Chương 134: Chapter 133 – Processing Power

The next thing Cole knew, he was back in the magazine outside the control room, leaned back against one of the artillery shell feed belts. He blinked up at Roxy, who squeezed his hand, and at Alexa, who was holding the Pelican case with the laptop in one hand and his spear in the other. She handed the second back down.

"Figured you'd want this." Cole pushed himself to his feet and took a deep breath. When he closed his eyes, he still saw the glare of the red reaper, but being removed from the room… it helped. He took the spear and shrank it back down to fit on his belt.

"Elliot's got everything," said Alexa.

"The Dreadnaught, all the bots in the city, and the local Lewis Field itself for forty klicks in every direction. And not just here, either. He's wormed his way through half the dreadnaught fleet. He'll be waging a one-man war on Hextant."

"And he'll win," said Roxy.

"He's a moonshot, Cole. He's going to save Hexighast. Or what's left of it." Cole took a deep breath and rubbed his hands over his face.

"Was it worth it? Was it worth Deadlight?" Roxy looked away. It wasn't a fair question. What was a whole world weighed against a single Kicker? But it wasn't his world. Deadlight hadn't died for Earth, or America, or even for Elliot. Hell, there wasn't enough of him left to bury. You'd have to haul him home in trash bags. Alexa was at least willing to meet his eyes.

"Deadlight was a shit-stain of a person, but he saved a lot of kids. He died making sure this place wouldn't take another one. It's the risk we all take, until we either wise up and bail out or risk it one too many times." No one had ever promised Cole that this job was safe. The opposite, in fact. DOR's mortality rates were in bold print in the contract he'd signed. Even just in Curahee, one in ten recruits would die. Kids died on other worlds before Kickers could get there. It was a deadly business.

But Deadlight had seemed the next best thing to immortal. Or, at least acted like it. Those types of people became legends in their own right. And when legends bled…

"This is going to hit the Department, isn't it?" he asked. Cole had known the senior Kicker for a few months. Others had known him years. Alexa grimaced.

"Yeah. It's going to be bad." The three of them climbed up to the top deck of the dreadnaught, which was mobile again and headed toward the city. The bombard guns were silent and stowed, and the fleet of transport drones were returning to the flight deck of the massive ship. With Elliot at the helm, he could impose his own direct control over the automatons in the city. What was more, he could prevent other dreadnaughts from attacking.

The kid, president of his high school robotics club, was now spreading across a planet of robots like a virus. And he was also going home to Earth with vital knowledge of the inner workings of Lewis Fields. It was, by any metric, a massive victory. If only Deadlight had been here to see it. The sun was up over the horizon before the Dreadnaught reached water too shallow to navigate. A transport spun up on the deck for Cole and the others to take back into the city.

Wonder of wonders, no one shot at the automaton drone as it passed the highway beach landings and set down at the waterfront." Cole!" Cole jumped down from the hovering transport and looked to the south where a familiar figure waved from an overpass a few hundred meters away. Therza with the rest of the Tern Tower fighters were sifting through the wreckage of one of the automaton landing sites, now completely cleared of threats. Cole jogged over to the nearest merge lane and cut across.

Therza's people had erected barricades and had heavy technicals with barrels still glowing from the battle. There were wounded among the fighters, and a trio of canvas-covered bodies. But they'd been expecting a massacre and it had turned into a resounding victory. There wasn't a face around without an exhausted smile. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Therza looked around, smile faltering just a bit.

"Where's the rest of your team?"

"They're… My team is fine. Howie and the others went back on the boats with a copy of Elliot. We had to make sure we got him home before we went and did something really stupid."

"I'm guessing that had something to do with all this," she said, waving her palm to the field of scrapped and ablating automatons cluttering the approach from the waterline.

"But what happened? Where's Elliot?" Cole pursed his lips and nodded out to sea.

"Let's just say he gained a bit of weight." If Therza's jaw dropped any more, Cole was pretty sure it would fall off.

"You can't mean… He's controlling the dreadnaught?" Alexa stepped up.

"He is the dreadnaught. And a dozen other dreadnaughts. Hextant's days are numbered. Every bot in this city and on that ship are now back under human control. What he'll do with it, well, I suppose that's entirely up to him, now. Hope you people keep him happy." Tears welled up in Therza's eyes. She covered her mouth with her palms and sank down to her knees. A few of her allies noticed and sprinted over, but stopped short when the former school teacher launched up and wrapped them both in a bear hug. Former?

Hell, maybe now she could be again. With the bots and the Lewis Field under Dreadnaught Elliot's control, the automaton infantry would finally be doing what it had originally been designed to do. It was going to keep the monsters of Hexighast in check and allow the people to live out lives not too dissimilar to people on Cole's own world. It may seem strange and alien to him, but he thought back to what Nona had said.

If it hadn't been for the water and the Lewis Field, Nona would have thought she was still on Earth. Therza came back to herself and broke out of the hug, relaying the news to her allies so that they could run screaming back to the rest of Tern Tower's defenders. She turned back to Alexa and pointed at the Pelican case.

"Is that…?" Alexa hefted the black box.

"Yep. He's on here too. This can't stay on Hexighast, though, even if he weren't." Therza cocked her head.

"Why not?"

"Because that laptop apparently makes Hextant look like a pocket calculator," said Cole. He shook his head.

"I don't really get it either. But it's too dangerous for any one group to have."

"Pocket calculator?" Asked Therza, trailing off. Jesus Christ.

"Case in point," said Alexa. She patted the case.

"Don't worry." A growing drone of motor engines began to mount, signaling the return of the SWCC boats sent to extract them. Cole offered another handshake to Therza, but she pulled him into another bear hug that threatened to squish his insides out between his front and back plates like an ice cream sandwich. Before Roxy could get jealous, Therza pulled her in for one, too, and Cole was pretty sure the two mama bear warriors were having a squeezing contest. Alexa reluctantly accepted one as well.

"Is this the last time we'll be seeing you?" asked Therza. Cole took a deep breath.

"Probably. My team's job was to find and extract Elliot. What we got… well, I'm not sure you'd call that Elliot, but it's something. Earth isn't done with Hexighast. Your world has knowledge about Lewis Fields that my boss is keen on learning. And I think they'll make sure you stick around to share it." He glanced back toward the water.

"Knowledge that's going to save lives on both our planets. That's why we did what we did. Out there." Cole shifted. They'd paid for it, too. Deadlight had, at least. The rest of them got by with only superficial injuries. Like Alexa said, all it took was a moment of complacency.

"Believe it or not, we don't have a lot of friends out there. Most worlds would stab you in the eye before they'd look you in it." Therza gave a nervous chuckle.

"Things are certainly going to change. I still can't believe LouixCorp was right about everything." She wrinkled her nose.

"And that they effectively saved the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful. It's just, a lot of people owe some pretty big apologies." The SWCC boats pulled up to the waterline and Cole and the others offered their final goodbyes before heading down and climbing aboard to greet Han and Ken. They looked around Cole and his group as if waiting for a punchline.

"Deadlight?" Ken finally asked. Cole shook his head.

"KIA."

"Holy shit," said Ken, growing pale. Chief Dabir took his helmet off.

"I'm sorry, Colton." Cole tried to keep his voice level.

"Me too." He climbed aboard along with Roxy and Alexa, holding onto the rail as the boats gunned their motors and turned back into the flooded waterways leading through the city. This time, the entire city was completely quiet. No distant gunfire, no marksmen taking potshots at them despite the broad daylight. Dabir and his SWCC team even cut through Dark City, and Cole was treated to a squad of MK 1 bots near the waterline, watching as they passed.

One even raised a hand in greeting, though it still felt like more of a threat than a friendly gesture, no matter who was at the wheel. While he was eager to finish out the mission on Hexighast, Cole wasn't looking forward to the shitstorm that awaited them back on Earth. The Department without Deadlight might look like a very different place once things shook out.