Dismay fluttered through Ultima. “But… it’s just him now—and maybe a couple hundred drones. We canhandle that.”
Tau’s lips tightened. “He will buildagain if he is allowed to. And you may be certain that he haslearned from the weakness he has discovered.”
“We will finish it, now,”Xi said, “and there will be no war tomorrow.”
Ultima wrestled with her fear for themen she’d come to care so much for and her fear for a future formankind. She wanted to be selfish and argue to keep her men safe,but was anyone ever really safe anywhere when there was a tyrantbent on taking everything in sight?
They didn’t go, though.
They stood tensely, waiting andwatching.
She wasn’t certain what they werewaiting for—because she was scared stupid and she’d long sincestopped thinking of ‘her men’ as anything but men.
They were waiting, she realizedfinally, to optimize their chances of destroying Eml in the timethey would have between the pulses.
When the last pulse struck when Emlwas perhaps twenty yards from the tower, all three of them leaptfrom the cage and skimmed down the ladder using the side rails toslide. By the time they were on the ground, the monster was almoston top of them.
They had to wade through almost adozen drones even to get to the slave master and Ultima realizedthat he had modified his drones—begun to modify them already as Tauhad said he would. Drones that were not affected by theEMP.
She couldn’t count the minutes it tookto fight their way through Eml’s ‘guard’. Unlike the guys, shedidn’t have an internal clock accurate enough for that. She beganto anticipate the next pulse, though, with buildingdread.
She wanted to scream at them to comeback, to wait for the next pulse, and then resume theattack.
But she was afraid she would onlymanage to distract them so that the drones could fall upon them andcut them down.
She could only stare down at thebattle in horror, growing more and more tense as seconds tickedby.
And then as suddenly as the battlewith the drones had begun, they struck down the last and attackedEml.
They were out of time, Ultima thought.It was too late. It had taken too long to get to him.
She could see they were tiring, too,or imagined that they must be.
It seemed to her they used theirhand-to hand weapons slower, with less effect.
Maybe it was the armor?
They’d begun to pry that away whenUltima felt the tower begin to hum and vibrate as it built towardanother pulse.
She couldn’t contain herself anylonger.
“Hurry!” shescreamed.
Get the power stick! Beready!
Ultima couldn’t decide if she’d heardthat or if it had simply popped into her mind because they’d toldher over and over that it was the last ditch weapon. But shewhirled from the railing and whipped a look around for it and thenraced to grab it and ran back to look down at the fight just as thepulse hit.
Just afterwards.
She stared at the blaze of light belowthat was so bright it made it impossible to see the carnage beneathit.
“Now!” Tau bellowed.“Shoot him, Ultima!”
“You’re in the way!” shescreamed back at him.
“Do it! Now,baby!”
She pointed the weapon center mass andpressed the button and held it down until the light dimmed andfinally disappeared.
