Another of the big guns on our side went up, this time with amuch larger explosion. Below, someone was on the outside of the wall. It was a man on fire running through the fields. He disappeared in the smoke.
No,I thought.No.
“They’re coming from above!” someone shouted.
I looked up to see five flashing dots coming down upon us. I blinked, realizing that the camo netting was completely gone. The flare of the Cheetah’s jump jets filled the night.
I raised my gun, aimed at the closest, which was falling rapidly. He would land right in front of my house. “Stay the fuck off my property,” I shouted, and I fired, aiming at one of the jets on the side of the egg-shaped torso. The shot hit true, and the mech spun off, spinning into the night, corkscrewing before getting hit by a missile.
“Is that what we’re doing now?” Sam shouted from next to me. He was still turned toward the fields, firing. The amount of fire in our direction had suddenly pretty much stopped.
“What?” I asked. I could barely hear, and I had to yell.
“We’re shouting cheesy lines at them?” Sam said.
I saw a yellow-painted Attenuator with a chain saw arm frozen in the middle of the field. It had five drones crawling all over it. They scattered away, each carrying a piece of the mech with it. Sam aimed at the center of the robot’s chest. He fired. The robot staggered with the hit but didn’t fall over. Still, these new guns clearly packed a much bigger punch.
“Your warranty is expired, motherfucker!” Sam shouted as he shot again. And again. The robot fell backward in the field.
“I think that one was already dead,” I said. “I think it stepped on a mine.”
There were no longer any red reticles on my screen.
“I don’t see any more targets,” Lulu said over the band.
Roger crackled over my ear. “We have three Heavies coming into range, but without support, honeybees can disable them quickly. We are engaging now. The high-altitude invaders have all beendestroyed. We do not yet know if Apex Command will honor their promise not to use Moderators to clean up the battlefield. Please allow the honeybees to handle the cleanup and stripping of the enemies outside the wall. Cleanup and repair will commence shortly.”
“What about the units dropped into the hills?” I asked.
“As predicted, they appear to have been bogged down. We are keeping an eye on them, but we expect them to get extracted. They will likely return for tomorrow’s assault.”
I pulled off the helmet and looked at Sam. “Your warranty is expired?”
He grinned. “I’ve been working on a bunch of lines. I should probably save them for when the bad guys can hear them. Would you think less of me if I reused that line later when we get the PA up and running?”
“I already think less of you for using it now.”
He looked as if he had a retort, but his grin faded. The smoke had started to clear.
The wall to our left was just gone in multiple places. The massive flamethrower was still there, but the spot behind that with the manual missile launcher was gone.
“Tito! Axel! Miguel!” Sam called, running toward the spot.
“We’re okay,” Axel said over the band. Relief flooded me. “Roger warned us, and we had to jump.” He paused. “I jacked up my ankle.”
“Rosita, Lulu,” I asked, “are you both okay?”
“We’re okay,” Lulu said, “but…guys, you better come down here.”
Chapter 27
Aterrible sense of foreboding washed over me. I went to where the ladder was, but it had fallen over. A moment later, a drone appeared and reset it. Sam and I scrambled down before it had finished putting the ladder in place.
As I turned to face the farm, I noted the destruction or lack thereof. Despite the several minutes of absolute chaos, the house looked untouched. The hive, miraculously, seemed to be in one piece as well, though one of the three storage silos behind the barn was just gone. I took a survey of the quickset pads that covered the underground shelters, and none seemed damaged.
The air stank of burning machinery, and my eyes itched. Everything smelled wrong, felt wrong.
Two of the big fixed guns had been turned to slag, and a few fires still burned. Everything was hot. Little pieces of the camo netting fluttered everywhere, catching in the fire before rolling away in the breeze. Weren’t they toxic? Surely breathing them while they burned was even worse. Multiple craters filled my yard.
