Chapter Fifty-Three

I was picked up and tossed across the room by a section of wall paneling, and it was probably only that, that saved my life, as flechettes peppered the walls, shredding the majority of the softer things.

I hit a table and flipped over it, pain screaming out from my leg as it twisted, before hitting the floor face first, stunned.

It was the scream that tore me out of my shock, the pain that filled Sync’s voice as she ripped a section of wall from her stomach, her voice dropping to a furious hiss of pain.

I blinked, clenching my teeth at the pain that flooded my leg, and rolled, every instinct telling me that to stay still was to invite death.

“KABUTT!” a voice boomed, the sheer volume making it clear that it was projected by powerful speakers as I grabbed the edge of the desk, dragging myself around it, and squinting in the powerful lights that illuminated the now smoldering wreckage of what had been our workshop. “SURRENDER NOW, HAND OVER THE STOLEN TECHNOLOGY AND PREPARE TO BE JUDGED.”

“Judged…?” I hissed, squinting around the edge of the table, then hissing. “Sync!”

More gunfire rang out, our turrets spinning up and opening fire, distracting at least some of the enemy as they took them down. Fuck I needed better turrets, the ones we had were good, but not APS-one-shot-takedown good.

Clearly that was a fucking mistake.

“Boss…” came a weak response, and my mouth went dry.

“You okay?” I asked, heart pounding as the others up above us ran here and there distantly.

“Not really…” she admitted, clearly in pain “Gut wound.”

“How bad?”

“I can fight… maybe?” she replied. “Get me to my suit and few medikits…”

“And you’ll kill them all,” I finished for her. “Here.” I had a single medikit on my belt, and I sent it skittering across the floor towards the little of her I could see. “Stay down, heal up, then shoot those fuckers in the face.” I grabbed a random armored glove that was on the floor nearby, and sticking it on a section of wall, then lifting it as if I was surrendering, while laid on my back on the floor.

The barrage of rounds that hit the glove shredded it, and then the table directly below, as I frantically rolled, cursing.

“LAST CHANCE,” they boomed, only to be hit by a sudden barrage of fire from above. As the light that had been saturating the area around me swiveled, I got on my feet and hobbled as fast as I could, grabbing the edge of a bench and hauling myself forwards as I mentally reached out, triggering the transport crate.

Why the fuck had I stored my suit!

I heard Sync hissing in pain as she used the medikit, and the boom of fire from above as the rest of the team hammered our attackers clear.

Then another ‘whoosh’ filled the air and the upper floor of the warehouse exploded, a section of the floor giving way as part of the wall collapsed as well.

I swore, forcing myself to jump, despite the pain that screamed at me from the leg that I was fairly sure was fucking broken … but I made it.

The suit was barely opening up as I shimmied around, slipping my legs in and dropping, my chest catching, and for a second I was frozen, half in and half out of the suit… then it was wide enough.

I dropped into the harness, the world around me going white with the pain in my leg, as I reached for the tags by feel, booting everything on an emergency start.

We were taught over and over, you never do this, not unless you had to, the power core flaring to full before the systems were ready could cause serious systems damage, but fuck it.

It wasn’t like I was getting a deposit back for the suit.

My screens flickered as I triggered the release from the supports, still booting they showed sections of the room as the unexpected energy flare battled with the suits own systems, and I was moving.

The transport crate hadn’t fully opened, not yet, and worse yet sections of fallen wall and roof were pinning it in place.

It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was my team.

I triggered ‘overdrive’, flooding the suit with power, forcing everything into maximum power mode, as I grabbed the sides of the container and ripped them free in a shower of sparks and a screech of tortured metal.

As soon as the front was clear, I reached up and grabbed a better handhold, tearing myself out… and into a barrage of gunfire.

The first few shots deflected off, ricochets that made the armor ring, but I knew they were more blind luck than anything else. I did what I had to do… and I ran.

I hurled myself across the benches and ran at the wall furthest from the attackers, covering my chest with my left arm as I smashed through the metal and concrete, bursting into the dim morning, chucks of masonry and metal flying in all directions, as I skidded, then staggered.

The shot that had hit me was a good one, focusing on my left shoulder mount, taking it down, clearlt making sure that if it was an uncharged shield, it wasn’t going to stop the next shot.

It wasn’t, it’d been an additional armor plate, and it served its purpose as I jinked sideways, then back, a second sniper round tearing through the air an inch to my right.

My RI combined with my suit and locked their location in—an APS suit in active camo atop Oshbob’s warehouse. I cursed, jinking right again, and boosted my run with the jump-jets, sending me skidding sideways just fast enough that I dodged the next round.

“Kabutt?” Luna screamed into my ear as the tac-net went live. “What the fu…”

“APS Ghost squad!” I shouted, frantically throwing myself down, bouncing across the floor as three more rounds flashed past overhead.

They were fast and they were accurate. They’d clearly waited until they thought everyone was away from the suits, making us a lot easier to take down, and they’d been ready.

I heard a whine as something powered up, then Dondo shouting in the distance.

“You didn’t see that coming did you, you fucker!” he bellowed, and I kicked myself back upright, bracing a foot and starting to run, knowing that as long as that sniper had overwatch we were fucked.

A nice railgun like that though? I could do some serious damage with that, provided I could rip it out of the cold dead hands of its current owner.

I needed to start leaving my rifle on the wall, rather than in the fucking storage rack.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

My shoulder mounted railguns finished the power-up cycle and swung around, aiming behind me as a figure burst from the side of my building.

Grey and black armor, not black and gold.

I mentally tagged them as the enemy, my system automatically having frozen when it’d been about to ‘sweep’ the armor, the original settings identifying any APS as ‘friend’.

The change took a milli-second to correct, and they were traversing again, locking in on him as he opened fire, chasing me.

I changed direction, ploughing into the side of the next building along—some ‘holistic pet food’ place, whatever that was—and I spun, dropping to the floor on instinct, reaching out and grabbing at the polished floor tiles.

I carved a short furrow with my fingers, bringing my armored bulk to a dead stop, counted to three, my RI finally finishing meshing with our home’s sensor suite to provide me with all around mapping of the nearest few buildings.

Then I grinned and set off, sprinting at the hole in the wall I’d just come through.

The fucker that was chasing me raced inside, his rifle panning… and I smashed it aside, punching him full-force in the center of the armor, directly over the pilot’s compartment.

The suit staggered and I knew what was happening inside, a weakness that was refined less than a year ago was that where the suit projected the screens, a master relay had been buried dead center.

It was supposedly one of the safest positions for it, considering it affected all of the suits visual systems, but the APS were insanely powerful, and Fergie had fucked Blue Three’s entire day up in a sparring session by doing just this.

The pilot wasn’t just knocked back, all his screens would be rebooting, flickering and realigning, and when they came back on? The ones set as ‘front right’ and ‘front left’ curving to mesh into a seemingly single huge screen?

Well, they often booted back to front.

When they came back on at all.

I blocked a wildly swung punch with a backhand, dropped to one knee and ripped his plasma sword free, thumbing it to life as he dragged his rifle across directly above my head, firing on full auto.

The tint shop was torn apart, heavy rounds that could have taken out old school battle tanks, shredding support pylons, walls, refrigeration and more…

…Until I rammed the plasma sword through the lower chest of the armor, skewering the fucker.

His suit spasmed as the blade did interesting things to him, but I was already moving. I flicked the blade off instead of dragging it free, the wash of disassociated plasma filling the suit as the containment field failed. What was left of the pilot was rendered to fucking charcoal, as I grabbed his rifle, snapping off the connection to his autoloader, and hitting the ‘load’ for the attached standard magazine instead.

I hesitated then, realization that he’d seemed almost slow and clunky as I’d fought him, not so much predictable, but slow enough to dodge… and I grinned.

There was a reason I’d been able to dodge the bullets I realized.

I wasn’t fast enough to outrun a fucking bullet, nobody was, but I was faster than I should be.

“RI, run comparison on baseline integration, and current integration.” I ordered, bringing up the area in my vision, then turning and running… at the wall to my right.

I burst out of it in a shower of concrete and glass, bounding across the street, jinking left and then left again, rounds from the concealed sniper hammering into the ground when he guessed I’d go right instead.

Then I was across the road, and at the foot of Oshbob’s warehouse, crouching and leaping, grabbing the roof of a first story attached building and hauling myself up one handed as my jump-jets fired.

The sheer weight of my suit meant that without the jump jets I’d be crashing through the wall and roof here. Neither the grip I had, nor the roof could support my weight, but as I boosted myself up I kept firing them continually, despite the stress warnings I was getting.

I’d make better time without the damn rifle in my hands, but even as my railguns were firing almost continually on auto, targeting the fuckers that were racing after me, I let rip with a full burst of fire at the edge of the next story above.

I knew that if I’d lost sight of me, headed in this direction, I’d not have stayed back where I was, calmly taking pot shots, I’d have moved, ready to take me in the face as I appeared over the edge.

So I didn’t do it.

I raced forwards and ploughed into the side of the wall ahead of me, racing from the flat, lower level roof, into the upper level of the warehouse.

The stone shattered around me, and I skidded as I came to stop on an internal walkway that ringed the inside warehouse. Almost instantly I was hit by small arms fire from below, making me curse and trigger my speakers.

“Fuck off! It’s me, Kabutt!” I shouted waving one hand at the lower floor, even as I searched the roof over my head, squinting as I tried to spot any tell-tales for the suit overhead.

I could use my Lidar, but that would only show my…

My suit screamed a warning as I was hit by a powerful lidar ping before I could finish dismissing using my own. I jumped to my right, starting to sprint in that direction, even as a high powered round punched through from the floor above, taking out a section of wall.

I returned fire, full auto, shredding the ground around the fucker, and continued to run, this time grabbing a support stanchion and launching myself over the side as the sniper came crashing through the roof ahead.

He tried to trigger his jump-jets, twisting, trying to catch himself, as both my railguns—smaller caliber than his rifle by far, but still goddamn powerful—opened fire on him.

I fired the jets in three fast bursts, catching myself so that I landed in a three point ‘hero’ pose, rifle up and the mag emptying in seconds hammering the fucker as he crashed into the floor.

The railguns coordinated fire on his right arm as I ran at him, punching into the mechanism and jolting his arm sideways as he tried to force himself back up.

Then I was there, skidding to a halt, slapping the rifle aside as he tried to line it up on me, then ripping it free of his weakened grip.

I flipped it, lining up on the center of his body as he frantically pinged me, trying to communicate.

Fuck no.

“Guilty!” I growled, firing three shots from the high powered railgun into the central torso, killing the pilot instantly.

“Kabutt!” The shout came from my left and I spun, seeing that miserable old fuck Oshbob stomping out of a side room, a gun that looked like it could be used to take down orbiting satellites clutched in his hands. “What the absolute fuck…”

“Ghost squad.” I snapped cutting him off. “They’re here for me, and my allies .”

“Then they’ll get us,” the orc growled, pulling the charging lever and filling the air with a whine of gamma radiation charging.

“Reign!” I called, switching from external to internal and onto the tac-net. “Fuck’s sake, are you… is everyone alright?”

“Not… really,” came the response from Sync. “I’m pinned in the warehouse. Upstairs is on fire…”

“Fuck!” I screamed in fury, spinning and sprinting at the nearest wall to them, smashing straight through it and ignoring the scream of rage from Oshbob as I further damaged his shit.

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