There is a lot of potty talk in this chapter…uh, sorry.
Some Experience Necessary
1.9
"Rise and shine."
The sun was just peeking over the horizon, the night hadn't been long and Raven felt warm and rested, stretching with a smile as the first touch of warmth of the new day. Beneath him, on the ground and around the remains of the fire, three people were struggling to wake up and were failing, miserably. It wasn't until Raven restarted the fire with a lighter he'd nicked during his fire-starter faze a year or so ago that faces began to appear.
As the sky lightened the stark walls and husks of buildings long since abandoned came into view, creepy without their cloak of darkness. At least the night had hidden most of them from the eyes of the cadets, especially with the screens of scraggly bushes and low garden walls and sand, but now it was a different matter entirely. Raven wanted to leave the place as soon as possible – it hadn't been long abandoned, he'd been through here six years ago when he'd first met his foster father and travelled with the remains of a search-and-rescue platoon that had turned to organoid hunting. There were still people there. When the Republic came through, however, it was a different story. Old ghosts watched Raven from the windows, and he felt the fear rise in him again, focusing on the task at hand to help him smooth it over.
He was surprised when Grace appeared beside him, scowling and rubbing her eyes fiercely, even more surprising that she was still dressed in uniform – not what he was expecting at all. "What time is it?"
"Five in the morning." He replied, thankful for the distraction. "Tea or coffee?"
"Coffee." Came the muffled voice by the bushes in the fabric cocoon.
"No." Raven shot back, wary of a Zoidian on Zoidian crack. "Grace?"
"It's five. In the morning. I can barely think straight." She wrinkled her nose as she gathered her thoughts, putting them in order as best she could. "I want a latte, but I don't think I'm going to get one, will I?"
"No."
"Croissant?" Raven glared at her. "Fine, fine. Tea. Because it's instant coffee you've got, haven't you?"
"You bet."
"Oh god." Grace moaned and slid to her knees, and sat there, watching him work for a moment before getting the picture she should be doing something to help. She poked the fire a little, and the flames came to life. She noticed a faint glimmer of a smile that flitted across his face, but it was quickly replaced by his neutral frown. "Where's the water?"
"The Zaberfang is equipped with fresh-water tanks mounted in the chest area. There's a vein you can tap on the left fore-leg, just above the ankle. Can you reach it?"
"Uh, yeah-" She got up, taking the offered kettle and tottered to the zoid to figure out how to get the zoid to share its water with her.
"You have a problem, just tell me, yeah?"
Grace waved him away, determined via ego to do the right thing, but she felt she'd made some progress if he was offering help to her without an insult.
Still around the fire, Harmony refused to move. She had returned to the universal state of teenagerhood, not at all wanting to wake up despite having a darker and perhaps more evil persona that she wanted to portray. It was also spoiled when Raven walked over and turfed her out himself, spilling the overly pale and quite frankly blotchy young lady onto her bottom, realizing she was wearing negligee.
Raven's lips peeled back, revealing his teeth – it was not a smile. "Get the fuck up or we leave you here. Rosalita." A hand popped out, flipping him the bird. Raven stalked over to her bedroll and pulled her free as well. "When the commanding officer says get up, it's not a choice, it's a demand."
"Don't you ever question orders?!" Rosalita responded, grabbing her clothes and pulling them close to her in horror. This wasn't how she'd expected to wake up. Harmony was possibly thinking the same thing, but it was hard to tell - she was sitting with her head to one side and eyes staring off into the distance. "Do you follow everything you're told?!"
Rolling his eyes, Raven turned away, going back to the fire. How many times had he been asked that? How many fellow students had dropped out as time went on, when they realised the truth? "It's not like I'm asking you to kill puppies, Rosalita. I'm asking you to get up and get on with things. There are no lie-ins when you're part of the military except when you're off duty. And even then it's questionable. You want to question orders? Fine. The remains of this sorry party are going to move on and leave you behind. Without breakfast."
"Fuck you."
A clank alerted him to Grace's return with the water. She was fidgeting around the fire, trying to figure out how to get the pot in there without burning herself. In a heartbeat Raven was at her side, looping the metal handle over a stick and popping in into the ashes. "Wait for the bubbling."
"Okay."
Sad how the upper class one was the only one who gave a shit. Raven shook his head in disgust. It was most likely a family honour thing, but then most of the high-class bozos usually were. Especially that Shubaltz bastard who was impeccably horrible and holier than thou. The man didn't come to the school, but on his diplomatic visits, Raven had run afoul many a time on the blond colonel's watch and Prozen hadn't been able to save him from a right proper thrashing.
Lumina-La joined them, dragging her blanket with her. She was also fully dressed, although her jacket was on back to front with the buttons all done up. How she'd accomplished that Raven wasn't sure. "Breakfast?"
"Liquid breakfast. Put down that coffee. We can eat once we reach the ruins. "
Her hands were still searching through the pack he'd brought down from the Fang's storage facilities. "But I need something now! OW!"
"Don't hit girls!" Would that pony-tailed vagabond ever get off his case? Rosalita's head poked over a handy wall she'd picked to change behind. 'You're such an asshole!" She was blushing for some reason, Raven couldn't fathom why.
"I tapped the back of her hand. Come over here and I'll cuff you if you want to see how hard I can hit." He growled. "You're not hurt badly, Lumina. Don't start crying, you know it won't get you anywhere." A shuddering gulp was all he got in reply, but it seemed that the travelling and the overnight stay had been enough to wear off the rough edges between them, and she nodded, brow furrowing. "Have some tea, take some paper and go do your business. We'll be moving in a half hour or so and we need to make up time – no toilet stops."
"You have anger issues." Lumina-La said, her voice curiously level. She still took a steaming mug as Grace prepared them, and picked up a roll and a strange plastic spade that had 'poo spade' written on it in thick marker. "What am I supposed to do with this? It's not to wipe, is it?"
"It's to dig the hole, stupid." Rosalita finally joined them, stared at the tea in a horrified fashion, tipped hers out and reached for the instant coffee.
"And what do I do with the hole?"
"You take a shit. It's not rocket science."
"Don't be crude, Raven." Grace chided him. "Give me a moment and I'll come with you to show you – you dig a small hole, you do your business in it and you cover it up afterwards. No unsightly toilet paper or things to stand in because everyone knows that no matter how big the desert is, you will always put your foot in, err, someone's business."
Lumina La seemed to like this idea and was happy to cling to Grace while the others waited for Harmony to make her appearance. It wasn't very graceful or even pleasant, and it wasn't until Raven was packing up camp that she finally made an appearance. She had tried to apply dark circles beneath her eyes and claim she'd been up all night talking to the ghosts that lived there, but the sleep in her eyes and the mascara in her hand said otherwise.
The ghost thing hit a little too close to Raven and he was quiet until they were back in their zoids and moving once more. It was sad, he felt, that Grace of all people and Lumina-La were shaping up to be the only good candidates there. The fight about the water and the showers for instance was insane – five minutes to go, they were on target, and suddenly everyone wants a shower? Here? What the hell?
Relieving himself against a wall and well out of sight of the others, Raven scanned the horizon (on tip-toes of course so he could see over the wall) and spied something that wasn't there before – a dust cloud. A dust cloud could mean many things – a dust storm, for example, migrating birds or possibly camels, a goods train, another military company…
…Or Sleepers. Suddenly it felt very important that they go and go now. He jiggled himself dry, tucked himself back into his flightsuit and ran back to his zoid – Lumina-La was already active, the Orudius snorting impatiently as a KonigWolf sulked – much like its pilot. Rosalita was swearing up something fierce by the time Raven was seated and strapped in. He was pleased to see that his camp was now completely gone – they'd buried the fire and scuffed the ground and that was it.
"We'll be heading 63 degrees north for a few hours before cutting through a known sink-hole field to our destination. We'll be going into radio silence as well 'cos of Sleepers, so I need you all to remember your field training-" Oh please let them have taken that at least, they've only just really learned how to bloody pilot "- and look for signs of sinkage."
There was a long moment of silence. It seemed to stretch and stretch, the four zoids staying silent and still as the Fang pulled away. Almost comically as Harmony was still half asleep, her zoid lifted a massive claw and scratched its carapace.
"I have no knowledge of these sinkholes you speak of, puny mortal."
Raven's commlink quickly shut off visual and audio as the zoid began to sway from side to side, faint glimmers of something through the plexiglass of the cockpit's viewing ports. Wisely, nobody decided to intervene – when Raven had a tantrum, he had a tantrum.
~ To be continued.
