The wheels on the Sergeant’s feet retracted and the robot paced the empty space while emitting a series of scathing bleeps and chirps.
It paused as a communication came through from the team’s spotter…
The Commando on the catwalk radioed the search party as its own gun barrel drew a bead on the human running and leaping atop the stacks of the maze. The woman moved with the agility of a cat, never breaking stride just stretching a little further with each step to make it to the next piled pallet.
The spotter opened fire, but the distance did not allow for accurate aim. Instead, it radioed a target…
The sergeant-flanked by two Commandos-skated furiously along the aisles of crates and boxes guided by electronic chatter from the catwalk. As it moved, the small cylinders on the sergeant’s shoulders rotated side to side and then elevated.
One last quick buzz came to the leader’s robotic ear from the spotter on the catwalk. The sergeant halted. Two projectiles launched from its shoulders, lobbing out from the hidden passageways into the air above the labyrinth…
Nina heard the soft pop of the launchers as she jumped from a stack of tomato paste cases onto a cluster of pallets holding boxed detergents. She landed in a kneel with her M4 bouncing hard in its sling on her back.
She turned her head and saw two burning balls arching through the air directly for her.
Nina jumped, falling between the walls of crates and packages yet again. The two explosive shells detonated above, blowing open a dozen containers and sending a grainy cloud of powdered detergent into the air.
Nina felt a sharp pang of pain in her right ankle as she landed but the minor injury did not slow her. She took flight through the warren of passages with the sound of rolling wheels chasing from behind-and then bullets ricocheted off the concrete in front of her just as she entered a four way intersection. The fire came from her left.
The wolf flattened against the wall for a moment, then bobbed around the corner on a knee firing on full automatic. She walked her shots in toward the Commando who stood half-behind a pallet full of cooking oil cans tightly shrink-wrapped in a bunch. The bullets from her M4 made a muffled ting as they pierced the tin containers. Steady streams of Wesson splashed on the floor.
The robot returned fire. Nina retreated a step and switched out an empty magazine for a new one. A moment later she peeked again and rapid-fired not so much to kill but to suppress in order to buy time to gain a better view of available paths.
The one directly across the intersection appeared the most inviting and the most expeditious route to the north; the way she felt she must go to find and kill the Bishop. But just as she decided to dart across the intersection, one of the Commandos appeared in that passage ahead at a distance of thirty feet in a direct line of fire to her, and vice versa.
Nina won the test of speed. Her rifle launched lethal shots just as her foe raised its arm. Some bullets missed wide but in the storm of full-auto fire quantity overcame a lack of quality. The Commando shivered and then fell in a heap to the concrete floor. Its red eye flickered before fading black.
Nina ran across the intersection spitting suppression fire to her left as cover. She raced between a high stack of potato sacks to her left and large red shelving holding drums and crates to her right.
To her surprise, a second Commando stepped over the body of the dead one and into the passage leading north; directly in front of her. Nina braked hard and nearly fell as her momentum grappled with the traction of her boots.
The new arrival had a clear shot at her. This time Nina did not win the test of speed, but she reversed course quickly and jogged side to side to avoid incoming bullets. Fragments of rotting potato peels blew out from her right and jets of smelly liquid shot out from her left as the Commando’s rounds hit the walls to either side but missed the zigzagging mark.
As she raced toward her previous position another of the Commandos-the Sergeant with black Chevrons on silver shoulder plates-appeared 15 yards ahead.
Nina fired her weapon but just as her mental tab sheet knew it would, her gun ran dry before hitting home.
The Sergeant rocked its metal-encased head side to side in what might have been a kind of robotic taunting and launched a pair of burning grenades as Nina approached at full speed with enemy bullets from behind chasing her all the way.
She reached the intersection before the explosives and jumped left. The devices hit a pallet of boxes and exploded. A thunderstorm of peanuts and cashews filled the four-way intersection with nearly shrapnel-like velocity. Nina rolled east beneath it all then found her feet and ran. As she moved she struggled to change out another empty magazine for a fresh one.
The Commandos pursued. She heard their garbled, synthesized conversations and the roll of their wheels. The passage she traveled straightened with crossways every five yards.
A flash of bronze to her left.
Nina fired a burst to ward off the shadow.
A volley of enemy fire from her right.
She responded with another burst, but kept moving east.
Nina slowed and turned about and saw one of the skeletal Commandos following her at a distance. She paused and it fired but did so with no real attempt to aim from its concealed position behind a stack of containers.
Bam!
Jugs of fouled sweet peppers exploded in a corridor to the south. Liquid and slimy slivers of green and red oozed to the floor.
She fired in that direction then ran again to the east. Rolling wheels sounded to her right-and her left-and from behind.
They’re herding me.
She ran faster, stopped at an intersection, and aimed to her left-the north. She fired bullets before she saw anything. One of the Commandos-rolling parallel to her flight-drifted into the stream of fire. It spun around like an off-kilter top and went down in a pile of scrap.
Its partner learned from the mistake, stopping shy of the open corridor and holding its arm around the corner, letting fly a hail of rounds. At the same time, to the south, Nina heard the distinct pop of more grenades: the Commandos shadowing her on her right flank had arrived.
She did not wait. Nina grudgingly ran east again: the way they wanted her to go. A moment later a pair of small explosions blew apart chunks of concrete where she had just stood.
The rolling wheels began again, content to contain her and direct her rather than engage.
She ran faster-faster, trying to reach the next intersection before the enemy did, as if maybe she could change direction north or south to avoid the trap. It did no good. The metallic soldiers increased their rolling speed as if sensing each change in her momentum.
She fired bullets to the left. The enemy there had learned not to charge into intersections without caution.
She fired more to her right. The Sergeant and his companion avoided the shots and answered with their own.
Nina ran forward again although her sense of direction-confused as it had become-felt as if all her running, dodging, and avoiding led her closer to the starting point where she had left her comrades than the end. As she moved she changed out yet another clip as ammunition became a scarce commodity.
The pallets piled high with boxes and crates and barrels stopped at an open space facing a trio of loading dock doors in the vast expanse of the eastern wall of the chamber. She arrived there a moment before the Commandos.
My last stand.
She turned south, knelt, and fired at the first sign of movement. Her volley hit the Sergeant’s wingman as it emerged full speed from the maze. That robot rolled across the open space and slammed lifeless into one of the loading dock doors.
The Sergeant blindly launched grenades in defense to ward off her automatic fire. The maneuver worked: the explosive balls hit one of the concrete walls between garage doors. Pieces of stone and mortar fell around Nina and
