“Boys,” Wade growled in a low, menacing tone, “we are getting out of here. Now.” Leaving the money and guns was physically painful, but Wade Manson was no fool. He needed to survive this first and worry about the shipment later.
I am going to gut Reynard like a trout, he promised himself.
“Just a moment there, Wade,” The Dwarf interrupted his retreat. “I dinna think it’s quite so simple a task as you leaving here just now. You see, the problem is that even though we don’t give a fook about you, we kinda do need to shut down yer little operation and deal with that private little army yer friends have had shipped in.”
“I don’t care. I’m out. You don’t have enough guns to stop me, so don’t be an idiot.”
“I don’t have to stop ye, Wade.” The Dwarf turned his back and walked away. He called over his shoulder, “Those gray-clad fookers what are settin’ us all up can’t let ye leave now that ye know about their wee little double-cross now can they?” His voice became a shout, “Isn’t that right, Paulie?”
Another voice boomed from some unseen corner of the warehouse, startling Wade and his men.
“That’s about the size of it, Rodney.”
Wade spun, trying to pinpoint the sound’s origin. His men all whirled as well, training weapons into dark corners and sweeping the shadowed rafters with muzzles. The Dwarf continued his walk, stopping to turn and lean against a piece of lifting equipment where his body was wreathed in darkness.
The voice, echoing through the open space and bouncing off of walls and machinery, was impossible to locate. “You shouldn’t have come, Rodney. We have no issue with you. We wanted Tankowicz.”
“Bullshite. Ye already came hard for me once, ye low-rent fook,” The Dwarf replied.
“True, but tonight we came for Tank, you sawed-off little runt!” There was a groan of gears and motors as a freight elevator started its laborious ascent from below the floor at the far end of the room. The huge four-legged cyborg came into view slowly, rising like a mythical beast from some forgotten abyss. “But in a pinch, I’ll settle for your hide. Your little gang of pre-school hoods will not do so well against Torvald, especially without your big boyfriend to back you up.”
Like a symphony, a hundred weapons clicked and chattered as safeties disengaged and bolts closed on loaded chambers. The shuffling and scraping of dozens of pairs of boots played melody to the harmony of three platoons of mercenaries falling into position, all underscored by the rumbling ascent of the freight lift and the giant mech. In seconds, Wade and his men were surrounded by a hundred or more heavily armed mercenaries, trapped between The Dwarf’s unseen crew and Paulie’s raiders.
“Well lookie there!” Rodney’s voice rang out. “That’s a whole heap ‘o sellsword motherfuckers, now isn’t it just? And they brought their big metal pet, too!” A waterfall of laughter trickled out from the various corners of the room, and Wade realized that The Dwarf had not brought a lot of men.
It’s not enough, he amended to himself. He needs an army!
The laughter petered out and Rodney addressed the disembodied voice of Paulie, “I’ll spell it out for ye, Sherlock. I knew ye’d be here, and I knew what ye’d bring. Ms. Ribiero has made it clear that I’m ta give ye one chance to lay yer weapons down and surrender all peaceful-like before I kill the lot o’ ya. My orthodontist says it’ll be cheaper for me if I just do as she asks, so this is that chance.”
“I see The Dwarf takes orders from women now?” the mercenary laughed. “You’re outgunned and outnumbered, and you want me to stand down?”
“I’ve been married five times, fucko. Ye bet yer arse I do. Now choose.”
Paulie’s answer was a barrage of gunfire that lanced across the assembly floor in crackling orange streaks. Ricochets and showers of burning ceramic bead fragments followed as the fusillade struck the machinery at the far side and exploded into pyrotechnic chaos. Wade Manson threw himself to the floor with a shriek and crawled for cover. His men scattered like cockroaches and were subsequently shredded in the crossfire when more guns blazed from within the shadows of the opposite side of the building. The return fire came in concentrated bursts, more slowly and with less accuracy. This distinction made it no less terrifying to the portly gangster than the concentrated marksmanship of the professional fighters. Either side was just as likely to kill him as he scrambled like a one-legged crab just to get to cover.
Manson made it to the loading dock and dove behind his precious supply crates. He was breathing in great heaving gasps, and at some point in the fray he had lost control of his bladder. But his dignity was the least of his concerns as he fumbled through his pockets for his comm.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Unfazed by the limited and amateurish response from the enemy, the mercenaries broke off into fire teams and fanned out along catwalks. Squads formed into their designated support positions when Torvald started crossing the floor, and as a group they advanced with measured precision. The intensity of incoming fire increased when the yellow monster trekked in earnest toward the Dwarf’s position. But it was obvious that no quantity of small arms fire was going to even catch Torvald’s notice. Direct hits bounced off the cockpit and canopy like stones thrown by children and the wave of projectiles served only to add some more scratches to his already shabby paint job. Nonplussed, the old man ambled his way through the open space in an unhurried walk. He did not want to outpace his supporting infantry, who in turn, were using his body as cover while they advanced.
Paulie watched from a service catwalk near the ceiling with bemused approval. This battle was won before it began as there was nothing the Dwarf’s street hoods could bring that was going to harm the big AutoCat. He had not been exaggerating to The Dwarf. The team had come loaded for Roland Tankowicz, not an uppity street gang with delusions of competence. But the stubborn goons did not seem to realize their folly. They were completely outclassed. With a dedication that could only be born of obliviousness, they poured fire into the yellow frame and at the men moving in to support it.
But something was bothering Paulie, too. It was hard to tell exactly how many troops the Dwarf had brought, and despite his imminent victory the commander found himself confused by something the little man had said.
‘I knew what ye’d bring.’
The words had not felt like a lie or a boast to the mercenary commander. If Rodney knew about Torvald, or three whole platoons of heavies, then why was he holding ground with such a small force?
He should be running, or maneuvering, at a minimum, Paulie thought with no small quantity of consternation. Digging in like that is suicide! Torvald was halfway across the floor when it hit him. Or to express it more accurately, it hit Torvald. With an enormous boom and a shower of concrete and rebar, the hangar floor exploded beneath one of the big cyborg’s large mechanical foot pads. The machine heaved and stumbled, but immediately righted itself with a lurch and stepped back. One squad of infantry hunkered down behind his legs in a practiced maneuver while two other squads fanned out to the right and left into flanking positions. There was no cover on the flanks, however, and suspiciously accurate gunfire began to thin those squads down immediately. The flanks collapsed and fell back, leaving Torvald in the middle of the room with one squad covering him.
Okay, Paulie thought, that was clever. They figured I’d bring the big guy, so they mined the place. He keyed the mic on his comm, “Torvald, report.”
The ancient mercenary came through loud and clear, and he did not sound all that worried. “Anti-materiel mine. Nothing too heavy. I’m fine. I’m sweeping for more now. All the goddamn rebar in the floor is making it tricky as hell though.”
“This guy’s smarter than he looks,” Paulie warned. “Take your time getting across.”
“I’ve got them all plotted now. Just gonna set up the chassis so it won’t step on any of them. Resuming—”
Something massive and heavy struck the machine in the power cell housing. There was a large explosi
on and a prodigious shower of sparks lit up the whole building like a flash of lightning for a fraction of a second. Despite the drama of the strike, the damage appeared limited to an ugly scorch mark along Torvald's power cell housing.
Torvald’s voice came over the comm again, this time less calm, "Fucker’s got a mass driver of some kind. I’m heading over to deal with that...”
The big mech took another hit from the large weapon and another flash of white light illuminated the hangar. This time, Paulie had seen its point of origin.
He called out the location. “Fifty yards, Torvald. Your one o’clock!”
“Roger. Moving.”
The armature surged forward, each foot landing safely between the hidden mines. It reduced his speed, but Torvald still covered the ground with horrifying quickness. The cyborg hurtled into the stacked machinery and flailed about like a giant infuriated praying mantis. Merciless metal arms lashed out and hurled tons of equipment left and right, scattering debris like a dog digging at the beach. The yellow machine smashed through half-a-million credits worth of equipment before it stopped.
“Torvald! Report!” Paulie again had that sinking feeling that something was wrong.
“No one over here, Boss. There’s a hole in the wall. They must have slipped out.”
“Fuck,” Paulie swore. “Come on back. We’ll fan out and find them. I’m not leaving here without getting the Dwarf.”
“Just as well,” Torvald acknowledged, “The armature is running really goddamn hot for some reason. Rather not have to deal with it when I take on Tankowicz.”
As the big machine crossed the hangar again, it was thrown to the side by another explosion. One by one, the buried mines detonated, rocking the armature from side to side and leaving gaping potholes in the floor.
“They’re setting off the mines!” Paulie shouted to no one in particular. The loading dock door, previously inoperable, exploded inward at that moment, and Sven Paulsen could only stop and stare in wide-eyed disbelief at what happened next.
Through the ragged hole streamed more than a hundred enforcers, bounty hunters, regulators, and other assorted street thugs. The mercenaries were taken completely off guard by the horde of opposition suddenly pushing into their flank, and their one big ace in the hole was still struggling to escape the sea of craters that had replaced the hangar floor.
The mercenaries fell back as a unit to the back of the building, settling into crevices and behind machinery like insects fleeing a bright light. Though disorganized, most posted up into fire teams and managed a moderately successful fighting retreat to the more defensible areas across from the loading dock.
In stark contrast to the practiced choreography of the mercenaries, the Docksiders charged like deranged cattle. Roland had not bothered to instruct them on how to post up and breach a doorway properly because they would have lacked the discipline to do it under fire. Instead he simply told them to clear the door as quickly as they could. This they understood, and that is exactly what they did.
At the front of the screaming horde ran Wild Bill McClintock, his duster streaming behind him and his oversized pistols blazing as he ran. His aim was perfection itself, and the enormous rounds from his giant pistols shattered body armor like so much Waterford Crystal. On his left was Steven Reinhardt. Heavy and strong, the big bounty hunter had chosen to support McClintock with a drum-fed automatic shotgun. The wide maw of his weapon blazed like a volcano as it spat pellet-shot in a never ending wall of indiscriminate fury at the enemy.
As each cleared the door, the Dockside mob fanned out in a wide swath of mismatched bodies and weaponry. Each member of the ad hoc army scrambled to find and make use of what cover was available, and in a few terrible noise-filled seconds the forces had coalesced onto skirmish lines along each side of the hangar. With the initial charge successful, each side then settled into a rhythm of taking potshots at the other. Paulie recovered from his confusion in time to bark orders to his men.
“Hogan, Foley, Hunter! I need an anchor on the left! Take Darcy’s fire team as pivot and turn that corner! Torvald! Get the fuck out of that mess and shield the pivot. Let’s roll up their flank, you fuckers!”
Without the big armature to give the pivoting team cover, Paulie knew that the one or two decent marksmen on the Dwarf’s side would shred the fire team as they tried to cross the empty wasteland of the hangar. Torvald, having decades of experience, knew his commander’s mind well enough to not need the instructions. He was clambering from the wrecked floor and scuttling into position before Paulie even finished shouting the order.
“On the move, commander...”
Paulie heard a growl in Torvald’s words that did not belong there, “What’s the problem, Torvald?”
“Damn thing is running boiling hot! All three stages of cooling are working fine, but the temp keeps fucking climbing anyway. I need to slow her down or I’m going to be out of this one in a few minutes!”
Paulie’s team was far more disciplined than most Galapagos mercenaries. They had plenty of faith in their leader and the presence of a nine-thousand-pound cyborg on their side lent them more than enough confidence to stay in line and follow orders despite the sudden appearance of new and determined opponents. Paulie made a call, “Just get into position and take hits. We’ll let the fire teams do the heavy lifting. Don’t engage hostiles, go to minimum output if you can.”
“Roger,” was the ancient warrior’s dejected response. “Dammit,” he added as an afterthought.
Despite a noticeable lack of formal training, squad cohesion, and oral hygiene the Docksiders were giving as good as they got in the affray. McClintock’s marksmanship and Reinhardt’s security experience were providing sufficient confidence and morale to the mob that the whole group was operating as a nominally successful fighting unit. Every so often, The Dwarf’s rail gun would destroy an enemy position with enough dramatic flair to elicit cheers and jeers from the hoods, until a return barrage from the mercenaries would send them all scurrying for cover.
When the big yellow armature stomped into the center of the hangar, much of the fire from the Docksiders swept over to wash it with yellow and orange streaks of incandescent fury. Paulie’s crew suppressed this with concentrated bursts of their own, which forced a portion of the motley crew to ignore Torvald and return their attention and ammunition back to the entrenched mercenaries. This allowed one mercenary fire team to post up directly behind the mech and another to swing out wide behind it, stretching the skirmish line out past the Docksider’s right flank. As Torvald began a slow march across the no-man's-land of the hangar, the team that had swung wide used the cover of his body to get across the hangar floor and put pressure on the right flank.
Twin blasts from The Dwarf tried to push the flanking mercenaries back, but the armature moved to intercept the rounds with his armored carapace. Sparks cascaded in a monsoon of white-hot fragments but the machine still advanced and the mercenaries began to pick up steam.
A grenade arced out from the loading docks and clattered toward the fire team, but Torvald scuttled to stomp on it while his support team sent several hundred beads at the thrower. With a muffled whomp, the grenade detonated with little effect other than to dig a pothole in the floor and sending the flanking team face down to the deck. They were back to their feet quickly though, and the march continued.
Paulie’s comm chirped in his ear. “Commander, I’m getting too hot out here!” Torvald said.
“Just another thirty seconds,” he replied, “hang in there for another thirty seconds.”
More driver rounds quested outward to the flankers, but Torvald dutifully kept moving to intercept. Paulie scowled, it’s like they know he’s overheating...
“Oh, fuck me sideways!” Paulie blurted when he put it all together. Then he called out to his cyborg.
“They knew we were coming, Torvald. They’ve fucked with your rig!”
“They got into the command center then?” The old man sounded incred
ulous, as if such a thing was impossible.
“This is a goddamn trap! Shit!”
Reynard! Paulie thought with a gasp, then he fumbled in his pocket for his handheld. Gotta warn Reynard!
As his hand emerged from his pocket, something struck him on the wrist and sent the little black device plummeting to the shadowed depths below. Before he could react, he heard a buzzing, humming sound and felt a stinging warmth near his face. Instinct and experience saved him from decapitation when his enhanced reflexes drove his left arm to intercept a tiny forearm as it swept a black dagger toward his neck. He whirled and sent a fist toward the area he figured the head of his attacker must be, then grunted when it found only air. He spun again and drew his pistol, searching for his elusive antagonist, though he already knew who it was.
The pistol disintegrated in his hand as the hissing dagger bisected it, nearly taking two of Paulie’s fingers in the process. His other hand flicked outward, now clutching his own blade. He was parried at the wrist, but he could see her now. She crouched low before him, with her dagger held out front holding him en pointe.
Paulie stepped back and evaluated his options. He faced the most successful assassin in the galaxy armed with only his vibroblade and his augmentations. Mindy was formidable, and while he was often prone to excessive machismo, Paulie was not stupid. It was not so much that Paulie was afraid to fight Mindy, more that he would prefer the fight not be so damnably fair.
He could jump over the railing and take his chances with the thirty-foot drop if he wanted to try that. His bones were laced with Osteoplast, so they were very strong. But all the Myofiber in his muscles put him well over two hundred pounds despite his lean frame, and his organs were normal enough. The fall would not kill him, but he could not vouch for his health after the landing. Since he would land in the middle of a firefight, this was unacceptable. He could retreat, but this would only get him to the end of the catwalk where he would need to navigate a ladder to get down. It did not seem likely Mindy would pause to let him climb a ladder.
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