Marcus stood beside the embers of the mechanics' cooking pot campfire, watching as the dusk light was quickly being overtaken by a growing blaze in the distant sparse forest. When another close volley of musket fire rang out, Marcus's drunken crew snapped out of the stupor onset by overeating and an excess of drink.

  "Are you sure that's coming this way?" Maximilian's arms shook as he dragged himself upwards from his rock-chair, voice unsteady.

  Marcus opened his mouth but hesitated to acknowledge what was unfolding in front of him.

  "It is." Layne stood up and walked next to Marcus. "What should we do?"

  Silhouettes and shadows darted with haste between the linen and leather pop tents of the barbarian encampment. The shouts of men within the tent city grew more frantic after another volley rang out. This time accompanied by countless flashes of light from the tree line downhill from the encampment.

  Marcus eyed the handler who had his hand on his still-sheathed sword, his attention divided between the nearing conflict and the mechanics. If Marcus had a way to start his upright, now would be the perfect time to snatch and grab. But the key to get it going remained with Amurad.

  The barbarian leader appeared into the faint light cast by the nearby encampment from the darkness of the field, as if the thought crossing Marcus's mind conjured him from the abyss. Sliding to a halt from a gallop, Amurad's horse bucked.

  "Get that thing ready to go." The commander shouted, motioning toward the two uprights positioned toward each other.

  "You want the--" Marcus pointed toward his own upright.

  "The Adder, the Adder. I don't have anyone for a second seat right now." Amurad pointed toward the smaller, more bulbous upright.

  "Let's go." Layne beckoned the rest of the mechanics as he leaped into a sprint up the gentle slope of the rock ledge. "We have to get the jump box to start it."

  "It's getting cold out here, we need the heater, or the fuel is going to gum up." Marcus pointed at Layne while talking out loud.

  "I'll get it." Maximilian called out and broke away from the group, toward the supply train.

  Marcus nodded and joined in the run up to the wagons with Layne and crew.

  There were two ways to start an upright with a cold engine. The first was to shift it into neutral and let locomotion take over. Then with enough speed, a swift drop of the clutch in the proper gear would jolt the engine running. But, as they didn't have an already-running upright, and the grade on the terrain was too gentle and the field too muddy, that wasn't an option.

  The second option was to use a jump box. The box would pump fuel fast enough to compress the liquid as it entered the engine at high speed. The compression would jump the engine when the starter, controlled in the cockpit, was turned over. It had the same effect but required a lot more effort.

  Marcus, Layne, Simon, and Ekkehard reached the wagons and pulled a leather tarp off the jump box. It was about six foot wide, ten foot long, five foot deep. It overhung the wagon by more than Marcus's shoulder width.

  "I'll start it, just get it down the hill." Marcus climbed the side of the wooden wagon, stood on the edge of the bed side guard, then stepped up onto the jump box. Pushing the wagon down a mild slope was the easy part of this operation. Hooking up the battery and turning the crank to get the internal engine of the jump box started was the harder, more dangerous part.

  "You don't have to--" Ekkehard started to speak.

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  "Do you want to argue, or get it done?" Marcus called out as he laid flat on the jump box and opened a panel to expose the battery.

  Ekkehard shook his head and took up position behind the yoke to push with the other two.

  Marcus dreaded hooking the battery to the starter. They couldn't keep it connected because the jump box would drain it dry in under a day. When he first got to camp, there were more mechanics. The first lesson he received was by someone else standing on the ground and using both hands to hook up the connections. There was one less that day.

  With his left hand firmly latched onto the jump box's metal frame, he used his right hand to manipulate the circular connector. Doing it in the dark made it harder to find the metal peg on the battery. Marcus re positioned himself, hoping the memory of the layout inside the panel would be enough to help him loop the connection together. But with each swipe, he found himself smacking the lead into the ceramic frame of the battery with a deep thud.

  Finally, after several attempts, the connector found the metal peg. But it was a glancing blow. A bright flash of light illuminated the inside of the panel for a split second, and a resounding pop filled the air around the wagon.

  "You alright back there?" Layne called out, huffing and puffing.

  "Yep, just figured some fireworks would lighten the mood." Marcus shuddered, thinking about the mechanic that baked himself on the battery terminals.

  But the moment of light allowed him to see the metal peg on the battery. With another swift swipe, he landed on the terminal and with firm twists, secured the connection. Marcus breathed a sigh of relief and slammed shut the panel. Then he hit the switch for the starter. Now was the hard part.

  "We're almost there, Marcus." Simon puffed out. "I hope that thing still has fuel."

  From a narrow gap between the wagon bed sideboard and the jump box, he pulled out a bar with an L-shaped bend near the top and then kneeled up. After shifting over, Marcus inserted the opposite, straightened end of the bar into a hole on top of the jump box, near his knees. Now he needed to use the bar as a crank to get the jump box running. The downside was, that there was no clutch between the starter and the engine. Once the jump box got going, there was a short moment when one could pull the bar from the machine, or let it flail on top as the jumper ran. Not paying attention was an easy way to break an arm or catch a spinning bar to the face.

  After inserting the starter bar, Marcus stood up and planted his feet, using the momentum to get it spinning. The hardest part was getting it moving at first. Even with all his weight and the jostling of the wagon, the bar wouldn't budge.

  "What's taking so long?" Amurad shouted.

  Marcus ignored the barbarian's cries and with a groan, shifted his weight in the hopes of getting the bar started spinning. It was usually a two-man job, but Marcus could get it by himself if he just worked at it enough.

  Another volley of musket fire rang out, and it was even closer to the encampment now. The light from the muzzle flashes momentarily lit up parts of the tent city.

  Marcus grunted and growled through clenched teeth. The starter wouldn't budge. And the chilly temperature didn’t help matters either. Determined to not waste time, he dug in and leaned all his weight into the grip of the starter bar, a risky maneuver. If the engine decided to suddenly turn over and he stumbled forward, he'd probably get his head taken off.

  The wagon slowed to a stop at the foot of the disk-like foot pads of the Adder. As it came to a halt, Marcus didn't relent. He leaned, his legs shook, and arms quivered.

  A steady stream of cursing and epithets finally loosened the starter, and it lurched into motion. Then he tripped.

  A high whine filled the air, then a dull roar followed as the engine inside the jump box spun to life.

  Not wanting to get ripped apart by the rotating bar, Marcus let go and straightened his legs. The force sent him sliding across the surface of the jump box and launched him over the edge. He landed back-first hard on the rock surface, which knocked the wind out of him.

  Layne, Simon, and Ekkehard rushed over to pick Marcus up from the ground, who was dazed from his trip.

  "I got it, I got it!" Maximilian called out, jogging down with a metal assembly in both hands.

  Marcus hobbled over to the rear of the wagon with the other three in tow, where they needed to connect the heater to the exhaust, and to the fuel pipe that would start the Adder's engine.

  "Give..." Marcus gasped with each breath. "...it here." He motioned for the mechanic to hand over the heater assembly. It was a rather delicate piece of equipment.

  "I'll do it, don't worry." Maximilian nodded and reached up for the exhaust.

  "That exhaust is already hot." Layne insisted. "Be careful."

  Maximilian nodded and then opened the latch to wrap it around the small pipe throwing sooty exhaust, invisible in the darkness but pungent regardless.

  Then the high-pitched sound of metal smacking stone rang out.

  "Shit, I dropped it." Maximilian hushed out, falling to his hands and knees.

  The heater hit the ground hard and was strewn in a half dozen pieces.

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