TWENTY FOUR
A STRUCK OF LUCK
Elemia Desert, Europa Continent,
Planet Zi,
November 5, ZAC 2121
Saskia's quest for Hybrid Cannon at Delpoi met dead ends. Ones she could find were either subpar or owned by Fat Bob. So she would have to broaden her search to different continents, and she saw several zoids traders at Europa had surplus. The traders didn't actually mention that the cannons were on sale, but she thought she could talk them into it, or maybe selling them to her cheap. Besides, she felt it was time to move on with her life, and maybe - just maybe - Europa offer something for her future.
So she rode her Demantis to Elemia Desert at the southern part of Europa. It looked much like the Central Continent desert: plain tan dunes with not much life barring a few oasis and wild zoids roaming free through the sand. The Western Continent War was more than 20 years ago, but Saskia could still sense the death and destruction inflicted upon the Helic Republic and Guylos Empire. Charred zoid parts littered the desert, but none of them were in any useable condition.
For once Saskia thought that she might make a fortune being a scavenger in Elemia Desert. True, it had been 20 years since the Western Continent War and hundreds of scavengers had mined Elemia Desert dry, but there was always something to find. But being a scavenger did not impress her in a long run. The money might be good but she felt like a bottom feeder, scavenging wastes from the battlefields. She wouldn't enjoy roaming the desert, digging the sand all day. She enjoyed being a zoid technician because the interaction with the zoids. It was not the first thing she wanted to do, but over time she learnt to live with it.
This kind of problem might not (and should not) be of her concern, but Saskia couldn't let it go until she arrived at a small town. It was a small mining settlement where people used zoids to dig minerals from the land. It was late, and the sun was winding down when Saskia arrived. But still, her presence drew suspicious looks from the settlers, so much that they started lining up their zoids in a militaristic defensive formation.
Not wanting to spook the settlers any more than this, Saskia parked his Demantis and approached them on foot. A couple of armed men greeted her. Although they kept their guns sheathed, Saskia could see clearly the stocks of their automatic weapons under their arms. Saskia sensed an unspoken paranoia in their attitude. Seemed like they were terrorized by something. Desert thugs? Most likely. They were pests.
"State your name and intention, please!" one of the armed men said.
"My name is Saskia, I am a zoid trader. I am just looking for zoid parts."
"The trader had been acquiesced by the Guylos Empire. There's nothing you can find here."
"What? Why?" Saskia blurted. In her dictionary, the practice of acquisition was just a bit more than robbery. Basically they were the same, taking people's possession without consent, most often with guns on their heads. It was sad when certain people had guns, they immediately thought that they could do anything.
"Doesn't matter why," the other one said. "There's nothing you can find here. There was a Guylos outpost half a day from here. That's where they took all the conviscated zoid parts from here. If you want to find something, you can take it up to them."
It was not worth arguing over zoid parts with people that didn't want to help her in the first place, so Saskia turned her Demantis away from the town. She shot for the Guylos outpost, but couldn't get over the thought about the town's paranoia. Having the zoid trader ransacked by the Guylos outpost might traumatize them but it shouldn't put them into a state of terror. Something told her that their paranoia had nothing to do with Guylos' acquisition of the zoid trader.
The journey through the desert was uneventful until Saskia arrived at a Guylos Outpost. It was an oasis with quite diverse vegetations. The Guylos Empire erected a firebase as an attempt to enforce dominance over the desert during the Western Continent War. When the war ended, most of Guylos Empire personnel returned to the Dark Continent Nyx, leaving the firebase behind. Twenty years passed and the firebase functioned as nothing more but an outpost.
The fact that the Demantis was Guylos design didn't alert the Guylos personnel as Saskia approached the outpost. Even when the Demantis got into the outpost's weapon range nobody bothered to check on her. Only after Saskia came within a quarter mile from the outpost did the Guylos personnel responded. And then, all hell broke loose.
"Halt! Who goes there?" somebody crackled on the comlink.
"My name is Saskia, I am a zoid trader," she replied with false identity.
"Go away! We don't deal with Republic scums!"
"Republic scum?" Saskia replied with a squint. "Why do you assume that I'm from Helic Republic?" Something told her that Helic Republic had a bad taste here in Europa.
"You don't look like locals. Are you saying you're not working for Helic Republic?"
"No! I am not working for anybody," Saskia tried one last effot. "I am just a wandering zoid trader. My allegiance is to money and good zoid parts. What does Helic Republic have to do with anything? Can anybody tell me what is going on?
There was silence, and when Saskia thought she would never get something out of this situation, the gate rumbled opened. Two Zaber Fangs walked out of the outposts, pointing its guns at the Demantis. Saskia had seen the paranoia on the small town, but she never expected that the Guylos outpost would have an even worse case. She climbed down her zoid and waited until the pilots of the Zaber Fangs met her.
"You are not from here, are you?" one of them spoke curtly.
"I have been everywhere," Saskia replied in a huff. "What is going on here? I don't understand this hostility."
"You've been everywhere? Then you've been to Delpoi, I presume?" the other Zaber Fang pilot, much older and much calmer than the first one, explained. "What did you see there?"
"Armed conflict. Helic Republic is in a squabble with the Guardian Force over some new proposal for increasing soldier's wealth. The argument turned into violence."
"Soldier's wealth? Do you really think that's what the Republic want?" the pilot guffawed. "Only fools believe in General Krauser when he said he cared about soldier's prosperity! He didn't give a damn about soldiers, or anybody for that matter. No, he was planning something else. If a nation starts recruiting in large number, there's only one possibility..."
"Invasion!" Saskia almost yelped. She remembered this exact conversation when she was infiltrating Fat Bob's caravan. The thugs seemed to be talking nonsense at the time, but here in Europa, people believed it more than people at Delpoi. No wonder people at Europa was paranoid and jittery in the presence of a stranger.
"But why do you think General Krauser is invading Europa?"
"What do you think General Krauser is invading, lady? Nyx? Helic Republic tried that in 2050's, and they had their tails shoved up their butts by the Gilvaders. Eastern Continent? If the Republic invades Easten Continent, ZOITEC will cease to function, then the Republic will have to find somebody else to fill up their zoid ranks. The only logical possibility is Europa, because it's the perfect bridge to invade Nyx."
"But Helic did invade Europa, resulting in a war of attrition without clear victory. I don't think the President and the Senate will let General Krauser to take Helic Republic down that path again."
"That's when the Guardian Force comes into play," the older pilot lit a cigarette between his lips. "The Guardian Force is a mere distraction in Krauser's grand scheme. It will take everybody's focus from his real intention. Everybody will think that the Guardian Force is the imminent danger to Helic Republic, and the massive army Krauser is building will be used to win this conflict. When everybody realizes that's not the case, it'll be all too late. Krauser will be unstoppable by then."
"And you know this for a fact?" Saskia mused. Her skepticity still got the best of her.
The older pilot heaved a deep breath, then puffed a long stream of smoke from his mouth. "For untrained eyes like yours, it is all gibberish. But it doesn't take a complicated skill to see what's behind Helic Republic – Guardian Force conflict. I hope you're still around when it happens, because I'd love to see your face."
So invasion it was. That explained the paranoia. Citizen of Europa believed that once the conflict with the Guardian Force was over, Helic Republic would invade Europa, and Guylos Empire would not stand idle. The Empire would send its troops, and the Western Continent War would engulf Europa once again.
Still, Saskia found the old pilot's theory hard to believe. Unlike Guylos Empire, Helic Republic divided its power into several governing bodies, so no one had too much power to launch an invasion at his convenience. President Bonneville was a peace-loving individual, and the Senate would side with the president in preventing another war with the Empire. Krauser's plan to invade Europa was a long shot at best.
But Saskia couldn't ditch the fact that a number of people had similar opinion on the same matter.
"Anyway, tell us what specifically you're looking for, and if we have one, we'll make a deal with you," the older pilot said, now looking at Saskia like a veteran soldier looking at a fresh boot-camp graduate.
"Well, for a start, I'm looking for a Guylos Hybrid Cannon," Saskia tried this approach. "But I don't mind taking a look at your junkyard, in case I can find cheap bargains and throwaways."
"We don't have a Hybrid Cannon. But you can look at our junkyard if you want to get some junks.
Saskia reluctantly agreed and let the Zaber Fang pilots escorted her to the junkyard. As its namesake, there was hardly anything she could use. Most of them were used up armor platings and weapons that no longer work. Saskia thought maybe she could fix one or two weapons and sell them, but their condition was so bad that she estimated the repair cost would exceed their retail prices.
But underneath a charred piece of armor there was soft warm glow. Curious, Saskia watched the Zaber Fang pilots while she crouched near the light source. The pilots were chattering and smoking cigarettes, oblivious to what she was doing. Saskia turned the armor piece, and a soft warm glow caressed her face. They were rocks, blue rocks, with the size bigger than her forehand. They were warm like radioactive material, and Saskia was about to ditch them until she realized what they actually were.
The blue, glowing, warm rocks were Zoid Magnite, a substance that had been known to heal Organoid. Saskia had never dealt with Organoid before, so she didn't know how much Zoid Magnite would cost in free market. He had never seen anybody looking for Zoid Magnite, so she guessed that the rocks didn't have a lot of economical value. But Organoid could revive a dead zoid, even if its core was damaged beyond repair. Then, it struck her.
Gilvader's core.
No record had been made about fixing a zoid core with Zoid Magnite. The only one Saskia knew was Zeke, Van Flyheight's Organoid, who was healed using Zoid Magnite. How about zoid? How about her zoid? For all Saskia knew, the Gilvader's core was badly damaged, and although it still supplied the zoid with life, her chance of fixing it conventionally was slim. What if the Zoid Magnite could actually heal zoid core? She didn't know. But no matter the chance was, she was willing to try, because it was her only chance.
So she gathered all blue rocks and put them into a decent box she could find. Then she collected nuts and bolts and washers from the junkyard to cover the rocks. Then she dragged the box toward the Zaber Fang pilots as if she wanted to report her findings.
"You're right, there's nothing I can find that worths fixing," Saskia said as she opened the box, showing off the filthy nuts and bolts. "Although I did collect some things that I could use. Do you mind?"
The pilots chuckled. "You bottom feeders never cease to amaze me."
"I take it as a no," Saskia fibbed a goofy smile. "How much do you want for these?"
"Take them. Take them and go back to where you belong, and never show your face again."
"I can guarantee that, although not in a long time," she nodded. "Thank you."
As the pilots continued to chuckle between themselves, Saskia dragged the box, strapped it to the Demantis, then zipped home. It was way past midnight, but she had no intention of stopping. She could rest after she put those rocks on the Gilvader's core, whatever the result might be.