Chapter 167

  I should not have been surprised that things were falling apart. Armageddon bots were a tool used by the Brotherhood and outlawed in much of human space. They were strictly controlled because if a rogue AI was piloting the bot, then the devastation wrought would be immeasurable. I started to get alerts on my HUD from Francis. We only had 90 seconds before they arrived, and the model of these Armaggedon bots was not in our database. That was even more bad news as we now knew they were newer models. At least something that was built in the last fifteen years.

  Abby sent me a comm that the Squirrel were on board the shuttle. I ran a bunch of scenarios in my head and came to a decision. I ordered my squad into another interior hanger bay and ordered the shuttles to retrieve us there. I had my Marines lay mines in the corridor and doorway to the hangar. At the same time, they were doing that, I was trying to override the controls to open the bay doors.

  We should have left on the Void Phoenix and would have if I had known the Armageddon bots were on board the station. It was a tactical mistake on my part—one that I should not have made. The controls were locked out and frozen. I ordered a Marine to cut an access door to space nearby just as the first mine in the corridor went off. Francis confirmed the bots had arrived.

  All the Marines switched on their SSH. Solid state holograms. These would act independently and hopefully draw some fire from the assaulting bots. The door exploded, and ten bots rushed in and spread out. We covered the door in an overlapping fire, damaging most of them as they entered the bay. They quickly spread out after entering, all ten functional, meaning two must have been incapacitated in the corridor. The Marines quickly had fire teams focusing on one bot at a time as my HUD went into overdrive with a constant stream of information on the battle.

  The SSH holograms only fooled the bots for seconds as they understood their shots caused ripples in the projection and that they were not real. The bots did not care about taking cover and ran in the open, taking fire but also firing rapidly with plasma weapons mounted on each arm. Their rate of fire was not impressive but steady as superheated blue pellets splashed around the large hangar.

  My helmet was filtering flashes and tracking enemy and friendly movement as I fired my own heavy weapon of white bolts. The good news was the plasma rounds from the bots were only scorching and heating our armor. The bots figured this out, and the remaining nine bots focused fire on a Tirani. His suit could not dissipate the heat from the intense, concentrated fire. We had made numerous upgrades to the suits, including heat sinks, but it was just too much fire-focused on him.

  A fellow Marine stepped in front of him, which caused the bots to spread out further to maintain their firing angle. They were incredibly fast, and our suits targeting systems were getting hit rates of 33% on average.

  The Tirani howled as he cooked in his suit. The now eight remaining Armageddon bots switched to their next target. The Marine, a woman, had been the most effective in targeting the bots with her own heavy weapon. My HUD showed her hit rate at 48%, so the bots first targeted the most significant threats. The Marine took cover, forcing the bots to circle again, giving us time to reposition and destroy another.

  The massive entry bay door flashed in a circular burst as our shuttle’s heavy breaching laser cutter created its own entrance. Marines flooded out as the heavy metal hull thudded down. Abby rushed forward, directing her men. Two of my Marines grabbed the screaming Tirani. The bots must have melted his pharmaceutical injectors to block the pain. The bay was no longer pressurized, so they needed to get him somewhere with atmosphere to remove his suit.

  With Abby’s squad’s additional firepower, we quickly took down the remaining Armaggedon bots. My own suit had over a dozen plasma burns. As we retreated onto the shuttle, Abby said we had been lucky since the bots had used station-friendly weapons. The small pellet plasma guns were too weak to destroy the station walls but deadly against unarmed foes. Any conventional power armor would also have been destroyed with just a few shots. Unfortunately, another one of our secrets was now revealed to the Brotherhood.

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  The shuttle departed with everyone on board. We took fire from the station defenses, just ant-missile lasers. That was all this civilian station had. I immediately got back to the larger space battle, sliding into the co-pilot’s chair to get an update on the battle.

  I took in the data, and it looked like Francis had the Fateweaver in the thick of combat to protect the Void Phoenix. Celeste was too concerned with her Wren friends on the planet to leave. The capital building was in mostly ruins, and those operatives were lifting off in their shuttle now.

  They had one dead and three wounded from the bombardment by the army that was attempting a coup. The good news was the Navy had, in turn, had eradicated the army. They had also decided to kill the political revolutionary prisoners that were in transit. We had requested them freed as a distraction. They succeeded in destroying the transports and moved to attack the prison itself. This was probably because our Marines had infiltrated the facility, and the alarm had sounded. That bombardment had stopped as the Void Phoeinx, and Fateweaver engaged the fleet in orbit.

  All our Slipstream fighters were in the outer system and could not assist in the remainder of the absolute mess. Four Navy ships were attacking the Void Phoenix, and six more were targeting the Fateweaver. Two others were already wrecks and would soon be taken by the planet’s gravity, so much for remaining undetected.

  The Void Phoneix was swatting down missiles and firing its grazer, doing massive damage with each hit. The Fateweaver, commanded by Francis, was in the midst of the space battle, serving as a distraction and keeping the ships focused on them. The shields of the cruier had not even been penetrated yet. The Void Phoenix was not quite as lucky, as a few shield emitters had burned out, and the hull had some score marks. The hull plating was holding, though. The focus was getting the Wren twins off the planet. I checked, and there was a problem, as Ezra and Emil wanted to take other prisoners with them.

  Francis was arguing with them, and I cut in on the comms. I just yelled squeeze whoever they could on the shuttle and lift off. Ten minutes later, the two Marines shuttles were in the air with ground defenses trying to track them, but the army was in disarray, and it took a simple friendlies, don’t fire message to prevent them from firing.

  Getting all the shuttles back to the Fateweaver took chasing off the fleet in orbit. Three more system ships were destroyed before they finally broke orbit and fled to their military space station on a dead planet elsewhere in the system.

  I was glad to be back on board and found thirty-six Wren on my ship from the prison. The familiar acid ammonia smell filled my nostrils when I took my helmet off. I ordered them all locked up, including Ezra and Emil. When I got to the bridge, I ordered the Fateweaver to head out to collect the fighters.

  I told Francis I was transferring him and twelve Mairnes to the Void Phoenix. He was to take command by force if necessary. Under the guise of returning her two Squirrel engineers and the Wren brothers, Francis boarded the ship and took command from a protesting Celeste. I was going to make sure the Void Phoenix and all my children made it home. Since Celeste continued to protest, I had them all transferred to the brig on the Fateweaver.

  We had lost three men in this rescue attempt, and I was going to make Celeste know their lives were on her reckless behavior. We left the system with the Slipstream fighters retrieved, but I knew the damage had been much greater than the lives lost. The Brotherhood had ships incoming, and they would have evidence of our presence and some of our capabilities.

  I left all my children and their cohort in the brig the entire trip back. Abby was tasked with their detention, and she stopped to breakout attempts. One was assisted by Eve and Emma. So, I had them locked up as well. The whole trip back, I was trying to decide what to do for their disciple.

  When we arrived in the Bradbury system, all my thoughts on discipline ended. There were two Sylvan city ships in the system. We also had five Fateweavers in the system, protecting the planet with our other defense ships. The only good thing was it appeared no combat had broken out. I got an immediate comm from Edmund. Desdemona was on board the city ship. She had been for the last four days in negotiations. It was working because they had docked all their War Chariots.

  I had no idea how they had arrived so soon, but it was obvious this problem was not going away. Two Amaggdeon missiles could end the threat, but it was best to talk with Desdemona first. I could not believe she was confident enough and brave enough to board the Sylvan ship. At least Rae’Ver was still in his asteroid prison. I asked comms to be opened to the Sylvan….