by J. N. Chaney
He landed on top of the machine and stumbled as the pilot spun the upper portion toward the direction he’d come from. Warren grabbed one of the many antennae sticking out from the top of the cockpit, but it broke. He grabbed for another, but that one broke, too. He dropped his rifle to grab a third, but that one reacted like the others and snapped off a few centimeters beneath his fist. He was going over the edge, but he found a ring and caught it with two fingers. The rest of his body continued over the side. It hurt his fingers and shoulder, but he was still on top. The pilot may not have known it, but he was in a world of shit.
“Warren!” someone shouted from below. Whoever it was ducked behind another of the small office buildings a moment before the pilot twisted the walker’s cab toward the sound and opened fire. The corner of the building crumbled under the hail of bullets as Warren was whipped back and forth.
He reached up with his free hand, hooked his fingers over the ledge, but found nothing to hold onto and was whipped onto his side again when the pilot turned the machine back toward Lukov’s squad. Warren tried again, grabbed hold of the stump of a broken antenna, but lost his grip when the machine took a lurching step forward. He tried a third time and managed to find a conduit, then he slowly raised himself until he could hook an elbow over it and grab the next tie-down.
The machine lurched forward again, and Warren caught sight of a second one. It was hard to miss with all the spotlights it was using to illuminate him. “Time to move!” he said and pulled hard. The conduit in his left hand broke, sending sparks skittering along the top of the armored vehicle, but the tie-down in his right hand held.
The walker he was riding opened up with its guns again and took another long step, so whatever the conduit had been powering—it wasn’t one of those systems. Too bad.
The second one effectively blinded his vision to that side, so he hoped for the best and focused on the one in front of him. When the guns opened up again, Warren grabbed ahold of the machinery driving the multi-barreled machine gun and wrenched it hard. He nearly fell off the walker when something within the center housing snapped, bounced around a few times, and got stuck somewhere. The other gun seemed to be locked in position, and based on what he could hear, the pilot was jamming the controls back and forth, trying to get it to move.
Warren moved to ruin the other gun but dove for cover when several soldiers opened fire on him from nearby rooftops. He drew his pistol rolled to his left side to get around the gun he’d been trying to disable and put a bullet in two of them before being forced back. He attempted to roll out again when the machine took another long step, nearly causing him to roll off the top again. Pain shot through his back as he landed on something sharp. He had to kick his legs as bullets ricocheted off the machine around him and rip himself from whatever had impaled him.
He made it back to the spot behind the gun and turned his head to see what he’d landed on. It was the stub of one of the antennas. After wishing every kind of curse upon the inanimate object, Warren rolled out again, then he shot another soldier and caught a shot to his shoulder where it met his neck. The pain was intense, so he turned his pain receptors down to twenty percent. It still hurt, but it was far more manageable. Turning it down to zero would have caused him to miss the next shot, which hit him in the shin, reminding him to pull his right leg back behind cover.
The walker stopped moving and slowly began traversing to the right. As new targets came into view, Warren shot them, except for three who ducked into a building to avoid being hit. When one poked his head back out, the cyborg heard the loudest sound he could remember.
Click.
His pistol was empty. He’d been so focused on hitting targets, and he hadn’t paid attention to the digital readout on his HUD. It had warned him his weapon was almost empty and seemed to mock him with a red zero like it was saying, “I told you so.”
With the other walker still highlighting him, and soldiers seeming to shoot from every nearby rooftop, he was running out of options. He pressed the button to eject his pistol’s magazine and reached for a new one just as the walker’s upper portion turned enough to expose him to three more enemies. They all had their rifles raised, waiting for their chance to smoke a cyborg. Instead of firing, they glanced down at the feet of the one in the center. A second later, all three were virtually dissolved by the grenade someone had tossed.
Warren took the opportunity to search for a hatch. The pilot had to have some way to get into this thing, but the combination of the glaring lights and incoming fire from other rooftops made it impossible to focus. He needed a break. One of the two had to change, and he didn’t care which. He got it when one of his men opened fire on the other walker, shooting out several of its lights. It turned its turret, lowered its guns, and fired, which made Warren wonder why the pilot hadn’t trashed him yet.
The walker he was on started moving again, feet stomping the asphalt as it turned the same direction it was traversing, probably to assist the other one who’d come under fire from another source. He had to disable the gun before… that was it. These things were all gun. Warren scrambled to get the minigun he’d already damaged. A quick inspection confirmed what he’d suspected. It had a trigger mechanism built into the outside of the weapon. It was multi-purpose—able to be used on the walker or mounted to a tripod. Warren didn’t need a tripod.
With a hard pull, the weapon came loose, its feed chute—the square tube the linked bullets passed through—stretching. Warren used his left hand to hold the horizontal carrying handle built into the weapon, while the other went to the trigger.
He squeezed and the weapon erupted in his hand. Had he been able to be genuinely aroused—had the surgery to turn him into a cyborg made such parts unnecessary accessories—he was sure this would have done it. He only held the trigger down for a second, but the BRRRRT noise, followed immediately by sparks, lights going out, and the echoes of ricochets made him feel more alive than he’d ever been. He squeezed it again, reveling in the recoil—a steady pressure against his hands which threatened to knock him from his perch. Again, more lights went out, and the second walker froze.
A shot rang out from somewhere to his right. He snapped his head to where he thought it came from and spotted a Commonwealth soldier who looked like he was questioning if he’d made the right choice. By the time Warren whipped the heavy gun halfway toward him, though, the man had already ducked back into the window. No matter. Warren pulled the trigger anyway. He was trying to shoot to the right of the window but ended up aiming high. The gun wasn’t built for cyborgs, but a message appeared on his HUD.
ADJUSTMENT: AIMPOINT…COMPLETE
The next time Warren pulled the trigger, the shots mostly landed where he’d intended. The gun was by no means a precision weapon. Where a sniper might say a bullet had someone’s name on it, this was more of a “To Whom It May Concern”. He wasn’t sure if he’d hit the guy or if someone else did, but he could clearly see a bleeding body on the floor inside.
He almost pulled the trigger again when he spotted movement but stopped himself just in time. The leg he saw belonged to a cyborg. The building he’d been shooting into was the warehouse Lukov’s team had been trying to enter. “Easy there,” he told himself as he turned the weapon back toward the other walker.
Warren pulled the trigger, holding it down for two seconds this time. The final light on the other walker shattered, and a small tongue of flame from one of the holes he’d made announced it was destroyed. Warren pointed the weapon down to where he thought the pilot might be but hesitated. Not all the shots had gone through. If he got a ricochet at this range, chances were good he’d end up shooting himself.
When the walker lurched forward again, Warren dropped the minigun and began searching for a way inside again. There were no hatches on top as far as he could tell. No handles, handwheels, or hinges anywhere. He moved to the front, holding on to another tie-down, and was surprised to discover two periscopes. Their little glass viewports were
narrow, and the way they reflected the lights around him suggested they were coated. Warren took a moment to smash the tops of them with his fists. Each one took four solid blows to bend, and when they did, several thick pieces of glass popped out. It turned out Commonwealth bulletproof glass wasn’t bad stuff. He reminded himself to pass the compliment on if he ever got the notion, probably a half-second before he turned his enemy’s head into bone fragments and gray matter.
The pilot began twisting the turret back and forth in an obvious attempt to throw Warren from the top. He held on, probing and searching for any sign of a way in, but found nothing. He pulled himself back to the top so he could search the rear of the machine. There he found a hatch at the back of the starboard pod. It was secured all the way around with heavy-duty clasps. He lifted the first one’s handle, yanked, and broke it.
Meanwhile, the walker began moving again. It opened fire, and Warren wondered if another of his cyborgs had just been smoked. Once he busted the fourth clasp, the heavy cover moved a little. He shoved his fingers into the gap and used all his strength to break it free. A long chain of ammunition fell free. When it did, it dragged the minigun across the walker’s roof, broke the links holding the ammunition together, and the gun tumbled off the front.
Low lights and electrical components blinked happily at him. He thrust his hand inside, grabbed ahold, and yanked. The second he did, it began to tip, slowly at first, giving him plenty of time to hop off before it crashed to the asphalt. When it did, he broke the other gun free and pulled a long chain of ammunition out, then he broke it off and stepped back about ten meters. He pulled the trigger, then he smiled when something inside began to short and smoke began to rise from the rubble.
30
Warren took a moment to drape the remaining ammunition for the minigun over his arm before joining the others. The fight had moved to a three-story building with lots of windows all the way around. Cyborgs took cover wherever they could find it—mostly behind a small concrete structure, which was either a laundry room or showers, based on the dripping noise Warren heard from within.
“What do we got?” asked Warren, peeking around the building to try to see for himself.
“Just a handful of holdouts,” Rigby replied. “They keep taking pot shots at us. They’ve injured two, but not badly. We’re running low on ammo and grenades. I think they’re trying to stall us until reinforcements arrive.”
The last thing Warren needed was another threat to take care of while he was still trying to fight the one in front of them. “Has anyone identified the power plant or computer we’re looking for?”
“Haven’t heard anything yet,” she answered. “And comms are still down, but I don’t know for sure. Uh, Warren?” She raised a hand and pointed.
Warren followed her direction just in time to spot a Commonwealth soldier leap from a window and fall to his death. Then another did the same, but it was weird, as he did a cartwheel as he fell. When the third performed an awkward backflip landing ten meters from the building, Warren understood.
“Where’s Lukov?” he asked.
Rigby glanced around. “I lost sight of him.”
The Russian appeared in one of the windows and gave the signal for the others to join him.
“What a show-off,” Rigby grumbled as she sprinted from cover.
She crashed through a first-floor window, sending glass flying into the room. Instead of joining her, Warren leaped onto the top of the small building and surveyed the scene. To the west, an open-sided tank garage was burning, as were the tanks within. He wasn’t sure, as several looked like they’d been taken apart to work on them, but there might’ve been ten or twelve total. If there were any others, they were on the other side of the base, likely fortifying themselves in preparation for the cyborgs’ eventual arrival.
To his right, he spotted another cyborg on a rooftop and several more breaking windows as they checked the warehouse he was standing on. The cyborg looked away, then spun back around, dropped his rifle, and began waving both hands in the air.
At first, Warren wasn’t sure why. The cyborg already had his attention, and again he wished he had some kind of comms to make this easier on them. Then he thought about his hand and arm signals. The soldier was signaling an attack from the air. Warren looked up to see the fighter he’d seen earlier. He glanced down at the minigun he was carrying. It might do the trick, but not at range, and not against that kind of opponent. He wouldn’t stand a chance unless he waited until it was close enough. What he needed was a rocket launcher. The ones at the tank garage wouldn’t do any good because they were on fire. He was surprised there hadn’t been any explosions from them cooking off yet but guessed there would be unless they kept their rockets stored somewhere else.
There must be an ammo dump somewhere on the base—individual reinforced rooms, usually underground—to keep all the ammo from exploding if some of it went up. It would contain magazines. The CoWs were all about efficiency, and they didn’t waste a single credit if they could help it. Maybe there was a second way to use the rockets—a man-portable way.
“Incoming!” Warren shouted as he looked back at the fighter. It was moving faster than before, but not by much. Its nose was pointed down as it attempted to increase its speed. The craft would have to slow before it completed its approach, or it would have to make a single pass, turn around, and try again. Either way, there wasn’t much time.
Most of the cyborgs stopped the mayhem they were causing and turned to look. Warren passed the signal of the air attack on, then pointed at the incoming threat. Cyborgs disengaged from a group of soldiers somewhere off to the west. Those standing near buildings hurried inside. Others stood their ground like they had something that could take out a tough Commonwealth fighter.
“Take cover!” ordered Warren. He took his own advice and kicked open the metal door of what turned out to be a laundry room, scaring the hell out of a soldier hiding inside. He crushed his enemy’s skull with one hand, then he turned toward the open doorway and waited. As an afterthought, he reached up and smashed the electrical junction box servicing the lights inside the room, and the building went dark. A washer beeped a happy little tune, indicating it was done.
Through the open doorway, he could see the barracks and the cyborgs waiting in the darkness. He’d never fired one of their rifles at a Commonwealth fighter—not even the smaller Stingers—but he didn’t think they’d do much good. The minigun he held in his hands might not even be up to the task, but he’d try.
Just as he was checking the links draped across his left arm, making sure they weren’t twisted and would feed the gun properly, another sound greeted him. It was the rumble of a rocket tank. Wherever it was, he couldn’t see it yet, but he could see the thrusters of the CoW fighter as its pilot leaned the craft back to slow its movement. He had to move while the ship’s energy weapons were still pointed above the horizon and its missile tubes were closed.
Warren stepped out from the small building, centered his targeting reticle on the ship, and pulled the trigger. The gun erupted in a long BRRRRRT and belched flame as it quickly chewed away at the ammunition. A few seconds later the ammunition was gone, but the fighter continued slowing, answering Warren’s question as to whether Commonwealth miniguns were powerful enough to destroy a medium-sized Commonwealth fighter.
The fighter began to level out. It was Warren’s cue to run, so he did.
The building behind him exploded, causing him to trip and nearly land on his face. He caught himself with the tips of his fingers, then took off again and didn’t look back. Another explosion knocked him to one side, causing him to veer to the left as he ran. He bounced off a support beam of the walker garage. Inside were three more enemy soldiers. One was standing at its full height. The two others looked like they were squatting, their open circular hatches open at the bottom.
When the one that was standing took a step, Warren scrambled away and continued to run. He passed the burning tank garage and ca
me face to face with the rocket tank he’d heard earlier. Rather than running or dodging out of the way, Warren bounded up the front of it and landed on top of the cockpit. He was careful not to grab any of the antennae this time. He slid to a stop just in time to lock eyes with the dismounted Commonwealth soldiers assigned to protect the tank from people just like him.
Cursing his luck, he slid from the back of the tank and punched the first surprised soldier. Warren kicked the second hard enough to lift him from the ground and snatched a rifle from the third. Two of the troops shot him before he was able to return fire and put them down. One tripped over his own feet in his attempt to make a hasty retreat, but Warren didn’t give him any quarter. Another enemy soldier tried to rush him, but that one caught the butt of Warren’s rifle in the mouth and went down screaming as teeth and blood oozed from his ruined face. The last tried to run back into the tank.
Warren could hardly believe his luck. The troop hatch was still open but wouldn’t be for long. Warren dropped the rifle, then he caught the hatch just before it closed, planted a foot against the back of the vehicle, and pulled. The motors powering the door groaned in protest. Someone inside stuck the barrel of a rifle out and fired a few random shots. Warren knew his fingers would be next, but he decided he could spare a few, so he pulled with all his strength. Something inside the tank near his feet snapped, and he fell hard on his back.
The soldier who’d run inside tried to rush past, but Warren caught his ankle and pulled, jerked the man hard enough that he landed on his face with a resounding thump. Warren pulled again, bringing him close, then he reached out with one hand and broke the man’s neck. He snatched the soldier’s fallen rifle from the ground and recoiled as a bullet from nowhere struck him in the face, just below his eye. He returned fire, squeezing the trigger rapidly until the gun was empty.
