The sun was a hammer.
It beat down on the salt flats, turning the white ground into a blinding mirror. The heat shimmered, making the horizon dance like water.
The convoy crawled.
Ten heavy trucks, painted in faded desert camo, rumbled in a single file line. Their engines wheezed. Black smoke coughed from their stacks.
Marcus sat in the passenger seat of the luxury rover. The AC was blasting, but he was sweating.
"Fuel status?" he asked.
Marcia didn't look away from the road. She tapped the console.
"Critical," she said. "Truck 4 is running on fumes. Truck 7 is sputtering. We have maybe ten miles before we are walking."
"And food?"
"We ate the last protein bars at dawn," Marcia said. "The refugees are drinking radiator water. It's getting ugly back there."
Marcus looked out the window.
The desert was empty. Just salt and sky. No cover. If the trucks stopped here, they were sitting ducks for Vane's orbital drones.
"We can't stop," Marcus said.
"Physics disagrees," Marcia snapped.
The radio crackled.
"Caesar," Decimus's voice. "Truck 4 just died. Engine seizure. We are towing it, but it's dragging us down."
"Cut it loose," Marcus said.
"It has the ammo crates!"
"Put the ammo in Truck 3. Burn the truck. Move."
"Understood."
Marcus rubbed his temples. He needed a miracle. Or a gas station.
"JARVIS," he thought. "Scan the horizon. Anything."
[SCANNING...]
[SENSORS: THERMAL/OPTICAL.]
[RESULT: NOTHING BUT DIRT FOR 50 MILES.]
Marcus groaned.
[WAIT.]
The gold text flashed.
[SEISMIC ANOMALY DETECTED.]
[DIRECTION: NORTH-NORTHWEST.]
[DISTANCE: 3 MILES.]
[SIGNATURE: HEAVY TREADS.]
"Something big is moving," Marcus said. "Three miles North."
"Friend or foe?" Marcia asked.
[ANALYZING VIBRATION PATTERN...]
[MASS: 500 TONS.]
[IDENTIFICATION: PARTHIAN SUPPLY CRAWLER - CLASS: BEHEMOTH.]
"It's a Crawler," Marcus said. "A land-ship. Automated supply transport."
Marcia's eyes lit up. She licked her dry lips.
"Supply," she whispered. "That means diesel. Rations."
"And turrets," Marcus added. "Those things are bristling with automated defenses. It's a moving fortress."
"We have a rover," Marcia grinned. She revved the electric engine. "It's faster than a tank."
"We can't fight it with the convoy," Marcus said. "It will chew up the trucks."
"So we leave them," Marcia said. "We take the Rover. We catch it. We kill it. We bring the fuel back."
Marcus looked at the dashboard clock. It was high noon.
"Tell the convoy to keep moving," Marcus ordered Lucilla in the back seat. "Maintain radio silence. If we aren't back in two hours..."
"You'll be dead," Lucilla finished.
"Optimistic," Marcus said.
He checked his Vibro-Gladius. Battery full.
"Let's go hunting."
The Rover screamed across the salt flats.
It hit a hundred miles an hour. The electric motors whined like jet turbines.
Ahead, a dust cloud rose into the sky like a tornado.
Through the haze, a shape emerged.
It was massive. A rusty iron block, three stories high, longer than a football field. It moved on four gigantic tank treads that crushed the rock beneath them.
Black smoke poured from its stacks. It looked like a factory on wheels.
"That's a lot of diesel," Marcia yelled over the wind noise.
"Incoming!" Marcus shouted.
[WARNING: LOCK-ON DETECTED.]
[SOURCE: REAR DORSAL TURRETS.]
[PROJECTILE: 20MM HIGH-EXPLOSIVE.]
Two turrets on the back of the Crawler spun around. They tracked the Rover.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
Tracer fire stitched the ground in front of them. Explosions kicked up white dust.
"Evasive!" Marcus yelled.
Marcia didn't flinch. She yanked the wheel hard left.
The Rover drifted. The tires spun on the salt.
A shell exploded right where they had been a second ago. Shrapnel pinged off the armored glass.
[CALCULATING TURRET BLIND SPOTS...]
JARVIS drew a gold path on the windshield. A zig-zag line weaving through the kill zone.
[FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD.]
"Follow the line!" Marcus pointed.
Marcia gritted her teeth. She slalommed the car.
Right. Left. Hard brake. Accelerate.
The turret fire chased them, chewing up the desert, but missing the car by inches.
"We need to get closer!" Marcus yelled. "Under the guns!"
"I'm trying!" Marcia screamed. "It's doing sixty!"
She floored it.
The Rover surged. It closed the gap.
They entered the dust cloud behind the massive machine. Visibility dropped to zero. Just swirling brown grit.
And the deafening roar of the treads.
CLANK-CLANK-CLANK.
The metal tracks were taller than the Rover. If they touched them, the car would be ground into paste.
"Pull alongside!" Marcus unbuckled his seatbelt.
"You're jumping?" Marcia looked at him like he was insane.
"I'm boarding."
Marcia steered the Rover into the shadow of the Crawler. They were inches from the grinding steel tracks.
Above them, a maintenance ladder dangled from a catwalk on the second deck.
It was swaying wildly.
"Get me steady!" Marcus opened the passenger door.
The wind tore at him. The noise was a physical blow. Dust filled his nose.
He stood on the door frame. He held onto the roof rack.
[JUMP CALCULATOR: ACTIVE.]
[DISTANCE: 6 FEET.]
[RELATIVE VELOCITY: MATCHED.]
[TIMING: WAIT... WAIT... NOW.]
Marcus leaped.
For a second, he was suspended in the chaos.
His hands caught the rusty rungs of the ladder.
SLAM.
His body swung hard, slamming into the side of the Crawler. His armor absorbed the impact, but his ribs screamed.
He dangled over the churning tracks. One slip, and he was mulch.
"Go!" he waved at the Rover.
Marcia peeled away, retreating out of turret range.
Marcus looked up.
The ladder led to a hatch.
He began to climb. The metal was hot, baking in the sun.
He reached the catwalk. He pulled himself over the railing.
He lay there for a second, catching his breath.
A mechanical whir.
A panel on the hull slid open.
A drone popped out. It looked like a metal spider with a camera eye and a buzzsaw arm.
Maintenance bot. Or security.
It saw him. It shrieked.
The buzzsaw spun up.
Marcus rolled.
The saw sparked against the grating where his head had been.
He drew his Vibro-Gladius.
He didn't stand up. He swept the leg.
The blade sliced through the drone's hydraulic limbs. It collapsed, sparking.
Marcus stabbed it in the central processor. The shrieking stopped.
"JARVIS," Marcus panted. "Scan for life signs."
[SCANNING...]
[DECK 1: AUTOMATED MACHINERY.]
[DECK 2: BIOMASS STORAGE.]
[DECK 3: COMMAND DECK - 4 LIFE SIGNS.]
"Biomass storage?" Marcus muttered. "That doesn't sound like rations."
He stood up. He walked to the airlock door.
It was locked. A heavy wheel sealed with a keypad.
[HACKING...]
[ACCESS GRANTED.]
The light on the door turned green.
Marcus spun the wheel. It groaned.
He pulled the door open.
Cool, stale air rushed out. It smelled of grease and... copper.
Blood.
Marcus stepped into the darkness.
"JARVIS," he whispered. "Night vision."
His visor polarized. The corridor lit up in green wireframe.
He walked past pipes hissing with steam. The floor vibrated with the engine's power.
He reached a ladder going up. To the Command Deck.
But first, he looked down a long hallway labeled CARGO.
"Let's see what we're eating," Marcus said.
He walked down the hall.
He found a window looking into the cargo hold.
He wiped the dust off the glass.
He froze.
It wasn't crates of food.
It was rows of glass tubes. Hundreds of them.
Inside the tubes, suspended in green liquid, were people.
Men. Women. Children.
They were naked, hooked up to tubes. Their skin was gray. Their eyes were open, staring at nothing.
Some of them had metal plates grafted onto their limbs. Some had their jaws replaced with vox-grilles.
"Hollow Men," Marcus whispered.
They weren't dead. They were twitching.
This wasn't a supply truck. It was a farm.
A mobile factory turning prisoners into zombies.
Marcus felt bile rise in his throat.
[THREAT: MORAL HORROR.]
[ADVICE: BURN IT DOWN.]
"No," Marcus said. "We save them."
He turned away from the window.
He gripped his sword.
"First, we take the bridge."
He climbed the ladder.
He reached the top hatch. He pushed it open.
He emerged onto the roof of the Crawler.
The sun was blinding.
Four figures stood near the smokestacks.
They wore red robes made of oil-stained canvas. Their faces were covered in gas masks. Their arms were replaced with hydraulic pincers and welding torches.
Parthian Tech-Priests.
They turned. They saw him.
They raised their tools.
"Intruder," one of them rasped through a speaker. "Recycle him."
Marcus ignited his blade. It hummed, hungry.
"Come and try," Marcus said.
He charged.