by Mark Harritt
The robot shuddered as the bullets damaged something inside of it. Then Everett felt something crash into him and seize him from behind. Metal jaws clamped down on his thigh. He looked down to see the skeletal frame of the robot’s skull, jaws sawing against his body armor, tatters of black cloth streaming, creating an evil halo around the metallic skull. The robot’s jaw was cinched tight around his thigh, and he felt the pressure increase as the robot bit down on his leg. The body armor resisted the metal jaws, but the intense pressure was painful, and he tried to twist around so that he could put lead into the robot.
The robot had him though, and started violently shaking its head back and forth, trying to cut into his leg. Everett’s body moved in one direction, but his leg shifted in the other. He screamed as he felt his thigh break. The broken leg wouldn’t hold his weight, and he fell sideways, the two halves of the bone grating across each other, tearing into flesh. His body whipped around like a rag doll as he screamed from the pain.
He slammed onto the back of the robot, and he grabbed at it, trying to keep his leg from being torn off. He caught for a moment, then started to slip as he lost his grip. Then, someone was beside him, and he felt arms go under his and then around his chest to keep him up. His vision was blurred, and he was in so much pain he couldn’t concentrate. Another body slide past to stand at the neck of the robot. Whoever it was started pumping rounds down into the torso.
The soldier hit something, because the robot stopped whipping its head back and forth. The pressure on his leg didn’t let up, though. The body of the robot started shaking, and Everett could smell burning electronics. The robot wasn’t doing as much damage to him, but Everett still felt intense pain as the robot shook, the pressure steady on his leg. He was drooling and saliva sprayed out of his mouth onto the display. His body was locking up, and he was having problems talking, or even thinking straight. He knew he was going into shock.
“Mi . . ., Mick . . ., Mick . . ., Mickey.”
“It’s okay Everett, I got this.”
Everett felt better knowing that Mickey was there. He was starting to fade in and out of consciousness. He felt bodies crowding around him. Others were pulled close and piled next to him, the wounded, the dead, the dying.
He could hear yelling and screaming as they dealt with the robots that were still functional. He tried to grab his pistol, but he only felt the empty holster. He looked around dumbly, trying to find his pistol. He spread his hands across the dirt, feeling the grit of the sand and rocks as he concentrated on his pistol.
“What are you doing, Everett?”
He didn’t know who was talking to him, “Muh, muh, my pistol. I can’t find my pistol.”
“You’re in shock, don’t worry about the damn . . . Jesus! Jesus!”
More screams sounded as somebody was attacked. Cursing and shots rang out.
“Rita! I hope you’re fucking done down there! I got problems here. I have wounded and still have four of these fuckers that won’t go down!” Mickey yelled.
“On my way!”
The ground shook beneath him. Everett didn’t know why. It felt like an earthquake.
“Whu’s go’win on?” he asked. He could feel people moving around him, but he didn’t know what they were doing. Something slammed into his side and he screamed as the bones grated again. Then something towered over him, looking down at him. The great metallic jaws gaped open as it lunged for his head.
He smiled as he rammed his arm into the jaws. He’d found his pistol. He was going to take this thing to hell with him. His hand wrapped around the handle. He pulled it up, rammed it up where the neck would be and started pulling the trigger. Three bullets slammed into the head in quick succession, knocking it to the side. Two more hit the side of the head where the mechanical jaw fit into the skull. He kept pulling the trigger, shooting the robot until the slide locked back. The robot was still alive, still moving, so he started hammering it with his pistol. He was screaming at the robot while he hit it. The jaw locked open and the robot fell onto Everett. There was more shooting. He was confused. He stared at the pistol with the slide locked back. Who was shooting?
His leg was numb. The pressure was still there, but he didn’t feel the burning, intense pain anymore. He knew he should feel something, but there was nothing there, just the numbness. Then, something large blotted out the light, and shade fell over him. A large, mechanical hand came down and grabbed the robot by the torso, lifting it straight up. The robot flew in an arc across the canyon to shatter against the cliff wall.
“Fuck you!” he yelled at the smashed robot, throwing his pistol at it.
“Rita, that other one’s still locked on his leg. I need you to use your pulse laser to cut it off!”
Everett looked up at the dark giant above him. He smelled something burning, then the pressure on his leg eased up.
“Got it. He’s yours, Mickey.”
He felt people around him. Hands were suddenly pulling his combat armor off. His helmet came off, and at first, it felt glorious as the cold air hit his face. Then the smell of blood, gore, hydraulic fluid, lubricants and burning plastic hit. He retched. At first, he tried to fight them off, telling them that there were robots around, and he needed his armor. Then he felt cold without the armor and he started cursing them, telling them that he was cold and he didn’t want to be naked.
He heard someone saying, “Oh God, oh God,” over and over again. He heard someone crying.
Somebody was touching his leg. He could barely feel it. He tried to lean his head forward to look down at his leg, but somebody blocked his view.
“You don’t need to do that right now.”
Everett looked up to see Tom’s sad eyes looking down at him. Tom had taken his helmet off. Then, those eyes turned hard, “Everett? Can you hear me?”
Everett tried to nod, but he could barely move his head.
“Everett, you need to listen to me. Mickey can’t save the leg, but he can save you.”
Everett was barely lucid. Tom had to slap him, then repeat himself several times before Everett understood. Everett raised a hand, and put it on Tom’s chest, “Ba, bae.”
“What?”
Everett had to make an effort. He stopped talking, closed his eyes, and concentrated. He spit to moisten his mouth. He opened his eyes and stared into Tom’s, “I wan’ see m’ baby.”
Tom nodded. Tom tore his eyes away from Everett’s and he looked over at Mickey, “Take the leg off.”
Everett felt somebody lean over him. It was Mickey. Mickey stared into his eyes, “I’ve got a tourniquet on your leg. There’s a lot of damage.”
“Do it,” Everett replied.
Mickey hesitated, then he nodded. He shifted back to the leg. Mickey must have given him something, because suddenly, Everett couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore.
----------------------------------------------------
Chapter Eight
Jennifer’s breath caught in her throat. She’d heard the stories from Mike, and, more importantly, from Everett, Mickey, and Tom. Mike told her about the robot that he’d killed in the necropolis, but he’d down played what he’d actually done. Everett, Mickey, and Tom hadn’t sugarcoated a thing. They’d filled her in on the details that he’d left out. Like how damn big the robot actually was.
The mech armor that Jennifer was driving was a little over sixteen feet tall, actually five meters, with the body and head large enough for even Mickey to stand in it comfortably. The monster that suddenly appeared around the curve of the canyon had her mech beat by another four feet at least. It wasn’t slow, either. You would think that something that big would move slower, but it didn’t. It moved as fast as the smaller robots had, probably faster since it had such a long stride. The combination of the mass of the robot and the speed at which it was hurtling towards her took her by surprise and she was off balance for a moment. And that moment was all it took for the great machine to get past her guard.
Instinctively, h
er muscles took over, and she clenched up, her stomach tightening like it would if she was about to be tackled without the mech armor on. Her mech reacted reflexively, dropping her center of gravity lower, and she was able to get into position to take the brunt of the force before the robot hit her.
She felt the impact of the robot’s mass through the skeleton of her armor. The robot slammed into the mech, and Jen felt like her she’d been hit with a sledgehammer. The mech lifted off its feet from the force of the impact. The foam around her collapsed as the shock of the impact was absorbed and deflected. She thought she was about to go over, but the software and the gyros of the mech kept her upright.
The mech’s feet slammed back onto the ground, and she hunched over further, and the mech responded, dropping its center of gravity even lower, the mech’s feet carving the ground as she fought to keep from being pushed further back. She could only pray that Mike and his team were far enough away that she wouldn’t crush them. Then she remembered the smaller, hunter/killer robots that she couldn’t engage as long as she was fighting off the large dreadnaught. Her worry for Mike turned into a red, hot, fury as she realized she couldn’t protect him with this robot on her. She growled as she went on the offensive.
The mech’s gauntleted hand slammed into the midsection of the robot. The robot’s armor was thick, and the bladed gauntlet didn’t do much damage to it. She flicked on the pulse laser, and started cutting into the armor, but she could tell that it was going to take too long. The thick armor of the robot was much tougher than the thick hide of the dragons. The pulse laser would eventually cut through, but Jen couldn’t stand in one place and take the punches that the giant robot was rocking the mech with. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a thermite grenade either, so she’d have to try something else. With a thought, her railgun came online, and she started shooting down at one of the knees.
The robot didn’t like that. It pounded her mech over the head, trying to find a weak spot that it could break through. It wasn’t going to be that easy though. The engineers that designed the mech had done a good job ensuring that there weren’t any weak spots to exploit. The unibody head/chest design with the gardbrace over the shoulder ensured that there were no weak joints between the head and pelvis of the mech. Between studying different types of biological armor that animals had, plus the different styles of medieval armor, project Rossum had gotten quite a few things right.
Jen just wished those same engineers could have seen their their mechanical beast in action against dragons, robots and the other beasts they’d fought since arriving here in the future. She was pretty sure there would have been drinks all around as they celebrated a job well done.
Jen wasn’t getting anywhere in the toe to toe slugfest her mech was enduring. She wasn’t gaining any ground. She had to do something different, something drastic. Jen hit it with something it didn’t expect. She used her lower center of gravity, shifted her footing, and executed a perfect, Judo Harai Goshi, sweeping hip throw. Over the radio net she heard somebody yelling, “Shit! Shit! Shit! Get out of the way!”
The world around her shook as the large robot slammed into the ground. The robot’s joints were mostly articulated like those of a human, so she moved into an Aikido Ikkyo control maneuver, controlling what would be the ‘wrist’ of the robot. She moved her hips, and the mech responded in kind, breaking off the arm of the robot where the ‘elbow’ would have been. The robot tried to lever itself up off of the ground with its one good arm, and Jen started beating the head of the robot with its own arm. She pointed at the back of the robot’s head and tried to shoot at the joint of the robot’s head between the head and cowl with her railgun. The screen on her head’s up display was suddenly covered in red and the railgun wouldn’t fire.
“What the fuck!” she screamed.
“You’ve got friendlies in the way, Jen! You can’t engage with the railgun. You’re facing us! You have to use your pulse laser!”
She slammed the back of the robot’s head until it dropped far enough that she would have a straight shot to the back of the neck. She triggered her pulse laser and started to cut into the neck. Smoke rose as the laser cut into the synthetics.
“Jen, you have another one coming at you!”
Something slammed into her back. She cursed as she realized that she was so intent on killing the first one that she’d completely forgotten that she had to worry about other threats out there, a rookie mistake. She looked at her heads up and saw another punch coming at her back that she couldn’t dodge. So she went forward instead of backward, using the force of the blow to execute an Aikido mae kiatan front roll across the back of the downed robot.
Once again she heard Mike cursing, “Fuck Jen! You need to warn us!”
“I don’t have time!”
The mech came up on its feet and she turned to meet the advancing threat. The other robot was blocked by the damaged one lying at its feet. That one wasn’t completely dead, but it was shaking like it was dancing to Jerry Lee Lewis. The other robot had a problem advancing over the wreckage. A smile played across Jen’s face as she growled. Since there weren’t any friendlies in front of her, her railgun wasn’t locked out. She raised the mech’s arm and targeted the robot’s face. Most of the sensors seemed to be there, and if the robot couldn’t see her, it couldn’t fight her.
A stream of molten, metal pellets streamed out of the rail gun. They slammed into the robots face. The armor on the face was able to deflect most of the damage, but the sensors were blown apart. Some of the pellets continued through the damaged areas of the sensor package and started to rattle around inside the robot’s head. The robot’s head jerked around as the pellets slammed into it and chewed up everything inside.
Unlike a biological, there probably wasn’t much in the head but the sensor package. More than likely, the main computer was hidden down in the torso of the robot where the armor was heaviest. Still, with the sensor package damaged, she had an idea. The robot on the ground kept trying to get up, which meant that it was perfectly positioned for her. The next thing she did had no finesse, but was right out of the playbook of the old American Wrestling Association, when wrestlers fought instead of talked. She ran up the back of the robot on the ground, leaping as she reached the highest point. The knees of her mech slammed into the chest of the standing robot. The mass of the mech slamming into the robot pushed it back on its heels, and it couldn’t’ recover in time. The robot started to topple backward, slowly picking up speed as it fell.
Jen grabbed the cowl of the robot and rode it down to the ground. As it fell backwards, she repeatedly smashed the bladed gauntlet of the mech into the bottom of the head, where the neck would be. She timed her last punch to land right when the robot slammed into the ground. The head whipsawed back and she hit it with all of the force of the mech’s mass and inertia behind the punch.
The head of the robot shot out of the cowl with a ripping, jangling sound of metal and wiring. She rolled forward with her momentum and turned quickly, ramming her pulse laser deep into the neck of the robot. She seesawed the pulse laser back and forth as smoke rose from the joints of the robot. At first, it tried to fight, reaching back for her mech. Then she hit something important with the laser, and a popping crackling sound turned into an explosion that she felt through the mech. Flames started licking around the chest of the robot, and Jennifer backed away from it so that she wouldn’t be caught up in the flames.
She realized that the first one still wasn’t dead. She could see it moving, trying to crawl toward her as it shivered and shook. It grabbed onto the smoking corpse of its brother and, with one hand and the stump of the arm, tried to pull and lever itself toward her.
Jennifer checked out her head’s up. There wasn’t anything coming toward her, so she had some time to work on the one that was mostly dead. It had worked its way up the pelvis of the other robot. Jen stepped onto the torso that was now a solid sheet of black smoke and walked over to the twitching robot. It tried to g
rab her with its one good hand, levering itself up slightly with the stump of the arm that she’d broken off.
She wasn’t having any of that. She kicked the stump of the arm so that the robot’s torso slammed back into the wreckage of its brother. She knocked away the twitching robot’s good hand, and she knelt onto its back, pressing it firmly down. She didn’t have time to experiment, and she knew that the previous technique had worked, so once again, she started cutting into the back of the neck.
She hit the neck with the laser to heat and weaken the material, and then she slammed her bladed gauntlet repeatedly into the weakened area. Finally, she was able to crush it, giving her access to the inside of the torso. She stuck her pulse laser inside and started cutting back and forth with it. The robot weakened and finally stopped moving as it died. She must have hit the same equipment on this robot, because, once again, something exploded, and smoke started billowing out of the torso. She stepped off the two burning hulks, and walked back to the team.
----------------------------------------------------
Mike watched as the grenades went off. Once again, the grenades swept the smaller hunter/killer robots off of the larger mech. The concussion grenades had caused a lot of damage, and the robots that were still able to function were trying to get their bearing back. The ones that couldn’t were lying on the ground in various states of dismemberment. Mike fully expected Jennifer to start knocking them out again. That thought was put out of his head as he watched the first dreadnaught come around the bend.
As he looked up at the giant robot, he wondered how the hell he’d ever summoned up the courage to jump on the back of one at the necropolis. Now of course, he was on the ground, looking up. It had seemed a lot more feasible when he was standing face to face with it on the second floor. Fear wasn’t something that Mike liked to admit to, considering his chosen line of work, but the outline of the the thing was huge and menacing, and he could feel the pangs of terror stitching through the recesses of his mind. The sensor package gave the robot an alien, unworldly aspect to its face. He was momentarily lost in thought as he remembered his last encounter.
