This wasn't a comforting thought, but Mini navigated them through the open areas until the almost incessant beeping from the sensors told her they had found a way through.
"Nice work," Jessica13 said and realized she had held her breath almost the whole way.
As they drew closer to what appeared to be where the battle had been at its hottest, it became very evident that it wasn't only mechs that littered the area.
"Whoever did this might still be around," she warned and scanned their surroundings warily. "It’s not like scavengers to leave behind this many suits without looting them first. Keep your…sensors alert. We might have more company."
"Noted," Mini said as they approached the battlefield.
The largest piece of wreckage appeared to be an observation balloon tethered to the ground to function as something of an elevated station to allow those who used it to see for miles around. Not everyone had the advantage of being protected by a whole damn mountain, after all.
It didn't look like it had done them much good, unfortunately.
"I've only ever seen one of these in books and vids," she said as they approached the wreckage. "Never in person, though, and never…shredded like this one."
"Observations indicate that the steel-reinforced balloon chamber was ruptured using high-caliber explosive shells, not rockets," the AI informed her. "That would suggest the balloon was still deployed when the fighting started. Those kinds of shells have a limited range."
"Agreed." She picked a slow path through the debris. The wreckage was the largest evidence that what had happened there had not been accidental, but there were other signs.
Barbed-wire fencing had been torn down and the electrical components ripped out before the attack. Small craters pock-marked the ground where airburst munitions had been deployed and missed their targets.
Dozens of tracks were visible in the mud as well. These were made by heavy mechs judging by the depth of the indentation and left puddles marked with streaks of oil that gleamed when struck by the rising sun like rainbows.
The smoke billowed ash into the sky and it had begun to cover the sun somewhat. Small flakes drifted down to settle on them.
Jessica13 scowled and brushed some of them off the mech's shoulder. She didn’t want the fine ash to get inside the joints and turn the grease into goop, which would definitely screw everything up.
"It might not be my place to say this, but if we are to survive indefinitely Outside, we might need to collect parts and supplies from the wrecked mechs," Mini said.
"I…" Jessica13 whispered but was unable to finish. It had been different, somehow, when she had scavenged dead mechs on A7's orders. Now that she was able to choose what she did, she wasn't sure if she wanted to do that anymore.
Mini did have a point, of course. She would need parts and she couldn't really afford to turn her nose up at how she was able to get them.
She sighed. "I'll think about it. For now, though, let's focus on whether there is anyone inside who needs our help. If not…well, the supplies won’t benefit the dead."
Her last statement sounded decidedly weird. Even as she said it, she realized that it sounded like something A7 would shout at her when she had cold feet. Did she miss the old man? Maybe.
Moving around the ruined mechs, she managed to find a small path that had already been beaten down by heavy tracks. The leaking oil and the irregular shapes of the tracks told her these weren't the regular mechs they would have in the bunkers. These were pirates like the ones who had attacked Sanctuary.
"Mini, I don't know if this is possible, but is there any way for you to compare the mechs on the ground, those that are wrecked out here, against the models that attacked Sanctuary?" Jessica13 asked as Mini moved them over one of the ruined ones and nudged an ill-fitting piece with a boot.
"I have some footage in my data banks," the AI said. "I'll perform the scans. You can keep moving while I do, though."
"That won't heat your core up too much?"
"Not if you take control of the mech."
She nodded and took the controls as they straightened out of Bulletfoot mode.
"Let’s see if there's anyone here to save." Both inherently curious and excessively cautious, she moved toward the concrete building in front of her. The tether for the balloon came up to what looked like the second story of the bunker, one that had probably been used for observation and defense.
Maybe they had it set up in case? She couldn't tell but it was an interesting design that gave them a way to peek out instead of being buried underground and reliant solely on sensors to see around them.
Again, it hadn’t done them much good. It was difficult to really determine exactly what had happened, but it was easy enough to tell from this close that the smoke issued from inside the structure. Whatever—or whoever—had attacked had gained entry.
It was a horrifying, harrowing thought. The same fear had been drilled into her since she was a child and it wasn't the kind of thing that went away, no matter how far away from Sanctuary she was.
The closer she got, the more she began to notice the smells that made it through even the filters in the mech. While she thought they were heavy chemicals, she wasn't sure which ones were present. Still, it meant the fire had burned for a few hours, at least, and had penetrated to the lower levels and seeped up slowly.
"What did they do in there?"
