Oz and Jason Go To Pandem Part III
They were forced into the open. Servant and maintenance bots wearing frozen expressions, armed with tools that threatened to tear nearly overtook them. The worst was a female android who started wailing and screaming after Jason managed to escape her harsh grasp and shoot her several times in the torso, disabling her legs and splitting her chest open. Her reaction was a surprise and human enough to draw sympathy.
The stone Jason and Oz hid behind was overtaken quickly, each of them was only able to take a few shots with their rifles before it became a melee. Their vacsuits hardened under the crushing pressure of grasping hands and other appendages while Jason and Oz were forced to switch to their sidearms and fire on their half dozen assailants at point blank range. After a few seconds they had won free from most of them.
“Run! There are more coming!” Oz shouted over his intermittently functional proximity radio.
“I'll split right!” Jason replied as he fired several rounds into the main chassis of a short cleaning bot. The operating lights on its body flickered out while its upper arm held fast to Jason's thigh. He took a shot at the elbow, blasting the joint apart as he started running. The limb remained clamped onto the hardened section of his vacsuit for several steps before it finally let go.
The desperation of their situation became evident as they left cover. Oz counted sixteen various machines who were about to reach their former refuge and they all turned to give chase as quickly as their legs, wheels and tractor treads would allow. They crossed the paved surface and rounded a ruined fountain with the mechanical pursuers gaining before they reached another section of unpaved sand.
“Those military bots aren't firing.” Jason announced through the crackling proximity radio.
Oz looked back to see a group of military bots making their way across the sand in the distance. He'd never seen their type before, but judging from their angular, thin, half humanoid shaped builds and the barrels built into their white and black camouflaged torsos he guessed that they were within range despite the hundreds of meters between them. “I'm going to try something!” he replied as he tossed a nearly empty clip into the air.
The mechanized troops opened fire on it after it was to the left of the various bots chasing them. A trail of light traced the cartridge as it arced through the air and finally landed in the sand. “They're afraid to hit the service bots behind us.”
“Interesting, if we can keep ahead of them we might survive,” Jason called back.
As soon as the service and luxury bots chased them from the paved surfaces to the sand most of them slowed down, their artificial feet and wheels sunk into the sand. The maintenance bots, with their rolling treads, were still slowly catching up.
Oz saw Jason break to his right towards a short service trench in the sand. Fine wire mesh held the sand back from filling the meter and a half deep path that led to the base of a flattened building. What the purpose of that structure was before it was destroyed by some devastating explosion no longer mattered, the short trench would provide just enough of a space to offer a temporary refuge for his best friend. He would be in the open for several meters as he ran towards it however, and the military bots would have a clear shot at him.
Oz spun around and dropped to one knee, opening fire with his high intensity rifle, sending thirty energy rounds per second at the military bots in the distance with the assistance of the digital sight built into his headpiece. As predicted he only hit his mark a few times, but it was enough. The bots were peppered with rounds as he increased the rifle's intensity and several were mowed down as they tried to reach him.
The military bots began firing at him as well, obviously deciding that killing him was a greater priority than preserving the functionality of their lesser cousins. The service bots were fully caught in the crossfire, and while Oz had the military bots distracted Jason reached his refuge, turned around and took aim with his own rifle.
Bracing himself against the top of the trench, he began firing bursts at the military bots. The few shots that landed did little visible damage but it got their attention.
Oz rolled to his feet and made a run for the ruins of a small information booth. Its concrete backing was perfect cover and it was the only intact portion of the structure. His visor flashed red and marked several points on his long coat where energy rounds from the mechanized troops had struck. As one shot broke through the armoured surface of his long coat to be stopped by his vacsuit he jumped behind the concrete slab.
Before Jason ducked under cover he fired a burst into the last servant bot, its limping gait and several scorch marks made it look haggard, half ruined. His torso blasted open and he twitched onto his back, separated from his hips.
His panicked, painful shrieks filled the air between the sounds of their own breaths as Jason and Oz struggled to catch their breath.
“What the hell is that?” Oz asked.
“A serving bot, guess I missed the main systems,” Jason called back, opting for old fashioned yelling instead of using his failing proximity radio.
Oz poked the end of his rifle out from behind the corner and saw the screeching torso writhing there, trying to claw at the sand with its remaining functional arm. Angling his point of view up he caught sight of the military bots, still marching, slowly, surely closing the few hundred meters between them. A few of the more heavily armed bots were rolling quickly across the sand on wide treads straight towards the Silkstream IV.
He leaned out just enough to fire a long burst into the screaming bot and silenced it once and for all. Before he managed to get back behind cover several rounds from the mechanical soldiers zipped past and he counted himself lucky none had hit their mark. Each point of light melted small spots of sand.
He looked to the rock face and took another moment to catch his breath. They were less that fifty meters from the front of the resort, over sixty from the double doors that, upon a closer look, were scorched and marked by weapon's fire like everything else. “Condition check!” Oz called out.
“I've got a few minor burns, and I can't risk any more hits on my suit. You?”
“My coat's taken most of the hits. It's starting to break down.” Oz replied before once again increasing the power level on his rifle. He stood and took several shots at the bots heading towards the Silkstream IV. He managed to blow one in half, showering the other bots in sparks and white hot ruined parts.
They returned fire, striking the thick concrete block Oz hid behind with white hot energy bursts.
“I wish they installed an auto destruct system in that ship,” Jason called out.
“Grenade!” Oz replied as he quickly moved to one side of his concrete slab and fired the secondary barrel of his rifle at the military bots and the Silkstream IV behind them. The first two shots landed at the feet of the machines, sending them flying in all directions. The third and final shot in his secondary magazine sailed through the air on a perfect trajectory to land inside the Silkworm IV but bounced off the top edge of the lip of stone it rested upon. The grenade exploded a second after hitting the sand, adding to the carnage of twisted metal and circuitry but doing no damage to the ship they had arrived in.
“Damn that was close!” Jason called out.
“Hard shot,” Oz said as he once again took cover. “The others are coming around to outflank us. We have to move but there's no cover between us and those doors. Are you sure they'll get us somewhere useful?”
“They look secure, someone's got to be behind them. Theirs some kind of field blocking my scans so I'm guessing there's someone hiding behind it. One sec, taking the shot.” Jason said as he stood up as high as he dared, aimed as quickly as he could and fired his last grenade.