by Jon Jacks
A deflected laser bolt rushed past my arm.
Ahhhrrrgggg!
God, that hurt!
But it shouldn’t hurt – not if they’d set their guns to recognise my DNA.
Those idiots haven’t set their guns to recognise my DNA!
The thought struck me almost as painfully as the misdirected laser bolt.
If I was going to give myself up, I couldn’t just go running towards them waving my arms; I’d probably be hit and killed.
Then I saw that there was a chance of surrendering without getting killed after all – the attack was being directed by a human officer, crouching on top of one of the hovels,
He’d recognise me, even in this confusion – he was wearing a combat helmet, which meant he’d have telescopic sighting. He’d realise that their ultimate task was to rescue me, not wipe out a pathetically small band of ‘rebels’.
‘Stop, stop!’ I shouted once again, this time trying to direct my cries at the crouching officer. ‘It’s me, Angeic!’
Somehow, it worked. Perhaps it was the magic word ‘Angeic’ that he’d picked up on his helmet’s sound scopes.
He turned to look at me.
Just in case a murderous Tigerdroid had also spotted me, I ducked back behind the bins, but continued to tentatively peer above them and wave an arm at the officer.
The smoked glass visor of his helmet was directly facing me.
He raised his gun.
And he fired.
*
Suddenly, I was flying off to one side.
The laser bolt crackled and sizzled in the air as it whooshed over me, taking out the edges of the bins where my head had been only a split second before.
‘They’re not here to rescue you!’
Lying heavily on top of me, after brutally barging into me to save me from the officer’s shot, Cally breathed harshly into my ear.
‘This is an attack on us; we’ve been expecting it for some time.’
Before I could answer, she had leapt up from the floor into a supple crouch.
‘Stay down; you can’t do anything!’ she barked as she moved off quickly in a stooping run. ‘I’ll draw that officer away from you just in case he’s decided to finish you off!’
She deftly, expertly fired as she ran. The chests and heads of any nearby Tigerdroids exploded or jerked back unnaturally.
Nervously peeking from behind the bins, I saw that the officer had been rushing across the rooftops to finish me off. Seeing Cally, however, he quickly changed course, now pursuing her instead.
I suddenly felt incredibly anxious for Cally. The officer was amazingly athletic, dashing along the hovel tops with an almost feminine litheness.
Once again, someone from my new-found family was risking their life to save mine.
I had never, ever felt so useless!
*
Chapter 21
I had been so intent on watching Cally that I hadn’t realised I was in every bit as much danger.
A couple of Tigerdroids were heading towards me, moving in for a closer shot.
Between me and Cally, one of the Tigerdroids who had managed to avoid her blistering rate of fire was now raising his own gun to fire at me.
Abruptly, the corner of the house he was standing on disintegrated in an explosion of old boarding, iron and brick, catapulting him high into the air.
Although the laser blast that had come from behind me had been aimed at the Tigerdroid, it was also a powerful enough explosion to send the officer pursing Cally reeling. He was sent sprawling across the roof he’d been running across, slipping over the edge into the alleyway beyond.
Another blast from behind me immediately followed, striking the encircling Tigerdroids, doing more damage to them than Cally’s rebels had inflicted in the last few minutes. It also sent another human officer whirling into the air, although he appeared otherwise untouched.
Spinning around to thank my rescuer, I saw the ScoutBot careering towards me, crashing through and demolishing anything in its way.
Before I even had chance to work out that it had realised I was in trouble thanks to my wristband (a mix of detecting my pulse rate, tension and sweat profusion) the ScoutBot’s door had automatically opened, the seat swinging out to scoop me up into it’s comforting embrace.
Three more shots followed from its revolving guns, splattering a number of Tigerdroids who had made the mistake of trying to aim at me. The other Tigerdroids, the ones intent on hunting down Cally and her rebels, the ScoutBot seemed to automatically leave alone.
It was only me that it had been programmed to protect.
As soon as it had me safely cocooned within its armoured compartment, it swung around sharply. I was flung back into the seat as it accelerated away, letting off a final couple of shots towards two potentially threatening Tigerdroids detected by its sensors.
‘No, no, stop! You’re going the wrong way!’ I uselessly screamed at the ScoutBot. ‘We should be helping Cally!’
In frustration, I pummelled the compartment’s interior in a fruitless effort to open the door. I pushed at buttons on the controls, tried to switch to automatic; all to no avail.
Saving me overrode all its other considerations.
And that meant I was once again leaving Cally to face the troubles I’d brought down on her.
*
The ScoutBot didn’t even begin to slow until it seemed to work out that I was no longer in any immediate danger.
At last, it let me take over a modicum of control. I swung the bike around so that I could glance back through the (still firmly closed) windows towards where the attack was taking place.
With silent whirrs, the Hawkdroids were lifting up into the air once more.
The last of the Tigerdroids were being swiftly hoisted back aboard the last Hawkdroids.
The last explosions, the last bangs and clatters, were taking place amongst the maze of hovels they were rapidly leaving behind.
I pressed on the ScoutBot’s door handle. The door swung open.
When I stepped out, it was eerily quiet for a moment.
Then the pained and anguished wailing began.
*
Chapter 22
I drove the ScoutBot back towards the area of attack as quickly as we had left it.
Plumes of smoke were rising everywhere,
People, young and old, were walking around in a dishevelled, broken daze.
Alleyways were blocked with crumbled rubble and large segments of roofs and walls.
Shattered bodies lay amongst the rubble. Friends and family bent over the corpses, mourning, or tended the wounded.
They looked up, glared at me, seeing the ScoutBot for what it really was; an intrusion on their world, a deadly invention of the Oases.
I didn’t recognise anyone. I couldn’t recall what any of the people I’d been introduced to only that morning looked like.
Then I saw Kerrsly.
Like so many others that I’d seen as I slowly drove through the ruins, she was sorrowfully crouched over a broken body.
She glanced up as she sensed the presence of the oncoming ScoutBot.
I brought the bike to a halt, not wishing to startle anyone further.
I slipped out the door as it automatically swung open with a whistling purr.
‘Kerrsly. It’s only me,’ I said loud enough for her to hear but not enough to alarm her.
It might be one of her brother’s or a close friend she was mourning.
‘Sorry to interrupt; but have you seen Cally?’ I asked.
Her eyes widened crazily.
She sprung to her feet, sprung towards me.
‘Murderer, murderer!’ sh
e screamed.
The ScoutBot’s guns swiftly whirred into firing position, preparing to fire at Kerrsly if they thought she posed a threat.
‘Stop, stop Kerrsly,’ I cried out, running towards her with my arms raised. I deliberately positioned myself between her and the guns. ‘The ScoutBot will shoot if you don’t stop!’
Either Kerrsly didn’t hear or didn’t care. She continued to rush towards me.
Quickly, I unsnapped the wristband.
Damn, why didn’t I think of that before?
I glanced back to check that the ScoutBot no longer considered me to be in danger.
The guns slid back home.
‘Kerrsly I–’
She violently threw herself at me.
She punched, spat, bit, scratched.
‘Kerrsly, I didn’t–’
‘I saw you, I saw you!’
‘I saw you too! Get up!
A young guy was leaning over us, pointing his gun at my head.
I thought about snapping my wristband back on.
I thought about seeing the guy hovering over me disappearing in an explosion of flesh and blood, what little remained of him splattering all over me.
I left the wristband off.
A number of other people had arrived, dragging Kerrsly off me. Others brusquely grabbed me by my arms, pulling me to my feet.
‘Look, I’m sorry–’
‘Sorry?’ Kerrsly screamed, trying to break free of those holding her and throw herself at me once again. ‘Sorry!’
The young guy holding the gun grimaced, like he was fighting the urge to shoot me.
‘Take her!’ he screamed at the boys pinning my arms behind my back, using a wave of his gun to indicate that I should be dragged off to one of the nearby houses.
‘It was the ScoutBot that–’
The guy stuck me hard across the face with his gun, stunning me, shocking me.
‘Shut it! I saw what happened! Kerrsly saw what happened! We don’t need to hear anything from you! We just need to decide how we’re going to kill you!’
‘Ki…kill me? Look, I didn’t mean to desert yo–’
‘Take her! Take her before I shoot her right now!’
They brutally pushed and pulled me towards the house.
Why was no one giving me the chance to explain that I hadn’t meant to leave them to face the Tigerdroids?
I hadn’t intentionally deserted them!
It had been the ScoutBot that had carried me away, and I hadn’t had any control over it.
‘The ScoutBot was protecting me! It–’
‘You didn’t need any protection from what I saw!’ the guy with the gun snapped.
I was being dragged past the pile of rubble where I had first seen Kerrsly mourning the limp body strewn across it.
It was a girl, I could see that now.
A girl with long, dark hair.
Oh my God!
It was Cally!
Cally had been killed!
‘Cally! Cally!’ I screamed, trying to break free of my captors and rush towards her blood-spattered body. ‘Please, please, you don’t understand–’
‘Save the crocodile tears,’ the guy snarled. ‘I understand perfectly.’
They pushed me into the darkness of the house.
‘I saw you,’ the guy continued to snarl. ‘I saw you kill Cally!’
*
Chapter 23
How could he have seem me kill Cally?
It was impossible!
I wasn’t even there!
I wouldn’t kill Cally anyway; she was my sister!
‘This is madness!’ I insisted, struggling against the painful bounds they’d used to tie me to an old wooden chair. ‘I didn’t kill Cally! I wasn’t anywhere near her! She was my sister!’
‘Sister?’ Kerrsly sneered. ‘No one kills their own sister!’
Everyone seemed to take Kerrsly and the young guy’s word that they’d seen me kill Cally.
My version of events obviously didn’t count.
‘Is that how it happens in this brave new world of yours?’ I snapped. ‘If someone accuses you of something, you’re executed, no further questions asked? Whatever happened to proof? Don’t you need proof that I killed her, rather than just taking someone’s word for it?’
‘We have proof!’ Kerrsly retorted angrily. ‘It was all videoed; we always record the trainings sessions, so we can look back and see how we can improve what we’re doing!’
‘Videoed?’ I was shocked, curious.
Had Cally’s death really been recorded? Was I being ridiculously morbid in wanting to see how it had all happened?
‘Can…can I see it? Please?’
‘You want to gloat over how you killed her?’
Kerrsly spat in my face. She would have launched herself at me once again if a tall, athletic young man hadn’t rushed forward to pull her back.
The young guy who had effectively taken control after Cally’s death – I’d heard the others calling him Drad – frowned yet nodded.
‘She’s right Kerrsly. We’re no better than the Oases if we condemn someone without showing them all the proof stacked up against them.’
With a wave of an arm, he indicated that a gawky girl should begin quickly setting up the equipment to project the video in front of me.
It was surprisingly impressive equipment. Even as the virtual screen flickered into life in the air just before me, I realised it was three dimensional imaging.
The small square that had served as the centre of the training session opened up before me.
The view took in the walls and rooftops of the houses Cally’s team had used earlier to scale and leap across. Here, however, there were glimpses of swiftly moving Tigerdroids rushing across the rooftops, firing at unseen targets down in the alleys, or some way off screen.
It was a mismatched battle of screams, shouts, orders and explosions.
Then, abruptly, the tide seemed to be turning.
First, a Tigerdroid was blasted in mid leap from roof to roof. Then, secondly, another flew backwards as his chest opened up in a thick spout of blood.
A third fell, then a fourth, the shots bringing them down coming from first one place then another, often even through the thin roofs of the houses themselves.
The only way of determining where the firer might be – or, rather where the firer had been only a moment ago – was to presume the pursuing human officers racing across the hovel-tops were aiming their returning shots relatively accurately.
Like the person they were following, they fired through the roof tops when they had to, or down into the alleyways whenever their prey obviously dashed between the houses.
Suddenly, one of the officers was sent spiralling backwards. One of the shots fired up from a hovel’s interior caught him on one side of his body, jerking his head back awkwardly.
Suddenly, Cally was rushing almost directly towards us as she crashed through a flimsy door.
The officer, seeing his prey at last break out into the open, put on a fresh burst of speed. He brought up his gun, aiming it at the fleeing Cally’s head.
As if either sensing or anticipating the bolt that was about to cleave her head in two, Cally threw herself into an angled roll. She came out of it facing the other way and in a crouch, her gun already raised.
She fired immediately, knowing time was precious.
Her bolt might have struck the pursuing officer, only he moved equally as quickly, equally as instinctively as Cally. He threw himself off to one side.
But he was unlucky.
He landed hard on a particularly weak part of the hovel’s structure. The roof, then the walls, crumbled, gave away.
He slipped down to the ground in an avalanche of heavy rubble, his gun flying from his hand.
Cally rushed towards him, her gun staying directly aimed at his helmeted head.
Perhaps she was going to kill him. Maybe she hoped she could threaten his life and command him to call off his troops.
The officer suddenly whipped of his helmet – and I was as shocked, as frozen to the spot, as Cally was.
It was me! The officer facing Cally was me!
*
Chapter 24
‘Ang…Angeic?’ Cally spluttered unsurely.
It was enough of a hesitation for the officer to reach for the gun that had fallen just out of her reach.
Stunned, Cally was too slow to react.
The officer fired at point blank range, striking Cally hard in the chest.
As Cally fell, the officer rose, slipping her helmet back on.
She must have given an immediate order to withdraw for, abruptly, a retractor-cord shot up into the air from her back pack.
In the blink of an eye, she was whisked up out of sight as one of the unseen Hawkdroids hovering above instantly grabbed the climbing cord.
To the sounds of an eerie whispering, the Tigerdroids similarly soared into the air, effectively vanishing from shot as if fired skyward by rocket boots.
Cally was left alone, dead amongst the rubble.
*
‘It wasn’t me! I wasn’t there.’
I looked around at their disbelieving faces.
‘You know I wasn’t there. I was with you!’
Once again, I was met with looks of disbelief.
They shook their heads.
No, I hadn’t been with them.
‘No one knew where you were.’
Drad scowled as he spoke, like he was tiring of all this and wanted it all to come to a swift end.
‘We don’t know how you did it, but you brought the Tigerdroids down on us once more. And somehow even managed to join them for the attack.’
‘You hoped no one would recognise you in your helmet,’ someone else added.
‘It was an operation to take out Cally,’ Drad said assuredly. ‘As soon as she was dead, you called off the attack.’
‘Then you re-joined us, hoping we’d all be fooled into thinking you’d been with us all along!’
Kerrsly still had a murderous glare in her eye, even if she had calmed down so much that she no longer had to be held back from killing me.
‘No, no!’ I persisted. ‘It was the ScoutBot; the ScoutBot took me away. That’s why no one saw me here.’
They swapped looks that implied they were all wondering how much longer all this nonsense was going to go on.
‘That that dangerous thing outside?’ somebody asked.
‘Yeah, won’t let anyone close without aiming a gun at us!’
‘The thing she arrived back here in!’ Kerrsly snapped triumphantly. ‘That’s how she left us and then got back so quickly!’