The other two marines dropped their rocket launchers and, rolling to the side, clawed at their own side arms, fighting to bring them to bear on me. Instinctively, my fingers tightened on my own triggers. A hail of fire erupted from both my weapons and struck the two men in the chest plates of their armor, probably not the best place to aim, but at this range, it made little difference. The mass of projectiles holed them efficiently, and I watched in horror as both slumped to the floor in an ever-spreading pool of blood, their internal organs pulped. I turned away to avoid retching as I slammed the guns back into their holsters.
“What the hell are these things, Kalaya? Why would you trust me with anything but non-lethals?”
“I told you they were nasty little babies, Laree, and I might point out that your opponents are most certainly not using stun weapons on you or Kodo. Like it or not, these people are trying to kill you and your friends. To answer your question, each pistol fires a ten-round burst every time you pull the trigger, and unfortunately, you used six pulls on each of them. A little overkill, but you’re nervous and not trained for this. In truth, I expected this. I thought it best since you may not be the most accurate…spray and pray at its finest!”
I forced myself to try to breathe normally as we moved past the bodies to get a better view of the battle. I knew there was still another rocket position nearby to deal with. My HUD showed me a couple dozen marines still engaging Kodo and the drones. I did manage to get a peek at our team through the fog of battle. Kodo was flitting back and forth behind cover, stopping only to squeeze off an occasional shot, most of which I had no doubt found their marks. The drones were another story; it appeared he was down to six operational units. A couple of those were scorched and burnt or had damaged limbs dangling uselessly at their sides. Unfortunately, judging from my tactical display, it appeared Kodo and his troops were surrounded and the MURGs were bringing up heavier weapons. I ducked back under cover and looked at my companion.
“You might want to reload those,” Kalaya reminded me, nodding toward my pistols. I pulled out some of the rectangular boxes that Elleen had loaded into my pouches and refreshed my weapons. “Not to scare you, Laree, but only pull the triggers when you have a target locked in. This isn’t one of Max’s video games with unlimited shots at the enemy. I really didn’t expect you to be thrown into this much action, so conserve when possible. You only have about thirty seconds of sustained fire left, not a lot.”
“It sounds like a lot,” I whispered.
“It’s not, trust me. Just breathe and try not to hold the triggers down when you fire. Squeeze once and release.” Reloading the weapons proved to be easier than I thought and I quietly replaced the empty magazines in my belt. I charged each of the pistols and reluctantly removed the safeties, readying myself for more action. Kalaya changed appearance and suddenly looked just like me, pistols and all.
“Slumming, Kalaya? What exactly are you planning to do with those? Fire imaginary bullets at them?”
She looked at me and winked. “I wouldn’t underestimate me down here, Laree. This floor is my playground and they can’t tell I’m not real unless they are using thermal sights. Now, let’s go help Kodo!”
She popped up from our hidey-hole and started blazing away. I leaned to the side and fired a quick burst of my own. I don’t think I hit anything and I know Kalaya didn’t, but we did get the marines’ attention. A heavy barrage of shots impacted the equipment that provided us shelter. The soldiers caught between us and Kodo’s forces broke cover and attempted to move to the sides. Kalaya stood up and harassed them with continuous fire of her own.
“Hey, no fair! Why do you get unlimited ammo?” I gritted as I squeezed between two bins of parts to take a shot. I even managed to hit what I was aiming at, and I only peripherally acknowledged another red icon leaving the screen.
One of the drones rumbled forward and shot a marine in the chest. Whatever munitions it was using splattered on his armor like a raw egg and immediately the man was engulfed in arcing lines of electricity. Some kind of super taser! The soldier fell to the ground in a sparkling heap and didn’t move. I briefly wondered if he was dead, and obligingly, my display popped up showing his status going from red to orange; a foe no longer in the battle. That was kind of cool, I’d have to test this think-of-information-and-have-it-instantly-supplied perk later.
Fresh troops with different kinds of weapons strapped to their backs started dropping down from the ruined tramway to the factory floor. As our little battle heated up, Kodo’s drones moved forward to try to force a hole through the encirclement before the reinforcements arrived.
Shots were routinely pinging all around me and it seemed the marines knew where I was hiding; something told me I needed to move and fast! I glanced around and located a more suitable location with better protection and a better view of the enemy just as a heavy slug grazed the edge of my helmet and ripped a hole in the control panel behind me, sending sparks flying.
“Cover me!” I called out to Kalaya. Immediately, she responded blasting away at them with her ineffectual gunfire, but still, I saw several of them diving for cover. I ran as fast as I could to my new location, but just as I slid into my new spot, pain detonated like a supernova in my arm. Fighting down the urge to scream, I settled for a loud groan as I leaned against a fabricator support and inspected my arm. Once again, my display popped on unrequested; at least, I didn’t think I requested it. I had been hit by a type of exploding bullet in the left bicep. My armor had attempted to deflect the damage, but it couldn’t shift its focus to an extremity as fast as it could to a body mass location. Once through my outer skin, the ordinance had exploded as it was designed to. What the readout showed wasn’t good – muscle, bone, and sinew were all shredded in an area as large as my fist, and I felt wetness trickling between my skin and the suit. Shaking off the display, I looked at the wound with my own two eyes. A bloody mess! Then I saw something that made a chill run down my spine; flowing into the wound cavity from my own ruined veins was a familiar silvery-metallic substance!
Blinking away tears and hyperventilating, I looked away and tried to calm my thoughts. The middle of a firefight was not the time to have another fit about the nanite problem. I steeled myself to look back at the wound; the bone and most of the musculature had already been covered over by silver latticework. Unconsciously, I flexed my left hand and it responded perfectly, as if nothing had ever happened to it. The suit was already stretching to cover the damaged area as well. Was it the suit healing me, or Kodo’s super nanites?
Setting those uncomfortable thoughts aside, I reloaded and swung around the side of the pillar sheltering me. I targeted a group that seemed to think they had already taken me out of the fight. Too bad for them, as I emptied both fresh magazines into their ranks. At a curt admonition from Kalaya across the aisle, I reloaded again and went back to short bursts. I was getting more confident with my twin pistols; the more I fired, the better I got at it. I wondered when I had become so bloodthirsty and questioned if I was really in control or if it was the army of robots flooding my bloodstream. All I knew was that I was really starting to like the feel of them in my hands – the vibrations and the strange staccato burps they made were exhilarating!
More movement from beneath the tramway caught my eye as two more soldiers dropped down. They had a decidedly different look; it appeared the MURGs that my brother was so in awe of were now in the battle. A drone veered off to engage them as they hit the floor. Dropping into a crouch, they brought their rifles up seamlessly and targeted the police drone. Four or five shots was all it took to reduce it to a smoking pile of molten parts. Crap, this did not look good; what looked even worse was when the MURGs split up, one moving toward Kodo’s position and the other toward me.
I lost sight of the one headed for me for a few moments as he dodged behind machinery, moving too fast for the HUD to register his movements. When he reappeared, it was with guns blazing almost right in front of me. Without hesitat
ion, I fired…full auto. The little micro-rounds didn’t even give him pause as they shattered against his metal plate armor. My HUD flashed a red warning as I threw my body to the right behind a stack of metal stock.
I looked up and my vision was partially obscured by a massive gun barrel aimed right between my eyes. The MURG stood over me laughing silently behind his face shield, and I watched in detached horror as he mouthed the words “bye-bye” with a cold twinkle in his eye and squeezed the trigger.
The expected shot went awry, however, as a huge round disc rocketed down from the darkness above. The forty-ton, fully energized electromagnet ripped the gun from his hand and pinned his armor against its surface as it lifted him up and away from me. I had barely recovered enough to sit up before the floor beneath me shuddered as the crane apparatus that controlled the magnet released the cable, and the electromagnet head with the armored figure still pinned, crashed to the factory floor making instant MURG paste.
“Note to human armorsmiths,” Kalaya intoned through my helmet. “When you steal an alien design, don’t cheap out and substitute ferric-based plating in your armor - bad idea.”
My friend transmitted an overhead shot of the battle onto my display. The other MURG became briefly distracted by the death of his comrade, a fatal mistake on his part. I watched as Kodo soundlessly slipped around behind him like some kind of vid ninja from hell. He performed a leg sweep and the soldier was flat on his back in less than a heartbeat. Before he could recover, the heel of Kodo’s armored boot smashed against the man’s chest plate. It didn’t buckle, but the shock and pressure apparently pulped the organs beneath and the MURG’s head lolled to the side as a stream of bright red blood trickled into a nearby grate.
The death of the MURGs seemed to have a demoralizing effect on the remaining troops, as Kalaya’s booming cold-as-death voice came over the loudspeakers. “Alright, you’ve had enough fun! Surrender now and no one else gets crushed!” To accentuate the point, several more electromagnet heads snaked down to dangle ominously above the battlefield.
“Ok! Ok! We surrender!” one of them shouted, throwing his rifle down and standing up. He was joined by perhaps half a dozen more.
Kalaya’s voice made an impatient sound. “You know, for this to work, you all have to surrender, right? Kind of an all-or-nothing deal breaker; the rest of you can come out now!” A few more marines appeared from behind cover and dropped their weapons.
I stood up and looked around warily. I was down to just a few round in my pistols, but I was determined not to be caught flat-footed again. I watched as the police drones began collecting the prisoners.
Kalaya voice sighed from above, “You boys and girls are really starting to piss me off. Ok, we’ll do it the hard way then.” My helmet picked up the sound of dozens of servos in motion. I watched in amazement as several clamping arms reached out and plucked soldiers out of places that I had no idea were occupied. Grabbing them by the helmets, she lifted twenty more skyward until they were struggling thirty feet or more into the air. “Now with just a wee bit more pressure, I could easily crush each of your skulls; care to reconsider?” Without exception, the remainder of the rifles and sidearms dropped to the factory floor with a clatter.
“Detain them," Kodo commanded as he strode to the forefront to assess the situation. Without hesitation, the drones fired their tasers at the captured marines, then cuffed them efficiently. They seemed to have an endless supply of cuffs at their disposal, too. The ones that Kalaya’s machines had in custody received the same treatment. It seemed the battle for the factory floor was over, at least.
Chapter 24
We exited the factory floor and went up a couple flights of stairs until we tapped into another of the Aurora’s main passageways. My display features showed me we were only a short distance from the breach where the marines had broken in. Of the five drones still active, three were left to guard the prisoners collected on the production floor. One was too damaged to move but could still fight and became a fixed turret of sorts.
The other two followed us to the ruined airlocks and the breach. I caught a brief glimpse outside, and Kalaya provided me with a small screen showing the action from her outside cameras. Beyond the airlock, it was chaos. With the loss of communications from the fleet, the marines outside could only fall back on their original orders to disable the cannons. Hundreds of them dueled with twenty or so wyvern units and the roving packs of maintenance drones that Kalaya had unleashed upon them. She panned to the nearby hills and it appeared that burning wreckage from several airships dotted the normally pastoral scene. Another pinwheeled to its doom, exploding in the valley below us as I watched.
“Seal the breach; lethal force authorized,” Kodo ordered, and the two drones moved to block the doorway. Nothing would get past them without a fight.
“By your command,” the pair responded in unison, as panels opened and small missile pods deployed from their sides. Additionally, hoses extended from the tanks on their backs and connected to ports on their gun arms. The tips that had previously fired the blobs of sticky taser ordinance retracted and burnt metal tips were exposed. A few marines outside the airlocks had noticed our presence by now and they charged the breach, weapons up.
The drones instantly hosed down the doorway and immediate area outside in hellish, boiling clouds of flame. I made a mental note that I never wanted to hear screaming like that again in my life. My suit must have picked up on that command because, abruptly, the sound terminated. Thankfully, there was no smell either, but the tracking device on my HUD dutifully registered more red icons fading to black.
Kalaya, who had changed back to her normal appearance, produced a pad and consulted it as she spoke, “I have a squad of maintenance drones on its way with heavy plating to seal the hole. They will reinforce both the ruined inner and outer airlocks in less than twenty minutes. Alpha Squadron has secured the front half of the ship, so our friends on the bridge are out of harm’s way. It seems we took out the bulk of the infiltrators on the shop floor.”
“What is the status of Beta Squadron?” Kodo questioned.
Beta? We have a Beta Squadron? I don’t see any Betas designated on my displays. “Is Beta another drone squad?” I interjected.
“Umm, well, not exactly.” For some reason Kalaya actually looked embarrassed. “I wasn’t expecting the humans to actually get into the ship, so I only produced the combat drones you saw gathered by the bridge, plus some light security drones for outside work. Beta Squadron is made up of a more…unconventional force.” She leveled her gaze back on Kodo. “But, yes, they are performing better than expected.”
Unconventional, huh? What does a woman who uses a forty-ton electromagnet in combat consider unconventional?
Kodo nodded and turned to me. “We need to keep moving. Without the drone support, it's just you and me, and we’ll need to split up soon. Laree, your target is the auxiliary engineering control center on Level 10; I’ll be heading for Main Engineering.”
“And what do I do once I get there?”
“Just hit a few buttons in the right order and let the nanites do the rest. Kalaya will be there to walk you through it.” He was about to turn and run, but Kalaya put her arm out to stop him.
“Kodo, we have a few moments; it would be wise to take the opportunity…” A pair of small serving drones, each carrying a tray, came careening around the corner and pulled up in front of us.
“Nice, you think of everything, Kalaya,” Kodo complimented with a wink. He started taking items off the tray in front of him and shoving them in his belt.
The little droid bumped into my leg with my tray suggestively, and I looked down to see a pile of fresh magazines for my pistols. Somehow, the sight of more ammo made me very, very happy; the thought occurred to me that I might be going insane. I greedily replaced all my empty magazines, each going into their proper slots, as well as the depleted ones in my pistols. When I was done, all that was left on the tray was a single meal repla
cement bar, still in its wrapper.”
“Umm, I’m not really hungry, Kalaya; a little keyed up for that.”
She scowled. “You were shot, Laree. Don’t think I didn’t notice. You need to eat something so that your nanites have the material to work with to repair your body. Eat up; that’s an order!”
Reluctantly, I peeled back a corner of the wrapper and commanded my visor to retract. I took an experimental whiff of the bar; it smelled like chocolate mixed with fermented fish paste! It was gross, but judging from the hardened expression in my friend’s eyes, she wasn’t going to let me slide on this one. My nose rebelled, however; I wasn't sure this stuff even qualified as food. “What is this thing, other than disgusting?”
“A nutritious blend of Quetanae vitamins, minerals, carbs, and Denibian catfish roe among other tasty things, as well as a hefty dose of rare metals. Purposely made to jump start your nanites’ ability to replicate and repair.”
“Metal? In my food?”
“Of course, dear. You have to be cognizant of the fact that you are eating for 236,000,000 now, not just yourself. In fact, if you could choke down the aluminum foil wrapper as well, they would really appreciate it.”
“Ack,” was all I managed to spit out as I crammed a chunk of the bar in my mouth. “This is truly awful!”
“Kodo doesn’t seem to think so,” she chuckled. I looked over to find three empty wrappers on his tray, and he was working on the fourth. “The man has an appetite. Even he knows the power to run that computer in his spine has to come from somewhere.”
Reluctantly, I finished off the last of the offending foodstuff as I piled my empty pistol magazines on the tray for the drone to return.
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