By David C. Daoust
Ratchet was finally back under a visor! It wasn’t the same one he had before, this one pinched a bit against his forehead. He was not about to gripe– someone was liable to use it as an excuse to exclude him all over again. He ignored the pinch and just tried to get comfortable on the sofa in the back of the family room.
The crew had jumbled about… Hamlin had talked Hugo into heading up onto the Bridge— all so that the tiny aspirant could help navigate the terrain. It was smart, Ratchet had spent quite a bit of time behind the helm on his family’s rover, navigation was an integral part of the job. Ratchet had side-stepped the job– piloting the massive vehicle just wasn’t the same now that they were going through the Drone; More tedious, flat-out boring. (Especially when there were spiders to fly.) Grace and Dicey were still in the room with him, Grace took over the big screen now that Harper was done with her grind. Ratchet couldn’t give a care where Harper was. All that being said they were all still on the comms, at least those that were on a rig, or invested in Ratchet’s upcoming scouting mission. Which was everyone.
Hitting the power button, the spider-mecha snapped to life and Ratchet re-familiarized himself with the controls. Even though he did not get to partake in any of the battles since, it wasn’t that long ago that he had used a spider-mecha. It was a pretty simple set up; intuitive even. He felt like he was getting better with it.
Through the eyes of the drone, Ratchet witnessed the world outside the Rover. This was his first look at the roof since the girls started collecting their trophies. And the roof, the roof looked like a junkyard! The mound of acquired Battle Drones was impressive. They had more than they needed.
Dicey’ engineering drone was hard at work repairing what she could as Ratchet’s mecha crawled about, trying to get his bearings. Despite the waves of attacking battle drones mysteriously ending once the rover was operational, the Laurens’ mechas were still out, patrolling their perimeter…
The small crew had, finally, got the Rover up and moving– just to come head-to-head with a starship in the middle of the desert.
Ratchet recognized it immediately. He was there on the other rover, in fact piloting it, when his cousin Craiden had discovered this abandoned ship… which their entire crew then quickly ‘scavenged’ its cargo. Cargo that would prove to be the very Battle Drones they had now mastered.
Ratchet suggested searching the ship for some sort of communication device. A suggestion that Ferguson had quickly shutdown, arguing they had wave after wave of attacking battle drones, pummeling them for days on end… Ratchet argued that they should find a way to contact their families. Sending out a drone to scout the situation, however, was eventually approved. Ratchet only agreed to the compromise once they offered him the job of scout.
Another Drone suddenly snapped to life and Ratchet heard Harper over the comm system. He rolled his eyes, but accepted that she was going to tag along. He did not bother greeting her, instead he hit his super-jump and hovered away.
When Harper jumped in the air, however, the whole mecha suddenly shifted, the arms folded tight around its mid-section and the back-section dropped low revealing twin rockets at its back. She rocketed off like a starfighter as Ratchet, with no clue how she did that, was forced to try and catch up, as is.
She was just showing off, anyway.
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