The moment the convoy ambush wrapped up, my partner and I jumped into action. Repulsor and laser weapons only worked at close range, which meant we'd have to get our hands dirty. Rockets were out of the question — our clan needed the tech intact, not reduced to scrap.
O'Brien had picked up acceleration mode fast under my guidance, so I wasn't exactly shocked when he took down the first enemy operative with brutal efficiency — frying the poor bastard with a high-voltage discharge. Our suits were insulated against that kind of joyride, not to mention resistant to radiation and EMP blasts.
No way I was letting him have all the fun. While Kang-Tao's forces were busy chasing Vi, who was flickering in and out of mimicry mode, I made a beeline for the biggest threat on the field — the pilot of the Dragoon combat platform.
Designed for all-out war, this walking tank came loaded with an arsenal of high-grade weaponry, making its pilot a serious problem. Its armor was a monocrystalline ceramic composite with an ablative heat-resistant layer and foamed metal backing. Throw in redundant critical systems and absurd damage resistance, and you had yourself the brute-force equivalent of an armored fighting vehicle. At two and a half meters tall, it was a walking nightmare — one that could end our day real fast.
Long story short, a massive pain in the ass for the current version of Atlanta.
But for all its strengths, the platform had a fatal flaw — one that made it my problem to solve. At the core of that mechanical beast was a human brain, hardwired into the drone's control unit. Piloting a Dragoon put the operator under hellish levels of neural strain, and most people couldn't handle it for long. Sure, there were exceptions — Adam Smasher, for example, the most infamous merc on the planet — but he was an anomaly, not the standard.
In theory, taking down a Dragoon was simple: hit it with a massive electrical surge, ideally straight to the head, after breaching its armor. Overloading its sensors would fry the pilot's brain like an overcooked circuit board. And that was exactly what I planned to do while Vi kept the cyborg distracted.
My repulsors did their job, melting through the thick plating. The heat compromised the helmet's outer shell, leaving me a clear shot. A split second later, I fired a high-voltage blast straight into the exposed section.
"Gotcha, asshole."
I grinned as the combat platform crumpled, then immediately turned my attention to a nearby corpo operative, bristling with implants from head to toe.
To be fair, I hadn't expected him to react so fast to his buddy's death. Without hesitation, he triggered his Sandevistan and instantly widened the gap between us. Unlucky for him, though, his body wasn't built to withstand laser weapons. Before he could try anything fancy, I cut him in half — along with a few other poor bastards who happened to be standing too close.
I got distracted for a second — just long enough for my suit's systems to blare a warning and yank me out of the way of an attack from behind. Whipping around, I found myself face-to-face with another Dragoon platform I hadn't noticed earlier.
Looked like its pilot had figured out I was the primary threat and decided to take me out first. Too bad for him — that wasn't going to happen.
The cyborg leveled a heavy-caliber machine gun at me. The second I moved, a hail of bullets ripped through the air in my direction. I threw up my segmented shield and charged straight into him at full speed, slamming him off his feet. The Dragoon's chest armor dented slightly from the impact, eating most of the force like a champ.
Unfortunately, the bastard wasn't planning on going down that easy. Before I could react, a thermal blade nearly carved into my side. My suit's AI registered the threat just in time, deploying an energy shield right where the strike was about to land.
Seizing the opening, I tried to pull the same trick I'd used on his now-dead teammate, but the Dragoon shoved me off, hurling me aside with a powerful blow from his free hand. Lucky for me, my armor absorbed most of the force, so I barely felt a thing.
We were both moving at high speed, but I still hadn't pushed my body to its full potential. Cracking my neck, I activated my Sandevistan — integrated right into my suit — and launched myself at the bastard at blistering speed.
This time, the Dragoon's pilot couldn't keep up. He flailed, scrambling to block my attacks, but every strike I landed carved deeper into his armor. Eventually, the plating hit its breaking point.
The screech of his chest plates buckling was music to my ears.
But I wasn't stopping there. One final surge of electricity shot through my gauntlets, frying the cyborg's brain to a crispy golden brown.
"That one's done."
I turned, scanning for any stragglers.
Unlucky for us, some were still standing — but Vi had them handled. Still, I figured I'd help out, blasting a few of the more persistent bastards with my repulsors to put a nice exclamation point on our cleanup operation.
"Looks like you had your fun," Vi quipped, smirking as he gestured toward the scattered borg remains.
"Fun? Yeah, right. I'd rather be in a coffin. These bastards were tough as hell — I had to get creative and throw in some brute force to put 'em down."
I kicked the nearest corpse for emphasis, earning a chuckle from my partner.
"Don't worry, I got one too — though he was already pretty banged up. Looked like Basilisk landed a hit first. The impact marks on his plating were hard to miss. Finished the job in ten seconds and moved on to wiping out the soft targets."
"Lucky you. I had to deal with these assholes at full strength. One even managed to drain my shield by ten percent."
"Thermal weaponry?" Vincent gave a knowing nod.
"The very same. Scanners are clear on my end. What about you?" I checked my tactical mini-map as I spoke.
"Same here. But let's check the vans just in case — someone might be hiding under a layer of shielding metal."
Luckily, we didn't find anyone else. We'd hit the perfect window to wipe out the remaining Chinese operatives. Reinforcements weren't expected anytime soon — the corpos had planted a signal jammer in the ambush zone ahead of time, cutting off all outgoing transmissions. That wouldn't stop my quantum transmitter, of course, but it did shrink its range to just a few dozen kilometers.
"What do we do with the bodies?" Vi asked, his helmet modulating his voice.
"We need to get rid of them. Pile them up and torch them with repulsors. As for the cyborgs, just toss them in the empty trunk. The techs back at camp will find a use for the scrap."
"Can't argue with that," O'Brien chuckled. "Alright, let's get to work."
Clearing the area took longer than expected. Funny how we'd killed them way faster than we could clean up their remains.
Once we wrapped up, Vi contacted his father to report in. Meanwhile, I did a quick recon sweep of the area — and it was a damn good thing I did.
Using my nano-visor, I spotted a well-hidden stash — and inside, one last survivor. An Asian corpo operative.
Taking him out was easy, but I had to be careful. Before pulling the trigger, I activated the signal jammer built into my suit. Only after that did I fry the bastard's brain.
Turned out my caution wasn't wasted. He had a custom chip implanted — one that would've transmitted a distress signal upon death. Those signals were hard to block, but my electrical pulse overloaded his system before it could go off.
By the time I got back, Vincent had already stripped the corpses of anything useful. Weapons, gear, whatever looked worth hauling — it was all dumped into one of the surviving cargo trucks.
Ironically, it was the same truck that had been transporting that weird device I still couldn't figure out. Plenty of space left inside, so I wasn't surprised Vi decided to stash everything there.
"How'd it go?" my partner asked, eyeing the gear I'd brought back.
"I was right. There was a controller hiding out. Lucky for me, I spotted him first and took him out quietly."
"Good news. My father will be here in two hours. That gives us plenty of time to prep."
"Agreed. No reason to stick around longer than necessary."
Prepping the transport didn't take long. Everything was in decent enough shape — except for one IFV that had gone out in a blaze of glory shielding the Basilisk from multiple rocket hits. The poor thing was blown to hell from the inside out, wrecked beyond recognition. At that point, salvaging anything useful wasn't worth the effort — easier to just strip it for scrap. So that's exactly what I did, slicing through its armored shell with laser cutters like a hot knife through butter.
Breaking it down went fast, but there were still other vehicles that needed work.
Luckily, we found a universal repair kit in one of the intact trucks, which let us patch up the remaining rides in record time. Just as we finished, the nomads radioed in, requesting clearance to approach.
Ten minutes later, a towering dust cloud rose from the southern canyon entrance — the telltale sign of incoming company.
"Alex, what the hell did you guys do here?"
John's voice was a mix of shock and exasperation as he took in the aftermath.
"Cleaning up witnesses." I shrugged, dragging my boot through the dust for emphasis.
"Why the hell do I put up with this guy?" O'Brien groaned, rolling his eyes.
"Holy shit, you guys went wild." Kirk whistled, pointing at the pile of Dragoon corpses stacked like junkyard scrap. "John, buddy, get a load of this. I was not expecting to see this kind of hardware out here."
"What the fuck."
John, the nomad leader, dragged a hand down his face, shifting his gaze from the wrecked cyborgs to us.
"You took down three full-on combat platforms — machines designed to wipe out entire enemy squads. You get that, right?"
"Relax. You should be used to this by now." Rick grinned, clearly enjoying his boss's reaction. "Honestly, I'd be more surprised if it had gone any other way."
"Traitor." John huffed, crossing his arms.
Then he exhaled sharply and waved a hand.
"Alright, assholes, we're taking everything. You coming with us?"
"Wouldn't mind a ride. Tired of flying everywhere." I nodded before turning to Vincent. "What about you, Vi?"
"Same. Had enough excitement for one day." He deactivated his armor with a smirk. "Feels weird as hell without it, though."
With a flick of his wrist, he packed up his reactor into a nanite-formed container and stashed it away.
"We'll need to stick to the highway to avoid leaving a trail." Kirk patted the Basilisk's armored hull. "Good thing these things move on anti-gravs, so they don't leave tracks. But the IFV… that's another story. We'll have to shove it into the Behemoth's cargo hold."
"One of the trucks might be salvageable, but it's gonna take some work."
"Alright then — move fast and let's get the hell out of here. Chop chop, ladies!"
John clapped his hands twice, and just like that, the crew got back to work.
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