Odin watched as his foe disappeared into a cloud of dust. He sat back, eyes slowly scanning the long-range readouts as they filtered through. At this point, he was not so inclined as to blindly believe that his foe had been so easily vanquished. With that in mind the cyborg monstrosity gave a quick patrol command to the drones before accessing a new view. From his bird’s eye view he looked upon his new project. Upon a metal table lay the body of one of the mercenaries. This particular fool had lost an arm and both his legs. Around him was a series of mechanical limbs that were already in the process of affixing various mechanical implements to the stumps of the limbs while other machines set about rapidly assembly various complex components such as the limbs as well as several other hardpoints and systems. As Odin watched the robotic arms began to move, the arms delicately carrying the parts to the main table, there was a low hum as red beams lanced forth from the arms into the gaps between the limbs and their respective sockets. While that was occurring, several more were working on attaching a series of sensors to the man’s empty eye socket. With a click the process completed, the arms slowly retracting away from the table. There was a pregnant pause before the body jolted, to the commander’s view a new screen opened.

  //SYSTEM BOOT…

  For another few seconds the dots blink before the body on the table jerked, the various metallic digits twitching spasmodically, the body suddenly jerked upright with an audible crunch that was closely followed by a wall of alarms and readout sheets highlighted in flashing red. The freshly reanimated cadaver, jolted as it stumbled of the table and into a standing position. Odin shifted his view to a new port. This one showed a simplified shooting range with a series of targets set up along the length of the tunnel. A mental command caused the man machine to jerk to the line, raise its arm cannon and then spasm and collapse in a pile of sparking wires and charred meat. With a mechanical grunt the Commander turned away from his controls and ordered its drones to recycle the mess and begin again. As a new body was wheeled out Odin turned his attention back to the battle.

  For the second time in far to few days, Luara found herself sitting up with a headache, glancing around she found herself in deep inky darkness. Feeling around for a few moment her palm brushed against the door control, causing the mechanism to whir to life, stumbling out of the craft, Laura scanned the area, coughing through the dust. The dropship had crashed to the ground on the road, several large chunks resting around it after having apparently driven it to the ground and bounced off. As she scanned the wreckage her heart suddenly jolted. Lying in the rubble was the bashed and warped form of a car.

  “Shit shit shit.” Laura swore as she scrambled across the broken ground, crawling over a piece of concrete that had landed on top of the vehicle, peering inside she caught sight of the driver, an older man, around his 40s still wearing office clothes. Raising her arm, Laura sent out a burst of light, swiftly disassembling the outer edge of the door. Pulling the man out, Laura gave him a quick once-over before depositing him on a relatively smooth area of ground. With that she turned her attention to the downed dropship, running around the downed aircraft she was relieved to find that three of the engines and most of the structure were relatively undamaged. The fourth however quickly crushed any hope of an immediate escape, the outer plating had been almost completely ripped off with the engine a mangled mess of metal and wiring. Clenching her teeth, Laura scanned the sky looking for any incoming threats, or even worst dropships she set about trying to think of a way to get out. As Far as she knew her arm could only build basic structures, however…

  “Hey Alan, how hard would it be to repair a thruster?”

  

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  

  “To slow. Lets try substitution.”

  With that Laura raised her hand and set the deconstructor to work, as the damaged component melted away Laura caught the sound of steadily approaching sirens. With a dying hum the last of the damaged drive disappeared and the beam cut off. With the damaged components removed Laura raised her hand and began laying down a new part. Not being proficient in engineering or really having any comprehension of the mechanics of the dropship, Laura elected to simply bolt the engine on at a relatively flat angle and call it a day. As the arm began to lay down the connection the beam suddenly clunked out.

  “Oh, forgot about that.”

  Quickly glancing into the stats she was unsurprised to realise she’d expended the arm’s energy.

  “Well that’s not good, unless.”

  Pulling open the battlenet, her face stiffened.

  “Sorry Seven.”

  With that she drew in its stores, using the energy to power up the beam and continued the construction, laying down layer after layer of material.

  “Come on, come on.” Laura muttered as her ears caught wind of a steady repetitive alarm.

  “Shit, Police. Come on you piece of shit.” Laura snarled as the arm continued to lay down more of the new thruster, as the howling alarms drew closer Laura sprinted for the dropship entrance, the door slamming shut behind her.

  “Take Off. NOW!”

  

  The engines whined as the dropship lifted off, the new turbine somehow holding together, emitting a rather unnerving amount of whining and sending a steady supply of vibrations through the structure. Settling back in the chair, Laura gripped the sides as the dropship swung sideways before seemingly solving itself.

  

  Laura scanned the radar, noting the four contacts that were orbiting a kilometre out.

  “Pursue and shoot those drones down!”

   the dropship’s AI replied as it turned and unleashed a barrage on the nearest flight, turning both drones into expanding balls of fire, the effect was immediate with the other two drones immediately swerving away from the barrage.

  “Get back on course, return to base.”

  

  With that the dropship clumsily swung around and started to quickly track towards the dam.

  Odin ‘smiled’ stiffly as he watched the dust part as the dropship limped out.

  “This woman is remarkably resilient, now kill her!” The drones immediately began turning back around to pursue, their targeting systems searching for a targeting solution.

  The humming only got worse as the flight continued, prompting Laura to wonder if the hull could shake itself apart, like one of those videos of opera singers breaking wine glasses. Fortunately Odin was kind enough to give her a pretty good distraction by having his two surviving drones straight after her. Another missile was fired and was duly shot down, followed by another. Fortunately it it seems that at this point the drones didn’t have the necessary volume of fire to overwealm the point defences, not that the fact stopped them from trying as the steady barrage continued to fall as the drones pursued the dropship.

  “Alan, how far are we?”

  

  “Great, have we got contact with the main base?”

  

  “Well keep trying, if we can I’d like to keep our base hidden.”

  

  

  “Oh Fuck, Alan what are we dealing with?”

  

  “What do you mean unknown? Show me!” A screen opened and Laura swore again.

  From the shaky view of the rear turret, Laura watched as two jets swept across the sky.

  “I guess that many explosions may have caught someone’s attention?”

  

  “Are they going to be ok?”

  

  The lead jet loosed a missile.