Marcus craved water. The sands buffeted against the sides of the Chuma, almost making him lose his balance more than once. His mouth was dry, and he cursed himself for not drinking more of his water ration this morning. He couldn't have forseen the current state of affairs, but he kicked his past self nonetheless. If anything, though, the young engineer's thirst kept his mind off of the task at hand, which he considered a blessing. Every swirling eddy of sand caught his eye, and he was jumpy. He expected a gargantuan heater SAP to charge out of the maelstrom and gut him. His spit felt like mud, thick and acrid. He tried to swallow, but his throat was as dry as his mouth, and it denied him. Next time, he thought, I'm putting water in this thing on the regular. Not doing this again.
He stood along the port-side defenses of the Enoch, along with the marines and workmen. Deknost was in the sponson behind them, ready to annihilate any attackers that dared to approach the old tank. The marines and workmen crouched behind the sand-filled barricades, rifles peeking over the edge. They kept their heads on a swivel, visually scanning for any approaching Seditionists. None of their sensors were functioning properly because of the radiation levels, and all sensory data was suspect at best. Marcus had already turned off his sensor suite, as he had gotten four false positives in five minutes, which only exacerbated how on-edge he felt. He also had to turn down the volume on both his geiger counter and dosimeter. The tools' warning crackles heightened his anxiety, especially considering what little he could do about it. The Chuma was somewhat shielded from radiation, but it wouldn't matter after being out in the "glow" for this long. Marcus looked at his compatriots, who had their rad suits, which was shielded less than even his Chuma exosuit. This amount of radiation wasn't by any means lethal, but it was much higher than they were supposed to allow themselves for long durations. They had been out here for five hours already, which meant their risk of cancer later in their lives was increased by several factors.
Marcus' movement sensor, the only one unaffected by the radiation, began to chime. Marcus had a habit of ignoring it, considering how rarely it was accurate, but continued to chime, the high tone of the device increasing in rapidity. The artificial urgency the device portrayed caused the young engineer to believe that it may be correct, and he disengaged the safety on his autocannon.
"Contact approaching from thirty degrees. Twenty meters out, approaching on foot, it looks like." He radioed his fellow crewmembers that also guarded the Enoch, as well as Deknost, who was in the port sponson. Their radios clicked in confirmation, and all eyes looked in that direction. Marcus held his wide stance, ready to face whatever came out of the sandstorm. After several tense moments, a figure began to emerge from the dark sands. It was a heater, massive and imposing. Despite its size, it walked with grace, something that no exosuit was capable of. Even the most advanced suit had some amount of awkwardness or clunkiness, and even the high-tech Hrungnir suits were no excuse. However, the heater that approached walked as if he were out for an afternoon stroll in the park. Marcus held, for just a moment, the most fleeting glint of wonder at the striding figure. Despite being the same size as an exosuit, it walked as if it were the size of a normal person.
Marcus' sense of admiration faded as the SAP walked closer, straight towards him. He felt his heart stop in his chest. The heater kept its hands at its side, though it swung them leisurely as it walked. Marcus saw the weapons mounted on its forearms as it walked closer, and he tensed. His eyes danced over the heater, drinking in every intricate detail, his mind on fight-or-flight mode. He noted the weapons on the wrists, the bandolier laced around its chest that contained explosives of some sort, and as his eyes moved to the figure's shoulder, he felt the icy grip of fear clutch at his heart. This heater was in posession of a blade, a feared weapon amongst EMC troops. Nobody had been killed by a heater blade in ages, but these were strange times. Heater blades were long, usually being slightly longer than two meters. They were razor-sharp by default, but held an unknown technology that allowed them to cut through steel like butter. None had ever been recovered for examination, or if they had, it had been declared top-secret, because Marcus had never heard of it happening.
The figure stopped a short distance away from Marcus. The young engineer gulped, his dry throat forgotten for now. The heater had an armored head that was sunken into a likewise armored chestplate. Unlike an exosuit, which at times seemed to have disproportionate body sizes, the heater was proportionate throughout. And unlike Marcus, who at times struggled to keep the Chuma perfectly upright with the high winds, the heater seemed completely unbothered by the winds, never wavering. It stood in front of him, unmoving, for several minutes. Marcus felt his eyes become dry, but he didn't dare blink less than necessary. It was large, the adversary in front of him, but he had heard stories of heaters moving incredibly quickly. They were custom-built by the Seditionists for war, and they excelled at it.
After a few tense moments, Marcus heard a ping from his radio. Someone was hailing him on the proximity channel. Confused, Marcus answered.
"You should probably encrypt your proximity channels better in the future," said the voice coming from the radio. "It didn't take me very long to break in." Marcus felt his heart stop for a moment when he realized the voice was the heater's. He struggled to understand what the heater was doing, or what his angle was. The voice was most certainly masculine, with a deep baritone richness to it.
"What... do you want?" Marcus asked. His finger ached, planted over the trigger. But he would not fire unless attacked first, or ordered to fire. The figure was silent a moment, before continuing.
"Tell me your name," it said. Marcus blinked, even more confused now than he was earlier.
"My name?" he asked it.
"Yes," it said, not without a hint of annoyance. "You're name. I'm not going to dive into rhetoric about you having an EMC-issued number, or something. Just tell me your name." Marcus blinked again, his dry mouth suddenly hindering his ability to speak properly.
"My name is Marcus Rhyne," he said. He almost quoted his name, rank, and serial number, but he stopped, remembering what the heater said about ignoring his "EMC-issued number." The heater was silent a moment, before responding.
"Nice to meet you, Marcus Rhyne. My name is Ajax, and I'm going to be the one to take your life." The heater stood stock-still, despite his manacing words. Marcus gritted his teeth, ready to let rounds fly at the heater's chest, but instead of attacking, the heater simply turned around and walked away, just as leisurely as it approached. Marcus sighed with relief, his eyes on the man-sized blade attached to the mechanoid's back. As the heater disappeared, Marcus' radio pinged again, and he reverted back to the channel the defenders of the tank were using.
"What the actual fuck was that, Marcus?" asked Brogers. Marcus sighed, shaking his head.
"The heater asked for my name, introduced itself, and said it was going to kill me." he responded. Several of the defenders gasped and cursed. Marcus even thought he heard someone spitting in defiance, but he wasn't sure who.
"Yeah, I would have blown that fucking toaster away if I were in your shoes," said Ghi, who knelt behind the sand fortification. Marcus nodded at this.
"I almost did, but it walked away. I don't know, it would have been wrong." Marcus responded.
"Yeah, you're right. Even if it was talking shit, we can't attack unless attacked first. It needs to be defensive," said Van Pelt, who had swapped out of Hansel when she had finished filling the steel fortifications with sand, and had rejoined her companions on foot.
"Do not worry, big man," said Deknost's voice through the radio. "If it had moved an inch closer, I would have reduced him to his base components." Marcus looked back to see the massive sponson gun pointed in his general direction. Marcus chuckled into his radio.
"Thank you, Ginovsky. I sleep better knowing you know how to use that thing." he replied. Deknost likewise chuckled over the radio.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"Who says I know how to use this? I had to have Burns turn it on for me," said the larger man. The defenders chortled at Deknosts' humor, and the mood lightened. Marcus returned to scan the desert with his autogun, ready for any more figures to emerge from the dunes.
After another hour of keeping watch, Marcus was recalled back to the hold by Typhon.
"You're being summoned to the bridge, Brogers and Rhyne." the older marine captain said. The two complied, and Marcus returned to the hold to drop off the Chuma, and Brogers disappeared into the port airlock. The young engineer would have felt more comfortable if someone else was able to pilot the Hrungnir suit, but he knew that they technically didn't have training to pilot a Ringlefinch, let along a Hrungnir, which was at least doubly more complicated. They had the very basics of exosuit piloting down, and he knew only he and Penske could control the large machine of war.
Marcus disembarked from the Chuma and shook the sand from his boots before going through the hold's anti-rad shower, which sprayed him with an aerosol mix of chemicals. The radiation acceptably removed, he ventured further into the tank. Upon reaching the bridge, he was was greeted by Penske, who stood with Shaw, Wyatt, Yukon, and Typhon. Marcus saluted, and was ordered to stand at ease by Typhon. Brogers stood beside him, apparently waiting. The group stood beside a holo-table, which upon inspection appeared to present a map of the nearby area. Wyatt addressed the two.
"It looks like we're going to have to repeat the previous expedition," Wyatt said. Marcus' brow furrowed. "Penske, if you would explain in laypeoples' terms, please." Penske nodded, stepping forward, her stance straight, and her arms behind her back. Her expression was stoic, almost regal. She looks more like an officer now than I've ever seen her, Marcus thought.
"Shit's fucked," Penske said. Nope, still Penske, Marcus thought, resisting a smile. Wyatt shook his head, but Penske continued. "We can pull out the undetonated round that's lodged between the hull and the turret with no problems, I don't think. We can disarm the round, and cut it apart to remove it. It has a very small risk of going off." She pinched her fingers together to show how small the chance was. Burns, who was also in the room but not apart of the meeting, looked up in alarm, but said nothing before turning back to his terminal.
"The port-side tread, likewise, is relatively easy to replace. It will take time, but it's really not a challenge." She sighed, before continuing. "However, the port-fore drive sprocket is completely banjaxed. There's no fixing it. It almost completely ate the enemy round, meaning the armor underneath is mostly undisturbed, but the sprocket sacrificed its life in doing so." She walked around to the other side of the table, shaking her head again.
"We have no replacement, and even if we did have a replacement, I don't know how we'd fix it. A replacement weighs several tons, and we simply don't have the tools to move it in place." She looked Brogers and Marcus in the eye. "Normally, that kind of damage means a dead tank. That, or it means a lengthy wait for a wrecker-runner to get out here with a crane and a replacement." She looked at Wyatt, who interjected.
"Mother Base Sigma has been alerted, and a wrecker-runner is en route. They know of our situation, but it will be a week before they get here." He said his expression grave. Penske nodded, before continuing.
"And if the enemy tank is repaired before that week is done, we're done." she said. Brogers spoke up.
"Permission to speak?" she asked. Wyatt nodded, and Brogers continued. "Why is this part so important? Can't we just jury-rig something?" she asked. Penske shook her head, and Marcus resisted shaking his head too. He knew all too well how impossible Brogers' suggestion was.
"No, we can't 'jury-rig' something," Penske said quietly, her expression dour. "The sprocket is at the very corner of the tread, and has the very important job of taking the track around what is technically a harsh curve. That sprocket experiences more stress than even the running wheels, which bear most of the weight of the tank. The sprocket is also what is powered to give us movement." Penske shook her head again. "Nope, it's simply not possible. The current sprocket is mangled beyond repair, and I can't fix 'mangled.' Those sprockets are cast, and are completely solid chunks of steel. No, there's no jury rigging that." The meeting grew quiet.
"So what do we do?" Marcus asked, realizing too late he should have asked for permission to speak. However, he wasn't reprimanded for this, as Wyatt responded without hesitation.
"We're sending an expedition here to hopefully retrieve an acceptable sprocket." The tank commander pointed on the map on the table. Marcus leaned in, investigating the map. On it, he saw the forest of stone pillars, which the Enoch and Dolos currently were in. Wyatt pointed at a location on the map somewhere north-west of their location. Marcus' brow furrowed.
"I don't understand sir. What's out in that direction?" Marcus asked.
"Two things, young Rhyne," said the commander. He flipped a switch on the table, and the map was layered by another map. Marcus saw the new map was more detailed, and contained more symbols and figures he didn't understand. This iteration of the map also featured a massive spiderweb of something where Wyatt had been pointing just a moment before. Marcus looked up at the tank commander, who met his gaze.
"This map is top-secret, and we only know about it because Shaw here has ties with Intelligence." Wyatt gestured towards Shaw, who nodded. "This here-" Wyatt said, gesturing towards the unkown tangleweb on the map, "is a discontinued bunker originally used by the EMC during the Conflagration." Marcus was shocked. The "Conflagration" was the term used by the EMC for the war during its early years, when nukes "fell like rain," and ground troops took and held land. The planet used to be covered in extensive fortifications that both sides tried to take, though most were destroyed by nukes, according to what Marcus had been taught growing up. The Conflagration ended with the Nuclear Armistice, with forbid nuclear weapons of any variety from detonating on Harmattan, and limited the number of ground troops that could be utilized in conventional warefare on the planet. This armistice led to the Harmattan they all knew today, where tanks were the only real combatants.
"Shaw's contacts in Intelligence have reason to believe that this bunker may contain a sprocket old enough to fit the Enoch. The Enoch was constructed before the Conflagration, and served briefly during that time, but this variety of tank was being used before that time. The bunker was used as a warehouse and resupply depot, and we believe it was abandoned when the Armistice was signed." Wyatt gestured towards a series of rings near the bunker, which radiated out from a singular point.
"And this is Site 3487. As in, the location where the three thousand, four hundred and eighty-seventh nuke was detonated on Harmattan." Marcus felt his eyebrows raise in incredularity. Wyatt continued. "Yes, the detonation site is right next to the bunker. We can only assume the bunker in question is what they were aiming for. They missed by a significant margin, but as you likely guessed from the exterior radiation levels, their miss only helps us a little bit." Wyatt turned off the holo-table, the deep green color vanishing.
"In short, this expedition will be a highly-irradiated one. We don't know if the bunker is even intact: all of our data implies that it's probably buried under countless meters of sand. We don't know how you'd get down to it, let alone get inside." Wyatt sighed, shaking his head. "Look, I won't force you two to do this, or any members of my crew. The Methuselah was different; we had knowledge of the area, and we thought we had an individual we could trust to guide you to the data we needed. But we know nothing of this bunker, nor do we know anything about the surrounding area." Wyatt shrugged, his hands clasped behind his back.
"I can't even promise there'll be a sprocket inside the bunker. It could be completely empty. The radiation close to the detonation site could be severe, and we could get nothing out of it." Wyatt looked at Brogers and Marcus in turn, meeting their gaze. "You two would be co-leads on this expedition. I know Locke is currently outside holding a rifle, but from what Captain Typhon tells me, he can barely hold it still because of his pain meds. So I'm sending you two as well as your choice of four other crew members. If you choose to go, that is."
"The alternative is keeping eyes peeled for toasters and waiting for the wrecker-runner to bring the replacement," Shaw said, piping up. Wyatt nodded, indicating that Shaw was correct.
"And Ribbonikisch begins in a couple of days," interjected Typhon. Wyatt nodded, as if suddenly remembering this small detail.
"She's right. Ribbonikisch arrives somewhere in forty-eight hours, so you need to take that into account." This complicated things. Ribbonikisch was Harmattan's "monsoon season," if it had monsoons. Instead, the intensity of the sandstorms increased by several factors. Even with moderately protective external suits, the winds would slowly rip a person to shreds. The increased windspeed picked up small rocks, flinging them at high speeds through the air, even fast enough to puncture suits. During this time, most tanks slowed or stopped, chosing to weather the storm behind a rock feature, rather than foolishly continuing as normal. Finding one's way on the perilous planet was difficult normally, but was almost impossible during Ribbonikisch. It arrived around the same time every year, and lasted for a good month or so before letitng up. Marcus pursed his lips, thinking hard. He thought for several seconds, though he knew there was only one solution. If the Dolos repaired before they did, there was no indication they would keep their word, and they could easily wipe the helpless Enoch from existence. Marcus looked at Brogers, who met his eyes. He nodded slowly, and she turned to Wyatt.
"Sir, we'll do it," she said.