“Elya, do you have any idea where Longhorn went?”

  Yes, I was observing the battle through your drones.

  A short video appeared in my augs. It showed two Type Fours hitting Longhorn from the side with spiked tentacles. Electric arcs flashed between the spikes and Longhorn’s body. She fell over twitching and was dragged away while everyone else was distracted by the horde of Macs.

  Before I had watched all of the video Ladybug had also realized the absence of her team leader. I heard her shouting “Longhorn? Longhorn?? Melanie, where are you?”

  “Captured by the Macks,” I answered.

  “How?”

  “Those robo-pests have reinvented the taser. Or maybe they paid attention when I used the same technology on them. Either way, it appears to work on MGs.”

  “We have to get her back!”

  “We will, but first we help the wounded.” The soldiers who were still capable were already tending to their wounded comrades, but the MGs and I had more first aid items to contribute. I gave my Nano-Regenerative Suite to a young woman who had taken a plasma hit to the face. It would save her eyes and mostly fix the rest of the skin.

  Mantis interjected ”Damnit, just finish up here! We’ll follow you but you better not fail Mel!”

  Apparently, I was now the de facto commander of a MG team that lost its leader. The decimated infantry platoon still had leadership in the form of Sergeant Wiley, the platoon sergeant. I would have to play it by ear as the hierarchy was complicated to say the least. Technically I had no authority to order the military around. But controlling most of our firepower gave me some implied authority. The MGs had Lieutenant rank by default and outranked the good sergeant, and apparently they were ready to follow me.

  So I accepted the unearned role of commander. I sent one helicopter back to Victoria with the wounded survivors, and told the rest to wait for my next wave of Bombardier drones. The latter was reluctantly accepted, but the Battle Bugs really wanted to move faster. Their attitude became a lot more positive when my drones attacked.

  The Bombardiers arrived at an altitude of three hundred meters and swooped down on the Macks like dive bombers. Dozens of Macks disappeared in fireballs, debris raining on the surroundings. From the enemy base another swarm of Sixes appeared, but this time they did not even reach my Bombardiers. The Dragonflies mowed them down with a vengeance.

  Moments later, the Lightnings appeared, and I immediately sent them to attack the surviving Macks. Now was the right time to advance. Elya helpfully displayed on my augs where the robots had dragged Longhorn. Apparently she showed it to the Battle Bugs too. Eagerly, the Bugs took point, covered under Pink Orchid’s protection. My remaining Battlecats and I followed behind, with a handful of the soldiers covering our flanks.

  Over the Mack base, I heard the angry buzz of rotors and the crackling of taser fire. Strong tasers. Against a human those might be lethal. The Lightning drones zipped back and forth over the mechanical pests and rained lightning on them. Some of the Macks were already re-educated to work for us, others were immobilized and smoking, but there were dozens left that tried to shoot down my drones.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  But they were distracted and we used that to our advantage. Decimating the enemy Macks some more in passing, we reached the tunnel entrance the Macks had dragged Longhorn into. The doors were closed, but my Battlecats quickly cut through the hinges and Mantis ripped the door from its frame with her superhuman strength. Inside, the corridors were eerily silent, only occasional machinery noises audible in the distance.

  While the remaining Macks outside and my Lightning drones annihilated each other, my impromptu unit pushed ahead through empty alien tunnels. We checked each room to avoid an ambush from behind, but only a few harmless maintenance drones were around. Mantis noted “Looks like they sent everything outside to fight!”

  Soon we heard fighting ahead of us. Metallic crashing like a sledgehammer on heavy steel rang from an open room, and I heard Longhorn cursing “Let go, you fucking…” Bzzzt. “AAArgh!!”

  We sprinted to the room from where the noise emanated. Inside, we saw a scene of devastation. One Type Four was lying in a corner, two tentacles missing, but it still tried to regain its footing. In the cabinet behind it was a big hole with sparking cables inside. But that paled in comparison to the beating Longhorn was delivering to the remaining Type Four. She had ripped off one of its taser-tentacles already and was clutching the other one, swinging the Mack around like a puppet. Despite Longhorn’s wounds, the robot pest was getting wrecked. Longhorn smashed it into machinery left and right, including the mind upload machine which would never be able to upload minds again.

  With a snarl, Mantis rushed ahead and slammed her blade through the Mack’s electronic eye.

  One of my Battlecats was almost as fast. With two long leaps, it was upon the crippled Mack in the corner and disemboweled it with its Omnicutter-claws.

  Silence descended on the room, only broken by Longhorn’s panting and the odd clanking of a machine somewhere else in the base. Seeing her team, she quickly retook command between gasps for air. “Huff.. good to see you.. huff.. check the surroundings for more Macks!”

  Then Longhorn noticed me and added “I’d never thought I would be so glad to see you!” Checking herself, she added “Oops, sorry, that came out wrong. Thanks so much for the save!”

  Buzzing and distorted, Elya’s voice came from a servo nearby which she abused as a loudspeaker.

  When you are done with the sappy reunion, you will find a bunch of incomplete Type Six drones two doors further down the corridor. Their explosive charges might be useful for demolition, and I can trigger them remotely for you.

  “Fuck yeah” Longhorn added and started moving towards the assembly workshop in question. Instead of the spear she had lost during her capture, she grabbed the Mack she had been fighting with and dragged it along. Sparks and smoke emanated from her improvised wrecking ball.

  We arrived to see two lonely assembly drones assembling more of the little Mack kamikaze drones. Longhorn rushed them in silent rage and pounded both into scrap. Finally, she calmed down and returned to a more deliberate approach to destroying the base. At her orders, the soldiers collected the explosives and moved from room to room, covered by the Battle Bugs and my remaining Battlecats. One by one, any important-looking thing in the base found itself decorated with a bomb against its most delicate parts. But sometimes, Mantis found it more convenient to slash her blade through the equipment in question.

  Ten minutes later, we returned to the surface and I commanded “Elya, blow the charges!”

  A series of detonations ripped through the base behind us. Seconds later, the people around me relaxed as no further Macks appeared. Instead, smoke was wafting out of the entrance we just had emerged from.

  I had a look at my tactical map and found further Mack units absent. Elya confirmed this.

  Within range of our drone surveillance, no more enemy units are visible.

  “Time to go home,” Longhorn announced. “But that really could have gone better!"