Iron Empire

Fifty-Four: Scavengers

Report: Quinn
Airspace above the Mojave Desert.
United States of America.
Crash site of an Axion warship.
Designation: "Project Terminus"

Project Terminus lay before me in all its shattered glory, blown apart on the sands. The hazy mid-morning heat made the dunes ripple like an ocean.

Upon landing, the ship had been torn in two, its angular front half impacting the desert about a mile away. It didn't matter. Most of the ship's body had landed in the general area of the main crash site, and everything we'd need was there with it.

Each half of the vessel was an island amongst the sea of sand and stone, stretching out of the baked dirt and into the sky.

Terminus was terrifying, even in its current state. Most of its weapons were buried under the sand and rubble, but I could see the tips of Killswitch cannons poking up through the sand. The vessel's back half jutted high into the air, grey armour stripped clean by the explosion. Three of the ship's seven hangars were exposed to the desert wind, and a gaping hole into the ship's side revealed where the nuke had first impacted it.

Somewhere in that mess was the proof we needed to expose Draco and Axion once and for all.

If we made it inside the vessel, every glimpse of its inner workings was another weapon again Axion. With newly made openings in three of the ship's sides, entry wouldn't be a problem.

It was getting there and securing the area that would be tough.

I strode along the catwalk, staring down at the mechs below. Besides my Spartan, I'd been given new mechs, just like the others. A Predator, a Valkyrie, a Veles, a Sentinel and my Spartan, each waiting for battle.

Our supply of IRON chips was tight—with every pilot we had entering this battle, our stock was depleted to the point of nonexistence. Because of this, we were only being given the exact number of chips we needed.

The tiny microchips weighed almost nothing in my jumpsuit pocket. I kept them here instead of in their designated drawer—if I was forced to abandon my command capsule again, I couldn't afford to lose my supply.

Dan followed me across the catwalk, his crutch tapping against the plate metal floor.

"Every one of your mechs is top-of-the-line," he was saying. "The very best I could assign to you."

He grinned.

"I equipped the Spartan with four rocket launchers, as many as I could fit. I figured you would prefer a shotgun weapon, but we needed them for the remaining Barricades."

"Dan," I interjected.

He glanced at me.

"What?"

"As long as it's not another Crusader, I don't care what mechs I use," I laughed.

Dan looked crestfallen.

"Right," he responded, "sorry. I just don't want to see you—"

"I'm coming back," I responded. I turned to Kitt, who was waiting beside his command capsule with Alyx. "We're all coming back."

"I damned well hope so!" Lucas called. He marched over to the manual controls at the far end of the hangar, ready to lift our capsules into the mechs of our choice. "Without you, who's going to annoy Mallet?"

"I'm ready," Kedrick announced. With a swift motion he hopped through the open door of his waiting command capsule, settling into the pilot's seat. An armoured Excalibur waited just below the catwalk we stood on, a rounded hole in its frame marking the capsule's destination.