A little something I cranked out after inspiration hit. None of this has been developed into anything yet. If you think for a minute maybe you can tell about historical events I was drawing inspiration from!
There was a woman by the door and a man by a hoist in the wooden barn. The dust from hay pushed aside filled the air and caught the afternoon sunlight trickling down through the windows. The woman by the door was seated on a stool, one leg crossed over the other and letting a combine rifle rest in her lap with her gloved hand still resting over the trigger. If her worn longcoat had a badge on it someone might’ve assumed she was law enforcement. Without it, they’d guess bounty hunter. They’d be more right than wrong, too. The effects of harsh sun and a knife-fight scar gave her grin a permanent twist while she watched the man work without the slightest interest in helping.
In the back of the barn, half in the darkness, a heavily armored Patriot’s Works 1844 steamwalker knelt like a penitent worshiper. It was better maintained than most, but it was clearly a military surplus. They weren’t that rare to see, after the Grunwalde Rebellion was crushed there were more than the Republic was willing to maintain. They’d been stripped of weapons and armor and limited in their engine output and sold by the hundreds to ranches and mines. Usually after a demonstration of a fully armed military model blowing apart a scrapper just to prove how useless they’d be against the Republic military. This one had more of its armor than most, but even that wasn’t so unusual when battlefields had been picked clean of scrap.
The man was down to his undershirt and trousers, with his shirt and coat thrown off to the side. Lifting the floorboards covering the weapon cache had been hot work in this unseasonably hot fall afternoon, and the barn did not ventilate well. He was starting to sweat, which made him stop and adjust the fit of his steamwork right arm. He’d lost the arm just above the elbow, and now a seemingly new and ill-fitting graft hung from his arm. The cuff was working its way twisted or the arm would not line up right, and all he could do was grumble and adjust it. The chains hanging from the hoist clattered and finally tensed as he spun the wheel, lifting out a wide-bored steamwalker cannon. From the barrel to the revolver chamber it’d been painted red and not recently. The scuffs and flaked off paint spoke of an authenticity that was the first thing that made the woman take note and lean forward.
“If I’m not mistaken…” she began with the arrogant tone of someone who knows they’re not mistaken, “That’s a Tillinghast revolver, isn’t it? Ten-pounder, made for anti-armor battles?”
“Maybe it is,” was all the man replied as he began pushing it towards the steamwalker.
“Don’t normally see those around. And it’s red?”
“You colorblind?”
“The way I remember, the only ones who painted them red was the Sixth Army. Steiner’s boys.”
That brought a single, joyless chuckle out of the man. “Lotta units got into paintin’ their ‘walkers. Could see red guns in any front.”
“But Steiner made ’em famous.”
He grunted noncommittally. It was probably fortunate his back was to her, so she couldn’t see him roll his eyes as she continued to speak.
“Never saw one but always figured it’d be a darker red. Never could decide which legend I liked more: That he had y’all dipping them in blood; or the fires of hell scorched them all.”
“Like your stories?”
“Who wouldn’t? I’m sure at the academies they’re gonna be studying Steiner’s campaign for a century. Not only does he take Alberon, jewel of the three rivers in a siege, but he burns it to the ground, too!”
The man didn’t pay her words any mind. Nothing she said broke his pace as he started removing the ‘walker’s right hand and lining up the cannon to bolt it on. The woman frowned at his indifference, getting up and raising her voice.
“And not content to put one city to the torch, he abandons his supply lines, living off what he can steal as he plunders and burns his way to seize the rebellion’s esterum mines! Fighting battle after battle until he’d all but annihilated the enemy, and burning everything his troops couldn’t carry.”
“You know you never did tell me which side you rode on.”
“Does it matter? How many innocents did you kill during the march? Actually, don’t try to tell me. Someone else knows and they’re willing to pay for your head.”
The man was silent for a long time, and that silence hung as thick as the dust in the air as he finished attaching the cannon. With his gaze still on the red paint job he finally spoke again. “Gave ’em twenty-four hours to git out of the city. Told ’em what we were going to burn. Bet you heard Steiner shot the mayor dead in cold blood, too. Surprised you hadn’t gotten verbose about that legend.”
“Well, if you insist-”
“I wasn’t.”
“The whole continent was outraged at Steiner’s madness. Wave a flag of parley, but enter the city under heavy guard. Armored guard. And without even so much as a hello he shoots the noble mayor stone dead with two shots through the heart and declares such is the fate of all traitors and rebels.”
That got another humorless laugh out of the man. “Steiner didn’t have a theatrical bone in his whole body. The mayor was gonna surrender. The militia captain shot him. Main army dead or ran, gates broken, whole city defenseless and he gets in his head they’ll fight to the end. I’ll tell you they were the ones fired the first shot. Doesn’t matter in the end.”
She answered with a flat smile. “It really doesn’t. Wouldn’t change the price I can get for your head.”
That bought him a few more minutes to work, attaching the cannon, and going back to start the process again with a shoulder mounted gun. In all her dramatic storytelling she’d drifted close enough that he had to shoo her out of the path of his work.
Although as she stepped back, he threw a terse question at her: “Gonna stand there talkin’ or do you want to make yourself useful?”
She shrugged, more in her tone than her shoulders. “Doesn’t really matter if I don’t stop you, the specifics of the contract are such I can get by collecting you from any unnatural end as long as there’s enough to identify. Still though… surprised there’s anything to collect on at all.”
He started pushing the cannon back towards his steamwalker, grunting again. “Well go ahead and finish the story.”
“What, you haven’t heard enough about the innocents victimized by Steiner’s army joined up with the rebel reinforcements, blowing them to hell in the mother of all surprise attacks? Catching them loading up on stolen steamboats to ship back downstream? They say the river was running red with blood for three days and nights with all the soldiers killed. Steiner got himself quartered and scattered through the territory for the animals to dispose of. Heard they ripped every last bolt out of the steamwalkers, bent the barrels of every rifle, herded every last soldier onto the most intact steamboat so they could burn it and shoot anyone who jumped off. I’ll admit I have been curious about how you managed such a survival with such an intact unit, if not yourself.” She was elated with the chance to keep speaking, even if he didn’t seem interested at all in listening.
He let her curiosity fester while he worked, but she didn’t bring up any other subjects to distract him. He slid down when finished, taking a break to lean against the walker’s knee. “Didn’t, that’s how. Word got back about the Red Hands. Couldn’t get a prosthetic in the field, but could get this thing to walk. Brass wanted to see if we could teach it. I was just… the easiest one to get rid of.”
The longer he’d worked, the paler he’d gotten. And the sheen of sweat didn’t seem wholly from exertion. He was a little slower and a little stiffer as he crossed over to where his jacket hung from a nail in the wall, checking the time on a cheap pocketwatch and afterwards taking a quick swig from a small medicine bottle left in a jacket pocket.
“Doesn’t look like enough to get you through tomorrow,” came her comment.
“Ain’t supposed to,” came his reply.
She scoffed. “Hopin’ to get yourself killed out there?”
“That would be easy, wouldn’t it,” he chuckled. Again without humor. “No, just ’cause I don’t want to get dulled when I’m fighting.”
He started working again, and she allowed him a few moments of peace before shaking her head and speaking again. “You think this is gonna… redeem you somehow? Save your life? Think if you help that girl, I’ll let ya go?”
“You been here armed the whole time, you think I give a damn what you think?” His back was still to her as he started pulling out crates of ammunition. All technically illegal to be in civilian hands, and yet they kept finding their way there. “If… If she goes free, then that’s it. Just move on like I’ve moved on before. If not…” He shrugged his shoulders. “Those thugs have it comin’ anyway. World won’t miss ’em.”
“Will it miss you?”
“No.”
Spammy's Can 