The aftermath of the blast made decent cover to begin his charge, and Rush hurried through the dust cloud before it settled. The Scrapper suit’s small size and high speed made it hard for the titanic mecha to spot, at least. If Rush had ever seen a fly, he might have compared it to one.

  As Rush darted from side to side to try and evade the mech’s attention, he looked up to track it’s gaze -and saw that the mecha was turning around. After obliterating the single hauler, the mech bandit had seemingly lost interest in the caravan. Rush didn’t stop running, but he did furrow his brows behind the suit’s helmet.

  “Why would it leave?”

  “Perhaps it was a simple act of sadism,” Elvis said. “These bandits do seem to be the type for wanton destruction.”

  Rush grunted in agreement. That much was true. Most bandits didn’t need a reason to destroy.

  In the back of his head, Rush thought that Hartwell might not approve of attacking a retreating opponent. Giza would approve, though, and Rush approved all on his own. Someone had been driving that hauler. The fact that the bandit was walking away after ending a life for no reason at all made Rush even angrier than a regular attack might have. At least greed was a reason.

  The retreat made it easy for Rush to approach the mech’s heel undetected. He latched on to it with metallic grips and began to climb.

  “Elvis, give me an entry point,” Rush said.

  “Entrance hatch on the back of the neck, similar to our last battle,” Elvis said. “And it has a single hatch system, even. We still have plenty of battery charge left, even after absorbing that shot with the shield.”

  “Sounds easy,” Rush said.

  “We did almost get obliterated by a railgun, Mr. Rush.”

  “We lived.”

  Some members of the Caelum clan simply panicked. A few headed for the crater to try and salvage what they could of the hauler -and any sign of its unfortunate occupants. The vast majority took cover and watched the speck of copper-colored armor scale the mecha’s back. Lieutenant Arthur Reynolds was among the latter.

  “He’s just climbing the back so far,” he said, quietly. “No sign the mecha even knows he’s there.”

  “Hmm. That won’t do.”

  “Do you need me to do something?” the Lieutenant said. “I could- ma’am?”

  Arthur heard only a dull tone in response. He’d been put on hold.

  “You have something on your back.”

  The message was confusing at first, but the pilot scanned their back anyway. Even with the warning, he was still surprised when the exterior scan turned up a small humanoid shape.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “What the hell is this?” the pilot demanded. He had a small handheld communicator much like the one Arthur held. “What did you get me into?”

  “I told you it was an experiment,” Howle said. “Do something experimental.”

  “Experimental,” the pilot grunted. “No need.”

  Rush was just reaching for a new handhold when the mech started to spin at rapid speeds. He lost his footing, and only managed to keep one hand clinging to the mecha’s hide as sheer inertia threatened to spin him loose. With his grip already tenuous, Rush could do nothing to avoid the massive hand sweeping down the mecha’s shell and swatting him to the ground. The absorption field kicked in as he hit the ground and prevented Rush from dying on impact, but his survival could easily be a temporary state of affairs.

  “Elvis, what happened? Why’d it do that?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Rush,” Elvis said.

  While he had no answers, Rush had a very clear directive. The mecha was already regaining its footing after the rapid spin, and would soon be ready to aim and fire. Rush had to get close before that railgun fired.

  He didn’t.

  Rush could feel the projectile long before it “hit”. The shield unit activated once again, absorbing an apocalyptic amount of energy and redirecting it around Rush’s body. Waves of dust shot out in an explosive shockwave as the impact flowed over and around Rush and into the dirt behind him. He braced himself as his boots sank deeper into loose soil, until the maelstrom finally ended.

  “Still holding,” Rush said. “That should be two out of three charges, right?”

  “We used a partial charge to absorb the impact of the hand striking us and the landing from the fall,” Elvis said. “It’ll be some time before we can take another hit, Mr. Rush. Under the circumstances, perhaps we had best feign defeat and hope the bandit loses interest, as before.”

  “Hey, you, Junkers!”

  The voice from the mecha’s speakers rang out almost as explosively as the impact of the railgun.

  “What the hell was that thing? What’d you do?”

  The mecha took one step back towards the caravan, and Rush matched it with a sprint right back towards the mecha.

  “Mr. Rush! We have no weapons, no shielding, and no element of surprise,” Elvis said. “We do not have anything to make use of-”

  “Then we take something,” Rush said, as he approached the foot of the mecha once again. “Do you still have enough energy to run the power saw?”

  “Yes, but-”

  At a quick mental command, the power saw activated. Rush leapt on the foot of the mecha and headed for the joint where the foot met the armor plates of the leg. Armor was always weakest around the joints. He sawed at the joint once, and drew back as the mech stepped forward. The movement of the joint briefly closed the small gap in the armor -and threatened to crush any unfortunate souls caught in it.

  “Mr. Rush, why do all of your plans involve borderline suicidal risk?”

  “I have to do something,” Rush said, as flatly as ever. He narrowly avoided another crushing death and continued to hack at the gap in the armor. He repeated the cycle once more, and the next time the foot moved, a scrap of armor got caught and bent out of shape by the motion. The next time the foot drew back, Rush grabbed the bent scrap and used the suit’s strength to rip it free. With a path open, Rush dove through the small gap and vanished into the buffer zone below the mech’s armor.

  “See? Done.”

  “Mr. Rush, we lost a portion of our boot,” Elvis said. Rush looked down at his heel. A small portion had been clipped off after getting caught in the closing gap.

  “That’s cosmetic anyway,” Rush said.

  “I spent an entire hour making this armor look nice,” Elvis groaned.

  “We’re about to get a new upgrade anyway,” Rush said. He looked up at the interior of the mecha’s armored leg, and the various mechanisms lying just below the surface.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Rush, but do you intend to take a battery from a still-active mecha?”

  “Yes.”

  Elvis briefly calculated the possible outcomes.

  “Well, we’re already past the stupidest part of the plan,” Elvis said. “All uphill from here.”