Revolution (58 page)

     She turned to look behind her when she heard metallic clanking sounds coming from the blasted corridor. Her eyes widened when she saw a mob of skeleton robots moving across the crater toward them. She opened fire.

Chapter 41

    Rayne and his team followed Campion’s course through the Body Bank until they reached the elevators leading up to the Powerdrome. Their scanner technician confirmed fifty-two signals on the Dark World level and thirty-eight signals in the upper control rooms. Rayne felt as if they were flying blind because the scanner couldn’t differentiate between Campion’s soldiers and the enemy.

    Brennon winked at him as they rode the elevator up to the Dark World level. They entered a short corridor, opened a submarine-type hatch at the end, and entered a dark stone corridor that looked all too familiar to Rayne.

     They converged on the signals, retracing the steps of Campion’s squad. They found evidence of a massive firefight. Shattered, smoking robot skeletons lay spread across the floor of the main hallway. They had to step over and around them to get by.

     Eventually, they found the chamber beyond the grenade crater and climbed up. They cut across it, following a short corridor to the medieval feasting hall. They heard the sound of gunfire echoing from the doorway on the far side of the hall.

    Brennon took the lead. She ran to the doorway and peered into the darkness. Flashes of light could be seen in the distance. Rayne peered in with her.

    “I think it’s time to call your friend again,” Karyn said.

    “My friend?” Peter asked.

    “Call Campion. Find out what’s going on.”

    “Okay,” Rayne said, switching his headset to channel one.

    The muffled sound of metallic thunder filled his earpiece.

    “Campion, you there?” Peter spoke into the receiver.

    “I’m here,” Jane said between blasts of automatic gunfire. “We’re retreating into the large room beyond the hallway. There’s no crossfire, so you guys are clear to come in.”

    “We’re on our way,” Rayne said, signing off.

    He turned to Brennon.

    “Let’s go,” he said, advancing down the damp, narrow, stone hallway.

    Brennon gestured for the rest of the squad to follow them down the tunnel. They were halfway down when they spotted shadowy forms moving in the darkness ahead. Brennon shined her flashlight ahead. The beam illuminated the broad, black-armored backs of a line of skeletons. The closest robot turned toward them as the light beam struck its head.

    “I’ve dealt with these guys before,” Rayne said, opening fire.

    Sparks shot from the thing’s chest-plate, but no damage was done. He aimed for the robot’s head and blew it off. It kept coming.

    “Allow me,” Brennon said, stepping forward. She aimed her rifle low and fired.

    Peter quickly realized her strategy when he saw sparks exploding from the robot’s kneecaps. The robot crumpled to the floor. The rebels advanced, firing low as they went. They reached the edge of a large crater and jumped down. The shadowy backs of more robots were moving across. They opened fire.

********

     Campion and her soldiers retreated through the pillared hall as the robot horde advanced on them. They had little trouble blasting out their legs, but the sheer number of attackers was wearing them down. Jane was almost out of ammunition.

     She turned when she heard metallic thundering behind her. The soldier on her right was hit in the back with an explosive round and fell onto his face. Jane fired toward the blue metallic gleams she saw glinting from a secret doorway behind the raised throne.

     She ran over to a nearby pillar and used it as cover, firing from behind it. The other soldiers followed her lead, taking cover behind the pillars. One of them had his legs shot out from under him before he reached one of the pillars. He fell to the floor, screaming.

    “If any of you have a grenade, now’s the time to use it!” Campion shouted at the other soldiers.

    In response to her request, two soldiers wound up and let fly. Jane ducked behind the pillar as a red flash blasted out from the strike zone. She turned to face the throne area, and saw it was gone. The regal chair and its descending steps had been flattened into a pile of black ash. Nothing remained.

    Campion advanced, moving from pillar to pillar. She reached the flattened area and picked her way across the rubble. Looking up, she saw a doorway in the wall above the rubble pile. However, because the staircase and platform had been blown away, there was no way to get to it. Her other soldiers caught up with her. Two of them carried the wounded soldier.

    “Those robots are still coming,” one of them said, pointing across the hall at the mob of approaching skeletons.

    “I can see that,” Jane said. “Give me a lift, will ya?” she asked, gesturing to the doorway.

    Two soldiers gave her a lift up and she climbed into the doorway. She reached down and helped the others up. They pulled the wounded soldier to freedom as skeleton hands reached for his legs.

    “I don’t suppose you guys have any more grenades?” Campion asked, looking down at the horde of robots clawing to get a purchase on the edge of the doorway.

    “No, we’re all out.”

    “Terrific,” Jane said, aiming down into the horde and opening fire with her last remaining magazine.

********

     Rayne emerged into the spacious pillared hall, firing. He aimed low, shooting into the rear of the mob of robots moving down the center aisle of the hall. He watched a few of them drop, but it didn’t seem to make much difference because of their numbers. He heard the distant thundering of gunfire reverberating from the far end of the hall. He reloaded his rifle as Brennon emerged from the tunnel, firing. She emptied her magazine and reloaded on the run.

    “Let’s get up close and personal!” Brennon shouted as she sprinted forward.

    Peter backed her up. They approached the crowd of robots from the rear and began taking them out by blasting their legs. The surviving robots at the rear turned toward them with outstretched claws. More rebel soldiers joined them and helped to take the robots down.

     Rayne looked over the heads of the robot mob and saw Campion and another soldier firing down on the skeletons from a doorway on the second level. He continued to sweep his rifle across the legs of the mob, dropping them. He threw his rifle aside when he ran out of magazines. He pulled his pistol from his belt and resumed firing. Brennon did the same.

********

     Campion aimed down into the leering skull-faces, blasting them to pieces. Unfortunately, most of them stayed on their feet, reaching up at her with bony hands as sparks shot out of their blasted heads. It was difficult to hit their legs from this angle.

     Jane turned around suddenly as she heard a loud blast. She looked down the dark tunnel and saw the far end lighting up with flames. A moment later, a huge, scaly, green head, which reminded her of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, appeared from around the corner – shooting flames from its gigantic jaws.

    “We have a new problem,” Campion observed as the saurian dragon head darted down the hall on an elongated neck – firing flames at them.

    They opened fire on the dragon’s monstrous head with little effect. They watched as its huge body turned the corner, smashing the walls to rubble as it moved. It launched another stream of flames at them, licking at their toes.

    “We don’t have any choice. We have to pick the lesser of two evils,” Jane said, turning and running for the doorway.

    She lunged through the opening into the upraised arms of the skeleton mob. She felt bony hands close on her arms and legs. Another soldier followed her example and dove into the crowd headfirst as flames shot out from the doorway. The other soldiers in the hallway were instantly incinerated.

     Campion felt the robot skeletons’ claws digging into any exposed skin on her body. She thrashed in their bony grasps and reached down for their leering skull faces, punching them. She earned herself a sore hand in the process, but it had no effect on her attackers.

     She could hear Rayne and his people firing into the back of the crowd. She continued flailing in the grip of the robots as they clawed her armor, trying to penetrate it. She tried to keep her uncovered head out of their reach.

    Then, the moment came she had been dreading. The dragon’s head appeared in the doorway. It looked down on the swarm of robots. Jane felt herself falling to the floor as the dragon shot a stream of fire at the skeleton army. She hit the floor and rolled out of the path of the flames. Her rear armor was blackened as it was struck by fire. As she rolled, she swatted at her burning hair with armored gloves. She put out the fire in her hair, got to her feet, and looked back at the scene of carnage.

     The doorway crumbled apart as the dragon’s huge body emerged. It stopped shooting flames from its mouth, as if it needed a moment to catch its breath. However, it proceeded to swat the closest skeleton like a fly with its giant clawed hand. The dragon smashed through the doorway and crashed onto a pile of robot carcasses, ripping them apart with its claws and teeth. The dragon’s monstrous tail swung into several skeletons that remained standing, knocking them over like ten pins.

    Campion retreated behind the closest pillar and watched the destruction. She glanced to her right and saw Rayne’s group advancing from pillar to pillar, mopping up the remaining robots by blasting out their legs. She spotted Peter at a pillar on the other side of the hall, firing into a cluster of skeletons. Rayne’s group was still dealing with the skeletons, so they hadn’t had a chance to turn their attention to the new threat. This was a mistake.

     The dragon lunged down the center of the hall between the two gigantic rows of pillars. Jane winced as she watched it land on top of a rebel soldier, crushing him like a squashed beetle in his armor. She saw its tail swat two more soldiers as they opened fire on it. Jane stayed behind her place of cover. She didn’t see any point using up her last magazine on the giant robot. She figured she would have to wait and hope someone had a laser grenade.

    Peter looked up at the monstrous saurian face of his old nemesis. He darted around one of the large pillars as a stream of flames shot from the dragon’s massive, fanged jaws. He could feel the heat through the thickness of his body armor. His armored shoulders were heating up like hotplates. He breathed a sigh of relief as the dragon turned its flames away from his pillar, aiming for a group of soldiers firing at it with automatic weapons. The soldiers screamed as they were engulfed in a firestorm.

    Karyn ducked behind a pillar as the robot incinerated two rebel soldiers in a single blast. She felt intense heat through her body armor. She heard the dragon stomp past her position and continue down the center aisle, shooting flames at whoever was foolish enough to shoot at it. Bullets exploded on almost every exposed inch of the dragon-robot, bouncing off in showers of sparks without doing any damage.  

    Brennon glanced around the pillar at the charred bodies of the fallen rebel soldiers. She saw the gleam of a laser grenade on one of their belts. She dove for the body. The dragon was systematically incinerating a line of soldiers as she grabbed a hold of the grenade and removed it from the soldier’s belt. She activated it and tossed it underhanded so it slid under the dragon’s gigantic belly. She sprinted away.

     A bright flash followed and the flames ceased. She turned and saw the dragon’s head crash to the floor on its severed neck. The end-pieces of its giant wings dropped through the air like metal butterflies. A piece of its tail thrashed about on the floor like a dying snake, shooting out sparks from its severed end. Brennon breathed a sigh of relief, leaning against a pillar. Campion and Rayne caught up with her a moment later.

    “Good work, soldier,” Jane said. “Let’s see to the wounded.”

     The surviving rebel soldiers rallied around Campion to seek out and find all the wounded. They found many who were severely burned, but still alive. They treated the wounds with injections from their med-kits. When all the survivors had been accounted for, Campion met with Rayne and Brennon. Brennon was carrying a scanner she salvaged; she pointed it at the ceiling.

    “I have a group of thirty-six signals directly above us,” she said.

    “They must be hiding out in the control rooms,” Peter said.

    “How do we take them out without getting ambushed?” Jane asked.

    “Leave that to me,” Peter said.

    He led them to a nearby air duct suspended in the wall above them. He smashed the cover off with his rifle butt and asked for a hand up. Campion and Brennon lifted him into the opening.

    “These ducts go directly to the control rooms,” Rayne said, his voice echoing in the confines of the duct. “I’m going to surprise them.”

    “I’m going with you,” Campion said, walking along the wall to search for more ducts.

    She found another one and asked her compatriots to give her a lift. Rayne and Campion climbed the upwardly slanting ducts until they saw lights at the end of the steel tunnels.

     Rayne was the first to reach the metal grate at the far end. He peered through the grill – at floor level – and saw a group of Shock Troopers aiming their weapons toward an elevator door on the far side of the control room. He checked to make sure he had a full magazine.