by Scott Baron
Daisy’s Gambit
The Clockwork Chimera Book 3
Scott Baron
Copyright © 2018 by Scott Baron
ISBN 978-1-945996-20-7 (Print Edition)
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
But Wait, There’s More!
Freebies
Thank You
About the Author
Also by Scott Baron
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
– Neil deGrasse Tyson
Chapter One
Pulse rifle fire peppered the wall to Daisy’s left, sending razor-sharp bits of stone shrapnel flying every which way.
“Ow! Sonofa––” Tamara cursed as another new gash opened in her cheek. Soon she’d have yet another scar to add to her collection. That is, if they stayed alive long enough for her to grow it.
How many did you count, Sarah? Daisy asked her mental sidekick.
“I saw five of them spaced out between two and four o’clock. I counted only three with pulse rifles, though. The other two are trying to flank you on the left. I lost track of them after they swung past your nine o’clock, but I think only one of them is armed.”
“Tamara, two are trying to get around our left flank. Cover our six,” Daisy warned.
“You sure? How’d you manage to catch that?”
“Just trust me. I’m sure.”
Tamara had learned by now that Daisy, however it was that she managed it, was spot-on about these things more often than not.
“Copy that,” the metal-armed woman grunted, her normally intimidating replacement arm dangling limp at her side, held in place against her torso by a tightly cinched desert campaign shemagh.
The rest of her team was equally engaged with the particularly stubborn Chithiid salvage unit. Stubborn, and surprisingly well-armed. It was something of an anomaly, seeing as their Ra’az Hok overlords were very careful about how many weapons, and how much ammunition, they allotted their Chithiid servants.
The abundance of pulse fire from the aliens made Daisy fairly sure their opponents were loyalists, who were always far better armed, but she was unable get a proper look to confirm her suspicions.
Sergeant George Franklin and his support team of two additional cyborgs were slowly inching forward, efficient in their movements, firing and covering one another as they crept close enough to be within grenade range. Each of them had suffered several glancing hits from pulse weapons, but their heavily armored cybernetic endoskeletons shrugged off the blasts.
They’d have to patch the damage to their scan-blocking Faraday suits after the battle, but unless a direct hit was scored on one of their few critical areas, the weapons fire was more an annoyance than a threat.
For the human volunteers, however, the danger was far more acute. While the additional bodies were welcome when it came to carrying supplies, the half dozen inexperienced youths covering their rear needed more than a little babysitting.
Daisy listened carefully as the Chithiid troops called to one another.
“The females are pinned down. Drezz, Herx, you have moved far enough along their flank. When I count to three, we will launch a heavy suppressing fire. Use that diversion to eliminate them.”
“Tamara, incoming rearward!” Daisy called out in warning. “They’re about to open up with diversionary fire. The real attack will be from behind.”
“…Two. Three!” the Chithiid called out.
Stone chips and debris flew as the weapons fire intensified, but Tamara and Daisy held their ground, weapons raised the opposite direction of the attack.
Expecting an unaware target, the two stalking Chithiid leapt from cover, their pulse rifles swinging to target the unwitting humans.
To their surprise, the two women were far from unwitting. The targets were also––as the unfortunate Chithiid realized with their final thoughts––not facing the diversion. Their weapons were sighted, ready, and aimed right at them.
The two hulking aliens were dead before they hit the ground.
“Good shooting!” Daisy shouted.
“We’re not out of the woods yet!” Tamara replied over the cacophonous barrage.
“Daisy, look at his shoulder. You were right.”
A blue-toned patterned scar of raised flesh was clearly visible on the deceased alien’s shoulder.
“Shit, it’s a loyalist.” She rolled the other body over. “Both of them.”
“What?” Tamara said.
“Loyal to the Ra’az. If these guys are all loyalists, that explains why they have so much more ammo. And I bet they have friends on the way too. We’re going to need to change tactics, and quick. Cover me on the right.”
Daisy didn’t wait for a reply. She knew Tamara well, and was entirely confident in her abilities. Daisy took off running just as Tamara’s suppressing fire erupted over her head, providing her a precious few seconds of a clear path. She dove behind a rusted-out maintenance vehicle just as the Chithiid returned fire.
“George!”
The cybernetic soldier paused in his steady crawl and turned his head back toward her.
“What is it, Daisy?”
“Bad news.”
“Worse than being pinned down by these scumbags?”
“They’re loyalists. That means they’re well-armed and well-connected. We’re going to have company. Soon!”
“Copy that. Looks like we’re out of the frying pan, as they say, and in that case, necessity seems to outweigh prudence.”
He turned to his two men.
“Gentlemen, you heard that. Are you ready?”
“You know it, Sarge.”
“Okay, then. Protect your vital areas as best you can, and unleash hell on these fuckers. Let’s do this!”
Daisy was still amazed by the salty language coming from the sturdy cyborg. All of her prior experiences had been with well-mannered domestic units. Of course, those units also would not have stood a snowball’s chance in hell against the alien forces. George’s men, on the other hand, were more than up to the task.
The three-man cyborg team shrugged off the relative safety of the ground for a full sprint right at the main body of the Chithiid force, pulse rifles firing as they ran. George took a grazing hit to the shoulder, but he didn’t slow one bit, and neither did his men as they barreled forward.
“George is making a charge. Let’s go!” Tamara yelled in combat-fueled glee.
“Wait, but what about––”
“Now or never, Daisy!” she shouted as she took off running.
Daisy hesitated just a moment, then sprang from cover, joining in the charge. The Chithiid were not expecting such unpredictable behavior, and their aim suffered as a result as they tripped backward over themselves in surprise.
Sergeant Franklin leapt into the air over the nearest barricade, loosing round after round from his weapon-wielding hand, while throwing a grenade with his other. The other cyborgs mirrored his actions.
“Grenade!” he yelled in warning before ducking for cover.
The triple explosions rocked the ground, laying waste to the Chithiid previously sheltered in the smoking crater.
That left only the five in front of Daisy.
There was a quick double-tap from Tamara.
Make that four, in front of her.
“Confined space, Daze,” Sarah noted.
Too tight for the rifle to be effective.
“You have a plan?”
The beginnings of one, Daisy replied.
Taking a cue from her metal counterparts, she quickly pulled her gloves off, then charged, leaping high over the nearest barricade, drawing her wicked-sharp bone sword from the sheath on her back as she twisted in the air.
She landed smack in the middle of three startled Chithiid, her weapons already in motion. The first alien lost his head and right arm immediately as her blade bore down on him before he could react.
Rolling to her right, Daisy came up firing with one hand as best she could, her sword swinging a deadly arc with the other. The nearest alien shrieked a gurgling death cry as both her pulse rounds and blade struck true.
The genetically engineered sword felt warm in her hands as it drank in the Chithiid blood, strengthening with every drop.
Tamara, in the meantime, charged around the side of the barricade, her pulse rifle firing non-stop as she riddled the remaining Chithiid with pulse blasts.
Far behind them, the half dozen young humans in their support team watched in awe as the pros quickly mopped up.
Sergeant Franklin gave a jerky salute with his banged-up arm, then shook it out, loosening the slightly bent protective panel that had taken the brunt of the impact.
“Well done, Daisy. We managed to escape with no casualties, and captured a sizable munitions cache in the process.”
“But others are going to be on the way. We can’t let them discover an active resistance.”
“Decoy, then?”
“Great minds, George,” she replied.
Fifteen minutes later, a Chithiid ship could be heard approaching at low altitude. The pilot quickly surveyed the carnage below, then spun and took off after the dusty trail of the duo from their team, who were racing on foot for the subterranean access shaft across town.
The area clear, Daisy and the remaining team crawled from cover.
“Looks like they’re following the bait,” Tamara noted.
“I hope those kids are okay,” she worried.
“They had a big head start. I think the two of them will be just fine,” Tamara replied. “We should get moving, just in case they catch on and circle back.”
“We got into the silo, but I thought this was supposed to be something of a cake run, Daze,” Sarah commented.
It would have been, more or less, if we hadn’t run into those loyalists. And that crazy AI, of course.
“You think it’s a coincidence, though?”
Don’t know, Sis. All I know is, after all of this is over, Joshua had better have been telling the whole truth this time.
When Daisy and her team had reached Colorado Springs earlier that week and had successfully re-established contact with the greatest strategic military mind ever created, she had definitely not expected things to take this particular turn. By now, she had learned, the universe was fond of surprises.
Two days earlier, Daisy was most certainly not amused as she crossed her arms angrily and glared at the flickering monitor where she sat deep in the belly of Cheyenne Mountain.
“You said you controlled all of them,” she groused.
“Yes, I do. Well, did, that is. When the system was fully functional,” Joshua had replied.
“So you’re cut off.”
“Well… sort of.”
“Joshua, you’re killing me, here.”
“I’m sorry, Daisy, but the truth is, I do control them all. The problem is the safeties. The system was designed so neither human nor AI could arbitrarily take charge of the missiles. There were safeguards and redundancies in place to ensure against such incidents. Only no one had planned for a circumstance in which the human element would be entirely wiped out so quickly and efficiently.”
“Leaving you unable to fire the missiles,” she said with a resigned sigh.
“Correct. I suppose I could find a way to circumvent the launch configurations and perhaps fire them, but I would still have no way to access the silo targeting computers to aim them without the authorization keys.”
“Let me guess. You need someone to go and restore access, right?”
“Yes.”
“And I suppose this someone is going to have to trek through dangerous areas, and possibly fight off aliens and maybe even some scary-ass wild animals in the process. Yes?”
“Correct, again.”
“And here I was just beginning to like you.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’ll have a few of my on-site cybernetic military units join you on the excursion to provide armed support.”
“I appreciate the offer, but they’re here to protect you.”
“Daisy, I live under a mile of solid granite. I think I’ll be okay letting a few of them tag along with your team for a couple of days.”
“But they’ll still show up like a sore thumb on Chithiid scans.”
The mighty AI let out an amused chuckle.
“I noticed your Faraday suits as soon as you made contact,” he said. “Nice design, by the way.”
“Thank you. But that doesn’t address my point,” Daisy persisted.
“Oh, but I’m not one to let a tactical advantage go to waste. I’ve had my fabrication lab working on a version robust enough to shield my men since just after you stepped inside the base walls. There are a few of them ready to be utilized at this very moment, and more suits are in the works.”
Daisy reluctantly accepted the fact that she was going to have a cyborg escort, whether she wanted one or not.
“Okay,” she relented with a sigh. “But I hope your fellas aren’t combat-rusty after all these years hanging out alone under a mountain like some chrome-domed dwarf militia.”
It had taken a fair bit of arguing between Joshua and his head of security, but the great mind made his case, and the Faraday-suited escort had departed with her team.
Two days later Daisy stood in a smoky crater surveying the raw carnage wrought by Sergeant George Franklin and his fellow cyborgs. Chithiid asses had been thoroughly kicked, though she doubted he even bothered to take names.
“Glad he came along, now?” Sarah asked in an amused tone.
Hell yeah, I’m glad, Daisy silently replied.
She ran her eyes across the scene one more time, reveling in the brutal efficiency of the cybernetic troops.
“Daaaaaang, George,” she said, appreciatively. “Nice job. Nice job indeed.”
Chapter Two
Little had Daisy expected to be leading a team to help reclaim the planet from alien invaders when she first arrived at the Dark Side moon base over six months prior, but life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls. In her case, though, they tended to be more like flaming fireballs. With spikes.
First, she had to cope with––and eventually accept––the fact that she was never born at all, but was grown by a family of Earth’s surviving AIs, who had fled the alien invasion into the depths of space, carrying with them a precious few immune cell lines many centuries prior.
Then she had been forced to come to grips with the disco
very that the planet she had believed to be home was actually a hotbed of alien activity, and several hundred years later in its history than she thought it was.
The memories implanted by her neuro-stim during the many decades before her arrival, it turned out, were all lies, carefully designed to foster in her a love for a planet she’d never actually set foot on.
What sucked even more was that prior to her arrival, she and Vince had spent many nights in each other’s arms, talking about Earth. The places they’d go, sights they’d see, even the possibility of moving in together once they made Earthfall. That is, until she discovered he was not entirely organic. For Daisy, that revelation was a deal-breaker.
So Vince had decided to go and race off to Earth without her, where he had a nasty run-in with a crazy AI on the planet’s surface and wound up comatose and near dying, his internal AI processing booster wiped clean after being infected with the AI virus.
Even before that, a reckoning between them needed to be had, but now, no matter how much she loved him––or subsequently tried to convince herself she didn’t––all Daisy could do was wait helplessly as he lay motionless on a cot, hidden beneath Los Angeles.
Whether he would ever wake again was up to fate.
For all her helpful mentoring, Fatima hadn’t prepared Daisy for this particular trial in all those months of training. Dark Side Base had become her home, and its residents––despite their replacement parts––had become her friends, but none of that could help her with her current problem. Not even her super-smart AI kid, rescued from a hidden fabrication lab, would know how to handle this particular issue.