Chapter 12 #3
“Alpha, two V-22 tiltrotors inbound from the west. ETA sixty seconds on the first. Captain Dina Bell is in an MPA-22 Eagle, flying separately. The tiltrotors are staggered by about a minute apart. The first one will clear the landing area; the second comes in clean behind it. Both carry heavy weapons and robot infantry.”
“Copy, Taylor. Tell them not to hit me unless I’m under the cat.” I sent it back half in a shout, half in a laugh.
I stayed in the lot and waved both arms, trying to keep the machine’s attention on me.
It didn’t charge blind. It cut sideways, using the wrecked cars to force me toward the center of the open asphalt.
I doubled back between two sedans, then broke into a sprint that kept busted concrete between us.
The robot tracked, lost traction on the smashed pavement, and skidded, claws sparking, before slamming hard in the middle of the parking lot. The impact rattled my teeth.
Gorek, from his perch on the ruined Subaru, saw the opening. “I will help,” he said, voice hoarse but clear.
I shook my head. “No, stay back!”
He nodded, but his hands curled around the car hood like he might launch anyway. He was engineered for war, and I could see the hunger for it in his eyes. I prayed the adrenaline wouldn’t override what little self-preservation he had left.
The panther robot crouched, ready for another leap.
Horizon’s lasers stabbed in from above, catching the beast at the shoulders and tracing a pair of smoking lines down its back.
The heat was so intense that the air rippled, and the fur turned to black, curling cinders that floated for ten feet before vaporizing.
Underneath was polished composite and what looked like nonlayered mesh, but even Horizon’s best shot only scored the armor.
For a split second, the panther looked right at the ship, then at me, and seemed to make a decision. It went after Horizon.
It bounded twice, up and over the destroyed wall of a rental truck, and planted both forepaws on the starboard landing strut. The force shook Horizon side to side. For a second, the jet turbines screamed as the ship fought to stay level under the extra weight.
The cat clung to the strut and started to climb.
I looked up at it, still burning, and felt the heat in my chest change. A new force. One I had never tried. The flames under my feet and hands tightened into hard jets. The ground fell away.
I rocketed upward, control still rough, and slammed into the robot’s side at full force.
The impact tore its claws free of the landing strut.
The machine dropped, falling hard toward the parking lot.
I came with it, still learning how the jets worked, and hit the roof of an abandoned sedan hard enough to cave it in.
The car’s roof folded around me. Pain lit up my ribs and shoulder, but the fire held.
Right at the moment the robot slammed into the asphalt a dozen yards away, I shoved the crumpled metal aside and climbed out, still burning.
“Alpha,” Taylor said, her voice loud and clear in my ear, “the V-22s are on station. They have missiles trained on the target. If you disengage, they will fire.”
“Disengaging!” I shouted to Taylor over the communicator, then dove behind a smashed car, though I doubted it would be of much help. Still, it was better than nothing.
The tiltrotors fired as one.
The first three missiles hit center mass above the left rear leg.
The force slammed through the air hard enough to shove dust and trash outward in a wide circle.
The panther staggered. Plating along the flank cracked and peeled, and blue hydraulic fluid sprayed across the tarmac.
One rear leg locked and dragged, forcing the machine to limp as it tried to turn.
Dina’s Eagle came in low and fast. The rotary .
50 caliber opened up, heavy rounds hammering into the already damaged side.
Sparks and fragments flew. The remaining legs scrambled for footing, but the damaged one wouldn’t hold.
The machine dropped to three points and swung its head, searching for a new target.
That was the opening I needed.
I ran straight at it.
The outer plating over the shoulder joint had been peeled back by the missile strike, exposing layered mesh and a thicker armored housing that looked important. I shoved my hand into the gap, felt the heat of the machinery, and poured a full-power firebolt into whatever systems were packed inside.
The reaction was violent and immediate. Something in the housing flared white, then detonated from the inside.
Plating blew outward in jagged chunks that tumbled end over end before slamming into the parking lot and the side of the Casino.
A piece the size of a garbage can lid embedded itself in the stucco ten feet to my right.
The head, already cracked, shattered into splinters of carbon fiber and steel.
The glowing lenses melted and oozed out onto the tarmac.
The fourth missile never left the rail. Whoever or whatever was flying the bird held fire the second the machine started coming apart from the inside.
The main body settled with a heavy metallic groan and stopped moving.
Blue oil continued to leak from the ruptured lines, and smoke poured from the open cavities, but the core housing further back looked intact.
There was no meltdown or crack in the nuclear housing, just a dead machine sitting in a spreading pool of its own fluid, still smoking.
Silence hit harder than the missiles had.
Then the world came back.
The first V-22 dropped in on the far end of the lot, rotors flattening everything still standing. Robot infantry spilled out, weapons up, red sensors sweeping the wreckage. The second bird set down closer to the Casino. More infantry poured out.
Dina Bell landed last in the Eagle, VTOL jets kicking up grit. She set down a short distance from the dead panther, rotary still locked in her gauntlets. The faceplate slid back. Same face, same cold eyes.
I stood there with my hand still stinging from the heat, watching the oil spread, and thought the same thing I always did after something like this.
What I wouldn’t give for a dozen more of those.
She walked straight up to the downed panther, then to me, the heavy boots making a metal-on-stone sound that was almost a threat.
She didn’t look at Gorek, who was sitting on the ground holding his knee, nor at the black smoke rising from the panther’s corpse.
She looked only at me, then at the rest of the survivors.
“Petty Officer, no, Captain,” she said. Voice unchanged. “Do you require further support?”
I let the fire die. The last of the flames peeled off my skin, leaving the damage behind.
My left side was one long bruise from shoulder to hip.
Scrapes ran across both arms where the plating had dragged.
One eye was swelling shut, the whole left half of my face tight and hot. Every breath pulled at my ribs.
I wiped dust from my mouth and spat blood.
“Appreciate the assist, Captain Bell,” I said. “But unless you have more surprises like that, we’re good for now.”
She looked past me, scanning the growing crowd as people came out of hiding. Only the stench of burning plastic and the whine of the Horizon’s VTOLs remained. The survivors, both human and Ci Dyn, stayed back at the Casino entrance, watching but not moving in. I couldn’t blame them.