Over the years, pieces of the puzzle fell into place and then she found it, one of the Trader’s hidden depots where he cached supplies and fuel. There were a lot of blasters, grens, machine guns, all sorts of mil iron, and even a working wag that was now one of the small cargo vans of her armored convoy. But at the time it looked like a juggernaut from ancient legends. As unstoppable as a stampede and larger than the sky.
Now her wags sported a laser and dozens of missiles. Kate had a crew of fifty and three hidden caches of her own spread across the burning landscape. But still it wasn’t enough to ever feel as safe as she had that day when the big man with an easy grin fired his blaster and blew open the locks on her chains, giving her the double edged gift of freedom.
“So these are the outlanders,” a newcomer said from the corridor. The scrawny man had wild hair, thinning at the top even though he seemed no more than thirty or so. His teeth were a disaster, badly crooked, and his left foot was obviously deformed, little more than a twisted lump at the end of his leg.
“Everything okay?” Kate demanded, all business once more.
“Sure, sure,” Eric said, limping into the room. “I have the radar on full, and our belly armor is live with current. Nobody’s getting in, or out, without our knowing. And we’re not going anywhere until this storm subsides, so I decided to meet our guests.”
“They ain’t guests,” Fat Pete stated firmly. “We cut a deal, and we’re sticking to our side. That’s all.”
“Fair enough,” Eric said. “Still never hurts to check and see if they got a tech in the group.”
“You and those damn machines.”
“Saved our ass at Hellsgate.”
“This is Eric, our chief tech,” Kate said, with a head bob. “He runs the comp that runs the show.”
“Mutie shit,” Jak said rudely, removing his sunglasses and folding them to tuck them away into a shirt pocket. “All comps aced.” The teenager knew that was only true on the surface. In the underground redoubts, the bases were run by huge banks of comps that operated fusion generators and the mat-trans system.
“Comps are real as a kick in the belly, friend,” Eric said amiably. “Quite a lot of comps still function okay. Oh, not if they were left running since skydark, then the last program is now burned into the system forever and is now the only thing they can do. But if not turned on, they’re okay.”
“If you need any help, just let me know,” Mildred offered, passing her bowl to Matilda. “I know something about computers.”
Eric arched an eyebrow at that word. The healer spoke old tech? “Convince me,” he said.
Mildred thought about all the jargon she had learned in med school, but most of that was system specific. Something general would do. “Cold is better than hot,” she said. “They go slower when they overheat. If you got comps here, then you also have some serious air conditioners to compensate for the heat of the desert.”
Erik stared at the woman in disbelief.
“Probably looted some software from an auto body shop to monitor your engines,” the physician went on, taking a logical guess. “So what do you have on the start-up screen, clouds or an apple?”
“By God, you are a hacker,” Erik said softly. “Wanna see the nest?”
Nest. That was as good a term for every tangle of computer wires the woman had ever encountered.
“Sure,” she said, standing. “I can probably teach you how to defrag the hard drive. You would have to shut down for a while, but afterward it might double the processing speed.”
“Double?” Kate said in sudden interest.
“And we’d be without the radar and such for how long?” Fat Pete growled, uncrossing his arms. “This could just be a trick to get us to weak our defenses for an attack.”
Thoughtfully, Kate rubbed her jaw. “Or nuking save us in the next firefight.” They could try that back at the depot, where they were safe from attack and far, far away from this battle zone.