“First wave!” shouted the Cheshire King. “Prepare to repel all borders!” Then he held his hand out, another bot tossing him a battle-ax. There he stood, ax gripped tightly in both hands, giant white grin on his chest seeming even more sinister and deranged than ever.
A dozen facets charged the walls, plasma fire kicking up dirt around them. One caught three shots to the chest, another had its arm torn off and kept coming. Herbert let loose a shot, vaporizing another. The remaining facets hit the wall, springing up the embedded tires like they were rungs on a ladder.
I snapped off a few shots, cleaving the head off the nearest facet, but only winging another, not quite doing enough damage to slow it down.
The first facet made it over the wall, firing wildly at half a dozen nearby madkind.
A shot cracked from across the compound and the facet’s chest exploded out its back.
I looked over and saw Mercer, rifle raised to his eye. He winked at me with the other then fired again, taking a second facet’s head off at the neck as it emerged over the wall. The body tumbled to the ground, knocking a third facet off with it.
The facet hit the ground and I fired a few rounds into it as it stumbled back to its feet. It spun around in a sloppy pirouette, slamming face first into the dirt.
Then from an emplacement along the wall Murka emerged, arms held out like he was a triumphant hero. He clenched his fists and his arms expanded, transforming, guns almost instantly at the ready. His guns howled death, a loud stream of nonstop fire that sawed the climbing facets into pieces.
“This is our land!” he screamed. “It is not your land! I’ve got two big guns, and you ain’t got none. I’ll blow your head off, if you don’t fuck off! This land was made for only me!”
He was singing. Angry. Having the time of his life.
I still wanted to shoot the prick, but dammit if he wasn’t the only thing between me and this wave of facets.
Two more drones strafed the compound, unleashing missiles into a nearby smoker. The smoker exploded, showering the compound in flaming debris, filling it with heavy charcoal-colored smoke. The bot with treads caught a flaming piece to the back, setting him on fire at once. He wheeled around, screaming.
“Get it off! Get it off!” he yelled.
But there was no one to help him.
A dropship flew in low from the south, slowing down just enough to let loose its facets.
They dropped in, guns blazing, firing before they even hit the dirt.
Mercer’s rifle cracked repeatedly from across the way, facet after facet dropping from his precision fire. One bullet, one facet. Again and again and again.
Herbert fired the spitter at the backside of the passing dropship.
The back end at first melted, then exploded, the ship upending before plunging into the ground just outside the compound. The explosion shook the earth, knocking a few madkind from the walls, a piece of wreckage cutting a facet’s torso in half.
I unloaded my plasma rifle as quickly as I could into the facets inside the compound. They were firing in all directions, several shots taking the flaming tracked bot out piece by piece. A few shots rained on my emplacement, blistering the sheet metal and poking holes in it that were too close for comfort.
Along the walls, the remaining madkind fended off the last few facets of the latest wave.
Then came the thrum of the engines of another dropship.
The madkind regrouped, unleashing as much fire as they could into the approaching ship. Herbert threw me a sign, then signaled Mercer and Doc as well.
It was time.
I leapt off the wall, hitting the ground only a second after Mercer, and ran toward an unscathed smoker.
Maribelle landed in front of me on all fours like a cat. She popped up, hands hovering above the pistols in her holster.
“Just where the hell do you think you’re going?” she barked.
I didn’t have an answer, not one good lie in the moment. I calculated whether or not I could get a shot off before she pulled her pistols, several simulations coming out in my favor. Several not.
She went for her guns.
And her torso exploded, her skinjob catching on fire, melting, dripping gobs of napalm-like goo, her legs dancing back and forth on the ground, trying to maintain their footing.
I turned to see a facet on the opposite wall, reloading a rocket launcher where his fist should be. I raised my rifle and fired, my shots striking true, hitting him dead in the chest.
His rocket fired anyway, missing me by inches, exploding several feet away.
The blast tossed both me and Maribelle’s legs a good ten feet, knocking me into the dirt.
I reached for my rifle, but it was gone, blasted from my hands in the explosion. I saw what was left of it halfway across the compound, several pieces smoldering.
Maribelle’s legs were still intact, still kicking, still wearing the holster. I leapt to my feet, slid the holster off her waist, and ran immediately for the smoker.
Mercer was the first one aboard, leaping up onto the mesh-wire deck, hauling ass to the driver’s seat. In the chaos of the moment no one was paying attention to anything that wasn’t a facet, so we took full advantage of that. I jumped aboard, immediately grabbing the grip of a mounted chain gun, slid back the safety, and swung the barrels up toward the sky. The gun roared in my hands, spitting out a stream of hate that cut two passing drones in half with a single pass.
“Move! Move! Move! Move!” Herbert barked out from across the compound.
Rebekah and Two emerged from the hut, looking wildly both ways.
“Don’t think! Move!” shouted Herbert again.
They ran, reaching the smoker just as Doc clambered aboard. Two jumped up first, belly-sliding across the grating, before stumbling to his feet and offering Rebekah a hand. She reached up, taking his elbow in her hand as he hoisted her on board.
A missile whined through the air like a bottle rocket.
The front gate blasted open, shafts of frayed metal and heads flying in every direction. And from behind it came the next wave—a dozen facets, rifles blazing—not even waiting for the dust to settle before rocketing through the debris field.
I swung the chain gun down and let loose another volley of fire, shredding the first half dozen like confetti—limbs and torsos evaporating in the hail of bullets.
The remaining facets had only seconds to live, each with only a shot or two left in them before I would swing the chain gun back and cut them to ribbons. Their return fire was short-lived and hastily aimed, most of it trained on me. The gunner’s plate on the weapon caught the brunt of the plasma, the rest zipping past me. The chain gun unleashed another deafening barrage at the very moment the fire came my way.
I didn’t hear the pop. Or the sizzle. Or the wilting dying scream. All I heard was cacophonous gunfire as I turned six facets into ten thousand tiny pieces. It wasn’t until I let off the trigger and the gun spun down that I heard Herbert’s booming bellow and realized something was terribly wrong.
I turned to look and saw the smoking wreck of Rebekah, her chest torn open by a plasma blast, her forearm blown off just below the elbow. She’d tried to shield her vitals with her arm and ended up losing both.