Iron Scarab soared westward beneath streaks of high-altitude clouds. The vastness of the outback stretched endlessly beneath them—red soil, dusty plateaus, and clusters of brushland carving out lonely patches of green.

  Inside the cockpit, Jessica wiped sweat from her brow. “We’ll need to land soon. We’ve got a sandstorm cell forming over Mount Isa. It’s a monster.”

  In the rear compartment, Kalrex stood silently near Gravemaw and Coil’s docking clamps, watching the live map projection. The stormfront, almost a living wall of dust and fury, expanded rapidly along their path.

  Kalrex’s voice came through calmly. “Deviation required. Detour south along Barkly Highway. There is a disused refueling station near Camooweal. May offer shelter.”

  Josh, piloting Abyss Ripper, chimed in. “That area used to flood real bad in the rainy seasons, didn’t it?”

  “Still does,” Emily replied from behind him. “And we’re crossing during the buildup season. If that storm hits ahead of schedule...”

  Mark cut in over comms. “We’re not risking flight through a supercell. Diverting now.”

  Iron Scarab descended along the cracked length of the Barkly Highway, engines sweeping dust from the bitumen like a jet wash. Skybrand and Abyss Ripper touched down on either side of the road, their landing gear sinking slightly into the dry crusted edges.

  The station came into view just minutes later—half-swallowed by dunes and vine. The signage barely readable: "CAMOOWEAL RESUPPLY - ROYAL DEFENSE NETWORK - CLOSED SINCE 2031."

  They entered cautiously.

  It was dark, warm, and smelled of rust. Water tanks outside had long dried up. Solar panels on the roof were cracked and weather-pitted. But a few of the underground power cells still held charge—enough to boot up partial systems.

  Lucas and Riley pried open a long-dead drone charging port. “These stations were often used by maintenance crews,” Lucas said. “We might find recordings, logs, anything.”

  Kalrex stepped past, sensors glowing faintly. It paused at a shattered observation window overlooking the now-buried helipad. A memory stirred.

  “This location… I passed through here once. En route to Darwin. He was with me.”

  Sofia looked up. “You mean Caden?”

  Kalrex nodded slowly. “Yes. He carried a wound. Favored his right side. We sheltered here one night before continuing west. He mentioned... firestorms in the Great Sandy.”

  “Then that might be our next obstacle,” Jessica muttered. “If he's going across the desert, he’ll need cover, rations, and possibly shelter from those storms.”

  Chika frowned. “No way we fly through that without weather patterns shifting.”

  Mark nodded. “We'll push to Tennant Creek, then cut across the Tanami Track—stay low, maybe find signs of him heading into the interior.”

  Outside, thunder cracked faintly on the far horizon. Dust swirled in eddies between the trucks and remnants of a defense era long gone.

  Kalrex turned toward it.

  “He’s out there,” it said, almost quietly. “I feel it.”

  And once more, Squad X prepared to move.

  The squad’s convoy moved slow now.

  Iron Scarab lumbered ahead on foot-mode, kicking up red dust in wide plumes as it carefully carried Gravemaw and Serpent’s Coil still locked within its frame. Skybrand glided in long, low arcs ahead, scouting terrain. Abyss Ripper followed behind, its armor now visibly sun-blasted from prolonged exposure.

  They were two days out from Camooweal, and water had become a gnawing concern.

  Jessica leaned back in her seat, eyes locked on the flashing water status report. “We’re down to one day of potable reserves if we keep this pace. Two if we ration.”

  Mark grunted. “Already down to nutrient packs and heat tablets. No one’s happy, but we’ll manage.”

  In the rear chamber, Kalrex stood perfectly still, its systems quiet, conserving power. Its normally vibrant inner lights had dimmed to conserve energy.

  “Caden always planned water stops,” it said, unprompted. “He marked hidden springs. I remember… a tower. Weather-worn, marked with a white snake. We camped there once.”

  Emily’s voice crackled over comms. “That matches an old ranger post near Renner Springs. Might be the spot.”

  “Let’s try it,” Josh muttered. “Before we’re licking condensation off our visors.”

  The outpost was almost a skeleton—half a shed, one leaning communications pole, and a crumbled stone tower with the faded carving of a serpent curled around it. The only remaining tank had been punctured by time and storms.

  But beneath the sand and weeds, Marcus found a filtered borehole pump, hidden beneath rusted panels. With power from Skybrand’s core battery, they brought the unit sputtering back to life.

  Clean water, slow and reluctant, began to flow.

  Relief was short-lived.

  Josh cursed under his breath. “Left knee actuator’s jammed. Power lag in both arms. Cooling system’s shot to hell.”

  They huddled around the diagnostic.

  “Too many days in dry air and heat radiation,” Lucas muttered. “No shade, no servicing. They weren’t built for this kind of crawl.”

  “We were,” Chika said quietly. “But we’re not the ones hauling Gravemaw across the desert.”

  Jessica contacted Command for a resupply ping, but the signal died three seconds into transmission. Static hissed back.

  Mark looked up from the comms. “Satlink’s down. Kalrex?”

  The cheetah mech tilted its head. “Atmospheric interference. And... deliberate jamming field to the northwest. Low-frequency. Primitive, but intentional.”

  The squad looked at each other.

  “That means someone’s out here,” Sofia said.

  “Or something,” Riley added.

  Jessica tightened her harness. “No turning back now. Let’s cross the Tanami fast. Once we hit the west coast, maybe—just maybe—we’ll find the trail he left behind.”

  Outside, the stars burned bright over the dark inland heart of Australia.

  And deep in the desert, something waited.

  The sky darkened in an instant.

  What was once a clear stretch of parched desert under harsh sun turned orange-brown as the sandstorm swept over the horizon like an advancing tidal wave. The sound hit first—an eerie roar that drowned even the low thrum of the mechs’ power cores.

  Iron Scarab led the formation, its broad, armored frame shielding the group. Behind it, Abyss Ripper and Skybrand staggered slightly in the rising winds, compensating as visibility dropped to meters.

  Jessica's face was tight with pain. Though sealed in her cockpit, her neural connection with the Iron Scarab meant she could feel the storm like flesh—razor-like grains scraping against a raw face, the choking dryness in her throat, pressure in her lungs.

  Every gust against the mech was a push against her own nerves.

  Mark gritted his teeth beside her. “Jessica, disconnect the sensory sync. You’re taking too much.”

  She didn’t answer right away. A tremble ran through her arms. “If I do that, I can’t feel how hard Scarab’s struggling. We’d be walking blind.”

  He hesitated. Then nodded grimly. “Alright. I’ve got your back.”

  Iron Scarab lumbered on, plating shrieking as grains of red sand forced their way into every seam and joint. Its faceplate—the ornate scarab-like design over the cockpit—was pitted and cracked from exposure, the once-glossy black turned raw bronze.

  Riley’s hands gripped the controls. “We’re losing upward lift. Wings keep jittering.”

  Alex checked the readings. “We can’t risk flight in this—if you take off, you’ll shear right into the rocks. Stick low and ride it out.”

  Josh kept glancing toward Iron Scarab through the sand-clogged cameras. “She’s taking all of it head-on.”

  Emily muttered, “That mech’s not gonna hold together if this goes another hour.”

  Then came a creak through the comms—a metallic grinding from Iron Scarab’s servos. Gravemaw and Serpent’s Coil, still secured inside its back hold, swayed slightly as the whole chassis pitched forward.

  Jessica cried out, pain spiking through her as if her ribs had cracked. “Leg stabilizer’s giving out—!”

  Mark grabbed the manual override and throttled the stabilizers. “Come on, hold it. Just a little farther…”

  The mechs were shadows in the dust now, outlines blurred by swirling orange sand. Kalrex, running beside them with feline grace, seemed the only one unfazed—its smooth design and self-healing outer coating shrugging off the storm with eerie ease.

  Kalrex’s voice came through calm and unwavering.

  “We’re near an old maintenance hangar. Five clicks west. Buried. But intact.”

  Jessica groaned, “Lead us there…”

  The sky turned from cobalt to copper in minutes.

  A massive wall of dust surged over the horizon, swirling like a living beast. It wasn’t just wind—it was a siege of the elements. The sun vanished in a wash of red haze as the sandstorm descended upon them.

  Iron Scarab took the lead, its massive frame bracing against the onslaught, shielding the rest of the group as best it could. Even so, the storm’s bite was merciless.

  Jessica sat locked in, every nerve synched to the mech.

  The moment the storm hit, she felt it—not just through the cockpit visuals, but directly through her skin. The sand scraped across Iron Scarab’s armor, and in her mind, it scraped her face. The winds pressed on the mech’s frame, and she felt them pushing against her body. Her teeth clenched against the phantom sting.

  Beside her, Mark watched her expression twist in pain. “Jessica… your vitals are spiking.”

  “I know,” she hissed. “I can feel everything.”

  “Can you—?”

  “I can’t disconnect,” she growled, breath shallow. “You know that. If I break sync, Iron Scarab won’t move. None of us will.”

  Mark stared at her, helpless. “Then just hold on.”

  Outside, the grinding of sand against mech plating echoed like a thousand knives. The storm hissed into every vent and joint, clogging movement. Warnings blinked across their screens. Kalrex, unfazed by the elements, darted low to the ground beside them, scanning ahead.

  “Sand’s thickening,” Riley muttered, squinting through half-blinded sensors. “Barely picking up Iron Scarab.”

  Alex’s voice was tense. “Stay low. If we lose visual, we’ll follow Kalrex’s trace.”

  Josh’s readouts danced with red alerts. “Iron Scarab’s servos are grinding hard.”

  Emily flicked her comms. “Jessica’s going to pass out if this keeps up.”

  “She won’t stop,” Josh said flatly. “She’s synced. She can’t.”

  Iron Scarab lumbered forward, weathering the full brunt of the storm. Its chest plating hissed with sparks. The faceplate bore deep scrapes where the wind-lashed sand carved through the protective coating.

  Kalrex’s smooth frame swept ahead, leaving light pawprints in the dust. Its voice cut through the static.

  “There’s shelter. Coordinates relayed. Five kilometers. Partial substructure—buried, but accessible.”

  Jessica’s breathing was ragged, but she didn’t stop. “We’ll… make it.”

  She forced Iron Scarab’s legs to move, one step at a time, her muscles trembling from the sensory feedback. Pain flared with each footfall. But the others followed—Skybrand hovering just above the dunes, Abyss Ripper trudging close behind, and Kalrex darting forward like a guide dog in a sandblasted storm.

  Their march through the red wasteland continued, every meter earned with grit, endurance—and agony.

  But they didn’t stop.

  They couldn’t.

  The buried silhouette of an old substation broke the monotony of sand and stone. Concrete walls jutted from the earth, eroded and half-swallowed by time. Kalrex had found it—half-lost, but just enough intact to give them hope.

  The storm howled, relentless. But Iron Scarab took position without hesitation.

  Jessica’s breath was shaky, her knuckles white around the control interface. Her vision blurred from the strain. Pain echoed through her body—every gust of wind scraping Iron Scarab’s plating sent phantom shocks down her spine.

  But she held the sync just long enough.

  Outside, Iron Scarab’s massive frame locked into a crouch just ahead of the facility’s main door. The mech settled with a shuddering groan, shielding the entrance from the brunt of the storm. Dust slammed against its chassis like bullets, but it held firm.

  Inside the cockpit, Jessica gasped, eyes locked on the status light: POSITION HOLD – STABLE.

  That was enough.

  With trembling fingers, she reached for the neural disconnect latch.

  “Disengaging,” she muttered. The others heard it through the comms.

  Mark turned toward her sharply. “Wait—Jess—”

  She pulled it.

  The sync shut down with a crackle of static.

  Jessica collapsed back into her seat, body limp, sweat pouring down her face. Her skin was red in places, flushed from the neurological feedback. Her chest rose and fell like she’d just run a marathon in a sandstorm—which, in a sense, she had.

  Mark unclipped and leaned over her.

  “You alright?”

  “Feels like I got dragged face-first through the Outback,” she mumbled. “But yeah. Better now.”

  With Iron Scarab shielding them from the storm, the others dismounted quickly. Sand and grit still swirled, but the blocked winds gave them a window.

  Kalrex stood alert near the door, tail low, ears twitching with static.

  “Scans show partial integrity. Lower levels seem stable.”

  Josh and Emily pried the entry open. A rusted blast door creaked inward, revealing a staircase that plunged underground.

  Riley peered in. “Looks like a sub-grid maintenance facility. Old power relay hub maybe.”

  Alex nodded. “Let’s get her inside. Then we rest. And clean these mechs.”

  They turned back to Jessica. Mark had her half-lifted already, guiding her down the ramp.

  Jessica groaned. “Tell me there’s a bed in there.”

  “There’s a bench.”

  “…Good enough.”

  As they disappeared into the shelter below, the storm screamed across the desert, Iron Scarab unmoving in its post—like a sentinel in the sand.

  Dim emergency lights flickered on as they descended into the dust-caked corridor. The air was stale, heavy with old electricity and rust, but dry—mercifully dry.

  The chamber opened up into what had once been a relay control room. Thick cables lined the ceiling, dead monitors blinked, and faded stenciling on the wall read:

  QLD STATE GRID STATION – WEST 14B

  Jessica was already sprawled across a workbench near the back, a first aid blanket draped over her. Mark sat beside her, holding a bottle of water up to her lips.

  “Small sips,” he warned.

  She nodded, eyes closed.

  Josh pried open a breaker panel and began rewiring enough to get them auxiliary power. A few overheads stuttered to life with a buzz.

  Riley and Alex unpacked emergency rations while Emily laid out a basic mech diagnostic pad on the dusty floor.

  “The joints on Iron Scarab are going to need a flush,” Emily muttered, scanning through data as it fed in wirelessly from the mech outside. “Dust’s in every crevice.”

  “Won’t matter if the whole frame's stripped by the time we step back out,” Riley added. “Storm’s relentless.”

  Kalrex curled up behind Iron Scarab’s legs, the way a mountain cat might curl around a campfire. The beast-like mech lay low in the sand, its hull pitted and scoured from the wind. Amber eyes dimmed to a soft pulse—still alert, but resting.

  It shielded its sensors under one armored paw as if tucking itself into sleep.

  With the wind screaming just beyond the blast doors, the team ate in silence, tension slowly draining from their bodies.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “We’ll rest for a few hours, then move west,” Alex finally said. “Jessica needs time to recover, and the Scarab needs patching.”

  “No argument here,” Jessica said weakly.

  Josh leaned back against the wall. “Hard to believe Caden Holt’s out there somewhere in this.”

  “He survived something,” Mark said. “Kalrex only responds to him. That means he’s alive.”

  “Let’s just hope,” Riley said quietly, “he’s not running out of time.”

  A moment passed. The wind roared.

  Then, from outside, Kalrex gave a low, rumbling thrum—like a distant purr mixed with static.

  The squad looked at each other.

  “We’ll find him,” Alex said firmly. “No matter what’s between here and Western Australia. Morrowdusk or wherever he was sent—we’ll get there.”

  The lights flickered again.

  Outside, the storm howled into the night.

  The wind outside roared like a jet engine caught in a loop, shaking dust loose from the old ducts and metal braces. Time crawled. The squad sat in scattered silence, their voices subdued, each absorbed in their own thoughts as the storm battered the world above.

  Emily sat cross-legged by her tablet, running remote diagnostics on Iron Scarab and Kalrex.

  “I’ve got partial data from Kalrex’s logs,” she said quietly. “There’s something weird in the deeper archives... encrypted pings, like it’s been sending out location requests every 72 hours.”

  “To who?” Josh asked, glancing up from where he was rewrapping one of Jessica’s hands.

  Emily shook her head. “No destination ID. Could be automatic. Could be... trying to find Holt.”

  Jessica stirred against the bench, groggy but alert. “It’s like a dog looking for its owner. Makes sense.”

  “Then let’s hope it keeps sniffing,” Riley murmured.

  Alex leaned against a support pillar, eyes narrowed as he studied a crumpled paper map they’d recovered from a roadside info booth earlier that week. His fingers traced the rough path from inland Queensland to Western Australia.

  “We’ll hit Morrowdusk in five, maybe six days if this storm passes by morning. It’s not exactly marked, but the sat-logs Kalrex decrypted point to the Pilbara region. Close to the old mining network.”

  Mark frowned. “That’s deep territory. Minimal support. If it’s an old military bunker, the place could be automated. Traps. Security AIs. Maybe worse.”

  “Then we bring Kalrex,” Alex said simply. “And Iron Scarab leads. Like always.”

  Jessica looked toward the steel wall separating them from the storm, as if she could feel Kalrex out there.

  “He’s loyal,” she said. “And if Holt’s even still in this country, Morrowdusk is the next best bet.”

  Silence returned, broken only by the hiss of the wind and the hum of Kalrex’s distant low-energy idle cycle—an echoing mechanical purr that carried through the earth.

  Josh tossed a ration bar wrapper aside. “We should rest. We’ll need every ounce of focus if we’re heading into that wasteland.”

  Alex nodded. “Four-hour rotations. We leave the moment visibility returns.”

  One by one, the team settled into sleep or watch rotations.

  Jessica stirred from sleep, her skin clammy with sweat despite the cold underground. She stood quietly and made her way toward the entry ramp. The metal door hissed open slightly, just enough for her to peer out.

  Outside, beyond the shielding form of Iron Scarab, Kalrex sat motionless—its massive form silhouetted against lightning flashes in the distance. Sand whipped across its frame. Its head turned slightly, like it sensed her watching.

  Jessica reached out and placed a palm against the cold steel wall.

  “Hang in there, big guy,” she whispered. “We’re close.”

  The storm had passed.

  The burnt-orange sky stretched wide above the scorched land, clouds dissolving into light mist as the rising sun cast long shadows across the cracked earth.

  Iron Scarab stood firm just outside the shelter’s mouth, its hull battered and matte from hours of shielding the worst of the sandstorm. It had taken the brunt, and its once-polished carapace was now pitted and dulled. Inside, Jessica slowly reconnected to the mech’s neural interface, grimacing slightly as the sensory bridge re-synced. Mark’s voice came in over internal comms.

  "System green on my end. You?"

  “Getting there,” Jessica said, flexing her fingers as Scarab’s forelimbs mirrored her motions. "Feels stiff.”

  Kalrex uncurled from its spot behind Scarab and stretched out like a waking predator. It had nestled there all night, coiled like a cat in the lee of its bigger cousin.

  Abyss Ripper stood half-buried in windblown sand. Josh Volton gave the signal from the open ramp as Emily Kurve re-established her neural sync, her eyes flinching slightly as the shark-like mech powered back up.

  “Feels…gritty,” Emily muttered, blinking fast. “Sensory lag in the arms. Like I’ve got salt in my veins.”

  Josh tapped a screen. “It’s the left servo chain. We’ll need to recalibrate once we’re clear.”

  Skybrand’s talons stirring up powdery dust. Riley Mitchell stayed inside, checking the nav systems, while Alex Anderson moved around the frame, scanning the horizon through a scope.

  Nestled in the lee of Iron Scarab, Kalrex stirred—silent, still. The mech’s smooth, segmented armor shifted as it rose slowly from where it had curled like a sleeping cat through the storm.

  Jessica stepped down from Iron Scarab as soon as the others confirmed systems green. The breeze was hot and dry, but the worst of the storm had passed.

  “There was a ping during the storm,” she said, brushing sand from her helmet. “Weak, but encrypted. Came from the relay station just east.”

  The team advanced toward the structure—a half-buried, rust-bitten shell of old tech and forgotten signals. The comms tower tilted at a dangerous angle, wires frayed like dead vines.

  The team gathered around the half-buried structure, a crooked shell of metal and broken antennae. The wind here was still, and the silence felt heavier than usual.

  Abyss Ripper crouched at the perimeter, its shark-like head scanning the horizon. Kalrex padded up behind it and sat back on its haunches, watching the building.

  “Doesn’t look like much,” Sofia said, standing on Serpent’s Coil’s head, shielding her eyes from the sun. “You sure this has something?”

  “Let's find out,” Alex replied, already dismounting from Skybrand. Riley followed.

  The air inside was dry and metallic. Dust swirled in beams of light through cracked paneling. Near the back, a shattered comms terminal blinked faintly—barely alive, but functional.

  Alex crouched beside it and powered it up, carefully bypassing the fried mainline.

  Josh and Chika stood watch at the doorway while the rest of the team filtered in or monitored from their mechs.

  “Got something,” Alex said slowly. “Encrypted packet. Date-stamped March 2036. Let me… there.”

  A line of scrambled text resolved on-screen.

  “Relocation confirmed. Morrowdusk secure. Holt in transit. Reassign to western sector before next wave.”

  Jessica exhaled. “Morrowdusk. That’s our lead.”

  Lucas tilted his head. “Underground military site, right? That’s buried under half a mountain range.”

  “Way west,” Riley added. “We’ll be crossing the dead strip for sure.”

  Kalrex’s voice came over external comms, low and almost amused. “That place hasn't seen light in decades.”

  “Neither have we,” Jessica muttered. “Not the right kind anyway.”

  Mark checked his nav. “It’s a long trek. Water’s gonna be a problem. And Skybrand’s not gonna like the thermal currents over that region.”

  “We’re going,” Jessica said. “If Holt was there, it’s the closest we’ve been.”

  The team silently agreed. No one complained. Just quiet nods and shifting stances.

  Jessica stepped out into the sunlight, Kalrex rose from its crouch and stretched its legs, joints clicking lightly. “I suggest we move before the sun cooks us.”

  The convoy moved across the searing expanse like wandering titans, each mech a towering silhouette against the heat-shimmered horizon. The sun blazed overhead, turning the red dirt and cracked salt flats into a blinding mirror of white and gold.

  Iron Scarab led, its heavy beetle form trudging steadily, battered but unrelenting. Jessica sat stiff in the sensory cockpit, her body slick with sweat beneath the synskin layer, every step of the mech echoing as dull thuds in her bones.

  Behind them, Abyss Ripper glided low with a slightly hunched posture, its streamlined body cutting through the desert winds. Josh grunted as a jolt from the terrain sent a shiver up the mech’s spinal column, making Emily twitch in discomfort.

  “Heat’s rising again,” she said, teeth gritted. “Feels like my skin’s cooking.”

  “You okay to stay linked?” Josh asked.

  “I’m fine. Keep going.

  Skybrand soared overhead, the falcon-shaped mech dipping low every so often to shield its wings from thermals rising in waves. Alex’s voice crackled over comms. “Temperature’s 47 and climbing. Not much shade ahead, but we’re about an hour from the canyon shelf. It should get cooler there.”

  “Keep your mechs staggered,” Jessica ordered, her voice tight. “Too close and we bake each other.”

  Serpent’s Coil slithered between the rocks to the left, its scales glinting in the light, following Scarab’s flank. Inside, Sofia winced as each movement pulsed through her joints like static.

  “Remind me again why we don’t have cooling suits?” she muttered.

  Marcus chuckled faintly from the rear seat. “Because budget, remember?”

  In Iron Scarab’s interior hold, Gravemaw stayed sealed and untouched by the elements. Lucas leaned back, hands folded, while Chika monitored Jessica’s vitals remotely.

  “She’s pushing too hard again,” Chika said quietly.

  Lucas didn’t reply. He just kept watching the status readouts.

  Trailing behind, Kalrex padded silently on all fours, unfazed by the heat. Its armor shimmered with heat distortion, but its gait remained fluid, graceful—even serene.

  Her vision blurred for a moment. Her mouth was dry, her limbs heavy, but she stayed synced. She blinked away the heat haze.

  Then—finally—Iron Scarab stepped over the rise.

  Before them, the terrain shifted. The heat fell away slightly as a wide canyon opened up, its walls providing shadowed refuge. Faded eucalyptus trees and stone overhangs dotted the descent like forgotten guardians.

  Jessica let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Set down here. Let’s cool the joints and get some rest.”

  Iron Scarab knelt, steam hissing from its vents. The others gathered in a staggered ring around the entrance to the canyon, each mech lowering to a rest position.

  Kalrex took a perch on a ridge nearby, head tilted slightly as it scanned the valley below.

  Emily was the first to speak once they were all down. “That was the worst stretch yet.”

  “Don’t jinx it,” Riley muttered as she sat on Skybrand’s shoulder plate, wiping her forehead with a grimy cloth.

  Jessica slid out of her cockpit, boots hitting the cooler ground with a grunt. Her muscles trembled from hours of strain. Mark handed her a rehydration pack wordlessly.

  She took it with a nod and stared out into the fading desert.

  “Morrowdusk better be worth it.”

  The command deck of the Iron Fortress hummed with low, electric tension. Screens bathed the space in a cold glow, feeding live data into the eyes of Squad X’s oversight team. Commander Vel Orsin stood at the center, hands clasped behind his back, eyes locked on a projection of the Australian outback. The squad’s mechs were marked in soft-blue pings, crawling westward across the red dust.

  Beside him, Vice Commander Helena Rourke leaned on the edge of the table, jaw tight, posture coiled with restrained frustration.

  “Still nothing from them?” she asked quietly.

  “No,” Orsin replied, voice clipped. “Comms went dark after the storm. Standard interference. Should resolve soon.”

  “Mm.” Rourke’s gaze lingered on the map. “Standard interference never makes me this uneasy.”

  A sharp alert chimed from a console behind them. A comms officer blinked at the screen, then turned.

  “Commander. Morrowdusk archive just pinged active. Fourteen seconds. Packet relayed.”

  Rourke straightened. “Destination?”

  The officer hesitated. “Tokyo.”

  Orsin narrowed his eyes. “Timestamp?”

  “Four minutes ago.”

  The command deck stilled.

  Rourke’s tone was laced with suspicion. “Wasn’t the archive sealed off after the council’s last audit?”

  “It was,” Orsin said. “Only accessible by a closed-key. It shouldn’t be capable of remote activation.”

  He walked to the console, scanning the encryption trail. The logs were clean—too clean.

  “No record of who opened it,” he muttered. “No override path.”

  Helena glanced at him. “So someone either broke in remotely or was already in.”

  Orsin’s jaw flexed. “Or something was never really locked out to begin with.”

  Another officer piped up cautiously, “No changes on Squad X’s transponders, sir. Still on course. No anomalies.”

  Rourke crossed her arms. “You think Holt’s trail was buried in Morrowdusk all along?”

  “Buried, forgotten, or deliberately planted. But someone wanted that data out now.” Orsin turned back to the projection. “And they wanted our squad to keep walking west.”

  Helena exhaled slowly. “So we let them.”

  “For now,” Orsin said.

  He narrowed the zoom on the desert topography—into the winding gorges where the squad was headed.

  “And if anything wakes up in that place,” he added, voice cold, “I want to be the first to know.”

  The desert road had vanished hours ago, swallowed by the shifting sands and rocky outcroppings that jutted from the earth like rusted daggers. The sun had finally relented, sinking behind a jagged ridge, leaving the world bathed in burnt-orange twilight.

  Iron Scarab led the way, its bulky silhouette dragging the horizon behind it like a weight. Kalrex moved beside it, quiet and sleek, its feline gait unnervingly smooth for something so large.

  Abyss Ripper trudged just behind, shark-toothed helm caked in dust, while Skybrand swooped low above the formation to scout. Gravemaw and Serpent’s Coil, having been safely nestled inside Iron Scarab during the sandstorm, were fully operational and ready.

  Jessica’s voice filtered into the squad comms, raspy from recycled air. “We’re losing elevation. Slope incoming.”

  “Confirmed,” came Emily Kurve’s response from Abyss Ripper. “Looks like an old ravine—might’ve been a waterway before the rivers dried up.”

  Kalrex suddenly paused mid-step.

  “What is it?” Lucas Timothy asked, his voice wary.

  Kalrex’s head tilted slightly. “Movement… beneath.”

  Before anyone could respond, the ground cracked beneath Iron Scarab’s front right leg. With a shuddering groan, the soil gave way, and the massive mech dropped almost a meter, halted only by its reinforced frame. The ground around them trembled, and the desert floor fractured like broken glass.

  “Everyone back!” Jessica barked. Iron Scarab heaved itself backward, clearing the sinkhole just as a long fissure split across the ravine’s edge.

  Abyss Ripper stepped aside, narrowly missing a collapse. From below, a blast of air erupted upward—superheated and foul-smelling.

  “Subterranean vent,” Kalrex said. “Likely geothermal. And unstable.”

  Mark Stroble muttered, “Well that explains the heat.”

  Riley Mitchell chimed in from Skybrand above, circling. “It’s not just a vent. Looks like there’s a whole system of them—stretching west. If we don’t reroute, we’ll be walking over a damn minefield.”

  Sofia Ramirez muttered, “This whole place is trying to kill us.”

  Jessica steadied her breath. “Alright. We double back twenty meters, curve around the ridge. Kalrex, you lead this time. You seem to have a better sense for what’s under us.”

  Kalrex gave a soft mechanical growl of acknowledgment. “As you wish.”

  As they adjusted formation, Lucas spoke quietly on the secure line. “This route—it’s not random. These hazards, the terrain… doesn’t feel natural.”

  Chika replied softly, “Almost like it’s leading us somewhere.”

  Jessica’s jaw tightened in her cockpit. Her fingers brushed against the neural interface socket still latched into her spine.

  “I don’t like being led,” she said.

  And with that, Iron Scarab marched forward again—past the crumbling earth and into the cooling dusk. Behind them, the broken ground hissed quietly… like something watching from beneath.

  The detour added hours, but it kept them alive. Kalrex moved ahead, steps light, barely disturbing the crusted earth as twilight deepened into full night. The cheetah-shaped mech paused frequently, its head tilting, ears flicking like it was listening to something only it could hear.

  Behind it, Iron Scarab trudged steadily. Jessica had reengaged the neural link, her breaths shallow but steady as she tuned herself to the beetle mech’s weight and resistance. Mark handled the diagnostics, muttering adjustments into the onboard systems as he monitored heat buildup from the earlier sinkhole strain.

  Gravemaw slithered out behind them, its worm-like form rippling silently across the sand, followed closely by Serpent’s Coil. Chika and Sofia exchanged a quick nod across the comms—they hadn’t said much since the storm. Still recovering. Still focused.

  “Cooler air ahead,” Kalrex reported. “Vegetation. Shade.”

  Skybrand dipped low and relayed visuals: rocky arches rising from the desert like the bones of some ancient titan, casting long shadows over clusters of hardy trees and underbrush.

  An oasis—though not the green, watery kind. This one was dry and thorned, but it broke the monotony of red heat and stone.

  They reached it just before midnight. The temperature had dropped sharply. Mechs powered down into partial rest mode, their outer panels gently releasing heat like cooling engines. Jessica finally disengaged, wincing slightly as the neural socket unlocked from her spine. She blinked, eyes unfocusing for a second.

  “We camp here,” she said, voice hoarse.

  Kalrex stood sentinel near a tall rock outcropping, silent, watching the moonlit horizon.

  A whisper of movement across the sand that didn’t belong to the breeze. Kalrex was the first to stir, rising from its crouched position beneath the rocky arch. Its head swiveled toward the eastern dunes, body tense.

  “Movement,” Kalrex said, voice low and edged with something… off.

  Jessica jolted from half-sleep as her internal comms flickered to life. The warning hit just as something scratched inside Iron Scarab’s leg joint—an organic, chittering noise.

  “What the hell—” Mark started, but it was already too late.

  The swarm erupted.

  Thousands of insects spilled from beneath the sands like a living tide—long-legged desert roaches and bloated sand-ticks, native to the Australian interior. They hissed and clicked as they surged into vents, maintenance hatches, and anywhere the resting mechs had left exposed after powering down.

  Jessica screamed as the sensory link flared—tiny needle-points of pain stabbed along her limbs as Iron Scarab’s systems relayed invasive presence. She reconnected fully in reflex, overriding Mark’s safety warnings.

  “Scarabs in the Scarab,” she hissed. “I’m going in.”

  Serpent’s Coil writhed suddenly, the cobra-shaped mech spasming where it rested against a boulder. Sofia reengaged and gasped in pain.

  “They’re crawling through the spine conduits!” she cried.

  Gravemaw thrashed next, the worm-mech slamming its body against the earth in an instinctive defense pattern. Chika and Lucas were already online, purging systems, sealing internal valves, but they were overwhelmed.

  “Skybrand’s wings—these bastards are inside the vents!” Alex shouted as Riley cursed beside him, trying to override the hatch locks.

  Only Kalrex stood untouched.

  The cheetah mech dashed into the chaos, claws flashing as it slashed at the heaviest insect concentrations. Its tail lashed out like a whip, scattering swarms from Iron Scarab’s side.

  “Purge protocols,” Kalrex barked. “Seal external inlets. Flush coolant lines now. Burn them out!”

  Jessica gritted her teeth, syncing completely. Iron Scarab’s back vents hissed, and superheated vapor exploded outward. Dozens of insects were incinerated instantly, their bodies popping in a grotesque chorus. The smell was acrid—burnt shell and coolant fluid.

  Gravemaw roared as it flushed a stream of internal acid through its lower hull. Serpent’s Coil hissed and coiled tighter around a stone outcrop, forcibly sealing its internal passageways.

  One by one, the mechs pushed the swarm back.

  By the time the sun began to rise, the sand around them was littered with scorched husks and twitching bug limbs.

  Jessica slumped forward in her seat, skin clammy, jaw clenched. “They made it inside,” she muttered. “They got into us.”

  “They were waiting,” Emily said. “Or drawn to us. Heat, maybe.”

  Morning came with a sickly haze, the sun already baking the sand into a shimmering mirage. The squad had barely slept after the attack. Jessica remained in her pilot seat, slumped with her seat, until Mark’s voice finally broke through.

  “Try again,” he said, tapping the console from his seat behind her.

  Jessica sighed and reached forward, syncing her neural bridge to Iron Scarab once more. The interior trembled faintly—but the startup process halted again just before motor priming. Her temples ached from repeated attempts.

  “Still nothing,” she muttered. “It’s like the nerves are severed.”

  “I ran diagnostics—no critical system faults, but a lot of minor ones. Joint resistance in the forelegs, internal temp sensors unresponsive, and the torso’s power relays are jittering.”

  “Bug remnants?” Lucas offered through comms from Gravemaw. “We might have cooked ‘em last night, but maybe they fried something important before that.”

  Jessica swore quietly. “It’s more than just cooked bugs. It feels… numb. Like part of me’s asleep.”

  Sofia stepped down from Serpent’s Coil and climbed onto Iron Scarab’s back. She knelt beside a series of shielding plates and began wrenching them open. A puff of heat and a scorched smell burst out.

  “Okay,” she said. “That’s not coolant. That’s melted conduit lining.”

  Kalrex paced nearby in the sand, tail flicking. “Iron Scarab took the worst of the storm. Wind shear, sand infiltration, and then the swarm. It shielded the rest of us. Might’ve overloaded its own systems keeping you safe.”

  Jessica gritted her teeth, hand clenching around the control yoke that no longer responded. “So what do we do? We’re not leaving it behind.”

  “No one’s suggesting that,” Josh said. “We can tow it until we reach somewhere safe to repair it.”

  “Or,” Kalrex offered coolly, “you all walk. Lighter that way. I can scout ahead and find a better place to stop. Some of this land used to be mining country. There are caves. Shade.”

  Mark leaned forward. “If we wait too long, Scarab might degrade worse. That storm did something to the outer plating too. We can’t power her up, but maybe we can hardwire auxiliary movement systems and tow it using Gravemaw and Coil.”

  Jessica closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the console.

  “Then let’s get moving,” she said. “I’m not leaving Scarab. If I have to drag her myself, I will.”

  Kalrex turned to the north, sand curling behind its paws as it began to move. “Follow me.”

  And so they began again, trudging forward beneath the unrelenting sun, with Iron Scarab silent and broken, but still carried—one leg at a time—by her squad.

  The afternoon sun beat down on the scorched remains of a forgotten roadside town, Kururrungku, little more than a handful of half-standing buildings and wind-worn signage. The squad’s mechs stood like sleeping giants amid the silence, their armored plating casting long shadows across the cracked pavement.

  Gravemaw and Serpent’s Coil gently eased Iron Scarab to the ground beside an old garage, the mech’s legs completely unresponsive. Jessica and Mark climbed down from the back of Skybrand, the falcon-shaped mech still humming softly. Kalrex lingered near the edge of the town, sitting with its head low, tail coiled like a vigilant cat.

  The garage itself looked like it had survived a few decades too many—paint peeled from its faded signage, the door barely hanging on its rail. Jessica approached and gave it a knock.

  A moment passed before the door creaked open. A man stood in the gloom beyond—maybe in his sixties, sun-weathered, wearing a grimy jumpsuit half unzipped and a pair of welding goggles pushed up onto his forehead. He looked from Jessica to the looming mechs with wide eyes.

  “Well... you folks sure ain’t tourists.”

  Jessica offered a faint smile. “No. We’ve got a mech down—took a hit during a storm, got swarmed by bugs overnight. She's not responding at all now.”

  He stepped out, squinting up at Iron Scarab. “That’s... military, yeah? Can’t say I’ve worked on anything like that. Closest I’ve gotten to tech like this was patching an old mining loader that ran on third-gen servos.”

  Mark came up behind Jessica. “So, you’re a mechanic?”

  The man gave a slow nod. “Cars mostly. Drones sometimes. Fixed a walking farmbot once, though it only had two gears and a watering hose. Name’s Graff, by the way.”

  Jessica gestured toward the garage. “Think you could at least take a look?”

  He scratched the back of his neck, eyeing Iron Scarab with cautious curiosity. “Sure. I mean... can’t promise miracles. This thing’s got more processing power than my entire garage. But I can tinker. Maybe isolate the problem, reroute something. If you’ve got the tools.”

  “We’ve got enough,” Jessica said. “And we’ll help however we can.”

  Graff nodded. “All right then. Pull her around into the shade, and I’ll see what I can do. If nothing else, I might get her to limp again.”

  As Gravemaw and Coil gently maneuvered Iron Scarab into place, Graff rummaged through a battered tool chest and pulled out a diagnostic wand that looked like it hadn’t been updated since 2022.

  Watching from the shadows, Kalrex tilted its head slightly and murmured, “This will be interesting.”

  Jessica folded her arms and exhaled slowly, watching the mechanic begin his slow, methodical inspection of technology decades beyond what he’d ever been trained for.

  “Yeah,” she muttered, “it will.”

  Graff hunched over the exposed undercarriage of Iron Scarab, grease-streaked fingers navigating a nest of cabling and armored plates. He had propped a cracked tablet against one of the mech’s support struts, its dim display trying to interpret unfamiliar diagnostics with outdated software. Sparks flew briefly as he tapped into a junction box, prompting a flicker of light from Scarab’s side panel—then nothing.

  Jessica sat nearby on an overturned crate, watching with restrained hope. Mark leaned against a support beam of the garage, arms crossed, eyes scanning the horizon.

  “I can tell you right now,” Graff muttered, “this thing runs on tech I’ve never seen. It’s modular, synthetic, layered with systems I don’t even have names for. But…” He paused, nudging a panel closed with the heel of his palm, “the diagnostics port spat out a few clean errors.”

  “Clean?” Jessica asked, perking up.

  “Yeah. Looks like your neural interface node fried during that storm. Dust got in deep—deep enough to short a few contact points that manage impulse routing.” He scratched his chin. “Problem is, that’s the part that talks to whoever’s piloting it. Without that, you’re not syncing. Without syncing, it’s a statue.”

  Jessica exchanged a glance with Mark. “So it’s fixable?”

  Graff raised an eyebrow. “Sure. In theory. But I don’t have the hardware to fabricate a replacement for something like this. Your neural sync port isn’t just a jack and a wire—it’s practically grown into this thing. Military bio-interface kind of stuff.”

  Jessica let out a frustrated breath. “So we’re grounded.”

  “Maybe not,” Graff said, standing and wiping his hands on a rag. “I can try to clean the connections, maybe bypass the most damaged pathways. But even if I do that, she won’t be perfect. You’d be flying with half your senses dulled, like driving with one eye closed and one hand behind your back.”

  Mark spoke up. “Would it be enough to walk again?”

  Graff gave a slow nod. “Possibly. But only if your pilot can handle it.”

  Jessica looked up at the still Iron Scarab, its scarred plating catching the afternoon light. The idea of reconnecting, even halfway, brought a sense of dread—after the storm, the pain had lingered in her nerves like the ache of a nightmare.

  “We’ll try it,” she said. “Do what you can.”

  As Graff returned to his work, the rest of the team spread out into the town.

  Jessica remained close by as Graff worked through the sunset, doing what he could to coax life back into a machine too far from home.