Trinity: Atom & Go

by Zach Winderl

  “What is this?” Blatt demanded, shifting into his lady’s line of sight.

  Hither smiled and bowed her head. With a wave of her hand the ‘pencils’ flew like javelins. Although not extremely accurate, the darts impaled themselves in whatever flesh happened to line up with their trajectory.

  Cries of pain erupted in conjunction with a volley from the soldiers.

  Daisy stepped forward and slapped up his shield in time to absorb most of the energy bolts winging in their direction. Only one bolt managed to slip through before the shield fully charged. The crimson lance ripped into Daisy’s shoulder, leaving a charred furrow in his shirt and flesh.

  The hit did little to slow the rumbling giant, instead it sparked his fury.

  Slipping hands into the power gauntlets hanging at his waist, Daisy slammed his fists together with a cry of rage and plunged forward. Behind him, Shi and Hither spun outward. Shi’s ladies jumped into her hands and began to sing songs of death. On the far flank, Hither leveled an auto-blaster and fired bursts into the press of enemies.

  Byron gathered Margo behind Daisy’s shield and pressed into the recessed door housing.

  As they curled together, Cody poked his head up from Byron’s pack. The mini-dragon caught sight of Margo and wove himself sinuously around her shoulders like a serpentine cat.

  The two children watched the battle with frozen anticipation, knowing that their lives hung in the balance of warriors driving a wedge into the enemy phalanx.

  Daisy charged towards Blatt, his power gauntlets destroying flesh with precision blunt force. His shield caught the scattered shots, but a few of the enemies shifted their attacks to non-energy weapons. The raging giant managed to deflect a knife thrust enough to escape with a long gash along his upper arm. He pulped the attacker’s face with a lashing backhand that launched the soldier sideways into another cluster of attackers.

  In front of him, Blatt backpedaled, guiding his lady behind his bulk as he poured a continuous stream of blaster-fire into Daisy’s shield.

  “Keep firing,” he roared as Daisy dismantled a pair of guards who stepped between their liege and the intruders. “Overload his shield. He doesn’t have long. Keep shooting.”

  Daisy roared forward, opening up the flanks and forcing Shi and Hither to spread wider. Ducking and weaving through the carnage, the Valkyrie pair flowed forward on an uncharted course in defiance of the Markins. As Hither gained the wall, she snatched a guard in a chokehold and used him as a human shield to press on towards the main entryway to the house.

  Shi slithered forward in a serpentine route that dodged and darted through the enemy, dropping them where the opportunity afforded itself.

  More soldiers poured from the innards of the house, streaming past Blatt and his lady.

  The tables had shifted, if not turned, and the new guards found themselves caught in a pincer with blades to the flank and a shielded battering ram plunging up the gut.

  Behind the human wave, Blatt guided his lady to safety and turned to look back at the crew as they minced through the guards sacrificing their lives in return for time. The look on his face conveyed an understanding that he could only prolong the inevitable.

  Daisy missed the look as his ursine rage consumed him, leaving him to devour those before him instead of driving for the true enemy.

  In the entryway, the crowd thinned. Shi paused to reload and several of the remaining guards turned their attention her way. Hither used the opportunity to press forward and take the small group in the flank.

  Daisy smashed into the last soldier, driving the man to his knees.

  The rage slipped from the bear’s eyes to be replaced by cold calculation. “You know why we’re doing this?” he asked, his chest heaving as he fought the aftermath of adrenaline.

  “No,” the man gasped. His arm hung dead at his side. “Just following orders.”

  “Family,” Daisy growled. “You stole a member of our family.”

  As Daisy leaned over the kneeling man, the two women slipped past. Shi paused to put a bullet in the man’s head.

  “It’s humane to put a wounded critter down,” she said with a grimace.

  Daisy stared as the man crumpled. It took a moment for his primal mind to comprehend. Then he nodded to Shi and turned back to Margo and Byron. He strode through the battlefield to scoop the girl into his arms. He snugged the girl close to his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Go,” he whispered, his voice gruff as he fought back tears. He touched her welted cheek with a tender finger.

  “Daisy,” Margo pushed back and pressed her tiny hands to the pilot’s cheeks. “No sad. Daisy smile. Where’s Da?” She looked around, peeking over Daisy’s shoulder as if her father might materialize from thin air.

  “He’s still out on his gig,” Daisy sighed as he set the girl down beside Byron.

  “Daisy.” Hither poked her head back into the wide entryway. “We need to press this home. If they escape, you know it’ll float around on the back orbit and catch us in the pipe.”

  Daisy nodded in weary assent and picked his way back through the carnage.

  “Shi swept right,” Hither said, glaring down the hallway to their left. “You and I will be the wall to her sweep.

  “By,” Hither commanded. “Keep Go with you and tail us. I want you to keep near, but out of the line of fire. If you have any little surprises in your pack, feel free to keep anyone from creeping up our back quadrant.”

  “Oi darl, I can start right ‘ere.” Byron grinned as he reached into his pack and pulled a handful of what looked to be metal juggling spheres.

  He tossed the spheres around the room, mixed in with the dead, and joined the others. “Anyone who ain’t us is in fer a tight s’prise if they come a tipsy-toed frough ‘ere. An’ I fink it’d be prime if’n we let Cody fly a touch and let us know what be’s ahead.”

  Byron whistled and the mech-dragon sprang from around Margo’s neck and flapped up into the air.

  As the four slipped into the hallway, Daisy popped a new battery pack into his shield and fired up the half-sphere that protected his front. Hither slipped along as Daisy’s shadow, half a step to his right. Behind them a dozen paces, Byron and Margo followed in an exaggerated crouch-walk.

  Cody glided ahead. The dragon swooped up to cling to the wall near an approaching corner and inverted, using his claws to crawl across the ceiling like a gecko.

  Behind the slithering scout, Daisy and Hither slowed.

  The width of the hallway allowed them to walk side by side, with room to spare, but working together, they stacked to optimize the protection of Daisy’s shield. The power-pugilist strolled, his fist ready and his feet light. Behind him, Hither kept her gun on the corner.

  As they progressed down the hallway, the first of several closed doors drew near.

  The cautious assault pair slowed and Byron drew Margo to the wall.

  A head peeked around the corner and Hither snapped a shot that caught the unfortunate guard just above the eye with a burst of blaster bolts.

  Cody eased his head around the same corner at the joint of the wall and ceiling.

  “They are stacked around the corner waiting for you,” Kozue told them.

  “Daiz, check the doors.” Hither crouched against the wall several paces ahead of Margo and Byron. “I’ll keep them checked at the corner. I don’t want any surprises slipping up behind us.

  Daisy nodded and stepped up to slide the nearest door open. He poked his head in, surveyed, and moved to the next with the same result.

  “Looks like they executed a fancy bug-out.” He shrugged and stumped to the third and final door before the corner. He paused and grinned back at the others. “I could sure use a drink right about now.”

  He slipped the door open.

  The hallway erupted in one cacophony of sound and motion. Just as the door opened, a slug ripped from within the room, sending Daisy sprawling back against the far wall in an explosion of flesh and blood.

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sp; At the sound, several Markinshan guards darted around the corner, only to be cut down by Hither.

  Margo screamed and tried to dart forward.

  Sensing her movement, Byron lunged and dragged the girl down by the back of her jumper.

  “Daisy,” the girl screamed, her juvenile voice cutting through the chaos.

  Hither slipped forward and pressed her back to the wall beside the hostile doorway as Daisy, blood pulsing from a fist-sized hole in his back, lurched sideways and clawed out of the line of fire. A few agonizing feet down the hall he collapsed to the floor with a strange mewl, and continued to try to scoot away from the danger, his movements clumsy and garbled with pain.

  His eyes widened as his breath came in short, bubbled gasps.

  “Byron,” Hither snapped the boy’s attention from wrangling Margo as she fought towards Daisy with more determination than any child should have mustered. “I need one of your little friends.”

  He shrugged at Margo.

  “Leave her,” Hither commanded.

  Byron released Margo, who promptly scampered to Daisy. The mech swung his pack and fished inside for a moment. Then, finding his prize, pulled another fist-sized ball bearing from the depths.

  “Back,” he commanded Hither as he tossed it sidearm, past her.

  The ball landed in the doorway and defied physics as it refused to bounce. The metallic sphere vibrated. A series of shots rang out from within the room, heavy slugs tearing up the wooden floor around the ball, but failing to hit the target.

  Sensing the violent intentions from within the room, a rippling series of legs thrust from the carapace and a metallic creature that seemed a fusion of spider and centipede erupted from within the plain metal. Faster than the eye could track, the mech-creature skittered into the room.

  A scream of terror followed.

  Hither’s wide-eyed glance found Byron staring into the void.

  “Is he ok?” the courtesan asked Kozue.

  “He is interfacing with his mech,” Kozue replied. “It would appear we have time for you to attend to Daisy. The enemy has fallen back to the next intersection. I cannot see them from Cody’s current position, but estimate from building size and probable layouts that there is a defensive room on the left.”

  “Where is Margo?” Hither hissed, looking up and down the hall, but failing to locate the child.

  “Unknown,” Kozue replied in her technical AI voice. “Her nano connection was severed during the EMP and I have not had time to replenish her system. I estimate that she is in one of the side rooms, but cannot say for sure.”

  As if on cue, Margo emerged from the nearest room, hauling a wad of bedding in her arms. Unable to see over the burden, she walked with searching feet until she bumped a toe into Daisy’s leg and dropped the sheets atop the curled pilot. Without hesitation, she packed the entire bundle against Daisy’s wounded back, using her whole body to apply pressure.

  “Daisy is approaching shock,” Kozue continued with clinical indifference. “Margo is right, you need to attend to him now. I will scout ahead and alert you if anything changes with the enemy.”

  Margo held Daisy’s immense frame as much as she could. Her efforts looked more like a hug that struggled to hold the giant in place as he writhed in agony.

  Daisy’s eyes fluttered as he fought to look over his shoulder at Margo.

  Covering the few steps to the collapsed figure, Hither accessed his med stats through Kozue as she held a hand to his forehead.

  “By,” Hither called the boy out of his rapture as she nudged Margo out of the way and leaned into the packing with all of her weight. “I’m going to need you to pull the med-kit from your pack and stabilize Daisy. He’s bleeding in and out, so you’re going to need to pull that field-triage I taught you. Interface with the nanos to help you stop the bleed and slip an internal stasis ball inside the wound to help slow things down until we can get him back to the ship.

  “Set your little buggers at all the nearby chokepoints and set them to sentry so you don’t have to worry about anyone sneaking on you.

  “I’m taking Go and I’m going to finish this.” She eased off, allowing Byron room.

  “Got it,” Byron said as he dumped his pack on the ground next to Daisy and half a dozen spheres sprang to life, darting away like exposed cockroaches.

  “Good.” Hither knelt and waved Margo onto her back to clip into a reserve harness.

  She wiped Daisy’s blood from her hands on the front of her tan jacket like warpaint and rose to her feet like Shiva carrying the daughter of man on her back. She checked the charge on her compact auto-blaster and drew a second energy pistol from the shoulder holster beneath her jacket.

  “Koze, you said they were regrouping at the next intersection?” Hither walked into Death’s doorway and surveyed the aftermath of Byron’s creation.

  “Firm,” the AI replied. “I’m along the ceiling as before. They are not moving. I’m assuming they fear death in the open and are content to wait for you to come to their prepared defensive position.”

  “Peachy.” Hither’s eyes hardened. “Let me know if they move.”

  “Firm,” the AI repeated.

  Byron’s mech looked up from the remnants of the man who had shot Daisy. It looked as if the tiny machine had crawled inside the man, through his thigh, and erupted from his chest. The insectoid mech sat nestled in the wreck of the man’s chest cavity, covered in gore as messy and innocent as a child in a mud puddle.

  The mech cocked the multi-oc head protruding from the chaotic splay of razor limbs.

  “Rule of thumb.” The devilish grin that split Hither’s face would have forced any human to step back in concern and fear, but the machine simply acknowledged her presence as a non-threat, and turned back to its gory bed. “Don’t walk into an ambush if you can walk around it.”

  She crossed the room, careful to avoid the offal puddle surrounding the corpse, and slipped open the courtyard door a crack.

  A pair of guards stood together on the bridge, using the arch to give them a slight vantage point. Hither did not give them a chance to react. Ripping the door wide, she erupted from the darkened room with her auto-blasters belching forth a fusillade of crimson energy.

  Hitting the ground at a sprint, she made it to the foot of the bridge before the first guard realized death had passed. The second guard, shielded by the body of the first, managed to lift his rifle before a burst caught him in the face and snapped him over the railing to plunge into the pond below like a sea burial.

  Hither flew past.

  She took the walkway steps in one leap and put her shoulder through the light paneling of the door to erupt into Konstantine’s office.

  The lower-lord whipped around in surprise. The gun he had trained on the office door trailed his eyes. The lord’s wife ducked behind the desk as a wild shot ripped a burning trail across the wall near Hither.

  The Valkyrie pulled her trigger.

  A triple-shot burst caught Konstantine, trailing up his arm in a muscle purging explosion of energy.

  The man’s gun dropped from fingers severed from muscular control.

  “Milady,” Hither said, bobbing her head to the wife peeking from the cover of the desk. “I will say that we gave you every opportunity to walk away from this situation.”

  Konstantine staggered back from Hither, clutching his dead arm.

  “I believe the life of your guard in return for the fact that you kidnapped a member of our family would have been extremely fair.” Hither stalked Konstantine. “This all should have been avoided.”

  Without further preamble, she thrust her blaster against the lord’s throat and fired. He sank to his knees.

  The woman squeaked and dropped back behind the desk.

  As the sound of the shot faded, Blatt burst through the door with his own blaster raised. He froze when he caught sight of his lord on the floor, clutching at the missing side of his neck. With the burn of the close blaster fire cauterizing the w
ound, the scene presented very little blood.

  In a convulsing heap, Konstantine collapsed.

  Hither shifted her pistols to target Blatt. “Your lord is dead,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “He has paid for his sins.

  “Do you need to follow?” Hither remained motionless, calm, calculating.

  Blatt swallowed. Sweat beaded at his temple. His gun centered on Hither’s mass as he said, “We both go with him if you follow this path.” His eyes drifted from her face to the barrels staring at him and back.

  “I’m already on the path.”

  “She ready to take the path as well?” Blatt’s nod in Margo’s direction gave the courtesan pause. “No way I miss her taking you out.’

  “Blatt good,” Margo chirped, peeking over Hither’s shoulder.

  The bannerman’s tired smile sealed the accord.

  “Then we walk away.” Hither’s blasters dropped enough to demonstrate her willingness to entertain peace without fully removing mutual destruction.

  Blatt lowered his gun.

  Following suit, Hither relaxed. Margo beamed over her shoulder.

  “I can’t say the han won’t file grievances up the chain, but I say we let the uppers sort things out.” Blatt holstered his pistol and crossed his arms.

  “It won’t come to much. We don’t have a han for you to negotiate with.”

  “Mercs?” Blatt seemed surprised. “I’ve never seen a hired gun carry their kid into battle.”

  “We didn’t exactly bring her. I seem to remember our whole being here revolves around trying to get her back before our captain found out you had taken her. If he had been the one to retrieve his daughter, not a one of you or your men would be standing now. I consider myself to be more….” Hither paused, searching for the right word. “Civilized.”

  Blatt’s laughter shook his impressive frame.

  “You consider sending two dozen of my soldiers down the path to be civilized?” He shook his head in amazement. “If that’s your perspective, I don’t want to meet this captain of yours. What’s his name anyway?”

  “Atom Ulvan.”

  “I knew it,” the wife screeched as she rose from behind the desk with an assault blaster trained on the pair. “I’ve heard of your captain. He never fails when he has taken a job and he always takes his child with him.”