Defence
By Lore
- 97 reads
Roaring. The engines above howled as they broke into the moons atmosphere. Three ships of comparable size to The Destiny had begun their descent towards the courtyard.
“Well, we’re buggered aren’t we.” Aloe turned to her fellow clones. “We’ve got to hold down the fort till their Lore gets back.”
“At least we can see…” Lip tried his hardest to find a silver lining.
“Laugh it up.” Blindside raised aloft his shattered spectacles.
“Well, we shouldn’t have to worry about the three gunships. Just the soldiers on board so it’s a little easier.” Ace firmly grasped the lining. The clones saw it.
“What’s that?” Magpie pointed over at one of the soldiers bodies that was twitching in the corner. He and Avarice made their way towards the corpse. “Well, bloody hell.”
“What is it?” Ace called over. Instead of shouting back, Magpie felt his revelation would carry more weight if he showed rather than told. He held aloft the soldiers head, causing a series of sparks to erupt as the spine was severed from the central power source.
“We’ve been fighting bots!” Magpie yelled over, waving the skull. The remaining clones ran over to join them.
“Wow. Those are some damn good bots then.” Aloe rummaged through the newly created cavity, admiring the inner circuitry.
“Go on then.” Arrow nodded at Avarice who immediately dove his hand into an adjacent corpse and removed a small logic circuit.
“Yours is a kleptomaniac too?” Ace pointed to Magpie who was now following Avarice’s example.
The courtyard was soon picked clean of the logic circuits so Magpie and Avarice decided to move further afield for their looting. They soon reached the council chambers and began their cleaning up.
“Do you collect anything else?” Avarice broke the silence.
“Just small trophies from our battles, usually it’s just spent batteries because Ace doesn’t like us looting the enemies unless it’s absolutely necessary. They’re a bit paranoid about trackers.” They laughed as they continued their collections.
The troops in the courtyard continued their preparations, marking the area’s entrances and exits so they could select the best spot for their final encounter.
“They’re bots… All of them.” Ace muttered to themselves.
“I wonder what makes them tick?” Aloe joined them as they started undressing one of the corpses.
The skin layer peeled off similarly to that of a banana revealing the metal skeleton below. Prying the ribs away from the sternum, Ace began to realise certain similarities.
“That must be the power source, and this some form of generator maybe?” Ace turned to Aloe who gave them a half-hearted shrug. “Magpie, call back Midpoint then get back here yourself. I need your eyes on this.”
Minutes later, Magpie returned, pockets bursting with logic boards and other bot parts. “What did you want me to look at?”
“Can you find us an exploitable weakness and fast, according to Outlier, we’ve got a few minutes at the most before those reinforcements reach our position.”
“Good thing parking round here’s a nightmare then. Or else it would have been sooner.” Magpie laughed at their own joke as Ace slowly walked away.
He continued digging through the bot’s body, examining each ‘organ’ as closely as he could in the time provided. His penchant for the collection of assorted knowledge meant he was in this situation a lot but like every other time, he was in over his head.
“Hang about.” He held aloft a small, squishy sac. “I’ve got one.” Ace ran over.
“What’s that?”
“Turns out whoever created these things designed them with irony. Found this where the appendix would be. This thing is designed to explode when damaged, like a real appendix.” Magpie smiled, handing the ‘appendix’ to Ace.
“Any other weaknesses?”
“Any damage to the Achilles heel will cripple their servos meaning they can’t walk anymore… A shot to the elbow will disable the arms… Oh and they have a literal kill switch.”
Ace slapped their palm to their face. “You could have lead with the kill switch.”
“Well, it doesn’t work how you think it would. It just deactivates their violent programming.”
“Better than nothing. How do we use it?”
“Using the stuff we gathered from their fallen, I’ve reprogrammed it to respond to a simple command.”
Ace held their hands out as if to receive the command from Magpie. He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Just make sure everyone keeps their hands and feet inside the lines.” He pointed over to the holographic white line now surrounding the base of The Slingshot.
The troops in place, behind Magpie’s line, the onslaught could begin. Curves, Edge, Arc and Lip used their blades to provide shielding for the group, occasionally ducking to allow the others to return fire before resuming. It started slowly but very quickly, the room started to fill with the robotic soldiers. The clones held the line without too much effort. Then the wall came down. There was a loud crashing sound as the wall in front of them disappeared and in its place, a monstrosity of metal stood. The landing ships seemed to have brought more than just the new soldiers and now a sizable tank was aimed at the clones position.
“Now would be a good time to flip the kill switch!” Ace screamed. Magpie smiled as he dragged the nearest soldiers foot over the line.
As he did, the line flashed red and suddenly, the soldiers all fell. The tank’s main gun fell too. Like dominoes, one by one they toppled. The room, now carpeted in the fallen robots, too fell silent. There was a burst of white light as three figures erupted from nowhere. Cavalry.
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