Rocco depowered his flight pack and walked over to the edge of the roof. He had managed to fly nearly to the outskirts of the city, could have gotten out the direction they were originally meaning to go, but decided to turn back after he had eventually lost the pursuing aerial drones. He was still seething with battle rage and amped on adrenaline. He had destroyed well over thirty drones, thirty being where he had stopped counting, but somehow, they just kept coming.
Eventually he knew their group would not be able to destroy all the hostile assets that Zenith was throwing at them and decided to change strategy. Though he could not destroy all of Zenith’s aerial assets, at one point before he took off towards the edge of the city, he had cleared a wide path, hopefully giving his companions a way to escape the situation through his air superiority.
Rocco looked down to the display reading on the Axiom machine pistol, tilting it slightly to read it better. According to the readout, his magazine was now at thirty-one percent, and he didn’t have any spares. If what he’d seen down there minutes ago was any indication, they were bringing in an entire army of robots to the area against them. He certainly didn’t have enough ammo left to deal with them all.
On the tallest roof he could locate just on the outskirts of the battle, the sounds of popping and cracking gunfire were still echoing into the night air, like a chaotic fireworks display in the distance. It had become more sporadic and less intensified, which either meant his friends had managed to mostly escape, or they could all be dead. He hoped it wasn’t the latter as he brought up his Net-comm’s communications link and entered their private server.
“Yo. Anyone still alive?” Rocco used the thought-to-speech function instead of risking talking out loud. He seemed a fair distance away now from the Zenith robots, and would not likely be heard, but just in case they were scanning the area for auditory signals he would play it safe.
“I’m here big guy.” It was not a voice from any of his companions that answered, but his brother Rocky from back in the ship. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“I was hoping for some Titan contact here, not from you.”
“Shut up dummy. I haven’t been able to raise anyone for some time. And Ricky isn’t even in the server room with us.”
“Shit. That could be bad.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“You were worried about me?” Rocco teased in a slow voice.
“Reegan was…worried.”
“Zenith ambushed us. They must have known we were coming or something.”
“Where are the others? Are you alone?”
“I got separated from the others. Truthfully in all the confusion of trying to keep myself alive, I didn’t see where anyone else went.”
Rocco continued pinging the server room to his Net-comm, but for some reason, his targeting system would not display anyone else. He even glanced back in the general direction of where they had left the ship under the water, and no targeting symbols came up in his overlay.
“Did anyone get hit?”
“Not that I saw, but I got out of the area on my flight pack. The strange thing is, I can’t see anyone else. No targeting info, no reticles showing where anyone else is…I’m not even bringing up your location back towards the water.”
“Well, Amiga didn’t have a Net-comm, so she won’t come up anyway. But you still should be able to see the rest of us. I can see you.” In fact, Rocky did see a little symbol through his Net-comm monocle representing his brother’s location, far to the east. Since the targeting system generally worked with satellite global positioning, there usually wasn’t a minimum range on it.
“I see nothing. In fact. I was having a hard time getting my Net-comm’s aim assist function to work.” Rocco blinked a few times just to make sure he wasn’t a little loopy from all the adrenaline. No targeting reticles were coming up confirming the locations of the dozens and dozens of Zenith battle drones he knew to still be in the area below him.
“They must have some type of scrambler.”
“Scrambler? Why haven’t we seen them use something like that before?”
“Maybe it’s new tech. I’ve heard of such things possibly used on pirate ships to mask their approach. Hard to say, but it must only work within close proximity. Maybe something the robots have is jamming your signals, because I can see you over there, and I can see Bingo too.”
“That little son of a bitch is still alive?”
“Well, he’s at least moving.”
“Which direction.”
“Due North from you.”
“I’m going to set out. I need you to guide me.”
“Ten-Four.”
* * * *
Amiga flew through the mobile infantry units, smashing their ranks apart and then continued at a high speed through an entire detachment of mobilized MV1 drones. She kept her arms out in front of her and let the momentum of the flight pack carry her through, the force of her body did maybe as much damage as a high intensity explosive device, and pieces of robots were scattered smoking and sparking in nearly every direction. She had become a living wrecking ball, and the damage she cut through their ranks surprised even her.
When the speeding Foxen female came out through the other side, she dipped her shoulder and bodyweight to guide herself into a turn in much the same way one would lean a motorcycle. She came back swinging this time, amidst a raging inferno of auto-assisted pistol bullets being fired from the entire phalanx of robotic troops. The bullets deflected away from her fur and skin, as though she were harder than tank armor. Since she was never made privy to the details on the experiments done to her body, for all she knew that could be accurate.
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Heart pounding furiously, Amiga continued punching and swinging at everything within range, smashing MV1 battle drones apart two and three at a time. For units designed for combat, they sure fell apart like brittle toys before the Foxen’s might.
She managed to look up at just the right moment, when one of the larger CMIs was leveling the great cannon attached to its forearm. Glad for the intuitive nature of the flight pack, she managed to thumb the manual throttle while straightening her body to fly straight up into the air. She could feel the heat from the explosion that landed under her, which knocked aside much of the ruined machinery she had left in her wake, but also managed to blast apart a few more ‘bots that had been too close.
The super Foxen adjusted once more, this time flying towards the CMI. She slowed drastically as she reached the mighty robot and lifted it off the ground, ramping up the throttle again on the flight pack to try and compensate for the added weight. It turned out that the scientific marvel strapped to her back had a weight limit, because at full throttle she could not break any higher, but she did use the momentum to twirl the tank-like robot in a large circle before releasing it at the largest concentration of battle drones nearest her.
The massive robot plowed through the entire line like some ridiculous high-tech game of bowling, but at the same time she released, the extra weight was no longer weighing down her thrust, and it took her a moment to dial it back down. By that time, she had whirled into a tailspin, skidding down the street in spectacular fashion. More shots were ringing out from all around her, and she was too late to realize that in all the chaos, one of the bullets had struck her flight pack.
“Damn.” At least her enhanced body was strong enough that skipping across the pavement at high rates of speed did little damage that she could feel.
Amiga was now grounded, and heavily outnumbered. She was also hopelessly surrounded by the drones, as she could see a detachment of security and police units coming from the other side of the street. Large piles of smoking and sparking wreckage littered the road and the sidewalks though, they had managed to take down scores of these robots.
With no other choice, Amiga leaped high into the air, the flight pack might have stopped working for her, but her leg muscles easily compensated, and she propelled forward like she was shot from a catapult. She carried over the heads of the remaining Zenith battle drones, who were still firing ineffective submachine gun rounds at her. The majority of them though, were now scattering in opposite directions, leading down the alleyway, and entering the buildings on both sides of the roads looking for their targets that had escaped.
Amiga managed to dodge and roll away from the large cannon fire from the CMIs that were exploding all around her. She leaped on top of one of the armored deployment vehicles stopped in the middle of the road, and for good measure, smashed both fists down as hard as she could. The armor crumpled, she had a feeling that given enough time, she would have been able to fold the vehicle up like a frying pan but was not given that time. The CMIs were moving to catch up to her, firing more cannon blasts as they came.
Looking down the street past the armored car roadblock, the path appeared clear. She began to think that she might be able to escape the surrounding enemies before she was hit by something that stopped her in her tracks. Her body seized up and she fell on her side. Her muscles stopped responding to her mental commands at the same time her equilibrium flipped upside down. Amiga managed to look up and saw one of the aerial drones shocking her with a targeted electic taser, while others were deploying other tactics she could not immediately figure out, she only knew they were not all deploying visible crackling blue energy.
Amiga tried to get to her feet, but fell immediately, realizing that she had no balance suddenly. The taser rounds had given her spasms, but that only lasted a few moments, no doubt the amount of electricity that was needed to affect her was so great that the charges would be limited on such a weapon. But whatever was still being used on her was causing her to continuously lose her balance.
It must have been some manner of hypersonic device, Amiga realized, trying to find a way out of the situation. Before she could think of anything, she felt a hand grab her arm. She went to fling her attacker away, but the grip held strong. In fact, it tightened, and easily flipped her face down. Now angry, Amiga tried to push out against her accoster, but to her utter amazement, found the pinnacle of her uncanny strength to be no help.
She felt a handcuff of some kind latch her wrists together and she was then lifted off the ground to face a group of about five other Titans surrounding her, handling her, keeping her under control.
“How…?” She began to stammer, not understanding how these Titans had so suddenly taken away her powers to arrest her in such an easy manner. Were the sound waves somehow responsible? She understood how they could mess with her balance, but how could they steal her strength?
“Right dearie…surely you didn’t think you was the only graduate of the Zenith Genesis enhancement program? A powerful looking spotted cat type smiled crookedly as he dragged her along. “Some of us were actually used for the purpose we were created.”
And for the first time since the experiments, Amiga found herself face to face with other super soldiers, five of them to be exact, and against whom, she could do little against.
* * * *
“Bravo One. Is anyone reading me?”
“Bravo Two here.” Rocky responded to his brother’s voice.
“Bravo Three check.” Rocco sounded in.
“Good, so we’re all alive. Anyone got eyes on Amiga, Bingo or Eligah?” Ricky asked.
“Negative. I got separated.” Rocco replied.
“Copy. Me too.”
“I sit out one time, and everything sounds like it went to absolute dogshit. How are you two so bad at this?” Rocky chided his brothers.
“Right then. It’s not like you being here and not shooting back at the bad guys would’ve helped much.” Rocco chimed back.
“Not shooting back? You act like I’m somehow not as good as you just because you’re built like an ogre. I probably destroyed just as many Zenith drones as you back on Gothamir, plus I cleaned up the mess you made when you killed that Reaper. I fought AND turned Bingo into a friend…err ally. You’re welcome.”
“Right, you do just as much fighting as me and Rick. You’re worth just as much in a fight as either of us.’ Rocco mocked. “I don’t know why we don’t just fire you.”
“Fire me? I’m your brother not your employee you…”
“Enough!” Ricky yelled into the private channel. “Both of you prats shut the hell up. We need to figure out a plan. For some reason my heads-up display is wonky. I don’t have any targeting and I can’t see you two.”
“Yeah, we pretty much covered that already, Rocky thinks they’re using some kind of tech to mess with our Net-com systems.” Rocco returned.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. It must have some fairly short radius about it. I can see both of your reticles. The ship’s readouts are working fine too.”
“What about the cyborg and female?” Rocco asked.
“Amiga doesn’t have an implant, or an external monocle like us. Bingo’s out there. He’s just few blocks away from you Ricky.”
“With that out of the way, how close am I now?” Rocco asked Rocky, who had been guiding him before their older brother entered the private server.
“Just on top of him now, you two are basically right on top of each other.”
“I don’t see you.” Rocco returned drily. “But it does look like about a hundred security drones surrounding this museum building or whatever it is. It looks like they’re trying to put out a fire. I wonder who started it?”
“It’s a museum.” Ricky answered. “You’re not going to see me either, I’m…underground.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to fight my way through down there. In fact, I might not be too safe here on the roof for long. They might send aerial drones. How am I supposed to meet up with you then?”
“I’ll uh…” Ricky was busy at that very moment crawling through a somewhat claustrophobic and completely dark tunnel system. It smelled terrible but he had not yet thankfully run across any active Titan waste products. “…let you know when I find a way back out of this tunnel. Maybe see if you can meet up with Bingo for now.”
“Ten-four. Which direction bro?”
“North-East.” Rocky responded.