A/N: Sorry it took so long to get this one uploaded. My hard drive kind of... melted. Anywho, i have a brand new hard drive and things seem to be working nicely again, so the next one should be up in a week or two. Thanks for reading, enjoy!
Fear Mongering
"What the hell was that?" one of the Talon Company mercenaries asked, glancing at the forest around them. Reading into the fear and uncertainty that she detected in his voice, Catherine found another opportunity to sow confusion and fear. The chirp had faded, but there was no mistaking the noise a tueur mécanique.
"I guess you came up the coast," she inferred, watching the group of soldiers scan their surroundings. "That means you haven't come across any drones yet. Don't worry, you will in a moment."
"I'm not even going to tell you to shut the fuck up," Eben growled. While the others had turned their gaze to the perimeter of the makeshift camp, he'd kept his on her.
"They can see body heat," she continued, knowing that the leader of Talon Company wouldn't silence her if she could intermix information with her fear mongering. "Right now, in this cold? We stand out like bonfires in the dark.
"I've watched five of those things slaughter hundreds of well-trained soldiers in one sweep," Catherine exaggerated, hoping to get the mercenaries jumping at their own shadows. "They don't miss. They don't stop and…"
The butt of Eben's rifle slammed into her cheek, forcing Catherine's silence, and knocking her to the ground. Even as he leaned over her, the barrel of his rifle inches from her forehead, she could see the layer of terror she'd sowed in the soldiers around her. They were trying to look in every direction at once, their eyes a blur of motion. The confidence of outnumbering an unarmed woman five to one had been replaced by the fear of the unknown.
"Oh my God," one of the women shouted, lifting her rifle to point at something in the woods. "What is that?"
Even from the ground, Catherine could see the small, metal canister that peered around the tree, its red light glaring at the mercenaries. In turn, the Talon Company soldiers-for-hire trained their weapons on the drone. From what she could see, and to her general dismay, this tueur mécanique was one of the smaller models. Compared to the one she and Mike had killed the previous night, this thing could have been the former's pet.
What it was about the machines that led them to play with their victims in one instance and violently exterminate them in another was beyond Catherine's reckoning. Her only guess was that it was related to the level of firepower their opponents carried. The two that had herded Mike and her into the river had missed them intentionally twice. The five that had assaulted the two battling armies hadn't missed once in slaughtering the soldiers. Evidently this machine fell into the latter category.
The flash of light, spray of crimson and distinctive crack of a gunshot occurred so rapidly that they were all but simultaneous. The Talon Mercenary, the same woman who'd cried out, fell to the ground, a red circle the size of a bottle cap in her forehead and a gaping hole, the size of a peach, in the back of her skull. Snipers called that shot, "crossing the T," an instantly fatal wound that left the mercenary dead before she'd hit the ground.
The Talon Company mercenaries reacted swiftly, instantly returning fire. In a flurry of gunfire, they moved behind the trees, putting some semblance of cover between them and the tueur mécanique. Even over the roaring bursts of rifle fire, Catherine could hear the rattling pings of bullets slamming into the drone's armored skin. While five drones had managed to surprise and slaughter several dozen militia fighters and untrained soldiers, she doubted one would be enough to kill the remaining four mercenaries.
"Staccato! Move your asses," Eben shouted over the din of automatic gun fire. At his orders, the mercenaries spread out, creating a wide line opposing the machine. They were forcing the drone to choose its targets, to swivel from one to the next, which would allow the others to fire on it freely. Before they could all get in place, one of the men caught a round in his chest. It was like an invisible hand had snatched his torso, sending him crashing to the ground.
Even at three on one, the Talon mercenaries were making mincemeat out of the drone. When it would turn to fire at one of them that soldier would duck behind cover while the other two opened fire. Within just a few moments, the drone fell to the earth, letting out one, last, defiant chirp.