Star Force: Ghostblade (SF67) Read Online Free

nod.
    “Jarod Grembly . Looks like
we’re driving. Try not to ding the rim.”
    “No promises,” she said with a smile as the three of
them walked off and eventually out of what would be their home for the next few
days at minimum. Outside there was a small parking lot nearby, in which there
was a lot of open air cargo trucks and a handful of excavation mechs. She found
the one with a big number 6 on it and climbed up the handholds on the right leg
while the two men went to their trucks.
    “Been a while,” Sophia said to herself as she got past
the waist on the huge mech and climbed inside the cockpit that was located on
the chest between two huge arms. It was open to the air save for a thin layer
of transparent material. Had this been a military variety that would never have
happened, but given that this mech had no weapons or armor it was best to keep
it as functional as possible, with its designed geared towards channeling all
functionality towards earthmoving.
    Sophia slid into the seat and strapped herself in, for
this variety didn’t have artificial gravity. It was a big, beefy workhorse that
stood twice as tall as a thor , with it literally
swallowing Sophia up inside its chest cavity.
    “Ok, big guy. Let’s get to work,” she said, powering
up the mech and getting a comm channel from one of
the trucks. She opened it and keyed to have all transmissions from that source automatically
routed through to her cockpit, then did the same with the other truck.
    “You ready, sexy?”
    “So that’s how it’s going to be?” she asked
humorously.
    “All we have time for, unfortunately.”
    “Awfully confident…mech checks out. I’m good to go.”
    “Take the lead.”
    Sophia blew out a breath and triggered the computer-controlled
movements to begin walking the bipedal giant forward. The first few steps were
jerky, but once a little momentum was built up it traveled smoothly with her
turning on a heading towards the mountains of material next to the dig site
about two kilometers off. She walked it over there, seeing not a single other
mech in action, but noticing the drilling spigots silent as they held position
over some of the mounds.
    Had everything been up and running they would have
been pouring material out for her and others to pick up and load into the
trucks, and while they were silent that meant no digging was taking place on
the other side in the pit.
    “Time to get this show moving,” she said, walking up
to the nearest mound and laying a waypoint down for where she wanted her trucks
to position. The second one hung back, but the first one came up and sat square
on the spot while Sophia positioned the mech in between the vehicle and the
mound.
    She shoved the left arm into the dirt/rock mix and
activated the rotary claws which fed the loose material into a conveyor that
ran through the shoulders of the mech, over her cockpit, and down to the other
arm. Sophia set it in the bowl-like truck bed and began pouring material into
the deep bucket, seeing the hovering vehicle bob a bit with the extra weight
being added.
    Using a hand control on the left, she swiped the
receptacle across the nearest part of the mound in a line, then reversed
direction for another before repositioning her giant metallic feet half a step
closer as the material was being eaten up at a fast rate. The truck, however,
was bigger than the mech, though only half as tall. It stretched out in a long
rectangular barge style, and it took a fair amount of time for Sophia to fill
up half of it.
    At that point the drilling spigots began working
again, but only two of them. They began adding material to an empty slot two
down from where she was along with an almost full pile, anticipating that there
would be more room opening up shortly so they could begin low scale continuous
digging operations. That meant they could only operate as quickly as Sophia
could move the material out, so she was the pace setter as long as her pair of
trucks