Point of Documentation: Cadence, Crew of HMW Betty

The desk that Cadence found herself at was a status terminal with multiple displays and meters. Things such as the ambient radiation, Void-interference, ambient heat, wind, humidity, and more were displayed on the left monitor. This tracked environmental disturbances and allowed them to know what kind of area they were walking into. This also allowed them a minor amount of weather tracking, but Cadence was an engineer, not a meteorologist. Maybe she should ask the space-boy if he can read the weather since he lived up there in the clouds?

The second display was on the right. This was an active tracking with visual aid outside of Betty. She could use the sensors from the left display’s readings to change the type of display that she can see from on the right as well. This allowed her to switch from the visible spectrum to something like heat tracking or a more rudimentary magnetic or radiation display and point it in a specific direction.

Her hand swiveled the active display from the right to the left, sweeping over the destroyed and ravaged landscape around them. Her view came to rest off to their left on a destroyed town in the distance. She checked the active map display in front of the Captain’s seat. Through the smoke that often followed the man; she spotted the location they were passing near on the old map they used: Smolensk. This was probably a bustling town centuries ago, but now was more or less a wreck that could hold Voidlings in hiding or raiders in ambush. They stayed away from cities like that for that exact reason.

Moving the camera back to the front of the mech, Cadence looked ahead with the camera system. While Robert was back with the newcomer assessing his status and making him comfortable and Captain was actually piloting and navigating the mech, Cadence was keeping a lookout and monitoring the systems of Betty. This big hunk of metal had more things wrong with her than some of them had. For instance: the middle-left leg’s rotor that kept the thing stable with it stepped and rotated with its movements was starting to rust over with the constant abuse over these past few weeks. The sensors were going crazy and reporting a full failure on the leg due to it. Cadence knew that this wasn’t the case, but it still bugged her to see the red messages come up occasionally and spook her.

While she was a little lost in her own head, a small chime came out of her machine. Cadence pressed a button and a ‘plip’ noise came before a familiar voice followed. “Would you like me to take over for a while, Cadence? I’m sure the guns I’m keeping warm can stand to cool for a little while you get some sleep.” Gwen’s voice came through a little more metallic due to the low quality of the speakers on this terminal. It wasn’t the communication terminal on the other side of the cockpit and lacked the need for better speakers.

“No Gwen, I’m fine. I’ll clock out when we get past this urban area. Even then, it won’t take more than a week from what the Captain said. I’ll be fine for a couple more hours.” Cadence’s voice was low as she didn’t want to bother the Captain mere twenty paces from her. “Can you do me a favor though?”

A pause was felt before Gwen answered. “Yes, Cadence? I can attempt to help as long as it’s within my capabilities.”

Cadence gave a sigh and moved the camera to the front of the mech and switched it to radiation scanning, as the display on the left was reading a radiation spike. “Right, within your capabilities. You’re getting better with your speech, but I suggest practicing a bit more with Robert.” She gave a shake to her head as she said this. “But yes… can you send a message to Roberts and ask him to clean and prep an away-suit? We’re getting close and I’m going to ask the Captain for a quick stop.”

Another pause, then a small chime came as Gwen responded. “Sent. He has replied with a checkmark on his pad, so I’m guessing that’s a yes. He seems to be very busy with something.” A small laugh came from the speaker, sounding more like a wind chime through these shoddy speakers. “I have a feeling this new passenger is going to be a very interesting one indeed.”

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

Cadence gave a snort to stifle a response. Instead, she switched the scanner to the EM mode. Her eyes fell upon some kind of disk that was emitting a small, electro-magnetic voltage in the road some three-hundred meters ahead of them. As Betty lumbered forwards, Cadence enhanced the screen to look at the object. It had a small assortment of threads coming from it that seemed to pulse as she studied it. The hair on the back of her neck rose as a thought clicked in her head. She switched to thermal, then to visual spectrum in quick succession and breathed in sharply.

“Captain, possible anti-mech mine ahead. Detecting a magnetic cap to it, so it’s made to take down high models like our Mule, Betty.” Cadence’s words were fast and sharp. They were now only a hundred meters from it while Cadence was making sure what it was.

The Captain pressed a few command buttons and Betty came to a slow stop. He swiped on his display and brought up what Cadence was looking at on his screen. A shared breath was taken by him as well as he looked at it. “Gwen, keep the guns hot and scan the surrounding terrain for any ambushers. Cadence, hop off the sensors and hand them over for Gwen to use. Get a suit on and take someone with you. Get that mine out of the way. We’re burning daylight and we can’t wait around to deal with bandits too.”

Cadence nodded and jumped off the sensor station. She headed out of the cockpit and through the rest of the mech to the rear of it where the other two were at. She opened the door to the makeshift quarantine room they set aside and–

The sight she was greeted with was something that took her a moment to process. Robert had the newcomer pressed down against the table, a needle in his hand and a look of annoyance plastered across his face. Marshall was being pressed down against the table with a look of fear in his eyes. He was babbling something about not needing all of them, and that ten was plenty. Robert seemed to be absolutely against this and was trying to get the needle into him.

Cadence just dumbly stood there for a moment before she shouted for them to shut up. Both of their gazes turned to Cadence as she yelled, and a hushed silence fell across both of them. Robert opened his mouth and formed the words “He wasn’t letting me–” before Cadence waved her hand.

“I don’t care what you all were doing. I know you’re all about healthy environments, but don’t kill the guy before we can use him.” Cadence’s tone was close to that of someone on the line of confusion and annoyance, and she wasn’t sure which she was leaning more into right now. “I need the guy suited up and ready to go in less than a minute. We have trouble out front, and I need you, Robert, to stay in the ship and be a backup for Gwen. The Captain needs to get Betty through and needs to focus on that.”

Robert’s eyes lit up with a small bit of fire that Cadence was used. She had barely closed her mouth before Roberts blurted out “I was right! They WERE waiting for us–”

Cadence groaned and started to close the door. “Less than a minute, Robert. Give back Marshall his firearm that he came here with. He’s going to need it.” She shut the door without another word and went to the armory in the center of the mech.

Her locker was the one closest to the door and sported the most dents in it. She opened it and snagged the rifle from it. A late-war model that she had scavenged before joining the crew. This thing was called a ‘marksman rifle’, which basically meant it could be used as a normal rifle or a longer range one if needed. It was semi-automatic, but was so responsive that it may as well be automatic if her finger was fast enough. Whatever they thought when making this, it had a surprisingly satisfactory shoulder rest and sight on it. If only she found a magazine that was larger than ten rounds she’d be set.

She also took her sidearm from the locker, a small Czechoslovakian-made gun that packed a nice punch. Along with that she took out a kit of her tools and a small deployable survival shield. Could never be too cautious, right?

Robert soon came out with her suit and helmet as well as Marshall tailing behind him. It seemed as if Marshall had already had the suit slid on him and even had a heavy duty rebreather on him. Odd, but she said nothing about it. She took the suit and started to get prep.

A shudder ran through the ship as the defense system came to life. All three of them stood stock still for a moment, taking in what just happened. Gwen had just fired at something… and that made shit a whole lot more complicated.