She ducked and a couple of stray rounds clipped the top of her helmet and ricocheted upwards.
"Fuck!" she shouted but kept on moving as Mini trilled at her once more. She had neither the time nor the inclination to pretend she knew what it was supposed to mean.
As she approached one of the Guardians, she sent an alert to notify him that she was close. A ping in response told her he was ready, and she sprinted as fast as the Minato could go until she was in front of him, dropped quickly, and skidded across the dust and dirt-covered surface while she disengaged the clamps for one of the crates.
The Guardian picked it up and relieved some of the weight, which forced Mini to adjust the hydraulics again. The combatants continued to fire around her as she worked but there was little that she could do other than hope and pray to the Seven that nothing struck her dead on. The Minato had been designed with the armor shaped into a number of angles, which raised the chances that any round would bounce away and leave only a dent. Unfortunately, it wasn't thick enough to take any rounds dead on.
And if a grenade hit her, they would wash her remains out the inside of the mech with a hose. Well, not really. No one would willfully waste that much water. The chances were the other bulletfoots would have to scrub her out.
"Clear!" the pilot behind her called, and she pushed herself up as one of the reticles came closer to her and the Guardian she had restocked. She could even see bits and pieces of it moving in the cloud of dust, a shadow more than anything else.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Jessica yelled frantically, ducked her head, and pushed into a sprint. The enemy engaged the Guardian and ignored the smaller mech that bolted away. Chirps matching her own intonations emitted in her helmet, which told her the AI was panicking too.
Not that AI's panicked in the same way humans did.
She still had a job to do. Her heart thumping like it would break through her rib cage wouldn’t change that. Jessica13 selected another of the Guardians in need of ammo and began to run toward it.
The explosions were felt almost before she saw them and she grimaced when they gouged chunks of concrete out of the bunker’s outer facade. The dust on the ground made it difficult to stop in time. The shocks from the explosions reverberated through the armor and thrust the breath out of her lungs as she skidded to a frantic halt.
The Guardian she had raced to assist was a flaming heap. No sound issued from the comms, which told her his death had been mercifully quick and he no longer needed the ammo. The target on her HUD disappeared quickly.
It was replaced by one of the reticles and displayed the shadow of the massive mech that had demolished the Guardian like it was nothing more than paper. It was smaller than the Guardian, of course, but it was still a good three feet taller than Mini. Numerous pieces protruded from it—a unique design and yet one she knew only too well. Many of the folks living near the Cities-That-Were tended to use the same Lancer Design, although it was probably not an original make. Not many were these days.
Hammercide Industries had designed a suit that was adaptable, easy to make and fix, and hard to bring down. This one looked like it had been fitted with a rocket-launcher on the shoulder, which was how it had annihilated the Guardian. While the tubes were empty—which indicated that it couldn't shoot them again—the assault rifle with an under-barrel grenade launcher would be more than capable of tearing through Mini.
The AI squealed in her ear.
"I know!" Jessica13 shouted as the rifle targeted her and she flung herself hastily to the left as the air around her was suddenly filled with lethal projectiles. A handful of the rounds bounced off her armor, although none penetrated, but that wouldn’t last long. The pirate hadn't expected her to be that fast and struggled to adjust to her movements. With no AI to help with the targeting, the pilot would have to do it manually and he sucked at it.
Still, it was only a matter of time until one of the bullets found her.
"Jessie, over here!" Jack5 called over the comms and she could see him waving the arms of his Cinder 300 from behind the Lancer. He was out too and wouldn’t want to engage the enemy until he had ammo.
There was no way for her to get around their adversary, though, not without stepping into a hail of bullets. She had no time to think, only do.
Jessica13 made a decision she knew would get her yelled at as she came to a sudden, skidding halt and ducked to avoid the bullets that streaked past her. A quarter of a second was all she would have for this, and it needed to work.
Her right hand reached up behind her back to yank the last crate off and as soon as it came free, she disengaged the clamps and tossed it up. It arced over the Lancer's head as it ducked instinctively. The pilot thought she had attacked it, apparently, and didn't want to be killed by a support mech.
Thinking she had missed, the Lancer advanced. It was also out of ammo, but once more, that didn't really matter. The left hand moved in a vicious swipe to end her quarter-second’s grace and she felt the impact all the way up her spine when she was swatted like a fly and landed heavily.
The pirate mech moved forward, pressed
