got the President on the horn with Walmart’s CEO. Shit rolls downhill, as they say, and soon enough, they had us on the priority list. Not that it did much for our delay. We were still behind schedule, and it showed.
“Babe, you holding up?” I asked, approaching cautiously.
“No,” she growled, practically pacing holes into the pavement. “We’re behind, and these damn trailers are a disaster waiting to happen.”
“At least the cab on your truck is patched up,” I pointed out, hoping to lift her spirits.
“Yeah, there’s that,” she conceded, but her eyes were still glinting with frustration. “Doesn’t change the fact we’re stuck with these heaps of junk.”
As she muttered under her breath, an employee from the Walmart distribution center trudged toward us, his face twisted with irritation. Judging by his expression, he thought his attitude would help the situation—it wouldn’t. Not with Lyra this close to snapping.
“Ms. Acosta, your trailers are loaded, but before I release you and… well, this convoy of trucks, I need you to sign for everything.” The Walmart employee’s voice was as flat as the paperwork he held out.
Lyra grabbed the clipboard and scanned through the pages, signing briskly before shoving it back into his hands. He handed over copies of the documents, barely muttering a “thank you” before turning and walking away.
“Finally!” she huffed, relief evident in her voice.
“Cain’s trailer is still being a pain in the ass,” I said with a smirk, “but I don’t think the sweet potatoes will mind too much.”
“Well, it’s one less thing to worry about,” she muttered, then raised her arm, motioning for the fleet to prep for the road.
As I headed back to the FRS, I noticed a familiar figure half-leaning, half-digging into my tool cabinets. My eyes narrowed, and I let out a low, feral growl.
“Ironfist! If you don’t get your thick-scaled hide out of my gods-damned Forward Repair System and leave my Milwaukee tools alone, I’ll have Azura skin you alive!”
The dragon’s head shot up in panic, and he smacked it squarely on the overhead cabinet with a pained grunt. As he stumbled out, clutching his head, Azura’s truck came rumbling around the corner. Spotting him, she brought her rig to a halt, popped the brakes, and climbed out with a look that could incinerate steel.
Without a word, she stormed over, grabbed Ironfist by his ear, and began dragging him back toward her truck. “How many times do I have to tell you, Big Red? Leave the FRS alone! I told you—we’ll get more red power tools once we set up the garage!” she shouted, not loosening her grip.
Weeks of mysteriously vanishing tools made sense after Azura had discovered every last one under her bunk, “borrowed” by Ironfist. As she wrestled him back to the passenger seat of her rig, I couldn’t help but laugh. Ironfist sat there sulking, rubbing his bruised head, while Azura laid down the law. She’d turned into a formidable force lately; even Cain and Abel, her older brothers, were careful about crossing her now, especially with her bond to Ironfist growing.
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Turning back to my FRS, I packed my tools back into their rightful places, locking down the toolbox with a final snap. I circled the rig for a last-minute check, securing the over-dimensional flags on the bulldozer blade and double-checking the oversized load and convoy banners. The blade on Battle Wagon was nine and a half feet wide, which meant DOT regulations forced us to slap on flags and beacons. Just one more bureaucratic pain that drove Lyra up the wall. After all, we were supposed to be a military unit, not a DOT-certified parade.
But for this trip, our friendly neighborhood DOT officer, who we’d befriended on past runs, encouraged us to play by the book since we were technically doing “interstate commerce” on behalf of the President. He’d even gone so far as to secure every permit we’d need to haul ourselves to Knoxville, given our drastically over-legal weight. Climbing into the passenger seat of Battle Wagon, I slid my headset on and waited as Lyra got settled in the driver’s seat, her expression somewhere between steely determination and pure frustration. Her tablet lit up green, and with a hiss, she released the brakes.
Once we were on the road, I tuned into the radio chatter to get a sense of how the fleet was holding up. Surprisingly, the line was silent. It had been a rough twenty-four hours. We’d all been counting on a two-week breather after Salt Lake City, only to have it yanked out from under us. No one seemed in the mood for much chatter. So, I decided a little morale boost was in order and cleared my throat with a bit of exaggerated flair.
“Alright, Dragon Fleet,” I began, pouring on the mock excitement, “how’s everyone enjoying our majestic fleet of box trailers so far?”
A brief, loaded silence followed, then Sasha’s voice crackled over the radio, bone-dry. “Oh, you mean these cardboard castles on wheels? Yeah, Mac, just living the dream.”
I grinned. “Exactly! Now, I thought I’d check in—get everyone’s thoughts. Do we all feel suitably… royal hauling these ‘stately beauties’? Because if nothing says class, it’s a fleet of what looks like discounted refrigerator boxes on wheels, am I right?”
A few chuckles rippled through the line. Mission accomplished—I’d caught their interest.
“I, for one,” Tyler chimed in, “am absolutely thrilled to work with trailers that barely track straight. Really adds that little spice of danger.”
“Oh yeah, Tyler,” Charlotte’s voice cut in, dripping with irony, “we’ll just call it ‘combat ready’ when they start swerving. Keeps things exciting.”
“Indeed, Fleet,” I continued in a mock-serious tone, “let’s not overlook the distinct aromas each trailer brings. A whole olfactory experience unique to each! Vintage produce, anyone? Some of you would pay extra for that kind of ambience.”
This earned a round of laughter.
“And let’s give it up for the built-in air conditioning,” Kira added, oozing sarcasm. “Really gives that ‘fresh-from-the-freezer’ touch for November nights. So considerate.”
“Alright, alright,” I laughed, “so maybe we got the short end of the stick here. But by the time we reach Knoxville, folks, these clunky heaps will be the stuff of legends.”
A round of half-sarcastic cheers and whoops echoed back over the radio. Despite it all, I could feel the tension lift a little. Sometimes, all you needed was a bit of laughter to remember that, no matter how absurd things got, we were in this mess together. If we had to haul a fleet of glorified iceboxes, we’d damn well make it memorable.
Looking over at Lyra, I saw her finally crack a grin. About time.
“Better?” I asked with a smirk.
“Yes… thank you,” she answered, shifting to relax.
We rode in silence for a while, listening to the chatter over the radio. The fleet was lively again, the laughter back. Even the dragons were weighing in with creative ideas on what to do with these wretched trailers. Some of their suggestions took Lyra’s earlier threat to torch the trailers on Crescent Moon’s landing pad and turned it up a notch. I was almost looking forward to the spectacle they’d come up with in Knoxville. It’d be the last time anyone dared give us sub-par equipment, that was certain.
Approaching Saint Louis, I noticed a weigh station sign on the highway, blessedly marked "closed." Lyra sighed in relief, easing up as we got closer. But then, just as we were nearly past it, the damn sign blinked from red "closed" to green "open." I blinked, disbelief mingling with dread.
“Did that weigh station just go from closed to open?” I shouted.
“It sure the hell did!” Jake confirmed, his voice laced with irritation.
“Fuuuuck…” Lyra growled, her grip tightening on the wheel.
“Lyra, the weigh station is directly signaling us to enter, even with our permits,” Steve groaned.
“Are you kidding me?!” Lyra yelled, her tone echoing everyone’s frustration.
“Unfortunately not,” Major Pixiewolf confirmed, sounding as resigned as the rest of us.
A chorus of groans echoed over the radio as Lyra steered us toward the weigh station. The bypass lane was teasingly close, but the scale’s green arrow pointed us squarely to the main scale. This was about to turn into a long, drawn-out mess.
Lyra guided the rig onto the scale, and I watched the numbers climb. It settled at one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. She let out a low whistle at the reading. Even my estimate had been off—by a good ten thousand pounds. A crackle sounded over the loudspeaker, followed by a voice dripping with authority.
“Driver, please pull around and park your truck. An officer will be with you shortly.”
The look on Lyra’s face said it all—utter horror mixed with exhaustion. She shifted gears, steering us to a far spot and parking as the other trucks lined up behind us. What on earth was the DOT thinking?
“Fleet, stay in your trucks unless an officer tells you otherwise. Dragons… don’t eat anyone. Steve, get our documents ready; these guys don’t look like they’re here to play nice,” Lyra announced over the radio.
“On it,” Steve replied as a DOT officer approached Lyra’s window. She rolled it down, giving him a neutral greeting.
“Ma’am, you’re aware the legal weight limit for commercial vehicles is eighty thousand pounds, correct?” he said, eyeing her sternly.
Lyra arched an eyebrow and pointed to our unit insignia on the door, hoping he’d get the hint. The officer glanced at the placard, his face stony.
“Alright, interesting company name for a trucking outfit,” he said dismissively, “but that doesn’t mean it gives you the right to break the law by hauling this much weight.”
Dragging my hand down my face, I stifled a groan. This guy had no idea what he was dealing with.