“He speaks to the sun and it dims;

he veils the light of the stars.”

-Job 9:4

The sun fell as they ate.

“This is cougar country; a king tom is watching us right now,” hissed Chuck Heston.

Sean was then moved to ask, “You played in more than westerns?”

Brenner hummed, “Don’t make me jealous, Glass—Chuck got all the rolls, football player, crusader, U.S. Marine—Gordon of Khartoum, for God’s sake, Planet of the Apes, all the best science-fiction, Moses, Ben Hur… the greedy man.”

Sean made his decision and waved Drex over. Drex brought the A-Team over, “What, Glass?”

“Before the moon rises, we need a Captain. Chuck has played a hundred roles, adventure, military, scy-fy—in other words…”

“Exactly, half his movies were FUBAR wet dreams—loved 57 Days in Peking—and The Warlord!”

“You know he died in sixty percent of his roles,” cautioned Saxon. And Heston grinned wide, holding up his rifle, “From my cold dead hands—I was hated in real life too!”

“Done,” agreed Drexler.

Sean cautioned, “Look, Chuck explained to us, basically why you and I and the jocks smash these guys, that hesitation is built into action movie roles. So, us jocks, we need to take point and—”

And Drex cut him off, “And be the Sarge in Charge—officers always hesitate, its their job. He considers the plan, we execute, he backs us up. That’s the deal.”

“The moon is up in an hour,” cautioned Saxon, “Lots of bad scripts under my belt, and we’re in one.”

“Well, then,” opined Heston, in a low voice, “as the drones seem disinclined to salvage any of our organic parts, I suggest getting the lay of the land, as in a scout. Charlie is already here, so it will have to be someone more articulate to play the Indian.”

“Drexler, painted, armored and mohawked like a Hollywood viking, with a shield and hammer, asked, “Where would a marooned tweaker camp on this high desert?”

Brenner answered, “On the other side of this canyon wall, the clouds blow up from the southwest as you can see. There will be shelter on the east face.”

Heston agreed, “This is oil country. No way the crusty stay-behinds up here removed every trace; more like tucked away a habitation in between these boulders.”

Drex looked at Chuck, “Two files, Sir?”

Heston went into some old role, “Pick two parallel points and don’t funnel, north file keep north, south south, until we make the canyon, then dip east by southeast, Can’t be a hundred yards. Take your time. Pick point and rear guard.”

Drex nodded to Caan, “Point,” and to Bradshaw “Rear. Browne on me. We only use fire arms as last resort. Jimmy, take Brown’s spear. Terry throw Greene’s spear before you light off with that single shot.”

Drex nodded to Sean, who nodded to Brenner in his loin clothe and knife from Kings of the Sun, to lead, and to Saxon as a gladiator to take up the rear. Looking at his own Pawnee self bow and the tomahawk and knife, which he thought was practical for a survival situation, but under-gunned for combat, “Bronson, on me, only gun in the team.”

He nodded to Chuck, in his Mountain man outfit, “You should be with the fire-team, two rifles, a shotgun and a pistol.”

Drexler hissed, “And Terry! Till the moon comes up gather Terry some rocks to chuck.”

So it went for that hour before the moon came up, nine men readying for a war against a primitive planet guarded by automated systems that had already dismantled their lone technological edge, Bobby.

‘Hopefully there are no Bobby’s down here.’

As Saxon had guessed, the moon rose, casting a light in the sky, illuminating the shapes of the canyon walls, the tree lines across the broad high desert. The breeze that had brought up the partial cloud cover, thunderheads deep in the southwest, had eased, the sage and rabbit brush no longer swaying but still. The groan of metal was heard over the boulders to the southeast, southwest, and east, as if three sets of machinery were grinding into action without lubrication.

“Oil rigs,” noted Heston. “Good cover—move out, take your time.”

Brenner actually made a fine scout, Sean noted, as they picked their way through a grove of scrub oak within a natural corral of house-sized boulders, across the shoulder of the ridge under a line of thirty foot high boulders along an easy clay and sand game trail. They were soon left with a choice of picking along a southward barbed wire line of fence still set with 200 year old post oaks, or crossing through a gap due east. Sean signaled Brenner to head due east, not wanting to be too far from the A-Team. They were soon at the mouth of a cave covered with an old plank shed roof, occupied by a man and a dog—no, not a dog, but coyote—huddled together and shivering as they were boxed in, for Caan was already coming through the narrow east gap.

The coyote was weirdly tame and shivered in fear, as the man tried to comfort the un-trusting canine that was darting its head this way and that. Soon, all nine figures were framed within the dim moonlight. The thin man was in terror, by the bulge of his eyes, but had some grit, and cared a lot for that coyote.

Terry seemed to feel bad for the fellow, set aside his flint lock fowling piece and zulu spear and took a knee under the shelter, opening his hands and advancing the best the MREs had to offer, that big, foil-wrapped, oatmeal cookie! “Here, Buddy, looks like its been a rough season. My name’s Terry. We have been dropped in here because we pissed off our bosses on Mars—so You’re no longer alone in this situation.”

The man took the wrapped cookie, the coyote curling up between his legs and darting eyes from over paws—very dog-like. Unwrapping the cookie, he broke it in three parts, gave one back to Terry, kept the wrapped part, tucked it away under his coat and dropped the rest into the coyote’s mouth, who munched it comically.

“Names Arne, Osage Arm, call me the Osage Arm ‘cause I knocked more drones out the air with them then the rest back in Missouri. My kin are all done in by drones and transcrittery and bully bots. You fellas look prepared—should last a while.”

Chuck Heston crouched in with a tub of peanut butter, “Names Chuck—been elected captain of this crew. Never seen a tame coyote before.”

“Pleased to meet you—I’ve seen you before—a politician back when? I’m almost thirty—think I recall you on a picture. His name’s Bill. Can’t have dogs no more—they been transcritirized. The APM drones, they got to the dogs right after the satellites set the horses crazy. Dogs have gotten so scary that its even rough on coyotes—wolves even keep away—them and foxes get transcritirized… the coyotes don’t truck with that cuckery.”

“What do you mean, Arne?” asked Terry.

“The drones tag the dog’s ear and that’s it—he’s with APM, sniffin’ your elctronics, your powder, your iron, your petrol, all of that out. Packs of dogs run this land at night—except when something worse is running it. I think I’m the last human on Laguna Seca—run to ground. I’ve been staying up here because the Gas Gorillas done greedy-like taken to the wells like drunks to the bottle, like tweakers to the pipe.”

Drex nodded to Sean, who detailed Brenner and Bronson to scout east from vantage, not to break cover.

Chuck asked, “Gas Gorillas?”

Arne cackled a bit, then caught himself, “Transcrittery is on purpose, APM sayso man-eatin’ dogs, crazy suicide horses. Gas Gorillas are feral, decommissioned bots, like the cannibal bird drones what wantz ta live—they are down there now, at the well heads, drinkin’ their fill. What we got between us and most of creation is tweaker bots.”

Chuck nodded to Sean, who took the cue, “We could use a scout, Arne. We are here to locate survivors and get them to cover. APM is not being upgraded or supported.”

“Bill can come?”

They all nodded ‘yes’ and Terry noted, “Sure, thing; the only kind of dogs folks have on Mars are teacup yorkies and toy poodles—worthless critters. Bill looks like he’s up to some work.

‘Good Lord, please don’t look away,’ mused Sean as metal piping echoed in the dark, shallow valley.