by Dan Thomas
Chapter Twelve
“What is it?” Max asked as Jag got up, and with a wave of his hand brought up one of the light displays that appeared out of thin air in front of him. It showed a map similar to what had been shown on the bike.
“This is us.” Jag pointed to a small hump on the ground, surrounded by tall trees that stretched for miles to the north. “And that is bad news.”
“Bad news.” Max took a closer look at what looked like a tsunami sweeping across the tops of the trees. Only the trees didn’t stir, it was like an invisible force, heading straight for them.
“I’m going to give you a sped-up version of how the base defenses work.” Jag was already heading out of the door leading back to the stairwell. “I could handle it on my own, but a wave that size could cause enough damage to cripple me.”
“I would’ve thought you’d have gotten a Crew together by now.” Max took the steps two at a time but soon had to slow his pace as his stamina started to drop, his hunger and thirst beginning to seriously affect him. Max wasn’t sure where they were going, but they had taken more steps up than they had taken on the way down. “Damn, I hate this new character.”
“Once you get back to Primeva, you’re going to need some serious training if you want to stand any chance against the Ravagers.”
“You didn’t answer the question about not having a Crew.” Max hauled himself up the last flight of stairs as Jag swung open a heavy door. Made from some kind of heavy metal Max had never seen before, it was lined with a material that Max thought looked like Kevlar. “How often do these attacks happen?”
“Often enough, I did say this was a hostile world,” Jag said. “And in answer to your other question, I am still part of the Coprolite Crew.” His face grew serious. “We’re just on a break right now.”
Max nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
“This way.” Jag slipped out of the armored door, pausing to look around before he beckoned Max forward. “Come on, quickly. They’ll be here soon.”
“They?” Max asked as he stepped out with Jag onto the roof of the hangar building, which was flat on top. “The thing on the console map looked like an energy wave.”
“No, it’s a swarm, they’re called Mites.” Jag ducked under a metal bar, one of four that held up the tall rod on top of the hangar. Max followed, looking at the huge construction that sat in the middle of the roof. “They’ll hit the force field hard any minute now.”
“Why?” Max asked. “Dinos hunt for food, why do these Mites hunt? Do they eat metal?”
“Energy,” Jag answered as he fiddled with a console.
“They attack the base to feed off the energy.” Max nodded as he pictured a thousand bugs all draining the energy from the force field around the base. Made sense. “So how do we defend against them?”
“We’ve got auto-mechs and self-firing turrets, but we’ve also got the big guns.” Jag sprinted across the flat part of the roof and climbed a short stairway to a raised platform. He tapped the barrel of a big gun. Max’s eyes widened and a smile slipped across his face. “Think you can handle one of these?”
“Holic could, I don’t think this character’s man enough for it.” Max’s stamina dipped as he raced up the stairs and gawked at the biggest gun he’d ever seen. In-person at least. Sure, if you went on the forums, they were filled with images of some cool weaponry. But he’d never seen one, never touched one, and sure as hell had never fired one.
“Firing this beauty doesn’t need any extra skills, that all went into building it. You just need to have half-decent aim and not mind aching afterward. It’s got quite a kick.”
Max looked in awe at the monster of a weapon. “I think I can manage that.”
“Okay. Climb up into the seat.” Jag swung himself effortlessly into the air to land on a narrow platform behind the gun operator’s seat. He leaned forward as Max clambered into the seat behind the gun, his lack of coordination nearly making him tip straight out the other side as he put too much effort into the movement.
“Steady there.” Jag stuck out his hand and stopped Max from falling on his face. “Right, strap in.” He flicked a switch on the gun controls and a screen turned on. It showed the view from the other side of the weaponry, which was otherwise blocked from Max’s view, with a targeting reticle and range meter. The screen was also in full color, as if it were daytime, despite the dark skies.
To the side, another screen lit up, showing the same map Jag had looked at a minute ago, including the base, the area around, and hundreds of little red dots approaching.
“Two hands. Here and here.” Jag slapped the sides of the gun, even though this part was self-explanatory since there were two big handles on either side of the control array. “There’s the trigger, the rest you should be able to figure out. Oh, and be gentle with the trigger.”
“What happens if I squeeze it hard?” Max asked.
“It’s a charge weapon, the longer you hold it, the more powerful the shot.” Jag patted the gun affectionately. “This gun is the most powerful this side of the Junkyard, too powerful for any AI I’ve got. Don’t go blowing holes in my base.”
“Let me guess, you put this thing together yourself.” Max settled down in the seat and flexed his hands on the two handles, trying to remain relaxed as another proximity alarm sounded through blaring horns.
“Shit’s getting real, my friend.” Jag chuckled as he jogged away and climbed into a second turret farther along the roof.
There was nothing real about any of this. It was as if he’d been thrown into a shoot ‘em up game with no instructions. He didn’t know what was coming at them or how many. All he knew was there were a lot of them, and Jag was worried. Scared even, despite the show of bravado.
“Did he sound nervous to you?” Max asked Chopsticks after unmuting his friends.
“A little,” Chopsticks confirmed. “Maybe these things hurt like a bitch.”
“Great. I can’t wait to get back to Primeva.” Max fixed his attention squarely on the targeting screen, which was currently looking over Jag’s walls, and at the gargantuan pine trees in the near distance, his finger on the trigger as the movement he could see on the map drew closer. As they got near what he assumed was the perimeter of Jag’s base, more alarms sounded. Deafening in pitch, Max turned to yell at Jag to switch the damn alarms off. “Shit.”
“Do you see them?” Sam asked. “Oh, I see them.”
“What do they look like to you?” Max asked, leaning closer to the screen, unable to distinguish any detail from the mass of movement, like a swarm of locusts.
“Drones,” Sam said. “Wow, that’s a lot of drones.”
As Sam spoke, the air exploded with hundreds of staccato gunshots as the edge of the swarm came into range of the base defenses, the night suddenly turned into day with a kaleidoscope of bright colors.
The smaller turrets that were dotted along the perimeter wall kept snapping from side to side, constantly acquiring new targets as they fired a barrage of bullets and laser projectiles up into the air, more shots firing up from mechs on the ground.
Max watched as the Mites, now close enough that he could see the hover elements, small thrusters, and guns on each machine, began to fall out of the sky, dropping like flies.
But the Mites didn’t slow down, filling in the spaces left open by those who had been destroyed. A few moments later, they opened fire. The air was filled with flashes of light as the drones shot pulses of energy at the base, each shot stopping a few yards above Max’s head as they hit the shimmering air of the force field, which flared up light green wherever it was hit.
There was a loud whirring coming from where Jag was sitting. Max peered around the body of his weapon to where Jag was sitting behind a smaller turret, but instead of a huge barrel pointing up at the sky, it was a long pole of metal with rings running up it. As the whirring intensified, each ring lit up toward the end until the air sounded like it split as a ray of blue energy shot out and i
nto the sky. Jag turned the gun, guiding the beam of energy to vaporize swaths of the Mites that encroached on the walls before the beam cut out, and the charging began again.
Max gave a low whistle. “Right, let’s see how this thing works.” Pulling the handles up and to the right, the whole machine turned, including the seat, while the barrel tilted up. The screen showing the crosshair panned across the rows of drones in flight. Max aimed straight at them, and gently squeezed the trigger.
The gun kicked back a little, and Max watched as a small, round projectile sailed up past the walls and toward the drones. Once it came too close to them, it exploded, a flash of bright orange filling the air for a second.
“Nice!” Chopsticks hissed as Max watched broken pieces of maybe ten or so Mites falling to the ground.
“This thing is just a giant grenade launcher...that’s awesome.” Max couldn’t help but grin as he realized the power of the turret.
He shifted in the seat and adjusted the aim back down from the recoil, now clearly able to see the bulbous, insect-like bodies of the drones that were still in the sky. Bracing himself for the kickback, he squeezed the trigger again, not waiting for the grenade to hit before pulling the barrel back down, aiming farther along the line of drones and firing again, hearing with satisfaction the blasts of his shots over the cacophony of gunfire filling the air.
“There’s a lot of them!” Jag’s voice cut over Jabber. “We’re not whittling their numbers down fast enough, the force field isn’t going to hold much longer!”
Max fired off another round into the air. “What happens if they get through?”
“If there’s only a few of them, we’ll manage to mop them up with the mechs, if there’s this many when the force field fails, well, that’s game over,” Jag said over the whirring of his gun charging up.
Max looked back to the reticle screen, which showed the Mites now level with the force field, trying to rise above it as they continued shooting down. The bright flashes of the shield absorbing the shots were beginning to get dimmer.
Aiming at drones behind the front lines, a little way away from the base still, Max gingerly pulled the trigger of the gun harder than he had been. The gun recoiled sharply, and Max’s arms ached from the handles pumping back, but it was manageable. The metal roof vibrated a little, and even though the grenade hit fairly far away, Max’s ears rang from the sound of the explosion.
He was relieved to see a big portion of the swarm ripped apart by the shockwave and shrapnel from destroyed Mites. “That wasn’t so bad,” he muttered to himself.
Max fired off a few more rounds with a little more power each time, being jolted back with every shot, but he pushed on. Although the swarm had almost surrounded the base, their numbers were beginning to thin, and the self-firing turrets showed no signs of letting up their defense.
“We’re getting through them!” Max called over the comms to Jag.
“It’s not enough! There are still too many of them.” Jag paused as he ripped through another group of drones overhead with the ray gun. “Shit, I think I’m going to have to grab one of the ships and lure them off.”
Max shifted his grip on the handles and trigger, asking himself whether he trusted his ability, he’d hate to be the cause of Jag losing anything that he’d worked so hard for.
“I’ve got this.” Max aimed at the farthest rows of Mites, which were only just coming into range to fire on the base.
“What are you going to do?” Jag asked.
Max lined the crosshairs up, took a breath, and pulled the trigger, holding it all the way down for a second before letting go. The gun shunted backward with so much force that Max was nearly thrown out of the chair, but he hung on, and as the sights of the gun were flung upward, he squeezed the trigger a few more times, firing more, smaller shots into the air as he spun the turret around.
“Holic! You—” Jag’s voice was drowned out as the sky on one side of the base turned red as the first shot landed, the sound of the blast deafening. Even over the distance and through the force field, Max felt the heat of it on his skin. Shortly after the thunderous sound of the first shot, there was a salvo of smaller pops and bangs as the rest of the projectiles hit Mites and combusted.
Max peered around the gun to see the fireball from the first shot just beginning to fade. A large area was now clear of the Mites, all the ones farther away from this side of the base had been wiped out, with only pockets of them remaining closer.
“Yeah!” Chopsticks cheered him on.
Max looked over to Jag, who was furiously swiping on the gun’s console. “That broke the back of it, right?”
“Sure, but it took the force field down with it!” Jag called back.
“What?” Max looked up at the air above them, watching the remaining Mites flying down toward them, their shots no longer hitting some invisible barrier in the sky, but were now making contact with the buildings, sending sparks flying with every hit. “Crap!”
Jag got up and ran over to him. “Look, it’s not the end of the world, we should be able to handle what’s left, but we need to do it quickly. If they crack the main base, that domed building over there, and damage the reactor, the power goes out and we don’t stand a chance and they’ll just drill their way inside.”
Max hopped off the seat. “Okay, what’s the plan?”
“The AI-controlled turrets will keep shooting Mites out of the air, it’s the ones on the ground we have to worry about, look.” Jag pointed to where Max could see that any drones that got damaged without being destroyed, along with many intact Mites, were dropping out of the air. They landed on the ground on six piston-like legs and instantly began marching toward the central building, the base lights gleaming off their steely bodies.
Other robots, that Max had not seen before, stood in between the oncoming force. Some were simply turrets on wheels that lay down a steady stream of fire, while others were much more advanced, a couple being bipedal mechs that exchanged shots, smashing any of the dog-sized Mites that got too close.
“Is that your defense force?” Max asked.
“Indeed, it’s taken me a while to piece them all together, but they’re pretty efficient. Come on, you’ve still got that Blast Brace, let’s go clear up.”
Max followed as Jag ran for a ladder on the side of the hangar building. He grasped the two sides of the ladder and slid down, whereas Max took his time to follow one rung at a time, careful not to fall and break his neck.
By the time Max reached the floor. Jag already had a blaster in each hand, firing bursts of lasers at a group of the Mites marching down between the hangar and the wall.
They had been heading straight past them toward the center of the base but had turned around to face a new threat.
Still firing with one hand, Jag tossed his other gun up into the air, reached to his belt, grabbed a small, spherical device, and tossed it just in front of him before catching his gun.
A semi-transparent rectangle appeared from the device, just as the Mites opened fire, and their energy blasts stopped upon hitting the shield.
Max rushed to Jag’s side and punched toward the group of drones with the hand he wore the bracelet on. He saw the wave of energy kick up dirt as it rushed forward but had dissipated by the time it reached the Mites.
“I’m too far away!” Max called above the sound of the constant firing of energy weapons.
Jag nodded, stepped forward, and gave the spherical shield generator a light kick. It rolled forward over the grass, the shield staying up as it went.
Jag moved forward, easily landing shots that tore off pieces of armor and parts from the advancing Mites, one going down as its legs were shot out, the lights down its back going dark.
By the time the Mites were within a few feet of them, there were only four left, but the shield was beginning to dim.
Max took a couple of deep breaths to psych himself up, then jumped through the shield. He punched down toward the closest of the drones. The
air in front of him was forced away from his fist as the energy wave hit the Mite, stripping off the mounted guns on the side of its body, snapping a couple of its legs, and pushing it to the ground.
Max ducked behind the fallen drone, using it as cover as the remaining three Mites turned their fire toward him. Their shots quickly began ripping the chassis of the dead Mite to bits. Max chanced a peek around the drone to look for an opportunity to move and saw it coming.
Jag dashed from behind the shield and leaped into the air, leg extended as he flying-kicked one of the Mites, sending it bouncing across the ground, and repeatedly shot his two laser blasters into the back of another, melting the metal armor away and singeing the circuits beneath.
The last Mite turned to its new target. Max took this chance, clumsily hopping over the pile of scrap he was hiding behind and ramming his fist into the side of the last drone, blowing it to bits.
“How’s the tech feeling?” Jag nodded to Max’s arm.
Max looked down at the Blast Brace. “It feels good! Still doesn’t beat the feel of a decent spear, though.”
Jag gave a short laugh. “I’ll find something that changes your mind one day. Come on, we’ve got a mess to clear up.”
“Let’s do this.” Max and Jag ran down the side of the hangar, and into the open area in between all the buildings. Jag’s various mechs held a tight semi-circle around the dome building, where the power source for the base was. A few turtle-like robots stood in front of the rest, generating shields that mostly protected the firing power behind them.
The sky above them was almost clear, only a few Mites were still airborne, lit by spotlights, and they were quickly being shot down, their wreckage crashing down to the ground. Most of the attackers that were left were steadily marching toward the defending force, no longer in any sort of formation.
“I didn’t realize I was running a scrapyard.” Jag launched a small cube item into the crowd of Mites and charged forward. As the cube landed, Max heard the rush of air as all the Mites within a few yards of it were dragged in toward it, being crumpled by the force.
