Sprawler returned over the caved-in gate as the sun set over the horizon; long ago leaving the interior of the fort in darkness. He hopped down; his metal feet kicking up a torrent of dirt and dust as he landed. Under his arm he carried a withered tree; about five feet tall.
"All I could find, Master Protector," Weylion said over the intercom down at Finjac, who sat against the fort's well with the quiet refugees around him in the cold shade.
As Weylion dropped it down with a snapping thud, Finjac sighed. "It'll have to do for tonight. Park and power down, Weylion. Can't afford keeping the ELUs running much longer unnecessarily."
"Aye." Sprawler stomped off to the side of the fort where Broad Dog, Dune-sprinter and Tail-ripper were already parked.
"Alright," Finjac said to his present Protectors as Weylion left, "lets get to work stripping and chopping this thing."
Job-khon, a dark-brown skinned man of muscle and girth, got up as he nudged Jaulf, a scrawnier man of similar complexion, awake. He jolted up and followed.
Job-khon said in his husky voice as he approached "I didn't think we'd be needing our wood-cutting tools for this mission; I didn't bring mine, Fin."
"Neither did I," said Jaulf in his usual gruff tone.
Finjac said in his gravelly tone "then grab your weapons. We can't stay here tonight without a few fires going. Tell Wey, too."
"Aye" they said. They went to their ELUs for their packs.
Finjac already had his out of his ELU, and hitched on the side he unbuckled and unsheathed a mighty blade.
It was a longsword made from smelted scrap. The blade was long, wide and thick. Single edged with a triangular tip. The long handle was wrapped neatly in leather and the pommel was large enough to balance it.
Functioning guns were extraordinarily rare, and were best fitted on ELUs where their potential in battle could fully be utilized.
The other pilots came with their weapons handy; swords and axes. They went to work on stripping and chopping the tree into firewood and kindling; the sound of splitting wood and timber resonating throughout the fort.
Afterwords, with the Boltjacks' help, they made several fire pits for everybody around the fort's well. Lit with tinderboxes and sparse gasoline, the fires came to life as night crept in.
The refugees, with their own sparse food and water, cooked over the fires and drank as the Protectors and Boltjacks ate their rations.
This sharing of space helped to settle some of the tensions between the two groups, however the closeness the refugees had to their defenders still lingered in the air.
Finjac sought to help these people, Jakabi saw it clearly. How was he going to do that? Why? One's own people took priority. An addition of more than two dozen people would put undue stress on their settlement.
Finjac addressed Kallium, who sat on the opposite side of their fire pit, saying "Kallium, can you tell me more about this 'Regime'?"
Kallium nodded. "I know very little myself. They are not native to the Dunes. I know this because of their language. You and me, we speak very similarly; enough to understand one another as we both come from the same Mother Tribe. These people are hard to understand. They speak a different tongue. However, since I was born as one of their slaves, I grew up listening to their speech and my people's; much the same as everyone else with me, so I can speak their tongue and our own."
Finjac intently listened. "Continue, please."
"I learned long ago that they plan to do something big, but they were careful not to speak of their plans that near to us. They needed lumber, either for construction or for fuel and they enslaved my clan and others many decades ago to work their logging camps and yards. The ELUs we were trained to work were shoddy, barely functioning derelicts. No where near the combat capabilities of their ELUs."
Finjac interrupted; "You're telling me this 'Regime' is capable of maintaining ELUs for work, and ELUs for combat separately?"
Kallium nodded, confusedly saying "yes, is this not normal?"
"No, it isn't normal. When not being fought with, our ELUs are usually dormant or are being used for labor that we can't do ourselves back home."
"Well, how many ELUs do you have?" Kallium asked.
"We numbered twelve, but after today its only ten. More than enough to protect and maintain our village still, but," Finjac looked in the direction towards the collapsed gate, "the loss of our own still hangs in our hearts, as I know it hurts you too."
Kallium looked down. He was silent for a time, but after changed the subject. He said "the ELUs they use for combat are small, around seven feet high, and are more like suits than vehicles. They are heavily armed and armored. Originally, before we rebelled, our 'captured' ELUs numbered twenty."
Weylion, an older man, choked on his drink of water, "twenty ELUs? Just for chopping wood? Full sensor nets?"
Kallium nodded. "I am getting the feeling that ELUs are rarer than the Regime has made them out to be?"
Finjac shook his head. "ELUs aren't rare, as in their hulls and engines. The rarity of decent ELUs are computer cores and sensor arrays or nets we call them; all of our ELUs have them, and they help with reaction times, alerting us to damage taken, system adaptation, and they tell us our ammunition and fuel level." He took a bite of his flat bread. "Like a human's nervous system. Now, there are a lot of ELUs who don't have them, and they are slow, less complex, and only good for labor. Now, I remember seeing the glow of computer screens in yours?"
"Yes, that's correct. I piloted an ELU once or twice, and we had what you called computer cores in them."
Finjac rubbed the bridge of his nose. "That's what worries me. Computer cores are rare. Intact data-chips and sensor nodes are insanely difficult to find; let alone maintain. The fact that the Regime was able to have so many ELUs with computer cores and sensor nets just for menial labor means that they are rich in resources and man power. They will want to have the ones you stole back, correct?"
Kallium looked down once more. "I... I understand if you no longer wish to help us..."
Finjac shook his head. "No one here said that. We are just going to have to be on the lookout for them. Now, I want to formulate a plan on getting you to Eondai safely as we cannot bring all of you in one trip. We have an aquifer and some wells. We could use you people there."
Kallium smiled slightly. It was the first time his people had a plan for survival that expanded beyond the immediate day. "Alright, where do we begin?"
As the Protectors and Refugees came together to plan out their exodus, Jakabi lay on his sleeping cot, simply watching them talk from the fringes of the firelight. Before he knew it, he was asleep.
Whispers. Faint speech.
Jakabi's eyes fluttered open, and he saw everyone around him was asleep as well; the fires burned dimmer now under the star filled night sky.
Who's talking?
He sat up now. No one around the fires was awake. He focused his ears hard, and found the faint talking to be coming from the collapsed fort gate.
"Hello?"
No response.
"Who's there?" Jakabi said, putting his hand on the knife he had beneath his pillow.
Now the voice was closer, and could hardly be heard. It said "see you at home, Jak."
What?
Footsteps. The footsteps of someone with a horrendous limp.
Were they getting closer?
"See you at home, Jak."
Jakabi got up; holding the knife in front of him towards the darkness. "Don't come any closer!"
"See you at home, Jak."
The voice was clear as day as the sound of dragged footsteps sounded with it.
Keppian?
At the farthest reaches of the fire light, something came to view. It was a boy the age of Jakabi. It limped closer, and he saw the torn torso; the face with its left side above the mouth missing with the torn bone, flesh and muscle exposed. Its right side only had its eye; twisted off into a random direction with the optic nerve just peaking through. Its scalp hung loosely on with the shortly shaved, woolly hair still attached in patches.
Jakabi fell back in terror and dropped his knife. It clattered to the ground as the boy dragged his feet.
"Kep-Keppian?"
"See you at home, Jak." It's loosely hanging jaw, with the torn ligaments, did not move as it spoke.
Its limbs were twisted and crushed. Joints bent in the wrong directions and sections of flesh were simply torn away. Rock and metal stuck out from him like a thistle flower.
It limped closer and Jakabi crawled backwards screaming. He crawled without looking into the fire; burning himself as what once was Keppian sped up in its jerky movements towards him, screaming "See you at home, Jak."
Jakabi shot up and gasped for air; cold sweat down his back. He was in his cot.
It was only a dream?
The clattering of rocks tumbling downhill.
Jakabi looked over to the caved-in fort entrance.
He peered hard into the night, as his nightmare slowly faded from memory.
"Jak!"
He jolted and turned to see Finjac; sitting up with his longsword resting with its tip in the ground next to him.
"Nightmare?" Finjac whispered.
Jakabi nodded.
"Get closer to the fire. Try not to pay them any mind."
Jakabi got up and dragged his cot closer to the fading embers.
Sitting down, he pointed at the rock slide and asked "what's going on over there?"
Finjac shrugged. "I don't know. No one ever does. Strange things happen at night in the Scrap Dunes; things moving without tracks or sounds being made with no source. First time seeing or hearing it?"
"Yeah, it is." Jakabi was still shaken up.
"Was your nightmare about your friend? Keppian?"
Jakabi shot him a surprised look. "How did you know?"
Finjac paused. After, he said "I've been in command for a long while now, Jakabi. I've lost Protectors and Boltjacks. Every time, without fail, I have had nightmares. I won't get into the details about them. I was close with everyone under my command; still am. I had nightmares tonight for Yef-bi, tomorrow it'll be Lackayo. Whenever I have nightmares, I know that they are near. Humans dying attracts them like carrion flies to a corpse."
Jakabi and Finjac turned as they heard a sharp bang of rock on rock coming from the collapsed gate. They waited a time.
"They follow us like spectres," Finjac began again, "feeding us horrible imagery of those we love and care for who've passed on through dreams. They don't like to go near settlements which is why you haven't seen or heard them till now."
Jakabi said "so since Keppian and I were close, and he..." he paused as the pain rose again.
Finjac interjected; "was lost."
"Right, right, so they..." Jakabi turned to where the noise emanated, "gave me a nightmare about Keppian?"
Finjac nodded. "It's why a lot of Protectors swear off friendship or companionship, like Weylion. They don't want to deal with those things. I don't blame them."
"Is that why you only said 'the dust takes all, the rust eats all' when they...were lost?"
"Yes. It's hard, but it's best to distance yourself from tragedy in these parts. Even Master Protectors have been known to go mad over the nightmares and those things."
Jakabi nodded and yawned.
"Get some rest, Jak. I'm staying up just to make sure none of them come over here. Tomorrow we have a lot to do."
Jakabi went back to sleep as Finjac stared off at the night; a look of focus and fear painted on his face.
The dawn came, and the camp arose one by one. The plans went underway as soon as everyone ate and drank.
Kallium had shown where the water reserve was hidden the night before; in a hidden spot beneath a warehouse, and the camp drank from that and the well water once their own water ran out.
Jakabi of course went to see the collapsed gate.
His jaw sank as looked on at the crater carved into the rockslide with perfect circumference and stability. A chill wind blew as he stared at the two heavily damaged, polished white skulls resting in its centre, in front of a small portion of Stoutspark newly revealed; his Pauldron with the painted insignia of the Protectors of Eondai; scratched and chipped.
Finjac came to him, and guided the tearful youth away; eyeing the spot from the corner of his eye with a hateful glare.
The plan agreed to last night was to send Jaulf in Dune-sprinter, the fastest ELU, back to Eondai and request aid from the Protectors still stationed there in order to ship the refugees safely across the Scrap Dunes. The four ELUs couldn't do it alone in one trip, and the sooner they left this place the better. Kallium and Finjac both had reason to suspect the Regime had sent someone after the stolen ELUs, and they didn't want to stay long enough to confirm their hypothesis.
Dune-sprinter approached the collapsed gate and Jaulf saw the crater in the rock slide. He gave it as wide a berth as possible as he climbed over it and exited.
The thumping footsteps sounded far away, and Finjac turned to the assembled people.
"Alright! Start packing! We're gonna go to Eondai soon enough!"