Page 165 of Dustwalker

“All the bots in Cheyenne come here for repairs. They see you dragging another bot with limited mobility up to the front doors, and their first reaction won’t be to shoot.”

“I did some of the recon on this place, and I’ve seen what some of them are packing. We’re asking to be scrapped if we walk up to them unarmed.”

“From what the Sergeant said, it won’t matter what they’re packing if we can get you within arm’s reach.”

She arched a brow, and one corner of her mouth scrunched. Skeptical, but intrigued? How much had these bots picked up from humans after living in the base for so long?

Maul leaned forward, taking another glance around the corner. He gestured with a raised fist before he turned back to Ronin. “The other team is in position. If anything goes wrong, drop onto your bellies, and we’ll fire on them from both angles. It’ll be noisy, but we’re not losing anyone just to take out these two bastards.”

Dozer was silent and unmoving.

Seconds ticked by. To the east, predawn light touched the perpetually hazy sky. Bravo Team must’ve been moving through the humans’ shacks by now, guarding Lara as she roused her people. Warlord’s forces needed to be occupied before the humans gathered in the market. Otherwise, all those people would be slaughtered.

Finally, Dozer lifted the strap of her rifle over her head and handed the weapon to Dodge. She stepped forward, spread her arms, and glanced at Ronin expectantly.

Ronin moved into place beside her and slung an arm over her shoulders. When Dozer wrapped hers around his waist, Lara’s face flashed up from his memory. He didn’t want to be this near to anyone but his wife. Despite the gravity of the situation, he wondered how Lara would feel about this contact between himself and Dozer. Would she be hurt or jealous? Why did his processors, against all logic, tell him this was wrong?

He eased his weight onto Dozer.

She dipped slightly before her actuators adjusted to compensate. “Heavy son of a bitch. You retrofitted with a reinforced casing?”

“Apparently.”

“Good. This goes wrong, I’m using you as a bullet shield.”

He overrode the normal functioning of his actuators, locking his left knee and fully loosening the joints in his right. As he sagged forward, hanging his head to hide his face, Dozer grasped his wrist and changed her posture to spread his weight more evenly.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Ronin’s legs dragged over the concrete as she walked forward, rounded the corner, and stepped onto the walkway. He kept his head down and his optics fixed on her boots.

“What’s this?” the static-voiced gearhead demanded.

Eighty-one meters to go.

“He needs repairs,” Dozer answered.

Seventy-three.

“Haven’t seen you around before.”

“Don’t have any record of your face on file,” Reg said.

“We’re dustwalkers,” Ronin offered without raising his head, altering his voice modulation. “Just got into town. I took a spill in a ditch outside the wall.”

“A ditch, or a canyon?”

Fifty-seven meters.

Despite her complaints, Dozer was advancing swiftly, seemingly unburdened by Ronin’s weight. “His optics have been failing for years, and the last place he was repaired didn’t do a very good job.”

Thirty-eight meters.

“Brought some scrap in, and we were told this place provides the best repairs this side of the Dust,” Ronin said. Variables fluttered through his processors, spiraling into countless scenarios of wildly fluctuating probability. He needed to get close, needed to seize the clinic, needed to get to Lara and keep her safe.

Dozer stopped, and Ronin heard the actuators humming inside her casing until their sound was drowned out by the wind howling around the building and whipping his clothes.