While I watched from the ground and Evelyn sat in the driver’s seat, seemingly asleep, the boys unloaded the backhoe and I checked the hydraulic lines, battery, and got the thing started. Strapped in with the rollover bar up, I drove a steady eight kilometers per hour back into the mine to work. Because even with all the testosterone in the crude camp, I was the best mechanic and machine operator on site. Played hell with my manicure.
* * *
Except for Mateo, whose bot suit filtered his own air, the day required everyone, even me, to take a few minutes in the triage medbay and a hit from an all-purpose inhaler that was in the travel first aid kit (inconveniently buried at the bottom of Evelyn’s supplies) to reduce lung and bronchial tube congestion. Even my people (except me, so I didn’t share my contagion bots) had to take an inhaler hit which helped their nanobots to begin healing them. We all had low-grade fevers from the nanobots giving us an immune boost, as if we had shared a cold.
Pathetic bunch of heroes with snotty noses, red eyes, and minor misery.
During the day, as the cold continued to blow in, I used a hydraulic rock splitter and drill wedges attached to the backhoe to break rock. Blasting was faster, but more expensive and I wasn’t a miner. I’d just as likely blow myself up as do the job that needed doing. With the rock splitter, I created shallow trenches for caltrop lines, deeper, human-sized trenches for humans to take cover in, and slammed the maul into the bedrock to make holes to bury mines. I also transported the alien spaceship gyro rings and alien metals scrap and materials to the small impoundment pond and gently pressed it all into the bottom of the contaminated gooey mud at the bottom. It was thirsty, dusty, dirty, work and used a lot of hydraulic fluid and even more diesel, both pretty much irreplaceable without gold or something even more valuable, like food.
The Sisters of the Cross had brought cameras and long-distance, tenth-generation parabolic mics, and while I pounded rock, they positioned the cams where they could get the best angles of the smaller pond. The cams had robotic capabilities with AI assist and auto focus.
Marconi had sent a mid-sized military tank, one suitable to hold Mateo and his suit, if needed, but smaller than the massive Simba tank with its city killer weapon hidden on the junkyard property. And unlike the Simba, if we got caught in the smaller tank, it wasn’t against the law. Or not exactly against the law. There was wiggle room. Maybe.
We planned where everyone would be positioned, and how we’d transition from one place to another through the trenches should it come to a battle. We didn’t want a fight. We wanted the military exposed as having ties to the Dark Riders, the illegal weapons trade, and human trafficking.
But worst case scenarios all said we’d have to kill.
I dug more trenches into the bedrock. The vibrations were horrible, and my nanos were working overtime to drain thefluid that built up to protect my joints and muscles. Operating heavy machinery was debilitating, all on its own.
By the end of the day, my muscles were quivering, my hands were swollen, and my brain buzzed as if an electric current ran through it. I needed an inhaler, and Evelyn came to the rescue again, giving me her own private one, so I didn’t transition anyone. It was a kindness I didn’t expect. Or it was a thrall protecting me. It was hard to tell anymore.
When I took a hit, the meds shocked through me and I coughed like a three-pack-a-day smoker from back before the war. My bronchial tubes opened up. My next breath of the thin, cold, contaminated air sent me into coughing fit. The air here was enough to kill.
The wind changed direction at sunset, bringing an even deeper cold, one laced with ice, sharp enough to dry out skin and make it bleed. The sky in the west was gorgeous at the edge of the cloud cover, red, orange, and purple, with an overlay of green and indigo haze from the fumes emanating from the ponds. Beautiful. Deadly. Humans had thoroughly ruined the Earth. We didn’t deserve to still be alive, walking on its face.
Nightfall was easier to contemplate in the safety between boulders, a pile of slag ten feet tall, and the remains of a wall to protect us, tent tarps over us. It wasn’t near as cozy as the small buildings that had been claimed by the Sisters, but the buildings were the most likely target for aerial attack if we were spotted. Tomika didn’t seem worried about the possibility of bombardment, and her three bedded down there.
Some of us had sleeping bags and foam mats, there were blankets and air mattresses for others. The cats decided to curl up around me, Spy inside the bag with me, only the tip of her nose exposed. I’d rather have Jagger, but he wasn’t offering.
I fluffed the bag’s pillow. “You could have done this last night,” I grouched. “It was colder than a miner’s arse.” Spyclosed her eyes and began to purr. Which wasn’t a bad way to fall asleep.
At dawn, Evelyn headed back to the roadhouse. We divided up into groups, with one group once again scouring for useful supplies, another group testing cams and comms, and my group preparing the mine for trouble and placing the fake Bug weapon we had made on the ground near the smaller pond and the ship rings.
We had no idea when the Dark Riders would get their bowels sorted out and tell their upline people about the rumors of a Bug ship crashed in the mine. And we had no idea when the DRs would send reconnaissance to check it out. Could be today. Could be tomorrow.
When we inspected our work, following the third dawn, we decided that we had done a bloody fine job. We cleaned up after ourselves enough that the tracks and disturbances looked as if they had been there for decades.
If we got lucky, the Dark Riders would show up in force. If we got real lucky, Gov. and real military would show up with them and get filmed and we wouldn’t have to fight. Luck and I had a weird relationship. It liked slapping me in the face and then gifting me something nice, and before I could enjoy the niceness, slapping me again. Luck was a domestic abuser on steroids.
Jagger pinged me on comms. “Check the weather. Temps are about to start dropping fast.”
I opened my morphon and tapped on to Jolene’s EntNu, allowing me use weather trackers on electronics without being traced.
Into my ear Jagger said. “The winter storm changed direction and could be turning our way. If it does, when it hits, the roads will be impassable. No one will be able to get in or out. It’s moving fast, so wherever it turns, it’s projected to blow outwithin twenty-four hours, and after it blows through, it’ll warm to five centigrade. Back to winter / early spring desert. If we get the brunt, and the Dark Riders don’t come before, we’ll be stuck here through a snowfall and—”
Jolene broke into the conversation. “A Gov. drone is headed your way. Five minutes to take cover. My drones are going down under cover so they won’t be seen. I will not be providing aerial surveillance.”
Jagger stopped talking and his comms went silent.
At a dead run to my earth mover, I tapped my comms, opening to everyone in the area, and shouted, “Get equipment and people under cover! Drone incoming!”
To Jolene, I said. “Razor, Big Dick, start the fires. Jolene, before your drones are down, are you able to send the fake Bug signal?”
“Affirmative, Sugah,” she said, “but it has to be fast.”
“CAIT sanctions operational actions,” a second voice said.
I swiveled on the front-end loader and moved it between two boulders. Keyed it off.
