The security officer leaned up on his elbows and looked at the officer. “We have many more shuttles and ships to spare at Nexus, but I’m not sure if anyone has been able to reach them.”
“Are we ready to go?” Eckles asked Haldt as they approached the elevator.
“I made contact with Corrin. She was able to find some of the other pilot students and teachers and they tried to make their way over here themselves but were pinned down at the observation center,” he explained. “I contacted HQ as well. They still have any number of fires to put out but were able to get some of the other officers with pilot experience or talents into the tunnels. They should arrive here shortly.”
“Are we going to help Corrin and the pilots?”
Haldt nodded as he walked to the left of what remained of the elevator they rode down on. He pressed a switch and a ladder descended. “We’d be more useful that way than simply standing around here. The others will get the ships ready and be on guard in case any of those droids come through.”
His teammate nodded and grasped the ladder as the other man ascended. “Remember to keep your head down. We don’t have shields for another fifteen minutes.”
As the security officers continued their climb, Kaiden stepped out of the shuttle he had primed in the hangar. Another officer climbed into the next vessel and the entire group bustled frantically to prepare the ships as quickly as they could.
He folded his arms as Chiyo stepped out of the shuttle next to his and approached him. “Is something wrong?” she asked when she saw his disgruntled expression.
“I’m only impatient.” He sighed. “I know we can’t get into the sky until more pilots arrive or we risk making the hangar a primary target, but at least a few of us here can fly. I feel we should be airborne already and helping the others.”
“That’s not the only thing, is it?” she pressed. He turned slowly to face her. “You’re trying to come to terms with the fact that we have to evacuate.”
He leaned against the side of the shuttle. “Evacuate, retreat, run away—I’m not saying I haven’t had to make that choice in the past, but it never sat well with me. And this time? Shit, I see what we’re up against and…” He trailed off, seemingly unable to get his words together, and she raised a hand and placed it against his cheek.
“I know you’ll come back and I can tell you that I’m almost certain we’ll come back. We won’t let Nexus remain in their hands. And we will make them regret their actions.”
Kaiden smiled and took her hand as he nodded and chuckled. “I guess I have something to look forward to now— after we get everyone out.”
“Friends! I have almost completed my section!” Genos called from across the hangar.
The ace grinned at him with a mixture of surprise and respect on his face. “Jesus. We only started about ten minutes ago.”
“I wanted to tell you that I saw a few more ships in this chamber off to the side of the hangar,” the Tsuna engineer informed them.
“That’s where they handle repairs,” one of the guards shouted. “There might be a couple ready to go in there, but the rest probably won’t be in the best shape.”
“I’ll take a look,” Kaiden offered and glanced at Chiyo. “Do you think you can get the others ready?”
“Of course.” She nodded and he returned it before he ran over to Genos.
“Where did you say it was, Genos?”
The Tsuna scrambled out of his shuttle and pointed. “In this direction. There are a couple more shuttles in there that I have yet to inspect, but there was also another ship.”
“Different than a shuttle?” he asked.
Genos nodded as they entered the repairs bay. “Certainly. This one actually has weapons and it seemed familiar. Maybe you can recall from where for me?”
The ace gaped and stopped in his tracks. It was indeed very familiar. He smiled as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Nice find, Genos, but I call dibs.”
Chapter Thirty
Lena puffed her cheeks out while she studied the readouts, something Nolan took notice of. He gestured to an officer to keep watch and walked down to the technician to lean over her shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head and switched over to a screen showing the EIs’ code. “No, it’ll be fine. It’s definitely complex and I would be shocked if any of your people could crack the EI. The professor certainly pulled out all the flash to make this one.”
“And yet you sound disappointed,” he stated as he straightened and took hold of her seat. “I thought you enjoyed a challenge, Lena.”
“Oh, I do,” she admitted, and her artificial eye dimmed slightly. “It’s only that…I had really hoped we would get the special EI Sir Merrick has talked about all this time.”
“I thought you had been briefed that it is no longer a primary target.”
She nodded and drew her legs under the seat. “I was. Merrick told me it would probably take far longer and that I wouldn’t need to crack it as he planned to simply extract it when he had the chance. Still, I kind of hoped all this fighting would bring it out of hiding.”
Hiding? The general doubted that its user was hiding. Hell, for someone in obvious danger, this Kaiden Jericho almost seemed suicidal with how much he had poked the nest over the last couple of years. He had no doubt that the ace was down there somewhere. Lena and Merrick would eventually have their little pet project but for now, however, they needed the ship back at full capacity.
“Not to deprive you of your fun, Lena, but we need the ship to have an EI as soon as possible,” he stated and tapped her shoulder. “We devised this plan because we had hoped to strip the professor of his EI to provide us with a better one and thus put them at an additional disadvantage. If this ship remains neutral for much longer—”
Lena held a hand up and nodded. She stood and retrieved the small glowing cube she had arrived with. “I’ll head to the main lab. Cut all unnecessary power outputs and close any extraneous comm lines or linked devices. I’ll bring the EI under our control soon.”
Nolan watched her go and smirked as he moved to take his place in his seat. As he sat, he felt content—not safe or victorious, but he could see the pieces finally falling into place to build a path there. Lena would bring the EI to heel, and he would make sure that Nexus would follow suit.
Sasha lowered himself slowly down the side of the Animus Center, found one of the many broken windows on the third floor, and swung himself in. He retracted his grapple deftly and snuck into the hallway. When the enemy troops had arrived, most had simply fanned out and joined the carnage—except for this small group of six who moved immediately to the AC. He tailed them and fired at soldiers and arbiter droids along the way when he could do so without revealing his position.
Of course, he should focus on the defense of the Academy and the evacuation. That was his responsibility as chancellor now, but his instincts told him that this group wanted something in particular. A feeling of dread settled on him when he imagined them getting it, although he had little idea of what it was and what they planned to do with it.
He reached the middle of the hall and leaned over the edge to look at the lobby, where the group huddled around a holographic map. The commander used the zoom on his oculars to see where they were headed and grimaced when he realized that it was the mainframe. It should have been obvious as that would be one of the only places where they could plunder something useful. But even with that destination, he couldn’t think of what they intended to take.
One of the soldiers looked around casually and the commander hunkered down to avoid notice. He had Isaac open the directory in his HUD. There were currently twenty-two people still in the building, although a few of them had darkened names, which indicated that they could not be reached by comms or that they were simply dead.
He heard the soldiers move out below and wondered if he should take the shot and end them there. Instead, he decided to follow. He needed to see what they wanted.
If they were forced to leave the Academy in their hands, he intended to at least take whatever they were after with him.
He instructed Isaac to send a message to everyone in the vicinity to evacuate as hostiles were moving through the building. Although the fact that he had yet to see any droids or bodies indicated that this might, in fact, be one of the safest places currently on the island, it wouldn’t remain that way for long once he eliminated these invaders.
“The first group of pilots is arriving,” Cameron called into the hangar.
“That means we will head out soon,” Jaxon told Genos, who nodded and made his way to one of the shuttles closest to the hangar bay doors.
“Are you set to go, Kaiden?” Chiyo asked over the comms as she walked to the back of the hangar. The pilots filed in and she motioned them toward the readied ships while she and one of the officers took control of the main terminal.
“Yeah, soon enough. Chief’s looking for Wolfson’s signature.”
“I found him northwest of us. I think he’s actually on his way to the armory like you thought,” the EI confirmed. “I can’t get through to him, though. I think his comm is damaged as I only get static.”
“I’m sure he’ll see us coming when we fly in.” The ace chuckled as he settled the ship into a hover before he eased it toward the gates. “We are in his ship, after all.”
“The pilots are in position,” Jaxon advised. “The first group is ready to go—eleven shuttles and two water carriers.”
“Haldt and Eckles sent orders to clear the harbor for the water carriers,” Kaiden informed them. “Still, watch yourselves.”
“We’ll be fine,” one of the pilots interjected. “We’re in our element now.”
“Thanks for getting them warm for us and clearing the way,” another added. “It’s time to use what we’ve learned over the last couple of years.”
“Haldt gave me the code to activate the Academy’s main guns,” Chiyo reported. “Those should help keep the sky clear if they send fighters out to intercept. If they don’t, we’ll focus on eliminating the mechs.”
“We’d appreciate it. Even first-year Nexus pilots can make these shuttles dance, but they don’t have any weapons, unfortunately.”
The infiltrator nodded and glanced at the guard beside her, who punched her code in as Chiyo punched in Haldt’s. The guns came online and appeared on the top of several towers scattered along the island that most people would simply assume were decorative. As the cannons primed, she pressed the all-clear button and the hangar gates began to open—massive doors for the shuttles and one smaller door deeper in the hangar in a stream of water for the carriers.
“All right, guys, let’s make this quick!” Kaiden hollered as he prepared to boost out. “The sooner we get off the island, the sooner we can make plans to take it back!”
Chapter Thirty-One
“These things are relentless,” Cyra cried as two more of the R&D department’s personal security bots fell to the Arbiter attack. A tech had his rifle snatched away from him by a retractable hook when an enemy jumped over the barrier, snagged him, and attempted to pull him away from his comrades.
Cyra and another techie hurdled their defenses to grab him and haul him back. She raised her pistol to shoot the droid and its eyes flared as it extended its cannon. In the next moment, something rocketed into it and hurled it away as the three techies collapsed and stared in shock. From behind, several dozen droids barreled down the hall and startled the techs and guards as they ran or bounded around them, forced their way through the barrier, and attacked the invaders.
Behind them, Professor Laurie walked calmly but resolutely toward them. “Cyra, everyone, we’re going,” he ordered.
“Professor!” she shouted, pushed to her feet, and darted forward to engulf him in a hug. “Where did all these droids come from?”
He disengaged from her spontaneous embrace and withdrew a small rectangular device from his jacket, which he attached to the wall. “Failed experiments or prototypes. I had almost forgotten about most of them, to be frank. It wasn’t until I smoked the databases and destroyed most of my tech that I remembered storing them in one of the extra rooms.”
“Destroy— What is happening professor?” Cyra asked as he began to scan through numbers on the device.
“We’re leaving. I…Aurora was able to temporarily cripple the flagship but at great cost. When it comes online again, I don’t believe we’ll have another opportunity to escape.” He finished working on the device and clicked a button. After a brief hum, a massive rectangular light covered the wall and in an instant, the wall dissolved.
Laurie took several small pods out and tossed them below where they burst into gelatinous-looking blue spheres. “Out of the hallway, everyone. Please aim for the bubbles as this is not the time for broken bones.”
“Professor, look!” Cyra pointed to one of the towers where the cannon was active.
“The cannons are online? Who activated them?” he demanded as several techies jumped out of the hole to the ground below. “Wolfson didn’t say anything about activating them. Sasha? The only other place is the hangar—” At that moment, a shuttle flew past the R&D building and another turned quickly to land at the ground to pick up the technicians.
“We have shuttles now, it seems,” he mused as he took Cyra’s hand. “And that answers my question as well.” The two leapt down as the bots continued their rampage in the building.
“Sir, more are coming!” a guard shouted as another wave of bots approached.
“Keep them busy,” Wolfson ordered but immediately reconsidered. “Actually, blast the bastards to pieces. And you two, get the armory open.”
“It’s in lockdown, sir. It needs your clearance,” one responded. The head officer nodded and handed the man his shotgun as they changed positions. He punched in his faculty code and let the scanner read his eye. At a loud clanging above him, he drew his hand cannon and fired it toward the sound. A droid that had tried to climb down the building landed in a heap beside him, shot through the chest.
The terminal light turned green and the doors to the warehouse began to open. “All right! Everyone get in here.” The six guards he was able to recruit along the way began to walk back, still firing. He joined the barrage with his hand cannon until the guard returned his shotgun, then fired with both as the team made their way in. Once they had all crossed the threshold, he fired at the terminal and forced the doors to slam shut.
“Everyone, get to work. Put all level three or below weapons to the left side for transport. Rig everything else,” he commanded as he strode forward.
“Do you think that door will hold them for long enough, sir?” one of the officers asked as another opened a crate of explosives.
“I doubt it, but don’t worry about that,” he responded as he walked deeper into the warehouse. “I made some personal acquisitions before the year started since I was gonna be trapped here and didn’t want to fall out of practice. It looks like I’ve found a different use for these big boyos.”
The guards all traded looks. “Big boyos, sir?”
“The skies are clear so far,” Kaiden said and monitored the viewing feed from below the ship. “There is still a shit-ton of bots, though. Christ, we could probably build an entirely new academy using droid parts.”
“Watch your ass, Kaiden,” Chief shouted as something rocked the ship. “Or the ship’s ass—stern, whichever.”
“What the hell was that?” He flinched as he urged the ship forward and began to serpentine in the air in an attempt to avoid another shot like that one.
“One of the mechs fired at us. We’re all right, but I need to tinker with the energy outputs and focus on the shield. Otherwise, another couple of hits like that and we’re through.” With that, the EI disappeared from his view and appeared inside one of the monitors on the ship. He had begun to shut off nonessential systems when his eye widened. “Kaiden, I detect known network codes nearby—Luke, Mack, Silas, and
Raul.”
“Really? Where?” he asked as he primed the ship’s cannons. “It’s time for some real air support.”
“Is that the best you have, you son of a bitch?” Mack demanded as he hurled the Ark soldier into a pillar and actually forced him through it. The soldier tried to stand, but the vanguard snatched him up with the engineering claw, spun him around, and pounded him into the wall of the cafeteria.
“Mack, watch out!” Luke warned and threw his electrified rod like a spear at a bot that tried to sneak up on the vanguard. It landed to the right of its chest and the mechanical began to spasm while the two teammates began to put some distance between themselves and additional approaching bots, dodging orbs and darts along the way.
“Raul, Silas, where are you guys?” Luke called.
“I’m trying to not end up like Raul right now,” Silas answered over the comms.
“The comms are working now?” Mack asked and retrieved his tablet hastily to check it. A second later, an electrified spike drilled through it. “Bastards!”
“Yeah, comms work, and Raul’s been hit by one of those darts. Well, more than one, and he felt woozy with only one. He’s out and I’m pinned down with the engineers.”
Mack and Luke glanced back as more droids had joined the hunt. “We’ll help you, but we’ll also bring trouble of our own.”
“We’re all in this together, right?” the enforcer retorted.
Mack chuckled and checked his claw. “Sure enou— Holy hell!” A black, silver, and gray dropship flew directly over them and cannons aimed behind the two heavies who immediately picked up the pace when they began to fire.
“Howdy, gents,” Kaiden said cheerfully as he obliterated the droids behind them. “It’s nice to see some friendly faces.”
Invasion (Animus Book 10) Page 15