Chapter 66: The Call for Aid
An earsplitting SHRIIIIEK, not of flesh on metal but of something far harder, echoed through the gas station!
Dorio's forearm, augmented to its absolute peak, had intercepted the high-frequency, vibrating Mantis Blade. Sparks erupted at the point of impact!
The "Scalpel" soldier's e-optics widened in disbelief. Her combat database contained no file for mere flesh successfully parrying a monomolecular-edged weapon! The immense feedback shuddered through her own augmetics, and the high-speed block forced her optical camo to fritz and die, revealing her fully-chromed body.
Dorio gave her no time to recover.
Seizing the fractional opening, Dorio pivoted, her left fist, clenched like a cannonball, smashed directly into the center of the soldier's chest plating.
THOOM!
A dull, heart-stopping impact. The "Scalpel" felt as if she'd been hit by a speeding APC. Her feet left the ground. She flew backward like a discarded puppet, smashing hard into a concrete support pillar several meters away. The pillar groaned, and spiderweb cracks erupted from the point of impact.
She slumped to the ground, a perfect, fist-shaped dent punched into her composite breastplate, sparks popping from the ruined systems beneath. She twitched, then went still.
Dorio slowly retracted her fist, casually shaking out her arm. Her forearm had a ten-centimeter gash from the blade's tip, but it was shallow, barely breaking the skin, the blood already beading and clotting on her bronzed skin. Through the shallow cut, they could see the densely-packed, twitching, augmented muscle fibers beneath.
In the virtual command sanctum, the executives watched the soldier's helmet-cam feed tumble, clearly seeing Dorio intercept and shatter a Sandevistan-equipped "Scalpel" operator with bare hands. The feed froze on the caved-in chest plate and went dead.
"Impossible!" The Biotechnica observer lost her composure for the first time. "Her bio-scan showed no heavy combat-chrome! Is that... pure biological augmentation?! How could they achieve that level?! Not even the Animals' crude steroid-tech can do that!"
The Ops Commander's face was as dark as cooling magma, his fists clenched. The loss of two Manticores was a critical failure. Now, one of his priceless, experimental "Scalpel" soldiers had been one-shotted... by a punch. Maine's crew was shattering his every tactical prediction.
"Escalate! Push all remaining assets in! Infantry, automata, drones, everything! I don't want test data anymore, I want results! No more failures!" he roared, his holo-image distorting with his rage.
A fresh tide of Militech soldiers and cold automata surged toward the small gas station ruin. The density of fire increased tenfold, weaving an inescapable net of death that pinned the crew down.
They fought back with desperation. Rebecca's plasma pistol fired, slagging an approaching automaton. Pilar's smart-gun found its mark. Falco and Maine provided covering fire. Dorio, like an unbreakable bastion, held the main breach, shattering any enemy that got too close.
But the enemy's numbers were overwhelming. Ammunition was running low, their stamina was failing, and the kill-zone was shrinking, the circle tightening around them.
Maine, ducking a burst of fire, his back against a hot concrete wall, gasped for breath. He knew he was out of options.
He switched to Kiwi's encrypted channel, his voice hoarse with stress. "Kiwi! Listen! Situation is FUBAR! Contact the Boss! Send him our live data-feed and coords! Now!"
Back in the city, Kiwi's fingers were a blur. "Understood! Bypassing corpo-jamming... link established! Channel is stable! You're through!"
Maine took one last, ragged breath, and through the encrypted link Kiwi had forged, sent his desperate plea to the entity in the desert sanctum: "Boss! We're pinned at the Route 66 gas station! Militech ambush, heavy-mil-spec! We're outgunned, outnumbered! We can't hold! Requesting support!"
He knew interrupting the Boss's "work" was a huge risk. But it was their only way out.
In the desert sanctum, Joric was analyzing the new resonance-data when Maine's call came through. A flicker of annoyance passed through his logic-engine.
He detested unplanned interruptions, especially during research. His assets being unable to resolve their own conflicts was a sign of weakness in his own force-projection.
This annoyance was quickly overridden by another, colder emotion: the insult of having his property attacked.
Maine's crew were now, by covenant, his. To attack them was to challenge his authority, even if that authority was currently limited to this desert wasteland. More importantly, he knew the corps weren't just after Maine. They were after the technology behind him.
"Foolish," he stated, his voice flat. It was unclear if he meant the corps' attack or Maine's crew for getting trapped.
He did not hesitate. He opened a direct, high-level link to the network port Kiwi had opened for him.
"Open your data-conduit," Joric's cold, synthesized voice sounded directly in Kiwi's neural-interface, devoid of any emotion.
Before Kiwi could even process the command, a vast, cold, irresistible torrent of data flooded her systems. She felt like a canoe in a tidal wave, losing all control, becoming nothing but a passive conduit.
In the next instant, Joric's consciousness, using Kiwi as a bridge, poured through the comm-link and into the neural interfaces of Maine's crew, spreading like an invisible, divine virus.