Eagle X, Mission 21: CTRL

Part 26: Liam

Liam fired twice, hitting one target in the shoulder and the other in the hip. Both fell off the roof without a sound. Their cold, emotionless, expressions matched those of the thousands of attackers surrounding the building. Two more of the indoctrinated scramble over the rooftop battlement. Liam shot once into the chest of a man in a recreational tunic and his rifle clicked empty. This was his third clip, one hundred-twenty rounds, and the horde just kept coming. Gravel crunched as the second indoctrinated charged him, it was a woman with flowing blue hair and a bloodstained face. He backed up as he quickly ejected the empty clip and slapped in a fourth. She was on him as he jacked a round into the chamber. He ducked down, getting under her shoulder, then popped up, taking her off her feet and over the battlement.

She fell off the side in silence, the eerie taboo tugging at Liam's nerves.

The constant sound of gunfire below told him that the defenders still held the structure, but it was only a matter of time. There were too many and the indoctrinated didn't react to standard tactics. Most enemies were checked out of a fight once you delivered a mortal or particularly painful wound. These people had been pushed past such responses. They kept coming unless you put them down. The team had spent the last decade as mercenaries of some type or other, but they weren't cold-blooded killers. None of them would have signed up to murder civilians, but it was proving the only way to stop Mastermind-308's army.

"I could use some backup, boss!"

Nubia's words ticked across his lenses as part of her cry drifted into his ears. She whizzed overhead on her hover disc with a dozen drones following in her wake. Some were equipped with projectile weapons, but the majority were equipped with two-foot prods that sparked with electricity.

"Southside!" Liam shouted, running in the indicated direction.

The xnean, Chillard, was crouched down, eyes wide and clutching a stun pistol in a tight grip. The man had very little, if any, real world experience in the field, but had demonstrated a textbook understanding of weapons and tactics. He might have been a secret agent for The Armada, but he was no soldier.

Liam propped his rifle atop the battlement and set it to automatic as Nubia came around. She wove between two buildings to put a little space between herself and the drone swarm.

Nubia: Any day now!

She risked a glance back and shot a pair of machines out of the sky.

"Bring them right to me," Liam insisted.

Nubia rocked forward like a surfer might to stay ahead of a cresting wave and the disc gained a burst of speed. As she dashed past his field of fire, Liam took a deep breath and opened up on the swarm. The leading drones were cut to shreds in a hail of bullets. The ones behind crashed into one another as they scrambled to evade. Pieces of debris rained down on the hundreds of indoctrinated held back by the security fences around the perimeter.

Nubia: Thanks, boss. This mission has gotten pretty hairy. Maybe it's time we start thinking about falling back.

"Not yet, Nubia. We're gonna see this one through." He dropped the clip and loaded a new one. Two clips left.

Nubia: I didn't sign up with this outfit to martyr myself fighting an insane machine.

"No, you signed up to fight The Pale Garden." Liam sniped a quartet of indoctrinated who squeezed through the security fence when the power cycled. "Someone check the generator, quick. I think the fence is about to fail again."

He scanned the rooftops and it wasn't long until he spotted the next swarm in the distance. He calculated they'd have five minutes before the drones were on them again.