Barix abruptly spoke up over his earpiece. “Hey, just a heads up that it looks as if the orbital platform is trying to get a target lock on the ship. Which should be a trick, considering we're in this reinforced docking bay.”
Fantastic. “What can you do about it?”
“I dunno, hover around the bay so it misses? Right now we're a bit occupied dealing with the internal security weapons. Although most of them are antipersonnel and are barely scratching our shields.”
Aiden ducked around a corner, the corridor ahead still looking clear. Although at any moment defensive turrets could pop out of the walls or ceiling or even the floor and start trying to fry them. “Great. While you're at it, see if you can hack into the facility using the codes Elyssa gave us and help us get to the control room. I want to finish this before it gets messy.”
“We must have different ideas of what constitutes “messy,” the slight man muttered.
Almost on top of that reply, Ali spoke over the comm. “I'm working on hacking in, my love, but it's going to be more difficult than expected. Apparently, HAE's got a reputation for their hacking abilities and ERI's gotten paranoid since starting this war with them. They've got an ironclad lockdown going . . . even the security codes we've got, which are valid by the way, aren't going to help us until we're in the control room.”
That wasn't what he wanted to hear at the moment. And what he didn't want to see was the four combat androids pouring out of a room up ahead, smoothly opening fire the moment they came into view.
Fix reacted just as quickly, spraying smoke and foam into the corridor ahead of it to foul up the enemies' visual and other sensors, and sending out a spray of noisemaking chips from a pneumatic launcher in one arm to throw out their auditory sensors. On top of returning fire with its cauterizer, of course.
His combat android still took a few shots before completing those countermeasures, although thankfully they all looked to be superficial.
Aiden had already hit the deck, using Fix as cover and firing around it blindly down the corridor. The gunner was doing the same, although he broke off long enough to rush to the nearest door and slam his captured KFM at it. The first hit made the solid metal fold inward around the blow with a deafening screech, the weapon's amplified force crumpling it like it had been struck by a battering ram. The second hit knocked the door completely free and sent it flipping across the opened room.
The young man immediately dove inside, barely an instant ahead of chillingly accurate fire from down the corridor as the ERI robots homed in on the noise he'd made.
Aiden used those shots to determine where the enemy was firing from and returned fire, which quickly diverted the cauterizer blasts back his way. Fix made a tortured noise and slumped onto its knees, its torso almost completely slagged and glowing red, then orange, and finally white; it was scrap, and wouldn't even be useful as a shield for much longer.
Taking the hint, Aiden dove through the open doorway after the gunner, cursing as he slammed his elbow on the twisted door. Behind him, cauterizer blasts screamed through the spot he'd just abandoned and continued on down the corridor as Fix became a molten puddle.
“Coming, my love!” Ali said urgently in his ear. “Hold tight, we'll be there soon!”
Aiden hoped the “we” with her would be dozens of reprogrammed combat androids. He'd ended up in some sort of robotics lab, all gleaming metallic surfaces and expensive equipment, as well as what looked like parts of combat androids.
Along with other parts; for a horrifying moment he thought he was looking at the people who'd been ripped to pieces that the security officer had been talking about, now scattered across the long shiny tables in the middle of the room. Then he realized he was looking at companions, either normal or adult, and concluded ERI must be trying to reverse engineer the technology.
The gunner was already scrambling for the other side of the room, where more doorways offered an escape. As the young man ran he quietly whispered terse, efficient descriptions into his earpiece, probably to Ali describing where they were going and how she could catch up to them.
Feeling exposed without a combat android to hide behind, Aiden settled for ducking below the surface of the tables and scuttling as fast as he could after his weapons officer. That didn't do anything good for his joints, and he was definitely feeling every one of his 41 years within the first dozen feet.
But considering the alternative was getting his head blown off by who knew how many angry robots hot on his heels, he grit his teeth and kept going.
The gunner was already to the door and punching in the access code. For a moment Aiden was afraid it wouldn't work, but then it soundlessly slid open and the young man eased inside, weapons ready.
Aiden threw a couple smoke grenades from his pouch, acutely aware of the six feet of open space to the door and the androids pouring into the room behind him. As soon as the billowing clouds obscured his end of the room, he braced himself for pain and dove across the space and through the opening.
Into, as it turned out, yet another firefight.
The gunner had thrown smoke grenades of his own that obscured the far end of the room, which looked like some sort of storage bay lined with shelves full of advanced robotics technology. The only thing that could be seen in the
