Chapter 50 #2
“I did some of the recon on this place, and I’ve seen what some of them are packing. We’re asking to be scrapped if we walk up to them unarmed.”
“From what the Sergeant said, it won’t matter what they’re packing if we can get you within arm’s reach.”
She arched a brow, and one corner of her mouth scrunched. Skeptical, but intrigued? How much had these bots picked up from humans after living in the base for so long?
Maul leaned forward, taking another glance around the corner.
He gestured with a raised fist before he turned back to Ronin.
“The other team is in position. If anything goes wrong, drop onto your bellies, and we’ll fire on them from both angles.
It’ll be noisy, but we’re not losing anyone just to take out these two bastards. ”
Dozer was silent and unmoving.
Seconds ticked by. To the east, predawn light touched the perpetually hazy sky.
Bravo Team must’ve been moving through the humans’ shacks by now, guarding Lara as she roused her people.
Warlord’s forces needed to be occupied before the humans gathered in the market.
Otherwise, all those people would be slaughtered.
Finally, Dozer lifted the strap of her rifle over her head and handed the weapon to Dodge. She stepped forward, spread her arms, and glanced at Ronin expectantly.
Ronin moved into place beside her and slung an arm over her shoulders.
When Dozer wrapped hers around his waist, Lara’s face flashed up from his memory.
He didn’t want to be this near to anyone but his wife.
Despite the gravity of the situation, he wondered how Lara would feel about this contact between himself and Dozer.
Would she be hurt or jealous? Why did his processors, against all logic, tell him this was wrong?
He eased his weight onto Dozer.
She dipped slightly before her actuators adjusted to compensate. “Heavy son of a bitch. You retrofitted with a reinforced casing?”
“Apparently.”
“Good. This goes wrong, I’m using you as a bullet shield.”
He overrode the normal functioning of his actuators, locking his left knee and fully loosening the joints in his right. As he sagged forward, hanging his head to hide his face, Dozer grasped his wrist and changed her posture to spread his weight more evenly.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Ronin’s legs dragged over the concrete as she walked forward, rounded the corner, and stepped onto the walkway. He kept his head down and his optics fixed on her boots.
“What’s this?” the static-voiced gearhead demanded.
Eighty-one meters to go.
“He needs repairs,” Dozer answered.
Seventy-three.
“Haven’t seen you around before.”
“Don’t have any record of your face on file,” Reg said.
“We’re dustwalkers,” Ronin offered without raising his head, altering his voice modulation. “Just got into town. I took a spill in a ditch outside the wall.”
“A ditch, or a canyon?”
Fifty-seven meters.
Despite her complaints, Dozer was advancing swiftly, seemingly unburdened by Ronin’s weight. “His optics have been failing for years, and the last place he was repaired didn’t do a very good job.”
Thirty-eight meters.
“Brought some scrap in, and we were told this place provides the best repairs this side of the Dust,” Ronin said.
Variables fluttered through his processors, spiraling into countless scenarios of wildly fluctuating probability.
He needed to get close, needed to seize the clinic, needed to get to Lara and keep her safe.
Dozer stopped, and Ronin heard the actuators humming inside her casing until their sound was drowned out by the wind howling around the building and whipping his clothes.
Thirty meters.
Sparks crackled over Ronin’s cheek. He locked his arm to prevent himself from scratching.
“They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t admitted,” Reg reasoned.
“Yes. You’re right,” static bot replied.
Dozer resumed her walk. Her boots fell heavily on the concrete, which was run through with poorly repaired cracks.
Twenty-five meters. Fifteen. Seven.
“How far have you been dragging him?” static bot asked.
“Too damned far,” Dozer replied. Three meters. “You mind helping me before I blow a motor?”
The gearheads came into view from their abdomens down; their pants were patched but clean, their boots worn but sturdy.
Their weapons, ancient-looking automatic rifles with cracked wooden stocks, swung through Ronin’s vision as the two stepped forward.
Slinging the rifles aside, they took hold of Ronin’s arms and lifted him off Dozer.
Static bot drew Ronin’s arm over his shoulders.
On the edge of Ronin’s optical field, Dozer lurched forward, grabbing the Reg by the throat.
Reverting his legs to normal function, Ronin wrapped his arm around static bot’s neck, clasped his wrist with his opposite hand, and squeezed.
A peal of static rose from the bot’s voice modulator as it was crushed.
Its head drooped to the side, the internal support structure of its neck shattered.
Ronin shifted his hold on it, tearing through the back of the bot’s shirt and the synthetic skin beneath.
He jammed his fingers beneath the lip of the exposed panel and tore off the cover plate.
Static bot struggled, fully aware of what was happening—crippled, but functional. It slammed its flailing arms into Ronin, who raised his own arm to protect his head as he gripped the power cell and ripped it out of the compartment.
The bot stilled abruptly, remaining upright despite its arms and head sagging. Ronin turned to Dozer.
She stood over Reg’s prone form. His back casing had been ripped open as easily as Ronin had torn static bot’s shirt, the metal bent so severely that it was breaking along the crease.
Cables and wires jutted from his neck. His head, with Warlord’s symbol in blood red on the exposed skull casing, lay three meters away.
Dozer met Ronin’s gaze and tossed the power cell onto the motionless bot at her feet. “Didn’t even get to—”
Ronin’s attention shifted to the clinic’s entrance before she finished. A figure approached the doors from within, features obscured by the reflections of the outside lights upon the glass.
It was most likely Mercy coming to investigate the commotion. But some hidden process, developed and honed by Ronin’s years in the Dust, insisted it wasn’t her.
He dropped onto a knee, took hold of static bot’s rifle, and lifted it quickly enough for the strap to break off the front end. Grasping the handguard, he pulled back the charging handle to ensure a round was chambered and braced the stock against his shoulder as the doors slid open.
The only thing familiar about the bot who stepped out was the gear-topped skull painted on its chest casing.
Microseconds ticked by. Twisting toward Dozer, the gearhead fired his rifle from the hip. The first shot was thunderous in the relative silence.
Ronin squeezed the trigger as a second round burst from the gearhead’s rifle. Ronin’s shot punched through the bot’s cranial casing, snapping is head to the side. His actuators adjusted for the recoil, sending the next bullet through the gearhead’s left optical receptor.
With sparks spraying from its damaged casing, the gearhead spun to face Ronin.
Gunshots rang out from the east and west as Ronin fired three more rounds into the gearhead’s torso. He counted nine new holes in its casing before it staggered backward, shattering the front doors, and slumped onto the ground.
Dozer leapt forward and braced a boot on the fallen gearhead’s chest. Grabbing its gun arm, she wrenched back, tearing off the limb. She raised her foot and slammed it down, crushing the bot’s torso. The gearhead stilled with an electric pop.
The detached arm was still clutching the rifle when Dozer tossed it aside. “Shit.”
The other soldiers advanced from the corners of the building, their footfalls loud on the concrete.
Ronin stood up, keeping his rifle braced against his shoulder, and approached Dozer. As he passed the entryway, he saw the synth nurse, Mercy, standing just beyond the interior doors.
“How are you holding up, Dozer?” he asked.
“Bastard clipped a power conduit,” she replied. “Got a minor power leak. Could be worse.”
Mercy flicked her optics to Dozer before returning her gaze to Ronin. “We can repair that here.”
Ronin scanned the reception area behind her, but he detected no movement. “Are there any more of them in there?”
“No. He was the only one who came in for repairs last night. There will be a lot more of them here soon, though.”
“That’s the plan.” Ronin glanced over his shoulder as Maul and Dodge arrived with the second fire team close behind them, all holding their weapons at the ready.
Maul stepped over the deactivated bot in the entryway, boots crunching on broken glass, and handed Ronin his rifle from the base. “Situation?”
“Gonna need a repair later, Sarge, but she says the place is clear,” Dozer said, lifting her chin toward Mercy.
“She trustworthy?”
“Yes. But we’re not going to have much time.” Ronin slung the base rifle over his shoulder, keeping the weapon he’d picked up from the gearhead. It would do until it was dry. He approached Mercy, lowering the barrel.
There was an almost palpable weight to her gaze as she regarded him. “You understand what you’re doing, Ronin? The potential cost of it?”
He nodded and glanced over his shoulder as the remainder of Alpha Team approached.
Gently, Ronin placed a hand on Mercy’s arm and guided her aside, and they watched as soldiers filed into the reception area.
The space, which had once seemed overly large given the limited staff and functionality of the facility, was soon overcrowded.
The temperature increased by two and three-tenths degrees.
Somewhere outside, the ominous wail of an alarm echoed across the early morning sky.