Animus Complete Series Omnibus, page 227
Kaiden clenched his teeth and readied his weapon. “Assholes. At least wait for us to get out of the elevator before you try to blow us up.”
“I doubt machines have much of a sense of honor. If they see an opportunity to attack, Kaiden, they will take it.” Jaxon tried to aim at the droids below. “I can’t get an angle at this height. Everyone back up and wait until—oh no. They’re gonna shoot the hover line at the bottom.”
“Everyone get close to me!” Eckles ordered. He pounded his fists together and a bright purple light burst from his gauntlets. An explosion rocked the elevator and it plummeted but a large purple sphere appeared around the group barely seconds before impact.
Fortunately, the barrier broke their falls before it shattered. The two aces rolled forward and kicked what remained of the doors open. Another rocket careened toward them but Haldt destroyed it with a single shot as soon as he had visual. Kaiden took a thermal out and activated it, lobbed it at a trio of bots that immediately scattered before it detonated, and bought the group time to recover.
“Is everyone all right?” he asked and helped the others to their feet.
We’re good. That was quick thinking,” Haldt commended and joined him and Jaxon at the front to confront the bots that blocked their path.
“It is quite fortunate for us that you are a vanguard,” Genos acknowledged as Eckles helped him up.
“Technically, I’m a soldier. I only tinker with different gadgets from time to time.” Another rocket was fired by one of the droids, although this one went wide as Jaxon shot the droid’s arm off before it launched. The missile pounded into a nearby wall. “I can go into more details later.”
Genos nodded. “That is a good idea.”
“Genos, charge your cannon!” Kaiden yelled. The Tsuna nodded, dropped his rifle, and drew the cannon. As he began to charge it, the ace snagged another thermal but didn’t activate it before he tossed it to the left of two of the hostile droids. They didn’t seem to notice that it wasn’t armed and both dashed to the right to escape it. Genos saw his opportunity and fired a charged blast at the two. One looked up in time to see the glowing orb barrel down on them.
They were both caught in the explosion and their forms melted and disappeared in the flash of red.
“Dammit!” The ace looked back to see one of the guards struggling against a rather agile droid. He ran to the unexploded thermal and paused as the mechanical armed its cannon with another rocket and turned to fire at him. Without a moment to spare, he slid down and snatched the grenade, pressed the button to activate it, and held it to let the explosive cook.
As the droid lined up his shot, his rocket launcher was knocked away by a shot from Cameron’s sniper rifle. Kaiden used the opportunity to lob the grenade at it. The mechanical tipped backward in an effort to avoid it but the device exploded in its face. It was blown into the wall as the force of the blast shattered its shield and severed its left arm and leg before it caved its head in. The mechanical slid onto the floor, sputtering, and the right arm twitched until it finally stopped moving.
“Good riddance.” Kaiden nodded to the guard, who turned his attention to helping to finish off the small group of droids. He ran over to Haldt. “If these guys got in here, there’s a good chance more will soon.”
“Agreed. Let’s hurry.” The two broke away from the group and ran down the long corridor to the hangar door.
“Good Lord, who were they trying to impress?” the ace grunted as they drew closer.
“Supplies and parts come through here as well,” the security officer explained and gestured to some of the doors at the side. “But I’ll admit it does seem a bit much.”
“You do have the codes to get in, right?”
“Of course, but that may not help much,” he admitted.
“What do you mean?” He tilted his head in confusion when his companion pointed forward. The door to the hangar had been largely destroyed, most likely by the droids when they arrived. The ace drew his weapon. “Do you think they got in?”
“I would be ready just in case, but my guess is that we would hear explosions inside when they destroyed the ships if they were in there.” They reached the doors and Kaiden tried to check inside through the cracks while Haldt punched in the code to open it. It started but a loud screech announced the fact that the doors were unable to move apart from each other more than a few inches.
“Dammit. Do you have any more explosives?” the ace asked. Despite having the spare thermals Jaxon had given him, he wouldn’t have enough to blow through the doors, even with them as damaged as they were.
“I have something better.” Haldt stepped to the side and gestured for him to do the same as he placed a couple of fingers on the side of his helmet. “Eckles, do you think you can help us with these doors?”
From the other side of the corridor, Eckles pushed into a sprint toward them. His armor began to glow again and the purple light seemingly sparked out of areas like the legs and shoulders. Kaiden realized what he was doing and decided to take more than only a couple steps back as the man bulldozed into the door without even slowing. The energy surged and hurled one of the doors down and the other inside by several feet.
The other two men ran to help him up. “Did that work?”
“It worked damn well,” the ace replied with a chuckle. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, but using that much energy back to back has me tapped for now,” Eckles stated as he stood.
“That’s fine. We’re in now,” Haldt said as he peered into the bay at the waiting ships. “Let’s get everything ready. We need to get these ships into the air and sea.”
As the ace scanned the ships, a thought occurred that should have come to him sooner. “Haldt, don’t you think the ships will be shot out of the air?”
“The shields will hold against the droids’ guns. The mechs might be trickier but we have good flyers.” He took a tablet out. “I need to get them here now that we have a route—”
“And the big-ass ship in the sky?” he questioned as the others finally joined them.
The security officer raised his head. “Wolfson told me Laurie was handling it. But if he needs a hand, I have access to some real firepower down here. But that’s a last resort. It may be too hopeful to think we can actually destroy that thing, but on the off-chance that we can, do you really want it to crash into the island?”
Kaiden frowned as Genos, Jaxon, Chiyo, and some of the security team hurried away to begin prepping some of the ships. “At this point, if it guaranteed that those bastards went down with it, I honestly might.”
“After everyone got off the island of course?” Haldt questioned.
Kaiden nodded, albeit with a little less enthusiasm than he normally showed. “Yeah, of course.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Is everyone in position?” an officer asked.
“Most of them are still busy in the plaza,” a recruit responded. “The ones that are still here are in position, but they’re not great locations. We’ll have to lead these droids into the center area.”
“You make it sound so easy,” another recruit muttered as he took his empty magazine out and reloaded. “Have they got through the doors yet?”
“Two of them so far and I’m about to take down a third,” a security guard said. “After that, it’s only the one in front of us.”
“How many do we have left?” the ensign questioned and scanned the area.
“Twenty-eight of us and about forty bots,” a petty officer responded and nodded approval as several security bots positioned themselves immediately behind the barrier.
“Wolfson will be here soon, right?” Before anyone could answer, the doors ahead of them erupted. Several Ark soldiers stepped forward, flanked by a large group of droids.
“They’re here already!” a recruit shouted.
“Fire! Get them into the center,” the ensign ordered as he raised his machine gun and fired.
One of the soldiers pointed forward and the bots attacked first, firing around the soldiers or leaping over them to attack the guards. The others began to push forward and picked off any target they could.
The guards and Arbiter forces clashed, accompanied by a loud banging noise from down the hall. One of the security officers gaped when a mech walked in, barely able to fit through the entrance before it lumbered over to the battle.
“Mech!” a recruit shouted before a blast burst the top of his helmet and head open.
As it raised one of its cannons to fire, a window shattered above it and Wolfson dove from two floors above, his arm glowing as he fell toward it. When he slammed the gauntlet into the top of the machine, a bright light erupted and hurled almost everyone in the fight off their feet. The walls began to crack and every window shattered around them.
Some of the guards recovered quickly and eliminated the briefly disabled droids while the Ark soldiers stared in shock as the once-great mech now had both its head and chest flattened. The arms were severed and sprawled on opposite sides of the hall.
One of the invaders looked at his teammates. “Who the hell was tha—ugh!” A heat-blade ax, tossed from the smoke surrounding the mech, buried itself into the back of his head. As he collapsed, Wolfson walked out of the smoke with a charged cannon aimed at the soldiers. “I’m Head Officer Baioh Wolfson,” he shouted, his aim unwavering and his face stony. “Get the hell out of my building and off my island, idiots.”
He fired the cannon and a ball of energy sailed directly toward the soldiers. They flung themselves hastily aside, but the orb impacted a droid behind them and released a wave of energy that destroyed their shields as well as a couple of other droids nearby.
The head officer took a thermal out, activated it, and rolled it across the ground while he charged another shot in his hand cannon with his other hand. One of the Ark soldiers lunged to catch the thermal to hurl it back, but as he raised his arm to throw, Wolfson fired his weapon at the explosive and it detonated in the soldier’s hand to obliterate him and half of an Arbiter bot that crawled next to him.
The soldier who had signaled the others to attack began walking toward Wolfson and ordered the others to continue the fight as he did so. The giant aimed his cannon at the challenger and fired. The soldier pressed a button on his belt that seemed to strengthen his shields as they went from almost translucent to a bright blue. The charged shot struck solidly, and the man slid back but did not fall. His shields were clearly gone, but he simply took aim and fired at the head officer.
Wolfson managed to retain his cannon as he dove out of the way of the machine gunfire. He landed behind a pillar but heard a loud click from the soldier’s direction, one he was familiar with. It indicated rounds switching in a weapon, usually to a heavier caliber. He pushed off the pillar as two ballistic shots impacted the metal plating and drilled through. Before the invader could initiate a follow-up attack, he turned and fired his hand cannon to force the soldier back. The man also dropped his rifle hastily when one of the shots grazed the chamber and ignited the shots inside. He tossed it away before it could erupt in his hands.
The security head prepared to make the final shot at the soldier but his gun was shot out of his hand. He muttered and looked over to locate the culprit. One of the other Ark soldiers had made a hurried shot at him from above despite the fact that he was harried by security bots and had probably intended it for his head.
The enemy he was fighting brandished a long, curved plasma blade that looked more like a machete. He twirled it as he stalked closer.
Wolfson took his spare ax out and pressed the switch to heat the blade as he motioned for the soldier to attack. His adversary took the bait and charged the giant, who simply drew his arm back and hurled the ax into his attacker’s skull. Momentum carried the body for a few steps before it fell limply and slid over to his feet.
The officer stooped, grasped the hilt of the ax, and pried it loose from the soldier’s skull before he turned to help the others. He checked the energy level of his force gauntlet as he stowed the ax.
Satisfied that he had what he needed, he nodded as he activated the switch on the gauntlet once more and jogged toward the center of the fighting. His armor and shields held up easily against the droids that fired at him. “You boys and girls had better brace for this!” he shouted and the security teams broke away from the battle as he leapt up and came down hard to pound his fist into the ground. The resulting eruption annihilated the remaining Arbiter bots.
“Come on…down here.” Dr Soni ushered another patient through the hatch. “Dr Calloway, is everyone down?”
“We’re only waiting on you and our rescuers to get down here,” he called in response.
“We’ll be right down,” she promised before she turned and smiled at Amber. “Thank you for coming for us.”
“Of course.” Her daughter nodded. “But we’re not out of here yet. We need to get into town.” She looked down the hall to where Flynn and Marlo stood guard. “Are you guys coming?”
“You two head on down first,” the marksman responded and held her gaze. “We’ll follow.”
Amber nodded and Dr Soni continued down the shaft. Once she was halfway down, the battle medic took her place on the ladder and called to her teammate. “Flynn, you should call Kaiden and tell him we’re all right.”
Flynn looked from her to Marlo. “I guess we should let him know what’s going on. He probably wants to stay and fight all the droids.”
The demolisher chuckled as he turned to enter the room. “Yeah, no—what’s that?”
The students turned as several figures in dark armor appeared from around the corner with their weapons at the ready.
“It looks like we found who took out the droids,” one of them muttered and aimed his rifle.
“Flynn, get out of here!” Marlo yelled as he fired a beam from his cannon. The soldiers were able to get back in time to avoid the blast, but one fired a dart from their gauntlet that struck Marlo in the chest. He staggered to the side and slid against the wall as the chemicals in the projectile made their way through his system.
“Marlo!” Flynn called and glanced back as Amber crawled out of the tunnel. “Amber, get out of here.”
“Flynn, don’t!” she shouted as he thumped the heel of his palm on the door panel to lock the pathway door and force the hatch shut. She was forced to climb down again and heard several shots go off before the hatch closed fully and locked.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dario walked into the dimly lit hallway and sent a message on his tablet that the reinforcements had arrived and were already joining the main force and that he was on his way to take care of the other thing.
The timing was excellent, considering the massive number of ships that had appeared around the cloud city.
According to his current count, there were five battleships, two destroyers—formerly three—and four dreadnaughts, plus all the cruisers that usually accompanied the much bigger vessels. Things had become a little claustrophobic, but they wouldn’t threaten the main building yet. They had to confirm hostages and try to make them stand down and surrender—much like what he imagined was happening at Nexus right now, only in reverse.
The assassin wasn’t too concerned. He still had alternatives should everything go awry, but he felt confident. After all, he had already succeeded in infiltrating and damaging the supposedly impenetrable World Council—granted, with some help—so he could find a way around a few ships with the power to destroy entire stations in a matter of minutes that hovered outside his door.
And right now, he had a way—or, rather, a choice they had to make.
He slid the card into the panel and the door in front of him opened into the main power chamber. It closed behind him as he tossed the keycard to the side and walked down the steps to the central terminal, a giant glowing orb held in place by several tethers inside a shielded cage hung above him. This was Terra’s original power core. It certainly wasn’t the greatest design, despite the fact that it was able to accomplish getting the first cloud city airborne. The disadvantage was that it had the potential to be rather destructive if not handled properly. It had been replaced by an arc-link system over time but they couldn’t exactly safely dispose of a core like that and besides, it could always be used in case of emergency.
Dario felt this was an emergency and he felt most of the WC would agree with him, although only technically.
Footsteps behind him gave him pause and he looked back at a man—probably a military staffer—who aimed a gun at him. There was dried blood on the arm of his dress shirt and the side of his head.
“Well, hello,” the infiltrator said cheerfully and turned fully toward him. “How did the bots miss you?”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the man yelled and his finger slid along the trigger of the gun.
He folded his arms and leaned back. “Now or at the beginning of the day? One is actually easier to explain.”
The man's expression became instantly enraged at the casualness of this uncaring response. He tightened his finger on the trigger of the gun and took a step forward as he bristled with fury and indignation.
“Listen, you fucking prick. Do you know what you’ve done—how many of my teammates and friends you’ve killed today? Fuck you!” He held the rifle with one hand and drew his knife with the other. “I don’t know what you think you’ve accomplished, but this kind of terrorism will be answered in kind. All you have done is earned the wrath of the entire planet. You will be made to take punishment for birthath hava koleth—”
His words jumbled in his throat and he began to taste a metallic liquid. Startled, he felt his mouth to see what was wrong and why he couldn't seem to speak. He slid two fingers into his mouth and his eyes widened. Sweat appeared on his face and trickled down to his throat when he realized he had no tongue and that the liquid that filled his mouth was blood.
