The two war machines stopped shooting, and their heads bowed.
They reactivated as the foremost troops of her robot army were almost at the gates and turned toward her to receive their orders.
“Enter the palace grounds,” she ordered above the din. “Clear the way for my minions. Destroy all aggressors.”
"Yes, Mistress,” the walkers replied in unison with their deep voices.
They spun toward the chain link fence and fired at it with their plasma bolts, forming wide, gaping holes whose edges glowed orange hot. The walkers slammed their bodies through these apertures, breaking away the remaining portions of the fence. They opened fire at the enemy troops and plasma turrets awaiting beyond.
The foremost troops reached the open gates and began to pile inside. Rhea signaled her men, and they activated their wireless mesh network.
“Stay close!” she transmitted.
She let her hood fall to her shoulders and activated her Ban’Shar.
Then she raced inside with her robots.
The Wardenites, along with Min and Burhawk, opened fire at the enemy units as they joined her. Octocopters fell smoking from the air. Enemy infantry units toppled with big holes burned into their chests.
Rhea kept in front of the men and followed behind the machine troops in front of her. These troops acted as a wedge, breaking deep into the waiting defensive line of enemy robots.
Behind them, the omnidirectional turrets that lined the walls of this section had been destroyed, so she didn’t have to worry about attacks from that quarter. There was still the occasional enemy octocopter up there, however, so she kept one of her Ban’Shar disks angled upward.
Turrets had emerged from hidden compartments in the ground ahead, but most of these had been taken out, save for one. The robots defending the palace had mustered at that particular turret and were mowing down Rhea’s machine troops by the dozen.
“Dig in!” she ordered her troops. She didn’t bother to directionally limit the transmission, as there was no point in trying to hide her ID now: the enemy knew who she was.
Her robots instantly took cover, dropping behind the wreckages of fallen machines, or using other features of the inner grounds for cover, such as topiary and trees. The instruction was meant for the Wardenites as well, and a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that they, too, had taken cover. The Wardenites were targeting the enemy troops that flowed through the gates from the Palace Square beyond.
She sprinted for the turret that had caused so much trouble to her army. A ring of enemy walkers, three deep, stood around it, guarding. That ring in turn was surrounded by infantry robots.
She smiled grimly as she approached.
“Cover me!” she ordered her troops.
She weaved and leaped between her own units, keeping one Ban’Shar before her, and the other held above her. She zigzagged as well, to avoid enemy fire, but deflected her share of bolts. Attacks from her allies streamed by, knocking down opponents in her path, and drawing some of their fire.
She reached the ring of infantry robots and swung both Ban’Shar down to cut through them. She shoved past the next two infantry robots, holding one Ban’Shar in front of her, and one behind to protect her exposed back. The robots in front of her couldn’t get out of the way in time, and a circular pattern was carved through them courtesy of the plasma disk. Their remaining parts broke apart as she shoved past.
She slid beneath the legs of the first walker in front of her, sliding the edges of her disks into the mechanical limbs on either side. She brought one Ban’Shar up over her head to deflect the point-blank turret attack unleashed by the next walker and swung the other forward to cut through the underbelly of its steel torso.
She continued forward to the next walker, weaving to the side, and slicing through its leg with the edge of her Ban’Shar.
She stepped past the falling wreckage, converting one Ban’Shar to a blade, and keeping the other in disk mode to protect her flank, and charged the turret. It unleashed those bolts at her relentlessly, but she approached at a fast crouch, her plasma disk shielding her, and leaped to the side at the last moment, cutting across with her bladed Ban’Shar, and slicing off turret barrels.
She was at the center of the ring of robots then, and targeted by all of them, so she converted her blade back into a shield and began rotating rapidly to deflect all the fire her enemies launched at her. She sent those bolts flying back into the machines that launched them, and in moments she had downed all of the walker units.
Only a few of the smaller infantry types were yet standing, and they made easy targets for her troops. And for her.
“Turret is down!” she sent when she had skewered the last of them. “Forward!”
She waited for some of her robots to rush past her and take the lead, then joined them. Streaming across the vast lawn of the palace, her units were like army ants, eager and willing to die for their queen.
Will was at her side. “Nice fighting back there!” He fired at an octocopter overhead, and it crashed into the road ahead. “But next time, can you let your robots do the dirty work?”
“What kind of a leader would I be if I was afraid to dirty my hands once and a while?” she said, deflecting the plasma bolt of a walker unit right back at it.
On the other side of Rhea, Min let off shots with her pistol, and used the X2-59 whenever an enemy robot got too close.
Horatio pulled ahead, and liberally unleashed those dual-fire rifle barrels attached beneath the forearms, downing octocopters and infantry units alike.
To Rhea’s right, a robot lunged at Burhawk from behind a bush and knocked his plasma rifle away. Burhawk activated his X2-59 equivalents and split the robot in two, then retracted one of the electrolaser-coated blades to fetch a throwing
