The rounds pierced through the nose of the mecha first and then peppered the wings, ripping through the main spar. Several of the rounds passed through Saw's legs, completely separating his left leg at the hip joint and passing into the underside transfigure mechanisms of the mecha. His g-suit sealed off around the wound and immediately began pumping painkillers and adrenaline into his system, as his left leg fell bloody and limp against the pilot's couch. He bit down in pain on his mouthpiece, and the painkillers flooded his body and relieved the searing in his left side enough for him to remain coherent.
"Get out of there, Carl!" Jawbone screamed over the net.
"Aaarhh," Saw screamed to clear his head. Reaching up with his right hand and letting go of the HOTAS, he pulled at the eject handle. "Eject, eject, eject."
The canopy popped, throwing the lieutenant clear from the failing mecha. AA railguns continued to rip away at the craft, tearing through the armor because the structural integrity force fields had been depleted. The wings and the empennage tore free as rest of the mecha was reduced to debris, and then the power plant ruptured into an orange and white fireball. The force from the exploding mecha sent the ejection chair reeling. The autonomous thruster system kicked in and damped the ride, allowing the gliderchute to pop. By this time, the g-loading and the trauma to the young lieutenant junior grade was too much, and he lost consciousness as his chute drifted with the morning Florida winds.
"Goddamn bastards!" Delilah continued to corkscrew toward the lake, burning through two of the yachts to the water beneath them, which was apparent by the puffs of steam spreading out from around the sinking and exploding ship. Several more yachts continued fire, but Jawbone's mecha was too low and fast to get hit by the slow point and track algorithms of the AA cannons.
She tugged the HOTAS back to her stomach with her left hand and toggled the bot mode with her right pinky. The transfiguration at her present speed stalled her, so she kicked down on the right upper foot pedal to add some rudder in order to slip her into the mode change easier. The fighter-mode mecha rolled and then pitched forward into a tumble that left the FM-12 standing upside down in bot mode. The DEGs continued to blast during the entire maneuver.
James, go auto on the cannons, I've got the DEG!
Roger that, ma'am.
The bot flipped upright with the forty-millimeter railgun cannons atop each shoulder of the FM-12 strike mecha, firing in rapid auto while holding the DEG like a rifle at the hip with the left mechanical hand. Blue-green energy bolts danced across the lake as the bot splashed into it. Water and steam spewed around each DEG blast. Just as the plane submersed completely underwater due to the momentum of its falling trajectory, Jawbone could see through the QM sensors that a blast of directed energy had hit home on a third yacht, causing it to explode violently.
Take that, you sorry motherfuckers.
Oorah! her AIC replied.
The mecha finally hit bottom several tens of meters deep and damned near sunk in the muck at the bottom. The bot bumped into an alligator, stirring it and likely scaring it out of its few reptilian wits. The three-and-half-meter-long, green and brown reptile bumped into the cockpit snout-first and stared right at Delilah and then turned and swam in a frightened hurry in the opposite direction from the mecha.
"You better swim away, you motherfucker," she grunted, and then chewed at her mouthpiece for a burst of air.
Jawbone kicked at the yaw pedal and worked the HOTAS until she was swimming, or more accurately, flying under the water. The QM sensors pinged the lake and painted red dots where the boats with AA cannons were located on the surface above her. At full throttle, she pushed her mecha upward through the bottom of one of the yacht's fibercomposite hulls, sweeping the DEG back and forth like a sling blade. She trashed and thrashed through the yacht, somersaulting upward at half throttle and then cutting the power at the peak of her arch, rolling backward, flipping over feet-down, and crashing through another yacht.
A few more seconds of the trash and thrash, and the AA boats were sinking, smoking, piles of wreckage that the EPA would have to clean up. But as far as she could tell, there hadn't been a single human being aboard any of the vehicles. They had all been AI-driven.
James, did Saw make it to ground?
Yes, Jawbone. The SARs have been detached for him. The AIC assured Delilah that the search and rescue (SAR) teams knew about Saw and were on their way.
Good. Now, where is the president?
One mile west, here. A blue dot in her DTM started blinking on and off.
Right. Delilah toggled the bot back to fighter mode and jetted in the direction of the mechanical spider, zigging and zagging through trees and the occasional golf resort condominium.
"Jawbone! Goddamn, girl, you were doing some serious trashing and thrashing down here." Heehaw's voice broke through on the net, as his and several other FM-12s dropped from supersonic above her. The booms crashed against the cockpit, rattling Delilah's bones.
"Yeah, well, tell that to Saw." She pitched up the fighter-mode plane and pushed forward on the HOTAS with her left hand and yanked along the vector to the presidential limo.
"Roger that."
"I've got a vector on the limo. Who's on me?"
"Jaw, take the point. We're with you, Lieutenant Strong."
"Heehaw, DTMs showing incoming on the limo's tail." Delilah checked her QMs for better resolution on the incoming. They appeared to be airplanes. Very old airplanes.
"Roger that, Jawbone. I've got 'em in view," Heehaw replied. "Want to go fishing?"
"I call worm!" Jawbone quickly added.
She slapped the throttle forward and bounced the stick left then right as her mecha dipped below the tree line. The Florida pines stood well over thirty meters tall, giving the presidential limo some cover. She nosed down and rocketed between an opening in several of the trees, finding a driving lane from which to approach the limo. She was fairly sure that the SIFs and the modern armor of the marine mecha could withstand a fly-through of one of the trees at the velocity she was traveling, but Delilah really didn't want to test them. After all, she was only fairly sure. One of the trees ahead of her began to fall toward the limo, and she had to back off of the throttle even more, so as not to hit the tree's top as she vectored in on the attack planes.
"BIL, we've got company!" Alexander shouted. There were several red dots in his DTM careening toward them at a fairly hard clip. The visual sensors showed that they appeared to be ancient, propeller- driven biplanes from World War I. Three of the plastic planes zoomed through the pine trees, hot on BIL's tail on collision trajectories. BIL juked and jinked through the Florida pines, barely keeping the planes off his tail.
Four more of the planes dropped in on them and apparently had railguns, as trees in front of them were being chewed up. One thirty- meter-tall pine's trunk exploded from the cannon fire and started falling toward them. BIL managed to duck under the tree and spring upward through its falling branches, mostly unscathed. But then one of the planes got the angle on the armored garbage truck and peppered the front end of the vehicle with several rounds.
"BIL!" Dee cried out. The ringing of the railgun rounds against his forward hull scared her.