The impact hits the loader like a bomb.
Metal screams.
The entire machine flips sideways, throwing me out of the cab and into the dirt.
I hit hard.
Air slams out of my lungs.
For a second, everything goes white.
Then sound crashes back in.
The roar.
The grinding of metal.
My own heartbeat hammering in my ears.
I roll instinctively just as the beast’s foot slams down where I’d been lying.
The ground craters under the impact.
“Oh hell,” I gasp, scrambling to my feet.
The loader lies wrecked behind me, its frame twisted and smoking.
“Well,” I mutter, “that was short-lived.”
The beast turns toward me again.
Still interested.
Good.
I stagger backward, grabbing a length of broken metal pipe from the debris.
Not that it’ll help much.
But it feels better than empty hands.
“Come on,” I say under my breath. “Stay with me.”
It advances.
Slow this time.
Deliberate.
Hunting.
I backpedal toward the unstable terrain modules I spotted earlier.
If I can trigger them?—
The ground shifts beneath my feet.
One of the modules starts to give.
