Marcus Rhyne, assistant engineer, jogs down the walkway, his tattered boots thumping on the metal grates that made up the majority of the Enoch's flooring. He wove his way fore, meaneuvering through passageways that were designed for his ilk alone: engineers, mechanics, black-thumbs, gear-heads. The passages were tight, and the roof was made of entwined pipes that were just a tad too low for Marcus' average height. He ducked under a pipe that hissed steam, making mental note to mend that small infraction later. His target was near the front of the tank, close to the drivetrain, which was annoying, as -

The tank shook suddenly, and Marcus was thrown off his feet. He fell bodily against a series of pipes that were hot enough to boil the sweat from his bare arms, and he cursed as he fell to the grates beneath him. They must have hit a rock. That, or knowing he was in this particular section, Mad Modi decided to have a little fun with him. Marcus cursed again, this time calling down a pox of any origin on the old driver's eyes. Marcus stood up and, with effort not to touch his undoubtedly burned arm, continued. He quickly reached his target: the fore oil impeller. There you are, you old bastard, Marcus thought to himself. The tank was nuclear, but folks would be surprised how many fluids still flowed in a nuclear craft, especially one of this size and advanced age. The Enoch was massive; the size of a building, and with the temperament of an old bulldog. At her advanced age, she required almost constant repairs, giving Marcus and his overseer, Penske, almost constant work. Not that Marcus minded. He loved this work, even though it was at times frustrating.

The Enoch's treads had massive bearings deep within her drivetrain, and both her gearbox and bearings required different types of oil to function. And they needed a lot of it. Every time the gargantuan tank returned to Mother Base to refill on supplies, the quartermaster had to give the crew of the Enoch a surplus of oil so that the two engineers could keep her in running order. Marcus heard the Commander himself had saved the quartermaster somehow ages ago, and so the man had always shown favor to the Enoch and her crew. For this, Marcus was grateful, for he knew that without these extra supplies, the tank would grind to a halt. And a still tank was a dead tank.

The fore-port oil impeller was acting up, if Marcus' theory was correct. It had been rebuilt twice already, so it had a history of being mischevious. The young engineer knew it was only a matter of time before the impeller in question finally decided to die, which would be extremely unfortunate for the Enoch and everyone aboard. The impeller couldn't be replaced while the tank was under way, unlike most of the components that the two engineers dealt with. Marcus reached out and touched the massive object, and it was hot to the touch. The impeller was supposed to be warm, but not this hot. He looked up and touched the oft-unreliable temp gauge on the oil line, and it agreed with his diagnosis for once. The impeller was off balance again, and there was more friction than the narrow tolerances allowed. This friction heated the oil above acceptable levels, decreasing both the lifetime values of the oil and the machinery it interacted with. In a sentence, the impeller was slowly poisoining this entire line. It could take a year, or a month, or a week, but eventually this small fault would cause this whole oil line to degrade, and eventually something would break. If the Enoch were in the middle of a duel when that were to happen, it would mean the enemy would most certainly have the upper hand, and that would be unacceptable. All twenty-one lives aboard the tank trusted Engineering to do their part, and keep the tank running in tip-top shape, so that the Attack teams could do their part without worry.

Marcus reached up to the radio attached to his shoulder, and keyed the mic.

"Penske, this is Rhyne." Marcus waited for a response, which didn't take long.

"Give me the good news, Rhyne. Wyatt's not in a good mood today." Marcus cursed again, though not into the mic. Wyatt, the Tank Commander, was not a man you would want to disappoint. He was not a harsh man, but he was stern, and he demanded results from his crew. Marcus swallowed, knowing that ultimately, the person he was talking to was Wyatt.

"The port-fore impeller's banjaxed, as we expected. It'll need to be replaced, and I mean replaced, in no more than a weeks' time. No more rebuilds, Penske. This one's done." Marcus waited for a response, though he knew Penske was cursing and thinking. The speaker on his shoulder crackled as Penske responded.

"Have you upped the pressure and replaced the filter?" she responded quietly. The young engineer knew Wyatt was expecting Penske to come up with a solution on the spot that would keep them running for longer. Marcus shook his head.

"Not yet, though I planned on it. Do I have the go-ahead?"

"Do it. Use the Argo filter, and only increase the pressure by 1.5, no more than that." Marcus responded in the affirmative, and got to work. While risky, the move would buy them some time and briefly improve the port tread drivetrain's performance by a noticeable degree. However, it was a very temporary fix that put more strain on the system. In short, it was a gamble. If they didn't get a replacement part within a week, the parts in this line would face increased damage. Marcus brought a Argo filter with him just in case Penske asked him to do this particular task, and so he did as he was commanded.

"Gods damnit," he remarked as he pulled the old filter out, and held it up the light. It sparkled in the dim light of the Enoch's underbelly, which meant that metal filings were moving through the system. The impeller was slowly grinding itself down, which was worse than he thought. He cursed again and clipped the old filter to his belt, so that he could work unhindered. After replacing the filter, he increased the pressure ever so slightly. Again, a temporary fix that would harm the tank in the long run,but it was the best they could do at the moment. The Enoch had been underway for 3 months, and they had elected not to swap out the impeller the last time they returned to Mother Base. Marcus knew Penske regretted making that call.

"We'll just rebuild it, it'll be fine," she had said at the time.

When Marcus had completed his task, he radioed Penske again.

"It's done, Penske. Any improvement?"

"Yup, that did it. Come on up now, Marcus, and good work. Modi's happy." Marcus could hear the old man cackling in the background.

"Ask him if he hit that rock earlier on purpose." Marcus replied. After a pause, Penske responded.

"He's just laughing. I think you have your answer." Marcus smiled. The old man wouldn't have intended for Marcus to have gotten burned, that was an accident. But the jostling was absolutely within his repetoire.

Marcus retraced his steps, eventually leaving the cramped crewway leading fore. He emerged from the dark tunnel into a well-lit passageway in the tank. He closed the hatch tightly behind him, and stood up straight, his back cracking in the process; the passageway was just low enough to cause him to stoop, but it wasn't low enough to demand crawling, thank the gods. Marcus wasn't tall, but he wasn't short either. He was strong, and his muscular arms were almost always uncovered. His head was likewise naked, as he hated oily hair, and if working on the Enoch as a mechanic promised anything, it was oily hair. He was ruggedly handsome, in a blocky sort of way. He tried to keep shaved, but his chin and cheeks almost always sported stubble of some sort, much to Marcus' chagrin. Lt. Commander Shaw constantly gave him grief over his clean-shavenness, or lack therof. He moved aft to the engineering bay, where he was normally stationed when he wasn't running around the bowels of the Enoch like a rat. He passed the galley, where Finn would be making dinner. Marcus did his best to ignore the heavenly scents wafting out of the galley, as it wasn't quite dinner yet; he had a few hours to go. He rounded a corner and ran smack-dab into a wall of flesh, sending Marcus onto his ass. He looked up at the immoveable titan that had barely been swayed by Marcus' impact.

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"Careful where you walk round corners, little one. Better me than Wyatt, yes?" the titan, Dekonst Ginovsky, asked him.

"Fucking hells, Dekonst, when did you get so stealthy? Usually we can hear you walking halfway down the tank." Marcus remarked with a grin as he stood up, brushing himself off. The massive man laughed heartily, seeing that Marcus was unhurt, and continued on his way. He carried three massive bags of potatos, so his target was likely the galley. Which meant potato soup for dinner. Marcus' bruises and burns were forgotten at the thought of potato soup. He continued down the hallway, being slightly more careful about giving corners a wider bearth to avoiding hitting anyone else. As Marcus continued aft, the sounds of the engine grew louder. While nuclear, the Enoch still had pumps and siphons that thrummed quietly, like a heartbeat. He passed workmen and a marine on his way, and greeted them as was customary. Passing the hold, he finally found himself in the one place he could confidently call his: the engineering bay. Or, well, half his. The other half was most certainly his overseer's, Penske. Typically, however, she was busy monitoring the reactor or working on some of the higher-tech devices on board, such as the tank turret's loading mechanism, which was frequently being tuned and adjusted. The loader had jammed during a live-fire exercise a few months ago, and tank could feel the fury coming from the bridge for at least a week afterwords. Wyatt was unhappy at the result, and when Wyatt was unhappy, the tank was unhappy. And rightfully so - during a duel, if the loader quit, the tank was doomed. The only option would be evasives and the Enoch was as much a ballerina as Marcus was chickenfowl.

An ancient model, the Enoch was running on 80 years old. She had swapped countless crews over the decades, but she had never lost a duel. She had suffered massive damage twice, enough damage to be fatal; the second time she lost three fourths of her crew when it was said and done. A few of that original crew still served, and were revered as experts. The duel in question had occurred nearly two decades prior, but sometimes Marcus still came across the scars on the Enoch that were most certainly from that fateful duel. The battle between the Enoch and the enemy craft, which Intelligence had dubbed the Warthog, as its true name was unknown, lasted 3 days, and was referred to as the Battle at Myr's Bridge. One for the history books.

Marcus sat at his station, a rugged workbench covered in detritus. Penske constantly gave him shit for not keeping it clean, but it was dirty for a reason. Everything was at hands reach, with no need to rummage through drawers or buckets for tools or components. Marcus Rhyne was not necessarily an organized man, but he had his systems, and they worked. He picked up a component for the garbage disposal in the galley that had broken down, and began tinkering with it. The room was spacious considering that room was at a premium on the tank; though it needed to be. Large devices and components could be tinkered with on the floor, and the workstations that sat opposite each other were enough for small work. Above the workstations, beds flipped down. For this, Marcus was grateful. He had his own bed, when most of the non-officers in the tank had to hot-bunk, where someone on duty would get off of duty, wake the person up in their bunk so that person could go on duty, and the original individual would then go to sleep in that same bunk as the other person went to work.

Down the hall in the little room was a sealed door, behind which was the reactor that gave the Enoch life. It thrummed, a bassy tone that resonated quietly throughout the tank, though it was almost unnoticable near the front of the tank. Marcus loved the sound. It rocked him to sleep every night, and woke him gently every morning. Despite the tank's age, the reactor was a beautiful model, now well-known for its longevity and durability, though Penske often remarked it had grown cantankerous in its old age. It was original, and none of the major components on the reactor had ever been replaced or even rebuilt. Marcus lost no sleep thinking about radiation, either. The reactor was well-shielded, well-constructed, and well-maintained. It had a double airlock in case of radioactive leaks, which was almost unnecessary, seeing that the advanced design on the reactor produced little background radiation anyway. It also produced little waste, which was always a good thing. The only thing lacking with the aged reactor was power. More modern reactors, Marcus had heard from fellow engineers and mechanics on newer tanks, were significantly more powerful, and capable of powering even larger craft than the Enoch. On uneven terrain, or when climbing up steep grades, the elderly tank often had to shift into a lower gear and slowly trudge up, whereas more modern tanks could stay in high gear and simply charge up the hill. This is why the Enoch usually stuck to the canyons and valleys of the planet they served on, rather than the dunes and wastes the younger tanks often frequented.

The planet they served on. Harmattan. A savage dustbowl covered in nothing but sand and rock. There was no standing water on the surface, and it never rained. Any moisture to be had was extracted from the atmosphere by condensors on the tank's hull. The planet was massive, significantly larger than Marcus' parents' home planet, Earth, but with lower gravity. This made it easier to field the building sized tanks that the Earth-Mars Coalition used in their warfare. However, the lower gravity of Harmattan was due to its rocky molten core, rather than one of iron or another metal. This meant the desert wasteland of Harmattan was the victim of brutal galactic radiation, as it had no magnetosphere. This lack of a magnetic field meant the surface of the planet was an irradiated hellscape that was impossible to live on unless wearing a suit of some sort. That's not to mention the atmosphere, which wasn't breathable without aid. Marcus eyed the broken face mask hanging from one of the knobs on a drawer nearby. It was a spare someone had accidentally knocked off of a hanger, so thankfully it wasn't from a serious accident. It looked like a gas mask with additional nozzles for air hoses. The atmosphere had nitrogen aplenty, just like earth, but nearly no oxygen. So the gasmasks took in the nitrogen and mixed it with the oxygen to form a gas that was easy to breathe for surface-goers. It also scrubbed the nitrogen for any radioactive particles. This meant that anyone on the surface could survive for longer periods than if they went out with pure compressed pure oxygen.

An hour passed, and Marcus was no closer to fixing this garbage disposal component. It was missing a spring, and he had been trying to craft one from loose wire he had found, but to no avail. He was about to grab a blowtorch to warm the wire when he felt the tank suddenly begin to slow. The momentum jostled the loose jetsam that was on Marcus' workstation. The young engineer was surprised; it wasn't often they stopped unless something serious was going on, such as an enemy sighting. Marcus wasn't surprised when his radio crackled to life.

"Rhyne, this is Penske. You'll want to go to the port-side airlock. Locke's back." Marcus did another proverbial double-take. Locke, back already? He'd only been gone a week, when he usually stayed out for two or three. His radio crackled again.

"And he has someone with him."