Sunday, February 20th.
Taylor sighed in annoyance as she watched the automaton collapse onto the Manufactorum's floor in front of her. Another failure. Taylor, like all good Tinkers, had many projects going on simultaneously. And in an effort to increase the safety of her own home, Taylor was currently experimenting with the creation of various drones and battle automatons. Experimenting and failing.
Taylor growled as she looked over the scrap pile that was her current iteration of the battle automaton. It was humanoid in shape, with skeletal metallic limbs not unlike her initial prosthetics, a simple, unarmored torso that looked like a spine and ribcage, and a plain looking head that had a single unadorned safety glass visor as a face. In terms of design, it should work just as cleanly and efficiently as her own prosthetics. The automaton's parts were, after all, derived from all of her own cybernetics.
No, the hardware wasn't the problem. Her design was solid, she was sure of it. It was the programming, the AI, that was the issue. As much as Taylor detested the idea of AI, it was quickly becoming apparent that if she wanted these drones to operate at any level of effectiveness, she would need at least some kind of low level AI to do so.
The idea of trying to create AI grated her. She wasn't even sure if creating AI was within the scope of her powers. In her humble opinion, Taylor was a master of cybernetics. She understood the intersection of man and machine. And while she wholeheartedly believed that the flesh was weak, she also understood that the machine was soulless.
Sure, she could try to give a machine intelligence, program it to understand knowledge. Hell she could probably even give it sentience, to learn the value of knowledge. But to give it a soul? Taylor knew that she was incapable of doing such a thing.
But someone or something had to be. Before her Trigger, Taylor was never really religious. But now, since she endured the locker and was gifted her powers, she felt the call of something greater than herself. Something which gave her her powers, her knowledge, her new beliefs. She could hear the spirits of the machines around her as her powers taught her to placate and respect them. But she knew that even those spirits had to come from somewhere as well. There was something more, something greater watching over her and over her inventions, and this being, this… God, whispered to her the dangers of AI, the abominable intelligence.
It warned her that the machine itself was vulnerable to corruption and bound to its programming without a soul, and any attempt to create a soul outside of this Machine God itself was doomed to fail. All it would do was create a perversion of the human soul and spirit of the machine, a soulless sentience anathema to all life.
Taylor shook her head. This was all but theology which explained why she could not move forward with her combat automaton ideas, but did not offer any solutions or alternatives.
"Boss?" A gruff voice behind her pulled her out of her internal monologue.
Taylor turned around and saw Sgt. Major Merrick, still armed and armored, alongside two other guardsmen, Charlie and Daryl.
"Getting late and the boys were thinking of closing up. You planning on staying here for the night or do you need one of us to take you home?" Merrick asked.
Glancing at a clock, Taylor saw that it was now midnight. It wasn't that late and she could keep working, but she didn't think she'd make any more progress. Best to just leave for now and return to work in the morning with a clear head.
"We can return. Who will be taking the night shift?" Taylor asked as she moved to store the automaton's body underneath a workbench.
"Me and Daryl." Merrick answered. "Charlie can take you back to your place."
"Very good." Taylor said as she moved to the Manfactorum's exit, Charlie marching behind her. She then opened up the side door that led the outside, and froze as she did.
Charlie, immediately picking up on Taylor's shift, readied his lasgun and said, "What's wrong?"
Taylor scanned the alleyway and road in front of her. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, but something was making the hairs on the back of her neck stand. Switching from the visual spectrum, Taylor's mechanical eye looked in the thermal, and there she saw it. A vehicle, a strange bastard child of a monster truck and an APC, in the middle of the street, parked right in front of the Manufactorum. And on top of the vehicle, between two tesla-coils, there was someone manning what looked like an obvious Tinkertech heavy weapon turret.
"Get down!" Taylor shouted as she dove for the ground, with Charlie following at the last second.
A moment later, the steel sliding doors of the Manufactorum burst open with a cacophonous racket that tore at Taylor's ears. It emanated a high pitched squeal and a ground rumbling bass at the same time, producing a kinetic impact that practically ripped the steel doors off their hinges, kicking up a cloud of dust that concealed the Manufactorm's entrance. A sonic or force weapon, Taylor guessed.
"Shit baby, why don't we use that thing more often?" Taylor heard a voice from the truck yell out.
Pushing herself up, Taylor glared at the speaker. It didn't take her long to put a name to the face. Sticking his head out of the passenger's seat, Taylor saw a dark skinned man who wore a blue mask that covered the top half of his face, and a long blue cape. Skidmark, the glorious leader of the Archer's Bridge Merchants. The Hell were they doing so far into the docks?
"That's cuz we never have anything good to shoot with it." A shrill, high pitched voice replied.
The speaker was a busty, blonde woman, who wore a skimpy tank top and a pair of welding goggles over a face covered with caked on makeup. She sat on the top of the monster truck, aiming the sonic turret at the Manufactorum. Squealer, the Merchant's resident Tinker.
"You blew up my door." Taylor growled out, her mechanical fingers leaving lines in the gravel as she formed a fist.
"What's that bitch I can't hear you from down there!" Squealer shouted from atop her truck, aiming her turret right at Taylor. "Not that what you say matters! Now be a good girl and stand up slowly, and tell any of your goons inside to come out carrying any money and tech you got, otherwise I'm going to turn you into a red smear on the pavement."
Slowly, Taylor pushed herself off the ground and stood. But not because she wanted to comply with Squealer's demands. But because she wanted to look that sacrilegious burnout in the eyes as Taylor's face morphed into a full snarl of hate and contempt.
"You can have my technology…" Taylor hissed out. "After you pry it from my dead, metallic hands."
Squealer didn't immediately flatten Taylor with another blast of her sonic cannon. Instead she glanced at Skidmark, who only laughed and clapped his hands.
"Shit bich, you got some fight in you." Skidmark chuckled. "Oh I can't wait to beat it out of you. Okay boys, let's show this slut who's boss!"
At his command, a large group of armed Merchants dismounted from the back of the truck. A dozen, then another half dozen more, all armed with a variety of weapons, some carrying chains and pipes while others had pistols and submachine guns. The gangster approached Taylor, faces split with savage smiles as they savoured the apparent superiority they held over a Parahuman.
Their smiles fell when a volley of blue laser beams shot out of the smoke covering the Manufactorum's entrance. The hard light pulses of energy slammed into the approaching Merchants with the kinetic force of bean bag shotgun shells, far less lethal than her standard laser, but more than painful enough to break bone and incapacitate. Three Merchants fell to the ground, either unconscious or writhing in pain. The rest quickly scattered, running to cover from the attack.
Taylor was glad she was able to finish her non-lethal modifications to the Guardsmen's las-weapons based on Kid Win's Spark Pistols. The Merchants however, did not take the counterattack lying down, and the few who carried firearms began spraying wildly towards Taylor and to the inside of the Manufactorum. Meanwhile, Squealer didn't fire her sonic gun again. Instead, Taylor could hear the rising whine of power being funneled into the weapon as the Tesla-coils burst with electricity. Squealer needed to charge her weapon, which meant Taylor needed to take her out before she could finish.
Her face shifting to a grimace, Taylor turned around and crouched down, bending her head forward as well. She knew her Dragonscale power armor was bulletproof, and wanted to cover the only part of her body that was still unarmored, her head. As bullets pinged off her armor, Taylor saw Charlie slowly picking himself up, the old man still somewhat disoriented from the sonic cannon attack.
Taylor made her way to him, grabbing the man by the crook of his arm with her cybernetic hand.
"Stand up and fight, Guardsman!" Taylor roared as she stood herself, her augmetics and power armor servos easily allowing her to rip the far heavier man off the ground.
Once he was standing, the former Navy sailor seemed to get his bearings. Realizing he was in a firefight, he quickly nodded his head. "Aye aye Ma'am!" Charlie shouted as he then jumped behind a dumpster for cover and began firing his lasgun at the attacking Merchants.
Nodding her head at the rallied Guardsman, Taylor then turned to face her attackers. The Merchants were still trading fire with the Guardsmen inside the Manufactorum. To her surprise, they actually moved with some semblance of tactics, as a few Merchants would spray their automatic weapons at the Manufactorum, suppressing the Guardsmen inside while a handful of gangsters armed with melee weapons rushed towards the opening.
Snarling, Taylor knew she had to stop that advance. Taylor lifted her left arm up horizontally in front of her forehead, the combat prosthetic shielding the unarmored top her head from any bullets as her right arm moved for her laspistol. As she did, Taylor felt her adrenaline rush, experiencing an almost dizzying combination of rage and fear. It almost caused her to fumble her gun as she drew it. She would have to install an implant to regulate her emotions in the future to prevent this.
The Merchants, now seeing Taylor was joining the fray, turned more of their fire towards her. Taylor felt more bullets ping off her armor and left arm, rocking her body. Snarling behind her mask, Taylor roared. It wasn't the sound any sane person would make. She roared as she felt her anger and righteous fury overtake her. How dare these gangsters, these poor excuses of flesh, try to take her technology? She was the one who was chosen by the Machine God to create it, and she would not give up a single scrap while there was still breath within her.
Taylor charged, shooting wildly with her laspistol as she did. Her first shot went wide as she ran and fired simultaneously. Adjusting her aim, Taylor slowed into a walk, allowing herself to steady her shots as she fired. Two Merchants, carrying a pipe and wrench respectively, went down as her hard light bolts struck them in the torsos, pulverizing their rib cages.
Another Merchant carrying an aluminum baseball bat, changed target from the Manufactorum to Taylor. He rushed Taylor's flank, swinging the bludgeon at the back of Taylor's knee. However, the impact of the aluminum bat against the composite plating of Taylor's power armor was not in the Merchant's favor, as the hit literally did not do anything to Taylor while the bat flew out Merchant's hand.
Taylor's head turned to the Merchant, and with half a thought Taylor's Servo-Arm shot out and grabbed onto the Merchant's neck, lifting him up off his feet and slamming him onto the ground. While the concrete did not crack beneath the impact of the Merchant, the Merchant's skull did, leaving a puddle of blood that began to pool out beneath him as Taylor let him go.
With her intervention, Merrick and Daryl inside of the base were able to return fire. With expertly trained shots from their lasguns, they headshot several Merchant gunmen who were crouched, but not fully hidden behind their cover, knocking them out with skull fracturing impacts. Seeing their offensive fail, these Merchants began to fall back to Squealer's truck.
Taylor raised her laspistol once more to gun down the fleeing gangsters, but before she could fire, another sonic explosion detonated beneath her, sending her into the air despite the weight of her armor. When Taylor landed, she felt the air in her lungs leave. She was temporarily stunned, and it took a few seconds before she realized she was no longer holding onto her laspistol. She then felt something warm drip down her face, taking a few seconds more to realize her head was bleeding.
Cranking her neck up, Taylor looked and saw Squealer still on top of her vehicle, gleefully cackling as she celebrated her hit on Taylor.
"MERRICK!" Taylor roared, her voice a strained croak. "TAKE HER DOWN!"
"We're on it!" The leader of Taylor's Guardsmen yelled from inside.
As Taylor waited for her subordinate's aid, she slowly stood up, the weak, organic parts of her body groaning in pain. Before she could really do anything, a heavy impact slammed into her chest, knocking her back to the ground once more. Taylor wheezed, her dazed brain trying to figure out what just hit her. There was no massive sonic boom, so it probably wasn't Squealer's sonic cannon.
Looking down at her chest, Taylor saw that there was a billiards 8-ball indented in her body armor. Taylor raised a brow. How did that hit her so hard? Immediately her mind said that it was most likely a Parahuman power. She guessed it was Skidmark's, but she didn't know for sure. She had a vague idea that he used some kind of beam of force but that was it.
Taylor had been so concerned with expanding her Tinker arsenal and her base scientific knowledge that she didn't take the time to research into the powers of the local minor villains. Sure she knew the big ones like Lung, Kaiser, and Hookwolf, but if she was asked what anyone in the Undersiders did she'd have no answers. That was a failure on her part, and one that she would rectify, should she survive.
"Stay on the ground if you know what's good for you slut!" Skidmark yelled at Taylor, face split into a grin as he did. The grin fell however, when a bolt of blue energy slammed into his shoulder, knocking Skidmark to the ground.
Taylor turned her head towards the hard light shot's source and saw Charlie with his smoking barrel. Taylor smirked as she watched Skidmark clutch his shoulder and crawl behind the cover of Squealer's truck once more.
"Get the fuck out there bitch!" Skidmark yelled from behind the truck. Taylor didn't know who he was yelling out, but she didn't think it was Squealer.
A heavy stomp that shook the ground reinforced that hypothesis. From beneath Squealer's truck, Taylor could see tree trunk thick feet, almost like an elephant's, lumber forward with a wide gait. Out from behind the truck was a golem, far taller than any normal man, obviously made of some kind of trash and scrap.
Mush, the third member of the Merchants. Again, Taylor only had a vague idea of what his powers were, but she could guess he was some kind of Changer, turning into this trash golem that probably had a Brute rating. The trash was an amalgamation of filth, from decomposing food and other organic material, to discarded pieces of plastic from containers and toys. What was most worrying however, was that his trashy body was also coated in rusted scrap metal that acted like armor. Two long, tentacle-like arms hung from him, similarly coated by metal trash cans. This was good and bad news. Bad news because she didn't know how strong of a Brute he was. Good, because she no longer needed to hold back.
"Restraints off!" Taylor shouted, pointing at Mush. "Take him down!"
Behind her, Taylor heard Charlie flip his lasgun from stun to kill and began firing bolts of ruby red light at the trashman Mush. The laser beams tore chunks out of Mush, burning and melting the filth on him, eliciting a cry of pain.
"Fucking cunt!" Squealer shouted from on top of her truck. "Cover him you idiots!"
The Merchants still standing popped out from behind the truck and turned their firearms towards Charlie, wildly firing bullets in his direction and forcing him into cover. Some even grabbed bottles of liquid that had rags stuffed into their openings, setting them alight and turning them into molotov cocktails. They threw the improvised incendiaries both at Charlie and at the Manufactorum, splashing the concrete and steel with burning alcohol.
Meanwhile Taylor cursed internally, looking at the ground around her for her lost laspistol so she could contribute. The precious few seconds she was given to search weren't enough however, as Mush took this opportunity to charge her.
With a mighty swing of his arm, Mush's fist was aimed right for Taylor's chest. It was a slow, lumbering punch, and to any well trained fighter it would've been an easy swing to dodge. Unfortunately for Taylor, she'd never had a day of hand to hand combat training in her life, and the previous explosion that rocked her brain slowed her even more.
Mush's fist hit dead center, taking the armored Taylor off her feet and once again sending her to the ground. Taylor groaned on the concrete, her organic body aching while her power armor blared warnings at her to move. Before she could, Mush's foot kicked her side. The hit didn't damage her power armor, but she still felt the impact through it and it still hurt. As she was getting beat down by a literal pile of trash, Taylor had the errant thought of getting some martial arts training from Merrick when this was over. This entire fight was just shoving in her face how much knowledge she still lacked.
As Taylor groaned in pain, Mush came back to follow up on his assault. With work done through her power armor's servos rather than her own muscles, Taylor twisted on the ground so she was on her knees rather than her back. When Mush came into melee distance, Taylor's Servo-Arm shot at him. The hydraulic claw ripped a chunk of trash out of Mush's torso, eliciting another cry of pain from him. Taylor spared a glance at her Servo-Arm, there was blood on it. It looked like she hit something important under that mound of rotted food, degraded plastic, and rusted metal.
Mush backed up, clutching his leaking side, granting Taylor a brief respite. Taylor clambered up, groaning in pain and exhaustion. But she knew that she needed to keep fighting. Stepping forward, Taylor thrust her Servo-Arm forward again, ripping off a tendril of trash off of Mush's right arm. Finally on the offensive Taylor thrust her mechadendrite for the center of Mush's torso, where she assumed his main body was.
Before she could tear apart the trash golem however, a streak of violet-blue light slammed into Taylor. Taylor's eyes followed the beam to its source, where she saw Skidmark had stepped out from behind Squealer's truck and had both hands aimed at her. Whatever strange power Skidmark had physically repelled Taylor, sending her flying backwards and into the brick wall of the Manufactorum.
Once more, Taylor's Dragonscale power armor saved her body from any real damage, but her unarmored head bounced off the brick, further rocking her brain. Taylor could taste the metallic tang of auto-sanguination fluid, pooling in her mouth behind her mask. She swallowed it down as she stumbled forward off the wall. As she did, she felt the warmth pouring down her head start to pool, going down to her respirator and under her armor. Bringing her hand to her head, she found that her head was bleeding even more profusely than before. The dizziness and disorientation she was feeling in addition to this suggested a concussion, possibly even a fracture. Taylor really needed to make a helmet.
While Taylor mused on her unfortunate situation, Mush charged, howling in a mad screech as he thirsted for vengeance. With a tired groan, Taylor once again readied herself for melee combat. Like a football player, Mush moved to tackle Taylor, and she thrust her Servo-Arm forward to try and intercept him.
But Mush moved with a dexterity that belied his massive size as he slipped the clawed Servo-Arm. With his two lumbering arms, Mush then put Taylor into a bearhug with his left arm, crushing her torso with his Brute-like strength. His right arm then wrapped around Servo-Arm, coiling around it like a snake. Taylor tried to pull her Servo-Arm back, but it was stuck as it pulled a tug of war with Mush's trash tendril.
Mush howled and threw all his weight backwards as he yanked at Taylor's Servo-Arm, the mechadendrite creaking and straining under the pressure. The metal began to scream, waiting to see which would win, the Servo-Arm or trash tendril. And unfortunately for Taylor, her Servo-Arm failed first.
With the sound of crunching metal and sparking electricity, Mush tore the Servo-Arm out of Taylor's cybermantle. Taylor screamed. It was a primal, guttural howl as she felt the synthetic nerve-endings attaching her Servo-Arm to her body be severed.
While the pain wasn't comparable to the first time she cut open her own limbs to attach her prosthetics, it was still horrible. The pain took hold of Taylor's mind, leaving her vulnerable for Mush to continue his attack. Mush's right arm then wrapped around Taylor's torso as well, attempting to crush and smother her through her power armor.
Taylor's power armor held strong, but she was just too disoriented to properly fight back. Not only that, while Mush wasn't strong enough to crush her outright, he was strong enough that Taylor was practically immobilized, she herself not strong enough to break free alone. Luckily, she was not alone.
"Fire in the hole!" Taylor heard Sgt. Major Merrick's gruff voice shouted from inside the Manufactorum.
Out of the darkness of the Manufactorum's interior flew a massive laser, larger in diameter than Taylor's own head, and crimson red with the vengeance of the Machine God. Merrick and Daryl had finally finished setting up the prototype lascannon and fired it.
The lascannon shot slammed right into the engine of Squealer's truck, punching through the armor plating protecting it and into the vulnerable machinery underneath.
"FUCK!" Was all Squealer had time to say as her truck exploded with a furious conflagration that could no doubt be heard across the city.
Squealer, who had still been standing atop her truck, was sent flying away by the force of the explosion. Those on foot nearby, primarily Skidmark and more than a few unpowered Merchant grunts, were similarly either blown back by the explosion, or were swallowed in the ensuing fireball.
Taylor's ears were filled with a high pitched ringing that indicated the potential loss of hearing. Once the explosion-caused deafness subsided however, the ring was then joined by the sounds of wailing screams as burning Merchants ran around, some patting themselves in an attempt to put out the fire, while others rolled on the ground to better effect.
The violent explosion seemed to tear Mush's attention away from Taylor, as he turned to face the burning wreck of Squealer's truck, his grip loosening on Taylor. That was all the opportunity Taylor needed.
Ripping her augmented left arm out of the muck that was Mush's body, Taylor flicked her wrist and her in-built plasma cutter extended out. Taylor's plasma tools and weaponry, in comparison to that used by Armsmaster, were crude, unsophisticated designs. Fed by liquid hydrogen cells, the plasma cutter's fusion core would energize the hydrogen into plasma, not unlike the energy producing cycle of a star. Through this process, Taylor was able to create her own plasma cutter which put any on the market plasma cutter to shame.
However, as a result of this extreme temperature and the complexities of nuclear fusion, Taylor's designs for plasma tended to be rather temperamental, with her conceptual prototypes often overheating or destabilizing. The reason she had been able to create her plasma cutter was that, thanks to its in-built safety limiters, as the amount of hydrogen normally used in it was low enough that the chances of destabilization were extremely unlikely.
That being said, as Taylor shoved her plasma cutter into the thickest part of Mush's trash-laden body, her neurotransmitters removed all limiters and overloaded the fusion core manually. Within Taylor's forearm, the power of the Sun began to build within Mush's torso.
Trash and filth burned away, disintegrating under the intense build up of heat as Mush began to scream within. The smell of roasted pork filtered it ways into Taylor's mask as Mush's very own body cooked and burned alongside the tash.
"Wait, wait, wait! I surrender! I surrender!" Mush cried out as the plasma cutter's fusion core reached critical temperature.
Taylor fixed Mush with a flat stare. "Your surrender has been logged." She then detonated the plasma cutter. "And ignored."
With a detonation of blue plasma that swallowed his entire form, Mush ceased to exist. Some chunks of burning refuse and molten metal flew away from the explosion, and when the flash of bright light that rivaled an atomic bomb disappated, all that remained of Mush was a blackened, carbonized skeleton.
Taylor herself didn't walk away without injury. While her Dragonscale power armor kept her from burning alive, the skin above her respirator was red and blistered with burns. Taylor's singed off eyebrows were the least of her worries as she no doubt had several 3rd degree burns spread across her head now. Funnily enough, Taylor didn't feel the pain, meaning her nerve endings were probably damaged.
There was a deafening silence that fell upon the immediate area as the very few as the fury of battle ended. Mush was dead at Taylor's hands, and the Lascannon explosion had either killed or knocked out the rest of the Merchants and their Parahuman leaders. Taylor suddenly felt very tired as her adrenaline dumped, the physiological remains of combat stress working its way through her system.
Part of her, the human part, wanted to just curl up into a ball then and there. But the cold, logical part of her, told her she wasn't done. She glanced back down at Mush's corpse. Or what was left of it. This… was the exact kind of thing Armsmaster had warned her about. A murder charge. Or, even in self defense, it was at the very least probably manslaughter. Same with the deaths of any of the Merchants by Squealer's truck.
Taylor didn't need that kind of attention. Being forced into villainy or vigilantism due to deaths of these worthless gangsters was counterproductive to her goal of saving Brockton Bay. As such, they needed to clean up before the Protectorate arrived.
"Guardsmen, from up!" Taylor shouted as she strode to the ruined front gate of her Manufactorum. Her voice was croaky and strained, but she found the strength to yell nonetheless.
It only took a few moments for Charlie, Merrick, and Daryl to hussle their way to her, standing at attention. They gaped at her, shocked and horrified by her wounds, but she ignored that. Instead, she approvingly nodded at their punctuality.
"Good work on the defense, everyone." Taylor said, meaning every word. She would've died or been captured if it wasn't for their efforts. "But we're not done. Bring all of the Merchants here to me. If they are still alive, restrain them as well."
The guardsmen shared a glance with one another at Taylor's orders.
"Now!" Taylor barked out.
At her authoritative tone, the guardsmen immediately fanned out to comply. After a minute, the Merchants were all gathered up in front of her. Of the unpowered goons, there were 7 dead, and 11 unconscious. Of the Parahumans, only Mush was dead, with Squealer and Skidmark unconscious. Of those two Squealer was far more injured, with a fractured skull and broken back from being flung off her truck.
Taylor then looked at the wreck of Squealer's Tinkertech vehicle. She had no idea it was so close to her Manufactorum till it was too late. Squealer may have been a crass, strung out bimbo, but such a vehicle was impressive. The stealth technology and sonic weaponry were something Taylor didn't have. It would be such a waste if such Tinkertech died with Squealer.
Taylor then looked at the unconscious Merchants. The rabble and filth that polluted her city, poisoning its denizens with narcotics and violence. A drain on society that no one would miss if they were to just disappear.
"Burn the bodies." Taylor ordered, pointing at the dead Merchants. "Ensure naught but ash remains of them."
Taylor then walked over to Squealer and the unconscious Merchants. As she looked them over, and her mind wandered back to the problem she was having with her combat automatons earlier that night, about AI and the lack of a soul. These foul reprobates… they had souls. And they had extraordinarily powerful CPUs within their heads, no matter how rotted their brains had become through drugs. They had what Taylor needed to fill the void of the missing AI.
"These six." Taylor pointed to what looked like the most fit of the Merchants. "And her." Taylor then pointed to Squealer. "Take them to my personal workshop. The rest we shall turn over to the PRT when they arrive."
The guardsmen once more shifted uncomfortably as they looked at one another, until Merrick finally spoke. "What are we going to tell the Protectorate and the police?"
Taylor's one organic eye snapped to him, hard and unyielding. "You shall tell them nothing. I will tell them the truth." Taylor then raised her mechanical leg up and stomped down onto Mush's carbonized skeleton, completely destroying it as it collapsed into black dust in the wind. "That the Merchants attacked my base, we repelled them, capturing Skidmark and destroying Squealer's vehicle, after which Squealer, Mush, and the others all escaped."
The men serving Taylor all had conflicted expressions on their faces. Taylor then sighed and said, "I suppose you all also earned a bonus for your stalwart defense. How does a $10,000 hazard pay for today sound?"
The guardsmen seemed taken aback by Taylor's offer, glancing at one another, before both Charlie and Daryl looked at Merrick, deferring to the Sergeant Major. Taylor could see the emotions warring under Merrick's face as he debated on what to do. And to her satisfaction, he nodded.
"Sounds good to me, boss." Merrick said, his grim face set in stone.
Taylor gave him a slight nod of appreciation. "Then get to work."
With that, the guardsmen moved to follow Taylor's orders, hiding and burning bodies with their lasguns, the weapons more than capable of completely vaporizing the corpses. Meanwhile Taylor collected her lost laspistol and the ruined remains of her Servo-Arm, contently watching her men work as she heard sirens off in the distance rapidly approach.