Twenty-five
Starship Eternia
Planet Etheria
5 September 2017
The Sorceress relived the events of the previous day. She dreaded what was to come but could not to seem to wake herself up. Pleas not to relive the fight went unheeded. Once more, Falcon and War Wing locked hands. Etherium alloy creaked and groaned from the incredible power the battlesuits possessed. As before, Falcon burrowed past War Wing's defenses. Sorceress stared at the image in the holographic display of the other suit's red eyes, which seemed to bore straight into her. Falcon broke through the final layer. At the AI's prompt, the Sorceress sent the telepathic signal. The resulting searing pain was the catalyst to break out of the nightmare.
Sorceress snapped awake with a gasp, sweat beading her face and heart pounding in her breast. For a few confused moments, she had no idea where she was. Then the surroundings finally registered in the woman's muddled mind: Sick bay. She was in the Eternia's sick bay. Sorceress closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, slowing her racing heart. Another part of her mind dwelled on the current situation: She was dressed in the standard hospital shirt and pants. The bed had been raised to a comfortable angle, and a thick blanket covered her body for warmth.
She wondered why she was in the sick bay instead of her own quarters. There was no memory of having entered the ship through the drop bay, which meant that Falcon must have done it all on her own. War Wing had proved that the AIs could move the suits about, albeit in slow, jerky movements. The symbiotic relationship between operator and machine meant the AIs relied upon the operator as a sort of living gyro for smooth balance and operation. If she had passed out on the return trip, why had she been moved to sick bay? Doctor Carter would not have moved her here with good reason.
A scuffing of feet on the metal deck drew her attention to her left. Cracking her eyelids, she shifted her eyes to the side. The Sorceress found herself looking int the eyes of a little girl. Andre. "What are you doing here?" Sorceress croaked, throat dry as the Sands of Time desert back home.
"We came to keep him company," Andre answered in a small voice.
"We?" Andre's friend stepped into view. "Ah. I see." Sorceress turned her head a little more to the left, opening her eyes fully. Adrian lay on the bed next to hers, still as death. The steady beeping of the monitors mounted on the wall above the bed filled the silence that fell between her and the children.
A nurse entered the room, making her scheduled rounds. Seeing that the Sorceress was awake, she darted back out to fetch the doctor. Emilio strode in moments later with the nurse in tow.
"Well, you are looking better than you did when we pulled you out of Falcon yesterday," Emilio said. He waited until the nurse escorted the children out for some snacks before continuing. "How much do you remember?"
Sorceress gave up trying to raise her head. Every time she tried a wave of dizziness washed over her. She thought back to the events of the previous day. Everything went blank after she told Falcon to take her home. Sorceress said as much to the doctor.
"By 'home' I'm guessing you didn't mean the Eternia. Rather her namesake planet?"
Sorceress nodded. "She doesn't have the capability to open time/space portals. I think." Her voice was raspy. Doctor Carter picked up the pitcher of water on a nearby table and poured water into a glass. Moving back to the bed, he handed it to her. She emptied it in several greedy gulps; Emilio filled it again. "What happened after you pulled me out of Falcon? I expected to wake up in my quarters instead of here." Refreshed, her voice sounded better.
Emilio frowned. "We got you out and placed on a gurney. I took a quick scan and found you were on the verge of having a massive brain aneurysm. Had to perform emergency surgery. It was touch and go there for a while, but your healing magic took over where I left off. You're fine, now."
"Massive as in…"
"As in you would have died. No castle around to resurrect you this time," the doctor added grimly. After giving a moment to let that sink in, Emilio asked the question he had been holding back. "How could something like this happen? All the tests showed no stress to you in shutting down a rogue Guardian."
Now it was the Sorceress' turn to frown. "It shouldn't have caused anything more severe than a headache. There was something about War Wing that made the task a lot more difficult."
"What? I can't get anything out of Falcon. Seems that AI is just a tight-lipped as any stubborn organic."
Sorceress shook her head. "I don't know. Until the techs can go over War Wing, I have no answers for you. I can't even suggest possibilities."
"You should be hungry. Rumor has it you haven't eaten in over a day."
Sorceress shook her head. "I don't feel like eating." Her stomach chose that moment to announce its difference of opinion.
Captain Majourny walked in. "Was that an earthquake? Or is someone hungry?"
A scowl crossed the Sorceress' features. "If you breathe a word of this…" she warned.
"Your secret is safe with me." Jo-jo turned to the doctor. "Colonel Markson wants all available assets for the defense of Castle Mystacor. Is she up for it?"
Emilio turned to the Sorceress. "Are you?" He glanced up at the monitor mounted to wall over her bed. "According to these readings you are the picture of health. I guess your magic fixed whatever I missed."
"I suppose," Sorceress replied, distracted. She was staring at the bed to her left and its comatose occupant.
"There is nothing you can do for Adrian. He'll come out of it when he's good and ready," Emilio said, all but reading her thoughts.
"Because I've already done enough, you mean. After all, I'm the reason he's here in this state."
"If you and Falcon hadn't done what you did, a lot more people would have been killed," Jo-jo pointed out.
"Well, you may not be able to do anything here," Jo-jo pressed, "but you can certainly help with the defense of Mystacor. The other Guardians need you and Falcon." She nodded to Emilio on her way out.
The doctor informed the Sorceress that her jumpsuit uniform had been cleaned, pressed, and stored in the closet at the back of the room, next to the changing room. He would perform one more exam before releasing the Sorceress back to duty. Cleared, it was time to kick her out.
Sorceress endured the brief examination silently. She kept reviewing yesterday's events trying to figure out what she could have done differently. The end result was always the same. Nothing. There was nothing that the Sorceress and Falcon could have done differently without ending in the deaths of many more of Colonel Markson's soldiers.
Sorceress returned to Adrian's bedside, dressed and ready to join the coming fight at Mystacor. Taking his limp right hand in both of hers, she clasped his hand tightly. Light telepathic scanning yielded nothing. Probing deeper only confirmed what she suspected; Adrian had retreated deep within himself to sort out what happened.
"We need you," she whispered. I need you.
Castle Mystacor
Colonel Markson organized the defense of the castle as best he could. The original idea had been to set up the layered defense lines similar to what he had done at Brightmoon. Once the report came down from the Defiant that a force of twenty Monstroids was heading straight for the castle, the timeline for that went in the can; they would be arriving sometime in the afternoon. Markson deployed his heaviest firepower in a wedge formation. The plan was the funnel the monster machines down a gauntlet to the waiting four Guardians. It would have been nice to have five. All six would have been ideal.
A shimmering oval portal appeared, well away from anything and anyone. Shafts of orange lights flicked all around the flat surface. Colonel Markson was relieved to see Falcon in combat step through the shimmering disk, the portal dissolving behind her. As the Guardian strode toward the other battlesuits gathered at the apex of the funnel, the power armor form turned white and shifted form into the fifteen-foot battle mode.
Markson stared in awe at the sight of the battle machine. While the internal structure of all six suits was identical to one another, the armor plates, ordinance and weapons were all different. Falcon and Hawk were slenderer in appearance to give the illusion of femininity. The head had a flair of feathers and beak color similar to the Sorceress' headdress. The feathers also concealed the blaster cannons mounted in the head.
Slung diagonally across the back was the suit's primary weapon. At the lower end, behind the left hip, was the business end of the psionic staff. The weapon had the capability of being reconfigured into different forms, but the energy discharge was the same. It delivered a powerful electromagnetic blast that would destroy all unprotected computer systems.
Backup weapons were mounted in the hip guard armor plates. There were flattened disks that looked outwardly like a Frisbee. The outer edge was razor-sharp and, like the vibro scimitars wielded by Claw, heated up to melt through nearly any known substances -with the possible exception of the molecule-thick neutronium outer sheath of War Wing's shield. Jon had only seen the Sorceress use those weapons once. Once was enough to know that being caught on the business end of those disks was deadly.
Sorceress parked Falcon in line, powering down and climbing out of the operator's compartment. She left the newly-issued headset in place, knowing that she would soon be in battle against the approaching Monstroid force. The set was a metal band that wrapped around the back of the head, temple to temple. A small arm on the left side positioned a clear glass heads-up display in front of the left eye, while projectors on the endcaps at the temples projected a holographic display in front of the wearer's face similar to that displayed inside the combat form helmet. The display contained all relevant information required in the field, could be tailored to the wearer's preferences, and gave the person a real-time view of the outside world. It was a set-up developed from the battle form's display screens, now relegated to secondary status.
Gabe's technicians were working on similar gear to incorporate into the helmets of the soldiers, to enhance the information they had to work with on the battlefield. The techs were also working on better portable sensor devices to tie into the helmet gear. Interconnectivity with other sources of information was the next logical step. Gabe had plans to slowly build a network giving the soldiers in the field the same amounts of data a single battlesuit was capable of providing to its operator. Knowledge was indeed power.
"I was hoping for one more to show up for this dance," Colonel Markson observed, trying to hide his disappointment.
"I wouldn't give up that hope just yet," Sorceress replied.
"You know something I don't?" Jon dared to ask.
Several whimsical responses immediately came to mind, but the Sorceress refrained from saying any of them. "Let's just say a couple of young people are working on it."
"Can you get any more cryptic than that?" Jon groused. "Don't answer that."
A corporal rushed up to the pair. "Colonel. We have sight of those monster machines."
"How far out?"
"Approximately ten miles. Fifteen at most."
Markson frowned. "Damn. They made better time than I thought."
The trio hurried over to the command APC and climbed aboard. Private O'Rourke manned the computer station. Rockwell, Boradni, Johnson and Ironwood were gathered behind her watching the monitors. "Monstroids in sight," Catherine reported. "Thirteen miles and closing. Defiant reports Val-kyrie fighter squadron inbound."
"How long?" Markson asked, already suspecting the answer.
Catherine turned from the monitors to look him in the eye. "Sorry, colonel. Those machines will reach us first."
Nodding, Colonel Markson turned to the assembled Guardians. "Time to go to work. Engage them as far out as you can. We'll support you with indirect fire at your discretion. If at all possible, keep them from getting in range of our carriers or the castle. Air strikes may be available if those Bladewings get here in time."
Five heads nodded. "Let's move," Jake said, darting out the open hatch.
Three men and two women sprinted across the arid land toward their respective battlesuits. Each scrambled up the kneeling war machine and slammed themselves into the seat. Armored panels closed up while they strapped into the four-point harness. Systems activated spontaneously as the AIs switched from passive standby to full powerup in response to their operator's wishes, one of the benefits of the symbiotic relationship shared between operator and AI.
Within two minutes, the five Guardian battlesuits took off at a fast sprint toward the approaching mass of Monstroids. Jake set a pace that would set a meeting point with the enemy approximately seven or eight miles out from Colonel Markson's skirmish line, but leave them with a lot of capacitor power with which to fight the enemy machines. Along the way, he divided the team up into three groups, pairing a melee suit with a ranged one: Blitzkrieg's laser rifles and Hawk's beam spear on the left flank, Gatling Arm's pair of twin plasma Gatling guns with Claw and his heat scimitars on the right. Falcon with her heat disks and EMP lance would center the formation. All were equipped with small energy blasters mounted in the head, with additional weapons in the collars of Claw, Blitz and Gatling Arm.
Jake glanced at the weapon status panel on the left panel instead of using his heads-up display. He touched a switch to load the schematic taken from the shared download from War Wing's memory banks. It was a blade weapon specifically designed for close-quarters combat, his favorite game. Jake couldn't wait to try them out as thin rectangular boxes materialized on the outside of Gatling Arm's block-like forearms.
The intercept point reached, all five slowed to a halt as they held the formation Jake had called out earlier. Dust trails kicked up by the mechas' dash across the arid landscape drifted away on the slight westerly breeze. The enemy machines appeared on the horizon. Even at the distance of several miles, suit sensors picked out the shapes of the Monstroids' chassis on approach. Only two new machines were sighted in the lineup.
The first was a flight model with ovoid feet on the ends of thin leg/wings and a spherical head attached to a blocky body containing its power core and flight engines.
The second one was a bulky machine, moving on wheels and armed with huge piston arms designed for flattening anything in its path. Gatling Arm picked out rotating bearings at the shoulder, which meant the possibility of the machine being able to swing the huge rams up for horizontal strikes.
There were four aerial units pacing the formation of sixteen ground units. Several serpent-headed machines were leading the formation. Jake spotted six of the tank units that could convert to a standing position, making them more mobile and deadly. The rest of the formation was comprised of the lumbering robots equipped with a powerful backpack studded with weapons barrels of differed lengths and inner diameters. From the previous battle, Jake knew that machine was capable of hurling artillery shells for several miles. The drawback was it had to bend over almost horizontal in order to bring the rest of its formidable weaponry into play.
Two tank units converted to a standing position and advanced on Blitz and Hawk. Sonya took the offensive. Powerful backpack thrusters fired, lifting the battlesuit off its feet. The AI snapped the beam spear from the storage clip on the back and soared straight at the nearest tanker. Instead of igniting the energy weapon, Sonya slammed the business end straight into the bowed head. Metal crunched and cracked apart. The spear was driven straight down the neck, doing terminal damage to the machine. Hawk sprang back as the Montroid's power core overloaded and detonated. The other machine dropped to several precise shots from Blitz's rifles.
Jake spied a heavy machine dropping down to aim its backpack weapon in his direction. Weapons snapped out and around from Gatling Arm's back. The twin-barreled Gatling guns rose into position to be grasped. The arms folded back out of the way as Jake took careful aim. A gentle squeeze of the triggers on both control sticks made the suit's fingers tighten down on the firing levers. In a heartbeat, twin streams of plasma bolts shot out across the distance between the opposing fighting machines. Raw energy lashed at the bowed war machine. Gun barrels melted and blew away. The backpack breached and exploded. The force of the detonation slammed the machine face-down into the dirt, never to rise again.
Claw was assaulted by a Monstroid with piston arms, seemingly bent on Jake's theory about it being able to use its massive pistons in the horizontal position. Hardened alloy slammed into Claw as the Guardian prepared to use his trademark arm extensions on the machine. The pistons' impact flung the battlesuit backwards almost twenty yards, but Brad used the momentum to good use. AI and operator rolled with the punch and came up fighting, Brad switching to the secondary weapons. The blades of the AI's scimitars, stored in a crisscross pattern on the suit's back, began to glow. Claw grasped the hilts and flung them overhand, straight at his attacker. The scimitars tumbled end over end, landing edge-first in the Monstroid's torso. Blades heated to incredible temperatures melted into, and through, the thick armor plates like a hot knife through butter. The machine's power core breached, and it died in a fiery explosion.
While Claw hustled to recover his thrown weapons, Falcon watched his back with a carefully placed blast from her psionic staff. The blue bolt burst forth from the blue/white crystal in the bulky end of the staff, exploding against the chest of a tanker unit. Tendrils of EM energy crackled across the machine's surface like lightning. Glowing red eyes flared out as all systems crashed hard. The terror machine dropped in its tracks, a dead husk.
Gatling Arm reported, "They appear to be executing a flanking maneuver, but something's wrong."
"How so?" Jake asked, targeting another tanker model.
The targeted machine suddenly launched itself at the Guardian. The tactic was so unexpected that Jake hesitated a fraction of a second, the collision knocking the battlesuit from its feet. Jake felt the impact with the ground, fighting to remain conscious as the violence of the assault knocked him around the cramped cockpit. The tanker stood over it prey, ready to deliver what it thought should be a fatal blow. The left twin Gatling gun pod had flown away in the collision -giving Jake the opening he needed to engage in his favorite game. And as a bonus, a chance to test the effectiveness of his new chosen weapon.
As the tanker snapped downward to punch the downed Guardian in the chest, Jake lunged upward, the blade stored on the left arm snapping outward. The tanker spasmed and froze. A red-hot blade tore through the back armor, electric sparks lighting the interior. Jake threw the limp Monstroid aside and scrambled to his feet. He retrieved the fallen gun pod that lay a short distance away.
"You were about to say?" Jake prodded the AI.
"They appear to be employing only a few machines against us. The others are trying to make an end run around us and head for the castle."
The cockpit monitor on the left switched views. On it, Jake watched in awe as Falcon's left hand dropped to the hip guard and the disk stored there. The disk was ejected into the waiting hand, snapped up and launched sidearm straight at a lumbering machine with piledriver arms. Once released, the disk's edge began to glow. It slammed through the machine as if its armor were nothing more than tissue paper. But the attack didn't end there. The disk soared up and around like a boomerang and penetrated the dying machine again from behind, returning to its owner and being restored to its storage spot. A second later, Piledriver Arm collapsed.
"All units withdraw and regroup," Jake ordered. "They're trying to outflank us and go for the castle."
No one argued. All five performed power jumps to get ahead of the sprinting machines. Several more Monstroids fell to the Guardians weapons.
"Colonel, you might want to send the signal," Jake advised, grimly.
Monitoring from the APC, the colonel frowned. "Are you sure? These things are still a good distance away."
"If you are ever going to trust my judgement, even in temporary command of this unit, trust me now," Jake growled, trying to keep his temper in check as one of the snake-headed machines made a run straight at him.
Mollified, Jon thought for a moment. While Jake was a noncommissioned officer, and therefore did not have the tactical training officers received, he did have the memories from the previous operator downloaded into his brain. The previous operators all excelled in certain areas. Jake and Adrian were inheritors of tactics and unconventional warfare. Bottom line: Jon had to trust those on the front lines who had a better perspective of the situation than he did, being miles behind the current line of battle.
"Make the call," Jon replied.
"Do it," Jake answered, without hesitation.
"Already done," Private O'Rourke said when the colonel looked her way.
Jon growled, "Mind reader."
Hundreds of miles away, alert klaxons rang throughout the starship Eternia. People rushed to their assigned combat stations. All preparations for launch had been previously laid in. All that the crew had been waiting for was the 'GO' signal. That signal arrived shortly after the battle with the Monstroids was joined.
Captain Majourny proudly watched her crew go about their jobs with quiet professionalism. She had pushed her crew hard in training for situations just like this. Constant drilling breeds a sort of muscle memory in that when the alert sounds, one doesn't think about what to do, one does automatically. That was what her crew was doing now, going about the job of readying for battle and getting the starship launched in minimal time.
Within five minutes of receiving Colonel Markson's signal, Eternia lifted off, executed a spiral course to gain altitude and throttled up to full power, racing for suborbital altitude.
Down in the sick bay, the two children flanking Adrian Cobretti's bed barely noticed anything being amiss; the alert klaxon had been purposely muted by Doctor Carter. The kids had their heads down, enjoying a brief nap. Andre's tiny hands clasps the unconscious man's right hand. A sudden shift woke Andre from her dreams about good monsters. She rubbed her pudgy hands against her eyes, trying to get rid of the sleep that had built up in her eyelashes, blinking a few times to clear blurred vision. When she could focus on her surroundings, her mouth dropped open in surprise, which rapidly turned to glee.
Ace leveled off at over eighty-thousand feet, Etheria rotating below the speeding starship. Its westerly course, coupled with the planet's rotation, ensured that they would get to the site of battle as quickly as humanly possible.
Sensors picked up the squadron of Bladewing fighters heading for Castle Mystacor, fighters configured for atmospheric combat. The pylons and massive torpedoes used against capital ships could not be used in a planetary atmosphere; the mount points for the pylons put incredible stress on the airframe at specific points that threatened structural integrity. Thus, railguns, energy weapons, and internal ordinance bays were sufficient for atmospheric fire fights.
Fifteen minutes into the flight, Eternia suddenly lurched and began to slow as if the starship had struck something solid, although there was nothing in their flight path.
"Ace, what are you doing?" Jo-jo demanded.
"It's not me, captain," Ace responded, hands frantically tapping controls.
Lieutenant Denton spoke up from the tactical station behind to the right of the command chair. "Captain, the doors to Drop Bay 2 are opening," he reported calmly.
Jo-jo frowned in confusion. All the dropships had been deployed to Castle Mystacor, along with three platoons, their APCs and the war machine. There was nothing left to launch. And they couldn't maintain supersonic speeds with the doors open because the stresses would rip the outer doors off their hinges.
"Get those doors closed, lieutenant. We can't go supersonic with them open." She knew it was redundant to remind him of that fact, since that fell within his sphere of responsibilities.
"I can't. They have been overridden locally."
Which meant someone in the drop bay had opened the doors. But who? And why?
Lieutenant Alexandra Callahan, the computer systems specialist and communications officer, reported, "Captain, Colonel Markson is requesting an update on the ETA of reinforcements."
Before Jo-jo could answer, Ensign Comorov shouted, "Keptain!" and pointed at the forward windscreen. A magnified window popped up, displaying a view of something streaking away from the underside the Eternia. Although the view had been very brief – only a few seconds – everyone recognized it immediately. Lieutenant Denton reported the inner and outer bay doors closing. Without prompting, Ace slammed the starship back above the speed of sound.
"Captain, Colonel Markson is calling again," Lieutenant Callahan said. "What do I tell him?"
"Relay my exact words, lieutenant. 'He's on the way,'" the captain answered, sitting back in her chair.
Colonel Markson watched impotently as the running firefight between the five Guardians and the Monstroids continued to draw ever closer to Castle Mystacor. By now, the Guardians had been able to diminish the assault force from the initial twenty machines down to around ten. Some of those had taken damaged but were still in the fight.
At one point, approximately eight miles out, Jake called a strike down on his position. Markson balked at the idea. Being caught in the middle of a surface-to-surface strike was not his idea have having a good time. Being asked to launch that strike on an area where friendlies were mixed in with enemies was not something he ever wanted to have on a resume. The Guardians were insisting that they would be fine within their Etherium shells. The colonel eventually ordered the launching of all surface-to-surface missiles his three carriers had, shuddering at the site of all the white trails marking the passage of the missile volley.
The AIs tracked the incoming weapons all the way from the point of launch. The numbers rapidly fell as AI and operator worked to get the Monstroids bunched up as closely as possible. Then, at the last possible moment, all five suits executed a synchronized power leap away from the massed enemy machines. One or two missiles actually locked onto a friendly suit, but the explosions did nothing to the tough Etherium armor.
None of the Monstroid were taken out by the barrage, but they did slow their advance somewhat since they now had confirmation of a larger force backing up the Guardians.
Markson turned to Private O'Rourke. "Any word from the Eternia about reinforcements?"
The woman nodded. "I finally got a message, but- "
"But what?"
"I don't understand it, sir."
"Well, read it," Jon said. Gunny Apone moved in close to hear the response.
"Message reads: 'He's on the way.' Do you know what that means?"
Apone broke out in that big grin that irritated the colonel from time to time. "You don't think she means…"
"Oh, yeah," Apone said, confidently. He exited the carrier to rally the troops.
Shaking his head, Jon called the Guardians. "Jake be advised. Reinforcements inbound our location."
"About damn time," Jake grunted. Another Monstroid had charged him and knocked him to the ground once again. This time, the enemy was succeeding in breaking through the skirmish line. His Gatling gun pods were running low on energy, the internal capacitors drained to dangerous levels. "How many and how soon?"
"Any time now. You'll know when it gets here," was the response.
Jake didn't have time to ponder the cryptic message. One of the Guardians was in bad shape. Instead of attacking all five of them independently, one of the snake-headed machines had focused on one suit. And it worked. Claw had been the chosen target; AI and operator fought off the concentrated assault with help from Gatling Arm and Falcon, but it cost Claw heavily.
At the moment, Brad Johnson's only task was to get back to the rally point at the command APC, but Claw's left hip actuator and left knee had been savaged in the assault. While the Etherium armor plate weathered the storm with barely a scratch in the paint, the openings between the plates at the joints were vulnerable if one could get the shot. It had been more luck than skill on the part of the Monstroids, but the end result was the same: Claw was hobbled and limping along at a painfully slow pace. A few power leaps using backpack thrusters was out of the question. Claw's analysis of the damage had indicated that one leap would be enough to totally destroy both hip and knee on landing. The leg would literally shear off at the hip. Suit and operator would be done for.
So began the rolling withdrawal. It wasn't a retreat. They never retreated. Jake called it a strategic withdrawal. Whatever the case, they were being beaten back to the last line of defense beyond which the machines would be knocking on Mystacor's gates. If something didn't change the odds and soon, they'd lose; even one Monstroid would be enough to destroy the castle and kill everyone within its walls.
One of the snakehead machines broke through the skirmish line and headed straight for the screen of APCs, remote sentries, and human defenders. A furious wave of defensive fire was thrown up against the approaching machine. Nothing so much as scratched its armor. Not even shoulder launched missiles.
The Monstroid had spotted a familiar figure in the sea of scattered defenders. Its single-minded program ignored all others and zeroed in on its assigned target. She-ra. Since the enemy fire was not powerful enough to penetrate its armor, the Monstroid simply strode boldly through the firestorm toward her. He-man appeared in front of his sister, laser rifle raised and spitting energy bolts at the towering robot. Snakehead aimed its left arm blaster at the pair. He-man turned, wrapped his arm around his sister's waist and dove away just as the machine fired. They didn't quite make out of the blast radius, however. The shockwave for the explosion of the blaster bolt impacting the spot they had just vacated sent them sprawling, He-man losing his grip on the useless laser rifle. The twins stared helpless up at the Monstroid as it took careful aim to fire again.
Warning klaxons buzzed in the Monstroid's head. Its head snapped up, twisting to its right. Optical sensors quickly zeroed in on the object hurtling through the sky straight at it. Reacting too late to take avoiding action, the machine squared its shoulders and braced for impact.
It didn't help.
The object slammed square into the Monstroid's torso. The kinetic energy of the flying object was imparted to the Monstroid, blasting it off its feet. Object and machine crashed to the ground and slid for quite a distance, Monstroid limbs bouncing uncontrollably, before finally coming to rest over a hundred yards away from the Twins of Power. Standing proud atop the severely dented chest plate of its vanquished prey was the missing member of the six-person team.
War Wing.
Two of the four Monstroid flight models had grounded several hundred yards away. They were conserving the energy while their companions relayed tactical reports to their ground-based brethren. At the sight of the sixth Guardian, the machines panicked.
"It's the winged one. Ascend!" one machine declared, red eyes flashing with every word.
Both machines fired the vertical takeoff engines set in the power core block mounted behind the spherical heads. Once clear of the ground, the legs rose into horizontal positions, but they struggled to gain more altitude. Normally, they would switch to forward flight with the engines mounted at the back of the power core block, but the usually rational machines were acting anything but rational.
Adrian Cobretti sneered at the hapless machines struggling to make a panicked escape. Switching to external speakers, he shouted, "You're too heavy, fools!"
The right arm swung up into target acquisition. The red targeting bracket on the heads-up display turned from red to green. In the span of three seconds, Adrian fired off two blasts from Wing's plasma blaster rifle. Both Monstroids were holed right through their heads. The dead hulks crashed to the ground, exploding almost simultaneously.
A heavy model bent over to level its weapons pack at the new arrival. War Wing sprang up and away on jets of thrust from its spread wings. The left arm swung into target acquisition, panels in the pointed face of the shield mounted on the arm slapped open and several miniature missiles burst from the internal missile launchers.
The first missile slammed into the enemy machine's head, exploding it in a spray of shrapnel. The second one darted in through the dense field of weapons barrels, penetrating the massive backpack and exploding within. Secondary explosions slammed the machine down into the dust.
Adrian dispatched a second snakehead machine with a rifle shot that blew away the robot's head and shoulders. Seeing all remaining enemies turning their attention in his direction, Adrian dropped, slammed the base of the shield into the ground, and knelt behind it for cover. The layer of Neutronium, only a few atoms thick, deflected away all incoming laser fire. Explosions from artillery and grenade rounds were similarly deflected around the crouching Guardian. The left arm braced up the shield, but the wrist, elbow and shoulder joints suffered a terrible strain from the combined onslaught.
Adrian's left eye hovered over the icon to activate the comm channel shared exclusively among the six suits. His image popped up in the heads-up displays of the other five operators. "You people waiting for an engraved invitation?" He snapped off a quick blast around the shield when there was a brief lull in the enemy fire. Another heavy unit collapsed, minus its head and part of the upper torso. He snapped back under cover before the enemy fire resumed.
"Uh, we were just enjoying the floor show," Jake said, sheepishly.
"Fight now. Play critic later," Adrian ordered.
A tank model, in full tank form, tried to drive straight in at War Wing from the Guardian's right side. What the machine failed to consider was that the angle gave its enemy a clear shot at it without breaking cover. Adrian's aim was a bit off the mark, but the blast from his rifle vaporized the Monstroid's left tread assembly and part of the torso. The mangled side dug into the dirt and ground to a halt. Dead.
Warning klaxons buzzed in the cockpit. Adrian snapped his attention around to his front. A heavy unit slammed into the crouching Guardian, sending the shield flying one direction while the rifle skidded away in the dirt. The Monstroid slammed its head into War Wing, a very unusual tactic for the machines. It had no real hope of shattering the durable Etherium alloy armor, but the machine tried nonetheless.
"Big mistake thinking the shield launcher and rifle were my only weapons," Adrian growled.
Head and collar guns opened up, peppering the enemy war machine about the head and shoulders. The center of the six-pointed star on the Guardian's chest flared to life. At full charge, raw energy blasted forth in a focused blast. The beam melted rapidly through the Monstroid, bursting through its back. Adrian threw the dead robot aside and started to get up.
"Stay down!" Sorceress ordered.
War Wing dropped flat. A moment later, a tight EM beam slammed into a charging machine. It lost power as its total system crashed and made a graceless nosedive into the dirt. As she was stopping the charging machine, Falcon dropped her right hand down to the disk weapon stored in the right hip guard. Everyone watching from the castle walls and the defenders in and around the APCs flinched when the AI executed a perfect sidearm throw back in their direction. The target was neither the castle nor any of the defenders on the field. A snakehead machine had tried another flanking maneuver, but Falcon had caught the move on her secondary sensors and taken appropriate action.
The Monstroids had evidently theorized that the Guardians were incapable of multitasking; they were rapidly discovering the fatal flaw in that reasoning. Falcon's disk whizzed through the air at blinding speed. The weapon sliced through the machine's right side, taking off the arm at the elbow in the process. On the rebound, it sliced through the monster's left leg above the knee. Two APCs nearest to the fallen machine opened up with their gun turrets. The torrent of explosive rounds finished it off.
The battle ended shortly thereafter, with the Guardians ganging up on the few remaining machines and incapacitating them in short order. The Val-kyrie squadron finally arrived. They chased down and destroyed the last two flying Monstroids.
An uneasy silence settled over the landscape, broken only by the crackling of various fires, sparking from shorted electrical systems and people moving about to recover anything salvageable. Claw hobbled off to an area where the Eternia could pick him up with the hoist in the drop bay.
He-man and She-ra returned to the command carrier. They were met by Falcon, converted to the combat power armor form. The pair was a little unnerved seeing the woman not just on the front lines and in command of a power weapon system like the astounding battlesuit, but also using it with frightening effectiveness. The fans of white metal feathers on the sides of the helmet rippled in reflection of her current emotional state. With the faceplate open, the twins clearly saw the perspiration forming on the Sorceress' skin and the fatigue on her features.
All activity was stopped suddenly by an ominous beeping resounding across the vast battlefield. It was localized to the nearest Monstroid wreckage.
"This is not good," Sonya reported from Hawk. "It appears the machines have been equipped with self-detonation devices."
"Confirmed," Brad added. "They are powerful enough to wipe out a good portion of the battlefield."
"Can we get out of the blast radius in time?" Colonel Markson demanded, already knowing the answer.
"Negative," Brad answered. "However, if we can disable the master device, the others won't go off. We need to find the master machine."
War Wing crouched, wings snapping open and launched into the air heading south.
"Where's he going?" He-man demanded. "That coward."
The Sorceress rounded on him. Her face was a mask of cold fury and her blue eyes chips of frigid ice. He-man, Apone, and several soldiers all took a step back in shock. "He's not running." The woman's voice was cold as space and just as deadly.
Wing scanned the battlefield looking for the master machine. It had to be in the local area. It wouldn't have allowed itself to be blown away in early in the firefight. Blitz was unable to determine how much time they had left, but it couldn't be much. Wing scanned the wrecks as quickly as he could.
He finally located the master machine. The right arm came up, rifle aimed at the target. A slight squeeze of the trigger activated the laser sight mounted above the barrel. The wreck was too far away for War Wing to get there in time, but it was well within range of Hawk.
With War Wing painting the target, Hawk executed two leaps with powerful bursts from the backpack thrusters. She landed, straddling the machine. Sonya snapped the beam spear from the storage clip on the back, twirled it, and aimed the emitter downward. Instead of projecting the curved energy blade, the AI refined the focus into a small surgical blade. Sensors probed the carcass, system schematics scrolled across Sonya's field of vision looking for the correct circuit to cut. All the while, the beeping signifying the countdown to detonation steadily quickened. Hawk locked onto the required segment. Operator and AI stabbed downward, cutting the detonation circuit.
Beeping explosive packages all across the battlefield promptly ceased.
War Wing returned the to command APC, converting to combat form and settling gently to the ground. The wings folded into the backpack and the powerful blaster of the right forearm disappeared in a flare of light. Adrian opened the faceplate as he strode purposely toward He-man. Sensing what was coming, soldiers backed away to give the pair plenty of room. Even the normally unflappable Captain Takamora and Gunnery Sergeant Apone gave them a wide berth.
Brown eyes boring holes in the so-called Master of the universe, Adrian said evenly "You said something earlier." It was a statement, not a question.
"I-I wa- " He-man never finished his thought.
Adrian lashed out with all the might in the power armor form. He-man left his feet abruptly and slammed into the side of the command carrier where he dropped to the ground, dazed. Absently, he rubbed the left side of his jaw, too stunned to say anything. She-ra was too shocked by the attack to do anything more than stare, dumbfounded.
"How are you feeling?" the Sorceress asked as the pair walked away toward Castle Mystacor. They hadn't noticed the cheering before now. It wasn't in response to Adrian decking He-man. It was for the outworlders defending the castle in general, the Guardians for preventing the chain of explosions.
"Better," Adrian replied. "Been waiting weeks to do that."
"While I would like to have done that myself, I hope you won't make a habit of it," Sorceress said. Her tone had a pleading edge to it.
"Depends on him."
Back at the carrier, Apone had pulled out a fresh cigar and a lighter. "Gotta hand it to ya. You really know how to talk to people." He ignited the lighter and applied the flame to the end of the stogie. After a few puffs, he had the cigar light. Putting away the lighter, he added, "A little piece of advice. You might want to work on them people skills, Blonde."
No one offered to help He-man back to his feet. In fact, everyone except his sister went out of their way to avoid him.
Recovery activities resumed with the Eternia finally arriving to help in the cleanup.
198