Eventually, the intensifying slope of the ridge turned Bandit’s headlong sprint into a jog, then a trudge, before the grade finally grew so steep that she couldn’t continue without the aid of her hands. From there she ascended one handhold or foothold at a time, careful to not slip on loose dirt or put her full weight on a loose rock. Her digitigrade legs, with their more prominent knees, made it more difficult to climb vertically. The thrusters built into her calves, however, meant she could skip tricky sections with a well-aimed, short lived boost that effectively gave her a double jump. Sadly, as fun as flipping through the air was, Bandit knew she needed to ration her energy until she could lay her hands on some battery packs. Plus, having an optic in the front of her collab limited her ability to look upward, so the climb wasn’t without its challenges. Still, as a TABS-EVA unit built to withstand the rigors of asteroid mining in the vacuum of space, a little rock was nothing she couldn’t handle.

A few minutes later, Bandit finally reached a high point in the ridge. Not quite the tippity-top, but still a good vantage point, and bare except for a couple scrubby, nigh-colorless bushes. She didn’t need to breathe, technically, but based on how much her climb had drained her batteries, using her voicebox to gasp and wheeze felt appropriate. “Haah! Haah! Haah!” After a couple seconds spent stooped over and heaving with her hands on her knees, she wiped the grit from her lens with the back of her hand and straightened up to gaze out across the arid, xeric shrubland. Yep…it sure was a rugged, barren wasteland, a trackless expanse of sandy, rocky brown dotted with dark or pale green. She could see some mesas, spires, and mountains in the distance, but what concerned her most lay much closer: the town.

From here, Bandit felt pretty confident that nobody could really see her. Or if they did, they at least probably wouldn’t know what the heck they were looking at. Unfortunately, she couldn’t really see them either. For all the useful functions built into her multipurpose body, long-range observation wasn’t one of them; even without a lot of desert dust in her eye, the android could make out little other than the vague, grayish-brown outlines of buildings and dark gray machines, maybe pumps of some kind. Those dark patches that adorned many of the roofs were probably solar panels, meant to make the most of the brutal sunlight out here.

Bandit crouched down amongst the bushes, hesitating. Though she sprinted this way with an awful lot of confidence, the fact of the matter was that she knew pretty much nothing about how things worked down here. She’d gotten a feel for how scrappers and spacers operated during her time up in the wild black yonder, but she’d had her fair share of painful learning experiences. What if these settlers were the shoot first, ask questions later type? Honestly, she was pretty intimidated. Maybe…it’d be smart to stick with the others.

Turning this way and that, Bandit looked around. Wait, where [i]were[/i] the others?

When she looked back down the ridge, she found the bulk of them right about where she left them. Right…organics couldn’t move as fast as she could, especially in such an inhospitable environment. Making up her mind, Bandit began to retrace her steps and climb back down to rejoin the prisoners. At least going down was much easier, especially with shock-absorbing legs.

A few minutes later, Bandit trotted back up to the main group of prisoners. Some had taken a detour, headed in the direction of some dilapidated homesteads the android hadn’t noticed. Others, like the white-haired kiellar woman and the pale cyborg, were gone altogether. Bandit spotted a makeshift shelter constructed from badland debris, which surprised her, given Vaehach’s bellowed command earlier. Maybe he wasn’t quite as in charge as he thought he’d been?

Regardless, Bandit gave the group a wave. “Hey y’all. Scuse me for runnin’ off, I guess I got the wrong impression. Got an eyeful of that town over yonder. It’s a li’l on the rough an’ tumble side. Figured that waltzin’ in there all on my lonesome ain’t gonna give the best impression, hehe...” She scratched at her headless neck self-consciously, trying to play it cool and not suggest that she’d just been too chicken to go any further. “So, uh…whatcha up to?”