Ashlands

         The ash fell and glittered. The only sound was my footsteps and the pnematic whirrs of my mechni. The land around me was scorched, and if I’d been walking unshielded, the air would have scorched my lungs, and the caustic ash would have burned my skin. Here and there among the hills of collated ash, and the charred wreckage of buildings burned purple and green colored fires, blazing weirdly, causing nearby soil to glow red and orange. I checked the battery indicator on the edge of the cockpit. It read that the mechni I was encased in still had half battery. That was more than enough to take me back to Amnicola station. I strode forward, and the servomotors and yellow painted iridium plating encasing my legs reacted, moving seamlessly with my own muscles. I looked around the transparent resin window that surrounded my upper body. The controls jutted forward in front of my chest, and my arms had freedom to manipulate the controls. The cockpit section made the machine look somewhat like a shark head on two legs, and would in fact look rather humorous if it didn’t also have a complement of flechette cannons, capable of firing two-thousand microscopic darts per shot at a man sized target 50 feet away. I pushed up a hill of ash so I could get a better view of the desolation around me. The sun was starting to peek through the dark choking clouds, and golden beams lit the valley before me, walled on both sides by rocky peaks marred with black swathes of carbonized wood, land that had been forest many years ago. I pressed a button on my command console, and from above a small winged shape approached my mechni, following an ultrasonic signal emanating from the suit’s loudspeakers. The little creature was a cacula, a scout and reconnaissance bird. It was a unique animal in its ability to survive the toxic environment of the Wastes. It was a little black thing, with a wicked sharp curved beak and claws. It’s big red eyes looked down inquisitively, and landed on the antenna above my head. My cacula was named Rex, I shut off the call and trudged back down the hill, back up the pass, with Rex preening the poisonous dust from his feathers and hanging tightly to my antenna.

         It was a myth that mechnis moving easier, they only let you move faster. That had been their intention, back when they were invented as a way to effectively comb the Wastes. They were just a way to move for a long distances over rugged terrain without getting or killed or burned alive by the corrosive chemicals floating in the air. Upon musing about these things, I checked my oxygen levels, which was superimposed over the window to my left. It read two hours of air, a good amount of time. Suddenly a voice came over my radio
“Triarii one, come in, this is Centurion Leland, of Amnicola station. What’s your status?”
“This is Triarii one, I’m returning from patrol now, conditions normal.”
“Good to hear it. Did you find any useful salvage?”
“Negative, but a least there weren’t any creatures out there. I swear they get stranger each year-“
The Centurion cut him off in his usual droll tone: “The radio isn’t for chatting. Get here on schedule. We’ve received a distress call form the pedites at supply outpost 5.”
I sighed. Those useless pedites class robots couldn’t really do anything well except look scary.
“What, did one of them get their treads stuck in the mud? Honestly, this is what we have caculas for.”
“They were taken offline, soldier. Something broke them. Keep proceeding here with all due speed.”
“Yes Centurion.”

         Amnicola station was a pit. Quite literally, it was a large hole covered by a transparent cover of the same material as the windshield of my mechni. The cover was cone shaped, and sealed the habitable area beneath from the toxins above. The station was essentially a greenhouse. It was situated at the end of the valley, with the brown and turbid sea far to the left with the clouds above darkening it so that the horizon was a barely visible brown smudge. To its right was the sludge filled river that gave the station it’s name (Amnicola means a settlement by the river).  To the left of the station also bordering the sea was the abrupt end of the vast mountain range (jokingly named the Mordor mountains by the staff at Amnicola) bordering the valley. Between the mountain and the sea was the Magnussen River, named after the first mechni pilot to navigate it. I walked quickly to the airlock at the edge of the cone, and it’s sturdy black and yellow door opened, the interior of the airlock lighting up with red and purple warning lights. It strode in, and shut off my vehicle. The door closed behind me. Rex squawked. He hated decontamination. He obediently leapt from the antenna of my suit and lit in a barrel at the corner of the room. He scurried in, and it sealed over him, protecting him from the vacuum that was about to envelop my mechni.

         After being decontaminated, clean air flew into the room and the inner door opened. I pressed several buttons on my suit, and the clamps on my legs and feet loosened, allowing me to wiggle out of the mechni. The cockpit opened, and I fell to the ground. Rex landed on my shoulder, smelling of soap (Even he had to go through a rudimentary cleaning before entering the station) I petted him as I got to my feet. I looked up at the sound of footsteps, and there in front of me, to a backdrop of greenhouses and workers in the interior station, was Centurion Leland. He was a large, an, with close cut dark hair and a piercing brown eyed stare that made him look like a hawk or cacula eying it’s prey.
“Get into one of the other mechnis. There’s one charged up in the bay to the left. Get moving!”
“What, no Kit-Kat break?”
“What the hell’s a Kit-Kat? Get your ass moving! That outpost has enough rations to feed this facility for a week!”
“On the way, Centurion.” I was an asshole back then, but I was no idiot. I ran to the next bay, yelling hurried hellos to a couple of the technicians I saw on my way. As I got into the bay I had to grit my teeth at the pain from Rex holding onto my shoulder
“You’re going to draw blood if you hold on like that. Come on, shoo. I’ve gotta get suited.”
I walked backward into the open maw of the mechni. I stepped onto two platfoms, which cradled each of my feet and raised me up with a whirr of pneumatics until my body was in the correct position for the cockpit to close over me. Its leg clamps closed and fit to my size, and the cockpit lowered and sealed in front of my chest. My rumpled uniform was bunched up over the stomach clamp and made me look incredibly stupid, but there was no time to change it. Besides, its not like anything out there in the Wastes was going to care if I was inspection-ready. The power indicator on this mechni did indeed show full power and oxygen. I radioed in: “This is Triarii one, ready to rock and roll.”
“This is auxilia Jacobs, you are cleared for exit. Opening airlock.”
“Thank ya kindly. See you in an hour.”
“Be advised, we are sending Venator class drone after you.”
“Wow, do I really need that hulk? What took out the Outpost anyway?”
“We don’t know, and that’s exactly why we’re sending the venator with you. Be careful out there, Stevens, remember that we don’t know nearly as much about this place as we’d like to.”
“Understood. I see the venator now.” The massive machine looked almost exactly like a giant centipede, painted matte black and purple to blend in with the wastes. At it’s front were two razor-sharp mandibles, and above it’s segmented body was affixed a large sniper rifle, modified to fire reinforced tungsten-titanium rounds at fully automatic rates. The venator’s many legs made clacking noises as they struck the black glass under the layer of dust. I left the bay, and moved toward the darkness of the road ahead. To my right, green fires lit the interior of my cockpit with a ghostly glow. Rex flew high above me, and I eventually lost sight of him behind the low hanging gauze of clouds. I reached the beginning of the road, marked with a worn post with a red light at it’s top. The red light meant that the road was technically impassible. The posts were placed before mechnis were invented, and I had no trouble negotiating the sharp outcroppings of black and dull green glass that jutted from the ashen roadway. The venator trailed behind me, it’s legs clacking on the roadway. I passed cliffs on the right, and the crashing sea to the left. High up on the cliff, caves were visible, and it was rumored that the lixen took shelter. The lixen were catlike scavengers that the Phalanx had discovered soon after arriving in the Wastes. Our mission had been to recover any pre-Burning artifacts, and see if any remnant of the former ecosystem was salvageable. Instead we found only the lixen, well, and the Secluded of course. Anyway, I made it two thirds of the way to the outpost, when the road began to turn inland. I had been walking for about forty minutes when the road turned inland and started moving up over the side of the mountain. The ash was falling less thickly here. The spires of craggy rocks and glassy dirt rose on either side, casting weird shadows on the canopy of my mechni.
“Triarii one, this is Centurion Leland. Scanners place you within a mile of the outpost 5. Correct?”
“Yes, my GPS confirms. This place does look familiar. No sign of unusual activity. Status normal.”
“Understood.”

         The outpost was placed in a small valley; it was little more than a box of corrugated metal, resting on titanium stilts. It was filled with food and supplies for the outpost, and any convoy or mechni pilot who required it. There was no sign of the pedites that had been guarding it.
“This is Triarii one, I’m seeing no sign of the pedites. The outpost seems unharmed. I’m checking its status now.” On my operation screen the local outpost’s wireless comm. System popped up.
“This is Leland. Don’t approach the outpost. Open it remotely.”
“Yes sir.” I pressed a symbol on my op screen, activating the door of the outpost.
“Any particular reason why I’m opening it remotely?”
Before the Centurion could respond, I was almost blinded, and heard a muffled explosion and the sound of my canopy cracking.

         I woke up several seconds later looking up at the murky sky. A winged shape was circling over my vision, and I realized it was Rex spiraling towards my fallen mechni. There was a rift in the sky, and I realized that this was caused by a massive crack in the canopy in front of my face. My radio was crackling with Centurion Leland’s voice:
“Triarii one, respond! Your mechni’s reporting damage. Respond now! If you can hear us, Triariis five, seven and eight are moving your way!”
I summoned the will so speak. My mouth was dry. “This Is Triarii one. I’m okay…I think. The outpost exploded.” I couldn’t see the outpost because of my operations screen. I was on my back crumpled on the ground; my legs and their mechanical extensions were bent awkwardly. Other than the canopy crack (which the opscreen reported as admitting no toxic exterior air) there was really little damage to the machine, mainly just the loss of a small iridium plate over my abdominal area. I flexed my legs, and extended them, causing the whole machine to shift on the crackling ash. The pneumatic legs whined but complied. I then grabbed two joysticks on either side of my torso, rotated them and pressed a button on top. My mechni rocketed upward as two mechanical claws punched into the rock behind me, and I was able to regain a standing position. The legs of my mechni, though affixed to my own, extended a few feet further. My feet were actually encased in the middle of each leg, and every movement it made translated to massive clawed imitations of them. This is what allowed the rather weighty cockpit to be held by the comparatively short legs of the human body. The whole thing, despite it’s efficiency, looked incredible ungainly. As all this occurred, my radio continued to chatter:
“Good to know you’re okay. What’s your status? Where’s the venator?”
“The venator?” I looked around. Rex had once again perched on my antenna. The outpost had blown open like a flower, replete with pollen made of still-burning foodstuffs at the center. A plume of smoke was rising. I turned my mechni, and looked about. The venator was standing behind me, unfazed and unharmed by the explosion. Sitting without orders and without targets, it had watched as I almost died. Stupid thing.
“It’s fine. A lot better than I am. Do you think this is the work of the Secluded? They’ve never been this brave before.” Or devious, I thought. The Secluded, remnants of the pre-Burning society of this land, had been living in underground bunkers and in mountaintop compounds for hundreds of years. They were normal people biologically, but they saw the intrusion of the Phalanx into their territory as a personal affront. They didn’t travel in mechnis, but instead in crude chemical warfare suits they pillaged from the installations they lived in, or built them from what they could scavenge. They had set up ambushes before, but never with explosives. And they’d certainly never attempted to booby trap an outpost before. I took a few tottering steps, trying to get my bearings “Considering that the outpost is one with the ash, can I come back to the station now?”
“Yes. The crack in your canopy may be stable, but I’m not going to risk you getting exposed. Move back here now. You good on batteries and oh-two?”
“Yeah…I’m fine. These Secluded are getting braver, sir. I hope they don’t have any more surprises for me.”
“If they were planning to ambush you they would have done so already. Is anything in the outpost salvageable?”
“No. If it isn’t vaporized it’s on fire. It’s all contaminated.”
“Damn. Those were prime foodstuffs.”
“Yeah. If I may say so Centurion, we need to find a diplomatic solution to these crazies, or crush ‘em.”
Leland gave a humorless laugh “Do you know how much paperwork it takes to order the subjugation of a culture? I’d have to stay up late.”
“I weep for you suffering, sir.”
At that point Rex squawked. I activated the speakers:
“What is it, boy? You worried about-“
I wasn’t able to finish the sentence because the sound of bullets bouncing of my armor distracted me.
“Shit!” I turned, my mechni moving nimbly. I grabbed the joysticks controlling the two flechette cannons over my left and right shoulders, and flicked a switch to arm them. An ammo meter appeared in the corner of my canopy and a targeting reticule, marred by the massive crack, appeared at its center. A couple bullets bounced off the canopy leaving disturbing scratches. I quickly discerned the source of the rushing tungsten rounds, and found it in a shadowy shape crouching behind a rock. I wasn’t keen to become a sitting duck, and ran forwards, my flechette cannons maintaining gyroscopic stability. Rex had leapt from the antenna and flew towards the sky. In the upper right corner of my canopy a video feed opened up from the small camera hanging from Rex’s neck. It was stabilized to it could provide a literal birds eye view of the ground in front of me. One of the shapes rose out of cover to fire, and I saw that they were indeed Secluded, their unmistakable dirty white chemical warfare suits marking them against the sable rocks. I used the joystick to steer my reticule in the general area of the man (at least I think it was a man) and let the thermal sensors zero in on the target. I depressed the trigger, and the mechni shuddered. Several thousand micro flechettes flew toward the man, who only had time to get off two shots from his rifle before his upper body exploded with red.
“Secluded threat neutralized!” I had no time to enjoy my victory because more shots rang out, this time from a different source. They rattled off the back of my mechni. I turned, weapons at the ready, only to see that the venator had beaten me to the shot. It was pumping rounds up at an area above us, creating a cascade of stone shards and black dirt. I don’t think the robot hit the sniper. The cam on Rex didn’t show a damn thing. I started running towards the outcropping of rock. It was just beyond the other side of the road, and I could see a passable trail up the side. I leapt up, and landed on a lower outcropping of rock. The shards of rock falling from the venator’s barrage clattered on the canopy. I ran forward on a small but visible trail of packed ash, and it lead up and around the large rock. This must be one of the Secluded’s hunting trails. The people back at the station were o doubt watching my progress through the cam on the drone, and they were wise enough not to radio me while I climbed, a tricky process in a mechni, considering that you can’t use arms. I used the clawed feet of the suit to dig into the rock around the trail, which at this point was at a nearly 45-degree angle. I then simply moved step by step up the rock formation, trying to keep my mechni stable and standing upright. I kept my hands on the joysticks controlling the flechette cannons, because I was expecting the Secluded man to realize he was being flanked. Apparently I was wrong however, because once I reached the top, I saw a man in a chemical warfare suit clutching an old rifle, and, not even aiming it in my direction. His rifle had a laser sight that was shooting up into the dark sky and into infinity. His face was visible behind a layer of reinforced transparent plastic, and the fear on it at seeing this mechanical goliath in front of him was apparent. I activated my speaker.
“Stand down, and you won’t be harmed.”
“I don’t want you to take me away!” he yelled, muffled by his suit. He was still clutching his rifle, but it was aimed at the sky. Then I realized that the venator had stopped firing before I started climbing.
“I don’t want you to take me to that other land. They say you walk outside there without sacred armor.”
“That’s because the air there is breathable there. It’ on the whole other side of the planet, the fumes never got there.”
“I don’t want to lose my soul, and especially not to a monstrosity like you. To walk unshielded is to yield your soul to the devil. That is why you Phalanx are demonic. You have forgotten the way of the Suit and Mask.
“That’s because we never had to wear masks! Listen, I won’t make you take your suit off, but I will have to take you over to central command. Things aren’t so bad there. Flowers grow outside there.
The man held his rifle tighter “And they always said the Devil would come with temptations and tricks. You think you can fool me? You think you can lead me down the path of darkness! No! I will not go.”
He lowered his rifle at me. The red tangent of the laser hovered directly on the large crack in my canopy. I pressed the small red button on my joystick. The mechni bucked slightly. The man was blown over the edge of the outcropping and fell to the ash below. I looked at the feed from Rex’s cam. There was no motion on the side of the mountain except the rain of ash, which had begun to intensify.

         “Triarii one, what’s your status?”
“Status normal. Threats neutralized.”