Desert Fighting

 

 

Like a buzz saw sand cuts against the steel frame, peeling back dessert tan paint as the machine lays on the top of the dune. Muzzle above the peak the titan looks out over the dessert night, the people of Savil white specters in a distorted wonderland of green. With a scream of pain the sands give way as the machine rests behind the dune.

“Squad One in position,” the crackle of static on the radio reminds the private of the sand that brushes against his Wolf I, “Commence assault on Squad Threes single, standby.”

“Standing by,” The private waits tinkling a dog tag across his fingers. The dessert, that town, his platoon. They were like cars on a highway that skip past each other. Who are they? Silver dog tags bounce across his fingers.

 

Wooden beads bounce against the girl’s bare neck, gold hoops curling out from her ears. She has a sharp nose, hazel skin, hazel eyes, and black hair cut like a jagged pane of glass. A malleable hand rests in hers.

“Hurry, we’re almost there,” even without the sun the convicting heat of the dessert pours down on the girls.

“I’m hurrying,” the younger girl calls out, her small nose and gentle features a reversed mirror compared to the boyish features of her older cousin, who jogs a rifle bouncing against her chest.

The puff of their burlap pants wave across the gravely path between the well and the village.

“Come baby legs, I can’t have you falling down, hurry, hurry,” her cousin calls out pulling the child along the dessert floor, “I want to be back before those brats wake up, men ptth,” she says spitting the ground, “Lazy asses!”

Baby Legs shuffles behind the tom boy, disappointment and hesitance in her voice, “Are they all that bad?” she asks, the boys off the village always seemed kind, but the stories…the stories were terrible.

“Worse yet, filthy Uncle!” she spits again shambling off to the side of the road beginning to snake up the dune between the town and the well.

No men had gathered at the well. “Hurry!” The sand breaks between their sliding feet, buckets jostling on wooden staves, “Wrap it!!” the older yells pulling up the rope  as she watches the horizon of dunes that surround the well.

Plup, the well gurgles as she pushes Baby Feet behind the enclave of stone sinking below its darker shade as she watches the horizon of sand.

The fibers of the rope cut along her hands as she pulls up the lead weighted bucket.

Hurry! Hurry! The first bucket groans as it comes above the well. Unbind. Calm down. She hands  the unraveled bucket to her cousin groaning as she fumbles the next bucket onto the rope. Plup. The bucket drowns in the dessert sun.

“Sil…” Baby Feet mutters watching the sweat drip from her cousin’s boyish garb. Sil sighs, pulling the parch fabric away from her skin.

“We’re fine,” she says slapping the steel frame of the hunting rifle. The weight of its steel and oak hanging from her slender shoulders, “Papa taught me how,” she says grinning, she gives the rifle another slap and looks across the slopes. All clear. The buckets gurgling stopped.

They pull it up. The bucket creaking and crashing into the walls. The third goes down, then up. The fourth bucket drops, the red sun peaking above the dunes opposite the village.

 

“I want to meet a good man, an honest man  like father, the good men you see in the Invaders movies, I want to be pampered!” Sil bemoans grinning at her exhausted cousin. The gurgling stops.

Baby Feet with her fidgeting eyes nods, looking across the dunes. Creak. The bucket clacks against the walls. The suns heat picks up behind the shade of the well, “We’ll take the back way home, grab the stick,” Sil says turning around. The water sits in the bucket. The earth shakes. A dull shard of dread seeps into Sil’s heart. The earth shakes again, she turns around. Baby Feet clings to her. The steel of the Hunting Rifle lies helplessly against her chest.

A behemoth rolls out from the sand, parting the cap of the dune with its feet. A Rifle in one arm. Its silhouette hides the sun. Like a mountain falling it plows into the sand with the crying of etched sand.

A Monster. A Demon. An Invader.

A rock lodges itself in Sil’s throat as she aims, barrel rocking like the bucket.

She pushes against her cousin, “Navi,” her eyes shook with madness, the monsters tinted dome swivels to them, “Run, run!” Navi clinging’s to her, Sil aligns the circle with the metal beam. Aim above the man. Stop shaking your arms. The ring scrambles above the monster.

I don’t want to die.

“Run,” she croaks. The monsters arms swing to them, rifle in hand.

Curse them, curse these monsters.

Navi’s no longer holding to her waist, its arms move toward away from Sil.

Ping. Black power disseminates in the air. She hit its dome. Its arms swing back.

Can I laugh? Can I curse this farce? I curse it, “I curse you!” she yells the madness in her eyes spreading to her lungs, “A thousand deaths on you! A thousand deaths to you sticking apes!” The sliding of metal procuresses two more shots.

I don’t want to die.

Sil grits her teeth.

A crackle like floating sands comes from the cursed machine.

A lie, Sil thinks as she hears it nothing but the lies.

“This is Private Buick of Platoon On, lay down your weapon and evacuate the area.”

 

The native boy screams. The warble of feed backed

echoing through the Wolf 1’s closed sound system.

“Lay down your weapon,” adjusting the ball aimer, Buick aligns the 25mm cannon. A lump forms in Buicks throat. The other one. A sister? She was standing farther away but not out of sight.

“Look kid,” he says speaking into the translator, “Take your sister and hide behind that well ok? There’s some very bad guys in your town, just here for them,” he flips the translator off and flips on the general comms.

“Unit one moving to strike zone, be advised one armed civilian child on town outskirts, be advised one armed civilian child at town outskirts. Unit one moving to target over.”

Did a quickie outline, helped but I still find when I write I still deviate from what I wrote down. Honestly its for the better and it feels crisper for that.  Though I still want to perfect my outlining system and have a more robust story. Still have have a lot to learn, peace out, Ransom.