Cold War 2395, page 19
“They’re telling us to be quiet and accept our trespassing charges,” Toufexis says through what sounds like gritted teeth, angrily gesturing at Bravo Squad to shut the fuck up before anyone irritates the bots further. Unfortunately, Toufexis’s actions themselves seem to do exactly that. Fuck, does the enemy think Toufexis is trying to resist? Are we being put under arrest by these three fuckin’ robo-cops for entering a residential neighborhood without permits?
The lance bots’ thrusters’ black jet streams surge as the trio comes blasting down, ostensibly to finish what the garden platform started. Now that “peacekeeping” talks have completely imploded, I guess it’s time to whip out the ol’ pulse rifle and give them the classic one-two—
Shit—where’s my rifle?
Oh, fantastic. It’s not in its sheath, meaning it’s somewhere at the bottom of the colony.
Doesn’t look like any of the other troops have their guns either, including Gourd, Grimm, and Toufexis. Not good. My saw blades whir inside their wrist mounts, now acting as my last line of defense. Let’s see how these things hold up against jetpack androids with lances taller than my body.
Grimm activates his elite ACA’s custom wrist attachments. They slide open to reveal rifle barrels. So that’s what he’s been hiding up his sleeves. Two PDWs slip out of his gauntlets and land directly in his hands, affording him some ranged heat with which to take on the incoming bogies. Toufexis, on the other hand, is trapped in the same boat as us. Saws for life, I guess—oh, all right, Captain. Give him your spare gun. I see how it is. Nothing for me. That’s fine.
“Form up in the center,” Grimm commands.
They can’t pick us off one by one if we’re a cluster with two guns, I guess. My squadmate and I do as we’re told, and within seconds the four of us are back-to-back, Gourd standing opposite me while Toufexis and Grimm man our flanks, their rifles aimed at the sky.
“Stay down, Bravos,” Toufexis orders his Marines, most of whom have already shuffled their sore bodies off to the sidelines. Those who can’t move themselves or be repositioned by allies remain sitting ducks. I get in a fighting stance, my blades spinning in sync with Gourd’s. Four guys with two guns fighting jetpack androids with lances. What could go wrong?
Three pointy poles rain down on us, primed to turn our heads into kebabs. Toufexis and Grimm open fire less than a second before we all get skewered, not giving our foes any time to reassess their attack strategy. The bullets break up the incoming triangle of death, and the three bots part ways, abandoning their head-on approach. Now circling our four-sided formation like vultures eyeballing a pack of dying rabbits, they ominously glide along the circumference of the platform before figuring out exactly how to break our defense and lure us out. Simultaneously, the three of them swoop low and go in to lance the injured troops huddling on the outskirts of the disc.
With a measly two guns between the four of us, Toufexis and Grimm only have enough firepower to dissuade their pair of incoming peacekeepers, leaving me to stare down the one that’s preparing to stab the guys I saved earlier. I will not let them survive the fall of a lifetime just to get speared.
I charge from my position at full speed, rocket-boosting directly toward the android as it prepares to thrust its lance. Just when its arm is about to jab forward, I jump, soaring over the troops about to get their intestines blended. Right arm outstretched, I grab the bot by the throat, squeezing its metallic jugular tight as I knock it away from the platform. On the bright side, I’ve temporarily saved my allies. Unfortunately, I’ve also just hurled myself off the platform and am now at the mercy of the jetpack bot I’m—um—hanging onto for dear life.
With one hand braced around its neck and the other clinging to its shoulder, grasping for any sort of hold possible, it almost looks like I’m trying to ballroom dance with the thing. The android seems to think the same thing, meeting my gaze for a moment. I look into its unblinking, glazed-over, synthetic eyes. It stares blankly at my visor. I think I feel a connection. But before I can take things to second base, the machine blasts us both sky high.
Guess the bot’s not the kind to wine and dine before it—fuuuuuoooooh we’re going way too fast now. I dig my fingers into the bot as deeply as possible, unwilling to move a single muscle for fear of losing my grip. It rockets halfway between the platform and the city above before pausing. It’s one hell of a drop from here, and the machine knows it.
Trapped in altitudinal limbo, I don’t give the bot a chance to make its next move. I press my left arm against its shoulder and set my saw to work, praying it’ll make a dent. I only get a few millimeters deep before the machine stops me. It sheathes its lance and frees up its second hand.
The bot digs into my exoskeleton’s armpit and cripples my suit’s deltoid brace, its needlelike fingers crunching the intricate network of pistons so vital to my upper torso’s mobility. Then it manipulates its hold on my suit’s inner workings, forcing my sawing arm off of it. With my last line of defense officially taken out of the equation, the droid has me pinned like a schoolyard bully, and I guarantee it wants more than just lunch money. My HUD’s going crazy, telling me the obvious by warning me that parts of my suit’s core functionalities are going offline. I’m checkmated, and the bot knows it. My left hand can’t reach anything, and if my right loses its hold on the droid’s wiry neck veins, it’s game over.
Keeping its right hand in a vice grip around my suit’s deltoid brace, it slowly moves the other one toward the back of my helmet, sensually caressing it before jerking my head backward and ripping the armor right off. Any further back and it would’ve snapped my goddamn neck in half, but it seems to know that. The peacekeeping machine simply seems to want to identify and catalog a suspect. It scans my bare face with its eyes, forcing me to stare at it as I hang thousands of feet above a very painful death, devoid of HUD or cranial protection.
Now that the peacekeeper’s gotten its mug shot, it’s time to wrap things up. The bot tosses my helmet into the abyss and refocuses its attention squarely on me. It pulls my right hand off its neck, forcing me off as I violently struggle to grab hold again. My upper body is useless, and I’m running out of options. I whip out my last-ditch plan. Slamming my feet together, I dual rocket-blast the machine’s shins, the sudden action catching it off guard. The flames singe its synthetic feet, and I know the attack has succeeded when the bot’s hand loses its grip on my deltoid brace, letting my arm free. Time to see how bad the droid wants to personally deliver the finishing blow. If it truly is a peacekeeper, it won’t want to let an active threat escape; it’ll try to subdue me no matter the cost.
I fall away from it—without a helmet or backup plan. My drop isn’t even remotely aligned with the platform, meaning if the android doesn’t find me worth the hassle, then I’ve just secured myself a one-way ticket to smearing my guts all over the colony’s power lines below.
I tumble through the air, the wind all but blinding me now that I don’t have any eye or head protection. I hope the lack of a helmet doesn’t make the landing extra painful—well, if I’m going to land, that is. A trio of thrusters kick to life, signaling the peacekeeper has decided to play ball. It blasts toward me in a terminal-velocity-based game of tag. That’s right, come to papa. After how that first dance went, I’m sure as hell ready for a second tango.
Seems the machine wants to go about it a different way. Instead of trying for the hands-on approach, it points its lance at me and preps for an aerial impaling. Critical oversight on my part. Oops. I thought we were gonna fight mano-a-roboto, fist to fist. It’s no fun if I can’t throw a punch!
In all seriousness, I’m probably going to be speared to death in the next five seconds.
Tilting in the direction of my enemy, I thank God for the everlasting utility of my rocket boots and aim them directly at the droid’s weapon. Let’s see how much I can spice things up with my microthrusters. My left ankle swings into position just as the tip of the peacekeeper’s lance slides within a yard, and I kick my boot to life and engulf the weapon in flames. While the action irresponsibly accelerates my fall and gives me less time to execute my plan, the risk is rewarded when the android doubles down and dives closer, refusing to let me get away. As the bot shoves its lance further forward, I feel the tip just barely poke the interior of my thrusters. That sensation disappears almost instantly, meaning my gamble has paid off and the flames are melting robo-cop’s sharp stick like butter. A second later, the machine tosses its useless weapon and reaches for my ankle. Wrong move, buddy.
The peacekeeper has given me a platform of propulsion to work off of. The second it grabs my foot, I activate that boot’s rocket and, with the sole combustion of one heel, manage enough force to shoot my entire body up so that the droid is the only one facing downward. It figures out what I’m planning to do far too late, and before it can let go of me, I twist my waist, place a boot directly over its android skull, and flame on. Its elastic outer shell lights up, and the goop that once comprised its silver skin sizzles off.
The bot and I continue our perilous plummet toward the generators below. The liquidized residue flying off its body slows my next move; without a helmet I can’t afford to get any of that shit on my face. After a second of blind finagling, I fry its central AI chip. The body, still gripping me tightly, loses consciousness and ceases its struggle against my attack. Score!
The remainder of the head’s liquefied material flies past, forcing me to duck below the peacekeeper’s neck. Now that my left arm’s exoskeleton is useless, I have to partially rely on raw muscle for the next part. Crouching above the droid’s clavicles, seated on top of the thrusters shooting instant-death streams directly behind me, I dig my hands into its shoulders and take a shot at slave-piloting it. Luckily, as with the rest of its body, piercing the outer layer isn’t that hard thanks to its material favoring flexibility over durability. Its malleable silver musculature caves right in as I get a grip on its inner skeleton.
I guess a steering wheel would be too much to ask for, but the corpse sure handles like shit without one. The bot made it look so easy when it still had a head attached. Shoving one hand deep into its shoulder blade, I get it to swerve left, nearly flinging myself off with the force of the turn. At least I know I can make angles now. Pushing harder against its frame, I contort its deltoids to swing another ninety degrees and almost toss myself off the machine a second time. All of these maneuvers would be a hell of a lot easier with a helmet and a HUD, but my wind-whipped, watering eyes will have to make do.
Thankfully, I’m now in the general direction of the disc platform. What happens when I get there? Do I just crash my ride before it bucks me off? Or . . . do I try to give the fellas on the platform a lift? It’s not like we have many other tickets back to the surface. The one I’m riding on right now might be our best shot.
Yee-haw, here comes cowboy Beecher on his trusty flying android steed. The mechanical corpse and I rocket away from the miles-deep void below us. Its limbs twitch in response to my tightening grip. I maintain my hold, press the android forward, and we blaze across hundreds of feet in seconds, right toward the sunken garden disc.
I hope I can slow the thing down enough to get a word in with Gourd, since I’m coming up on him and the gang in three . . . two . . . one. I yank hard at the bot’s back, doing my best to get into some sort of idle hover position, but it’s a wasted effort. Even though its jetpack reverses angles, it results in me flying over the platform, leaving Gourd and the rest of Sierra and Bravo as nothing but specks below. No chance in hell they’ll hear me from up here. Guess when I fried the CPU in the thing’s head I forfeited my only chance of altering its acceleration.
I’m not going to be able to take my ride off its top speed, so it looks like the only option is up. I yank forward a little harder and aim the machine’s limp body north, forcing its thrusters to angle beneath me. The deceased droid and I speed straight toward the center of the colony. The wind current doesn’t go easy on my exposed face or weakened left arm, but against all odds, I hang on for dear life and turn my lemon of a situation into lemonade.
Halfway through piercing the sky, I start to think I’ll actually make it to the residential block—until I get distracted by a lurching sound from below. Even over the roar of the wind and thrusters, I hear it loud and clear: the sound of a gravity-bending platform rising. I look down to confirm my hopes, and it’s true. The platform, it’s . . . it’s moving back up! The other Marines aren’t trapped!
That’s great news for them but it quickly turns into bad news for me. While I was gawking, I accidentally relaxed my control over the slaved android a smidge—just enough for it to tilt forward. Not by much, of course. Just by 180 degrees.
Aaaaaand downward I go. I was so fucking close to successfully handling the machine! Shit. Now I’m faced with two options: enjoy the last ten seconds of my life, or do something. And after the day I’ve had, there’s not a chance in hell I’m going with the former. Yanking up with every last bit of strength I have, I force the android in the direction of the rising platform, resulting in a risky downward diagonal slant. If I’m even above the disc by the time I get within range of it, it’s going to be one hell of a bumpy landing. Christ, I do not need more bouncing around; I’m disoriented and queasy enough as it is. I’m going to vomit my brains out if I don’t stop moving soon.
Focus, focus . . . one dive and you’re clear. That’s all it is, one simple dive. At racing speeds. On the back of a twitchy dead robot. Narrowing my eyes to protect against the wind as much as possible, I slam my steed forward in a final dash for the platform.
My target quickly comes into view, going from distant speck to chrome cookie to giant fucking garden disc that I’m about to crash and burn on. Shit, physics is not on my side here. Doesn’t matter, though—I have to make the situation work.
Seconds before impact, I release my hold on the android, press my feet against its shoulders, and jump off, hurtling toward the platform. The android slopes downward and disappears below my line of sight. Everything around me turns into a blur, my body flailing in its blast toward the giant metal disc intent on flattening me like a pancake. Knowing rocket boots would just expedite my death sentence, I rely solely on momentum, hoping my landing will be soft enough to survive. Wishful thinking. Looks like I’m about to eat it—
My body lurches violently to the left as the weight of a fucking gorilla smashes into me, knocking me out of the air and onto the platform. I crash against the disc, a crushing weight blocking my vision and squeezing my lungs. Only once the world stops moving do I see who my rescuer is.
“Gotcha,” Gourd says weakly. He uncurls and releases me, flopping flat on his back in exhaustion. He’s spent.
I give him a big thumbs-up before stretching out on the platform, releasing every muscle in my body at once. Everything hurts. Tank’s empty. Let’s all just get back up to ground level and call it a day.
On our backs, locked in a much-needed moment of respite, Gourd and I stare at the underbelly of the Red Peril’s central city without exchanging a single word. Do I care how Toufexis and Grimm took down the other two bots or how Gourd managed to tackle me out of the air at that speed? Not really. And does he care that I learned how to fly a corpse’s jetpack with the body still attached? Probably not. Let’s just enjoy the scenery, ogle the underbelly of the city in the sky, and be happy we’re not fighting shit right now.
As I gaze at the city’s bottom, something catches my eye—a dark, angular patch amidst an otherwise curved, airtight industrial framework. Might it be a secret entrance to a path forward? A maintenance tunnel, perhaps? Hmm. Could be useful. However, I’m tired and not concerned about it in the slightest. Heck, I’m not even sure of what I see, and whatever it is, it’s too late to find out now. Our platform rises past it, finally landing us back on the same level as Delta Squad. A bevy of Bravos lie flat on the ground alongside Gourd and me, while Toufexis and Grimm . . . wait, where are they? I tilt my head and see they’re seated back-to-back, resting on each other for support. Jesus, the fight’s even sapped them. Cap never breaks proper stance.
Of course, finding energy reserves I can’t believe he has, Grimm manages to stand in order to address McGregor with some captain-like dignity.
“It’s good to have you back, sir,” McGregor says, his massive fists clutching a sparking remote that looks like it was ripped out of something. “And you’re welcome for the lift.”
“What’s that?” Grimm asks wearily, not sharing his level of energy.
“The security system’s master switch! It can make that thing go up, down—” He creeps a finger toward it like he’s about to demo the platform’s functions again.
“Don’t,” Grimm roars, catching the joking McGregor off guard.
“All right, all right. Wasn’t going to.”
“Where’d you get it from, anyway?” Toufexis asks.
“From a guy inside . . . there.” McGregor points to a decimated house across the way.
“Where is he? We need him for further questioning,” Grimm demands.
“He, um, isn’t available for interviews right now,” McGregor answers.
It only takes one quick glance toward Delta Squad’s former battleground to see why that might be. Several houses’ metal lockdown frames are smashed open, absolutely everything is riddled with bullet holes, dead Russian technicians litter the lawns . . . and there are even three smoking, smoldering jetpack androids lying around. Seems like our guys had quite the ball up here.
“Typical,” Grimm mutters.
“Least we know how to operate the big planter! And besides, I got some intel out of him. Nuuuh worries,” he says, pouring on the accent.
“Share.”
“Well, it’s not happy news. If the fellow’s word is anything to go by, there’s more of the pods up ahead. Plenty more. Not to mention the hundreds of Russians hiding out here who’ll be rigging traps.”
