“It only activates during emergencies,” he corrected her. “They don’t trust us enough to let us walk around with one.”
“Good thing this is an emergency,” Indre retorted. “Well, good, in this case, is a little subjective.” A green light lit her screen and she ejected the card and returned it. “Got it. This will let us access lower level security areas but run through numerous codes and cross-check them with the card’s signal.”
“I believe I follow.” Jaxon turned to Desmond. “You can continue to make your way through the doors. We will use another route.”
“I thought you would be our guards,” the Skyway Kings captain protested.
“The droids seemed to have fallen back. Either they are running low, or they are withdrawing to deal with the other teams. As you said, these doors are taking some time to break through. As long as we make a more aggressive target, you will be left alone.”
“Going off to bait, huh?” Desmond acknowledged. “Noble, I suppose.”
“I hope we will be hunters,” the Tsuna replied. “Indre, can you make a path to the lab through areas we can access?”
“I can make a path up about four floors. From there, we’ll probably have to check door by door,” she explained.
“It’s a start.” Jaxon nodded at Desmond. “Do you have any complaints?”
“As long as you make progress and keep any of the EX-10 from coming after us, we’ll keep up our push,” the man vowed.
“We will keep them from succeeding, we promise.” He pointed to the agent. “Lead on.”
“Let’s cut through here.” Indre knelt, removed a cable from her gauntlet, and attached it to the card reader. In only a few seconds, the door unlocked. The team stepped into what seemed to be a suite of some kind with a tall ceiling and large windows that encompassed the entire wall to the left. A few couches were scattered about and an ornate desk and chair stood in the center.
“It looks like one of the bigwig’s offices.” Amber squinted and peered at some of the art on the wall across from them.
“We probably shouldn’t mess with anything around here. Everything looks pricey,” Silas stated but he’d barely spoken when something rocked the building. The group staggered and Jaxon supported Indre whose small frame put her at a disadvantage. “What was that?”
“It sounds and feels like the other team hasn’t bothered to keep everything looking nice,” Izzy replied.
“That definitely sounded like it came from this floor, we should—” Jaxon stopped as something rolled toward them. His eyes widened and he shoved Indre aside and raced to the object, snatched it up, and hurled it away before diving back as far as he could.
The orb exploded and the team shielded themselves from the blast. The Tsuna scrambled closer to his teammates when droids fell through the ceiling above. “We’re under attack,” he warned, although the truth of that was obvious to everyone there.
Silas and Izzy stepped forward to fire at the Assault droids while Amber extended a hand to help Jaxon to his feet. More orbs, these glowing white, rolled along the floor. The ace fired a volley to destroy them before they detonated while the entire team focused on eliminating the droids. A large red bolt careened into Izzy from across the room.
“Izzy!” Silas cried and turned to fire at where the shot had come from.
“Assist her,” Jaxon ordered Amber, who nodded and hurried to comply. He adjusted the vision of his HUD to reveal three figures on the other side of the room that definitely had life signs.
“Jaxon, watch out.” Indre pushed forward and fired her machine gun into what appeared to be empty air and a figure in light-gray armor with a long blade in one hand dropped to the floor. The attacker activated a shield device before he landed and dashed toward Indre, whose lasers barely dented his shields. The ace intercepted the attack, flipped his blade from his belt, and used it to parry the sword. He pointed his machine gun into the attacker's chest through the shield. When he fired, the swordsman ducked and several small orbs hurtled free. The Tsuna pushed away from his adversary and yanked Indre into a frantic dive as the smaller devices exploded above them.
“He’s a slippery one,” a voice hissed.
“From the looks of that infuser, he’s a Tsuna,” another gruffer voice replied.
“A Tsuna? I haven’t blown one of those up yet.”
Silas barreled past the swordsman and attacked the man who had fired on Izzy and obliterated two droids along the way. The man emerged from the shadows and fired a blast from a shotgun. The shot shattered the enforcer’s shields but he maintained his charge and thrust aggressively into a position close enough to shove his own weapon into the enemy raider’s stomach. He pulled the trigger and destroyed the merc’s shield. The man grunted and kicked him back, but he recovered quickly and continued to push forward and fire. His opponent ducked and let his armor take the barrage as he pounded his shoulder into Silas. He spun and fired and the shots cracked the enforcer’s chest armor and catapulted him to the floor where he rolled instinctively to the left to avoid a falling droid.
“Silas, get back,” Jaxon commanded. The other merc remained in the shadows and bombs were strung liberally at every available place on his armor. He held a tablet—probably the one controlling the droids or at least the ones that surrounded them. The ace selected a grenade of his own and lobbed it at him. The merc didn’t move but simply pressed a button on the tablet and one of the droids flung itself on top of the explosive. It all seemed pointless, however, as no explosion followed.
“Ha, a dud. Pathetic. Your toys are nothing like mine.” The merc yanked a couple of grenades from his belt and threw them at the team. Indre pointed her emitter at them and the lights on the explosives flickered out.
“Thermals have an electrical core, a simple thing to take care of,” she boasted and gestured with the emitter.
“You have your own toys too, then?” Their adversary stepped into the light and his comrades stood beside him as four more droids joined them from above. The engineer held another bomb and tossed it carelessly up and down. “Neat, but they don’t compare to mine.”
“Bombs are not toys.” Jaxon held a trigger device up and the crazed merc eyed it curiously. “They are weapons—crude perhaps, but if you do not respect your weapon, you are as likely to fall to them as your opponents are.” He pressed a small button and the bombs hung on the merc exploded. The swordsman and raider were hurled aside in the blast and the remaining droids were destroyed.
Silas hefted his weapon and surveyed the carnage. “What did you do?”
“That grenade I threw wasn’t a dud. It was filled with nanos that obey simple commands. Genos uses them often in the Animus and taught me how to use them.” The ace raised his machine gun and advanced on the other EX-10 mercs. His team quickly fell in behind him, their weapons at the ready.
“You are outnumbered. If you surrender, we will let you live. If not, we will be forced to—” The sentence was cut off by a furious, bone-chilling roar that echoed through the entire floor.
The raider laughed. “That’s nice of you.” He pushed himself up. “It’s a pity our friend won’t offer you the same deal. He’s fine with simply letting you die.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kaiden and Cameron pushed into the room and the sniper immediately fired several shots. They were protected by the ace’s shield but the device failed after only a few strikes, and they raced behind a pillar for protection.
“Hurry up and do your thing,” Kaiden instructed.
Cameron nodded, spun out of cover, and skimmed the disk directly at their adversary, who obliterated it with ease. Several spikes launched from the shattered device and scattered around the room. Two landed near the merc, one in the wall to his left and the other on the floor of the hanging walkway.
The man glanced briefly at the barbs and frowned at a small blinking light on their back ends. Before he could identify the cause of this, his vision was blocked by a large sphere that fille
d the screen of his helmet.
“Hey there, buddy. Do you mind if I take a look around?” The sniper’s visor began to short out and his generator and shielding powered down. “I might have messed something up. I’m not really sorry about that—or this.” The intrusive sphere flashed, then glowed brightly to blind him. Frantic, he attempted to rip his helmet off to escape the pain that flared in his head.
He managed to remove the headgear and grunted as he retrieved his weapon and searched for his targets. A quick blur of red drew his aim to Cameron, who now appeared on the opposite end of the walkway. He fired and the bullet drilled through the bounty hunter’s helmet. A small smile crossed his lips at the shot but immediately faded when the hologram dissipated. Before he could react, he was ensnared in a net that began to constrict around him. He struggled to breathe as he toppled over the edge of his high perch.
Kaiden and Cameron approached the downed sniper, and the bounty hunter held a hand out to stop his companion. “My plan, my gadgets, my bounty,” he stated plainly.
The ace shrugged acquiescence. “I guess I won’t argue. Chief, are you done yet?”
The EI returned to Kaiden’s helmet.
“Yeah. I have the location of the other mercs and the codes for the lockdown as a bonus.”
“All right. I’ll go help Flynn and the heavies. Catch up when you're done.” He paused and looked back at the bounty hunter. “Nice job, Cam. I don’t say that often so don’t let it go to your head. And don’t take too long. We have more to do.”
The ace jogged away and Cameron approached the downed sniper and drew his pistol. The merc twisted to stare at his adversary with fury in his eyes. The captive already held a blade in his hand and tried to cut through the net.
He knelt and pressed the pistol against the marksman’s neck. “You won’t even let me enjoy this, huh? You really are annoying.” He sighed as he pressed the trigger, the man’s head stiffened before it thumped back onto the floor. Cameron removed the pistol and grinned at the dart in the sniper’s neck. “I wanted to splatter your brains against the walls, but I won’t kill the helpless. Maybe I should have let you cut through the net.”
With another heavy sigh, he stood and scowled in the direction in which his teammate had gone. “I should have told him to wait up. Oh, well, maybe the next fight will be more satisfying.”
The large merc pounded a fist into Luke’s hammer, but the titan activated the kinetic mod, which knocked the man to his knees and destroyed his gauntlets. Mack released a burst of energy and Marlo fired his cannon. Both attacks careened directly into the enemy heavy and catapulted him across the room.
Flynn jumped back as the assassin continued to swipe at him with her lethal blade. He fired two shots but she dodged one and deflected the other. The marksman inclined his head to avoid his own bullet, which impacted the wall behind him. She was damn fast, he’d give her that.
The heavy merc careened into the wall and the impact drew the attention of Flynn and his adversary. Seconds after his collision, the building shook violently, obviously from an explosion.
The assassin scowled when a red light flashed in her HUD to confirm the death of a teammate. “Sid is dead? Dammit.” She assessed Dudley and Blaiz coldly. One was dead and the other a lost cause at this point. They needed to regroup.
She activated a smoke bomb while Flynn was distracted, but as soon as the smoke billowed, he turned and fired. The slugs rocketed through the smoke and struck the wall and he muttered a curse. The damn woman got away. He hoped she wouldn’t make a habit of it.
He hurried to join his teammates where the heavies had gathered around the other merc. The man slumped awkwardly and his shattered chest sparked ominously from damaged wires that protruded.
“That’s not normal armor. It shouldn’t spark from the chest like that,” Marlo stated.
Mack applied shields to his arms, dug into the chest, and pulled back to rip the armor open. They peered at a scrawny man in a white one-piece jumpsuit inside.
“What the hell? This was a mech?” Luke leaned on his hammer and shook his head in real disbelief.
“A mini-mech, but it looks that way. They did look bigger than normal,” Marlo agreed. The vanguard grabbed the man by the front of his suit and hauled him out as he struggled against the relentless grasp.
“Let me go,” he demanded and kicked and flailed as captor held him up.
“So, if this guy is in a mech suit…” Luke turned his attention to the flamethrower, walked over, and raised his hammer to pound it into the chest. It cracked open and a sputtering cough issued from inside. The titan shook his head in disbelief once again and rested his armored foot on the helmet. “Hey, get out of there,” he demanded and raised his foot in preparation to stamp down.
“Stop that,” the man inside shouted. “You almost killed me already. Give it a rest,”
“How many guys have you killed today exactly?” he retorted.
“Aren’t you a soldier? Don’t you have to bring us in alive?” the merc in Mack’s hand protested.
Marlo chuckled and wagged a finger around the trigger of his cannon. “Nah. We’re mercs so we only have to bring you in. Breathing ain’t required.”
“Most of your body ain’t required, honestly,” Mack added cheerfully and held up his free hand that glowed with white energy.
“You might wanna think about that, mate,” Flynn warned and hefted his rifle in both hands to rest it across the back of his shoulders. “We’re already rocking illegal armor and weapons and might not wanna do anything that’ll have the cops looking for us.”
“Aren’t we within our rights to handle this how we see fit?” Luke asked.
“The gang members can. They are the ‘security’ here, but if we kill these guys, we might have to say the Fire Riders took them out to be on the safe side.”
“Didn’t you kill that other sniper?” Mack reminded him.
“Yeah. I’ll let the gangs claim that, but if they do that for all of them, it means they get the bonuses,” the marksman responded.
“And that means fewer creds,” Marlo muttered. He scowled at the dents and chips in his armor and sighed. “I doubt Julio will give that deposit back.”
“I don’t think it was a deposit. More like a rental fee.” The group looked up as Kaiden walked in, his thumbs looped into his belt. “What’s going on here?”
“We’re wrapping up,” Luke said and raised his leg to drive it into the flamethrower’s helmet. When he ripped the headgear off, the now unconscious man’s head leaned to the side.
“Do we still need info?” Mack asked and held his other hand closer to the merc, who moved his head away.
“Nah. Chief has the location of all the other mercs. It looks like one is at the lab and the rest are on the other side of the building.”
Mack shrugged and let the energy fade. The merc breathed a sigh of relief before the vanguard leaned back, socked him hard on the jaw, and dropped his unconscious body unceremoniously into a motionless heap.
Marlo walked over. “Does that mean Jaxon’s team is dealing with the others?”
“Possibly, but they haven’t messaged me for reinfor—”
“Kaiden, we need back up!” the Tsuna exclaimed over the comms.
“Well, damn. What’s going on?”
“Something’s coming our way, and we’re dealing with two other mercs already.”
“That doesn’t sound like too much for ya’ll,” the ace teased and squinted at a dot that moved like a bat out of hell toward the other team’s position.
“I heard a roar—a Sauren roar,” Jaxon stated.
That held Kaiden’s attention. He glanced at the group. “Go and help them. They are on the other end of this floor.”
“Where are you going?” Flynn asked as the ace turned away.
“I’ll take Cam, and we’ll catch the guy in the lab and finish this. Make sure not to die so you can enjoy the spoils.”
Flynn gestured to Luke to join t
hem as they jogged out of the room to help the other team.
“Hey, Kaiden,” Cameron called from down the hall and slowed when he saw the ace approaching. “What’s going on?”
“We’re heading up. The others will help the other team.”
“All right, but how will we get up? The stairs are still locked down unless you can use those codes.”
“I already tried but the stairs to the main console are locked. We’ll go through the elevators again.” He increased his pace toward the lobby.
“Okay, but how will we get up?”
“You have a scorpion wire, right?”
“Yeah, but I can only drag myself up. I can toss it down to you when—”
“Nope. You’ll drag me up there with you. Let’s go.” He continued his brisk walk as the bounty hunter stopped for a moment and sighed.
“Jets. My next purchase is a jet,” he muttered before he hurried to catch up with the ace.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“So this break-in is still happening, huh?” Wolfson muttered and no longer swigged as liberally from the bottle.
“It appears so,” Laurie said from where he curled into himself on the couch. “It honestly hasn’t been very interesting since they brought the barrier up, though. Only talking heads for the last hour.”
“We can change the station,” his companion suggested.
“Or we can talk. I feel more up to it,” the professor admitted with a yawn.
“What about?”
“We’ve focused on me for so long, I haven’t heard much about you. How are you feeling, Wolfson?” He placed his empty glass on the table beside him.
“You’re one of those emotional drunks, are you?” Wolfson sighed. “I ain’t got nothing going on.”
“Oh, come on. You have to be a big softy under all that barrel-chested talk,” Laurie teased and spun in place to drape his legs over the top of the couch so his head almost touched the floor.
Animus Boxed Set 2 (Books 5-8): Revenant, Glitch, Master, Infiltration Page 59
