Resist the Red Battlenaut (11 page)

But the Red stayed focused on Scott. It took a step toward him, bucking the tide of his own Dragon's Breath, and then it took another.

Then, it took three more, and stopped. Scott's flamethrower was still slamming it, but the other five were splashing into the empty air behind it. The Red had moved beyond the bearing they'd been targeting, and they couldn't see what its new location was.

Scott knew he needed to fix that. "New bearing on the Red!" He checked the forward feed and its grid overlay. "Change to one-eight-one!"

"Roger that!" said Abby. "New bearing one-eight-one!"

The squad shifted left, and its combined barrage of flames caught the Red once more.

"Contact!" said Scott. "Keep pouring it on!"

As the fiery fusillade lapped at its armor, the Red rotated its upper body to face the squad. Bathed in flame, it stared at the Diamondbacks for a moment, as if from the depths of Hell. Then, it rotated its torso again and faced Scott.

After which, it took three long strides, again walking out of range of the squad's flamethrowers.

Scott's eyes widened as he realized what was happening. The Red Battlenaut's pilot was figuring something out--something crucial.

"Change bearing again!" Scott called out over the comm. "One-eight-niner!"

Again, the squad shifted its fire...and again, the Red stepped out of it toward Scott.

"Oh, no." Suddenly, Scott could feel his advantage slipping away. Victory was becoming much less likely for him and the Diamondbacks.

Because the Red's pilot had figured out that Scott was the only one who could see him. When he changed position, Scott was the only one whose weapon never stopped hitting him.

Therefore, Scott had just become the most important target on the battlefield.

"Scudge!" shouted Scott. "He knows I can
see
him!"

"What's...-ott?" All of a sudden, Abby's voice over the comm was crackling and breaking up. "Can't...you..."

"Captain!" said Scott. "New bearing!"

"I can't...what..."

"I said
new bearing
," said Scott.

But this time, no answer, not even a broken one, came back to him. He called out the names of other Diamondbacks, and they didn't answer him, either.

The comm was down. The squad couldn't see the Red, and now Scott couldn't tell them where it was.

And the Red was stomping toward him, charging up its energy cannons.

"Frank!" said Scott. "Can you fix the comm?"

Frank paused. "Are you sure they are down? I have an incoming message."

Scott scowled. "A message? From who?"

"From the Red Battlenaut," said Frank. "Connecting now."

 

 

*****

 

 

Scott's blood ran cold as he stared at the forward feed. The Red Battlenaut, which had been storming toward him, suddenly stopped in its tracks.

A voice filtered from the speaker in the cockpit, electronically altered beyond any hope of recognition. "Hello, Corporal Scott."

Scott glared at the image of the Red on the feed and said nothing. He wasn't about to acknowledge that the Red pilot had correctly identified him.

"That's right, Sol. I've been tapping your comm," said the pilot. "But I didn't need to do that to figure out your secret."

Again, Scott didn't respond. Instead, he glanced at Donna's vitals, which were still low and steady, then checked the squad's status via the topside feed. All five Diamondbacks were still shooting their Dragon's Breath flamethrowers at the patch of thin air where the Red had been a moment ago. If only Scott could send them a message about where the Red was
now
.

"You're an
anomaly
. A
loophole
," said the Red's pilot. "You can
see
us. You shouldn't be able to, but you
can
."

Scott wasn't about to comment on that one, though he did finally break his silence. "I am prepared to accept your surrender," he said, "in the name of the Commonwealth of Worlds."

The pilot's laughter, electronically distorted as it was, sounded strange...not much like laughter at all. "
My
surrender?"

"I am also empowered to offer you asylum," said Scott, "in exchange for cooperation."

"You've got it all wrong." The pilot laughed again. "You're not on the
winning
side
this
time."

Go ahead
, thought Scott.
Keep laughing.
While the Red pilot was yukking it up, Scott was busy watching the Diamondbacks on the feed. One of them--Abby--stopped shooting and turned in his direction. So did the other four.

They'd figured it out, hadn't they? Scott's comm was cut off, and they'd figured out he was in trouble. Now, if he could just get them to give him the help he needed.

"Form projectile weapons on both shoulders," he told Frank. "Target bearing one-nine-five, elevation ten meters."

"That configuration will not leave sufficient energy for full-power Dragon's Breath utilization," said Frank.

"Just do it." As Scott said it, the rightside and leftside feeds showed newly grown guns appearing on his Battlenaut's shoulders, then swinging up to aim at the Red's cockpit.

"What's this?" said the Red's pilot. "A last-ditch effort to fight your way to freedom? Don't bother!"

Scott had no intention of firing the new guns. He just wanted to point as clearly as possible at the Red for the Diamondbacks' benefit. "I repeat, I am prepared to accept your surrender," he said.

The pilot laughed again. "And
I
am prepared to accept that
cockpit
you've been lugging around." Just then, his energy cannons fired a warning shot at Scott's Battlenaut's feet. "Then we can talk about whether I bring you back alive, so we can dissect you and find out what makes you tick, or if I should just kill you right here and close the loophole."

Watching the feeds, Scott saw the Diamondbacks moving toward the Red. To their credit, they were aiming their flamethrowers at just about the right place. Abby must have ordered them to get closer to be sure they hadn't misjudged the situation.

Scott helped them by moving to the right, getting the Red to turn further away from them. The whole time, Scott kept his arm-mounted guns pointed up at the Red, indicating the coordinates the Diamondbacks should target.

"So what will it be?" said the Red's pilot. "Surrender or death? I don't care either way."

"Death," said Scott, "for
you
. Air support's on the way."

"No it isn't," said the pilot. "Your ship can't
see
me."

Scott took another few steps to the right, teeing up the Red for the Diamondbacks' assault. "They can
hit
you if they
nuke
the area. Which they
will
."

"I've been jamming your comm," said the pilot. "You couldn't get a signal
out
to call for air support."

"
That's
the
signal
," said Scott. "Loss of comms. So you're right--
I
didn't send a signal,
you
did."

The pilot hesitated. "You're bluffing, not that it matters. As long as we take
you
off the board, it's mission accomplished."

The Diamondbacks were getting closer. Scott stood his ground and braced himself for what was about to happen. "Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you," he said, "but I'm not the one leaving the board at this point."

"Technically, you're right," said the pilot. "Your
friends
are the ones leaving
first
."

With that, the Red whirled and ran toward the Diamondbacks.

Scott was stunned; the pilot must have been watching his backside camera feeds more closely than he'd let on. "Run, Frank! Bearing one-four-seven, maximum speed!"

As Scott's Battlenaut charged, the Red raced in a circle around the squad, blasting away with his energy cannons. Missiles pumped from launchers on his shoulders, streaking toward the Diamondbacks, who were firing blindly at the coordinates Scott had pointed them to moments ago.

It was one direct hit after another--Abby, Trane, Balko, Khalil, García. The air filled with flashes of fire and puffs of smoke, none of them coming from the Red. Things were going south in a hurry.

Just then, Frank spoke up. "The cockpit pod I am carrying is heating up quickly. The skin of the pod is now one thousand degrees Celsius and rising. A few more seconds, and it will be hot enough to damage your armor."

Scott thought fast. "Stop running! Turn around and throw the cockpit as far as you can!" Checking his backside feed, he saw where he wanted the cockpit to go and scoped a new set of coordinates. "Bearing three-four-three, Frank!"

"I will do that," said Frank, and then he did as he'd been told. On the feed, Scott saw the Red cockpit hurtle in an arc through the sky and land on the metallic ground in front of the big silver cube.

The other Red must have been tracking the cockpit closely, because he gave up circling the squad and bolted after it in a heartbeat. The pressure on the Diamondbacks was gone.

Now all Scott had to do was disable the Red. "Frank! Reconfigure in Missile Mode! Launch at bearing three-four-five, maximum thrust. Adjust for moving target, approximate speed thirty-five miles an hour traveling west by southwest!"

"Yes, Corporal Scott," said Frank, and then the Battlenaut wrenched and twisted into a new shape, becoming a missile ready for launch. "Three, two, one."

With that, the reshaped armor leaped off the ground and rocketed toward the running Red. Its flight path, though Frank couldn't actually see the target--or anything else, for that matter--was a perfect beeline for the Red.

"Brace for impact." Seconds after Frank said it, the missile-shaped Battlenaut slammed into the Red's left leg, blowing it apart from hip to knee.

The Red crashed down on that side, collapsing to the ground in a shuddering fall like a chopped-down tree. Parts and pieces shattered and splintered in the impact, littering the silver plain with mechanical debris.

As for Scott, his missile-mode armor went down in the crash, caught under the Red's fallen bulk. "Reconfigure to standard mode," he told Frank. "Get us the hell out from under here and extract the enemy cockpit."

With all the hums, whines, and
clackety-clacks
of metal, plastic, and carbon nanotube transformation, the missile changed itself back into a Battlenaut.

That was when the Red's pilot spoke over the comm. "Nice move, Sol." His voice sounded strained through the distortion. "But I've still got checkmate, you loser."

"How do you figure?" said Scott as his Battlenaut heaved its way out from under the Red.

"Because
you
get
nothing
." The pilot chuckled. "I've got master self-destructs for my whole squad implanted in my brain. All I have to do is
think
an activation code to
trigger
them."

As he said it, Scott heard a muffled blast not far away. "Move faster!" he told Frank. "Hurry!"

"That was the cockpit you just retrieved," said the pilot. "All gone now. Guess what's next?"

Scott muted the comm and spoke urgently to his A.I. "Frank! I need you to climb on top of the downed Red and cut out its cockpit. Turn around, it's right behind you."

"Yes, Solomon." As ordered, Frank turned to face the Red. Reaching out, he touched the Red's armor with one hand. "I can feel it. I continue to have an awareness of touch."

Without further delay, Frank clambered on top of the downed Battlenaut. Feeling around, he quickly found the cockpit, then went to work on it.

Pressing his arms together, he merged them into a single giant chainsaw, then drove the saw down into the top edge of the cockpit and started cutting.

As Frank drew the whirling blade down the middle of the cowling, Scott heard another explosion--this one massive enough to rock his armor with shockwaves. The first blast was followed by a chain of subsequent blasts putting out shockwaves of their own.

Even before Scott checked the feeds, he knew what the pilot was blowing up this time...something big enough to send out those kinds of shockwaves...something that might contain enough ordnance and equipment to trigger those secondary blasts.

"So much for the mystery facility you came to investigate. So much for the silver cube," said the Red's pilot. "Now you'll never know what was inside it. You'll never be able to plunder its secrets."

Checking the forward feed, Scott saw that his Battlenaut's saw had cut a gash down the full length of the cockpit.

"Pry it open, Frank!" shouted Scott. "And let me the hell out of here!"

"Guess what I'm going to destroy
this
time." The pilot laughed. "Us! You and me! That's what!"

Scott had a chance, but it was going to be close; the enemy pilot would only need seconds to set off the next self-destruct.

Scott needed to slow him down. "Frank! Broadcast interference over the comm channel! Maximum volume!"

"Yes, Solomon," said Frank.

As ear-splitting interference began shrieking over the speakers, the back of Scott's Battlenaut flowed open, and his cockpit flipped back and up. The couch let go of him, and he scrambled out of the interior cavity and over his armor's shoulders.

He leaped from the shoulders and landed on the Red's hull just as Frank finished tearing the two halves of the Red's cockpit cowling apart. Frank had reconfigured his giant chainsaw into a pair of huge claws, and he was using them to peel the cowling open as if it were made of aluminum foil.

Without hesitation, Scott dove into the gap Frank had opened. He plunged toward a young blond-haired man stretched out on a pilot's couch of his own inside the Red Battlenaut.

Frank's audio interference screamed from the cockpit's speakers. The pilot was wincing with agony, holding his hands over his ears to try to block out the noise...and then, suddenly, the weight of Scott's body slammed down on top of him.

Before the pilot could form a thought that might blow the two of them to kingdom come, Scott hauled back his right fist and punched his lights out. He slugged the pilot as hard as he could in the face, driving his head to one side--hoping he'd knocked him unconscious with that one blow.

He had. The pilot slumped, eyes closed, against the couch.

"Cut the audio, Frank!" Scott shouted over the blasting interference. He repeated himself twice, louder each time, until Frank finally heard him over the open comm and shut down the cacophony.

Breathing hard, Scott got up from the pilot and looked around. There were holographic video feeds, as in his own Battlenaut cockpit, projecting images of devastation from outside--fire and smoke and rubble, all that was left of the Red facility.

But Scott and the Diamondbacks would not return to the
Sun Tzu
empty-handed. They had the wreckage of three downed Red Battlenauts to take back with them--one complete with functional cockpit. And they had a Red prisoner to interrogate...once Dr. Beauchamp determined he was free of booby traps. (If she could
see
him, that is.)

As Scott looked around the cockpit, a shadow fell from above, drawing his attention. It was a welcome sight--the drop ship from the
Sun Tzu
, gliding overhead.

Scott boosted himself up out of the cockpit, taking care not to cut himself on the sliced-open cowling. His first thought was to run to Donna and make sure she got the care she needed immediately...but he glanced back into the cockpit and hesitated. What if he stepped away, and the Red pilot awoke and escaped? What if the pilot came around just enough to trigger self-destructs in the wreckage of the three Red Battlenauts?

It was a straight-up no-brainer, and he knew it. Getting the prisoner into secure custody was the absolute top priority--the key to the success of the overall mission and the survival of the Commonwealth and Rightfuls alike.

Clenching his jaw, Scott took another look around. As the drop ship descended a hundred meters away, two Diamondbacks marched to meet it. The other three ran to the wreckage of Donna's unit; Scott wished he were going with them.

But for now, he would just have to hang back, do his job, and hope for the best.

"Please let her be okay," he said quietly, offering up a prayer...and then he climbed back inside the Red Battlenaut's cockpit and unstrapped the pilot.

 

*****