Writing Prompt: "The trundling machine broke apart into a fiery conflagration surprising them all."

Jess and Marc spooned scraps of food into their mouths from their kits while the rad counter roared static from the dashboard.

“They kep’ sayin’ not to go through the swamps, eh Jess?” Marc grinned through his yellow teeth at his partner, who grunted around a mouthful of slop.

Marc peeked out the grimy windshield at the swamplands that lay ahead of them. Little glowing bits floated in the brackish water.

“This strontium swamp would kill a man dead in minutes.” Alan called from the rear of their truck. “Else melt his face and give him fifty tumors.”

Marc peeked up at the sky. “Oh ‘ey, you can see the Princess!” he crowed. Jess grunted. Alan came forward and peered out the windshield.

“Oh ey, you’re right.” Alan agreed. It was rare to see the moon; the skies were usually filled with filth and garbage that sometimes caught fire and burned for weeks.

“Let’s get this going.” Alan patted Jess on the shoulder and headed back to the rear, where a large bag let out muffled whimpers and tears.

Jess silently climbed into the driver’s seat and punched the engine into drive. The oversized truck lurched into the radioactive swamp, its eight meaty tires immediately sinking halfway into the murky depths and churning black mud in frothy waves.

Marc played with the radio, but was only able to pick up a weak and thready signal from Hive Al-Omeg, a hymn to the Lunar Princess, extolling how she’d once descended to the earth on wings of silvery fire and brought salvation to the damned and downtrodden. The music wavered and faded in and out, drowned out by the hoarse scream of the rad counter.

Driving through the swamps was a bad idea, though they’d armored up the war-wagon as best they could. Whoever’d made the thing had known what they were doing, the multipurpose vehicle could take a pounding that the trio could attest to in their mad race to escape Hive Al-Cestus with their cargo intact.

“Yep.” Marc agreed with himself, “She’s a beaut.”

Onward they drove through the night, the rad counter clicking so much it was a throaty roar.

Dawn arose on a sickly bruise of a sky, and the targets hadn’t yet cleared the swamp. Evelína hummed a hymn quietly in Jeanne’s ear as the Holy Knight patiently waited for her prey, Evelína’s skin blending into the ashy brickwork of some crumbled structure, its function lost to time.

Since the incident with Evelína’s near death, the symbiotic bond between the two had grown more intense, to the point where Jeanne couldn’t physically separate from Evelína. The addition of an additional Battlesuit Seed had connected the two of them so intimately that if she tried to exit the suit, the shock would likely kill her.

The other Holy Knights of the Silver Princess had nodded knowingly when they’d found out. Some could discard their biomechanical battlesuits when they died, others grew so attached to the pseudointelligence that inhabited each that they couldn’t bear to part with them.

“How’s the rad levels?” Jeanne asked, despite knowing without asking.

Evelína immediately stopped humming. “You could go for a stroll and never have a problem.” She replied back sweetly. “Though I wouldn't recommend breathing too deeply. The ash particle count would strangle you in minutes.”

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“Signs of our target?” Jeanne replied, not rising to Evelína’s bait.

There was no longer a need for the helmet viewscreen, Evelína’s sensors were routed directly to Jeanne’s brain. The armored truck with their capture target was still grumbling as it plowed its way through the swamp.

“I think they’ll try to enter Al-Omeg.” Evelína murmured, an expected course of the vehicle appearing behind Jeanne’s eyes.

“I’m not giving up this position quite yet.” Jeanne replied. A cursor appeared on the mental map. “We’ll blow one of their tires here. Give them a shock.”

Evelína immediately obliged Jeanne and a tendril separated from the battlesuit and formed itself into a long-barreled gun.

“If they’re smart, they’ll get out to check. That’ll be the critical moment.” Jeanne muttered.

“If they were smart, they wouldn’t have kidnapped the daughter of the Silvermein House.” Evelína countered. There was an audible tone in the battlesuit. “It’s now been twenty-six hours since you last ate something, Jeanne.”

“You ate plenty before we left.” Jeanne countered.

“You need to eat as well. I can’t keep feeding you, you know.” Evelína countered.

“Remind me again in two hours.” Jeanne muttered.

“In two hours we will be in combat.” Evelína prodded.

Jeanne sighed. “Fine. Deploy rations.” She complained and Evelína obliged, singing along with the radio.

The laconic Jess was sweating as he drove, occasionally mopping his brow. They’d cleared the swamp, the rad counter only clicking background rads.

Marc awoke to him muttering profanities in a very low whisper as he drove, his eyes fixed to the windshield in front of him.

“Oh ey, what’s got you in a pinch?” He asked, and kicked Alan, who rolled to a sitting position, a stubby gun in his grimy fist.

“Eh, uh?” Alan asked, blinking as he looked around the truck.

“Sommin’s got Jess in a pinch.” Marc reported. Alan eyed the sweating Jess.

“Shit. He’s got the Sense, you know? Can sniff danger.” Alan warned. “Punch it, Jess.”

Jess shook his head. “No point. We’re made.”

Alan immediately glanced at the dash. “Rads?”

“Green.” Marc replied, confused. “What’s he mean ‘we’re made’?” He asked. “Whassat mean?”

Alan slid one of the windows open and peeked out.

All he could see was lumpy brown and gray hills, shattered buildings here and there.

“I don’t see nothin’, Jess.” Alan called to Jess, who was chanting a litany of profanity like a prayer.

The wagon suddenly lurched, juked and slewed to the side.

“Shit, we lose a tire?” Marc called, suddenly wishing he had a gun to hold like Alan.

“Keep going!” Alan roared, and Jess’ knuckles whitened on the steering column as he grimly punched the accelerator.

Twin streaks of silvery fire suddenly launched upwards from the ruins of some building ahead of them, and Jess twisted the wheel as something cannonaded into the side of their wagon hard enough to rock them on their suspension.

An armored fist, glassy black and luminous silver punched into the driver’s cabin and tore one of the doors off.

“Shit! Terminatrix!” Alan yelled, opening fire fruitlessly. The Terminatrixes of the Church of the Princess were legends of death itself. Immortal, invulnerable, and couldn’t be reasoned with.

Marc soiled himself as a long blade lunged out from the Terminatrix’ fist, punching through his gut and stapling him to the floor of the war-wagon’s interior. He gurgled as his mangled guts desperately tried to send signals to his brain.

Flames bloomed in the cabin as Jess jerked a pocket flamer from his belt and depressed the trigger. The flames caught on the greasy rags and towels in the cabin, igniting and cracking the fuel canisters.

The trundling machine broke apart into a fiery conflagration surprising them all.