Meanwhile the Wardenites were firing at the next group of robots that were rushing in from deeper in the terminal, and protected Rhea’s back.
Rhea finished with the latest group and turned to face the next. The alarm blasted loudly in her ears, but she hardly noticed it. She dashed forward to meet the machine rush, leaping over the random citizens in the terminal who had dropped to the floor to avoid getting shot.
She sprinted right up to any of the machines that opposed her and tore them apart if she wasn’t able to deflect their fire back at them. Some of the robots tried to take cover, hiding behind pillars or benches, but she hunted them all down with a grim smile on her face.
“Dude, let’s go!” Will shouted above the alarm.
She glanced at Will and saw that he was gazing nervously at the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that formed the main entrance to the terminal.
She looked that way: several two-legged walker robots were entering, forming a long line just inside the terminal. They were all armed with RPGs. Rhea knew they weren’t going to fire those weapons, not in here, not while so many civilians had yet to evacuate. Then again, this was Mars…
“Got more behind us, too!” Renaldo said, slamming shut the door to the maintenance tunnel.
“This way!” Rhea said, herding her companions toward the escalators that led to the lower levels. She kept her Ban’Shar directed toward the walkers, in case they did decide to open fire.
They did not. But they did give chase.
She took the lead and raced down the escalator. Her companions used their CommNixer pistols to shoot out the latest cameras.
“What’s the point of disabling the cameras?” Renaldo shouted. “They know where we are anyway!”
He was probably right. But Rhea didn’t answer, letting her companions continue to shoot at the cameras, so that they could at least feel like they were doing something to help.
She reached the lower levels. People were running frantically all around her.
The pedway was just ahead, according to the map.
Another group of combat robots emerged from the pedway.
Rhea didn’t slow. While her companions unleashed their weapons, she drew the fire of the robots, performing a series of acrobatic somersaults while deflecting their shots with her Ban’Shar. She landed in their midst and transformed the weapons into swords. She spun, tearing through the machine bodies. A group of them rushed her, and she leaped toward them, swirling her body as she did so, so that her blades cut into them like a horizontal rotor. When she landed, the sliced up remnants of the robots dropped to the floor all around her. It was over.
She leaped over the wreckages and into the pedway system. No more robots awaited within the tight confines.
“Let’s go!” she said.
At the top of the escalators behind them the walkers were appearing. Along with armed, airborne drones.
The Wardenites quickly piled into the pedway behind her.
The alarm wasn’t as loud here, but a red light intermittently flashed on and off.
“So many dead robots,” Horatio said. “Our enemy uses them like cannon fodder!”
“He does indeed,” Rhea said.
“Why don’t you convert some of them to your side?” Brinks asked. “Like you did the customs robots?”
Rhea glanced over her shoulder. “No time.”
“She’s right,” Will said. “You saw how long it takes.”
“Yeah, but we could use ourselves a robot army right about now!” Brinks said.
She raced through the concrete walls of the underground pedway system. The ceiling was about twice her height, with glow lamps embedded at intervals to provide ample illumination, and red lights still occasionally flashed among them. The passage was wide enough to fit ten people abreast.
There were a few other people in the pedway, but they all ran directly away from her. Either they had seen her terminating robots firsthand, or they’d noticed other citizens running away with fear written plainly all over their faces; it was also possible they’d received a warning of some kind on their augmented reality goggles.
There were ordinary delivery robots in the pedway system as well, some humanoid, some tread-based, and these all turned to face the wall as Rhea passed to let her know they intended no harm. She ignored them. But Miles blasted at a few of them.
“Can you stop that?” Horatio asked.
“Why?” Miles replied. “It’s fun.”
“Should we activate DragonHunter’s camera hack?” Will asked.
Rhea glanced at her overhead map: a security camera would soon be coming up.
She shook her head as she ran. “There’s no point. It was designed for a stealth scenario… and there’s nothing stealthy about this. We’re being chased by robots—essentially mobile cameras, feeding the city’s AI a constant stream of positional information. The AI knows where we are. If we use the hack now, blocking our images from the camera, we reveal the presence of DragonHunter’s code, essentially for no reason. The AI will track down the code and remove it. I’d rather save the hack for another day.”
“Assuming there is another day!” Will said. “All right, I’ll go ahead and disable the camera.”
He went ahead and fired a CommNixer at the incoming device, which was only just coming into view.
They continued past it. Several meters ahead the walls widened to form an underground concourse of sorts.
Behind them, the airborne drones swooped inside the pedway. Rhea dropped back to protect the rear of the party. Just in time: the drones unleashed plasma fire on approach.
Rhea deflected the bolts. “Take cover in the concourse ahead!”
The party members dashed into the concourse. Flashes behind her alerted her to another firefight taking place there. Rhea couldn’t help, not yet.
Ban’Shar in hand, she raced toward the hovering attackers. She deflected the attacks, sending a bolt straight back into the lead drone. She leaped onto the leftmost wall, shoving off to pass in front of the next drone, which she promptly rent in two.
She landed on the floor and immediately vaulted onto the
