The Machinist's Apprentice

Chapter 10: Road Trip

Aina stared blankly at the machine. "That?" she asked. It was not in disbelief, but he could tell the idea did not appeal to her.

"Help me up," was all he said, "We need to get over there quickly!" Aina complied, clearly having few other ideas.

As he expected, it was not easy to get him back upright. Jevrem bit back the urge to tell her to hurry, recognizing that she was the one doing most of the work. However, seeing the machine had given him a new rush of energy and between the two of them they were able to manage. Once he was back up, they hobbled their way over to where the machine sat.

It was a large steam engine sitting on six sturdy wheels with a spacious storage compartment on the back. This was a work machine called a freightage hauler, usually just shortened to freight haul. It was a somewhat widely used vehicle, but very expensive and used primarily for business. They carried cargo back and forth with ease, though this particular one was small enough that it was probably only crewed by a couple of people. It was likely here to deliver to the army that he and Aina had just left. The machine's compartment was empty and the terrain towards the camp was too uneven for the freighthaul to make the trip. It was likely its operators had left it here while they made their delivery.

It seemed odd to him at first that they might abandon it like this, even if only briefly, but after a bit of thought it wasn't so shocking that the drivers may have gotten careless. After all, under normal circumstances this machine would've been perfectly safe here. Operating a freighthaul wasn't that difficult, but since they were mostly used by businesses there were few enough even in Goskar that were familiar with how to run them. The odds that someone would be in this remote location who could do so must've seemed slim. Jevrem, however, had lived around machines like these for years and fully understood their operation.

"Get me into the cabin," he said breathlessly as they approached. Aina gave him a somewhat confused look. "The driver's box," he corrected, a bit more impatiently than he'd intended.

She didn't comment on his tone. Instead, she simply did as he asked, helping him to hop his way to the front of the vehicle. He could feel the heat radiating off of the boiler as he approached. Good. That meant that the drivers had left recently which in turn meant not only that they had the longest possible time until someone returned, but also that the boiler was likely still hot. Once they reached the small driver's compartment, he crawled inside. His mind was overcome with excitement at what a lucky find this was.

...only to realize that in the state he was in, he wasn't capable of operating a machine like this.

"Well?" Aina asked, "Can we use this?"

"We can..." he said slowly, "But you'll need to drive it."

"What?!" She jerked away from the freighthaul as though it had shocked her.

Jevrem pulled himself roughly over to the other side of the cabin, leaving her room to sit in the driver's seat. "I can't do it. I don't have the strength or the leverage right now to properly control it. But you can. I can tell you what to do, and you can get us out of here."

"You really expect me to be able to control this thing?!" Aina shook her head adamantly, "I don't know anything about machines. Do you really think that I can just hop in and go?"

He could tell simply being this close to such a thing was disturbing her. Why wouldn't it? She was just as nervous around machines as he was around magic, and he hadn't faced any significant magic until he used the gem himself. He was asking a lot of her. "Of course you can. That's the whole point," he replied patiently, "these machines make it easier for humans to do things they never thought they could. It can be a little confusing at first, but anyone can learn."