by Aleks Canard
Twisting her blade 360-degrees, Trix withdrew her sword. Punctured innards spewed bile and faeces. Myven was drawing fire to the road’s shoulder. Trix was in the middle of a second pivot. There was another pod in front of her. It looked like there was a rocket launcher inside. Possibly a high calibre sniper rifle. Trix had no interest in replacing her Magnum Opus, but she wouldn’t mind sampling a few other tools of destruction.
Trix ran for the pod. Switched her pistol to plasma mode. She fired at the two mercenaries still taking cover behind the pod’s in-built barriers. Their fire was precise. Trix’s shields were about to deplete. She didn’t like her chances of clobbering them with magic. Cast on herself instead. Trix flew overhead, aiming for the pod’s opposite door. She turned herself around so she was facing the direction from which she’d come. Holstered both her weapons. Grabbed the edge of the pod’s roof. Swung herself inside.
Slow motion.
The guards outside turned towards her. Their fingers moving for the triggers. Trix outstretched her arm. Grabbed the first weapon she touched. That happened to be a .80 Riven sniper rifle with plasma shell slugs made for penetrating shields and armour. This one was fitted with a mid-scope, not enough for serious long-range sniping. It held three rounds to a chamber. Something to do with an old joke about bad things coming in threes.
Ironic, considering a slug from one of Riven’s best sniper rifles would put down almost anything in one shot.
Trix whipped the rifle up in one hand. Aimed for the mercenary in front of the barrel. She drew her .44. Not many people could say they’d dual wielded such an odd weapon combination on the battlefield before. Not even most machinas could make a claim so outrageous.
But the outrageous was Trix of Zilvia’s specialty.
She hip-fired the sniper rifle. Its slug tore the thug’s skull in two. A giant hole formed where his glabella had been. Trix dropped the other mercenary with a headshot from her pistol, taking a little too much off the top.
Her movement didn’t stop. She kept the sniper rifle. It still had two rounds. And they had a lot of potential.
Trix saw a kalarik mercenary as she emerged from the pod. He was the same one who’d taken a severed head to the chest only moments before. Now he was wielding an RPG launcher. What a fool. Those were far too slow. A machina could avoid one of those in the dark.
The RPG fired.
Trix ran straight for it, dropping to a slide at the last moment. Her HUD blared with proximity warnings as she watched its tail pass overhead. The kalarik was about to fire another round. Trix used a slug from her pistol to wreck the launcher’s barrel. It misfired, blasting the kalarikian thug backwards. His shields burst. His chest plate was peppered with shrapnel. Trix was going to kill him with her pistol when she saw two more thugs moving into position behind their ruined comrade.
Pop quiz: How many armoured heads (with shielding technology) can an .80 slug penetrate?
The Valkyrie fired her sniper rifle as she leaped to head height so she hit dead on. Three heads were blown open in rapid succession. And she still had one more bullet left. A good day as she called it.
That was when a mech-suit wearing corrach burst from a pod on her left. He was forgoing guns altogether. The demon seemed to dodge bullets anyway. The corrach was wearing powerful EMP knuckle dusters that could bring down sentry robots. More than enough for taking out a person’s shields. Even if they were a machina.
Trix saw him coming. There were still twenty enemies left by Sif’s count. Myven had killed two with his cruiser stunt, and was keeping eight more busy on his side of the fallen tree. Officer Daebas was quickly running out of ammunition. The mercenaries were too well supplied. Their positions too easily defended. He’d have to move soon. And when he did, Myven hoped the Valkyrie would assist him. Though she was busy at that moment.
Trix used a gravity spell to strafe away from the charging corrach. Not even her sniper rifle would put him down with one bullet. She surveyed the rest of the situation in a second.
Eleven more thugs. Four were coming down a centre aisle, stopping periodically behind pod cover to take shots at her. Three were flanking on the left. One was erecting a gatling gun. Four on the right were arming themselves with HMGs. Trix loved variety.
A plan formed within a millisecond.
Trix could use her last sniper slug to take out the four middle thugs, even though they weren’t in single file. She knew the pod material was denser than her armour piercing rounds. Sif calculated the ideal angle of impact. Perfect.
Now for the corrach ahead of her.
The Valkyrie threw the sniper rifle high. Holstered her pistol. Drew her sword. The motion was so fast that the corrach before her thought he was dreaming. He charged a servo-punch, ready to deliver a jab/hook combo into the machina’s chest. His first mistake was taking her on singlehandedly. It would be his last.
Trix spending a lot of time with her old friend, Yvach Aodun, was good for more than amusement. He knew most things worth knowing about Corrachian hardware. And he loved to talk nearly as much as Valentine and Kit combined. So that meant his knowledge was Trix’s. The EMP fist coming towards her had to be separated from the rest of the mech-suit by a thinner piece of non-conductive armour, lest the voltage short the wearer’s mech-suit.
Trix’s sword sang as she hit the ground. Pivoted right. The corrach’s hand came off cleanly. Though his severed fist still held a charge. The machina half-turned to the corrach’s back, increased her density. Shoved. He was struck by his own EMP, frying his internal circuitry. Trix ran for the centre aisle. Fired her pistol behind her. Direct hit to the back of the head. It didn’t go all the way through, but that corrach wouldn’t be getting up again.
The gatling gun on the right brought Trix’s shields down to 1% before she avoided its line of fire. She holstered her weapons. She was approaching a djurelian mercenary who was thoroughly confused beneath his helmet. Why would the machina be putting her weapons away?
A Riven sniper rifle dropped into Trix’s hands as if delivered by divine beings. She fired, but not at the djurel.
The bullet hit the leftmost pod’s side, deflecting obliquely into the djurel’s head. It continued out his left temple and hit another pod, deflecting a second time, entering the next mercenary’s head. An ordinary bullet wouldn’t been able to deflect twice and maintain its lethality. But Riven’s patented plasma casing allowed their bullets to take a lot more punishment before they became useless.
Deflecting once more, the bullet entered the third mercenary’s head. Trix knew that it wouldn’t deflect a fourth time. That meant there’d be one man standing. Her pistol couldn’t deplete his shields in time. The machina hurled her sword instead. It spun past the falling colonnade of corpses, splicing the last merc’s chest.
Trix was already running for it. She reached her sword as the HMG wielding thugs took up position by the pods near the felled tree. The machina dove for cover as bullets shredded the air where she’d been standing. Her shields had recharged, though they wouldn’t last long against HMG fire. She grabbed a set of grenades as she ran through pods towards the thugs’ position. She was hoping for Rift ones, but they were standard shrapnel with secondary explosive pieces.
Hmm.
That’d do.
9
Poetic Justice
Valentine took the stairs two at a time.
He needed to stop the mercenaries flanking him on the second floor. Altayr was occupied protecting the mirror while ten more thugs in the square were battling with the police. And the thugs were winning.
The poet arrived at a wooden door inlaid with metal patterns when he reached the landing. He kicked it. It broke off its hinges. Sometimes he was grateful that he’d lost his legs. He couldn’t remember how he accomplished anything without his bionic ones.
A cowering family was present on the other side, huddled beneath a desk. They were all zirean. Valentine knew some zirean, but in the present situation, he didn’t have time for
any mistakes. He used his helmet translator.
‘You need to leave. Bad people are coming in.’
The zirean family cowered. Valentine took a couple steps closer. The father held his hand out. Valentine was pushed back by telekinetic force.
‘I’m not your enemy. I’m here to—’
Something hit Valentine in the back. He knew that feeling. It was a bullet or several. That took the wind out of him. Nothing was broken, for he knew that feeling as well. But goddamn he was going to be sore. He rolled behind a stone feature wall as more bullets came through the windows. They riddled the second floor.
Thugs crashed through the broken windows. Three of them came in first. Their gaze was drawn to the zirean family who were completely frozen in fear. Things like this didn’t happen on Zilvia. They were supposed to be reserved for dumps like Thyria, or raids on Dark’s Hide.
Valentine grunted. The pain in his back was a motherfucker, alright. He wasn’t as young as he’d been in Meteor Brigade. He needed a drink. As luck would have it, there was one in a glass cabinet beside him. His helmet alerted him to footsteps approaching from his 12 o’clock. They’d be scared if they had any sense. They saw what he’d done to the vanguard party. Hopefully they thought he was a machina. That’d be a stroke of luck.
He retracted his helmet around his mouth. Took a hearty swig. Damn. Zirean Tawny. That was a fine drop. Shame he’d have to waste the rest of it. Valentine grabbed a silk kerchief off the cabinet. Stuffed it into the bottle neck. Set it on fire. His original plan involved setting his remaining C4 charges along the floor near the windows. Seeing innocent civilians scrapped that idea though.
Valentine threw his cocktail through the stone archway. He heard glass shatter. The whoop of flames catching alight. That was a good distraction.
He emerged from behind cover, brandishing both his weapons. He sprayed all three thugs with plasma as he took headshots with his Cosmic Eagle. He brought them down, but not before they fired a few shots of their own. Valentine’s shields were depleted. A slug hit him in the combat vest, right above the heart. Oh baby, he was going to feel that in the morning.
Now the family took the hint, and scrambled towards the room’s other end. They piled into what looked like a walk-in closet.
‘You’re welcome,’ Valentine said as the last three mercenaries came in through the windows. They entered guns blazing, forcing the poet back into cover. A bullet hit his shoulder, burrowing halfway into his muscle.
Alright, now he was pissed.
The poet reloaded. He was about to charge into the next room when he saw that a large stone in the feature wall had been knocked loose by gunfire. Valentine saw blood under the table where the zireans had been cowering. One of them must’ve been hit.
Valentine unleashed a front kick on the loose stone. His bionic leg sent it rocketing into a female mercenary’s chest. She was pushed back to the broken window. Valentine fired through the gap. Flames danced on the floor, catching on a carpet.
The mercenary on his left levelled a machine gun. Valentine dropped to the ground, ignoring the fire, and swept the mercenary’s legs out from under him. Killed the thug to his right with two shots from his Cosmic Eagle which rent the thug’s chest apart as he crushed the fallen mercenary’s sternum with a thruster kick.
That was when something made Valentine see stars. The same rock from the wall had clocked him around the head. He would’ve been a dead man if it hadn’t been for his helmet. Valentine stumbled backwards. The woman who’d hit him had been disarmed by Valentine’s initial kick. She drew an obsidian knife from a slot in her armour.
It’d slice through Valentine’s chest piece for sure. Whether or not the blade would go all the way through was another question. She crossed the gap to Valentine with lethal efficiency. He decided to holster his weapons and slink low, like a smashball player protecting their receiver. Valentine grabbed the woman around the legs. Thrusters activated. He felt a cold sensation in his back. There was nothing else like being stabbed.
Valentine launched the woman towards the window, still holding her in a vice grip. He felt another stab. They didn’t feel particularly deep. Of course, if the pain was too extreme, shock would be fooling him into thinking he wasn’t wounded that badly. Valentine pushed the thug off him while the two of them tousled mid-air. He mule kicked her in the abdomen. She hit the ground moments before Valentine. She didn’t move. He shot her in the head before collapsing to his knees.
The woman’s knife was still in Valentine’s back. He pulled it out. Gasped for air. Blood coated a quarter of the blade. Good. Not deep. Not fatal. But it fucking hurt. The poet slumped to the ground. He was exhausted. Though Altayr was going to need a hand. And the sorcerer might be able to heal him.
Altayr didn’t have time to heal a papercut, let alone all of Valentine’s wounds. The sorcerer was engaged in fighting six mercenaries at once inside the shop. And unlike Valentine or Trix, he wasn’t used to those odds. His magic barrier was holding steady. Only because he was on the defensive. The sorcerer would’ve been drained had he been launching non-stop attacks. He saw something fall from the second-floor window in his peripheral vision.
‘Poet, are you still here?’
‘Bleeding and broken, but aye, still kicking. Don’t suppose you could lend me a hand?’
‘Not at the moment.’
The ten remaining mercenaries in the square unleashed a rocket fusillade towards the police. Cruisers were totalled. Buildings partially collapsed. They called in for heavy support. Blor’daeyn’s police had hoped to avoid destroying the south gate entirely. Now it looked like they had no choice.
Above the battle, further north, Serena was still pursuing the corvette. It’d looked like the enemy ship was going to head for the forest when the pilot realised their mistake and banked back into Blor’daeyn. Serena had hoped to shoot the ship down over the trees. All she could do now was stay on its tail. As Serena was about to disable the corvette’s communications to force its retreat, the Red Queen’s scanners picked up a police transmission. It was in zirean, but the ship’s AI, Alan, translated it.
The units by the South Gate were calling for air support, reinforcements, anyone who was available. Serena wasn’t exactly available, though she wasn’t really busy either. She had time to do a flyby. Peeling away from the corvette, Serena brought the Red Queen over the south gate.
One hand on the yoke, another on the weapon pad, she slowed the Red Queen as much as she dared. Plasma cannons unloaded on the south gate. Homing rockets were aimed at her as the corvette came back around, unleashing all it had on Serena.
Valentine saw this happen from his position in the alley.
‘Serena, get outta here.’
‘The ship’s fine. Her shields are holding,’ said Serena as she strafed to avoid the homing missiles. Alan identified five less lifeforms in the square. Below, the cops moved in on the destruction, lamenting the obliterated, mosaic tiles. They had been two centuries old. Serena kicked the Red Queen into gear, blasting over the forest. Now the corvette was chasing her, and that was how she wanted it. She purposefully let the ship take hits. Shield levels maximised on the HUD. Serena watched them fall. She wanted the corvette’s pilot to think they had her until the moment she blew them to pieces.
Valentine watched Serena go as he hauled himself back into the shop through a ground floor window. He caught a glimpse of his jacket. Blood had soaked through the back. No wonder he was feeling lightheaded.
Gunfire from the next room stopped those thoughts.
‘Poet, I need you to draw their fire,’ Altayr said, just as a grenade rolled beside his feet. Valentine was convinced the sorcerer was going to freeze. Instead, Altayr Van Eldric held his staff near the base. He swung.
The grenade was belted back into the other room, smacking a thug in the helmet. It exploded. His head was turned to goulash. A corrach next to him was blinded. The rest of the mercenaries had taken cover.
Valentine seiz
ed the opportunity. He drained their shields with his plasma SMG, edging his was into the room. It was a workshop. Benches and tools covered every available space. Splinters flew everywhere. It was like being inside a chipper.
Altayr stood in the doorway, hastily muttering incantations. Five fire spears appeared above his head. They launched at the mercenaries’ faces. Valentine had softened them up. Now for the kebabs.
Five thugs fell, their heads impaled by flaming rods. All of them dropped to the ground. The smell of cooked brains bubbling in their own juices wafted through the workshop. Altayr waved his hand. The spears vanished. He leaned on his staff. Valentine let himself fall to the ground. His hips were going to be bruised. Using bionic legs really gave your lower torso a workout. The poet’s abdominals could’ve broken a weaker man’s fist.
‘Come, we have to stop the Faedra’s troops from killing the police.’
‘They’ve already been stopped,’ said Valentine, retracting his helmet and taking deep breaths. ‘Serena destroyed them. Even the police can handle them now.’
‘We need to help Trix.’
‘She hasn’t called for support, I reckon she’ll be fine,’ the poet said, leaning on the wall, not minding the smell of burning flesh. He turned his head to Altayr. ‘Big Red, you’re really living up to your title.’ Valentine brought his hand to the side of his face.
Altayr mirrored him. Blood coated his fingers. He must’ve been shot without realising it while he’d been keeping the mercenaries at bay. A nasty gash started at his right eyebrow and continued past his ear.
‘I’ll live.’
‘Not if you don’t patch that up.’
‘You first, poet. Your breathing’s off.’
Valentine fished around in his pocket. Drew the obsidian knife. Slotted it into a holder on his right boot. Then he put a cigarillo between his lips. ‘First you better get the damn mirror inside. I haven’t seen that bloody sorceress, but I wager she’s around.’ The author lit his cigarillo. His eyes narrowed. Head cocked slightly. ‘The wound suits you, sorcerer. Makes your face a little less pretty. I’d think twice about fighting a man with a scar like that.’