Raddocks Horizon (Godyssey Legacy Book 1)

by Duran Cross

  Rennin notices Mia eyeing his actions.

  “Stronger and straighter this way,” he whispers, winking like a salesman.

  “You’re talking about your rifle right?”

  “One of them, yeah.”

  “Contact,” says Caufmann taking aim with his pistol.

  Mia presses the butt of her sniper rifle to her shoulder to look through the scope. She can’t see them yet but their steps are growing louder, she can hear their approach.

  Rennin’s artificial eye can just make out an outline. He wants to take the shot, but he finds his hands frozen, awaiting an order to fire. Two pairs of red eyes suddenly flash on closer than expected.

  Rennin’s instinct responds.

  Target acquired.

  He fires a round into the head of the one on the left a split second before Caufmann calls out for them to shoot. He can’t tell if the bullet penetrated the helmet or glanced off but he pulls the bolt back on the rifle, loading another bullet, and fires again.

  The tunnel is extremely dark but when Drej, Verge and Antares open fire the area is lit up with orange and yellow light and screams of gunfire reverberating off the walls. The Suvaco unit Rennin hit is stumbling back and the other has raised an arm over its face to block the barrage of incoming fire.

  Rennin and Mia fire until their sniper guns are empty and overheating, before dropping them on their sling and raising assault rifles to continue their rapid fire. A grenade sails over Rennin’s head, thrown by Antares. It explodes on impact but the Suvacoes still don’t go down.

  The ringing from the gunfire is deafening and Rennin can’t even hear his own voice yelling as he fires at the red-eyed giants. They move in, more quickly now.

  The Suvaco on the left aims its weapon towards him; Rennin feels himself sag before a stab of dread takes over. Being confronted with a chain gun is not what he expected today. The figure of Antares eclipses his view as she steps in front of him, coinciding with the creature unleashing its first array of fire.

  Rennin stays low wishing he could curl into a ball like an armadillo and roll away. Now the only light in the tunnel is coming from the chain gun barrel and the sparks from everything it impacts. Rennin finds himself hunched down screaming, feeling the percussion of every bullet hitting Antares’ kinetic shield like a drumbeat in his chest. Barely a moment passes before her shield is torn away, leaving her defenceless.

  Drej has positioned himself in front of Mia, absorbing a wave of bullets that glance off his plate armour, but when they hit his skin they tear straight into it. Rennin is mesmerized by that terrible image and can feel it burn into his memory.

  He cannot believe that either of the androids are still standing. Antares is still being pummelled. Looking behind him, Caufmann is protecting Corporal Verge. He’s taken a shot to the head and if an android could look dazed, Caufmann would be the poster child.

  The chain gun finally stops shooting, the tunnel goes dark, and Rennin feels Antares spring off into the smoky haze. He can just make out Drej slumping forwards.

  The HolinMech took a lot of fire, but he braces himself, one hand on the ground as he reaches out towards their enemy; a red energy beam exploding from his hand.

  It slams into the Suvaco on the right just as Antares careers into the one on the left. She glows green as she throws punches into its face, crushing the weakened faceplate inwards with sickening force. The hulking Suvaco takes a clumsy swing at her but she ducks under it as if it were attacking slow motion. She manages to leap onto its back to pull at its helmet, drawing its head back to expose its throat.

  “Shoot it!” she yells.

  Rennin and Mia grab their sniper rifles, reload them quickly, and take aim.

  “The neck!” Antares directs.

  “I can’t hold on much longer.” Drej continues to fire his weakening energy stream.

  “Ready, Saker?” Rennin calls to Mia.

  “On three?”

  “Three!”

  They fire.

  Rennin’s shot hits the Suvaco’s neck padding but Mia’s hits just above, tearing through its throat, taking it out. The android stumbles sideways, Antares leaping from it to take grip of her sword and lop off the leg of the second target, cutting through its knee from behind. It collapses, giving her easy access, and in one smooth movement she removes its head.

  Drej’s blast stops and he falls forwards to his hands and knees, finally depleted, and bleeding from a multitude of gunshot wounds. Rennin looks from Drej to Antares as she decapitates the Suvaco Mia shot in the throat with one clean stroke.

  Always double tap.

  A flare burns to life behind him and he turns to see Caufmann slumping down in a cloud of cold steam with Verge crouching over him, hands fluttering as she tries to help. It’s difficult to touch someone when they’re bleeding a liquid that will freeze your skin solid. Antares is also hissing steam heavily as she sheaths her sword and hurries back to them.

  “Arca? Are you alright?” she asks.

  Drej looks up and forces himself to stand. The effort isn’t so much seen in his facial expression as it is in his shaking limbs. He’s taken some grievous wounds.

  “I am damaged,” he says absently, looking at his right hand and the perforation a shell has made straight through it. “Are you hurt, Antares?”

  She examines herself, finding her arms torn, exposing bone and circuitry. Her torso is largely intact despite her armour being all but broken. “I don’t feel any pain.”

  Caufmann rubs a wound in his forehead where a bullet ripped through all but his skull. A few rounds managed to punch through his armoured lab coat, and his breathing is laboured. “I have a bullet lodged in my right lung.”

  “I didn’t know your kind had lungs,” says Verge.

  “My kind were your kind,” he says more rudely than he intended. He places a small cylindrical object to the hole in his chest. With a disgusting wet slap, the bullet is drawn out into the tube. Caufmann ejects the slug and puts the cylinder back in his pocket.

  “What the hell is that?” asks Rennin trying to get a good look at the device.

  “Can I have one of those?” asks Mia.

  Drej spits up some blood. “There are two more entering the reservoir. They’re coming to us.”

  “We can’t survive another attack like that,” says Verge.

  Rennin removes a grenade from his ammo belt. “This should do the trick.”

  Verge shakes her head, “That’s a NAPA bomb. It’ll bring the whole tunnel down on us.”

  Rennin shrugs. “At least it’ll be a tie.”

  “What are you suggesting, Rennin? We can’t trigger them remotely.”

  “We throw it. All we need to do is slow them down,” he says arming it and setting the blast zone to five metres. He shakes his head with a regretful expression on his face. “Five metre radius… what a waste.”

  “Use some regular grenades,” suggests Verge.

  “Might not work. NAPA bombs cause enough residual seismic shock to ensure a collapse,” says Rennin.

  “That’s very interesting, Professor, but you might want to hurry it up,” says Verge checking her ammunition.

  Antares snatches the grenade. “I’ll throw it, you lay down some cover-fire.”

  Caufmann puts Drej’s arm around his neck and hauls him up the tunnel. “Don’t wait until the perfect time, just throw it when you see an opportunity.”

  “Verge, cover William and Arca,” says Rennin readying his sniper rifle. “Saker, we take one each in the head to stagger them, then Antares will throw the bomb.”

  Caufmann and Verge move away with the limping Drej, leaving a nasty trail of Drej’s blood. Rennin and Mia kneel and wait for the Suvacoes. Antares’ face is completely neutral. “I won’t be able to shield you this time, Sergeant Farrow.”

  “That’s okay, Mum.”

  The first red-eyed monster comes into view and Antares readies her throw. Rennin and Mia both adjust their stance, preparing to fire. The S
uvaco has stopped walking towards them, looking down to study the ruins of its brother units.

  The second comes into view. Both observe the two Suvaco corpses, surveying their damage before turning to face each other.

  Rennin can swear some form of communication is passing between them but his scope is registering no communication signals of any kind. He also notes an absence of Substance 6.

  So they’re not made with Thermosteel.

  Antares calls for them to shoot and both snipers obey, snapping out a round each, Rennin shooting the left Suvaco, and Mia the right. Both shots hit their respective targets in the head, only to glance off their helmets. While they are stunned, Antares throws the NAPA bomb. Mia and Rennin turn away, making their retreat up the tunnel towards Whitechapel. Antares provides cover-fire for the final second before the detonation knocks all three of them over. The grid sphere of the NAPA bomb appears, and everything within is incinerated in one intense blast of white light, followed by a devastating concussive force.

  The tunnel begins collapsing almost immediately. A chunk of stone falls on Antares but she strikes it aside as if it were a cushion and runs away from the falling debris. She grips both Rennin and Mia by their webbing, hauling them to their feet. The rumbling from the NAPA detonation ceases but the sounds of falling rock are loud enough to keep them running at full sprint.

  Rennin never has been one to back down from a fight and he doesn’t like running away but seeing Antares, Drej and Caufmann all badly wounded from a single encounter rams home the simple fact that he’s far and away out of his league. He sees this is doubly true when he remembers what Isfeohrad did to him the night of the GA rally.

  So many stories he’s seen over the years, regardless of the medium, have lied to him. There is truly no way a human can stand toe to toe with an android.

  ◆◆◆

  In Whitechapel, the station for the underground train system is a mass of the immune queuing to evacuate. They are boarding but progress is slow due to the sheer exhaustion of all involved. Some of them look like they don’t even care if they get out. Barely any are talking to each other.

  Commander Croft watches the exodus on the surveillance system. He switches the view to a camera on street level, watching the people remaining on the surface go about their business. Only the ones selected to leave have been taken to the trains. The others are just going to have to remain here to outlast this crisis.

  He wipes the sweat from his forehead and wonders how he’s going to tell his troops that all military personnel have to stay in Whitechapel indefinitely. They are not immune. Priority persons are being evacuated and that is all.

  His troops think the trains will be coming back, that this load of evacuees is the first of many. If the locals find out about the evacuation, he will tell them the same. But the trains will not return. No one would risk keeping the gates of the city open for this contagion to escape. The people leaving will be ‘extensively examined’ by the Godyssey base outside Raddocks Horizon. Perhaps staying isn’t the worst that can happen.

  He’s pondering this when a report appears on his screen that Doctor Caufmann has been brought in by a badly wounded HolinMech. Several others have also emerged from the underground tunnels from Blackhaven.

  He’s out of his office in a heartbeat, sprinting towards the standoff that’s happening up the street. Arca Drej, thought-to-be missing HolinMech, is apparently refusing to stand down. He finds a crowd of soldiers around the small band of Raston Squad. Caufmann is on his knees with a gun pointed at the back of his head, held by Arca Drej. Another gunman with strange eyes and a Godyssey branding on his forehead is holding a gun on the doctor from a few steps away. Others stand at the ready but their weapons at their side.

  The commander takes in a firm breath and feels his back straighten with confidence. “Welcome, Raston Squad!” he announces, indicating for his men to relax their aim on the human element. “And Doctor Caufmann, I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  Caufmann looks shocking. His wounds no longer steam, though he looks like a decidedly weak and beaten, almost organic man. “I will cooperate.”

  “Ease your aim, HolinMech, we have him now.”

  Drej is swaying slightly but when he faces Croft he does so in a smooth movement that is too fluid for any full-orga. “Directive: HolinMech Operation. All orga-commands are overridden. To you and your men I am Commander Arca Drej. You will issue all commands from here on out through myself. Interfacing with me is your highest priority. Cooperation will be rewarded.”

  Croft is on the back foot immediately. “If I refuse?”

  Drej’s red eyes shine but with a deadness that clearly says there will be no negotiation. “You may refuse. As per my core directive you will be shot.”

  “On what grounds?” Croft screeches.

  “Mutiny. Under the HolinMech Deployment Code, section one-oh-one-seven-oh-seven you are now the property of Godyssey and I am their extension in the field. Disobedience will be judged with zero tolerance. What I ask next will be asked only once, with no second chances and no exceptions: Is this a declaration of mutiny?”

  Croft feels his whole world turn inside out and his throat fill with sand. This thing thinks it’s in charge? “Your kind are not even supposed to be here.”

  “Answer my question, immediately,” says Drej in a rasping tone.

  Croft’s heart is beating so hard it feels like it’ll burst through his ribs. He glances at his troops to see some are shifting their body weights uncomfortably. “How many do you think you can kill?”

  “My core is hardwired to detonate should an uncontrollable act of sedition occur. I am currently on standby for detonation. My core is a Gamma Drive capable of levelling fifteen city blocks without damaging the people boarding the trains beneath.”

  “Killing your own team?”

  “Android priorities are not your concern unless I evaluate it so. You have three seconds to answer my question. The next words out of your mouth will be: yes or no,” says Drej, the veins in the sides of his face and down his neck glowing red.

  Croft eyes his troops, many of whom have taken a pointless step away from the HolinMech.

  Traitors, he thinks and he feels something in his mind slip away. It is a form of reason, perhaps, evaporating or draining, leaving a feeling of being boxed in, trapped, and nowhere to go.

  Traitors deserve to die.

  The people under the city will be safe anyway. He feels himself grin. No one person had ever taken out a HolinMech and that’s a nice big notch for anyone’s belt. “Then ‘yes’ it is. Open f-” he is cut off by a bullet tearing through his head. No one even sees Drej move, but he executes Croft with a lightning fast movement. Despite a faint whisper from one of Croft’s troops that sounds distinctly like skyward gratitude to what Rennin calls the Sky Fairy they remain standing still, all eyes upon Drej. The glowing red veins that are creeping down his arms begin to fade away.

  Caufmann stands up, retrieving his sidearm from Drej as the HolinMech slumps forwards. “Easy, Arca, we’re almost out of here.”

  “I have enough energy but keeping my limbs under full control is proving difficult. Many of my muscles and tendons are damaged, I can only compensate for the others if I focus.”

  “How long will your nano-repairs take?”

  An explosion from the tunnel leading to Blackhaven shocks everyone. Antares bursts out of the darkness at full speed. “Incoming!” she cries as a missile strikes the ground behind her. She dives forwards and rolls, diverting a great deal of debris with her personal shield.

  Rennin takes a knee immediately and swings his gun to aim at the tunnel opening. “Did both those bastards survive the NAPA bomb or just one?”

  “One was destroyed but the other is on all out attack, with two reinforcements.”

  “We blew the tunnel, how did this happen?” asks Mia, taking up a position next to Rennin.

  “A side passage, maybe it didn’t fall in completely, I don’t kn
ow,” says Antares.

  “How was it sealed from this end before we arrived?” asks Rennin.

  “Not by something that will hold three Suvacoes,” says Caufmann.

  “Fall in! This is our only chance to have them bottlenecked!” calls Rennin to the troops.

  Sabre, Carmine, Verge, Drake and Mia join him on the line immediately. After a split second of indecision Croft’s troops fall in line. Almost three-dozen guns are pointed at the entrance, the majority held by troops with no idea what is coming.

  “Anyone with heavy ordnance, only fire on definite hits. These things are heavily armoured,” orders Sabre. “We cannot fall back and risk them flanking us, they need to be stopped here!”

  Antares takes a knee next to Rennin. She is steaming from several new wounds but they look superficial. Rennin notes it’s a nice change from the grievous ones they’ve been subjected to lately.

  “You’ve had a hard day, Sunshine, would you like to do your nails or something and let the men handle this?” he asks.

  “The way you handled Prototype the night of the rally?”

  “That was a draw.”

  A pair of red, glowing eyes appear in the tunnel ahead.

  “Fire!” calls Sabre.

  The entire cluster of soldiers opens fire, pouring round after round into the tunnel. The first Suvaco strides out into view. Two more sets of eyes appear in the dark behind it. A shaking, trigger-happy rocketeer launches a missile that hits the wall, only serving as a mild distraction.

  The lead Suvaco waves its chain gun, evaluating targets before opening fire. The first shot is followed by a hail of bullets, causing the defenders to break lines and scatter for cover. The initiative is already lost, with the three hulking androids moving inexorably forward with no resistance.

  Antares sees her chance to attack their flank while the soldiers hold their attention. She drops her assault rifle and starts a run at the trio with her sword drawn. The blade has been the most effective weapon against the heavily armoured killing machines, as long as she can get close without being fired upon.