Now, however, they seemed at something of an impasse. She still didn't understand what was being proposed and simply melted into the background and let them discuss it without any involvement on her part. The chances were that she would learn something if she kept her mouth shut.
Tinker finally settled into his seat, stared at the other man, and exhaled a long, exasperated sigh. "Don't get me wrong. I like that our mission is to help as many people as often as possible. It's as comforting as a peach for people to know that the Knights Mechanica are here looking out for them, but in the end, we need to choose our battles. It's a matter of resources."
"I thought we had sufficient resources," Hammerhand responded, ran his fingers across his clean-shaven cheek, and gestured around them. "Isn't that the reason we drag this whole Beast of Burden around with us?"
"Well, believe it or not, there is still a limit to what my Beast can burden," the other man countered and shook his head. "There’s not much in the world I trust more than you, Hammerhand. You know it but in the end, it comes down to the fact that we need to be operational ourselves if we're to help others. With you pushing us a little harder than usual to move across the landscape, we don't have the resources to pull back and turn to fight someone else's battle. What we're talking about here isn't a simple detour, mind you."
Hammerhand nodded. "In the end, we'll be able to find more resources as we approach more of the settled areas. Once they realize we can help, they'll help us in return. A good deed sees a good deed returned. It's how the Knights Mechanica have survived for this long, and it is how we will continue to survive. In the end, we cannot abandon those who need our help to those that would take advantage of our inaction. The only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
"And I agree with that." Tinker stood and paced once again. "But you also have to think about how we'll fight anyone when we don't have enough food or fuel to get us there and that even if we did, if we don't have enough bullets or rockets to fight with. We started with a good supply thanks to what we scrounged in the abandoned manufacturing facilities after the Invaders came. Since then, we’ve replenished our stocks by taking from those we’ve defeated. But we both know it only takes one major battle from which we can’t recover much to bring our resources to dangerously low levels. You've pushed us toward this promised land of Citta del Mar for weeks now, and it has drained our resources. We need to stop and recoup what we can and we need to plan. And we certainly don't need to head out to help farmers fifty klicks off our current course."
Rumbles of discontent followed among the Knights assembled. They had all bought into what Hammerhand had said about Citta del Mar and weren't likely to take the dismissal of their hope very well. Jessica13 could at least understand that much and so did Tinker, who raised his hands quickly to calm them.
"Don't get me wrong. I believe Citta del Mar is waiting for us out there, make no mistake," he said as he returned to his seat. "But we need priorities here. If it’s to help folk, we need to do that. If it’s to find Citta del Mar, we need to do that. Ain't no two or three ways about it and we can't have any compromises about it either."
Hammerhand watched the man speak with as close to a deadpan expression as he could muster, but Jessica13 could tell that something angry bubbled beneath the surface. She knew for a fact that he had a strict code of honor and ethics by how he ran the Knights. He saw the world in black and white with no possible shades of gray to get in the way.
And she could understand that. With the way he lived—helping people and making sure those who would hurt them couldn't—she could understand why he would refuse to see that compromise was in any way an option in his world. People needed him to be something specific and he wouldn’t be that if he constantly pondered the ethics or priorities of his actions. Not only that, he wasn't the kind of man used to begging others to follow his lead. He ordered, they followed, and that was that. He was strong, resolute, and powerful when it came to running the Knights.
Which was why it was a good thing he had someone like Tinker alongside him to reel in his sometimes more destructive tendencies. In this case, however, Jessica13 had no idea who was in the right and who was in the wrong.
It also seemed like neither of them intended to back down from their positions. She could understand that too. Hammerhand was a man who was used to taking charge of any situation and, as it turned out, so was Tinker. She had the feeling that neither man liked the other intruding on their territory and both were more than happy to help run their part of the Knights from their position of authority.
When they disagreed on something, it was usually something they butted heads over for days.
Or so she assumed, anyway. She hadn't been around long enough, and this was the first time she actually saw this. With that said, she had seen it happen a great deal with the admins at Sanctuary when they disagreed on something and let it hang over the bunker for days
