Junkyard War, page 17
“Blah-blah. That’s the best you got?” I interrupted. “Evil villain shit?”
“Oh Shining, Sugah. Don’t be tickling the devil,” Jolene murmured.
With one hand, faster than humanly possible, Warhammer reached through the blast dust into an open doorway. Yanked something to herself.
Jacopo.
Helmet off. Head lolling. Fresh blood smeared and trailing over his face.
She met my eyes. Smiled. “We will not tolerate lesser versions of us,” Warhammer said.
For an instant, when I listened to her words from a queen’s point of view, she nearly—not quite, but nearly—made sense. And that sent a shiver down my spine.
Queens were built for conquest.
“There will be no other monarchs,” she said, placing her bleeding fingers against Jacopo’s torn forehead, “for I am sovereign. I will reign over all. You will be mine. Your people will be mine. And you will die by my hand.”
Jagger stepped into the opening where the blast doors had once stood. I felt his intent, so I whacked the gun again. Something clicked. I stepped into the doorway to draw Warhammer’s attention.
Jagger initiated a three burst at her butt.
She flinched, squealed, then shouted, “Now!”
She bent and leaped. Her armor contracted and released, throwing her body and Jacopo’s into the next room. As she moved, something tickled at the back of my brain.
An instant before a rocket launched, I threw myself into the nearest room, rolled behind a bed. Jagger reacted too. I felt his connection to me sever as a blast wave hit.
The rocket destroyed the stairs at the end of the hallway, on the other side of the blast door. Taking out all our backup there. All our people. Wingding . . . “Bloody hell,” I ground out as shrapnel, debris, and smoke blew everywhere. I removed a jammed round and inserted a new mag in Bengal’s toy. Smacked it home.
I stepped into the hallway and met Warhammer’s crazed eyes again. Jacopo wasn’t with her. She fired. Full auto. I whipped away. The bitch laughed and leaped back into the room across and down from me.
“Jagger?” I asked.
“I’m fine.”
He wasn’t. I could tell. But he was alive.
The cats dove into the room at me and pressed close to my calves, shaking with exhaustion and fear. I offered each a single stroke. Poured water for them both, which they practically attacked. It wasn’t enough for what cats under stress needed, but it would have to do.
“Jolene, are you inside any cams anywhere? And by the way. Bengal’s new gun sucks.”
Jolene said, “Heat signatures and the cats’ vest cams suggest that the enemy combatant’s commander, Clarisse Warhammer, and nine warriors have gathered in a small room at the back of the nest. It’s possible that there is an emergency stairwell at the end of the hall, and that they are attempting to escape under cover of the barrage.”
Jagger said, “You take Warhammer. I’ll make sure Jacopo is taken to a med-bay and follow.”
“Roger that,” I replied. “Jolene. Extrapolate. If there is an exit from the room Warhammer is in, where would she come out and is that outside exit covered?”
“Two of the Boozefighter made-men are at the most likely exit.”
“Two against ten,” I said. “They’ll be slaughtered. Tell them to retreat fast, into cover. And tell them to watch which way Warhammer goes.”
“Copy that, Commander.” The sentient AI relayed the order.
“All teams. I’m following Warhammer.” I said.
“I have Jacopo. I’ll follow with a support team when possible,” Jagger responded.
“I got two men left,” Team Beta Two’s Wingding reported from the demolished stairs. “We’ll cover both your sixes.”
Relief shattered through me. I had no idea how they had survived the rocket, but some of our people were still with us. The cats pressed close and I stroked them each again, more for me than them this time.
A barrage of gunfire sounded.
Wingding shouted, “We’re taking fire from Level Two. Unable to assist at this time. Requesting backup.”
“Puta-Bella here. I’m injured but ambulatory. How can I help?”
Jagger said, “Get Jacopo to a med-bay, PB.”
“Roger that. Poor kid.”
Sounds of gunfire and pained grunts sounded through comms. Jagger said, “Look around what’s left of the wall, Wingding. One of Team Alpha providing backup.”
Jagger was going into a hot zone. I shoved that deep inside where I didn’t have to acknowledge it. Not now.
Jolene said, “Commander, I have visual confirmation that Warhammer and nine armored warriors are evacuating up a narrow stairway, out through one of the garage blast doors. I’m inside the cameras systems, but someone, somewhere, is attempting to shut me out. Maarsies are following Warhammer at distance, giving me secondary cam footage.”
I dropped to one knee and took in an angle of the hall.
Hidden by the smoke and blood spray in the air, Spy and Maul raced out and through the debris. Following Warhammer.
Run, I thought at Spy. Follow Warhammer. Be safe.
“Copy that, Jolene,” I said, aloud. “Mateo, are you ambulatory?”
“Affirmative. Exiting the building up a lateral stairway and will approach overland. ETA to estimated exit point, six mikes.”
Six minutes. I could last six minutes. I wouldn’t be alone.
“Okay, Mateo. Let’s hunt down and kill us a Warhammer.”
My armor injected me again with meds, sugar, nutrients, and fluids. I had a spurt of nausea as my blood sugar and protein levels upped too fast. A tiny readout appeared, telling me I was nearly out of the good stuff. I got a deep breath as the oxygen levels in the helmet went up too. Six mikes. Until then, that left the cats, the Maarsies, and me to chase Warhammer.
I stood and pulled two new blasters, delivered by Mateo, and said, “Little Girl. Going in. On Warhammer’s tail.”
I stepped along the hallway, through the smoke. There were bodies—pieces of them, mostly—on the floor where the explosives and rockets had detonated. A small group of unarmored soldiers raised weapons toward me. One tossed a frag. Then another. As they fired and the grenades flew through the air, I ducked into an open doorway. Whirled behind cover. The frags detonated.
I extended one arm into the hall and blasted the three standing there. Instantly, six more began to fire from cover.
I had frags, too.
I pulled and tossed. Ducked back.
My frags detonated. One person started screaming.
My armor readout said my heart rate and blood pressure were too high.
No shit.
There was a door into a bathroom. I raced though and out the other side, into a sitting room, firing. Dropped two more unarmored encom with blaster fire.
Tucking my glove cam out in the hallway, I saw no one standing. Just debris and several deactivated Maarsies. They had expended explosive payloads long before Warhammer’s rocket.
I adjusted my view. There was a lot of blood. Everywhere.
And a dead cat. It had been shot.
Damn it.
It wasn’t Spy or Maul, but a skinny tabby. Still. Bloody damn. Altering my glove’s angle, I checked out the entrance of the Admin Suites. There were four of Warhammer’s fighters still firing out into the hallway at the last of our people, their backs to me. I finished them off and eased out.
I trotted down the corridor, moving slowly, clearing each room.
“I’m through. Nest is clear,” I said. I checked my faceplate screen to see the vid from Spy’s and Maul’s vest cams. They were on the move, running up some stairs. “I repeat. All enemy combatants in the nest are down. Jolene, show me the cats’ location on an interactive map of the bunker. And the Maarsie locations.”
New schematics and 3D floor plans appeared on my screen. I could see Spy and Maul on the move, brightly colored dots. The Maarsies were blotches of green. “Jolene, you’re monitoring this. Did you spot any traps made or being laid? Any place where humans are waiting?”
“Negative, Commander,” Jolene said. “All teams on the surface, be advised. CO Mateo is traveling to Warhammer’s apparent exit point. He is on the surface, in his warbot suit, running concealed. Shining,” she said to me privately. “Objective One is in a med-bay in the Simba, sedated, undergoing treatment.”
Mateo had protected Evelyn. He was either coming to get vengeance on Warhammer for what she had done to Evelyn, or he was coming to back me up. Either way meant a better chance of achieving Objective Two: Clarisse Warhammer dead.
I had a sudden vision of Harlan, dead at Warhammer’s hand. Tortured. Eaten by bicolor ants. I wanted to kill her slowly, but as long as she was dead, confirmed dead, and I got to see her dead, I was gonna let that count.
“I should be heading out in seconds. Tell Mateo not to shoot me.”
I tore into the tiny room and up the stairs.
Jolene said, “Warhammer’s exit point is marked. Six mini-tanks are exfiling the scene.” On my screen I saw a cluster of blue dots. Warhammer. Her route was marked in yellow. I raced to follow across an unlit landing, up two flights of stairs, and into a cavernous space. It was full of military mini-tanks and armored and weaponed all-terrain vehicles. The garage we had seen on the initial recee.
I turned on the armor’s speed function and dashed across the huge room. There was an empty area with fresh, oily looking droplets of hydraulic fluid and liquid fuel on the floor. From outside I heard weapons fire. Who was shooting at whom? Had Warhammer’s fighters been ambushed?
“Jolene. Please advise the following: Who is firing? Are all of Warhammer’s unit still with her? And what can you tell me about their vehicles and weapons?”
“Warhammer and all nine fighters are firing into the brush as they travel, on six armored mini-tanks. To this point, none of our remaining on-ground forces have been injured, but there are only a handful that didn’t join the bunker battle.
“Warhammer’s unit is carrying the same model of weapon used in the bunker, and they seem to be carrying sufficient ammunition to fight a protracted battle. They have no missiles or rockets. There are confirmed visuals of two cases of fragmentation grenades. Repeat. Two cases. Spy and Maul are with her team, together, with a third cat, on the back of one of the mini-tanks.”
“Dang cats.”
“Be advised, Commander, that Warhammer and her personal defenders are all wearing armor. It appears to be first-gen Dragon Scale auto-hardening war-era armor, model DSAH10. This model has fewer high-tech modifications and more specific weak points than your model. However, DSAH10 is capable of withstanding small arms and hand-held blaster fire.”
I raced through a massive garage door and down a wide hallway. Then up the ramp toward the night where a set of blast doors to the outside had been left open. The stench of exhaust registered strong on the air.
I remembered Jacopo’s “Yeehaw, motherfuckers” and I laughed, the sound a little crazed.
It looked as if it was going to be a few cats, a warbot, and Little Girl against ten fighters and six tanks. Could be worse.
“Jolene, relay orders that all teams are to get our injured people to the bunker’s medical facilities, clear the building room by room, and take the gear and supplies each club agreed would be theirs.” I dashed outside, following the ATV tank tracks. “Notify everyone that—” I stopped. Bengal injured. Maybe dead. Mina ditto. Jacopo in a med-bay, hopefully. I want Jagger with me, but that isn’t where he can do the most good. “All teams. Logan Jagger has command until I get back.”
“The fuck you say?” Jagger said.
“Jolene, if he tries to follow me, harden his armor.”
“No!”
“Roger that, Commander,” Jolene said.
“Little Girl has left the building.”
* * *
The tanks had moved fast. I needed speed and increased the armor’s assistance to run. Initiated the gyro properties for when I mis-stepped or started to fall. Decreased the suit hardening so I could breathe deeper. Punched the buttons for another blast of oxygen in the helmet. Switched blasters for long-distance pinpoint accuracy and auto targeting with IR and lowlight assistance. Because somehow it was still nighttime.
I practically flew, following three Maarsies’ locations on my screens. The tanks were a half mile ahead and moving fast.
“Mateo here,” his metallic voice said. “I have Little Girl in my sights. Coming up on your four o’clock, one klick out.” I glanced in that direction and spotted trees on the bunker hillock waving against the night sky as my seven-and-a-half-meter-tall sidekick raced in from my rear. His warbot suit was in full invisi-mode and likely using all six limbs, including the stumps of the amputated and damaged ones, to knock dead branches out of his way, to catch up to me. Good thing I wasn’t scared of spiders.
I raced down a dry creek bed and across bare stone. Up a hillock.
“Shining,” Mateo said. “Shooter coming up on your two o’clock. In a tree. I’m too far out to hit him without using explosive weaponry which would be heard by Warhammer’s team.”
I slowed and ducked behind a dead tree, scanning the area Mateo described. I spotted an armored man sitting about six meters in the air, his legs wrapped around a tree, hardened to its trunk.
I wasn’t nearly the shot Jacopo was. Not good.
I rested the butt of my only fully charged blaster on a stub of a tree limb and studied his suit. I wasn’t familiar with this older model. “Jolene. Describe First Gen DSAH10 military armor.”
“DSAH10 military armor presents—”
“Design flaws and weaknesses,” I interrupted.
“Air filters have minimal shielding. Weaknesses also exist at the seams beneath arms and at the groin. Maximum damage may be achieved by sustained heat, lasers, or blaster fire, and by projectile weapons larger than nine-millimeter caliber rounds fired at close range.” Jolene sounded stiff and cold as she told me how to kill.
The shooter’s sitting position meant the seams were out. “Air filters,” I muttered. “Jacopo could probably hit them with both arms tied behind his back.” I auto-targeted, took a breath, and let three-fourths of it out.
I fired.
The blaster took five seconds to melt through the filter and damage the suit, and an additional two seconds to hit the man.
Bloody liquid splattered onto his face shield.
His head rolled back.
Mateo appeared behind me, faint whirrs and clicks the only sound, visible only now that he was close. “Nice shooting,” he said. “Try to keep up.” He was missing one entire short limb and another was damaged, metallic bits and cables dangling as he tore after Warhammer’s tracks.
I laughed softly and followed. My suit injected me with the last of the liquid, hormones, ’roids, and supplements. I’d be hyper and unable to sleep for a week.
Jolene said, “The cats with Warhammer are no longer progressing. They are at the remains of a building to your ten o’clock. Their vest cams have two humans in sight. It’s an ambush.”
Mateo veered right, then back in a zigzag motion. I went left and watched as he came around in front of the pile of rubble, his enviro camo vanishing. The sudden appearance of a nearly three-story tall spider gave him the moment of surprise he needed. He scooped up both snipers and threw them to the ground. Then tossed them high, caught them, and bashed them onto the rubble so fast, so hard, their armor buckled and cracked open. “Finish them,” he said to me.
I killed a female sniper in her cracked armor. The other might have been male. It was hard to tell. I shot him too. Three cats eased out of the building wreckage and surrounded me. They looked exhausted and thirsty. Spy leaped to my thigh and tried to hang onto my armor. I picked her up, put her on my shoulder, and tapped two pieces of shoulder scale. They lifted, just right for two of Spy’s four legs. Her claws came out and she gripped them.
She nudged me to look at Maul. The cat was bleeding, breathing fast. He couldn’t travel, not now. But he was still alert.
“Maul,” I said. “You and your other clowder cat—” I stopped when I recognized Notch. He was bleeding too. Bloody damn. “You and Notch stay here. We need you to keep your camera trained on this path. If other enemies come, that will let us know.”
Maul showed me fangs, then turned his head away. Notch sat down. I figured that was the only agreement I was going to get.
“Hang tight,” I said to Spy.
I sped after Mateo. Caught up with him in less than a minute. Side by side, the three of us chased the mini-tank tracks.
“According to the Maarsie cameras,” Jolene said, “there is a military convoy two klicks away.”
“Bloody hell. We can’t catch a break.” I was already running full-out, at the best speed the suit could give me. Mateo was taking easy strides, staying with me. In the distance, I heard the sound of the mini-tanks, the roars of the old tank engines at top speed, bouncing on uneven terrain.
Jolene said, “They just took out the Maarsie queen bee. I no longer have visuals.”
“I have visual,” Mateo said. “See if you can interfere with military communications and redirect the military convoy north, per my order.”
“Yes sir, CO Mateo,” she said, all the Southern gone from her voice, reverting to her SunStar starship AI. I realized that Mateo’s order might be construed as treason. “CAIT. Obeying orders not in compliance, re: 2045 USSS Articles of War.”
At her words, Mateo stopped.
CAIT. Not Jolene. CAIT was the ship’s AI designation before she developed sentience.
We had all been skirting the edge of sedition for months, but somehow with his current order, lines had just been drawn, lines that couldn’t be un-drawn in time to save us from being charged with treason if we were caught and if CAIT’s memory was ever scanned.
“Bloody buggering hell,” I said.
“Yes.” Mateo aimed. “Enter my orders into ship’s log at this date and time, by my orders.”
I raced ahead, knowing Mateo would fire over me. I heard nothing, but my faceplate showed me he had fired his lasers, all of them. The sound of engines grinding and failing clanked and whirred in the darkness, telling me he had aimed true.
