Scrapped Operation

Derno loved sentry duty. No, honestly, it was the easiest job around, and it let him do what he enjoyed most: Staring off into the distance and just taking in the landscape. Most back home in Chromedome would ask what he saw in this endless barren wasteland, but he had a keen eye, and every valley and plain told a story, if you just knew where to look.

The squad had located a nice mineral deposit deep beneath the sand. Only by the grace of their high powered sensor equipment were they able to find it. While the rest of the squad dug, Derno and his motor could just sit on a nearby ridge and watch.

Looking at the building footprints visible beneath the dust, he'd have to guess this was once a sprawling suburb. An ancient type of settlement, located a ways outside the teeming city hubs, where space was a luxury only the rich could afford. A set of tracks, decimeters in lengths stomped through the area, to clash with a slithering trail of destruction.

He patted the side of his Motor affectionate as he followed the two paths to a massive crater. Ages ago, two titans clashed here, and in the end, one decided to take them both out in a fiery end. At least that is what Derno could gather from the ancient tracks.

Just as a cheer rose from his comrades below, his Motor gave an alerted ping, and his eyes darted to its hud readout. Several contacts, just on the edge of detection range. He cursed himself for a moment as his eyes swiftly scanned the horizon.

There, a low dust bloom was rising. The glint of metal within was enough to tell him what approached. "Scavengers, approaching from the southeast, still ten klicks out. Doesn't look like they've noticed me." He belted out over the radio before sliding back into his command chair. Sensing its master back in position, his Motor slid the various controls into optimal position for him, and sealed the cockpit closed.

"Confirmed T13. Keep an eye on them. If they move in our direction, try to move them away from our position until we are able to extract this deposit. We believe it to be a bunker of some sort." "Confirmed T1. Maintaining watch."

With a few commands, his Motor rumbled to full life, its mechanical heart reverberating inside of Derno's skull. Made for speed and harassment, his Motor was a waif compared to the extractors, little more than a metal frame with numerous boosters positions all over it. A single rail rifle the extent of its weaponry, although like all smart fighters, he carried a knife for those rare times he could not outrun a foe.

A shrill beep caught his ear, as his Motor surged to one side. A moment later, a mortar round impacted with the earth, sending up a shower of earth. "They are hostile. Moving to cease hostility." Derno grunted out as he was pelted with debris.

With a high pitched whine, his Motor launched itself down the cliff side, a plume of fire erupting out its back. Derno could only savor the feeling of g-force on him as he hurtled forward. Bringing up his rail rifle, Derno began hurling single slivers of metal at his new found foes. He could already hear the quartermaster berating him for using more metal than was absolutely needed, but sometimes you had to remind these savages of just why the "People in the Dome" are not to be interfered with.

With a combination of speed and agility, he was able to nearly dance around the incoming projectiles, simple biofuel propelled rockets and mortars, his Motor seeing their point of impact almost as soon as they left the launcher. The fight was painfully one sided in his favor. Just the way he liked it.

The smirk on his face was quickly extinguished when his squad began screaming. "Get out of the pit!" "They're all over me!" "What the hell are these?!"

A moment's distraction can turn the tide of battle. Looking back to the dig site for just a moment was enough for him to miss the warning, and suddenly Derno was screaming, as he was hurtled aside, a mortar round slamming right next to him.

His Motor screamed in its own way, damage alerts flaring all over. An arm was torn off, its leg was bent backwards, and several jets sputtered and died, their fuel links severed. Wounded, near mortally, his Motor could only drag itself forward to its rail rifle. A Motor, made of a dozen different pieces and held together with only what he could assume was duct tape and a prayer stomped up, and kicked him over, stomping a ramshackle leg onto his cockpit. All the while he heard the panicked screams of his friends and brothers fighting something horrid.

As he waited for the savage to finish him off, he listened to the last panicked cry die out. Only then did the enemy Motor remove its foot from his cockpit. Grabbing his weapon and appraising it for a moment, the Motor moved off towards the final resting place of his squad. It paused for a moment, and turned to him. It pointed at him, then to the ground forcibly. HE couldn't run, even if he wanted to, but if it would keep him alive, he'd wait as ordered.

Powering off his Motor, to let the wounded beast rest, he slid out of his cockpit and sat on top, watching dozens of feral looking Motors charge past him. Explosives, flamers, and brutal saw weaponry on all of them. He could faintly hear the sound of battle across the cliff. Had they come to steal the deposit, or did they know what lurked within?

He could only wonder as he sat there, watching the horizon. A small Motor, barely large enough to carry its pilot stomped up next to him and squatted down. "Tell your leaders to stay out of places we protect, Dome born. You will only find death in them. If they were worth taking, we would have long before you left your gilded cage."

"Then why did you not stop us?! Obviously you saw us digging and alerted your horde, how else could they be here just as we opened it?!" Derno yelled at the pilot, cry streaming down his face.

"Because then you would have sought another way to use it. Turn it into a weapon. Use it to kill those you despise. No. We wanted you to learn first hand the horrors contained here, so you would have fear of what lies beneath the scorched earth. Return to your home, little man, tell your masters that nothing worth their lives lay within our borders. Only horrible death." With that, the Motor rose and marched off towards the rapidly diminishing sounds of battle. A massive plume of black smoke rose from over the crest, and the wind carried with it the smell of burning meat. He could only sit on his Motor and look out to the wasteland, wondering what other horrors hid beneath it. That, and how he was going to explain this to command if he could make it back. He suddenly had a desire to never leave the Dome ever again.