Reactions were instantaneous. The four dove to the sides, putting themselves as far out of line with the doorway as possible. Pen didn’t have this option.
Ash…
She instead threw herself forward into the half wall in front of her. Two more deafening pops sounded out as the Sentinel tracked her movement. Both rounds whistled past, one buried itself in the far wall of the other room and the other lodged itself the left of the doorframe just behind its intended target.
Pen looked back. Ash’s corpse lay motionless where she’d fallen. Blood flowed and quickly pooled around her helmet.
Ash.
A war crime stood on the opposite side of the room. An old model Combat Sentinel. Clad in heavy armor and equipped brutal weapons, its purpose was singular.
“… Pinpoint slug rounds! Aim for the neck! PEN!”
Reality came crashing back. The sentinel was pushing towards her. It was seconds until it would have an angle on her. Alvarez’s callout processed and she sprang into motion. She repeatedly racked the forend of her shotgun expelling the standard twelve-gauge rounds.
Its heavy footfalls rounded the corner of the half wall.
Pen slotted a single slug round. Its weapon was built into its arm which straightened and took aim. That horrific reverberating sound seemed to be a callout for locating a target. Pen knew this was a matter of milliseconds, she didn’t have the time to aim up to its head. She jerked the forarm forward and squeezed the trigger.
They each fired almost simultaneously but Pen was a split second faster. The solid slug from her shotgun smashed through the joint of the thing’s right knee. The round was so vicious that it fully separated the leg at the joint and forced the machine to fall. It managed to catch itself on its mangled joint, but its aim had been thrown off. Penelope could see in her peripheral where its shot had punched through the floor grate just to her left and obliterated whatever machinery was underneath them.
Unfortunately, this left her in no better position. She’d only had time to load one slug and despite the injury the steel construction felt no pain and wasted no time in correcting its aim. Before it could fire again, however, a hail of bullets came through the doorway.
“FUCKER!!” Mac was screaming.
He’d rested his machine gun on the half wall in the other room, braced his left hand on top of the gun’s frame to keep it from jerking upwards, and held down the trigger. The Sentinel tried to cover itself with its arm, but the torrent of rounds eventually found their marks. Many rounds ricocheted or were caught by heavy plate but enough found a joint or slipped through an exposed section of overlapping armor.
It couldn’t hold up under the onslaught. A bullet ripped its gun mounted arm clean off. Multiple managed to tear into its chest and mangle its innerworkings. Finally, a number of shots found an exposed section of its hips and ripped them apart sending the thing, finally, sprawling to the floor. Its only movements now were sparking twitches and smoke curling from inside its chassis.
All of them seemed to pause for a moment.
Penelope retrieved the unspent shotgun shells and walked over to Jane’s body. She almost couldn’t look. She wasn’t some greenhorn loosing her breakfast after her first kill but this wasn’t something you can be desensitized to. There is something about a face that holds familiarity. Its why masks or other things that lack a face hold such power, often times being more scary than something wholly inhuman. The round had shattered her visor and yet also stolen the face that would have been revealed. Pen struggled to look and yet also couldn’t stop. The image was searing itself into her mind.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Alvarez had knelt and retrieved her dog tags.
“Pen, focus. We’ll have time later.” He was in front of her now.
It would have been her on the ground if Ash hadn’t pushed her down.
“Right… Yes sir.” She started to move again.
“Pull her into this room. Mac seal the door and ready the detonation.”
“… Yes Sir.”
Pen pulled Ash’s body into the new room and set her gently up against the wall to the left of the door. She pulled her helmet down to hide the damage and provide some dignity. She forced herself not to think about the absurd contradiction in the action. At a glance, it was almost as if Ash had simply sat down and nodded off.
Mac hurled the sparking husk of the Sentinel into the generator room and closed the door. He spoke no giddy quips and wore no smirk as he set off the explosives. A series of pops accompanied a light rumbling before the emergency systems that had been running off of the backup generators shut back down. The buildings went completely dark.
Alvarez broke the few moments of silence that followed.
“That was one. I see four containment units here which means there may be as many as three more of those fuckers around here.”
“We killed the power though…” Mac started.
“Wont matter,” Awali interrupted, “They run on independent power cells. The stations are for charging them but…”
“Given that they’re empty, its likely they’re at least partially charged and active.” Their captain finished.
“Which means our people are in for a slaughter if we cant let them know what’s coming. They should be moving on the buildings already.”
“We have to warn them.” Mac said.
“Lei?”
“Well, they’re certainly not jamming any signals anymore but it doesn’t matter all the way down here. Best case scenario we run into some friendlies but if not that then we’ll at least need to go higher and find a place to hunker down for a minute.”
“Okay. Then we stick to the plan. We make our way to their command center and hunker down. Get a call out, warn them, and see how things are going on the outside.”
“Real Sentinels… I can’t believe it. I mean I knew Cormin Group were scum for what they’re doing but I didn’t think anyone could sink this low.” Lei muttered.
“I don’t know what the hell they’re thinking doing something like this but they’ve signed their own death warrant. You three have heard the stories and done the training but I realize you’ve never fought these things before so listen up.” Alvarez focused on Pen, Mack, and Lei.
Awali watched the door.
“Do not engage at close range,” He shot a look at Pen, “You use whatever means necessary to take them down. There is no such thing as overkill. Their armor is tougher than anything you’ve got cause they can handle the extra weight but their joints are vulnerable. The head is a no go, too much armor, the neck is your target. Critical systems run through there but its light on armor.”
“Understood.” They all said together.
Pen loaded the last five of the pinpoint slug rounds into her shotgun.
“One final thing,” Alvarez spoke, “You are not fighting a person. It will not react like a person. They don’t panic, they don’t stutter, they don’t wince. As you saw, losing a leg is nothing more than an extra variable to account for. Every move they make is the best possible choice in their situation and their weapons can punch straight through our armor. Unlike a person they are 100 percent lethal until they are scrap. Understand?”
“Yes sir.”
---
Gareth had been gone for a few minutes but Deag and Ton’et seemed nonplussed so Pen assumed perhaps Weilans simply need time to do their business.
“So Ash, Nurse, and Alvarez were old guard and you, Lei, and Mac were the FNG’s?” Conolly asked.
“Yea. The three of us actually go all the way back to basic if you can believe it. Went our separate ways for a time but were all pulled for Cerberus when Alvarez was promoted. Those two were… well they were certainly something.” She chuckled.
“Ahh the jokesters of the group hm?” Conolly asked.
“Oh yes, they were like twins. Either at each other’s throats or cooking up some stupid scheme. I can't tell you how much fucking PT those two had me running with their dumb asses.”
“PT?” Deag asked
“Physical training. Drill sergeants would use it as a punishment.”
“If they were the ones misbehaving why were you punished?”
This question elicited a laugh from every human at the table.
Pen looked at Ton’et with a dry expression.
“Guilty by association.”
“Seems harsh.”
“That’s a drill instructor’s job really. They play the enemy so that everyone in the group becomes allies. And it worked too, we were like this.” She held up a hand with two crossed fingers.
“As long as they can get you out of the trouble they get you into right?” Samir chuckled.
“Exactly and they did. No one as sharp as Hin or as determined as Mac. That’s not to say they weren’t dumb as rocks sometimes. Honestly there was something about being together. Separately they were focused, quick thinking, even keeled. You’d think that together they’d be the perfect problem solvers but it was more like adding a spark to rocket fuel. Things tended to explode.”
Deag looked slightly concerned
“Figuratively or literally?”
“… Yes.”