He ripped open the cabinet. There was a med pack. He stuffed it in his torn suit pocket.
Beneath it was Daz’s Silver Sig. Pristine as the day it came off the assembly line, fully loaded and ready to shoot.
Logen grabbed it.
His brother ran up to the window. Shirt torn, mud and blood plastered to his face, he had the wild look of battle. And he was trembling under the weight of a shoulder-mounted missile launcher.
“You made it!” His relief swept away as he turned to watch for enemies in the wrecked compound. “I thought you were dead.”
“Where’s Talia?”
Daz didn’t know. “Come with me.”
“I’ll sweep for survivors.”
“Then get out of there.”
Logen jerked his chin at the missile launcher. “You okay?”
“I’m fighting fire with fucking fire.”
“Sure?”
The only thing Daz hated more than carrying a weapon was using it. Causing the damage that he’d only have to stitch up later hurt his brain, or so he claimed.
“Fine.” Daz grinned with all his teeth. “These metal-plated assholes are ones I’m not in charge of reviving.”
Understood.
Lasers blackened the window around Daz’s head. He jerked back, glaring at the emerging androids, and leveled the missile. “Hurry.”
Logen headed back for the hall. “Meet you.”
“Save who you can.”
Daz fired.
The whine smacked into something and a huge explosion rocked the ground. He stumbled away, across the parade ground, the cliff-breaker a heavy weight on his shoulders.
Logen dropped into the west corridor. The androids reached the corner intersection with the north-south hall. He turned on Daz’s gun and rolled into the line of fire.
* * *
Minutes earlier...
The explosion flattened them.
A blinding, deafening light smashed through the room, shattering the window and slamming Talia into the comm. It lasted forever, and it lasted no time at all.
A white shroud encased her. For minutes, she lay on the comm, staring sideways at the gaping hole through the cement ceiling. Black smoke roared for the sky.
After a hundred years, she blinked.
It was hard to think with so much crushing silence.
Ears ringing, she forced herself off the dent her head had made in the communications panel.
Outside, a shrieking and cracking continued, like something gigantic falling across the parade ground.
Around her, the other screens blackened, cracked, and died. The speaker to Navina no longer hissed, its active light extinguished.
Talia’s shoulders stung and ached.
She pushed off the remnants of the chair and tried to stand. After a moment, the exoskeleton activated and her hover disk engaged. She moved aside her shredded patient uniform and touched her shoulders. They glittered with embedded glass.
Chaelee rose from the ground with a groan, touching her head. Blood pooled around her fingers. “I thought I was a goner.”
Her voice cracked. It was both too loud and unnaturally hushed, as though Talia’s ears were stuffed with cannon padding.
The room shuddered violently and the north wall caved in.
Chaelee scrambled out from its path; Talia floated after her, toes dragging on the ground.
Outside, at the end of the hall toward the rear of the base—to the armory—something shiny and metallic walked through the open doorway and started down the hall.
“What the hell is that?” Chaelee asked.
Talia moved as fast as her hover disk floated. Weapon. Weapon. She needed cover and a weapon. “Who cares? Keep moving.”
A red target appeared on Talia’s shoulder.
Chaelee gasped and pushed her. “Get down!”
The gun pop-popped and an electric bolt zinged between them, raising the hair on the back of her neck and singeing her exposed shoulders.
They stumbled up and Chaelee dragged her through the base, weaving between piles of wreckage.
A breeze blew through the compound, and dust. An odd stillness fooled no one.
Outside, flashes of movement told her they were no longer alone. But the almost-glimpsed shapes didn’t move like soldiers. They cast human-like shadows on the far walls, and sunlight gleamed off metal. They moved oddly, like robots.
A barrage of shots popped in the distance, in the direction they were running. Talia stopped them at the mess hall in the middle.
“We need a plan,” she gasped.
“Don’t die!”
“I meant where to go.” Running aimlessly would drive them right into their attacker’s trap.
“Go to the hover bubble!”
Good enough.
She started forward again. A noise sounded behind her. She looked over her shoulder.
In the hall behind them, one of the science androids clamped a shimmering force-baton in its pincers. The baton gleamed with enough power to push ships and skyscraper-sized dinos.
“Run!” Talia yelled.
The android touched a table with the baton.
The table yanked out of the floor and hurtled toward her, metal twisting and shrieking with conducted force.
Chaelee dodged sideways. “Duck!”
The table winged Talia. She fell to the ground.
The android moved toward her, upending more tables and throwing them aside with catastrophic, crushing force.
Chaelee turned around and ran back to protect Talia. “Hurry! If we stay here any longer, they’ll finish their work and we won’t have the chance to get your restore point remade. Let’s go!”
Talia went for Chaelee’s gun.
But Chaelee, misunderstanding her reach, yanked her forward, onto the ground.
The robot approached. Its force baton swung toward her head.
It was arrested by a gunshot.
The shot snapped the robot’s arm backward. Another slammed into its head, denting it, and a third exploded its silver chest plating.
She followed the line of fire.
Logen stormed through the bullet-ridden chaos storm, an iconic silver pistol flashing in his skilled hand, determination setting his indomitable brow. His weapon created a force of gravity, shielding her and him. Shots zapped past them, missing. His dark eyes focused on her.
The day heated to a hundred thousand degrees. Fires and explosions highlighted his rough body, rippling muscles, and focused fury. He annihilated all threats. He seemed to see her and nothing else.
Yes. She turned toward her gunner instinctively.
He raised his gun and fired.
She froze.
Behind her, another robot exploded. Its force baton crackled with deadly force, now muted by his protection.
He saw yet another behind her and shifted his aim again.
She shook herself and started for him.
Chaelee made a sound of shock and horror. “The murderer!” She scrambled for her gun and raised it at Logen.
“No!” Talia reached out to stop her.
Behind them, inside the mess hall, a robot fired.
Chaelee’s head turned blue with an arcing band of deadly electricity. She stumbled. Her eyeballs sizzled in her skull, her skin blackened, fire lit in her mouth. Her body fell forward, dead.
* * *
The robot who had shot Bad Company’s spotter adjusted its aim with a whirring sound and centered its red target on Talia’s forehead.
Fuck.
Logen raced forward, striving for the angle to end the robot before it ended Talia.
She dove toward Logen.
They fell into familiar survival patterns by instinct.
He caught her, yanking her hard behind the cover of the hall, and shot the robot, melting its face with his fury. It fell over, smoking.
His arm arrested her around the waist and his jaw brushed her forehead. Resolute, deadly. Waiting for her to spot.
&n
bsp; But she didn’t have her oculars.
More robots poured with measured, mechanical steps into the hall behind him, and more from an eastern corridor ahead. Others clambered into the windows on the distant east side of the mess hall and raised weapons, seeking his Talia.
Daz’s Silver Sig felt too small to deal with this threat. They were about to be surrounded.
“Is there anyone else inside?” he shouted.
She blinked in shock. “What?”
“Is there anyone else here?”
Shots whizzed hot past their heads.
She shook her head. “I don’t—”
Another red target appeared on her face.
He grabbed her to his chest and launched them sideways out the west mess window, onto the main parade ground.
They hit hard, and she cried out as she hit her shoulder. He rolled, trying to absorb the force as much as he could for her, and yanked her up.
She trembled in the middle of the parade ground, white-faced, gasping, and black dusted her face from the other spotter’s death. The hover attached to her exoskeleton made a grinding noise as it fought to hold her upright.
The wreckage of the comm tower closed them in like a wall. In the building behind them, the robotic firing squad drew together. He moved indecisively, uncertain which direction to go.
Her lips mouthed something. “Hover bubble.”
Shit. Of course.
He scooped her around the waist and ran for the hover bubbles. Parked beneath the comm tower, several had been crushed outright when it collapsed. Another two were missing. The last one hovered a few feet in the air and listed to the side, damaged. Its force shield blinked on and off.
They had no choice.
He skirted the wreckage, left her to rest against the ripped metal tower feet, and fought to right the hover bubble.
It fought him back.
The rounded bottom, sized to hold six full-sized mercenaries in their seats plus supplies, bucked and slammed into him, knocking the air out of his lungs.
He landed flat on his back, struggling for breath.
She looked down on him. For a moment, her image swam as he arched for the gasp, as though she were already dragged away from him, separated by a line of spirit he could never breach.
Then oxygen went in and he gulped air, his chest violently spasming.
She was still looking at him. Hopeful, worried, hurting, and desperately afraid.
He sat up to face the hover bubble again.
Shots smacked into it, blackening the metal and popping the control panels with deadly sparks.
Shit.
She pointed at the enemies pouring out of the damaged buildings, crossing the field like unstoppable metal ants. “They’re coming.”
He abandoned the hover bubble, grabbed her hands, and ran half-naked into the jungle.
Chapter Six
Talia gasped between dry lips.
Ahead of her, Logen crashed through tangled vines. The air grew dark beneath the canopy. Behind them, the shivering branches closed off, grasping fronds snapping back into position. It felt like the jungle was one massive anaconda and it swallowed them whole.
Her gaze dropped to Logen’s broad back. Powerful shoulders shoved through the growling underbrush, and the scarred shoulder blades flexed as he forced a passage for her escape. Perhaps it was okay that she traced every rippling line of muscle with her eyes and salivated. Despite his injuries, he moved with monumental determination to take her to safety.
They reached a small clearing. He bent over to catch his breath and evaluate where they were.
Having him with her once again calmed her. His powerful form moved so easily. She felt safe.
He saw her patiently waiting and pointed at an angle. “This way.”
“To?”
“The Supply Depot.”
They were practically naked with no gear. “Suicide.”
“Better than staying around here.”
Behind her, another cliff-breaker exploded the base, and another after that. The roars echoed like an angry beast, louder than the most frightening dinozoid.
“We can’t possibly make the Supply Depot,” she said. “I don’t have any navigation equipment.”
“It’s this way.”
“How do you know?”
He looked away as though trying to compose an answer.
Not an answer. A lie.
Goddammit.
She was wrong.
He had killed his last spotter. He was leading her off into the woods, away from anyone who might be left on the base. Talia was wrong about men. She couldn’t trust him at all.
She eased away. The grinding hover disk dragged her feet across oozing green lichen.
He noted her movement, took a deep breath, and straightened. “Ready to go on?”
“Oh no.” She held up her hands. “I’m going back.”
“You can’t go back.”
“Don’t threaten me. I’m armed to the teeth.”
He didn’t call her obvious bluff. “Going back is dangerous.”
“I’d rather take my chances with the enemies I know than the one I don’t.”
His face turned cold.
She turned around to return to Base One.
He reached out. “Don’t.”
“Don’t touch me!”
His outstretched hand arrested.
They stood that way for a long moment.
He finally lowered his hand. “They’ll kill you.”
“Well, then there won’t be any difference between them and you.”
His teeth clenched like white slivers between his taut lips. “I didn’t kill you.”
“Sure? You’ve got a track record for bagging spotters.”
He sucked in a breath, and said, “The androids have infrared and they’re armed. They’ll kill you before you even see them.”
“I’ll see the danger. I’m a spotter.”
“You didn’t see the danger at Base Two.”
“And you know because you made sure?”
“Talia.”
“You’re with them. The robots. You’re one of them.” She pointed at his stents. “They’re controlling you right now.”
“They who? The Wardens?”
“The robots.”
“What?”
“The robots,” she repeated, remembering too late that he didn’t know anything about the warning. “The Robotics Faction ordered you via your stents to kill me. And now you’re finishing the job.”
“But I don’t want to kill you,” he argued. “Anyway, it doesn’t work like that.”
“What doesn’t work like that?”
“The stents,” he said. “They kill emotion. They don’t give orders.”
“The Wardens order you around.”
“Their ‘orders’ are more like a compulsion,” he said. “Like when you’re so hungry you can only fantasize about food, or when you’re so exhausted you can’t keep your eyes open one minute longer. That’s how the Wardens make us act.”
“The Faction ordered you to kill me in your sleep.”
He swore. “For the last time. I don’t want to kill you, I didn’t want to kill you, and I never will want to kill you.”
“That’s funny, because I’m getting the vibe that you’re ready to kill me right now.”
“Throttle you, yes. Kill you, no.” He waved behind them. “Besides, if I wanted you dead, don’t you think I’d just have left you on the overrun base?”
“I don’t understand the twisted mind of a murderer,” she said, even as the truth of his words fully penetrated.
He looked furious enough to want to kill her. The stents probably weren’t operating right now. He wasn’t under Robotics Faction controls.
All the more reason he was dangerous.
“I’m going back with the only person I can trust. Me. You go your own way.” She turned away, lifting her feet laboriously, fighting with the exoskeleton and weakened hover disk, to
stomp away.
He looped a finger in the shred of her flight suit, stopping her.
She swallowed the pain of her shoulders and glared at him. “What?”
He lifted his gun and fired.
The bolt flew right past her nose.
She jumped and screamed.
Something gigantic leaned out of the shadows and collapsed at her feet. An unidentified species of leathery, snake-like crocodile bristling with teeth, poisoned spikes, and more teeth. It had hovered in the shadows less than a hand’s breadth from her nose and she had never seen it.
Now, a hole cratered the spot between its crossed eyes. It twitched and died, leaving a mountain of flesh up to her chest.
They both stared at it.
She was squeezing his arm. Dammit. The instant she realized, she let go.
He caught her hand. “We stay together.”
His palm was warm and enfolded her in steady comfort. She felt the ridges of scars on his knuckles. All the places he’d taken shots for her.
He and Rezo were not the same. They were opposite. Rezo went dead when he looked at her. Logen came to life.
She swallowed.
Logen’s steady dark gaze burned with promise.
Promise of how his scarred hands would feel, rough and welcome, cupping her breasts and caressing her body.
Heat blossomed between her legs, and that damned desire twisted in sweet agony.
Fine.
“Give me the gun,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “Give me the hover disk.”
Her mouth dropped open. Seriously? He knew she couldn’t move without it, and it would strand her in the jungle.
“For checking our position.” He pointed at the canopy. The hover disk would float him above the tangled mass of greenery and give him a pterodactyl’s view.
Wait. “I thought you ‘knew’ the way to the Supply Depot.”
A muscle in his jaw clenched. “I know the way generally. We veer too far and we could miss it.”
The grinding sound of the weakened hover disk was audible over the ruckus of the jungle. “It will never hold our weight.”
“I’ll be back. You stay here.”
“You’re leaving me immobile down on the ground with that?” She jerked her thumb at the dead crocodilian.
“You have the gun,” he said, as he reached out and turned her, examining the hover disk.
Resurrection Heart: Robotics Faction - Cyborg Mercenaries Page 7
