The storm rolled in as the metal rusted and the bodies burned.
It has been twelve years since the war ended, and still, the Emperor has yet to clean up the mess caused by his great weapon.
The eternal downpour of Terra-gilma is all that’s washed away the traces of the Division’s war with the Republic. The weak, lowly Republic.
The figure among the bodies and rust curses both of these idiotic governments for their foolish, drawn-out conflict, intent on damning humanity while having the nerve to speak of its betterment.
She almost wants to laugh in her anger. To scream, to cry, to do anything, if only to simply drive this feeling out of her. However, her watch of the skies takes priority. It took her three weeks to obtain information on a Bioship arriving tonight under the cover of darkness and lightning. It is the first ship to visit the planet since the war ended. What a terrible mistake that is.
She finally spots the hardened skin of the ship flex its way through the night before landing in the abandoned village hills.
A smile creeps across her face as she slides her wooden telescope back into her satchel. She’ll get what she needs tonight. Yes, tonight. She thinks Tonight I shall leave this planet and never return.
Bellowing rainwater is enough to mask the sound of her approach; the only downside is that the mud could slow her movement, but years of training allow her to power through the struggle.
Every action is effortless for her now; it is only in her mind that she finds herself trapped.
No, not trapped. Focused. Focused on her mission, and unaware of the prisoner that the Bioship is carrying.
They are trapped. Locked inside a harsh, inescapable prison devoid of any light or comfort. Not that they ever cared for material comforts, much less knew them. They do not know where they are or how long they have been there, but they do know that they are indeed trapped.
The woman’s concentration holds on the craft’s slowly opening hangar, leaving the crew to rush out and unload their cargo. Each member of the group spreads out across the hill to check their own equipment and what merchandise they brought with them. That’s it. She thinks Make yourselves easy targets for me. She nocks the arrow tightly into her bow as she selects her first victim. The man never even sees the arrow speed toward him; there’s only a slight pain in his stomach before his guts spill out of the gaping wound, leaving him to bleed out and scream in agony. She’s not supposed to enjoy this, not supposed to revel in their pain, but after what happened, after how long she’s waited, his cries are a euphoric promise of what she seeks. She smiles as she dives into the mud. Just like old times.
There is a scream. It infects the air and drives them back against the wall. Violence.
Horrific, evil violence. They were taught to hate violence, and yet this universe is full of it.
Despite its terror, the scream does provide one small reassurance. Their audio receptors are online. They still function. Their metal body scrapes the wall. Their body of rough, unrusted metal. They have no idea what awaits them.
The thunder rolls, bringing with it the fury of battle. She’s missed this. All those years of exercise and keeping up hard, stern muscle only to have it go unused, frustrated her more than she thought. This is where she belongs. This crew, on the other hand. These smugglers are sloppy and untrained; they fumble with plastic batons and stone knives, amateurs. Does the Division just recruit beggars off the street now? She’s almost disappointed. This is hardly even a real fight. The blood from the assault of her strikes mixes with the rain and the mud into a sight she’s all too familiar with. It has been too long since she’s seen it, and with it come the memories. Memories that motivate her to finish things quickly.
The last man’s head slams down on the hangar door and at the foot of the ship’s captain. “If you wanted to do business, you should’ve brought coin.”
“If you wanted to protect your merchandise, you should’ve brought competent men.”
The captain smiles. “What can I do for you, Nadeden?”
The battle outside has ended. While their life signal monitor is no longer operational, their other artificial senses are at peak capacity. This brief drift out of low-power mode must mean something, but what? They feel the wall again, noticing that their metal is not perceiving other metal. A faint shift in the air becomes noticeable as their lights blink on, along with their optics. There is no metal here. There is rust, but there is no metal in sight. Where is the metal?
“Where’s your fuel?” Nadeden rests herself against a pillar of the ship's interior, studying its captain. Her bow may be holstered, but she remains weary. She knows this man and, more importantly, knows not to trust him. “We only took enough for one trip.”
“One trip?” She scoffs, disappointed by the statement. The captain laughs, “Oh, so that was your plan? You want off Terra-gilma? Why?” She scowls at him. Her old, restless body shifts its weight to drive out her response, “Why do you think, General Orson?”
Something scrapes on the floor above. It is not metal, but they can now tell that two organisms are standing in the room directly over them. The noise indicates something else as well; one of them has an artificial limb.
Nadeden rolls back her pants leg to reveal her wooden prosthesis, the skin above it covered in burns. She then moves her arm up to her left eye, pushing long dirtied strands of grey hair aside before reaching the muddy black bandana underneath. Her tarnished fingers peel back the muddy wrap to uncover where the worst of her burns lay. “Look into my eye, General Orson. Look into the eye that your beloved Emperor scorched over. For it is the last eye that you will ever gaze into.” Orson backs himself into a corner, holding out a hand to the woman he once called a friend. “Nadeden… I was just following orders.”
“I know.” She reaches for her quiver, taking a deep breath as the pleasure of her first steps toward vengeance overtake her. “That’s why you’re first. I’m coming after them all, Orson. Every single one of you who set fire to my home and once all of you Warbound are dead…” She leans into his ear, whispering as if she were speaking sweet nothings to him, “I’ll murder the Emperor of the Division of humanity and scatter the ashes across his dead empire just to spite him.” Orson blurts out one final decree, praying that it will save him, “I HAVE A MACHINIST!” Nadeden drops the arrow, drawing away from Orson as it falls to the floor. “Where?”
It is not only light that greets the Machinist as the hatch opens. The sound of rain echoes in their audio receptors as their optics gaze up to meet the woman standing beside the body with the bloodied arrow protruding from its stomach. The rust wades deeper into their circuitry now.
It will infect them. Kill them. Somehow, they already know this to be true. They can only pray that there is still metal in the universe. They can only pray that their siblings are still alive out there somewhere. Just like how they can only pray that this is a rescue and not something worse. “I thought that the Rusting killed your whole species, but boy, have I gotten lucky today. You can build me a ship, can’t you, little Machinist? Come on then. Let’s get you out of here.”
Nadeden’s blood and rain-soaked hand lowers down the hatch toward the Machinist, who looks upon on her wearily. Who is this Woman? They think to themself. My only option at survival? Is this it? Do I want to survive? They remember the others. The other Machinists, the rest of their species, which they knew long ago back on their home planet, the Forge. They must go back. They have been away so long, and as they feel this rust encroaching on their body and sense the absence of metal, they know that something has gone horribly wrong. They must return to the Forge.
They raise their thin metallic hand. Their circuitry roars to life as their fingers unravel. As the Machinist takes Nadeden’s hand, their pure, cool metal suddenly begins to corrode under the heat of her muddied, unkempt flesh. The Rusting has already taken hold. There is no escaping the Emperor’s curse.
Nadeden pulls the Machinist out from the cargo hatch, their body slumps onto the flesh interior of the ship while their optics gaze into the rain. Orson’s body lies next to them, and all the other corpses lie before them. The surge of emotion is forced into a flat monotone as it always is with their species. “Did you do this?” The speech is scrambled by degradation. The Machinist’s voicebox is already strained. However, the uncanniness of the speech barely fazes Nadeden as she huffs, “Yeah, come on.”
She reaches down to grab the Machinist, but they flinch away from her. A single wire in their neck comes undone. “Life is precious, life is all, I shall not raise my hand. I would weep for the dead if I had tears to shed.”
“What was that?” Nadeden leans back down toward the Machinist, unsure of what she’s just heard. “I can’t work with a killer.” Their voice cracks. She sighs, “Well, looking at the state of you, I don’t think you have much of a choice.”
The Machinist had felt the rust, but it is with Nadeden’s comment that they now fully sense it on them. Another wire disconnects from their body as Nadeden lifts them up. She places their left arm over her shoulder. “Now don’t go rusting on me yet, the nearest town is just a dozen kiloclicks south of here, if we hurry, we can make it back before daybreak.”
The pair descends down the hill, the Machinist spots the ever-burning bodies and ships in the canyon just over the horizon, yet doesn’t say anything. They’re far too overwhelmed. Together, the pair reaches the bottom. They look out to the lights burning on the horizon. “Fire burns forever on Terra-gilma,” Nadeden solemnly states, “Just like how it rains forever too. Each town has one fire burning at all times. That closest one,” She points beyond a forest of decaying black trees in the distance, “Is the one we’re going to. I have a friend there who has what you can use to build a ship.” The Machinist simply nods in response as they think to themself, She has heard tales of our builders, yet she does not know that I am nothing more than a Smith who summons metal. I cannot build. I cannot build.
Nadeden shifts the Smith’s weight as she carries them onward. The rust settles further into them with every step. As their metal corrodes, something else chips away at the Machinist’s iron heart. Fear.