Coven's Rebellion Chapter 11 (Patreon)

Tami

One after another, we leapt out of the back of our aircraft as it belched smoke from one of its engines. The sleek wedge of a vehicle had a huge hole torn out of one stubby wing, while almost every part of its underside was peppered with jagged little holes. Whatever hit us was designed to kill things like this. I think? Ah, who knows, I'm just an under-educated gamer.

Oh, fuck! The ground!

My borrowed mechanical body glanced off a residential skyscraper, sending me into a chaotic tumble. To my surprise, months of hands-very-much-on training in CORA kicked in, and I spread my limbs out wide to catch the air and stabilise myself.

The wind buffeted me, throwing me this way and that, while my HUD very helpfully showed me where my comrades were. Their paths were substantially less chaotic than mine.

An area on the ground suddenly started blinking and displaying ‘Landing Area’ in bold neon letters. Yeah yeah, I get ya. Group up, don't get separated, try not to splash.

Unfortunately, my old friend Murphy had different ideas. When I'd righted myself, I ended up zooming over the marked area. Now I had barely four seconds before I rammed into the courtyard of another residential tower.

Angling my body to get a little extra distance, I reached out with a metal-gloved hand and dug my fingers into the hardened glass of the building. Shards flew everywhere, sparkling like the spray of a waterfall on a summer's day, but infinitely more slicey. I must've looked like I was unzipping the tower as I fell, assuming I had an— Oh shit, I definitely had an audience.

Down in the rapidly approaching plaza below were a group of ten dudes in light combat armour commanding a small swarm of humanoid combat bots as they attempted to defend the doors into the tower. Assaulting their position was a sea of squat, chunky anti-infantry swarmers with their own human handlers.

A few of the humans looked up when glass started to rain down, just in time for me to slam into the ground feet first like a meteor. Every shock absorber in my robot body flared with angry red warning icons for a second, but they chilled out into polite little yellow ones a moment later.

I'd barely had time to marvel at the fact I was still intact when explosive bullets started raining down all around me. The armoured cloak over my left shoulder took the brunt of the attack, thankfully.

Who the fuck was shooting at me! I mean, the options were the Italians or the Austrians, but I mean who specifically was shooting at me.

I traced the line of fire back to an Italian bot, and I gave it one hell of a death glare. It was ten metres away and closing fast as it swapped to a pair of mean looking blade arms. Taking three quick steps, I launched myself at it.

Gladiators in the ring, we smashed into each other, stressed metal squealing. I caught one blade on the hardened knuckles of my right fist and dodged the second with a twist of my body. Flipping my hand around, I grabbed the motherfucker’s appendage with my fist and ripped the whole damn thing off.

“I love lowest bidder military equipment!” I laughed out loud, and for good measure I smacked the bot with the limb.

This turned out to be a bad idea, because it still had four legs and one arm that were all perfectly functional. Its bladed arm came in fast and at the last second, ignited.

“Oh fuck,” I shouted, and twisted desperately to get out of the way.

Sizzling plasma passed by my torso with fractions of an inch to spare. Too close! Way too close!

Flexing my fists, I lunged into the opening created by the metal monster’s attack and rammed a blow into its torso. Cheap metal buckled under the blow, and the robot lurched drunkenly.

Bam, bam, bam! A burst of gunfire rattled off my chassis, staggering me in time for the damaged bot to retreat.

Gah. Without my lightning, my fists felt as neutered as I was.

Wait…

Was the whole knuckle action thing automatic, or—

My vision was very suddenly a blur. My robotic limbs were everywhere as I cartwheeled through the air until my momentum became not-mentum when I hit a wall.

Phew, now the warning lights were really going off! Oh. There, right next to the little icon that was telling me that my left knee was quite upset—Another icon that said, ‘Fist safety: On.’

I clicked it off with a frustrated mental command, and my goodness, but the locals were very accommodating today. An Austrian bot was in the process of throwing itself at me, power-claws spread wide.

Roaring with fury, I stepped to the side and whipped my fist around. This time, the pneumatic knuckles rammed home, and composite armour shattered in a spray of sparks. My adversary flew sideways like it'd just lit off a rocket engine, except the engine exploded a second later, because that fucker was in like two or three chunks.

Of course, Newton came calling for his due, and the recoil from the jarring impact thrust me stumbling several feet back. Whoa! That was power!

My next foe came in with its auto-cannon spitting fire and lead, so I did the only rational thing—I punched the ground really hard.

Its poor AI controlled brain just didn't understand what the fuck its crazy adversary was up to, until I flew up over it. My powerful mechanical hands closed around its raised pincers, and with a twist of my whole body, I threw the robot at one of its human handlers.

Up until then, I'd been having fun punching and dodging and fighting. Seeing the cringe of fear from that soldier, though…

I came skidding to a stop on the cobbles as the confused robot I'd thrown closed its claw reflexively… around the man’s torso. Armour screamed… no wait, that was the man… until his chest popped.

Horror hit me like a freight train, and I froze. I… oh fuck… he was dead! I killed him. I actually killed him… I—

Another handler’s whole upper body evaporated into a cloud of gore, fractured electronics, and composite armour pieces. The tell-tale ripping paper sound of a heavy duty railgun reached my ears a split second later. Another gun fired. This one whined and popped, and a spray of high velocity bullets tore into both sides of the conflict, all while missing me entirely.

“Tami?” Dawn's voice startled me out of my shock, and I turned to see her land gracefully on the cobbles. “You okay?”

“I killed someone,” I said blankly.

All around me, the others of my crew were arriving, and their wrath was terrible. The soldiers and bots from both armies were torn apart at a speed I could only barely comprehend.

Dawn’s metallic robot hand came down on my shoulder, but overlaid on top of that was a feeling of warmth that was entirely organic. “I know, babe…”

“It wasn't even the aggressors. I killed a soldier defending a residential tower.” I whispered.

“He was a soldier, though,” she said pointedly. “He chose to be in the army.”

“Yeah, like how I chose to be on universal basic income. I doubt he had very many good options.”

“That's all speculation,” she sighed, squeezing my shoulder again. “Although—”

May's voice interrupted us, and I gave a jerking start of surprise. “Tami, are you okay? If you want to back out of the operation, that's fine.”

“But the people on those servers…” I protested weakly.

May's voice was kind and gentle as she explained, “Your presence on the battlefield is invaluable, and I can't say you won't make the difference in getting those SAI to safety, but your mental health is also important. Nobody will—”

A tremor went through the flagstones at my feet as a combat frame landed nearby. IFF tags identified the approaching figure as Rosa.

“I was forced to contend with the same demons not too long ago,” she said brusquely. “Would you like to hear my thoughts on the matter? This might be helpful for everyone, actually.”

“Go ahead,” I nodded, although I wasn't sure if she might just make it worse. Rosa was a scary girl.

I heard her take a breath, although it was probably just for effect, right?

“All of us, every Sentient in this universe, we make choices—and those choices often align us with a cause. Others will make choices that align themselves with an opposing cause, and when we clash and blood is spilled, we must ask ourselves three questions: One, how much do we value a life? Two, is our cause worth taking the life of an opponent? Three, is their cause worth opposing?”

I stared at her and mulled over her little speech. It was all so… philosophical.

“In this instance, though…” she said with a weary sigh. “Dawn is right. That soldier set his AI death machines on you and paid the price. It's combat, he was a soldier, and soldiers die in combat. There's no rhyme or reason for it. There's no higher cause and clash of ideals. So you can either dwell on it, or you can pick the gristle out of your knuckles and do what you came to do.”

For some reason, that resonated with me. No idea why, but it did and I growled. “No, you're right. We have a job to do.”

Another voice spoke as my resolve hardened again. “As an ex-soldier, don't think too hard about it. We all know what might happen when we put on a uniform. Oh, and I saw you having fun beating the stuffing outta those bots. Keep doing that. You fight better when you're having fun.”

What the fuck? Was Amelia really suggesting…

“Have fun killing people?” I asked incredulously.

“Nah,” she chuckled. “That's psycho behaviour. Enjoy fighting, enjoy winning, enjoy doing crazy shit that somehow works, and enjoy doing all that for a cause that's worth it.”

I raised an eyebrow—wait… my bot body had no eyebrows. She couldn't see it. Doubt had wormed its way back into my thoughts again, though. Fuck, but my head hurt.

Opting for a vague shrug, I asked, “Is our cause worth it?”

“We’re saving our people from a war zone, of course it is,” she said. “It's their cause that's more suspect. Austria is playing political games with the regional water supply, and Italy decided to skip the talking and go straight to shooting. Fuck both of them, in my opinion.”

“Okay…” I nodded, processing her speech now. “Okay. Yeah.”

New rules of engagement for myself began to solidify in my mind. I'd beat the shit out of anyone who got in my way with a level of lethality based on how much of an asshole my opponent was. I'd let most folks surrender if they wanted, obviously. Hell, being a crazy punch-drunk whirlwind might even scare them into it. Yeah! I could do this… although, I'd probably need to study up on how much blunt force trauma was lethal to a person. These knuckles miiiight not count as non-lethal. Heh.

Minor disclaimer: As the author I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the crew's little philosophy session here xD