Chương 114: Chapter 113 – Tin Soldiers

Behind Cole and his team, the SWCC boats revved their engines again, pulling away from the shore and making scarce before the otherworld threats could make mincemeat of their unattuned crews. The supporting fire from their heavy guns would be missed, limited as those Earth-made armaments were against otherworld threats. But the crews needed to keep themselves alive and the boats intact if they were going to pull his team out later. Cole had already seen what those lumbering gun platforms were capable of.

Ahead, the rogue AI's troops continued to pressure the defenders, and if Cole and the rest were going to link up with the faction that had summoned the Earth kid, someone needed to survive to answer questions.

"Howie," called Cole. He pointed up at the closest of the two heavy bots sporting the big guns.

"Take that fucker out! Everyone else, cover the boats."

"On it!" Howie shouted back. From behind his cover, he swung down his launcher and started burning charges to fill his cannon's magazine with elemental munitions as he took aim. Cole pushed up the slope, closing the distance to Roxy and hammering more of the automatons blasting down through the jammed-up cars. Roxy blasted one of the skittering bots that got too close to her, and a moment later it exploded from her weapon's Afterburn affix. Rounds thumped off her shield, sparking as they ricocheted.

Nona covered her far flank. On the other side, Nutmeg crashed into a humanoid bot with an explosive launcher, yanking it off its feet and tearing out the wires and joints in its neck. She'd grown almost as large as some of the otherworld cars jammed into the streets, and she was covered in the silvery sheen of Besson's Vanguard ability.

As though not to be outdone, Alexa's familiar bounded to the top of a truck and rattled off rounds from a pair of light machine guns mounted to its flanks, while the woman herself blasted a robot with a burst from her anti-robot gun and used the opening to take cover further up the hill. Cole moved up with her scrapping a pair of hovering drones that sported what looked like electrified nets. Alexa glanced over.

"Got a plan for those big ones?" Howie chose that moment to put his cannon to work. The 20mm gun thundered, leaving misty contrails as pale blue rounds smashed into the legs of the closest walker. Ice began to build up, slowing the joints and causing the oversized automaton to struggle against the added weight and resistance. The shriek of twisted metal echoed through the urban canyon. Cole pulled his spear out and burned a charge of his ability.

He jumped just enough to build kinetic energy before launching the spear like a rocket. It blazed off trailing a golden accretion tail, crossing the distance between Cole and his target in less than a second before embedding itself into the steel armor of the four-legged walker. The robot wavered as though hit by a truck instead of a slender metal rod, struggling to keep itself upright. Its gun swiveled and started to glow as the business end pointed down the slope.

"Well, you made it mad!" said Alexa.

"Just wait," said Cole. A bolt of lightning split the air above the spear, flowing down through the metal and shattering the ice-weakened joints on the walker. It slumped, folding in on its right side as the bulk of its body flattened a car beneath it. Cole felt the rumble of the impact through the asphalt. The red glow on the heavy robot winked out, and a cold surge ran through Coles veins as the kill pushed him over the threshold to his next level.

He grit his teeth against the sudden cold, but it was gone as suddenly as it had arrived. His gun, likewise, sent an impression of discomfort as the level-up affected it, as well. Before his target marking could fade, he willed his weapon into the designated marksman configuration and sighted further up the hill. The eldritch gun vented steam and changed shape in his hands, elongating and raising more of the magnifying membranes. You might be reading a pirated copy.

Look for the official release to support the author. Several larger, humanoid automatons with shoulder-mounted guns fired smaller versions of the quadruped cannons at the locals. Cole sighted the first one and fired. The rifle bucked in his hands from the increased recoil. But the automaton exploded in a shower of sparks and twisted metal—as did the two smaller marked automatons closest to it. Two bounces? The LF analyzer had predicted his next evolution at level 20, but he'd only just hit level 18.

Had he reached his next evolution path early for some reason? Cole sighted a new target and reduced that one as well as the two bots next to it into scrap. His rifle spat out the empty polymer drum and Cole swiftly pulled out a fresh magazine and fed it to the ravenous magazine well while the rest of the team pushed up the hill using the space he'd made for them. Howie struck again, hitting the top-mounted gun of the second big walker with a thunder munition that caused it to twitch and jerk.

One of the locals took the opportunity to run underneath it and smash down on one of its leg joints with a massive hammer while another hit the opposite leg with a rocket. The walker buckled, front end slamming down into the asphalt hard enough to crunch through the top layer. With its top mount exposed, the hammer-wielding warrior vaulted up and smashed the damaged gun mount to pieces.

She kept swinging, driving the head of her weapon deeper and deeper into the innards of the bot until the whole thing went dead and slumped to the ground.

"Remind you of anyone?" Howie shouted over, grinning.

"Let's go!" shouted Cole.

"Finish the rest!" With the two heavy walkers down, all that remained were the last few humanoid bots trading fire with the locals. Cole moved left and up, cresting the top of the ridge at an angle that exposed the flank of the surviving automatons. With Besson at his side and Alexa covering their own flank, he hammered the remaining bots with heavy rounds, stopping only to feed his gun another magazine as it sent him a pang of hunger.

What Besson's gun lacked in stopping power, he more than made up for in volume of fire. His Curahee machine gun thundered a steady rhythm of destruction that tore the enemies apart and slowed others with fungal growths constricting their joints. Alexa finished off the damaged ones with a blue, shimmering ray from her own weapon that turned the metal skin of the automatons red-hot and caused them to spark and pop from the beam's effects.

Within a few minutes, the last of the bots were down, and the locals began to sweep in, rummaging through the remains of the automatons. They showed little fear of Cole and his team, though made no overtly hostile moves, either. Most had already stowed their own weapons. Cole moved up to retrieve his spear, as well. He wrenched it out of the downed walker and retracted it down small enough to hang from his belt. The walker itself was already beginning to ablate—at least, parts of it were.

The metal shell and armor panels dropped away as the superstructure and internals melted away. From some internal bay, a cache of pearlescent equipment spilled out onto the ground.

"There's good looting on the big ones," said a female voice. Cole looked to the side, where the hammer-wielding warrior was tugging off her riot helmet and shaking out a sweat-matted mane of light hair. She had hard eyes, and a speckling of burn scars on the left side of her face.

"My foragers spotted you coming up Pike Street on those boats. Guessing you're the ones on the EMwaves, from that platform down south. The ones supposedly from another planet." She eyed his team and their equipment.

"That's right," said Cole. He turned to face the woman.

"Someone was taken from our world. We're here to see they're returned." The other members of Cole's team moved up around him, instinctively taking position to interdict if necessary. The local didn't miss the implication of the positioning. She set her hammer down and raised both hands.

"Peace, friend. None of us would harm you, 'less you give us a darn good reason. There's few enough of us left to be doing Hextant's work for it. If you're not one of them—" she kicked a steel-toed boot into the disintegrating walker, "Then you're with us. Skin or Tin is all I care about." She looked him up and down, eyes holding on his rifle, for a moment. She startled when it waved a small tendril at her.

"You must be from another world with kit like that. Welcome to Hexighast City, or what's left of it. I'm Therza." Cole flattened his hand behind him, gesturing the rest of his team to stand down. They relaxed, moving up closer to get a look at the local.

"Cole," said Cole. He extended his hand, and after a moment's consideration, Therza took it and squeezed it.

"I gotta say, we're not used to this kind of reception. Usually it's more…"

"Violent?" guessed Therza. She laughed and gestured around.

"Haven't you heard? This is the Age of Enlightenment."