by Dante King
Getting through would mean hitting the construct until Ebon punched through it. Suddenly, the mech furthest from me turned 30 degrees to its right and opened up with its minigun. At the same time, the nearer mech started firing a dotted line down the carved stones toward the center of my chest.
I tucked Ebon against my forearm and jumped clear of the stream of enemy fire. The world spun as I tumbled in midair. The pilot sneered. On my second revolution, I saw Beatrix diving for cover behind a supply box that was quickly being dissolved under a hail of ionized bolts from the minigun.
Beatrix tried to get up but caught some sparks in her tentacles and ducked. Her tentacles curled in upon themselves, becoming a nest of writhing snakes. Reaver and Yaltu were shooting the mech, but Beatrix was pinned down. I had to trust Reaver and the others to handle the situation while I dealt with my own mech.
I still had the advantage because I hadn’t shown him what I could do. So far as he knew, I was a dangerous man with a sword. Also, I was just a human. I charged with all my strength, and the pilot continued firing, but wasn’t nearly fast enough to get me in his crosshairs. I jumped at the last second and slammed the energy shield with a two-handed swing.
When I hit, I staggered the machine, causing it to take several steps back and cartwheel its arms to keep from falling. I followed the hit with several quick slashes from Ebon and weakened the shield enough to break through it. Then, there was nothing between me and the mech but air and opportunity.
I sheathed Ebon and grabbed the mech’s leg just as a hidden panel in its chest opened up, revealing what looked like a flamethrower. I stuck out my right leg and leveraged the big machine over my hip, sending it crashing hard to the ground on its canopy.
I slashed again and shielded my eyes against a sudden shower of blue sparks.
A loud clang told me that Beatrix and Reaver were fighting back. Yaltu was providing cover fire while Skrew yelled obscenities at the pilot. They had their mech handled, it was time I ended mine.
I drew Ebon, climbed onto the back of my target, and thrust the blade deep into the mech’s back.
The armor was just as tough on its back, but after a couple of shoves, Ebon hit an open spot, and a scream from somewhere within told me I’d found the pilot.
I turned to see the others still struggling with their mech, so I grabbed the minigun from the defeated mech at my feet. I tore the weapon from the arm with a decisive tug, but the power inside the gun went out.
“A little help here!” Reaver yelled.
I turned the massive minigun over in my hands and almost discarded it. Without power, it was useless, but I did have something that could provide power. The Fex, the little marble-sized power source I’d taken from the Enforcer. It was how he’d powered his plasma shield the Enforcers used. I removed an oversized backup battery from the minigun and slipped the Fex into the slot. The marble power source was too small to fit, but it latched onto the weapon like a magnet. The minigun’s cables that had been attached to the mech’s arm wrapped around the Fex like a bundle of rubber bands.
Then the minigun whirred to life.
“Take cover!” I yelled. My friends looked at me in confusion before their eyes widened at my new weapon. It took them half a second to scatter behind boxes.
The surviving mech turned to face me, but I had it in the sights of my new weapon. I aimed the minigun and used my whole hand to pull the oversized trigger. The multi-barreled weapon spun so hard, I forced myself into a half-crouch to keep a stable stance. There was no recoil, but the blastwaves rattled the walls and made my bones shiver.
Energy lanced away from my weapon in a white torrent. It tore into the last surviving mech’s energy shield and shorted it out in seconds. I kept my hand squeezed on the minigun’s trigger as projectiles peppered the mech. A small explosion and a lot of sparks announced that it was destroyed and that its pilot was dead.
I removed the Fex from the minigun and dropped the smoking weapon to the ground. It was broken beyond repair, but the Fex didn’t look any different.
“Well, aren’t you a handy little thing,” I said to the Fex before I pocketed it again. “Everyone who can fly one of these things, grab a hoverbike,” I ordered the others. “Those who can’t, get on the back. We need to leave now!”
Reaver tossed me a matrix. “Right behind you, Paladin.”
“Don’t think you can leave me behind,” Beatrix said.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said as I dropped the matrix into a hoverbike’s panel. It powered up and lifted from the ground.
Chapter Thirty-Two
My stolen hoverbike accelerated smoothly once it warmed up. At first, it vibrated a bit, and I was reminded of old movies I’d watched when such modes of transportation never left the ground and relied on the explosions of flammable oils.
We moved of the barracks and through the streets, over, around, and, sometimes, through the stalls of vendors. The streets were chaos. Aliens screamed, dove for cover, and even threw things at us. I ducked under guylines and turned an entire food stall into splinters as I plowed through it.
Reaver had Yaltu and Skrew with her. She wouldn’t be able to maneuver as well, but that left Beatrix and me free to fight anyone who might get in her way.
The streets along the city’s edges appeared to be ad-hoc rather than planned. Sometimes, they ended in dead-ends. Other times, they snaked between permanent buildings, stalls, and what looked like a somewhat-recent wreckage of a starship. The green-metal hull was riddled with burn-throughs and carbon scoring. That one hadn’t gone down of its own accord. Someone had shot it down. Likely, it had also fought back.
“Danger close!” I called out as guards closed in from the side streets to block our progress.
Beatrix twisted her accelerator hard, and she narrowly avoided deadly bursts of red energy. The enemy fire burned a hole through a stall, a hapless customer, and a deserving vendor selling hooked weapons for people to toss into the arena.
Skrew was also doing his part. With four arms, he was able to pick up and throw things at passersby. He took particular interest in harassing, harming, and, sometimes, killing vendors. His brutality was only limited by what he could find. He even managed a kill using a small, yellow gourd.
I leaned back in my seat as I drew my sword. With my right arm fully extended, I flicked my wrist and used Ebon to neatly bisect a guard’s frown, top to bottom.
Enemy hoverbikes joined the pursuit, but they were still too far away to worry me much. I could make a shot from that range, but I doubted they could. So far, I hadn’t seen anything even resembling marksmanship from Brazud’s finest. The guard on the back of a dual-mounted hoverbike lifted a three-foot-long cylinder from his back.
A rocket launcher.
Well, that was one way to offset an inability to aim.
The guard shouldered the weapon and aimed it in my direction.
I steered my bike around a stall, cornered, and tried to shake off our pursuers. We emerged from a peaceful-looking street, knocking things over, causing people to scatter, and blowing wares off tables.
I needed to keep the enemy from getting a bead on me. But that would just invite the rocket to lock onto Reaver’s hoverbike. She wouldn’t even see it coming. I cursed and glanced behind me again. The soldier was grinning with a mouthful of broken teeth as he prepared the rocket launcher to fire.
I snatched a clay pot from a fuzzy vendor’s hand as he scrambled out of the way. I tossed the pot over my shoulder, and I heard it crash against a hoverbike. A string of curses followed. Then, I used Ebon to cut every guyline along our path. A few tarps and sunshades got in the hoverbikes’ way.
When I checked over my shoulder again, the guard holding the rocket launcher was leaning to one side, trying to make sure his shot was clear of the pilot. I glanced forward once more, took note of the environment, the turns I’d need to make, and the obstacles in my way. I sheathed Ebon before I turned back to the guard.
My first turn was coming up. First, hard to the left, then a gentle arc to the right, before another hard left. A plume of fire erupted from the tube’s far end. The missile left the barrel, and time slowed. I was still getting used to being able to think much faster than a normal human, but my mind was racing as I examined the rocket launcher in detail.
The device was crude and rusted, but the missile was still accurate. It turned and looped to maintain course to its target—me. At the last possible moment, I reached out, taking care not to get my hand anywhere near the front propellor,. I spun my body around while keeping the rocket far away to help maintain its airspeed. Then I threw it behind me.
I didn’t aim for the guard. Nor did I aim for his hoverbike. Instead, I aimed for a spot just in front of them. The hoverbrikes had nowhere to go, though one tried to outmaneuver the missile. The vehicle ended up running headlong into a stone building in an explosion of acrid smoke.
I turned my attention forward with just enough time to veer away from a stone arch between two buildings.
“Close one!” Beatrix said. “Do not lose your head, or the king will have nothing to hang you by!”
“The king can try,” I shot back, “but if I get the chance, I’ll hang him from his balls!”
She laughed as she smashed another ambushing guard’s head who’d gotten too close.
A second later, we passed three guards in terrible shape. They’d been torn to pieces in a pool of acid and graying blood. One moaned and held a bone that punched straight out of his eviscerated leg. The third scraped at his face and screamed desperately he tried to drag off the acid.
The tail of a black dragon disappearing around a nearby corner gave me a clue as to what had just happened.
I caught sight of Gold and Silver fighting a few guards. The enemies were backing away in an organized line as they lanced the dragons with red energy projectiles. Gold kept fighting, kept driving herself toward her enemy. Silver tore at guards with teeth and claws.
Good to see the dragons were getting their own share of the action.
I drew Ebon, searching for targets, but as the rest of my team was in front of me, there weren’t a lot to choose from. I slowed myself to pick off the stragglers and watch our backs. I couldn't allow another guard with a rocket launcher to come up behind us undetected.
Skrew got a scare when he threw a food storage canister at a vendor's stall and saw an explosion. Yaltu reached back and held onto him to keep him from falling. He quit picking things up after that and looked back to me, obviously shaken. He’d done his part, and I’d thank him later.
Reaver’s hoverbike pitched around the corners, and I noticed she’d learned something. The art of drifting. Occasionally, she’d swing the ass-end of her hoverbike out far enough to clip an unaware guard with the sharp bits of the bike near the engines. She managed to snag an enemy soldier and drag him several hundred feet before he tore free. I finished him off by shoving my hoverbike down as I passed over him, grinding his body into the dirt.
It was teamwork at its finest, and I was glad to have her back.
Beatrix fought like she had in the arena—like everything in the universe depended on her savagery. She smashed heads with her warhammer, drove straight through unarmored opponents, and wiped blood and viscera from her face.
We hauled ass around another corner, and I found that we were almost at the gates. Smashing through it was low-percentage, though, so at least one of us would have to dismount to unlock and open the damn thing.
The soldiers at the gates glanced at each other, and started to run. I’d already thought Brazud’s soldiers were terrible, but this was something else.
“Follow me!” I yelled.
I jammed the accelerator and shot toward the gate. I bailed from my hoverbike and hit the ground rolling. I was still rolling when I heard the explosion of my vehicle crashing into the gate. I didn’t think I’d destroyed the metal barrier, but it would be easier to knock down when the time came.
When my tumbling slowed, I planted my feet, drew Ebon, and looked toward the gate. My hoverbike had punched a hole big enough to ride another hoverbike through.
The gate was open.
An explosion to my right almost knocked me off my feet. I realized then that the soldiers outside the gates hadn’t been running from us, they were running from the reinforcements.
Three arrowhead-shaped fighter skiffs glided over the streets on a carpet of acrid smoke. All three were painted black with yellow trim. Weapon pods extended on their upper halves and appeared to have been designed to fight other skiffs rather than engage ground targets.
They were close enough that I could see the shapes of the vrak gunners at the pods under transparent canopies. Good. If it was a computer system doing the shooting, I’d need to take out the entire vessel. With living gunners, all I had to do was make them not living.
“Go!” I yelled to my friends on their bikes.
As Beatrix rode her bike toward the gate, she held a hand out to me. I took it as she passed, and the force nearly broke our grip, but I was able to swing myself onto the back of her vehicle. She lifted her tentacles almost straight up, helping give me an unobstructed view of my surroundings.
We had made it through the gate, and while Reaver, Skrew, and Yaltu were on their bike a few dozen yards ahead.
The enemy skiff’s particle cannons opened up, and the ground exploded around us. The hostiles began to anticipate our moves, firing where they expected us to be and shooting targets around us. Beatrix juked to avoid them. I knew it was only a matter of time before they got a lucky shot.
My hands ached for the minigun I’d used in the garage. If I’d had a way to shoot-down the skiffs, I would have done it. They were too fast to throw anything at and expect to hit. The largest one was too heavily armored to swat it from the sky with a tree or power pole. Even our rifles would be useless against such heavily armored and shielded vehicles.
I needed a really big gun, but the only ones nearby were…
On top of the skiffs themselves.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I’d already seen how a Fex could power a minigun stripped from a mech, so I figured I could do the same with a gun from the enemy skiffs. I could strip one away and still be able to provide it power with the little marble.
“I need to get on top of one of their skiffs!” I said to Beatrix as we raced through the city outskirts. People peered out from within scrap metal huts to watch us, but they soon fled when they heard the enemy skiffs.
“Are you insane?” she demanded.
“It’s that or get vaporized!”
She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder to see where they were. Then she looked ahead and nodded toward a transmission tower.
We were outside the city walls now, but we still had to get through the outskirts.
I raised my knees, planted my feet under myself, and waited for my opportunity.
“Now!” she said as she slammed on the brakes and ducked low.
I launched myself over her head, hit the roof of a nearby building, and jumped again to a higher ledge. The metal of the structure buckled under my grip as I heaved and launched myself further upward. A quick glance told me that the enemy skiffs were still prioritizing my squad. They hadn’t seen me leave the hoverbike.
They were in for a hell of a surprise.
I caught the transmission tower near the top, straightened both my arms, and stuck my body out like a flag in a stiff breeze. When the last skiff approached a second later, I relaxed my left arm, lowered my body a bit, straightened it again, and let go as I performed one aerial cartwheel before landing hard on the craft.
I took three big steps and planted my foot behind the gunner’s canopy. I drew Ebon in one movement and decapitated him. I sheathed my weapon again, then caught hold of the particle cannon on the front of the skiff. My muscles strained against junkyard hydraulics until the support gave under my grip.
Then I ripped the big cannon fr
om its mount. I kept an eye on the other two smaller skiffs and the brightly colored leader as I fished the Fex from my pocket. The trailing cables snaked toward my pocket to search out the tiny orb. The wires wound themselves around the small orb as if they had a life of their own. Circuits began to form, and wires attached themselves together in patterns. The cannon grew warm, and I heard the most beautiful sound in the world as the hum of firing capacitors vibrated through my body.
I planted my feet as the skiff pilot tried to throw me off. One of the skiffs was in pursuit behind the one I was riding, likely preparing to take a shot once they reached a better angle. They wanted to kill me rather than shooting down one of their own skiffs. It seemed they’d realized I was more of a danger than my friends on hoverbikes.
I quickly inspected the weapon, found a cover plate, and ripped it off with my fingernails. Underneath was a button—the manual fire. The buttons were usually used in factories for testing the weapons before they were sent to the shipyards for installation. Most of the time, they were left in place and simply covered to keep curious fingers from touching them. I felt lucky that the designers of this particular weapon had thought the same way.
I held the cannon to my side, aimed it as best I could from my hip, and pressed the button. Both the recoil and the heat from the plasma bolt hit me like a punch. Bright energy filled the air as my stolen cannon roared in my hands. The skiff to my right exploded in a cloud of fire before it slammed into the ground. I wasn’t sure I’d have any eyebrows left after that shot, but I didn’t care.
The second skiff decided it was better to flee, but I lined the cannon up a second time and fired. The second explosion was just as beautiful as the first. I held the cannon in one hand, moved down the skiff, and punched a hole through the glass cockpit. The pilot screamed as I pulled him up and tossed him onto the ground below. I jumped down from the descending vehicle, and it crashed to the ground behind me before it exploded.
