I needed more guns. I dropped from the window and wiggled into the sleeping compartment. “Hurry,” I said to Cupcake. “I think twenty minutes was a lot too generous.” I brought a second weapon up. Beside the Para Gen, I attached a blaster—an Army Radiation-generated Active Denial Rifle II—the initials pronounced asradaramong weapons geeks. The RADR fired a beam of radiation. It heated the fluid beneath a person’s skin like a microwave, boiling the blood and cooking the internal organs. This model was lethal at anything under six meters. Between six and fifteen meters it created severe second-degree burns, blistering flesh. It was useless beyond that, giving the target a painful sunburn at most.
It didn’t bode well for this trip that I was already breaking out the big guns and heavy ammo. In the past, they had been used only for show. All I’d had to do was display the weapons and we were allowed to pass. Something had changed.
It also didn’t bode well that in order to fire reliably, I had to keep the passenger window down. I’d have no protection. I should have been wearing armor, no matter how hot it was today. Bad planning. Bad intel. Intel I used to get from Harlan. Dead Harlan.
I sent out a vision of Spy and her clowder returning to the cab at full speed. Hoped she got the word, or she and her cats would be left behind and would have to get home on their own.
Cupcake bumped, bumped, bumped, and the tree rolled forward, gaining momentum. I prepped the Para Gen and the RADR blaster to fire. Minutes passed as I added to my weapons stash, securing everything to the floor at my feet, rigs with holstered handguns strapped to my legs. As prepared as I could be, I braced myself for firing, sitting in the window.
“As soon as the cats get back, raise your window,” I said to Cupcake. “We need the armor more than we need fresh air.”
“It’s gonna be hotter than homemade sin in here,” she grumbled over the diesel.
Into my earbud, Mateo said, “The Para Gen will get hot, and it goes through ammo like a mofo, but it won’t jam. To save ammo, I recommend you use autotarget and the AI.”
I realized he was still in communication with the headsets and the cameras inside the cab. “Roger that. Setting for autotarget, three burst, manual fire. If I have to go fully auto,” I said, “it’ll be because I’m backed into a corner and have no choice.”
Through the open windows, the cats dove and landed, claws out for purchase, digging into leather seats and our tender flesh.
Cupcake yelped and swatted a juvenile male who scored a bleeding scratch on her shoulder. Even enhanced by nanobots, she missed by a mile. Spy was the last cat in, and she skidded into place on the dash, claws ripping the old plastic. Her sides were working like a bellows, and she gave what sounded like an urgentMroooorowof command.
Without pausing the bump, brake, bump, brake moving the fir tree, Cupcake raised her silk-plaz armored window and handed me her nine-millimeter. I removed the clip, inserting a full one and snapping it home with the heel of my hand. One handed, she slid it securely into the side pocket where she could draw it left-handed, if everything went to hell and back, I died, and she had to lower her protective window and defend herself.
I checked the chrono. Twelve minutes, twenty-eight seconds gone. My butt on the windowsill, I hooked a leg around my seatbelt, braced my thighs, and checked the Para Gen again. Another yard, and Cupcake began to swing the wheel, shoving the tree at a sharper angle. The tree bumped over the last dead body. The truck followed, the diesel rumbling, vibrating, and bouncing.
I pulled the ear protectors and goggles on. Loosened up my right arm. Stretched my fingers. Rolled my shoulders. Spy hissed a waring, her back arching, claws extruding and digging in. Hands flying, I checked the scanners.
Two tracked mini-tanks careened around the bend a half mile down the road. They spread out, moving at speed to block the road.
Cupcake cussed with great skill and originality over comms. She increased the speed of the bumping. The tree was rolling steadily.
Men jumped off the tanks and took cover. The scanners told me there were ten enemy combatants, but probably missed some. Counting the yahoos in the woods, that meant at least twelve targets, all armed.
The sensors were digesting info about the armaments we faced. Into my comms the scanners ID’d Spaatz, robo-capable mini-tanks. The tank on the right was mounted with a High Energy Weapons System—lasers. The scanner’s AI recommended the laser as the primary objective, a five-millimeter diameter target that was bouncing all over the place. Faster than human, I merged the Para Gen to the sensors. The AI secured the tiny objective at the tank’s upward bounce. Waiting.
I engaged auto-fire. It calculated range, speed and bounce of weapon and target, weather, wind speed—factors that I couldn’t calculate. When the target bounced, the ParaGen fired a three-burst.
Shrapnel flew.
The attackers hadn’t activated defensive measures. The men close to the road disappeared into the trees.
I slid the integrated AI back to manual fire, auto-targeted the tank on the left. Fired two rounds at what scanned as a rocket launcher on top. When that got me nothing, I fired a three-burst at the weapon’s mounting system and targeting system. Shrapnel went flying.
“Bingo,” I whispered.
The side-mounted weapons systems scanned as explosive-fired projectile launchers. Big-assed guns or small cannons. I fired. Hot brass landed on my arm and bounced off my face. The heat from the Para Gen scalded. I paused. Fired. Paused. Fired. Short bursts. All AI-assisted.
I finished the rest of the twenty rounds on the continuous tracks the tanks raced on, hoping to damage them enough to seize. One tank stopped, the other one turned as if a track was damaged, which meant the track systems had been replaced with aftermarket stuff, not military quality. I knew my junk. They had good weapons but hadn’t spent the big bucks on vehicle support and transport. That was good news.
I changed out for the other twenty-round belt and spent it on targets in the woods. The Para Gen never jammed. Now I knew why Mateo loved this gun. It was dependable. And with the autotarget AI, it was bloody accurate. But. I had only the hundred round belt left after less than ninety seconds. Still lots of people to kill.
Bloody hell.
The truck’s armor was taking small-arms fire. Cupcake slid low in the seat to make a smaller target, still bumping the tree. I was still hanging outside and might as well have a bullseye on my chest.
I didn’t know if the tanks were totally disabled or if there were more weapons on them that the old scanner had missed.
The tree bounced out of the way.
