My mecha, a hundred twenty-eight feet tall, and close to several million tons of mass smelled of oil and metal and new paint. The new paint was to make the new parts match after being burned off by a near-miss with a tactical nuke last week, said my chief engineer.



I nodded back trying to act like I had the faintest clue what I was doing. He patted me on the arm. And he told me that I just needed to get back into the swing of things after my almost going kabloowie.



Good, he thought my nervousness was due to fear of getting killed. My doppleganger might well, and probably did fear that, but I was a verser. I’d died more times than I can recall without checking my logbook.



I patted the side of foot of the mecha since the top of the foot was out of reach. With frightening grace and speed it turned, and lowered an arm to point a hand, and then a finger at me.



I walked onto the finger, and we whipped skyward, only to be carefully placed next to a catwalk with a door closed that led into the mecha’s head.



Hopping onto the catwalk, I looked about, but hardly…