Colonel Vern Slupman had been tinkering along the underside of the craft for what felt like hours. The engine had continued to bleed black smoke and didn’t look as if it were ever going to fly again, in August’s unpracticed opinion.

The sun had barely moved. They’d likely only been grounded for a little over twenty minutes, but outside the safety of the dome, time was sensed differently. Each second felt heavy, like some obstacle that needed to be overcome. Every moment that elapsed without seeing or hearing evidence of dolorium was one worth celebrating.

However, no one in the squad seemed to be in the mood to celebrate—August included. Why should they? They’d barely gotten halfway to their objective and now found themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere without communication or hope for rescue. General Wolf hadn’t used the word ‘stranded’ yet, but August, and undoubtedly the others, too, sensed the hopelessness of their situation.

“You mind hurrying up?” Sterling barked at the busy engineer. Slupman acted as if he didn’t hear. The exterminator spat and settled beside August. “Hel of a first mission for you, huh, kid?” He fished a pack of Slupman cigarettes from his breast pocket. A quick flick of the wrist produced the red butt. Scruffy lips latched on and pulled it out in a fluid motion that hinted at years of practice. He held the pack closer to August in offer.

“No thanks.” August put his hand up.

“Not a smoker, huh?”

The rookie shook his head.

Sterling stuffed the pack back into its Kevlar nest and chuckled. “Me neither. At least, I’m trying to quit.” He whipped out a match, struck it on his boot, and lit the cigarette. A few puffs rose to join the engine’s black excretion, and Sterling flicked the extinguished match into the tall grass.

Something about the action tugged at August’s heart. One small match wouldn’t likely do much in polluting the surrounding land, but that was probably what the person who’d first littered what was now the cesspool he called home had said. Luckily, MoShun would want to retrieve the craft for salvage. Outside under a day, and already we’ve left a massive scar on the land, debris, and a match. Why did the match anger him most?

“It’s hard though,” Sterling said, exhaling a thick cloud he’d kept trapped in his lungs for half a minute.

“What’s that?” August said.

“Quitting,” Sterling raised the cigarette between two fingers. “I’ve been quitting for about ten years now. I get a little further each time, but then your mission falls apart, you crash land, and your engineer takes his sweet time figuring out that we aren’t going anywhere.”

August wanted no part in the conversation. He’d never found the use in complaining and had always preferred action. He’d also never found use in being impolite, so he stood there and feigned interest in what the colonel had to say.

The rest of the squad wandered around the area, each showing more patience than the exterminator. Luna Belmont reentered the ship to retrieve her medic’s bag. General Wolf peered over the horizon in every direction, his face calm as always. Dalton West had been circling the ship, massive sniper rifle in hand, whistling the theme song from one of his classic movies. H. Rosek did nothing. He’d been standing in his mech suit just outside the craft’s door the entire time. August wondered if the man could exit the suit at all. Was there a man in there at all? Perhaps the A.I. soldiers had arrived sooner than he’d thought.

“It’s toast,” Vern Slupman finally said.

Sterling’s jaw dropped. The cigarette sagged and clung to his bottom lip. “It’s toast? It took you almost half an hour to come up with ‘it’s toast’?”

The stout engineer shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. That thing ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Any idea of what happened?” General Wolf asked. “I’ve never felt a boom like that before.”

Slupman shrugged again. “My best guess would indicate that pressure built up somewhere and had nowhere to go.”

Sterling started for Slupman. The exterminator moved in a strangely feminine way. His motions flowed with a sort of grace August wouldn’t have expected from such a gruff man. He stopped before the engineer, flicked his cigarette away, and jammed his fists to his hips. “Any solutions?”

“Easy, Sterling,” Wolf said.

“I checked on the engine, and I’ve shared my findings,” Slupman said. “What more do you want?”

“I don’t know,” Sterling took on a heavy note of sarcasm. “Maybe fix the damn thing?”

“Oh, so what, I’m supposed to just twist a couple of screws, maybe hit a few things with a hammer, and then we’re up and at it again? Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know,” Sterling raised his voice to match the engineer’s sudden outburst. “I’m not the expert. That’s you, from what I hear.”

Slupman was half a head shorter than Sterling, but he met the taller man’s gaze with his bearded chin raised. Sterling was likely looking into his own eyes as Slupman wore reflective sunglasses.

“Break it up, come on,” Wolf moved between the two. The agitated men separated. Sterling returned to his spot beside August and rolled his eyes.

“What now, General?” Sterling asked.

Wolf pushed a button at his temple that raised his face shield. “Alright, everyone gather ‘round.” He closed his eyes and breathed deeply while he waited for the squad to follow orders.

August, Sterling, and Slupman were close already. Belmont put down the medic bag she’d been rummaging through with a grimace and joined the forming semi-circle. West ceased his whistling and sauntered the general’s way.

Rosek was motionless. August was beginning to wonder if it was some form of protest, but then he heard the clicks. The mech suit shifted half an inch as the front of it popped open. A whisper escaped the suit as its tight seal broke, and the front half split in two down the middle and opened outward like August’s closet doors at home.

A woman emerged from the suit. The first thing that caught his attention was her hair. It seemed blonde at first, but upon catching sun, it displayed an array of colors. Every color of the rainbow flashed at random as she advanced toward the squad. She looked vulnerable in her shorts and tan tank top while the rest of the crew donned bulky cermet and kevlar. The inside of the mech suit must have been hot and stuffy, so her choice of garb made sense. Beads of sweat formed on her chest, and one dropped down into her top.

“I wouldn’t look if I were you,” Colonel West said.

August flinched at the sound of the sniper’s sudden voice. “I wasn’t.” He shook his head. “Look at what, I mean?”

The old man chuckled. “I’m sure you weren’t. Just know that she ain’t some floozy. She’s a colonel for a reason—one of the best mech pilots in the game. She’s not much older than you. It’s impressive. Even I didn’t hit colonel until my thirties.”

August didn’t know what to say. He had indeed been looking, but it wasn’t out of disrespect. It’s not my fault her chest is all spritzed up like a show rose. Colonel Rosek parked beside him, and their eyes met. Hers were blue like his. The rookie smiled but got nothing in return. He turned his attention to the general, feeling his cheeks burn red.

“Just in case some of you didn’t hear,” Wolf said. “The engine is busted, and it looks like there’s nothing to be done about it.” He looked to Slupman as if waiting for further confirmation.

“That’s correct, General,” the engineer said.

“On top of that, we’ve discovered that our communications and map technology is out of order.” He pondered in silence for a moment. “This doesn’t leave us with many options.”

“There’s only one option as far as I’m concerned,” Sterling said.

Wolf eyed him.

“We wait right here,” Sterling said. “The guys back at the dome are eventually going to realize they haven’t heard from us. It might be in a few hours, or whenever enough time has passed, and they see we haven’t returned, but they will send for us. As long as we remain right here, we will be easy to find.”

“Easy to find in the middle of nowhere?” Slupman scoffed.

“They know which coordinates we were sent to,” Sterling said. “They can follow our exact trajectory. I didn’t think I needed to explain my thinking there, especially to our engineer.” He made quotations with his fingers while speaking the last word.

“I agree,” West said. “It’s pretty cut and dry to me. We’d be crazy to leave the ship. It’s the best place to be if we want to be found. It’s the only shelter that will be afforded to us for miles, and the open fields make it harder for those bastards to sneak up on us.”

“The movie man doesn’t want to get his hands dirty,” Rosek said. Her voice was fair, but the tone in which she spoke was brutal. She turned to the general. “I think we should walk back home. Spending any more time outside the dome than we have to is foolish. You’ve all seen what those things can do,” she glanced at August, “well, almost all of you.”

West was about to rebut, but Belmont spoke first. “I agree with getting the hell out of here as fast as we can, but Sterling makes a good point. The crash site is the easiest place for them to find us.”

“And that’s a long walk home,” West said. “Why risk being exposed for so long when it’s not even a guaranty that it’ll save us any time. The only thing we know for sure is that they will come for us, and they will know where to find us so long as we say with the ship.”

“We follow the same trajectory home,” Rosek said. “If we keep to the straight line and never veer off course, whoever they send will find us along the way. That’s if they come soon. We could be waiting here for days, or even weeks.”

“Of course, they’ll come,” Sterling said. “We were supposed to get there, torch the nest, and fly home. Two days, three days from now tops, and they’ll be wondering where we are. The walk home would take a week. Maybe more. It’s not worth the risk.”

“Waiting here is the risk,” Rosek said.

August sealed his mouth shut and kept his thoughts to himself. A debate between a squad full of colonels was no place for a rookie to stick his nose. They all made great points as far as he was concerned, but if his opinion were to be asked, he’d have to side with Rosek. Action was always better than passivity in such situations. At least, that’s what he learned in training.

“Soldiers!” Wolf raised his voice above the others. What had devolved from a debate to a shouting match silenced at the sound of the general’s voice. “I’m disappointed in all of you.” He let the squad stew in silence to come up with their own reasons for his choice of words. “We have a mission to do.” He pointed to the smoking craft. “That is just the first obstacle. What’s this talk of staying here waiting for rescue, of going home? I will have none of it! We were sent to complete a mission, and that is exactly what we’re going to do.”