“Yeah, you go ahead and imagine that, Stick Arms,” Chuck said. “Meanwhile, I’ll keep my mind fixed on the real world, and what’s possible, rather than the ludicrously impossible. We’re not some frail, flimsy creatures subject to the whims of all-powerful creators.”
“Aren’t we?” Renaldo said.
Will hammered a few more times, then withdrew the small mallet. “Try now.” He slid away, as did Horatio, giving her room.
Keeping her arm bent at the elbow, Rhea held it out to one side and experimentally rotated it. She was able to bring the arm through its entire previous range of motion. She straightened the arm and repeated the revolutions: the range remained the same.
She lowered her arm and smiled at Will. “You did it. Thank you.”
“Not a problem,” Will said. “Told you these extra spare parts would come in handy.”
He shoved his tools back into his pack and slipped the lamp from his head.
He paused.
The lamp was still on, the cone of light reflecting from the ceiling, allowing her to see the shock that registered on his face.
“What is it?” she said.
He immediately deactivated the lamp.
“Gizmo is picking up a low flying aircraft on fast approach,” Will said.
“It’s registering on the SUV LIDAR,” McGraw confirmed. “It’s on a direct intercept course. We have about a minute until it reaches us.”
“A bomber?” Rhea asked.
“Negative,” McGraw said. “It’s small. I’d say a personal flyer. Might be equipped with some plasma turrets, or maybe a laser.”
Rhea heard a sonic boom as the vessel passed only a few meters above them. Dust and rock lifted from the landscape and pebbled the windows and hull of the SUV.
The craft continued away toward the west, according to the red dot on the overhead map, as recorded by Gizmo and the SUVs.
“Something’s on the vehicle in front of us!” McGraw said.
Rhea withdrew her pistol. Beside her, Will likewise retrieved his weapon, and the rifle barrels attached to the underside of Horatio’s forearms also deployed. Everyone else in the vehicle similarly armed themselves.
McGraw activated the headlamps, illuminating what looked like a man punching into the roof of the vehicle directly in front of them. Rhea thought it was the Scorpion at first, but this man had no tail. Assuming it was a man: she could see only the sheen of a metallic body and limbs at the moment. The face wasn’t visible at all, because of the angle. It could have been a combat robot, but then again, what combat robots had four arms? There was also a large pack on the back with two nozzles protruding from its underside.
Rhea pointed her pistol toward the windshield and prepared to open fire.
The attacker glanced toward Rhea, and a pair of lights abruptly flared, sending a blinding stream of light her way.
By the time her own eyes autogated to reduce the intensity, the light had vanished; as had the man on the SUV’s roof.
A loud clang came from directly above.
“He’s leaped onto our vehicle!” McGraw shouted.
More clangs erupted in rapid succession, and several indentations appeared on the inside of the roof, shaped like human fists. Rhea and the others aimed their weapons upward…
One of those fists penetrated, and the steel fingers unfolded and began to peel back the roof material. More fingers appeared as another hand joined in.
Rhea’s current angle didn’t allow her to properly fire through that hole, but Will and Horatio had at it.
Those hands withdrew as if stung, which they had been.
Rhea could’ve fired directly up and into the roof, but the intervening material would’ve absorbed most of the impact. So instead she aimed at the window beside her, preparing for an attack from that quarter.
She piped Gizmo’s feed into the upper right of her vision; the drone had activated LIDAR, and Rhea could see the attacker crawling across the roof toward her window. She had a thought.
Smiling wickedly, she holstered the pistol, unbuckled her seatbelt, then stood up until her head crowded up against the low ceiling. Then she shoved her right arm upward. Using Gizmo’s LIDAR to guide her, she formed a fist and deployed the X2-59 as she impacted the metal. The plasma-sheathed blade burst forth, perforating the roof and traveling into the space beyond. She could feel the vibration of impact as the blade penetrated the body of her foe.
A blood-curdling scream filled the air.
Definitely not a robot.
“The flyer is returning!” Will shouted.
Suddenly Rhea was airborne. A terrible shattering sound filled the air. She retracted the X2-59 and was ripped from the ceiling. The vehicle and her friends were a blur around her. Something struck her. The roof. No, the floor. No, Horatio’s arm.
She slammed onto the roof of the SUV and was pulled to the side, sliding into the door opposite her seat. Above her, Will and Horatio were still buckled in, as was everyone else in the SUV.
She glanced at her window and saw it had broken; in fact, the entire left side of the SUV had crumpled. She was probably lucky to be alive.
She realized the flyer had struck the vehicle and sent it somersaulting into the air; the SUV had landed upside-down and finally ground to a halt.
“Everyone all right?” she asked.
“We’re fine,” Will said, opening his seatbelt and dropping to the rooftop. The others fell one by one as they similarly released their belts.
Rhea peered through the windshield. The other SUVs were turning back.
But then another SUV was rammed by the flyer and sent hurtling away.
Rhea kicked out the window beside her and crawled outside.
She had crawled halfway when two thick hands wrapped around her neck. She had the impression they were trying to twist her head off.
Those hands hauled her upward, lifting her out of the SUV.
She slammed her right arm upward, deploying the
