Invasion (Animus Book 10)

by Joshua Anderle

  “Who are these guys?” Mack asked and held his gauntlet up.

  “That insignia…” Raul muttered, his eyes narrowed and his expression thoughtful. “I think I’ve seen it before in the Nexus newsletter every now and then. That’s the crest of the WC Ark Academy in Russia.”

  “Do you think they’re here to help?” another engineer asked.

  “Do you think they could have gotten here that fast if they were?” Silas countered and took a few steps forward as one of the ark students primed their gun.

  The rest of the group saw this and spread out as the other invaders took aim. “Put your weapons down and surrender to us,” the one in the center shouted. His voice unnerved the enforcer. It sounded unnatural and weirdly gleeful like the warning wasn’t a threat or an order but some kind of formality.

  “Or you’ll attack fellow Ark students?” Luke challenged.

  The invaded tilted his head and focused on the titan. “Or we’ll kill inferior ones,” he stated and his finger squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Silas was not equipped with a helmet of any kind, let alone one with an EI visor that would have allowed him to use his battle suite, slow his perception of time, and quicken his reflexes. And yet, when he saw the light of the blot fired from the gun, he felt as if he watched it discharge slowly and move toward the group. He reacted in kind and yelled for the others to spread out as he shoved one of the engineers to the side before he broke away quickly to avoid the shot himself. It didn’t even graze his arm, but the burning heat of plasma was enough to scorch it as it passed overhead. He put it out of his mind and rolled to the side, pushed to his feet, and sprinted around the enemy soldiers. Time resumed its normal course and his breath quickened as he readied his makeshift weapon. He would have to get in close.

  The Ark soldiers began to spread out and fire at the Nexus students. One of the engineers tossed Luke his weapon, a robotic arm cannon detached from a model that was installed with a real core. But as the titan caught it out of the air, the engineer was hit and immediately fell. Anger and shock surged in and he spun and pressed the manual switch the engineer had installed in the arm that caused it to charge and fire. Three Ark fighters broke off from their group and avoided the blast. Raul raced across the court, held the rod up, and shouted to the titan, “Luke, switch!”

  He nodded, held the gauntlet up as the sides fanned out to make a shield, and ran over to the tracker. Raul caught the cannon and tossed him the electrified rod. He turned to face an invader only several yards away. The man fired and the blast struck the gauntlet, which absorbed it, but the force of the impact knocked him back. A bolt streaked from behind him and forced his adversary to dodge, which gave him an opening. Raul nodded to him and ran off to help the others.

  Luke always prided himself on his speed. Heavies weren’t exactly known for it, but even without his bounce jets, he was the fastest of them all in his armor. And without it? He reached his attacker faster than the soldier could even believe was possible. The man drew a long blade from a sheath on the back of his armor and thrust forward to stab the titan. Luke simply batted it away, took the rod, and drove it into his opponent’s chest as he pressed the trigger. The Ark soldier’s armor dulled the shock somewhat but it was effective enough that he couldn’t pull the trigger of his gun.

  Using the temporary advantage, Luke forced his opponent to the ground and kicked the rifle and blade away before he removed the rod and swung his boot onto the soldier’s chest. “You said we’re inferior, right?” the titan recalled as he brandished the sparking device in front of the man’s visor. “If you’re among the best you guys have to offer, you’re both inferior and a liar.” With that, he raised his boot and stamped it into the soldier’s helmet. The blow might have killed him or simply knocked him out, but he needed to help his friends now that he had no distractions.

  He took one more look at the beaten soldier and his eyes widened. Through the shattered visor, he saw one eye open to reveal inhumanly pale eyes with some kind of light pulsing through them.

  General Nolan watched the battle below and grew steadily more irate. They hadn’t made the progress they should have, for one thing, but the other problem was the Ark soldiers. He had given them express orders to subdue the students for reconstruction and only take their lives in extreme circumstances. But it seemed they must have not heard him correctly and seemingly did the opposite. For every student they knocked out or captured, they either killed or maimed two or three others.

  “Get Damyen on the comms,” he snapped to those around him and strode away from the monitors and to his captain’s seat.

  “Sir, he may still be in the middle of taking over his next battleship,” one of his aides informed him, only to back down when the general glared at him.

  “He should be done by now,” he stated, and his voice shifted between a growl and hiss. “And if he’s not, it would only be another show of his incompetence. He’s had all the advantages in his little raids and should be able to catch a two-hundred-crew ship within fifteen minutes of boarding. Get him on the comms.”

  “Right away, sir!” The aide saluted and ran to his station as Nolan sat and activated a holoscreen.

  It didn’t take long for the World Council Ark Academy chancellor to answer. He beamed a toothy grin and his long black hair stuck to the side of his face and neck from being trapped in a helmet. “Ah, General! Are you calling to congratulate me on my latest acquisition? I’m surprised, you know. I didn’t think I had sent out the—”

  “You haven’t, Orlov, and I need to talk to you about your students,” the general interrupted and leaned forward. “Exactly how well-trained are they, exactly? You followed the protocol in their construction, correct?”

  “All the unwilling ones, of course,” Damyen stated with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What is this about, Nolan?”

  “I gave them express orders that they are defying!” he shouted and thumped the side of his chair. “You tell me, Damyen. Is something wrong with their tuning? Perhaps they feel threatened by the Nexus students?” He tilted his head and waited for a reply from the chancellor.

  The man frowned, rolled his shoulders back, and regarded the general warily. “What were your orders?”

  “To bring the Nexus students in alive unless they lacked the ability to do so,” Nolan retorted. “They’ve mostly fired lethal rounds and made no attempt to comply. The students are one of the primary reasons we attacked Nexus first.”

  “Hmm, that and to make a statement,” Damyen recalled. “And I see the issue. Well, perhaps not an issue, but they are following my personal order.”

  “Personal order?” he demanded and stretched the words out in annoyance. “And what would that be?”

  “To only spare only those who are worthy,” the chancellor said casually. “We do not need the whelps and weaklings. Should you find the boss’ treasure, we will want to reconstruct the good ones, ja?”

  “That wasn’t for you to decide,” he countered.

  “I believe Merrick will agree with me but I am willing to take the punishment.” Damyen studied the general a little arrogantly. “Do you simply want fodder, Nolan? I want an army of humanity’s best to show any threats—including our alien ‘friends’—what we have to throw against the coming disaster.” He smiled as he studied the face of the general, who hadn’t given him an answer. “Speaking of which, how goes the retrieval of the device?”

  Nolan was silent. He sat upright in his chair and looked at a monitor next to him. “We are still searching for it right now but we will find it.”

  “Oh? Good, I’m rooting for you. Truly, if you find it, that means more soldiers for me.”

  His eyes narrowed at the chancellor. “That you are training for me, don’t forget that, Damyen.”

  “Sir! Leda has arrived,” Nolan’s aide informed him. “She has the device, sir. Should we get it ready?”

  The general looked silently at the other man before he
turned to address his crew member. “Have it prepared, but the trap we have set will be sufficient. We can use the device once the EI is trapped. It will be more efficient that way. Make sure Leda is ready. Emission transport always makes her a little…aloof once she arrives.”

  “Yes, sir.” The aide saluted once more and rushed away. He refused to look at Damyen and instead, concentrated on the fight below.

  “Damyen, whatever disagreements we may have, we both have orders to follow. I will not use any further soldiers if they will disobey orders. When Merrick asks me why, I will tell him what you’ve told me and we can see if he truly does agree with you.” He took a breath and clenched his teeth for a moment. “Are you willing to see how that turns out?”

  “It would be best not to bother,” the chancellor retorted before he chuckled quietly. “I’ll send you another group and they’ll follow your orders to the letter. As for the current batch…there are only a few dozen of them for a trial. How much damage could they do?”

  The general scowled at the screen as he watched a soldier blast a door down and be tackled by a group of desperate students. Several other invaders assisted to remove them and prepared to fire.

  “Too much damage if this is the best humanity has to offer,” he said, mostly to himself as he turned the holoscreen off and ended the communication. He crossed his legs and leaned back. It was taking time for the professor to make his play. Nolan wasn’t completely sure how it would come, but he was ready for any number of tactics. Still, he felt confident that the professor would grow desperate and use every advantage he had—including one that would become their advantage with the right cards played.

  “Prepare the main cannon, would you?” he ordered a group of soldiers in front of him. “Let’s get them properly motivated.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Dario lit a cigar and placed the burner in his pocket as he looked at the multitude of screens in front of him. Paris, Sydney, Beijing, London, Vox, Tokyo, Toronto, and many other major cities were either in the middle of a terrorist attack or a mass malfunction of droids that led to a massacre. Currently—he smiled at the ashes surrounding the room—the WC found itself significantly understaffed.

  Although he had to give them some credit. The defense and retaliation they mounted had begun to show dividends. He had been able to push most of the military and security forces down several floors and even out of the building but now, they made slow progress up again. He did, after all, have a finite number of droids at his disposal—but he was about to have a hell of a lot more, he realized when he checked his tablet and saw three dots heading his way that would arrive in a few short minutes. Those should do the trick.

  He wasn’t under any illusion that this would be enough to stop the WC from functioning indefinitely. Given that they had control of the planet’s entire military, they could brute-force their way in soon enough. The AO could probably do some damage to that military might but that would be a bad play for the future. And that was what this was all about, wasn’t it?

  The assassin pushed himself away from the console and headed to the hangar. Damyen should have made his latest acquisition by now and would begin his tour within a day. The other Ark Academies wouldn’t be as well defended as Nexus and their Animus systems would be more malleable for their purposes. All the tests Jensen and Juro had run proved that their current system would be sufficient in those students’ reconstruction…with a few casualties, of course.

  Still, these were acceptable statistics. That was always the important metric of war.

  Another wave of pain swamped Kaiden as he and his team reached a clearing with the main entrance to the docks only a few yards and many droids away.

  “Kaiden!” Chiyo gasped as the ace fell to one knee. Genos helped him up as Jaxon and Cameron took point and began to fire and clear a path.

  “I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine, right, Chief?” He looked up to see a slightly faded version of the EI’s avatar but he nodded.

  “Still, the disruptions are increasing. We need to deal with this thing before everything gets discombobulated and all that junk.”

  “Not to jinx us, but why are our weapons still functioning?” he asked and glanced at his gun to double-check that it still was.

  “Whatever these energy readings are, they are targeting systems. The more complex they are, the easier they are to disrupt. Energy and kinetic weapons are complex in their own right, but no system controls them, at least not the models you have.”

  The ace swayed a little on his feet and shook his head as he and Chiyo joined Jaxon and Cameron in the fight. “This is one of the few times Wolfson’s love of old and archaic things proves helpful.”

  “Look over there—guards!” the bounty hunter shouted. A group of several security officers was engaged in a fight with bots farther down the harbor. “Do you think they are here for that device too?”

  “They could simply be trying to clear the area,” Jaxon suggested. “Although it would be a fool’s errand with how many are coming from the water.”

  “Whatever they are here for, we have more firepower with them. Let’s help them!” Kaiden led the others toward the heated battle and Genos and Chiyo covered their flank. The bots seemed relentless, but as more students fought back or distracted them, it gave the group enough room to make their way to the officers. Once there, however, they had a little difficulty actually helping as now, all the droids’ main threats were grouped together in one position, which made them a tempting target.

  “What are you doing here?” one of the guards shouted, vented his machine gun, and drew his pistol to fire with that while his gun cooled.

  “We wanted to ask you that,” he replied, eliminated a leaping droid, and hastily dodged a spike. “We want to locate the device that’s causing all these malfunctions and power drops.”

  This seemed to get the guard’s attention. He vented his pistol while he snapped the one on his machine gun shut and continued to fire. “Where is it?”

  “Long story—we’re kind of feeling it out.” He saw an arrow appear in front of him and point him farther down the wharf. “Down at the warehouses close to the edge of the island.”

  The man nodded and glanced at his team. “We need that device located and shut down. Try to contact the head officer.”

  “Wolfson? Did you see him?” Kaiden asked.

  “He’s the one who sent us here to get the ships ready to help with evacuations,” the officer stated. “But getting the thing that’s causing all these problems is a priority. We can’t get ships in the air or in the water if they don’t function.”

  “That’s definitely the right idea,” he agreed. “The name is Kaiden Jericho.”

  “Call me Haldt,” the man replied. “Kaiden, huh? Wolfson’s mentioned you to some of the other officers and it’s gotten back to me. You’ve impressed him.”

  “I hoped the pain was worth something.” A net was fired at them but the officer drew a blade and sliced it cleanly. “We need to get away from these things. There are too many to stand and fight them.”

  “And the ones with fresh shields aren’t budging.” The officer looked down the harbor for a moment. “Come with me. Everyone, form up and keep them at a distance. I have a plan.”

  The ace nodded. He certainly didn’t have one at the moment. The group began to run as one and followed Haldt along the piers. He turned hard right into the warehouses and ran down the trails. Kaiden wondered if he knew where they kept the spare weapons and thought that Sasha or Chiyo might think of him as having tunnel vision right now. The truth, though, was that he didn’t see an alternative other than simply shooting more with bigger guns.

  The security officer, however, did seem to have an alternative. He found the warehouse he was looking for and began to open the gate while members of his and Kaiden’s team kept the droids at bay and dodged their attacks. “Quick, in here.”

  “What? We’ll be literally boxed in,” Cameron shouted. He scowled at the att
ackers and fell back when several darts whistled over his head and thunked into the warehouse walls behind him.

  “Trust me. Get in and head to the back.” He pointed to two of his teammates. “Kara, Eckles, get your remotes primed.”

  The two nodded and reached to their belts as they ran into the warehouse. Kaiden was the last to enter and Haldt shut the door behind him. He removed several small, circular devices from his belt.

  “I’m fairly sure the door will only hold them for seconds rather than minutes,” the ace pointed out with his gun aimed at the door.

  “I’m counting on them getting in here,” the man replied as he activated the disks and began to place them on boxes and barrels. “Get to the back. There is another exit.”

  He nodded and didn’t hesitate despite his confusion. Kara and Eckles placed their small circles on other items around the warehouse and he realized they were mines. When he saw what they were sticking to, he smiled.

  The door in the front began to give way under the assault as one of the other officers ushered him out of the back door. The three inside hurried through behind them before Haldt shut the door and Kara and Eckles retrieved their detonators.

  Haldt held his up as the entire group ran and called out a countdown from five. When he reached zero, the three pressed their switches and the warehouse behind them erupted in a massive explosion that engulfed the buildings around it in mushrooming flame. Kaiden looked back but turned away quickly and began to run faster when he saw debris begin to plummet from above. The warehouse had been filled with chemical runoff and explosive material from the tech and engineering departments that had yet to be properly disposed of.

  It wasn’t an entirely acceptable way to dispose of it, but he decided he wouldn’t bring that up.

  “Well, that should give us a little time to breathe,” Haldt said and looked at Kaiden over his shoulder. “Can you lead the way?”