The giant crawler tank erupted with an enormous blast a that sounded like a car sized shotgun had went off. The furnace in the engine room separating the passenger hold from the cockpit ignited the central core furnace, like a giant pilot light. The engine began to roar as the yellow head lights painted a path below them as a series of fog lights with same color running along the body flickered to life like a deep-sea bioluminescence eel. “All systems good!” Chashe said over the intercom though his muffled voice was unrecognizable, his attitude and tone was a clear indicator, that even a professional impersonator would have trouble getting to sound as authentically genuine. Geoffrey watched insulated in his suit as the cold dark cabin tube of the bus became illuminated by lights running along the floor and ceiling of the aisle way. He toward the back a few seats away from the rear hatch, he took turns analyzing the other passengers, casually dispersed along the rows of jumps of jump seats facing toward each other along the interior. A few sat clustered together in a group of 3, the grizzled mercenary type locked into some ongoing argument, they probably would never truly come to a unanimous agreement on. A few of the red suited maintenance crew sat in a square of four people, two each on opposite sides facing each other that seemed like they were having a more mellow discussion of their daily events. Koff sat by himself seeming unconcerned by anyone just enjoying another cigarette and the avoidance of annoyances. A few other stragglers filled up a few lone seats, most of which were burly individuals who had been loading some of the crates aboard the tank. all of them combined only filling a total of 12 of the 40 seats in the passenger cabin. A few shot glances of investigation toward Geoffrey isolated near the rear, some of mistrust and others of curiosity, and even one with smile as Geoffrey’s helmet aligned with a blonde haired woman who noticed his attention shift toward her even from the subtle movement within his suit. She was one of the engineers, and the only woman aboard who was immediately recognizable as one. She stared for a lingering amount of time, way longer than the others, her dark, near back eyes rolling up and down as she analyzed the suit, and imagined who could be inside it, before looking back at his visor with inviting intrigue, before turning hr attention back toward her fellowship of red suited engineers. “What was this?” He wondered a spark surged through him that he had not felt in forever, so long it seemed alien, like it was missing before, and he had forgotten. “Lust? Happiness? No. Well maybe a little of both. Maybe it was ‘excitement’ but of a different kind.” Excitement, for connection, passion, to be understood. Things he had lightly experienced, but never truly dived deep enough into especially as young man, with desire and ambition. It was hi soul had suddenly been ignited for the first time in years since he left Texas, like a fog had lifted within him, he could see how polluted his mind was by his duties, his aspirations, his anger, and prolonged survival. He had forgotten love, or what love could feel like, in all of his Machiavellian machinations.

The rolling fortress had come to life with an engine hum that sounded like muffled thunder. Everyone shook losing balance nearly being dislodged from their seats as the tank abruptly accelerated moving so surprisingly fast almost as if the treads were replaced with an ancient aggressive serpent slithering into an attack. The vehicle slid down the exit ramp towards their company’s designated garage door for departure. The Steep slope of the exit ramp once again nearly threw people from their seats, this time technicality successful as one the red suited engineers nearly slid down and slammed into the back vault door, were it not for his frantically tight grip on an adjustment bar below the seat that he was now dangling from, like some victim of a maverick roller-coaster gone awry. The mammoth vesicle spilled out of the garage, leaving the building which was at the boundary dividing the city and the great metal expanse forsaken by ordinary citizens, without an authorized transit permit. ‘The Hatch Bridge’ was the Chassis town’s hangar door flipped open crushing any terrain below it making it a and exterior launch pad platform fro extrinsic operations. But, like today, when the bridge was deployed, when the ship was grounded or in port it was anything but empty. This was an open-season for everyone onboard to make some big bucks, by legitimate or nefarious means. ‘Grounding’ always drew bigger crowd to the hatch bridge, even from people through other sectors of the ship. The whole place was swarming with traffic, like an insane militarized version of a music festival, with many camps, vendors traders, weaponry outposts, landing pads, vehicles with more vehicles inside them, personalize parking lots, all separated in half by two massive highways for incoming and outgoing ground vehicles. Anyone who could acquire a transit pass was there, if not for business, than just for the spectacle, or perhaps belligerence tailgate parties. It was and infrequent semi-seasonal festival for barbarian warmonger brotherhood that actually upheld the ferocious reputation of what was conventionally expected of pirates. Everyone onboard the passenger asylum watched through their crude horizontal window slit as their tank rolled down the highway past the swarms of machines and the legions of people. The cool green light poured in from the bog beyond, dousing the masses in what looked like a green sunset on an electrified ceremony. Their medium massive tank took up 3 of the 9 highway lanes, that generously accommodated hulking war entities, as it ferried it way to the outer hatch bridge. The bridge had now become sloped downward with the rest of the Mordant Despair as the forest ridge that it had jousted into originally, had began seeping rivers of sludge over it’s cliff face like mud waterfall. The rainfall and incredible weight of the ship had begun dissolving the foundation below it into a whirlpool of mud, that could be seen gargling, swallowing anything unlucky enough to have fallen in the mouth of the syrup gorge. One person had in fact fallen in already and fought against the current to stay above the thick gullet of acidic mud, for about 10 minutes until their misery was ended. The crawler rolled past several garrisons of infantry troops, either preparing to deploy into the wilderness or returning from an expedition, marched about the slippery cold bridge. Most moved in squads, some casually bantered, other stoic glaring all business types. Occasionally a saddled flight bike would zoom though the sky above the bridge, or hover above a party as an escort, ‘bike’ being a very loose term of anything cobbled together capable of flight, usually just barely able to fit a human aboard upright or seated with some kind of gun attached. The Tank trekked forward forcing itself through the rain, firing off a loud bang with a plume of black smoke, instead of it’s usual stream, erupting from an exhaust chimney, like a black wind snake gorging on a lump of prey. Their machine rolled forward dwarfing all the other small crews lingering on the bridge, it being the only other transport vehicle that could house more than 6 people. They were, surprisingly, the most intimidating presence aboard the bridge, when loud rumbles could be heard in the distance as if the ground was being intentionally battered by a frenzied titan., followed by a tremor that made a metallic ding as it shot through the bridge. Still currently invisible approaching the bridge from over the bend in a hill above them was ‘the maw destruction: The Trample Forge’ The Mordant Despair’s deploy able military combat colony, a centipede of tank into one thick bullet of a shell. Its seismic activity caused by the bulldozing of collapsing Black Atlas trees being thrown to the ground and devoured by the spiraling blades of teeth below that propelled it forward, that could be converted into traditional wheels when more necessary. The tremors grew louder and closer with more successive intervals. “Is that... The Trample Forge?!” Geoffrey wondered but already assumed correctly what the sound was coming from, with the leviathan machine having some notorious notoriety, even among top deck crew members. Before he could continue his thoughts just as they were about halfway across the bridge to the tread smothered crossroads at the end by the cliff-side. The entire ridge exploded into a volley of mud pelting the entire bridge with rock ridden globs of mud that immediately began dissolving across the flat metal surface like some filthy inversion of a bath bomb. The colony crawler plowed through the crater it had turned the mountain at the end of the bridge into. It thoughtlessly liquidated two people below as it slammed into the metal of the bridge, and sending 3 more people flying across the slick surface like hockey pucks, one of which became an additional casualty to the torrent of refuse. The giant machine proceeded to charge forward across the bridge, all of the troops int it’s path frantically scattered away across the slippery surface, some falling and sliding out of it’s path. One per person fell and slid backwards and didn’t quite manage to make it out of it’s path of travel, but did manage to flip the bird toward the enormous eyeless train before they became painted across the bridge. Geoffrey moved across to the seats closer to the center of the bridge where he could more clearly see the monstrous machine headed toward them taking up half of the bridge.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“A fine welcome from the bottom lifers I guess. In my part of the ship people usually just try to kill your credibility.” Geoffrey said aloud now a few seats away from a hardened mercenary type of character, who did not turn his head to even look at what was happening behind him, like the engineers who had all flocked to one side.

“Yeah, at first, it’s a spectacle something exciting, that rush you get watching a coliseum duel. But it wares off on you, you just get numb to it, haunted by it, then you just try to stray away from it, keep your mind off of it, ‘meditation is medication, medication is mediation.’ Call it my family mantra growing up in Chassis Town, but it always stuck with me. With any luck maybe our death will be that quick. Worse ways to go.” Said the man to Geoffrey in his gargoyle statue pose who looked like he had given up on bathing altogether, refusing to give in to what he considered Sick Entertainment.

“Well, that’s a pretty damn bleak prognosis, can’t say I share that sentiment, even if it’s loaded with some truth. I don’t think I could live like that. I have to look, every time. It reminds me I’m still here, pressing the gas pedal, willing to fight for something, make a difference, until I can’t anymore.” Geoffrey Countered.

“Not a bad way to look at the world either I guess, just don’t let it get you killed, ground up into a stew. I used to have some kind of naive fire in me like that, it was nice while it lasted. Guess time did a number on me maybe, seen too many people I know just not come back one day for no reason, so forgive for just giving in the nihilism, the practicality. But if there’s one thing that hasn’t failed me it’s my survival instinct, and right now, for some reason I haven’t figured out, it’s telling me we’re all fucked. Maybe it’s seeing someone like you, with a brand-new suit, with hope, that’s putting me on edge. But don’t let me spoil your view. I’m actually not all gloom and doom, like I said just practical, just survival. ‘I ain’t a saint, and the world ain’t fair’, and in these times the best thing you can ask for is consistency. It’s chaos down here, for some who see it that way, but predictable chaos to me. You’re either a spider or a fly, So in Stockholm syndrome kind of way, I do love this place, not wherever the fuck we are right now specifically, but Chassis Town, The Mordant Despair, don’t think I’d have time to get used to anything else. Name’s Joel by the way Joel Reese.” Said the man finally swiveling his to acknowledge something in his surroundings instead of staring off into the void, while clearly touting his age and experience.

“Geoffrey, Wilkes.” He said turning his helmet toward him nodding in his direction processing what the man said. “Can’t say were not just looking at two halves of the same coin, but I just hope I win the coin flip! I hope you’re wrong about that.” Said Geoffrey with a flair of cunning arrogance, and perhaps truth.

“Me too! Ha.” the man managed to make half a smile, as much as he tried to resist. But Geoffrey caught a glimpse of it before it could flee his face. Hope, contagious courageous stupidity, but the kind that got things done. Were Geoffrey, less competent, less charismatic, without a suit to preserve his youthful identity from the man, he might not have been able to crack the safe to the man’s reinforced walls of doubt.

“But some people are the plants and some people are the fertilizer I guess.” Joel said solemnly. Geoffrey left it at that, he wasn’t trying to pull the man’s mind from the hole he was quit content with living in. The grand magnitude of the thing grew more intimidating as it drew closer to the Menace of Grief, the bridge shaking more, the surrounding infantry crews halted in place to maintain the balance on the slippery quaking steel. They had no faith that the bridge wouldn’t collapse and condemn them all to a muddy certain hell from the weight of the mountain vehicle, the thought had secretly swept through everyone’s minds at nearly the same time. The putrid crime of mortality flashed through them, that they might be sentenced for.

Geoffrey sat clamped awkwardly turned in his seat gripped by the view of the vehicle that seemed to be more of a force of nature than a machine, like a squall, a sandstorm, a wall of death, a burning plume of blood sand, the eruption cloak of some vengeful volcano. More than half! The thought flew into his mind as he realized the machine was taking up more than it’s share of its ‘half’ of the bridge, but that machine was now some cruel traffic enforcement officer with godly powers to dictate the flow of traffic by it’s movements with unconcerted whimsy. “Great.” he thought, the lingering feeling of impending doom never quite leaving him entirely. But he had almost started to embrace it now, grow numb to it, to the reaper taunting him with uncertainty, the veiled threat of lingering possibility. He wasn’t much of a smoker at this time, but right now he could have gone for one, savor his potential last moment. The wall of steel was almost certainly going to hit them, but death, at least not instant was still improbable, being thrown into the afterlife conversion goop below or tangled in a twisted heap of scrap more likely. But maybe that was just him. He considered. His paranoia or vigilance were two halves of the same coin, but his superpowers were wearying, especially in the untamed exterior world. But this was good in a way, something different, a change he now realized was somehow invigorating, calmness amidst calamities. He realized how sheltering himself from the real world, especially in the dull but luxurious, amenity ridden quarries of the bridge city. He had escaped the treachery of the world but not himself, he felt more himself here than he did there, a weird phenomenon he would try hard not to soon forget, a glimpse at himself from an outside perspective, like his own future ghost snapping at him to pay attention, as he caught the faint fading slice of a sunset between two colliding worlds. His dulled numbness rescinded as he snapped back to his senses, now more clear, sharp focused recharged. Like some sort of world champion body builder who had not taken a break in 6 years and achieved some beyond human stamina, a brief respite had made him better, more rest, more recovery, more strength. He now knew his greatest defense mechanism was also his weakest link; he didn’t have to run a marathon 12 hours a day anymore. He could rest, recharge, refocus. “It’s healthy for me.” he thought. His double-edged sword was now his secret weapon he could turn on and off.