Brad had no time to think, only react. His emblem pulsed in his ear, shifting tone with his movement. The system knew what was coming before he did.
The projection on his shield adjusted in real-time, marking vectors, trajectories, the blurred readout of an enemy already in motion. He didn’t have to process it—he trusted the emblem, trusted his instincts.
CLANG.
His shield took the full impact, the force traveling through the heavy steel slab. There was nothing to dampen the kinetic shock—no padding, no stabilizers. Only mass. And yet, he didn’t stumble, didn’t have to brace.
He had thought of it before, but only now, in the middle of combat, did it start to bother him. He should feel the weight of the shield, should feel the strain in his arms, but he didn’t. Whatever the armor or the emblem was doing to let him lift it in the first place had another effect—one he couldn’t comprehend, but appreciated.
"Now!" Mendez shouted.
Chen vanished from view.
He caught the briefest flicker of his form—his body falling upward, counter to every natural law. The gravitational gradient of the KMS-Alpha vest pulled him toward the wasp.
They had a small window—a moment of vulnerability just after a wasp fired when its stabilizers reset. They had learned that the hard way.
Chen’s voice came through comms, eerily steady. "You ready, Jackson?"
Jackson was already in position, the Scorpion rifle leveled and patient. Five rounds hung in front of him, suspended, waiting—kinetic energy arrested in midair, locked in place.
He didn’t fully understand what he was seeing.
He knew Jackson’s weapon was different, something not built by the Hub, not printed like their standard gear. He knew Jackson wasn’t military, but he carried himself like someone who had spent years handling a weapon. And yet, Brad barely knew the man.
He had been with Chen. Jackson had been with Mendez. He had seen glimpses of how Jackson fought, had heard the chatter over comms, but that was different from knowing what to expect.
Now, watching Jackson work, Brad could tell he was deliberate. Calculated. He wasn’t second-guessing his setup—he was waiting.
"You think five is enough?" Jackson asked, his tone unreadable.
He didn’t have an answer.
He wasn’t sure if Jackson was showing confidence or covering his nerves. Maybe it didn’t matter. What mattered was whether Chen could bring the wasp into position before the timing failed.
"Get to the spot," Mendez ordered.
He was already moving. He didn’t need to confirm—they all had a role to play.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
If Chen missed his mark, if the shot didn’t land, if the wasp survived—Brad had to be in position to cover him.
Because when things went south, for Chen, that could be very literal.
Chen couldn't actually grab hold of the wasp. Maybe he could, but none of them had decided that was a risk worth taking. The KMS-Alpha vest wasn't a grappling hook—it didn’t let him pull things in, just change how he fell.
And right now, he was falling against the sky.
The gravitational gradient tugged at W-9, disrupting its flight. Its supersonic airfoils fought to compensate, but Chen had already seen the pattern.
They had tested it before, taken shots at wasps under the same conditions. It wasn’t as simple as making them easy targets—that would have been too convenient. The drag wasn’t enough to freeze them midair, just enough to make them unpredictable.
But unpredictable worked both ways.
"You're lined up, Jackson," Chen said.
"Yeah, I see it," Jackson responded. His voice was steady, but Brad still wasn’t sure if it was confidence or just the practiced calm of someone who knew his weapon.
The five Scorpion rounds floated in the air, waiting.
He still didn’t get how that thing worked, but he didn’t need to.
What mattered was that W-9 was drifting right where they wanted it.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then one of the rounds snapped forward, breaking from its stasis.
It was like watching a string pull taut. W-9 jerked in place, the round striking just off-center—not a kill shot, but enough to force the machine into a tailspin.
Chen twisted his body, shifting his fall, breaking off before he could be pulled into its path.
He’s emblem pinged a new target marker.
W-9 was falling.
Right toward him. Brad spared a quick check for Chen but the man must have redirected himself already.
He didn’t think. The Nokk was already in his hands.
Brad shifted his stance, muscles coiling as he brought the Nokk around.
As he swung, the hammer began to glow—a light that wasn’t just bright, but wrong, almost ultraviolet, shifting in colors he wasn’t even sure his eyes were meant to see. It traced the arc of his movement, lingering like an afterimage burned into the air itself.
Then it connected.
For an infinitesimal fraction of time, there was impact. A moment where matter met force, before the hammer’s energy annihilated everything in its path.
The section of W-9 that had been struck didn’t just break—it ceased to exist.
Sparks erupted, not orange, not blue, but something else entirely, shimmering like fractured glass catching light at the wrong angle. The energy flared, swallowing half the machine in an instant.
Brad didn’t need to think about what had happened. His brain was already doing the math.
He had never paid attention in physics class, yet somehow, the numbers slotted into place. He knew the answer—and more than that, he remembered how he knew it.
Mrs. Stratan.
The formula scrawled across the overhead projector, one of the old ones his school had dragged out of storage after someone had stolen all the laptops six years ago.
Mass. Distance. Acceleration.
Sixteen kilojoules of force. That was what had slammed the wasp into the asphalt.
His left arm raised the shield, instinct overriding thought, but it was too slow and unnecessary. The chassis crumpled on impact, what little remained scattering across the frozen pavement. A few loose chunks of dislodged gravel pinged off his armor, harmless.
Brad exhaled.
"It worked," Jackson said.
