Scarlet Steel

There is nothing scarier than a well tuned Damascus Engineering mech at its preferred engagement distance. Equally, there is no mech easier to kill than an unreliable one at an inopportune distance. Each mech is designed for a single, rigid fighting style, nearly always focusing on overwhelming firepower rather than defensive prowess. They can be temperamental, stemming from Damascus Engineering’s single minded focus. That said, nobody can deny their effectiveness. - An Idiot’s Guide to Mechs, 3rd edition.

Starting up a mech is a surprisingly easy process. First comes turning on the battery.

I flip a few switches on the dash in sequence, and the computers begin to come alive. Booting them up takes a little bit, with all the compounding errors and all. But they’re fine. Most of the errors are complaining about missing parts or part mismatches. Nothing important is wrong, and nothing that will prevent it from running.

Once the computers are on and the errors cleared, there are a few tests I need to perform. The air pressure still reads zero in all sensors. Self tests of dozens of parts all come back clear, although the all clears are spread across three separate computer systems. That’s fine though, launching three separate programs ties them all together. It just collects the data and translates them into something Old Earth Design’s standard operating system can understand. It’ll let my main console control everything, regardless of manufacturer.

The third thing that needs to be done is to activate the magnetic fields. They can be sustained through just the batteries, and have to be fully warmed up before they can suspend antimatter.

And finally, I flip the master switch!

An explosion rocks the mech, and every light turns off.

“No!” I slap the console in frustration, and rush out the back of the cockpit, scrambling to the front of the mech. My workshop lights are bright enough to reassure me that there’s at least no massive hole in the engine.

The antimatter cell is sitting right in the center, its screen lit up yellow. Ok, that’s good. That’s an error, but not a catastrophic one. Everything isn’t about to blow up. The worst part is that there’s a small hissing noise, air leaking into the engine. My vacuum is ruined, and maybe the whole thing too.

I need to work fast. I step up into the engine and touch the screen on the cell. Text displays on it in large letters:

An error has been detected. Shutdown successful.

I let out a sigh of relief. A successful shutdown means it still has antimatter in it. I open the valve to let the engine pressurize, twist the cell, and pull it out of its socket. I place it gently inside a cushioned lead container.

Ok, that’s the dangerous part taken care of. Now what went wrong? Antimatter obliterating in the wrong part of the engine, obviously. Nothing else makes a bang like that.

I hook my air pump back up to Hoppy and spray her down with soapy water. Bubbles begin to form right in the middle of the tube that guides the antimatter from the cell to the reaction chamber, right where I expected it.

Undoing my braces holding it in place takes a few minutes, but I eventually pull it free. Shining a light inside reveals a large chunk taken out of the middle of it.

It completely failed. A few individual atoms slamming into the walls is to be expected from a cold start. But this was the entire startup surge. It failed to guide it at all, and I'm sure the explosion launched shrapnel through the engine’s internals that I’ll need to clear out. But what went wrong?

I put the tube in my backpack and grab my laptop. I’ve practiced the bootup sequence hundreds of times! I’ve dreamt about it for years! I pull up the sequence on my laptop and read.

Turn on battery, and do a self check. I did that. It technically failed, but the errors weren’t important. They cleared up when I connected each OS together anyway. The parts were working, and that’s what matters.

Next is activating the magnetic fields and… oh. And waiting a few minutes for everything to warm up. I’m do dumb! I set myself back by months at minimum because I didn’t slow down and think again! How many times do I have to learn this lesson? How am I the dumbest girl on the planet?

I’m not going home. I’m not going back and telling all three of them that I failed.

Heading out tonight without the sun is pointless. I can’t find a new tube tonight. I can clean out the engine though, I’ve spent enough nights working out here to know my lights are enough.

There’s nothing else to do. I grab my tool kit and get to work.

Throughout the night I take off part after part, tiny bits of shrapnel falling out of every crevice. I inspect every single piece, making note of every bit that got damaged during the explosion. Unfortunately, it’s a lot of it, and I need to do tests on basically every piece to check if it’s functional or not.

I get most of the internals taken apart by the time the sun rises. My workspace is a crowded mess of miscellaneous parts randomly strewn about.

My body feels heavy, and there’s pressure behind my eyes. I’m exhausted, but I have to keep working. There’s nothing else I can do.

I grab my headset and check every nearby mech. The closest replacement part is almost fifteen miles away. It’s either go there now, or go home. The choice is obvious.

I load up my backpack with some food and water I have stored in my workshop and head out.

I drag myself across the junkyard, step after step, mile after mile. Hours later my phone begins to ring in my pocket. I pull it out and see Mom’s number staring back at me. With a sigh, I hold the phone up to my ear.

“What?” I ask.

“Scarlet? Are you ok? I’m at Hoppy, what happened?”

“I blew it up, what does it look like?” I snap back. “I’m getting new parts.”

She goes silent for a few seconds. Just before I hang up, she speaks again.

“I’ll start testing to see what still works.”

“Is Juno still here?” I ask.

“No, she and Elara left at sunrise.”

“Ok.” She’s leaving the mesh here. I have time to fix things. “Thanks. Just send a message with whatever’s broken.” I hang up before she can respond, slip my phone back into my pocket, and continue my exhausted hike.

By the time I reach the mech, I’m barely able to stay standing. I should just climb into the chassis and fall asleep. There’s still sunlight though. I can still do a little work.

No matter what I do, I can’t get the tube off. No matter what I unscrew, no matter how hard I pull, it just won’t come loose. A yell of frustration escapes my lips.

I let go and my tools clatter to the ground.

I need to let myself sleep. I’m going to accidentally break something if I don’t, and I really don’t want to do another hike tomorrow. I roll out my sleeping bag, climb inside, and am out like a light.

I wake up feeling numb, my mistake still weighing heavily on me. Maybe it’s not as bad as I think it is. Maybe I overreacted.

I force myself out of bed, my entire body sore from yesterday’s work. After a small breakfast and some water, I get to work.

It turns out I’m really dumb, or at least was last night. When I couldn’t get the tube out of the engine, it was because I forgot to remove an entire clamp. I have no idea how I even missed that.

I loosen a single bolt and pull off the part. With a shake of my head I carefully place it in my backpack.

I make it back to Hoppy around noon to find Mom poring over my workbench, testing part after part. She glances at me as I approach and gets back to work.

“I brought more food.” She taps a cooler under the workbench with her foot.

“Thanks.” I drag it out and open it up. I’m met with a collection of my favorite foods, with a small plate of cookies sitting on top. I grab them and eat away my emotions.

“I’m guessing you didn’t let her warm up?” Mom asks.

“Can you check this?” I take the part out of my backpack and set it beside her.

My avoidance is enough of an answer, and she doesn’t push me.

Mom has done a lot to organize my mess. The parts I just put wherever they fit have been organized, laid out next to the same pieces they would be connected to if they were in the engine. A few pieces are missing, sitting in an organized pile on one side of the workbench, and a haphazard one on the other side.

“How much did I break?”

“I’ve seen worse from a premature start, but I’m still cataloguing the damage. I’ve fixed this kind of thing more than you would expect. Everything spread out is confirmed working.”

I wordlessly get to work putting as much of the engine back together as I can. We rarely say anything as we work together, just a few words every hour or so. I don’t even stop working for dinner, there’s more I can do with just one hand.

“I know you’re not going to, but you should come home tonight.” Mom says. “Have at least one night in your bed before you’re out here working for a week.”

“Juno’s going to want the mesh back soon.”

“No she’s not. Her group does most of their maintenance work on a ship, a vent outside the hull is as good as any mesh. Plus it’s not even her only one.”

“I’m fine sleeping here.” I insist.

“I know.”

Mom forces me to sleep when the sun goes down, and I don’t argue. The two of us spend another night under the stars together. The next day we get back to work, and she finishes testing every single part.

“You only have seventeen broken parts that you don’t have replacements on hand for.” She pulls out her phone, and a moment later my own vibrates. The list she sent is detailed, even giving me a few equivalent parts from other manufacturers that I may be able to adapt to work. Nothing too rare is broken, and more importantly, nothing too heavy.

“Thank you.” I sit down and get to work scanning every wreck I have recorded. I’ve already visited most of them and marked down what’s usable, it’s just a matter of picking the optimal route to collect everything. Thankfully I traded for The Universal Salesman at some point, a program for exactly this situation. The instant I plug in everything I need, the optimal route is decided. “I’ll be back.”

“Is your phone charged? Fall prevention system still working?”

“Yes and yes.” I ended up sewing a couple extra batteries into my backpack. I could be away for two months and still have a working phone.

“Alright. Stay safe. I’ll be home.”

“Ok, and thanks for not working on her without me.”

“I get it, don't worry.”

I turn away and head out into the junkyard yet again.