“I don’t care what you do. I’m not going.” Atanis sounded steadfast, adamant.
Lupis stared at the Foxen from under his helmet’s visor. He was no trained psychologist, but he instantly knew a few things about this situation. This rebel was defiant towards him and his goals. Whether or not he knew that he was the infamous bounty hunter Lupis or not was not clear, but either way, he did not seem likely to budge. That would make trotting him back through the city at gunpoint, using the mass transit system, problematic. And then he would have to somehow get through the spaceport while leading the Foxen with a gun to his back. Lupis might have been able to get away with walking around a crowded city in full battle armor, but he knew this was pushing it.
A normal Titan may have seen the wisdom in a tactical retreat at that time. Having one of their friends would be a great tactical advantage, and would open up many strategies in taking them down, but it would simply be impractical by anyone’s standard to accomplish this without significant suspicion by the authorities. All it would take is for the Foxen to begin yelling and causing a scene in public and it was a small jump from him taking in a bounty or becoming one himself. Yes, all of this might cause most Titans to abandon taking a hostage. But Lupis was protective of his image and reputation, and he needed to do the impossible once and awhile to keep it up.
“I gave you what you wanted, just go.” By the looks of him, Atanis knew taking him hostage was impractical. “What are you going to do? Keep me at gunpoint out in the streets?”
“Gabriel, code zero.” Lupis spoke through the armor’s speakers.
“Gabriel?” Atanis watched the mirrored helmet in an impossible attempt to clean any deeper content of this armored figure’s character. It was apparent that this was some type of coded command to an AI system, but when the armor did nothing new, Atanis knew the command was not meant for the armor system.
Lupis grabbed the Foxen by the shirt and dragged him out from the habitation unit. The few remaining scientists were hiding in corners, afraid that to come out into the open would spell death for them. They had no idea that the armored figure was not with Zenith and was not hunting them due to the rebellion.
Lupis dragged the Foxen out into the hall and looked around. There, just down the hall he saw the small alcove that minutes before, Atanis had been sitting in, staring out the window. Atanis looked up at the figure, not liking the looks of what was now happening.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Lupis didn’t bother answering. Instead, he remained silent at the window, waiting. It became apparent after a few moments of silence that the armored figure was waiting and Atanis did not have to wait long to determine what it was that he was waiting for.
The Rhapsody came flying up outside the window and turned its rear hatch, which was opening, towards the window. Lupis knew that this would be risky from the outset, but there were already several flying drones surrounding his spacecraft, issuing warnings.
“This is restricted airspace, land immediately or be fired upon.” One of the drones was repeating through a set of loudspeakers.
Lupis fired his sidearm at the window. It took several rounds to pierce the heavy reinforced plasi-glass that they used in these Astroblocs. On the fourth round, it finally pierced through, and caused the rest of the plasti-glass to blow outward. The Foxen looked at the hovering vehicle with awe, he knew it was an ambitious move to fly an unauthorized vehicle in a no-fly zone in the middle of the biggest city on Gothamir, but didn’t have much time to contemplate what was happening to him.
Almost immediately upon the glass being broken out, Lupis, still holding onto the other Titan’s shirt, threw him out the window and into the back of his ship.
“Close gate.” Lupis issued the command to his ship’s AI, Gabriel, which was linked to the suit, before leaping across the divide himself.
Lupis ran through the small cargo bay and crossed the threshold back into the ship while the hatch was closing. Once the rear hatch and the door leading into the ship were closed, he issued another command for Gabriel to lock both doors, trapping the other Titan inside. He next made a dash for the control panel.
As the bounty hunter took the pilot seat, his ship was issuing warnings from half a dozen target locks that were being detected. The number was growing every second.
“Hostile action detected.” The Rhapsody’s AI, Gabriel projected into Lupis’ helmet.
Lupis yanked the control sticks back while simultaneously jamming the throttle wide open. The dozen or so flying drones opened fire on the craft even as it began flying away. A few rounds pinged loudly off the hull of the Rhapsody as it began speeding away.
Lupis looked down at his systems, which were displaying dozens of readings regarding the hostile craft which were following his own. There were indications that dozens more were converging from other parts of the city as well as the many within direct view.
While most of these automated drones were individually no match for the Rhapsody, there were a seemingly endless supply of them that Zenith could send. Lupis clicked the thumb buttons on both sticks to initiate fire from the two X-5 repeaters under the wings. The fully automatic ballistic repeaters blasted a path through the surrounding drones, tearing several of them to shreds as the Rhapsody flew through the opening.
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A rain of return fire came at the ship from many angles at once, which Lupis navigated through with expert timing and skill, a mixture of a lifetime of experienced combining with Gabriel’s augmented suggestions meant a pilot that was able to manuever far and above an average criminal.
Lupis kept his ship low, flying among the buildings as he made his way towards the edges of the city limits. He wasn’t sure if the drones had been programmed to limit their fire to protect civilians and limit casualties, but the drones were firing away nonetheless, making it a difficult question to answer. As he banked hard to the left, putting one of the city’s many gargantuan astroblocs in between the Rhapsody and its pursuers, two of the poorly constructed Trade Federation Security drones crashed right into the side of the building.
The bounty hunter knew that flying up into orbit could put him at risk of the satellite defence grid, and he needed to stay on planet for his next destination anyway. Instead the only move he had at his disposal to escape his pursuers was a longshot, a piece of tech that Gabriel had available that he had never had to use before.
“Gabriel, target enemy drones. Code Trident.”
The Rhapsody instantly diverted internal power away from nonessential systems, shutting down internal lights and powered on the wireless transmitter located on the nose of the ship. Within seconds, the transmitter began engaging electronic warfare with the surrounding enemy drones. A self-replicating virus transmitted outward and wirelessly attacked the operating systems of the security drones. Many of them shut down and dropped from the sky, others temporarily lost steering or targeting capabilities.
The Trade Federation drones were no match for the electronic warfare, only the Zenith drones were programmed for such things, but even then were temporarily backed out of their pursuit as their operating systems tripled processing speed in order to cleanse their systems of the virus.
By this time, the Rhapsody had employed another system trick to cycle its energy signature and emissions between hundreds of different combinations, making it difficult to track, and was soon far outside the city limits of Kallerish City.
* * * *
The Procyon brothers continued on through the gathering crowd emerging on the other side of the commotion. They had no idea of the high-altitude drones that had them pinpointed and were tracking their movements. All along the city grid, a dozen armored combat drone deployment vehicles were speeding towards their location.
“You think she’s someone famous?” Rocco jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the crowd gathering around the expensive limousine.
“I’m probably the wrong Titan to ask about famous Furwood culture…” Ricky began while scanning the street ahead for any signs of danger. “But judging by her reaction I would have to say it’s a good possibility.”
“Did anyone recognize her?” Rocco peeped back over his shoulder in a vain attempt to see the celebrity once more through the crowd of admirers. “I’ve never actually met a famous Titan before.”
“You want to go back and introduce yourself?”
“No.” Rocco was just shy of pouting at that moment. “Just seems like a terrible waste to come all the way to Furwood and not meet a celebrity.”
“You know me.” Amiga smiled proudly, flashing a pearly white toothy grin. “And Ricky. I mean, we’re most wanted on Gothamir. Probably throughout all of Zenith by now.”
“That’s definitely not the same thing.” Rocco frowned.
The group continued down the street while the older Prairie Dog, Eligah was scanning through his Net-Comm trying to find the best path to their destination.
“I think I found where we need to be.” Eligah announced. “But it looks like there might be a checkpoint on the bridge leading out of the east end of the city.”
“Checkpoints aren’t going to be friendly to us.” Ricky warned.
“There’s another exit from the city. But it’s going to mean a few more miles worth of walking. In fact, it really looks like we’re going to need some transportation. I’m not in any type of physical condition at my age to walk this far.”
“How far are we talking about?” Amiga asked.
“More than fifty kilometers.”
“That’s too far to walk.”
“If we go north, we can get to the Rampart district, it looks like there’s a way we can leave from there, and we’ll be pretty close to the dig site.”
“We’re two blocks away from a public transit.” Rocco remarked while searching through a map on his Net-comm monocle.
The group started in that direction, cutting through a narrow alleyway. Just before coming out in front of the public train platform, Bingo stopped in his tracks and faced the direction they had just come from.
Amiga seemed to be the only member of the group that noticed.
“What is it?” She asked the smaller cyborg.
“My scanner is picking up targeting systems, and communications.”
Amiga scrunched her face up as she regarded him and what he was saying.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure yet, but there are communications coming from Zenith frequencies.”
“You think there are Zenith drones in the area? Or soldiers?”
“What’s going on?” Ricky now noticed the other two stopped and faced in the opposite direction and turned to face them. “Is something wrong?”
“We need to hurry.” Bingo turned back and began hurrying towards the platform.
The group made their way up the stairs onto the elevated platform and found a seat on a train car. According to the timer on a screen above the sliding doors the train cars shuttled every five minutes throughout the city. The countdown was now less than two minutes.
Just before the countdown hit the one minute mark, an inebriated thruple of mottled fur herbivores came racing into the cab to make the shuttle before it left.
“Whew. We made it.” One of the two females exclaimed as they sat down opposite the other group. The other female cheered as she propped up the male with them who looked as though he may fall unconscious at any time.
The doors slid shut at the thirty second mark, and the next half minute saw the two groups staring in uncomfortable silence. The newcomers noticed quickly that the two Procyons, the Wolverine and the tall female Foxen looked like rough customers, and they fell silent when they began to realize that the other group they were now locked inside the small car with might be dangerous.
The timer countdown reached zero and the traincar began moving. Bingo zoomed in with his bionic eyes out the window just as the car began down the tracks. He then saw what he feared when his systems first detected wireless communications in the area.
“Problem.” Bingo instantly drew his partners’ attention. “They’ve found us.”
A swarm of unmanned drones flew in from multiple directions converging on the train.