“Perhaps you could, sir,” Isaac said encouragingly. “We’ll see how long it takes you to eliminate this assailant.”
Lycan marched out of the building and sneered at a trio of fighter ships that rocketed down from above. He drew his cannon from his waist holster and charged it while he aimed at the one in the middle. When he fired, the orb traveled much faster than any normal cannon blast and pounded into the underside of the ship. A brief flash of orange lines coursed through the vessel before it exploded. The blast caught the ship on the right and inflicted enough damage that it began to spiral and crashed into a nearby building. Despite being thrown off course by the force, the remaining ship was able to right itself and break away.
The large man huffed as he walked past a couple of soldiers who stared at him in shock. He gazed coolly at them as he charged another shot. “Man the cannons and eliminate their air support,” he ordered as he fired at another ship to sheer its wings off. He grinned when it plummeted. “And mind your heads.”
They nodded and ran off as his comm link activated. “What is it, Cascina?”
“I’m tracking a sniper and he’s rather nimble, I have to say,” she explained. He could hear a click over the comms as she reloaded. “But more importantly, I have the triangulate array online. It looks like we still have a more than two-to-one advantage.”
“You got it online?” he questioned. “What about Raz? The tech stuff is why we keep him around!”
“He might still be busy with the tampering,” she suggested. “The main cannons are still down—the two remaining, anyway.”
He clenched his teeth and stared out over the battle. As much as he wanted to literally jump into the fray, if any of them would fuck this up, it would be Raz. “I’ll head back in and take a look,” he stated and spun to return to the building. “Jalloh can keep an eye on the troops.”
“He’s already inside,” Cascina told him. “He never left.”
Lycan scowled. “Why?”
Magellan placed the last of his explosives against an important-looking machine. He had to admit he was essentially playing by ear right now and most of this equipment wasn’t something he was familiar with. But these were powerful explosives. He was sure he would damage something of value.
He left the room, checked the hall, and drew his rifle to shorten the barrel. “Ladies, I wanted to let you know I’ve primed the explosives,” he announced over the link. “Are you both in position?”
“If our map is correct, I should be in the robotics facility in only a couple of minutes,” Cyra replied.
“We’ve taken the security center,” Chiyo stated, breathing heavily. “We’ll be set up soon.”
“Are you all right, Chiyo?” he inquired when he noted her labored speech.
“I’ll be fine,” she promised. “But I’m glad I spent more time getting used to the suite.”
Cyra laughed over the comms. “Time well spent, eh?” Her jovial tone changed quickly to one of concern. “Uh…Chi, do you mind making a quick change to focus on clearing my path?”
“I can. What’s wrong?” She gasped. “The connections have changed. They aren’t on the main systems anymore.”
“What does that mean?” the bounty hunter asked as he picked up his pace.
“It means she can’t shut anything in this sector down,” Cyra replied. Laser fire crackled over her comm. “I can’t get control of the defenses over here, and more droids are heading our way. Someone was waiting for us.”
“I’m on my way!” He grasped his rifle in both hands and sprinted down the hall until he found an elevator, blasted the doors off, and leapt down the shaft.
Kaiden yanked his plasma blade out of the Arbiter droid’s head and slid it into its container before he twisted and raised his rifle when he heard numerous footsteps behind him. He released a relieved sigh when he saw the black and dark-blue colors of the Halos and Kit leading the group.
“It’s good to see you made it in all right,” he said and nodded to her. “Are you heading to the main base?”
“Yeah. We’re behind schedule already,” she replied and continued to run as he kept pace. “My guess is the others are already in position but no matter how good they are, someone will realize something is wrong eventually. I’d rather have the place locked down and ready to blow before they decide to turn that army around.”
“I won’t argue.” He caught the attention of a few Riders and Kings along the way and indicated for them join the group. “We’ll help you make up for the lost time. It might not be the most covert approach, but considering we have the cover of—” A large explosion detonated on the roof of a building several yards away and two jockeys jetted away in its wake. “Yeah, the cover of all of that, I think we can afford to be loud.”
“It’s a mixed bag,” she responded as they ran to the far wall to try to inch around the center of the fighting. “It might act as a cover, but the two potential entries we hoped to use are both surrounded by hostiles. It basically means a death march if we try to use them now, so do you have any other suggestions?”
He gave it some thought and sighed. “I guess it all depends on what we see when we get closer, but I have to ask, how do you feel about vents?”
“I’m claustrophobic,” she replied. He couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. “Do you have any other suggestions?”
The ace lowered a hand to his belt. “I have a few thermals left. If you have something that can juice them up, maybe we can blow a hole in the wall?”
She retrieved some kind of pronged device from her own belt and nodded. “We’ll go with that.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dario sat on the edge of Tory Harper’s bed and waited with growing impatience while her body disintegrated with faint pops of amber light. The female golem sat in a chair across from him. Blond hair began to emerge from its skull. Its eye shape contorted and the color changed from a pale white to the council member’s sapphire blue.
He yawned, more out of boredom than weariness. This would make three so far and it should hopefully take less than a day for him to complete the fourth and final transformation. One would think people with this degree of political clout would have better security. It really would have been far more interesting if they had. Well, it was probably time for him to check-in, which would no doubt bring a measure of satisfaction. He wanted to surprise Merrick with his swiftness but he also had time to burn.
When he turned his connection on, he saw a number of messages appear in his HUD. One from Nolan, a few from Jalloh, and finally, Merrick. When he opened his boss’ message, all he received was a video feed which revealed that their Fenris facility was currently in the middle of a siege.
Apparently, the world had caught fire in the last few hours. He sent a message to Merrick. What do you need?
Get going, was the instant reply. He stood and the cigar was immediately enveloped in nanos that dispersed in seconds. The golem would complete its transformation successfully without him so there really was no reason to not leave and board his ship.
Cyra tried to aid the limping hacker but he was dead before she could reach him. Instead, she was grabbed from the back and hauled behind the defensive barrier.
Several of her team fired at the advancing droids, while the others tried to take control of the turrets, emergency doors, or anything else that might swing the tide in their favor. Their efforts proved fruitless.
“Are we locked out?” she asked and looked around for any possible means of escape. Thus far. they’d merely been stopped from advancing, but if they activated the defenses behind them, they would be trapped. She had to make a decision soon.
“More or less,” one of the hacker’s confirmed, his voice tight with frustration. “It’s more like we can’t get hold of anything in the first place. Every time we are close to gaining entry—or hell, simply try to shut them down—the system switches to a new array.”
Whoever had taken control of the defenses in this se
ctor constantly bounced the control signals of the defenses to several different arrays, a rudimentary but very effective defense against hackers, at least in a small space. She could probably gather the info for the different arrays and find a workaround, but while the team was currently getting mowed down, she didn’t exactly have the time.
Several shots whined overhead but from their side, this time. They hammered into a few of the droids and felled them while another two destroyed the blaster turret that peppered their barrier. Magellan advanced, reached behind him for a cylinder attached to his pack, and threw it to her. She caught it and understood what he wanted to do as soon as she recognized it. He helped the other hackers keep the attackers at bay while she worked on the emitter to alter the output vector and energy conversion.
“It’s ready!” she yelled. The bounty hunter hustled the group behind the barrier to a safer position around the corner as Cyra activated the device and raced to join them. The emitter glowed brightly before it suddenly went dark, along with all the lights, barrier, and remaining droids that simply froze, lost power, and collapsed.
One of the hackers looked around the corner, his head tilted in bemusement. “An EMP?”
“Technically, it’s an emission device to power my weapons and armor,” Magellan explained. He removed a small box and placed it into a slot on his rifle before he powered it on again. “I worked with a hacker before who jerry-rigged it into an EMP device in the past. I kind of hedged my bets that you knew how to do the same thing.”
“Fortunately, that was a basic lesson back in my days at the Academy but it’s been a while since I had to dust it off.” Cyra chuckled as she retrieved a shielded charge with several lines, drew one line out, and connected it to her gauntlet. She offered the others to the group. “Restart your systems. We have to move. I’m sure whoever sent those bots after us is doing the same in the facility.”
A few of the hackers took the extra lines and connected them to their charging ports. Others had their own devices to quickly restart their armor and gear. Magellan removed the box from his rifle once it had reactivated and placed it on his helmet. “I’ll go ahead and take care of the sneaky little bastard who’s waiting for us.”
She nodded. “Be careful. I’m sure they have backup, and the EMP was only a temporary fix. The droids and defenses will be back online soon.”
“Understood.” He nodded and began to walk away before he called over his shoulder. “If you could recover and join me sooner rather than later, it would be much appreciated.”
“We’ll be right behind you,” she promised. “We still have a job to do.”
Kaiden, Kit, and her team all stood well back as a massive explosion powered through the right side of the ground floor of the stronghold central building. When the smoke cleared, a few droids stepped out of the new entrance and paused to scan for a disturbance.
“Good Lord. They never end,” he muttered as the invaders raised their weapons but a hail of laser fire swept into the droids. They held up much longer than he would have thought, although the constant barrage didn’t give them the time to react. The mechanicals withstood the assault for a few seconds before they succumbed, and Kit raised a hand to stop the attack and move forward.
The group ventured inside as another loud explosion erupted in the battle.
“Shit!” the head officer shouted over the comms.
“Wolfson?” Kaiden called frantically. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine but I had to bail from my ship.” He sounded furious.
“Do you need back up?” the ace asked as Kit and a few of the hackers looked back.
“I’ll be fine, boyo.” The assurance was followed by a large clang, probably from Wolfson drawing his shotgun. “I wanted to get my boots on the ground anyway. They might have taken my ship but that doesn’t mean my count will drop.”
“All right.” He nodded. “I’m with Kit. We’re inside the building. Let me know if you need any backup.”
“You’re in? Good, but be wary. I saw some big bastard shoot down a couple of ships earlier on. Before I could return the favor, he stormed inside, so be on the lookout for him along with anything else.”
Wolfson—the giant—described the man as a big bastard? If he thought he was big, God help a normal person who encountered him. If he was already inside, he was either trying to round up more soldiers or… He looked at the Rider and King troops. “You stay with her. I have to go.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.
“I think you were right. They have already learned about the other teams,” he stated as he broke into a jog and tried to contact Chiyo. “And they are taking action.”
“The prisoners are secure!” one of the hackers called as he checked the group of six techies who had surrendered and were currently being guarded by a trio of hacked repurposed droids that aimed cannons at them.
“Good. Now we can focus on taking control of what we can,” Chiyo stated and focused on the darkened area of the map. “We’ll need Cyra to get that sector of the building back onto the main system, though.”
A loud thud on the door startled them all. Two of the droids approached and readied their weapons as the pounding continued. She tried to check the cameras, but they were all blown out or disabled, ironically by their own actions. The noise ceased but two more droids approached, along with some of the hackers with their weapons drawn. It was frighteningly quiet now, but as she drew her own weapon and walked closer, she could hear a distinctive beeping.
“Get back!” she yelled a split-second before an explosion ripped the doors off. They careened into one of the droids and flattened it against a wall. Two orbs hurtled in through the smoke, detonated, and destroyed several of the robots. Two of the hackers were also caught in the blast and they shrieked in pain as their armor melted against their skin.
One of the prisoners tried to flee and was instantly felled by the guards, but the others used the chaos to escape as the droids flipped their aim constantly from them to the new threat. One of the Halos ordered the mechanicals to stop them, but when they fired after the retreating prisoners, their attacks were blocked by a large red shield.
A large man walked through the entry holding the projected barrier and snarled when he looked around the room. He sneered at Raz’s unconscious body. “Dammit, you had the easy job,” he muttered as he refocused on the room and brandished a cannon—one a normal person would have to hold in two hands, but he wielded like it was a personal hand cannon.
Chiyo activated the defensive turrets. They dropped from above and aimed at the intruder, but he simply raised his weapon as their shots were absorbed by his shield. He fired and caught a couple of the turrets but the impact of the attack destroyed the ceiling. The remaining Halos scrambled to avoid the lethal metal pieces that plummeted as the overhead structure caved in.
She fell back as metal bounced off her armor. The ground rumbled and she glanced at the giant. He stared curiously at her but also seemed more than a little angry.
“That wasn’t a smart move, techie.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Magellan was able to crack the door to the facility open. He placed both hands on the left door and shoved hard and was able to force one side apart enough for him to enter. The enhanced vision of his visor guided him as he walked into the bowels of the facility. Ahead of him, large racks appeared to be assembly lines for parts and armor. He inspected them quickly. Most pieces were in various states of assembly, but what unnerved him was that when he looked farther down the lines, he found massive racks with numerous droid units ready for final construction.
What they were fighting out there seemed to be only a third of what was possible if they had attacked even only a few days later. It reminded him of how often luck and foresight could play into winning a battle.
A few metallic items clinked along the floor behind him. He flinched but didn’t immediately turn. His opponent wouldn’t be so careless and probably tried d
eliberately to draw his attention. He powered his rifle down and holstered it before he turned a dial on the side of his helmet to increase the audio input into his headset. In the silence, he listened calmly for the hum of a gun’s core, ragged breathing, or even a misplaced step. His opponent would most likely be above him, using the railings and tall machinery to easily traverse the room. He hadn’t seen any traps, so he was likely waiting for the internal defenses to reset to regain his advantage.
The bounty hunter eased his hand to his gauntlet in preparation. A click behind him and up to the left identified his adversary. He stood between the racks and a quick hum confirmed that he primed his weapon. Magellan whirled as the gun fired, raised his arm, and pressed the button he had held his hand on. A reflector activated and boomeranged the shot. The attacker was fast but it still clipped him enough that he lost his balance and he fell from the racks. As the enemy twisted to land on his feet, the bounty hunter drew his pistol, held the trigger down, and fired several shots while he used his free hand to lower the volume on his helmet.
A couple of the shots struck home but didn’t do much good. The assailant had apparently been able to get his gear working as well and his shielding absorbed the shots. He retaliated without hesitation and either switched weapons or activated full-auto to deliver a fusillade of lasers at his target.
Magellan flipped over one of the assembly lines and hunkered into the cover it provided. He holstered his pistol and drew his rifle, rolled behind one of the machines, and found a position at an angle to his opponent’s aim. If the man wanted a clean shot, he would have to vault over the assembly line as well to reach him, and he would easily bet on himself being the quicker shot.
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