Aiden ducked behind cover at the end of a row of shelves and returned fire, counting off the seconds he had until the pursuing androids filled the doorway behind him and fried him. Somewhere in the chaos and obscuring smoke he heard his crew member give a sudden hiss, as good as a shout of pain for the disciplined young man, and bit back a curse as he fired a few final shots and made for the source of the noise to help if he could.
This was looking bad, as bad as any situation he'd ever been in, but he wasn't about to lose his gunner. However he felt about the weapons officer, he might as well just blow up his ship himself without that expert accuracy complementing his piloting skills.
He found the gunner on the ground, huddled behind the smoking remains of a combat android with his right arm a charred mess. He was probably in incredible pain, but if so he gave no sign of it as he used his left hand to fire blindly down a row of shelves.
Although blind or not, he was probably more accurate than Aiden on his best day. Not to mention he was using his off hand, although come to think of it the Construct was probably ambidextrous.
A few feet away, another combat android was slumped against a shelf with the stolen KFM buried through its head and halfway into its torso. Aiden could hear the heavy thud of robots coming down the next row of shelves, and acting on a burst of inspiration he threw his shoulder against the stack the destroyed android's weight already had started to tilt, grunting with exertion as he toppled it.
It was somewhat satisfying to hear it crash into the next row, which similarly toppled, taking two more with it like dominos.
In just the short amount of time it had taken him to do that, the gunner seemed to have finished off the android down the row shooting at them. Aiden glanced over his shoulder, expecting more robots to come looming out of the smoke from the door they'd just come through at any second. So far none had, so he dropped to a crouch and grabbed his weapons officer under the shoulder, hauling him to his feet.
The young man quickly and wordlessly shook him off, loping easily down the aisle with his cauterizer at the ready as if his right arm wasn't seared like a steak. He probably needed urgent medical attention, but that was going to have to wait.
Aiden followed, running as fast as he could and still barely keeping up with his crew member. When more weapons fire hissed out of the smoke ahead, the young man didn't skip a beat in veering aside to run up the toppled row of shelves, nimbly hopping from one shelf to the next. Aiden bit back a curse and did his best to follow, without nearly the grace; the shelves were four feet apart and at an awkward angle, and he nearly slipped several times.
“Here, my love,” Ali abruptly said in his ear. She didn't breathe, of course, but probably to help convey her urgency she sounded out of breath. “We've cleared the way ahead, and I'm currently reprogramming two more combat androids. Sending the other four on towards the control room.”
Aiden immediately reversed direction back down to the floor, breathing a sigh of relief. “What's it looking like?”
Instead of his companion, it was Belix who answered. “Like you dragged us into a firefight in a heavily defended top secret base,” she growled. “By the way, the weapons platform seems to have given up on hitting us, but now combat androids are coming after the ship. They're no match for our weapons and can't get through our shields, though, at least not yet. Actually, blowing them to smithereens is pretty fun target practice.”
Yeah, he kind of wished he was behind his ship's shields at the moment. “Ali, the gunner's wounded.”
“I know, I'm ready to offer what aid I can if there's time.” She sounded slightly frustrated. “I know we anticipated this, but it's hard to identify the individual android units and recite their override codes while they're shooting at us. Especially with the smoke.”
“Yeah, well hopefully six is enough.”
“Five, actually,” his companion corrected, then sighed. “Make that four.”
Aiden hopped over a few destroyed combat androids at the end of the row of shelves and found Ali near the door, crouched over the gunner. She was simultaneously spraying his charred flesh with protective antiseptic sealant and injecting him with something that would hopefully dull the pain, but keep him functional.
The young man immediately surged to his feet when Aiden arrived, grim determination seeping into his usually blank features. “Let's go. We need to get to the control room before the base's defenses are fully mobilized against us.”
Aiden wondered if that meant the robots that had been chasing them. Ali seemed to think so, since she left behind one of their two captured combat androids to seal the entrance and slow pursuit. The other one ran at the front of their small group as they wove through side corridors, towards their destination.
He found it a bit funny that in spite of losing and gaining stolen robots, they were once again back to a team of four. “Hey android!” he called ahead softly. “You're our new Fix.”
“Acknowledged,” the hulking automaton said in its reassuringly synthesized voice, “this unit's new designation is “Fix.”
Aiden literally couldn't tell the difference between his destroyed robot and this one; once they got it programmed the way he liked, Fix would be back to his new self again.
Which was more than he could say for the half dozen slagged robots they passed on the way to the control room. Or the fried defense turrets and security cameras. After the frantic fight they'd just had to
