Chương 58: KK2 - #13 APOCALYPSE RINGS (2/3)

"If you're dead, I will chuck your beloved PEZ dispensers collection, furry ball." I instantly woke up, gasping for air. Squatting, my human was looking at me from the top of the deep hole I fell in.

"If you do that, I'll come back to haunt you," I managed to groan. My saliva tasted like copper and black powder.

"Sorry. Pottery's not my jam!" Ali teased me while letting her drop by my side.

"Can we celebrate our victory somewhere else than a mass grave?" Half-conscious on my partner's shoulder, I watched her back while we left the church through a hole in the retroquire. I glanced one last time at the smoking TK before we walked towards an abandoned observation post on the hillside.

"Almost there," Ali said, overlooking the burning plains. She spat a red gob. The air was poisoned.

"We're late to the party…" I commented, back on my feet. In the distance, the city walls were flooded with a yellow fog. The deadly cloud—supposedly banned by the recent Resolution 687 that almost took away our railgun—drove away the Marines and their bulldozers from the fortifications they had just taken. The Separatists were gassing all the troops, allies or enemies, in the outskirts of the town. Distraught, all were fleeing towards us.

"Only dispatch the gray uniforms," I warned her while descending into what was once supposed to be a rainwater collector.

"I don't want any problems with the Corps."

"Like I could discern anything with all this yellow porridge…" Ali put her Walkman's headphones back on her ears. Dancing through exploding mortars and phosphorus fallout, she spent the next minutes firing at every target crossing our path. Rivers of Babylon seemed to cover the whistling of the bullets as soldiers were dropping like flies. The poisoned mist enveloped us a few seconds later. Fortunately, we both possessed adequate protection; unless the last group of rebels who just arrived at the collector's banks.

Their eyes melted even before Ali could greet them with her caliber.

"All this sounds like a new failed offensive and here we're stuck in the middle of a no-man's-land!" she sighed through the filter of her mask between two muffled curses.

"Nouvelle Patrie hasn't fallen. We won't get through the walls."

"Those guys…" Ali started, pointing at the dead men.

"They give me an idea." I had doubts but my sapiens was already removing her TMC anorak. Even with one of the rebel soldier's outfit clumsily buttoned over her black jumpsuit, our chances to sneak into the Separatists' fortress were still thin.

"Here's the plan: we'll improvise!" she went on, scratching the mud on the collar tabs.

"What rank is this? Ensign? It looks like a cute leaf."

"That's a Separatist's Major insignia. Right before Colonel—like our contract, von Gebhardt—then generals," I answered before she heaved a sigh.

"Whatever… Hey! Check this out! I have a cool weapon!" she exclaimed before swinging in the air her new cavalry sword.

"Do you remember Raï in the mines of Yoyodyne?"

"The libidinous rōnin? Yes." The deadly cloud dissipated shortly before we reached the steel and concrete fortifications. The wall had been pulverized in various places, and the makeshift repairs had partially yielded to the armored Scorpios' hollow charges. Behind the burning carcass of one of them, we discovered a breach wide enough to sneak into the enemy base.

"See? Piece of cake!" Ali bragged, kicking a skeleton to make room for me. The skull came off and rolled a few steps away from a Separatist patrol that emerged from behind an anti-aircraft battery. Strapped to her bipedal Walker, one of the rebels greeted us: "You crazy loon, out there! Catch that darn cat! We're starving!"

"Say that again?" Ali grunted. Unsheathing her long sword, she was ready to blow our cover for me. As I appreciated the chivalrous gesture, one of the soldiers recognized Ali's uniform, and the sergeant on the Walker quickly apologized after the curious fist-chested salute of the League.

"At ease, chums! This is uhm… my… battle cat," Ali lied.

"He's fucking useless—most of the time—but it detected enemy's bugdrones lurking around. Do you mind—I don't know… patrol? While I report to the…" She looked down at me. A drop of sweat broke from her temple.

"…Admiral-stuff von Gebhardt." I sighed, picturing us facing the incoming firing squad.

"The Colonel's gone, Major. Like all the Chief Engineers," the half-deaf sub-officer answered.

"He left inside the last Hornet-9 with a functional Baltimore." She pointed vaguely to the charred carcasses nailed to the ground by the Marine's DCA on the open field around us.

"Do you have another shopping cart that is able to fly?" Ali insisted, raising the tone.

"To go on orbit?" The rebel was surprised.

"Well, there's the old Thunder in Hangar C, but General Aboud Mahmoud will kill us all if…"

"That'll do! Thanks!" my partner concluded before starting running. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Around us, the whole city was abandoned as many of the surviving soldiers and civilians were hiding underground, according to the insurgents we came across. We quickly found the heavy bomber on the other extremity of the shelled tarmac. I ordered the remaining mechano-droids to disconnect the coolant pumps while I triggered the opening of the warehouse roof."

Get to the choppa!" Ali barked at me while unlocking the hatch between the cockpit and the huge side turbines.

"You're banned from action movies until further notice," I replied after jumping in from the ladder. I had more important things to focus on than my partner's jests. Because, inside, the control computer dated to the time when soda drinks were sold without an insulin shot. Half the instruments were broken. Yet, the Separatists managed to desecrate the dashboard with a touch-sensitive panel.

"A sense of priorities equivalent to their taste…" I coughed, taking place in the cobweb-covered foam seat designed for an out-of-shape human. The rusty post-nuclear reactor began its cycle by squeaking, but the next minute we were in space. Nevertheless, the spectacle made me regret the mud that Ali and I had spread throughout the cockpit.

"Is it the fourth of July already?" my copilot asked while looking at the rain of flames the two fleets were spitting at each other's face.

"I love these explosions and colors! It's as mesmerizing as Travolta's crotch in Perfect!"

"Could you help me locate Gebhardt's Hornet rather than rave about pelvic thrusts and mass destruction?" Disappointed, Ali questioned the control computer and the instruments that were still responding. The dashboard kept lighting up like a Parkinsonian's Operation. Every second, a missile or a 20 mm salvo came close to our ship and her two tons of nuclear charges.

"This old cuckoo is as sluggish as the Alliance's administration!" I shouted.

"Let's lighten her up!" my useless copilot replied through the alarms. Pulling the control lever from the cargo hold, she triggered a new siren that tore our eardrums. Our deadly load was slowly poured into space and floated until a Marine destroyer struck it head-on. The deflagration blew our bomber away, and we spun endlessly in the middle of fierce dogfights.

"I prefer when you just stuff yourself with Giggles Cookies!" I roared before hearing my brain-dead baboon muttering inaudible excuses. I then assigned her to the single machine gun post to cover our back as a TMC dronefighter was tailing us through a corvette's shattered bits. These flying vultures clung to cockpits before sucking up all the oxygen. The radar finally detected the starfighter stolen by our target. Catching up, we saw him cross a cloud of sabotage UAVs.

Blinded, his hornet was hit by an Interceptor coming out of nowhere. Both crashed against the fragile hull of a medical frigate. The giant white ship, shaped like a shark's tooth, wobbled but managed to maintain his course. After dodging a third missile, my radio sizzled.

"Lee? I just had some enlightenment."

"Oh, no…" I mewed as I lowered my ears. Ali was back in the cockpit and took the controls. Not surprisingly, she crashed us against the oversized ambulance for another daily war crime. Fortunately, the ship had been evacuated. The large hangar we rammed into was empty except for the remains of the Hornet. As for the Interceptor, it was nowhere to be found. Through the shattered windows of the cockpit, I saw my partner already going after the felon.

The latter was limping towards the stairs leading to the upper deck. Fast like all the felines, I quickly caught up with her on the first steps as emergency shutters saved us all from being sucked into the void.

"He's hurt," she said. Catching her breath, she pointed with her chin at the blue tiles dotted by black glittering blood.

"That's ' borg' s blood!" We followed the tracks to a passageway where medical supplies were piled up between four elevators. Because of a malfunction, the doors of one of them were open but the cabin had disappeared. As we saw it thanks to the digital numbers flickering on the top display, von Gebhardt was rushing towards the command deck; where he could probably jump into the remaining emergency monopods.

"The others aren't responding!" I cleared out after smashing the broken buttons. I started floating because of the low gravity as the ship was losing its acceleration.

"He's getting aw—" The whole frigate brutally drifted, throwing us in the hoistway. Ali caught me up before grabbing a cable. We bounced together against the wall and slowly fell. We were welcomed by the cage, stuck at mid-floor.

"Von fucker?" my copilot asked, bashing to the car's roof.

"Are you—" A blade pierced the plastic, almost shortening her pretty freckles-covered nose.

"Found him!" she resumed with a grin, knocking her way down with her weapon's pommel. The Chief Engineer and Colonel of the Freedom League, Fritz von Gebhardt, was on guard, the right hand anchored to the handrail. His torn gray uniform covered with black spots concealed his implants and his thick breastplate of subcutaneous Kevlar.

"What is it you want, Major?" he roared after recognizing Ali's rebel's jacket.

"I arlmost killed you."

"I will tell you arfter a little assault," she replied, mocking our enemy.

"I see…" his opponent sighed before tremors shook the cabin.

"What are you? A traitor? A Marine? A hunter? Anyway, a fr ä ulein cannot defeat me." Von Gebhardt cheekbones red diodes blinked, and he leaped before realizing a lunge my sapiens dodged with ease by jumping against the jammed doors. Reacting to her call, our target started a remise but all his offensives failed. In an elusive counter-attack, my human skinned the cyborg's overbite as the whole ship made a 180 ° rotation.

"Rodrigue was right," Ali sighed while recovering before the ship started rotating again.

"People don't know how to handle their straight razors."

"He gave you fencing lessons?" I asked, clamped to the ceiling lights as the frigate seemed to dive.

"That's cool!"" Halt die Klappe!" an apoplectic von Gebhardt screamed as he jumped towards us. Unfortunately for him, his second intention missed as Ali dodged again before taunting him: " You can't touch this!" She laughed, before smashing his plastic throat with her foot, throwing him against the sliding doors." Hammer time!" I exclaimed while falling on the bigot's head with the tube lights.

My partner then punched him out, and von Gebhardt clumsily stumbled in an upside-down lobby as the ship rotated for the last time.

"Find his FID, Lee," Ali ordered as we walked towards the defeated colonel.

"Otherwise, I pack up all his fatty fingers." But we were stopped by a familiar voice making a specialty of interrupting us before the conclusion of a contract: "It would be better if he keeps all his limbs… Hands up, please." From the corner of my eye, I saw our expected party crasher.

"By the 79 moons of Jupiter! What are you doing here, Braun?" I exclaimed, turning around.

"This is getting ridiculous!" From the nearby stairwell, three black-armored soldiers appeared and held the two fencers at gunpoint with their AR-15 assault rifles. Judging by the three silver tears on their eight-pointed covers, it was the Metal Rain.