Vitality In A Wasteland

6

Claire pulled down her headset and raised her watch checking the time, seven in the evening, the time when the mutants tend to get rough. She sighed lowering her arm and peering her face through a hatch, a cool breeze caressed her face. She pondered if she should push through the night after all if she resisted Dalia's functions would shut down in under an hour, Capital was a few clicks away, but judging from the breeze a radiation storm was brewing. She decided to push on as fast as she could with the constant beeping from Dalia warning of core damage. It all could have been much worse as she had seen before yet she never had a target sleeping on her mattress during an oncoming radiation storm and severe damage. Claire knew the dangers of overusing Dalia's core, but knew if she did not hurry, she would die from the radiation so she pushed forward running as fast as she could, the beeping intensified, and power levels drained by a percentage every five blinks.

She was not going to make it in time, would she have to spend the night in a radiation storm? No, something in the near distance was flashing, the strobe light of an old cell tower, signal to Capital. Claire puffed running faster and faster until core functions started flashing red, she came to a stop in the middle of a flat space of sand. With a flick of a button on her watch the ground began shaking, sand shifted around a huge circle around Dalia, sand seeping below as the elevator began lowering. Claire sighed with relief, she made it mere blinks before Dalia's functions would have failed. She shut down all systems and lowered from her harness.

Dalia lowered below the sands, purple lights flashed around her, clearing all bacteria, and scrubbing radiation strands. Two huge mechanical arms converged around Dalia's shoulders and loosened her bolting's. The arms pulled off the armour, revealing a mess of wiring and metal framing, more armour around Dalia's chest loosened and pulled free, Dalia's core was being repaired by small drones scurrying around the elevator hangar.

Claire sat down on the control pad floor as she awaited the drones and mechanical arms welding on new armour hulls and fixing loose wiring. A mechanical arm unchained Dalia's broken hand and pulled on a new one with a shining chrome design. A second array of strobe lights cleared internal radiation and one drone hovered near Dalia's visor to repair the glass and scan Claire. The lights came to a stop and the repair machines drifted back into pods of the elevator finally lowered, below a circular hole to the surface that now closed, entrapping Claire in darkness. She powered Dalia back on, all systems had been restored and fuel had been poured into her core, the lights allowed her to see inside the control pad.

The comms buzzed and announcer Deacon said, "Knight Roma, welcome back."

Claire said, "Good to be back."

"Commander Elia is holding a brief for council members; he has requested your attendance at twenty-two hundred."

Claire nodded, "Very well."

"Good," Deacon said. "Knight you are cleared for entrance."

Two sliding panels before Dalia's visor opened light and a track rail drifted to Dalia's side hatch. Claire patted Dalia's control set, "I I'll see you later."

She pressed a button and drifted down to the lower cabin, the target was still unconscious, she lifted her over her shoulders and went back into the control pod and over the track. It moved her through the panel opening, Claire looked back at the huge figure of Dalia left behind in her hangar.

Waiting for her along the way was announcer Deacon, his uniform was untidy as usual with a loose collar over his badges.

"Who is this?" Deacon asked.

"The rogue I went to hunt down apparently," Claire answered.

"So, this is the one who took Markus Elytra? That was one of the best old gens we had, you didn't destroy it completely, did you?"