Cenn watched Arthur interact with the citizens of Quay. In Occam, it was like watching a child explore a petting zoo, unaware of how large they were in comparison to the piglets and ducklings. Cenn didn’t have kids. Never wanted them. And they weren’t in a petting zoo, they were in a sea shanty, rucksuck town, and the animals were real people.

  She pinched her head to the side and flipped coms, “Arthur, you’re fifteen meters tall, stop scaring everyone.”

  Prick.

  If she was in charge she’d be the one in the cockpit and none of these problems would be problems.

  The town of Quay wasn’t unlike the asteroid outposts she’d been to—Ceres, Vesta—people looked to be a part of the landscape, frozen in some backwater time because the rest of the system left them behind. As Arthur tramped ahead, she and Snake found a recess between buildings to park the Razor, but just barely. Too bad for that person’s bedroom window which was more of an open concept balcony now.

  The timidity of Quay-folk was helpful in that no one stood up to them. Yet. A store owner came out hootin’ as they started walking from the Razor, until he saw Arthur at the lead and scampered back.

  Pricks and cowards, that’s who you’ve settled up with, Cenn.

  She and Snake trailed Arthur now by a full town block. They tried to keep pace at first, slowing when he cornered a pedestrian and questioned him about the rest of the crew. Those that didn’t run away would do so as soon as Cenn said anything, like she was breaking them from the shock.

  Arthur would jog on to the next group right after and the cycle would start all over again. Better to walk and watch, at least it meant the kid was drawing their attention should something go wrong, but honestly what could possibly go wrong?

  She quickly lost interest in trying to calm everyone. A meck had that effect on civilians. Seeing them on TV, or giving an action figure to your kids was one thing. Seeing it towering over you, ground quaking with each step, really put the fragility of the human body in perspective.

  In her time touring Mars, most of her duties involved marching through various towns to simply intimidate the people who lived there. The stares used to roll off her. Unbeknownst to her, they had weight. Small as they were, it took a few months till she felt the burden of walking above them. The meck was a mechanical feat of destruction responsible for the colonization of an inter-planetary empire. Multi Environment Combat Kit—not Many Enormous Caring Kittens…

  Cenn laughed and Snake gave her a questioning glance.

  “What? I have funny thoughts sometimes. Ever have those?”

  He put his fingers to his ear.

  “Tell you? Nah, you wouldn’t understand. Have to have a sense of humor,” she paused, Quay forgotten. “I’ve never thought to ask, but can you laugh?”

  Snake looked at her confused.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh.”

  Snake cupped one ear, as though listening to something. Then shrugged his shoulders, and pointed at Cenn.

  “Oh, you think I’ve never said anything funny? That’s rich from a guy who literally can’t tell a joke.”

  Snake tried and failed to hide a smile.

  “I’m funny,” She said, rubbing something from her nose that wasn’t there, and turning back toward the street, “you know I’m funny.”

  A civilian came bolting out of a door in front of Cenn and ran toward her. The woman’s gaze never left Arthur and would’ve bowled Cenn over if not for Snake tugging her shoulder backward ever slightly.

  The woman blew by, hardly noticing. Maybe Cenn would’ve let the woman run into her, maybe not. She sighed.

  “You’re the only one I can rely on out here, Snake. The only one. The good news is we’re not hard to find now. Bad news is Suraj will get in just as big of a hissy as Mina at seeing this. They’ll blame me of course. Not that you’ll say anything…”

  She paused, as Snake rolled his eyes.

  “That was funny.”

  Occam was kneeling down a ways, and the people in front of him weren’t frozen or cowering. That was new. She peered closer. No, not the crew, that was easy enough to tell. Unless they bought clothes while in town, they’d stick out like bruised thumbs.

  “Think the kid’s found something,” she picked up her pace, “come on.”

  The voices came in clearer as they approached. Two men stood in front of Occam looking up, hands on their hips, trying and failing to look the stronger.

  Arthur’s pitch through the PA system had been dulled, as though it knew it was talking to someone nearby and turned the volume down.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do that.”

  “I appreciate your candor, son, but frankly I wasn’t asking. Now step out of the frame.”

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  Cenn felt Snake stop and slip under the overhang of the buildings lining the street.

  Read my mind.

  She strode up to Occam, leaned against its ankle, “it’s called a meck. Don’t embarrass us by calling it a Frame. Now what seems to be the issue?”

  “Cenn,” Arthur started, she could tell he was trying to talk quietly, “They want me to get out of the cockpit.”

  “I got that. You tell him to shove it yet?” She pinched the com on her shoulder, but didn’t say anything.

  Occam stared down at her. She was used to the general unease of seeing its face but didn’t love looking at it this close. Her com clicked back a second later indicating Arthur remembered they had their own personal com link to talk through.

  “Alfa Mighty, what the hell happened to your face?” The shorter of the two men said.

  Cenn had tried cleaning her face but the Razor’s water filtration system had been cut off, same as the oxcellerator. She tried to wipe the blackened smudges on her face with her spit but it just made it spread. The charred tips of her hair were obstinate as well. Short of cutting them off, they refused to lie down. In her time as pilot, she’d learned to roll with much worse.

  She looked the small man up and down, remembering the name those scavengers had given to her. She-Devil. If you can’t be easy to love…

  “Look who’s talking, peaches. You fall out of the ugly tree, or did you hack it down with your face?”

  The mad paused, befuddled. Cenn snapped her teeth at the man and he wrangled his rifle, but not before the taller one grabbed it from him.

  “Relax, Sam,” the man turned on Cenn, “you too, Miss. My name’s Kim. Warden Kim, and y’all aren’t licensed to be in here with that thing. Now tell your boy in there to step out, so we can all talk.”

  “Don’t do it!” A voice called from somewhere. A familiar voice.

  “What was that?” Arthur said standing, nearly knocking Cenn over. “Val?”

  “Over here! Those guys took us!”

  Cenn spun, but couldn’t find the source. It just echoed and died.

  Cenn took a step forward to ask where the rest of the crew was, but it was Arthur who slammed one knee down a few meters from the Warden and who must be his deputy. A cloud of dust erupted and the two men fell backward.

  “Where are they? Where are our friends?”

  The deputy stood quickly and ran back into a building off to the side a ways.

  To his credit Warden Kim stood more slowly, retaining some of that calm. As he brushed the dust off his clothes Cenn tried to assess his age. What she initially thought were heavy years was the wear of annoyance Cenn knew all too well, the kind when you’ve been stuck babysitting a bunch of senseless toddlers.

  “Intimidating an officer of the law? That wasn’t smart, son. You’re in my town, now get out of that thing before worse comes to ya.”

  It was a reasonable ask. Afterall, they were tromping through his town in a wartime meck. On a good day, she’d tell Arthur to step out of the meck so they could talk like civilized people. Today wasn’t a good day.

  “Worse?” She said, “I doubt there’s worse than our meck here. We didn’t come to start a fire though, Warden. So let’s start with this: why are you holding up our crew?”

  “Disturbing the peace. Can’t say I’m surprised y’all are together. Now will you comply?”

  “Show me the law that says we have to exit our military vessels by order of local governance?”

  The words came crisply from Cenn’s lips, and she felt no mirth when repeating the line she’d used hundreds of times to undermine local Martian officials.

  “I have jurisdiction here, Miss,” he pointed at his badge which was barely visible beneath a layer of dust. “What I say goes, and that meck is gallivanting about scaring the folk here. That's a reasonable enough cause by Empire Stature, look it up.”

  “Galivanting? Helluva word, warden, bu we’re not an interned infantry unit, seeking shelter or parlay. We’re a mobile executive unit, and therefore have privileged immunity.”

  “Privileged immunity…” warden Kim said, “and your word is as good as a badge, I take it? Sorry, unless you have proof of such status, or there’s reasonable cause for that war machine to be active, you’ll have to forgo these statuses. Just like the biggen.”

  The what?

  She patted her jacket for the writ of status feigning a pursuit to find something that didn’t exist. It wasn’t a lie entirely, they did have special citizen status, but not the kind that let them do whatever they wanted. She looked for Snake as she thought of what to say next but the man was gone. She remembered why they started calling him Snake in the first place.

  “Cenn, what do we do?” Arthur’s voice whispered from her com.

  What indeed?

  Meck units needed probable cause to mobilize in civilian zones. Usually wartime meant probable cause was easy to argue, but Quay didn’t seem to care. She looked Occam dead in the eye and gave him a wink. She’d figure this out—

  Thud.

  In the distance there was a sound like air being shoved down a barrel. Her body moved before her mind wrapped around what had made the noise. The Warden was moving too. Dispute forgotten they hauled ass toward the nearest building’s overhang.

  “What’s wrong—” Arthur began to say through the PA but there was a brief whistling, then a crash. Cenn didn’t turn to see the flames but saw the flash of light illuminate the buildings, and felt the heat press on her back as she and warden Kim jolted forward, rolling together away from the blast.

  Tumbling, ears ringing, Cenn’s heart raced. She was back on Mars as the people of the capital rioted yet again. When will they learn there’s nothing they can do?

  “Shoot! Shoot!”

  The voice in her ear screamed, but her hands on the sticks were like stone. Bodies crawled over her meck, power drills and laser saws hacking her to pieces. It was crunch or be crunched. She screamed.

  “Miss, Miss!”

  It was the warden. He was kneeling beside her as the vision of her past disintegrated. She grabbed the man’s hand with viper reflexes—this isn’t Mars—She turned his wrist, slamming his face into the dirt—this isn’t Mars—she straddle him from behind and dug her knee into his back, —this isn’t Mars.

  A small crack from the Warden’s wrist, and a howl of pain finally released her from the spell. Shaking slightly, she looked out onto the street.

  “Arthur,” the smoke cleared, revealing Occam collapsed in a building like someone falling back onto a recliner.

  She tensed as the sound of moving metal came nearer, but the tremors in her nervous system were finally settled. She was in control again. The warden approached her from the side, giving her a wide berth to see him coming. He was gripping his wrist with the other hand. She might have apologized but just then the familiar sound of those chainsaw cycles returned, loud and mean.

  “Trouble. All of you.”

  Cenn heard Kim’s words, but felt no threat in them. Instead she saw Occam’s body twitch, and start to move.

  “Warden,” she said, “I’d like to present our probable cause.”

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