“Form up, circle around, and get all the haulers uncovered,” Hartwell commanded.

The junkers had tried to keep moving, in the hopes that the mecha was just wandering the wastes and would leave them alone, but the distant titan was clearly following them. Their massive haulers stood no chance of outrunning or evading the mecha, so Hartwell had ordered the caravan to halt and prepare for negotiations. Most of the junkers were scrambling to follow his orders, but Giza, as usual, had her own ideas.

“Rush! Get the suit on.”

Rush grabbed one of the gauntlets and shoved his hand into it before Hartwell intercepted him.

“Stop that! We just went over this,” Hartwell snapped. “We don’t start fights, Rush.”

“Come on, dad, what do you think is happening here?”

“We don’t have anything to steal,” Hartwell said. “Once the mecha sees that, it’ll have no reason to bother us.”

“Oh yeah, because bandits just love to pat people on the head and send them on their merry way,” Giza said.

For reasons unknown to anyone, all the mecha on Scrapworld had been neurally linked to the lowest of the low -murderers, sadists, and psychopaths. Though all those pilots were long dead, the mechs still responded to those with similar neural profiles, making them usable only by sociopaths of a similar stripe. A small handful were capable of basic rationality, but most were simply deranged killers and thieves.

“They have no reason to hurt us now,” Hartwell said. “If Rush attacks, it’ll give them a reason.”

“So put the suit on and wait, damn it,” Jack snapped, as he shoved himself between the two halves of the feuding family. “If that thing does start blasting I don’t want to wait for Rush to put his pants on.”

“That’s...fine,” Hartwell said. “Suit up, but don’t make a move until I say so.”

“Or something explodes,” Giza added.

“Or something explodes,” Hartwell agreed, reluctantly. “You know what to do. Just stay out of sight until then.”

Rush nodded and crawled into his bunk on the sleeper-hauler. By crawling to the back of the small tube, he stayed mostly out of sight, and started to suit up. It was an inelegant process, and the tube echoed with clanging noises as he tried to strap on the disparate metal pieces in the small space.

“You get out of sight too,” Hartwell said to Giza. “I’ll handle negotiating.”

“Can’t you make Liam do it?”

Any trace of the argument they’d been having a second ago vanished from Giza’s voice, and genuine familial concern rose to replace it.

“We’ve done this song and dance before, Giza,” Hartwell said. “I’ll be fine. Stay with Jack and Eiffel. And Rush.”

Though she remained concerned, Giza was at least glad her father had included Rush as part of the group. Hartwell was starting to think of him as a member of the clan, not just a hanger-on. That was progress. Giza gave Hartwell a hug and then took his advice, retreating to the far side of the clan with the other youths. Hartwell sighed deeply and started to pace away from the rest of the clan, standing his ground about a mile out, putting himself between the junkers and the mecha.

As the approaching titan closed the gap, the design became clearer. It was smaller than the two rusted hulks Rush had already taken down, but that was not necessarily a good sign. It was in better condition, and despite its small size it was sleek, and moved quickly. Hartwell assumed it had been some kind of scouting unit, designed for speed rather than firepower. The maneuverability might make it a more dangerous opponent for the Scrapper suit.

Hartwell bit his tongue and stopped that line of thinking. He couldn’t allow himself to think in terms of combat and opponents. That was Giza’s teenage folly. He needed to keep a clear, level head, and solve problems rationally.

The scout unit came to a halt with two final earthshaking footsteps, and it stared down at Hartwell from above. At this angle, the mecha literally blocked out the sun, and Hartwell had to stare up at it’s shadowed silhouette.

“You don’t play hard to get,” the mecha thundered. “I like that.”

“Not much point to it,” Hartwell said. He raised his voice enough that the mecha’s sensors could pick it up, but not so much he seemed to be shouting. Coming across aggressive would not end well.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Pragmatic. Let’s talk, then.”

The mecha stooped down, lowering its head towards Hartwell to get a better look at him. Hartwell got a good view of the giant green cockpit window of the mecha’s angular head, but the thick glass prevented him from seeing anything inside.

“We’ve got nothing for you to take, stranger,” Hartwell said. “You can check our haulers yourself. I’ll even turn out my pockets, if you like.”

“Oh, I know,” the mecha boomed. Even through the speakers, there was a sinister hiss to the pilot’s voice. “But you know where to get more.”

“In a general sense, yes, but-”

“Don’t lie to me!”

A colossal fist crashed down, and the earth shook. Hartwell heard screams of panic coming from the junkers behind him. He turned and looked back at his clan, and signaled for them to calm down. He didn’t know if Rush had been about to spring into action or not, but the Scrapper suit ended up remaining hidden. The single emphatic pound had been the beginning and the end of the violence.

“I’m not some petty thug,” the mecha pilot taunted. “I keep an eye on things -like when a crew of lowlife junkers suddenly rolls through with a mountain of valuable scrap, and two Kell Cells to boot.”

The titan raised its fist, and Hartwell tensed, but the mech returned to a passive standing position.

“You’ve hit a motherlode,” the pilot said. “You’re going to lead me to it, and we’ll talk about splitting the take.”

Hartwell bit his tongue. Under different circumstances, that might have been manageable. They’d paid “taxes” to bandits before, trading scrap for safety. But there was no “motherlode”. All that valuable scrap had been taken from dead mecha. Admitting that would almost surely get them attacked -but the bandit was equally as likely to kill them when he found out there was no motherlode. Hartwell took a deep breath, and let it out as a long sigh.

“We did find something valuable,” Hartwell said, sticking to half-truths for now. “But it’s already been stripped of all the best scrap. We can revisit it, but it might not be worth your time.”

Hartwell always had to walk a fine line between telling the bandits what they wanted to hear, and saying what he needed to say to keep his people safe. He could not directly refute any of the bandit’s assumptions, but he could try to steer them in the right direction.

“I’ll be the judge of what’s worth my time,” the bandit thundered. “You just lead me to it. And do the digging, of course.”

“If you’re sure-”

“I’m bloody sure, little man,” the mecha thundered. “Less talking more walking, I want my money!”

The mecha stood up straight and started stomping towards the junker caravan, sending them into a renewed panic. Hartwell made a dead sprint back to the caravan, but still could not keep ahead of the mecha. He was terrified that at any moment, a blur of silver and scrap metal would come running out and start a fight, but nothing of the sort happened. The mecha simply walked up, stomped its foot twice, and started shouting at the junkers.

“Come on, you little shits, get moving,” the mech screamed. The frightened junkers scrambled into action and got their haulers in line to start moving again. Hartwell finally caught up to the group and started giving them some sense of organization and direction, but he could not fully corral the panic as they sat in the shadow of a mecha. He settled for what sanity he could get and then made a run for the sleeper-hauler, where Giza, Jack, and Eiffel were still waiting, circled around a helmeted head poking out of one of the tubes.

“Rush.”

The helmeted head nodded slightly, but stayed focused on the towering mecha.

“Thank you for not doing anything reckless.”

“Despite someone’s best efforts,” Eiffel said, with a laser-targeted glare at Giza.

“He was coming right at us,” Giza said. “And now he, what, thinks we’re his slaves?”

It would not be the first time a mech bandit had tried to enslave a group of junkers, though most such arrangements didn’t end well for either party. The mech pilots didn’t want to oversee the laborious task of ensuring everyone was fed, clothed, and otherwise taken care of. Every attempted slaver band ended up either dead or abandoned, though there was always another evil idiot ready to try again.

“I don’t know what he has planned long-term,” Hartwell admitted. “For now, he just thinks we have some kind of treasure trove. He wants us to lead him right to it.”

“And when he finds out there is no treasure?”

Hartwell glared at the helmeted head of Rush. Giza tried not to look smug.

Though he heard every word of their conversation, Rush did not involve himself. He was preoccupied examining the mecha, observing every way it moved, every inch of its structure, every potential strength and weakness it had. Elvis was similarly occupied, though to a much more technical extent.

“That is a Hermes-class scouting and reconnaissance unit,” Elvis said. “While faster than most Kellarin Tech mecha at sixty-five kilometers per hour, the unit is much more lightly armed, with only two shoulder-mounted precision barrage plasma cannons, and a physical strike power of only fifty kilonewtons.”

“How many kilonewtons can the suit withstand?”

“Without a kinetic negation unit? Slightly less than one.”

“Right. How does it compare to the last two mechs we’ve faced, as far as climbing difficulty?”

“This unit is generally faster and more maneuverable than the two we have already faced,” Elvis said. “It will be more capable of knocking us loose—or crushing us entirely—as we climb.”

“And how do we get inside?”

“Unlike heavier models, the Hermes features a dual-access hatch, due to its lighter, thinner armor,” Elvis said. “There will be one external access point, and then a second hatch in the interior.”

“We should have two shots on the concussive cannon now, with that battery we picked up,” Rush said. “We’ll be fine. Assuming I don’t mess anything up.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine, Mr. Rush.”

“We’ll see. I think I have an idea.”

“Excellent,” Elvis said. “There is no better weapon than a sound strategy. What’s our first move, Mr. Rush?”

“I’m going to go to sleep,” Rush said. He removed the helmet and set it aside, then stripped off the rest of the armor, laid down, and went to sleep. Elvis waited patiently for step two of the plan. Apparently it involved snoring.