No Rest for the Weary

There was no rest for the weary, and no rest for the soldier. Doubly so, for the weary soldier, or the weary field mechanic desperately trying to keep a fighting force on its feet. Every other hour, a vehicle would roll in and demand ‘priority repairs’, and that they should get it done as quick as possible. Lance Corporal Sophie Williams tried—politely at first, then with an increasingly blasé tone—to explain that you can’t just quickly spot-weld Titanium.

She had to clean the plasma scoring off, check the electronics, check the engine, check the fuel-cells, check the vents, check the suspension or treads, check for oxidisation, and only then, if the vehicle passed all those tests (which it almost always didn’t), could she heat her welding torch to six hundred degrees celsius and start repairing the scoring, denting, and scuffs that the callous Marines and Troopers got on their vehicles.

Not to mention she needed Titanium to repair the Titanium armour plating on the tanks. If her hair wasn’t shorn short, she would have ripped it all out.

“Poor baby,” she said to a Scorpion Tank, as she patted its front left tread. “What did the mean, nasty Jarheads do to you, hmm?” she made a show of placing her head down on the track, eyeing the Marines that had come out of her with a barely-concealed smirk.

“Don’t blame us,” one of them said, placing a hand on his chest. “It was the Covenant.”

“Oh sure,” Sophie brought her head back up, crossing her arms on the tread and leaning on it. “And all those women with black eyes just walked into doorknobs. Go, shoo.” She beckoned the Marines away.

They shook their head at her. One of them hit the other in the chest, and they moved away.

“Right.” Sophie clapped her hands once the Marines had disappeared. “Let’s get her undressed. See what we’re working with.” She clambered up onto the surface of the Scorpion, heading for the operator’s cockpit.

“Anyone ever tell you that you treat vehicles better than you treat people?” Another Technician, Daniel Berns—her best friend and constant thorn in her side—appeared from behind the Scorpion, wiping his hands on a rag stained black and yellow.

“Anyone ever tell you that I don’t care?” she shot back at him over her shoulder.

He threw the rag at her. “Yes. You. Repeatedly.”

She shrugged. “Then I shouldn’t have to keep saying it, should I?” She tossed the rag back, and wiped her greasy hands on her fatigues, which were already more black than they were olive.

She opened up the cockpit and slipped inside, keying the ignition with a press of the button. She didn’t have the required neural interface to seamlessly slip into the role of Scorpion operator, but she wasn’t about to drive it into battle, either.

All she needed to do was check the electronics system for faults. She opened up the menu on the dashboard display and ran a diagnostic.

Beeping filled the cockpit, and she sat back against the uncomfortable chair. Thanks to her short stature, she could barely see out of the cockpit’s windows. It was humid, and stunk of sweat. She popped the hatch once the diagnostics were done and took in a much-needed breath of fresh air.

She turned to Daniel. “Could you go grab the pressure washer and get it started?” she motioned over to where the machine sat in an instacrete garage, covered with camo netting.

He looked up from his visual inspection of the half-melted track covers, and nodded. “How’re the electronics?” he asked, moving towards the garage.

“Oh, they’re fine,” she looked back at the diagnostics. A lot of warning signs flashed on the screen, but she could ignore them. That wasn’t for her ragtag repair skills to fix, anyways. “They jus’ need to treat her right next time.”

“Pressure washer ready,” Daniel said, carting over a water-fed washer, as well as her mobile welding station. “I brought this, too. Dunno if you needed it.”

“Not yet, but thanks,” Sophie hopped down onto the ground next to the tank. She was about to pick up the washer and get to work on the charcoal black plasma scoring, when something made her stop dead in her tracks.

A truck rolled into the makeshift motor pool. Standard UNSC flatbed model, meant for transporting vehicles. Only, this one didn’t have a vehicle on the back. Or, at least, not a Human one.

Daniel’s eyes lit up at the sight of the Wraith Tank, being ridden by five Army Troopers. Sophie’s face fell immediately. The truck came to a stop, and the Troopers all hopped down, looked around, and spied the two Technicians. One of them waved, all of them started to walk over.

At this point, Daniel caught on to what was happening, and his face fell faster than a mortar shell. “Oh god, no.”

“No.” Sophie took a deep breath, shook her head, and tossed her pressure washer to one side, walking over to meet the Troopers half way. “No, no no.”

The Troopers came to a stop, Sophie kept going.

“Not in a million years!” she got right up into the Sergeant’s face, completely uncaring of the rank difference between them. She jammed a finger into his chest plate. “Who the hell do you think you are?! I have been busting my ass to repair these vehicles all damn week, and you lot just waltz in here with a goddamn Wraith tank?”

One of the other Troopers went to step forward. “Watch your tone when you talk to our Sergeant, corporal!"

Sophie folded her arms over her chest.

“This is my damn motor pool! This may as well be my own little corner of Camber! These vehicles enter and leave by my say so! What the hell am I meant to do with this?!” she motioned wildly to the Wraith tank as the crane on the flatbed began straining to lift it up.

The Sergeant held up a hand. “Easy, soldier. We don’t need it repaired.”

Sophie drew back, an eyebrow arched. “You don’t?”

The Sergeant shoot his head. “What the hell would you repair it with? Titanium and elbow grease? I don’t think they work on Covenant armour.” He laughed to himself and turned around to face the alien Tank as it was unloaded. “No, we need it taken apart.”

Sophie looked over his shoulder as the tank was dropped to the ground. “Taken apart?”

“Yeah.” Another Trooper stepped up to her. “ONI gave us orders to crack her open, rummage around inside, and see what makes ‘em tick. So, we decided to bring it to the best Technician on the planet.”

Sophie puffed her chest out a little.

“Then,” another Trooper said, “we found out he was dead, so we brought him here.”

The Lance Corporal ignored that last part. “Well, how would I even know how anything inside it even works?”

“Hey, look,” The Sergeant put a hand on her shoulder. “I won’t lie to you.”

There was a pause, the Sergeant smiled. “So I’ll just wish you luck.”

Echo Squad walked away, laughing together. Sophie watched them leave. Daniel walked up beside her, still staring at the broken-down Wraith. “So, pressure washer?”

Sophie slumped her shoulders and let out a long-suffering sigh. It was going to be a long-ass day.