The pilot clicks the release on his helmet and with an exhalation the seals slide apart and the pressure vents. He feels the desert breeze on his face after he removes the helmet from his head and locks it onto his hip. With unaugmented eyes, he sweeps the night.
Behind him, his mech’s twin engines thrum, their fans spooling down as the internals cool. Her six articulated legs squat her considerable bulk in the dune. The cockpit installed at the nose of the mech is replete with a suite of artificial eyes that scan the outlying environment. A long charge lance, almost half the length of the mech itself, protrudes from below the cockpit, which the pilot now leans on, as he pulls a flask from his pocket.
The lance can discharge a gout of plasma the surface temperature of a star up to five hundred metres away before it begins to splay and lose effectiveness. The speed and heat of the lance can turn almost anything to molten slag. A bit excessive for a postman. But then he supposes his cargo is precious, and a lot of people want it.
Paddy Dobson
19th October 2022