Damn it.
It wasn’t Spy or Maul, but a skinny tabby. Still.Bloody damn.Altering my glove’s angle, I checked out the entrance of the Admin Suites. There were four of Warhammer’s fighters still firing out into the hallway at the last of our people, their backs to me. I finished them off and eased out.
I trotted down the corridor, moving slowly, clearing each room.
“I’m through. Nest is clear,” I said. I checked my faceplate screen to see the vid from Spy’s and Maul’s vest cams. They were on the move, running up some stairs. “I repeat. All enemy combatants in the nest are down. Jolene, show me the cats’ location on an interactive map of the bunker. And the Maarsie locations.”
New schematics and 3D floor plans appeared on my screen. I could see Spy and Maul on the move, brightly colored dots. The Maarsies were blotches of green. “Jolene, you’re monitoring this. Did you spot any traps made or being laid? Any place where humans are waiting?”
“Negative, Commander,” Jolene said. “All teams on the surface, be advised. CO Mateo is traveling to Warhammer’s apparent exit point. He is on the surface, in his warbot suit, running concealed. Shining,” she said to me privately. “Objective One is in a med-bay in the Simba, sedated, undergoing treatment.”
Mateo had protected Evelyn. He was either coming to get vengeance on Warhammer for what she had done to Evelyn, or he was coming to back me up. Either way meant a better chance of achieving Objective Two: Clarisse Warhammer dead.
I had a sudden vision of Harlan, dead at Warhammer’s hand. Tortured. Eaten by bicolor ants. I wanted to kill her slowly, but as long as she was dead, confirmed dead, and I got to see her dead, I was gonna let that count.
“I should be heading out in seconds. Tell Mateo not to shoot me.”
I tore into the tiny room and up the stairs.
Jolene said, “Warhammer’s exit point is marked. Six mini-tanks are exfiling the scene.” On my screen I saw a cluster of blue dots.Warhammer. Her route was marked in yellow. I raced to follow across an unlit landing, up two flights of stairs, and into a cavernous space. It was full of military mini-tanks and armored and weaponed all-terrain vehicles. The garage we had seen on the initial recee.
I turned on the armor’s speed function and dashed across the huge room. There was an empty area with fresh, oily looking droplets of hydraulic fluid and liquid fuel on the floor. From outside I heard weapons fire. Who was shooting at whom? Had Warhammer’s fighters been ambushed?
“Jolene. Please advise the following: Who is firing? Are all of Warhammer’s unit still with her? And what can you tell me about their vehicles and weapons?”
“Warhammer and all nine fighters are firing into the brush as they travel, on six armored mini-tanks. To this point, none of our remaining on-ground forces have been injured, but there are only a handful that didn’t join the bunker battle.
“Warhammer’s unit is carrying the same model of weapon used in the bunker, and they seem to be carrying sufficient ammunition to fight a protracted battle. They have no missiles or rockets. There are confirmed visuals of two cases of fragmentation grenades. Repeat. Two cases. Spy and Maul are with her team, together, with a third cat, on the back of one of the mini-tanks.”
“Dang cats.”
“Be advised, Commander, that Warhammer and her personal defenders are all wearing armor. It appears to be first-gen Dragon Scale auto-hardening war-era armor, model DSAH10. This model has fewer high-tech modifications and more specific weak points than your model. However, DSAH10 is capable of withstanding small arms and hand-held blaster fire.”
I raced through a massive garage door and down a wide hallway. Then up the ramp toward the night where a set of blast doors to the outside had been left open. The stench of exhaust registered strong on the air.
I remembered Jacopo’s “Yeehaw, motherfuckers” and I laughed, the sound a little crazed.
It looked as if it was going to be a few cats, a warbot, and Little Girl against ten fighters and six tanks. Could be worse.
“Jolene, relay orders that all teams are to get our injured people to the bunker’s medical facilities, clear the building room by room, and take the gear and supplies each club agreed would be theirs.” I dashed outside, following the ATV tank tracks. “Notify everyone that—” I stopped.Bengal injured. Maybe dead. Mina ditto. Jacopo in a med-bay, hopefully. I want Jagger with me, but that isn’t where he can do the most good.“All teams. Logan Jagger has command until I get back.”
“The fuck you say?” Jagger said.
“Jolene, if he tries to follow me, harden his armor.”
“No!”
“Roger that, Commander,” Jolene said.
“Little Girl has left the building.”
* * *
The tanks had moved fast. I needed speed and increased the armor’s assistance to run. Initiated the gyro properties for when I mis-stepped or started to fall. Decreased the suit hardening so I could breathe deeper. Punched the buttons for another blast of oxygen in the helmet. Switched blasters for long-distance pinpoint accuracy and auto targeting with IR and lowlight assistance. Because somehow it was still nighttime.
I practically flew, following three Maarsies’ locations on my screens. The tanks were a half mile ahead and moving fast.
“Mateo here,” his metallic voice said. “I have Little Girl in my sights. Coming up on your four o’clock, one klick out.” I glanced in that direction and spotted trees on the bunker hillock waving against the night sky as my seven-and-a-half-meter-tall sidekick raced in from my rear. His warbot suit was in full invisi-mode and likely using all six limbs, including the stumps of the amputated and damaged ones, to knock dead branches out of his way, to catch up to me. Good thing I wasn’t scared of spiders.
