"Great job, Saw!" Jawbone rolled the bot back through the transfiguration to fighter mode, pouring on the afterburners to gain a little bit of altitude following her headlong plummet. "Your turn!"
Saw tripped the HOTAS to bot-mode and fell over like a crazed diver into a wild headfirst spin. This time, the bot spun in the other direction. Jawbone followed the flight pattern and jumped out just in front of his DEG track. The blue-green energy bolts blasted just a few tens of meters behind her into enemy targets; all the while, she drew fire from her wingman. Delilah would have smiled approvingly at the young lieutenant's performance had she not been choking down bile forced into her throat from the high-g corkscrew.
The forward group did its job of distracting and disrupting the strange air force of the no-fly zone. The second group of marines flew like a squadron of giant metal supermen, hell-bent on saving the day.
Captain Elliot grunted with the g-forces pressing him against the pilot's couch as the mecha rolled through a forward flip, dropping the FM-12 from the sky. The two three-clawed feet of the fighter clanged to the ground about twenty meters in front of the amphitheater where the president and his family were holed up. A quick survey of the environment led him to the realization that the president and his security detail were pinned down and surrounded in a small corner with only a short rock wall for cover. He would quickly fix that situation. Various fairy-tale creatures were charging their little redoubt and firing HVARs at them willy-nilly. How in the hell the AI-driven creatures had gotten so armed was a total mystery.
Heehaw marched his mecha between the president and the largest group of attackers, actually squashing under an armored foot an oversized white rabbit with a stopwatch, monocle, and railgun. The pavement and the robot gave way and crunched up under the mecha's feet. The marine captain pulled the directed energy gun in front of him with his giant left mechanized hand like a quick-drawing cowboy shooting from the hip and splashed the blue-green energy bolts over a wave of advancing fairy-tale robots. The burst from the DEG cut through the flimsy AI attackers, leaving them lying on the ground in pieces, sparks flying. He continued kicking and crunching others underfoot.
Several FM-12s landed nearby and converged on the amphitheater. In only a matter of seconds, the First Family was completely surrounded by giant armored bots flashing blue-green directed energy blasts in all different directions at the advancing line. To this point, the flying theme park rides had mostly been consumed by the first FM-12 group, but whatever or whoever was controlling them had shifted their modus operandi, and they started altering their flight patterns toward the mecha surrounding the president.
Heehaw! Red force on collision at eleven o'clock cherubs three, his AIC warned him.
Holy shit! That can't be good. Captain Elliot jumped upward, firing his boot thrusters and slightly offsetting his trajectory to the rapidly approaching Pegasus. "Too late for missiles," he grunted.
He shifted his mecha and grabbed at the wings of the attacking robot just as it passed in front of him. The large mechanized hands of the mecha caught the main spar of the right wing of the flying horse. Heehaw then spun two times completely around, converting the momentum of the beast into angular acceleration like an Olympic hammer thrower before letting the thing fly free into the side of the giant dome at Space Mountain. The flying horse collided back first into the dome, and then it shattered into sparks and a million pieces of debris and crushed through the roof of the complex.
"All right second team, give us some air coverage to the exit," Heehaw ordered over the net.
"You got it, boss. Guns, guns, guns," Jawbone replied. Her fighter- mode mecha spiraled and circled overhead and released several DEG bursts. Heehaw could hear secondary explosions in his external mic monitors. "Boss, we've got the strangest damned air force attacking us you've ever seen. And there is a shitload of them converging on you!"
Just then, one of the hovercars finally picked the right vector and impacted directly into one of the fighter-mode FM-12s overhead. The composite triceratops hit the fighter plane's underbelly, where the left-wing spar met the fuselage. The impact did little damage to the heavily armored fighter plane, but the energy transfer forced it into an unstable, three-dimensional spin. The plane continued to spin wildly to the limits of its g-rating, and then it crashed through the Big Thunder Asteroid Mining Colony. The marine never ejected, and there was quite an explosion following the crash on the other side of the park.
"Motherfucker," Heehaw muttered.
Adam, I've got several firing solutions if you want to go to missiles, his AIC alerted him.
We'll stick to ground for now. Let Jawbone handle the fliers. If she starts getting into trouble, you let me know. We've got to keep the First Family covered.
Yes, sir.
"Goddamnit, Thomas! What are these marines trying to do, get us killed? They've attracted more fire than they've avoided." The president kept his head ducked low behind the wall and watched the battle transpire through DTM. They had stopped returning fire since the marine mecha had arrived, hoping to conserve ammo and to avert the enemy's attention to the mecha. It had worked, except for the fact that the enemy had diverted its attention to the mecha protecting them.
"I see that, sir. Don't you think the surge was to be expected?"
"They could do better, Thomas! They could do better!" Moore flinched as something that looked like a giant Pegasus was flung overhead by one of the FM-12s. Then, just beyond that, he could see one of the marine fighters being hit and crashing wildly out of control across the park.
Abigail, where's my backup plan? Moore inquired.
On his way, sir.
"All right, ground team, I want two-on-two coverage, and start sweeping patterns toward the front gate down Main Street, U.S.A. Let's clear a path to get the VIP out of here. If we have to, we'll plow this road under. Shit!" Heehaw's mecha jerked as several railgun rounds zipped into the armor on the torso of the giant bot. "Good thing these things aren't very good shots." He turned his DEG left and returned the fire.
Get me a channel to the security team leader, Heehaw asked his AIC.
Channel is open, sir, and the detachment's client is code-named Bulldog. It is led by USMC Captain Thomas Washington.
"This is USMC Captain Adam Elliot. Captain Washington, we're here at your disposal to aid in extraction of Bulldog, over?"
"Copy that, Captain Elliot. Semper fi!" Thomas responded enthusiastically. "As you can tell, we're pinned down and would appreciate a clear path to the exit, thank you. The damned AI robots are lousy shots, but the hypervelocity rounds have just about chewed away our cover. We've got to make a move soon!"
"Affirmative," Elliott said. "We should make a run for the gate. I understand we have three VIPs?"
"Roger that," Thomas concurred. "Bulldog, Mama Bear, and Ice Cream are present. All three need extraction, immediately."
"Captain Washington, I suggest that three of my crew carry them out. And I suggest we do it now."
"Hold on. I'll get back to you."
Thomas leaned his back against the wall, checking his blaster charge. President Moore sat beside him, reloading his pistol with the last clip he had been given. They were all running out of ammo and were mostly dependent on the mechaheads from here on. It was habit of a good soldier to know exactly how much firepower he had at his disposal at all times. Like someone suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder, he double-checked the charge reading just to make sure.