Unconscious…
His head fell loosely to one side, expression twisted in misery.
Someone should ping Juliandra.
William kept one hand between Hugo’s head and the barn’s pavement. Thin wisps of smoke still swirled upwards towards the rafters where SIEGFRIED had cauterized the flesh.
Dorothy felt dizzy.
She crouched a couple of meters off, “Will he die?”
William knelt by the body.
His voice was business like, “He’s bled out, not dead. We’ve gotta evac. I need you to get Goran in here with a med kit, Dory. He should get out of the house anyhow. They just shot Dax too.”
Just then Hugo flinched and mumbled, eyes squeezed shut, but he began speaking, “…Goldstein, it’s all on you now,” his head thrashed back and forth and he mumbled on unintelligibly.
William held his intact arm and he stilled.
Dorothy leaned closer, “Did you hear that? What happened to Hugo’s accent?”
“I have no idea,” said William with a frown. “You saw what he did out there.”
“Sure did.”
“Here he goes again.”
Hugo spoke through the mumbles, “Repeat, mission parameters.” His pronunciation was perfect, “Repeating mission parameters, ma’am. I will defend him, with my own life. My debt will be paid, my debt will be paid, we will never…” and he again fell unconscious.
William and Dorothy looked at each other.
“We should keep this in our back pocket,” said William. “For later.”
“Agreed.” Dorothy’s combud vibrated, priority klaxon repeating, “Joan, I’m coming. Jeezus!” She ignored the dolphin’s ping one more time.
She moved closer, hand hovering over her husband’s blood soaked shoulders. Hugo’s breathing was labored and sporadic.
“I don’t know what to say,” she added after a moment of quiet. “I didn’t think they’d actually shoot us.”
William shook his head, “Me either.” He reached and touched her hand, “I need you to get Goran, sweetheart. Then get back to Joan and help her drive. I’ve gotta see to the pups. They’re in trouble.”
Dorothy was starting to implore him not to leave the safety of the barn when Dax and Tara pushed through the door. Dax was limping, his leg bloodied below the knee. He was carrying William’s rifle. Tara was covered in blood from head to toe, most of it not her own. Her bare feet were black from running through forest and field. Leaves stuck to her skin, caught in a mix of wet to drying blood and splattered mud. Her emerald green eyes looked brazen and crazed. Outside the open door the Coyotes paced and mewled, their muzzles red from fighting, blue eyes pulsing with sly anxiety. The newly designated Coyote One poked her head around the corner of the door, sniffing the barn air, but would not enter.
Before anyone spoke, Goran and Cat appeared. Cat clung furtively to Goran’s shoulder. The Felix kitten wore an expression as somber and flat as her dwarf’s, moving only to hiss at the Coyotes as they passed. Goran had a blanket tucked under an arm and carried a small first aid kit in his bionic hand, a silver egg in his other. The egg had a red cross engraved on its shell and contained 10,000 emergency nanomed spiders.
Dax waived Goran off when he stopped to attend his leg, “See to Hugo, I’m fine. Tara and I are going to the house. There’s another field dressing kit in the pantry.”
“But…” Dorothy started.
“No buts,” said Dax.
Tara ripped off the bottom section of her bloody t-shirt and tied a makeshift tourniquet just below Dax’s knee. As soon as she was done, with her help, he limped back through the open door and they disappeared, Coyotes shadowing close on their heels.
Goran broke the med-kit and set to cleaning and disinfecting the blackened stump of Hugo’s arm. His small fingers, bionic and human alike, worked with alacrity and speed. Cat supervised from his shoulder as he worked, her eyes burning blue fire. Soon satisfied, Goran cracked his silver egg against the asphalt and sprinkled a gray dusting of nanomed spiders over the wound. They fell like thousands of pepper flakes that swarmed and dispersed on contact with the flesh.
As Dorothy watched, her combud chimed with the emergency override.
“What Joan?! Damn it!”
Her combud pushed an eery wailing floating across the fields from beyond the barn.
The Rottweilers howling.
William tapped his comdot, “SIEG, FREY, LOFN, no more than a quarter kilometer from the barn. Your sister is on her own.”
The howling muted.
Joan’s voice cut into Dorothy’s ear, steady and succinct, “Dorothy Marie Angevine, we have an imminent situation with unit AK9CIVEPSILON. Immediate human input requested at holocontrol.”
William’s eyes met hers, “It’s SNOTRA.”
He returned to his boots and snatched up his hunting rifle. Goran’s small weathered black hand had taken over the job of supporting Hugo’s unconscious head.
Dorothy wiped a tear from her cheek, “Yes.”
Her husband’s face hardened, “We’re gonna burn them to the ground, sweetheart.”
Dorothy nodded with resolve, “They’ll wish we burned them to the ground.”
Then she turned and ran to the aquarium.
11:01 am – Fifty Nine Minutes Before Event.
“Let’s drop those drones under the cloud line, Joan. I need eyes on the field,” said Dorothy as she fell into the control chair. “Can everyone hear me?”
“I gotcha,” responded William.
“We’re here,” said Dax’s voice. “Tara and I are taking to the second story guest room with a lightning gun. Goran has stabilized Hugo?”
“That is correct,” said Joan. “Nanobots have sutured all lacerated blood vessels.”
“How’s your leg, Dax?” asked Dorothy. “And since when do we have lightning guns?”
“Ever since they put a bullet in my calf,” said Dax blithely. “This room is the only vantage where I can get a distance shot on the field.”
“Do you have a lightning gun, Tara?”
Tara’s voice crackled over com, then resolved.
Dorothy could tell she was holding Dax’s holotab with her neck as she talked, “I had a humdroid’s sonic gun but ditched it. Emotional support only. I managed to get an Epoxyderm© patch on my boy’s leg, though.”
Dorothy felt reassured, “Good work, T. Honey? Dogs?”
William’s breath was hurried, “I’m behind one of the Lincolns, can’t see. Zoom in out there.” His voice became strangely tense, “I can feel it. They’ve trapped her, she’s dying.”
“Not if I can prevent it,” said Dax.
Dorothy magnified her holoscreen view as the drones dropped below the cloud line.
SNOTRA had burst from the cover of the woods into the pumpkin field just meters ahead of the RIOT borg platoon she had encountered in the sumac glade, only to be cut off by another 25 units waiting to ambush her in the open field. She tried to leap into the air. Her hind legs sank in the mud. Three of the fast cybernetic Dobermans slammed into her, halting her momentum. Their carbide teeth shredded her BIOSKIN© ears and fur. One locked its jaws on her rear leg and would not let go. SNOTRA snarled viciously and whipped her head from side to side, flinging the attackers away bodily. She twisted, severed the head of the borg clamped to her hind leg with the claws of her free paw, then pushed forward, disabling two more RIOT units by ripping their forelegs off with a flash of her incisors. Those two units were replaced by four more. The Dobermans sensed their advantage, charging two, three or four at a time, then retreating, howling, gnashing their scissor-like jaws.
Dorothy gasped as a flash of green particle energy slashed the sky and left four of the brown, plastic cyborgs smoldering in the mud.
“Sadly, I did not have the foresight to purchase a rapid fire lightning gun,” said Dax over com, his voice sounding oddly distorted and enthusiastic. “Nonetheless, I’ll have another stream of sunshine coming their way in 45 seconds.”
“Things that didn’t used to make sense…” said William, using the roof of the Lincoln as a shooting mount, “bulletproof glass on the hovcars, for example.”
“Indeed.”
Dorothy watched her husband stand and fire his own rifle, bullets slamming into the RIOT dogs on the outside of the pack a kilometer and a half down field. The impact from the impossibly placed .30 caliber bullets knocked the RIOT’s over, but would not fully disable them unless he was able to land a virtually impossible eye shot or pierce the battery housing.
SIEGFRIED, FREYA and LOFN paced beside the Lincoln, whining with concern, but remained obediently beside their tether. Their growls were becoming increasingly tortured.
With horror Dorothy saw gunfire open up from the sheriff’s deputies on the hovroad. The precision M92 rounds struck the now exposed titanalum joints on SNOTRA’S neck. Every time the snipers had a window, bullets connected in rapid succession, one, two, three, six times, mercilessly pounding the small Rottweiler into the mud. The Dobermans pounced each time she fell, clawing furiously at the structurally damaged chassis.
Joan said flatly, “Internal component exposure unit AK9CIVEPSILON; 3rd, 4th and 5th cervical plates. Primary motor control compromised. Attempting to reroute through secondary conduits. Successful.”
Dorothy blinked. Another green particle discharge from Dax’s lightning gun rocketed across the field, melting three more RIOT units on the outside of their pack.
“Get it, Dax!” shouted Dorothy.
The Dobermans on the outside of the group fanned out. Those at the center continued to strike SNOTRA. She managed to regain her feet only to be pulled back down by the swarm. What was left of her BIOSKIN© wrap hung in bloody shreds. Her red eyes flashed miserably. The small cyborg cried in terror for the first time. She regained her footing, pinned a Doberman to the earth and leapt up, trying to jump over the ring of attackers. Dorothy cried out. A particle stream caught SNOTRA in mid-air and fused the titanalum armor on her hindquarters. SNOTRA’S chassis fell clumsily to Earth. The RIOT cyborgs descended, gnashing at her freshly exposed components.
“Imminent system failure, unit AK9CIVEPSILON,” said Joan flatly.
Dax fired again, melting a single RIOT unit. William had never stopped firing, except to reload, knocking the Dobermans down with single shots.
They did not stay down long.
“I’m too far out,” said William.
The Rottweilers around him howled mournfully. They felt it. William felt it.
“SNOTRA’S dead,” he said coldly.
“They’re coming!” said Dorothy abruptly.
A group of RIOT dogs remained around SNOTRA, ripping apart her chassis. But fifteen, the biggest and bulkiest of the Dobermans, had broken off and were galloping, gaining momentum across the field, headed straight for William. The big battborgs threw up chunks of mud as they charged.
“How long, sweetheart?” asked William.
“Sixty seconds.”
William knelt and touched the heads of his Rottweilers.
The DOGS units focused on his voice like it was the only sound on Terra, “Okay girls, flank it again. SIEG, TOHO down the center. Burn them. Run dogs!”
The Rottweilers bolted from behind the Lincoln, savage springs of revenge uncoiling. FREYA and LOFN split off, rooster tails of mud panning to either side of the oncoming Dobermans. SIEGFRIED braced himself on the far side of the docked Lincoln, dug his claws into the asphalt and discharged six full capacity TOHO rounds, then burned to catch up with his sisters. Five of the RIOT dogs in the center mass were slagged by the blasts, melted bodies skidding to a stop amongst the pumpkins as the lines of particle energy disintegrated their extremities. FREYA and LOFN descended on the scattering units before they could recover.
The RIOT Dobermans did not stand a chance. SIEGFRIED joined the fray, removing the head from a unit as he slashed the legs off another, and another, and another. The fifteen cyborgs were reduced to fractured piles of rubble in less than 35 seconds. Down field, the remaining compliment of RIOT bots reformed and retreated.
“To me,” said William quietly.
The Rottweilers howled, triumphant, and rocketed back towards the docked Lincoln.
Dorothy smiled as they split apart, dodging several sniper rounds which whizzed past them harmlessly, “Thanks, Joan.”
“You are welcome,” said the dolphin.
“At least they aren’t shooting at us anymore,” said William.
“They won’t,” said Dax, his voice still sounding slightly odd. “That was CNED. The sheriff’s people want to capture us, not kill us.”
“Guys, they’re bringing something out on the hovroad,” said Dorothy. Her voice chilled, “What are those? They look like giant spiders.”
Two mottled-silver arachnid bots emerged, scuttling from the belly of each Harrier C17 Globemaster onto the hovroad. Each bot had eight long spiked legs and was the size of a hovtruck, with a discus central body to which a swiveling 360 degree cannon was mounted. Sharp pincers easily a meter in length formed a V beneath the weapon’s barrel. The bots moved quickly, stealthily, dual orange vidorbs flitting with brisk precision on the tips of long ocular antennae that protruded from the main chassis.
“Mark IV C.yborg R.emediation A.ssault B.ots being deployed,” said Joan. “These non-sentient, robotic units are quasi-independent, driven by a remote human operator. The structure of their hardened polyethylene exoskeletons is loosely based on Tasmanian king crab morphology. Extremities are wrapped in a ten millimeter layer of titanalum. The fusion powered super drones have a central chassis structure with a median diameter of 538 cm and weigh 1,800 kilograms each. MIV-CRAB units ambulate on eight spiked leg pedestals, providing superior mobility over any terrain. They are armed with goethite razor edged pincers and rapid fire, 90 mm plasma cannons.”
“So sharp teeth and big guns is what you’re saying?” asked William, lighting a cigarette.
“They’re military anti-cyborg drones,” said Dax. “They seek out the gravotemporal fluctuations in a DOGS unit’s fusion matrix. They’re fast too.”
“Is anybody thinking what I’m thinking?” said William.
“CRAB units were not listed on their inventory. Joan?” said Dax inquisitively.
“Daniel Simmons Everquist is doing a superior job of masking their assets,” said the dolphin, emotionless.
“If we make it through the morning,” said Dax, “I must have a talk with that boy.”
“What are you two talking about?” asked Dorothy. “It’s no time for mincing words!”
“Mincing not intended,” said Dax’s voice. “They’re taking a page from our playbook. Simmons is the sheriff’s IT wizard. He’s cloaked the wonk on their assets so our drones are relaying false data. Joan, where do we stand with the scrubber?”
“Co2 scrubbing unit C643 is traveling east-southeast over the city of Topeka, Kansas, at 185 kph velocity with an elevation of 9.23 kilometers. Our firing window based on momentum and controllable descent is anytime in the next 240 seconds.”
“Excellent.”
“Incoming!” shouted William.
A fat jet of green particle energy erupted from a CRAB robot as it leapt agilely into the pumpkin field, blasting a crater in the ground directly behind FREYA, thirty meters from William’s position. The cannon’s shockwave tossed the Rottweiler forward, though FREYA contorted in mid-air like a cat and landed on her feet, continued running. All three Rottweilers were now ripping across the land at impossible speeds, systematically drawing fire from the hovroad as they arced away from the barn in constantly changing ellipses and zig-zags.
“What are you talking about, Dax?” asked Dorothy. “What scrubber?”
“What say you ask me about that later, eh Dorothy?” said Dax’s voice as a round of particle energy came from the farmhouse.
“I will.”
The CRAB bots skimmed over the mud. Like the jaws of the RIOT dogs, the bots sounded like gnashing scis
sors as they moved. 90 mm particle streams spat from the CRAB units’ cannons, a discharge every other second hunting the Rottweilers.
“I’m not even gonna waste my bullets,” said William, continuing to fire on the RIOT Dobermans huddled far down field.
Another blast landed close to William, smashing a crater in the driveway.
As soon as the scattered rain of asphalt and debris died down, Dax said, “On a related note, I expect our own masked asset is positively dying to stretch his legs.”
“Finally,” said William as he cracked off another shot. “I might as well piss on those bots as shoot ’em with a rifle. Dory? You got him up the elevator?”
“Oh, hell yes I do, honey,” said Dorothy. “He’s pissed too. Opening the main door now.”
Another round of particle energy split a meter wide crater in the driveway directly in front of SIEGFRIED, pummeling him with chunks of broken asphalt. CRAB 01 and CRAB 02 were well clear of their transport ships, advancing side by side parallel to the driveway as they spat fire at the Rottweilers.
SIEGFRIED shook the mud off and whined. The BIOSKIN© fur on the right side of his body was shredded, exposing the metal infrastructure of his chassis. The cyborg dug his claws into the asphalt and leapt away, moments before a second particle round ripped past and incinerated a swath of marijuana plants in the adjacent field belonging to Purple Tree Farms. Pungent ganja smoke filtered up like a white serpent into the blue-gray clouds. The nearest Purple Tree security drone raced to the spot, scanning and recording.
There was a moment of relative silence. The CRAB bots stopped firing and paused their advance.
“CRAB units must intermittently cease firing to keep their cannons from overheating,” said Joan. “Unit AK9MILALPHA fully spooled. Target window approaching.”
William began to say, “Are they…”
Awwwwwuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhllll…
THOR’S howl came low and deep, shuddering through the damp morning air. Dorothy shivered as the aquarium com reproduced the terrifying noise. None of them, including Dax, had ever heard their largest cyborg howl at full volume. She reoriented the nearest drone’s camera. Joan had darkened the barn’s LED’s. On this overcast day, with its door raised, the garage entrance looked black as a cave.
Absorption: Phase 03 (The Eighteenth Shadow) Page 20