37 Assault And Battery #3
Tilly curled up to the pinnacle of the tower’s roof, rocketing off the peak as fast as she could.
I cut Tilly’s thrust coil and repulsor plate and pulled her nose back and over.
Our inertia propelled us upwards, but we rotated through the air until I was fully upside-down.
I reached down, grabbed both lancer pistols, and pointed them straight over my head.
Gerasimov popped into view, one tri-barreled pistol drawn. He drew a bead on me as I pointed both of my lancers at him, and simultaneously, we opened fire.
The air shimmered between us as lancer bolts split the sky.
I felt Tilly shudder, heard her shriek of pain as she took a bolt, but one of my bolts disintegrated Gerasimov’s left aerovane, another took off his arm, and as he looked at me in shock, his hoversteed rolling over, I put one more bolt directly into his mount’s main power cell.
Gerasimov and his steed were consumed in an angry orange fireball. The shockwave bounced Tilly and me upwards, and when it faded, nothing remained of the traitorous count but black smoke and debris.
I dropped the pistols to hang by their saddle cords as I frantically bent to Tilly’s display.
Her control linkages were shot. She lacked thrust or repulsor control.
Airbrakes showed functional and her main power cell was intact, but we were two hundred meters in the air, and Tilly had become a flying brick.
Tilly’s aerovanes were still functional, so I pulled her upright.
Unpowered hoversteeds have a terrible glide ratio, but it was all I could think to do.
We began to fall, picking up speed as we angled towards the garden.
I tried to steer us towards a decorative fountain, hoping the water would cushion the impact. I braced.
At the last second, Tilly took control from me. She nosed herself straight into the angle of our dive and activated her airbrakes. Jets of superheated air slammed forwards, blasting the water out of our way and bringing us to a near-complete stop before we dropped the last two meters to the ground.
The impact was bone-jarring, but my pain went unheeded. I needed to tend to Tilly.
“Tilly, run full diagnostic. Tell me the damage. How bad is it?” I ordered, trying to keep calm.
Tilly’s monitor lit up with a litany of red. I didn’t have time to read all the wrong before the words ‘CRITICAL SYSTEMS FAILURE – INITIATE EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN’ flashed, and Tilly’s screen went dark. Her engine sputtered to a halt, and the gentle throb of her powered systems whined into silence.
“Tilly, no.” It was stupid, but all I could think to say.
There was a noise behind me. My fury came back in a rush.
Kill my Tilly, would you? Well, you fuckers, no one hurts my steed and lives.
I dove for my pistols, freeing them from their drop cords, and fumbled with my speedloaders to insert new shells into the weapons.
I barely finished and spun before the demons were on me.
“Consort, are you all right?”
My body shook with rage, but my hand was perfectly steady as I brought the pistol, the custom, four-barrel Imperial-built gift from Astrid, up to point at the Imperial guard’s face. Lyudmyla stopped, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“Consort, the Emperor requests your presence.”
“I can’t abandon her,” I snarled. “They’ll destroy her, if she’s not already dead.”
Other demon guards arrived. Lyudmyla gestured to them, and they moved towards us. “We’ll take her somewhere safe.”
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” I screamed, the pistol jerking towards the guards. They stopped. “I know you Imps hate SI. You’d love a chance to nuke her processor yourselves. I won’t let you hurt her!”
Lyudmyla took a careful step forwards, her voice soothing, as though she were approaching a dangerous animal. “That machine saved the Emperor’s life. It is a hero. We would never harm it. Let us put it somewhere safe, and we will continue to drive on the main hall.”
My gun hand began to quiver. I only then noticed the tears running down my cheeks. “I can’t leave her like this.”
“Levar.”
It wasn’t Lyudmyla’s voice, nor any other demon’s. It was Astrid. She walked around Lyudmyla, her face mottled, her dress torn, her broken arm done up in a sling. She looked a mess, and beautiful, and about as busted up as I felt, but her eyes, bloodshot as they were, were full of sympathy.
“Levar, we can’t fix her if we don’t finish this.”
“You never liked Tilly,” I said through an angry sob.
“No, but I know now she is a part of you, and I could never harm you.” Astrid reached out her good hand, past my shaking lancer, and took my cheek. “Let’s win this, and then we can repair your steed and live together.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to hurt somebody.
Fortunately, there were plenty of people nearby who needed to be hurt, but these were not them.
Lowering my pistol, I stepped aside. The demons were too disciplined to breathe a sigh of relief, but I could tell they relaxed.
“Thank you,” Astrid whispered.
I began to stride forwards, loading my second pistol. “Come on. Let’s go kill some people.”