by Jim Roberts
A sound from overhead caught Sledge’s ear. An audible whine coming from the south, loud enough to be heard over the chaos and noise of his workers and their equipment.
Sledge turned to his head of security and asked, “What the hell is tha—”
His words were cut off as the moving Peterbilt truck exploded into a giant fireball, spewing wreckage across the factory work yard.
Sledge ducked low, his wild eyes looking into the night sky. He recognized the sound he’d heard—a missile strike; a Stinger round, from the sound of it. Having worked with rocketry his entire adult life, Sledge knew the difference.
His first thought was to escape. A few hundred feet north of the factory was the helicopter port which housed the Hyperion transports loaned to him by Titus. If he could get there, he might have a chance to escape.
That dream died on the vine as more explosions cracked across the work yard, blocking any escape. Sledge’s security men crowded around him, making sure their meal ticket was well protected. He could hear the sounds of some sort of rotor-blade vehicles, buzzing above them. The private security soldiers pulled Sledge back to his feet and had just finished hauling him into the factory bay when another missile struck the Saturnine Peterbilt. The truck and its cargo were incinerated in a blinding explosion that threw fiery debris all over the work yard.
Grabbing his security chief by the shoulder, Sledge barked, “Get Olympus on the comm now! Tell them we’re under attack and need reinforcements!”
The Security Chief turned to answer his boss, “Sir, I’m being informed by Tribune Saladin that there are no reinforcements to send. He says to use what we have!”
Sledge was furious. He should have known better than to trust Olympus. They were leaving him out here at the mercy of their attackers.
“Then activate the perimeter defense drones, now!” Sledge shouted to the security chief.
The Chief relayed the order, pressing a finger to the radio headset. “I have confirmation that security drones are coming online, sir.”
Looking out into the fiery work yard, Sledge realized he was trapped.
The Olympus Centurions Vorena had left to defend the facility began flooding out into the work yard, assault rifles at the ready. Good, Sledge thought. They would draw the fire for a while. In the meantime, he had to get to the safety of the lower level of the factory. If this was to be his Alamo, he had one last trick to play from his sleeve.
With his men mounting a defense on their flying enemies outside, Sledge turned toward the elevator leading to his secret factory many floors down. Whoever these enemies were, if they wanted him dead, they would have to come and get him.
And if they followed him into the secondary facility, he would give them a surprise, unlike anything they could imagine...
* * *
THE FIRST phase of the attack went off without a hitch. Holding back in the hovering Black Hawk, Joe watched as the half dozen Fenrir VTOLs slammed Sledge’s forces with Stinger AIM-92 rockets, knocking out several Peterbilt semis in the process. The Black Hawks swung around out of firing range of the security forces that streamed from inside the facility. Through the IR goggles, Joe could see several squads of Centurions filing out in an orderly fashion and taking up defensive positions around the factory. Against targets moving as quick as the Fenrir VTOLs, the Centurion assault rifles wouldn’t be good for much.
Over his shoulder, Joe heard Krieger belt out, “Look at that! Our Mister Lennox likes to play rough, da?”
So far the Vagabond attack force had managed to knock out multiple drone shipment trucks, as well as a healthy amount of Sledge security forces.
So far, so good.
From his seat beside the big Russian, Joe heard Curtis Walker yell to him, “Joe, there’s something off the port side you need to see—”
Walker’s last word was drowned out as a shower of tracer gunfire spat from the jungle surrounding Sledge’s facility. Several bullets struck the bottom of the Black Hawk, setting off multiple emergency alarms.
From the co-pilot seat, Lennox’s voice shouted, “We’ve got tangos in the trees! All Fenrirs eyes out on the tree line!”
The Black Hawk banked sharply as the pilot attempted to avoid the incoming fire. The pilot maneuvered the helicopter away from the factory and out of harm’s way.
Joe heard his comlink squawk in his ear. Clutching the mic, he said, “This is Braddock, go ahead over?”
“Sergeant Braddock, this is Specialist Gator, over.”
It was Brick’s recon team leader. Joe keyed the mic, “Go ahead, Gator.”
“You need to pull your birds back, Sarge! There are multiple walker drones hidden in the jungle. We have eyes on several and they’re taking potshots at your birds, over.”
“Thanks for the head’s up, Gator.”
“Sarge, one last thing. We’ve spotted Damien Sledge himself in the work yard. He disappeared into the facility a minute ago.”
Joe looked across at Agrippina. “Well goddamn it!” He signed off with Gator, ordering the Peacemaker team to sit tight until further notice.
Agrippina said to Joe, “If we can capture Sledge, Olympus will lose one of its biggest suppliers!”
Joe nodded. As the Fenrirs floated across the work yard, blazing down upon it with their autocannons, Joe had an idea.
He keyed his mic to speak to his father, “Commander Lennox, halt the attack!”
From the co-pilot seat, Lennox’s voice sounded confused, “What? Joe, we have them on the run!”
Joe’s mind raced as he went over the particulars of his plan, “Sir we have a chance to knock out Olympus’s main supplier. Let me storm the facility.”
Krieger said to Joe, “Why not keep pounding factory to rubble?”
Joe shook his head, “No. Sledge is a slippery bastard. He may have an alternate escape planned. Use the Fenrirs to cover our approach, then we storm the facility with everything we have and capture Sledge inside.” Joe patted the small rucksack loaded with semtex, “From there, we blow that place sky high from the inside.”
It was a crazy plan, but it was the only way to be sure Sledge’s army was finished. After a brief moment to ponder the idea, Lennox answered, “Alright, we’ll do it your way, Braddock. We’re going down. All Fenrir aircraft, cover the Black Hawks for insertion.”
Curtis Walker sighed into his headset, “This has definitely not been my day.”
The Black Hawks swooped low a hundred yards from the drone facility. Landing in a clearing, the combined forces of Peacemaker and Vagabond leapt out, guns ready.
Before Joe joined them, he shared a quick glance with his father in the cockpit.
Lennox nodded. “Give em hell, my son.”
Nodding, Joe jumped from the Black Hawk and joined his mates.
Charging across the work yard, the strike force had to avoid the flaming wreckage of the many destroyed vehicles, not to mention the numerous bodies of Centurions scattered around like broken dolls. Joe, Krieger, Walker and Agrippina stuck close with each other, while Caedra and her team of Vagabond troops followed close behind.
Their way was blocked by several squads of Centurions.
“Contacts!” Joe shouted to his team.
A gunfight broke out between the two sides. Jogging quickly toward the facility, Joe, and his team picked targets and fired. The Olympus troopers had tried to entrench themselves around the mouth of the open factory bay, but it wasn’t enough. Joe’s team swept in like a whirling dervish, knocking their targets off as they went.
Two Vagabond soldiers were struck by gunfire, killing them outright. Seeing this, Caedra let out a rage-filled war cry and surged forward, fighting like a lioness protecting her cubs.
As they fought, Joe could hear Krieger practically laughing as he tore through the Centurions with his AA-12 auto shotgun. The massive weapon spat hot death at the defenders, reducing their armored bodies to shredded chunks of gore.
Walker shouted over to Krieger, “Hey, that was
my kill!”
Krieger shot back, “That’s my seventh so far, how ‘bout you?”
Walker drilled a Centurion straight through the grill of its helmet, mincing its brains to chopped chuck. “That’s eight for me!”
“Bah!” Krieger spat, ducking low to reload his AA-12, “The day a traitor gets one over on me I’ll eat this gun!”
The team charged past the bay entrance and into the Sledge Dynamics factory. Joe was surprised to see it was almost completely deserted. The remaining Centurions had fallen back; taking cover wherever they could.
Toward the back of the factory, Joe spotted what appeared to be an industrial elevator.
“That must lead to the actual factory,” Joe said to Agrippina, “The upper floor is just a front!”
Agrippina shot a Centurion straight through the visor with her FN SeveN. “Then that’s where we’re going.”
The team had just about finished off with the remaining Centurions when Lennox’s voice came through Joe’s radio, “Strike team, alert, we have multiple Sledge security forces converging on the facility now—reinforcements from the surrounding area. Fenrirs are moving to intercept, but we’re having trouble with the drones surrounding the complex. I don’t think we can stop them all. You’re about to have company!”
Joe looked over the remaining soldiers in his team. Of the twenty-four Vagabond troops, only sixteen survived. He watched as more security personnel swarmed into the bay, well-armed with advanced FN-2000 assault rifles.
Caedra changed the clip of her SCAR and said to Joe, “Go, Braddock, we’ve got this!”
Joe didn’t want to run out on his friends, but he knew that every minute they delayed was more time Sledge had to escape.
“Are you sure?” Joe asked.
Krieger answered for the Vagabond woman. “Get going, Joe. My friend and I will cover you, right, Walker?”
The shaggy gunrunner sighted down at the encroaching troops, yelling, “We’ve got this Braddock. Go now!”
The Vagabonds all took positions to defend the lift. Without another word, Joe and Agrippina dashed onto the industrial elevator. Checking the controls, Agrippina pressed the DOWN switch. The automated guardrail slide shut and the lift started to descend. Joe’s final view before moving below ground was that of his teammates letting loose a rain of fire upon the enemy forces flooding into the bay.
Chapter 27
Three Legged Demon
THE INDUSTRIAL lift trundled down further and further beneath the factory above. Joe used the downtime to switch mags and check his equipment. Agrippina did the same, loading fresh clips into her FN SeveNs.
“So, Braddock, what’s the plan?”
Joe unslung his rucksack and pulled out several charges of semtex. Wired to the remote receiver he held safe in his pocket, each charge was mixed with 76% PETN compound, or Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a high brisance substance capable of delivering a devastating explosive yield.
As Joe handed several charges to Agrippina, he said, “The way I see it, we set these charges on any support columns or struts we find. Once we locate Sledge, we get back to the elevator, pull out to a safe distance, then boom! We bring this entire fucking place in on itself.”
The two companions were silent for a time. The elevator was deathly slow, having been designed for large loads.
Agrippina fixed Joe with a cool glance from her red and green eyes. “Can I ask you a question, Braddock?” When Joe didn’t answer, she asked it anyway, “If we get out of here and we do end up finding Danny Callbeck, what will you do?”
“What do you mean?” Joe asked.
“There’s a good chance your friend won’t be the same man you remembered.”
“Danny’s my friend…my brother. Whatever it takes, I’m bringing him back—alive.”
“That’s what I like about you, Sergeant,” Agrippina said, chambering her pistols, “You’re an incurable optimist.”
Joe chortled at the woman’s observation.
A half-smile spread across Agrippina’s blood-red lips.
The dull view of the cement coated elevator shaft began to give way to a vast underground cavern—a feat of engineering that must have taken a small army ages to complete. Joe gasped at the sight before him.
Along the chamber walls were rows of robotic drones, more than Joe could count. There were several empty sections, which he presumed once held the drones Sledge had already transferred above them. Moving an army like this would probably take days, if not weeks.
Keeping to the sides of the elevator, Joe and Agrippina kept their eyes out for any signs of security forces. But as their luck would have it, there were none. The cavern was eerily vacant of life.
Reaching the end of its line, the elevator shuddered to a halt. The guardrail slid down and the two companions eased out into the massive cavern, weapons at the ready.
Joe and Agrippina cautiously made their way onto the raised metal platform that housed much of the assembly machinery. Joe spied several massive steel struts that he pegged to be load bearing supports. As they moved along, sweeping the area in stark silence, they began attaching the semtex to the supports.
Joe noticed a yellow sign that showed a picture of an elevator going up, along with an arrow directing him to the opposite end of the cavern from where they’d come.
Joe pointed to the sign. “There must be another elevator somewhere at the other end of the factory.”
Agrippina nodded as she activated a semtex charge. “Probably an emergency exit. Sledge could have gotten out that way.”
Joe agreed. Moving past a large collection of spare machinery parts piled almost ten feet high, Joe fell in beside the assassin. He had a few bricks of semtex left, just enough to cover the remainder of the struts.
They were just about to finish rigging the last struts when a loud grinding noise came directly behind Joe. Swiveling around, he saw the pile of machinery start moving. The sound of gears working echoed through the chamber as the heap of what had looked like innocuous junk began to take its true shape. Bringing his M4A1 to a cheek weld position, Joe watched in horrified fascination as the seemingly harmless pile of metal lurched forward and stood up on three massive steel legs.
Joe’s jaw dropped as he watched this…thing stand up to its full height—towering over him at nearly twenty feet tall.
“My…God.” Joe burbled, not believing the sight in front of him.
It was a giant bipedal robot. Almost three times taller than a six-foot Olympus Cerberus, this mech was a certified nightmare in metal form. It sat on three legs—two in the front, one in the back. Planted on either side of what Joe guessed was its control center were two hardpoints. One held a turret mounted autocannon, while the other encased some sort of missile tripod.
A disembodied voice came from the drone. “So you are the fools sent to find me. Let me save you the trouble!”
Agrippina’s head snapped toward Braddock. “It’s Sledge!”
Joe couldn’t believe it. “Is he inside that thing?”
“He must be!"
The mech lurched forward on its front legs. Its style of walking reminded Joe of a sort of ‘leap-frog’, where the back leg would spring between the front legs and provide the forward lifting motion.
Sledge’s voice continued its rant, “Since you have trespassed on my property, I would like you to have the honor of being the first victims of my Vulturnus attack mech. Goodbye!”
As the shock of seeing something so huge wore off, Joe’s instincts came online. The metal platform they were on was cluttered with industrial machinery and tools, not to mention stacks upon stacks of crates and shipping pallets—plenty of decent cover to wage a defense.
Just as Joe went to unstrap the Uber missile launcher on his back, the Vulturnus launched a HEAT rocket from its tripod. Joe was forced to dive to the ground as the missile struck an assemblage of equipment behind him—showering the platform with flaming debris.
The Uber launcher clattered to the
ground. Before Joe could reach for it, a flurry of autocannon fire forced him to leave the weapon. Jerking his body out of the mech’s line of sight, Joe took off through the platform.
For the next twenty seconds, Joe led the Vulturnus on a merry chase through the myriad obstacles of the raised platform, weaving in and out wherever he could find cover. Periodically he would lean out and fire his M4A1 at the hulking monstrosity, but against its high-tech armor, he may as well have been throwing water balloons.
Ducking behind a collection of heavy duty shipping containers, Joe took the brief break in the action to check where his companion went. He saw Agrippina rushing along the platform perimeter thirty feet opposite him, dodging a hail of autocannon fire as the drone focused on her as its new target. Joe could hear the Vulturnus lumbering across the platform, knocking aside tables laden with machinery as if they were tinker toys.
Joe opened the breech in the underslung M203 grenade launcher of his M4 and inserted a 40mm shell. Sliding it back, he slipped out from cover and with one smooth motion, aimed and fired the weapon. The explosive shot struck the drone on its left side in a shower of sparks and flame. But other than a slight scorch mark on the armor, it wasn’t damaged in the slightest.
The voice of Sledge said, “Nice try. Now it’s my turn!”
Swiveling its upper body toward Joe, the missile tripod on the Vulturnus’s shoulder tracked his position, preparing to fire.
“Ah hell,” Joe said aloud. He was already on the move when the mech let loose with a HEAT warhead in his direction. Diving across the platform, he’d just hit the ground when the missile exploded against the container. Joe felt his body slammed with kinetic energy. Momentarily stunned, he felt the earth shake as the Vulturnus bore down upon him.
Move Braddock!
Joe’s head cleared just in time for him to roll out of the way as the mammoth hind leg of the Vulturnus stomped down beside him. Twisting onto his back, Joe held up his M4A1, firing it full-auto at the underbelly of the giant mech. The armor-piercing rounds cut into the more sensitive areas around the leg gyros but otherwise did little damage.
