The Metal Menace: Part 2: A Novella

By J. H. Drake

"The Feller" has cheated death, along with his trusty chef, Mirriam, but their adventure has only just begun as the Raider King is bent on letting everyone know how benevolent he is by wiping out everything, starting with the town of Hope. Now, it's a race against time as the Hero pits all in an effort to save what he holds most dear. I'll tell one thing, it's not life. Oh, no, it's not that.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. H. Drake
• Release date: Aug 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311604712

J. H. Drake

I'm just a guy in my twenties from a small town in New York, who grew up drinking on Star Wars and other science fiction and fantasy works. I have many, many interests, ranging from woodworking to wishing I could read science fiction and fantasy all day long until my eyeballs dried up, to writing, but I've picked just two of those things so far that I consider part of my life's work, sadly.I've concluded that the quota of smiles around the world is severely lacking, so I have decided to up the ante as much as I can with my style. In simple words, I like to have humor in my stories and plots. The reasons behind this are not quite as flippant. I've never been healthy. Books have helped me to feel a little bit better while growing up, even if for just an afternoon at a time as I occasionally stared out a window and dreamed of what I could do if I could fly to the stars and explore a whole new galaxy, instead of being cooped up with a temperature. Books with more humor in them always made me feel a little bit better, so I've decided to do the same: to make at least some stories that will make others laugh, and maybe help a few who need a pick-me-up along the way."The Metal Menace" series is my first of many that are roiling around in my head. I think it's plot is a bit... off the beaten path, even for me, but that only has to be a good thing. I've laughed my butt off while writing it at times, so that has to count for something, right? Even my mother, whose great love concerns Christian Romance, likes these books. That has to say something, though what that something is even I don't wish to ponder for too long. Regardless, all you need to know is that I even got her hooked, when I'd thought only horse-drawn carts and distant, pure romance would get her to smile. These are nothing like that.So if I can warp the universe like this, read my stuff, damn it!

Book preview

The Metal Menace: Part 2: A Novella

By J. H. Drake

Copyright 2015 J.H. Drake

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover by J.H. Drake

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

About the author

Connect with J.H. Drake

Other Works by J.H. Drake

To Tim. Because lobster ships.

Chapter 1

Well, hell.

As Feller's words exited from his mouth, he realized they were a perfect summary of their whole situation, let alone the town nestled below them. Well, what was left of it.

Black splinters rose up as clawed hands begging the heavens, the remains of Hope's walls. The towers were glassy ruins, and the battlements seated atop, proud signs of Hope's strength as a bastion in the Wastes, were as melted tongues splayed out for the crows. There was little else to see from this distance, since everything was covered in a wave of moving black.

Carrion birds, a thousand strong, were circling the skies and lay atop every perch-able surface. Their screams could be heard for miles.

Oh my, said Mirriam, who had her mouth covered and tears leaking from her face. She had been so looking forward to heading back home. Her second home really, but now that was gone, too.

It had all started off so well, Feller thought. When they had woken up, as he so liked to put it, three days ago in the middle of the desert and miles from Hope, without water, weapons, or any supplies of any kind, it was a relative walk in the park since it had been after midday and some shallow hills were nearby to shade them from the sun. When the stars of night had fallen just a few hours later, he was able to figure out where they were and remember a small spring located nearby. There, they had met one of the wanderers of the Wastes who was also in need of water, and the gentleman had been kind enough to let them have several of his supplies.

Well. The man did at first come at them with a war cry and attacked them with a spear made from a withered stick, and a head fashioned from the bones of a particularly large rat, but that was besides the point. The point was, they had enough food and water to last them until they reached the White Town and its forbidding, lovely walls, filled with cool water and kitchens, and where Mirriam could make him a meal from the bio-vats buried beneath them, and...

He let out a small sigh. Well, come on. He got up, holding the spear in his grip to help him up, and proceeded to scale the small cliff they were on.

It was all that was left of one of Hope's watchtowers, abandoned months ago due to dwindling supplies and the metal beasts that had thrust themselves against Hope's walls, all courtesy of the Raider King and his underlings.

Yes, the Raider King. Only he could have the power to have done this. When more and more contraptions had hit Hope and blackened its walls, when more and more crazed men had thrown themselves against the battlements for weeks on end, the man had never shown himself, leaving the town's defenders guessing as to what exactly was going on. Feller knew, though, who was really behind all of this. He just did not really care.

Wait, John – wait! Where are we going? Mirriam's voice trailed behind him as he skipped over the rocky path leading south, and deeper into the shallow valley where Hope had lain. He stopped to gain his bearings, and the sounds of a panting woman came by his side.

Mirriam was a survivor, just like him. When he had found her months before under the wreckage of a cargo skiff near Cordo, the remains of a large city over two hundred miles from the White Town and one of the area's largest trading posts, she had claimed to be a bio-vat engineer. Such people were rare, and she was supposed to be the best. Though he had been unsure, he had saved her anyways, and he was glad that he had. Apparently, the Raider King had attacked Cordo earlier that day, destroying the bio-vats there, and thus destroying Cordo itself. No settlement could survive without the machines that generated food and used minimal water to do so, and the madman had let the place burn.

We are going to Hope. There may still be some supplies there.

Mirriam gave him an incredulous look, casting her gaze between him and the town still spewing smoke, then back to him. John, she said slowly, as if talking to a child, there would be nothing left. I think you and I both know who did this, and that man wouldn't think twice about taking everything of value to him, and burning the rest. He killed my father.

John nodded. He remembered. Mirriam had told him how her father was the leader of Cordo, as well as a former politician. He had been gathering what power he could for a long time, using Cordo's relative wealth to make many friends out in the badlands. He had also been rumored to have still been looking for a transport off of Vearth, which had made him the butt of some jokes back in Hope and other places in the Wastes. There were no ships left, everyone knew that, but apparently the man had kept searching. It was that, Mirriam had proclaimed, that led the Raider King right to Cordo's front door.

Why that was, Feller did not know. Hoar seemed quite comfortable staying here, besieging towns and being a general nuisance.

Regardless, there is something I need there. You don't need to come along.

Mirriam shook her head. I will go with you.

And that was that. Feller did not even bother trying to argue, as when Mirriam made up her mind to do something, she did it. If that included going with him into a burning town, or, say, strapping herself into a pilot's suit and ferrying him into a cobbled-together machine that shared particular pachaderm-ish traits with its once-real counterpart, and filled with raiders and guns, then so be it. He really did want her to stay behind, though. She really was a good cook, and he didn't want her hurting herself.

Sighing again,