By David C. Daoust
“You there,” the soldier questioned Colin, “you got a prosthetic heart?”
“How could you possibly know that?” Colin asked shocked and immediately distrustful. The only way they could know that was with his personal files. Considering his personal files didn’t even know that he was on this moon, he couldn’t figure out how these soldiers could.
“That’s not important,” the soldier answered back, as the carrier’s back-end opened up to reveal a pair of soldiers that approached Colin, “You’ll have to come with us.”
“What?” Colin said as the two men took him by his arms.
Colin wasn’t hav’n none of that.
He was tired of people escorting him around. The last time he let it play out, and he wound up in lockup anyway. No sooner had the soldier grabbed his arm than he twisted away. This sudden movement threw the soldier on his left off balance; instinctively the man had to catch himself. Colin forced the man in the same direction, using the soldier’s own reflexes against him, sent him careening into the soldier on his right. Colin found one man’s head with his elbow and another with his knee. Both armed soldiers were on the ground, unconscious, in a matter of seconds.
“How could you possibly know that?” Colin asked again vehemently, as he flicked his wrist, the hand gun stored there-in suddenly flipped out of his sleeve, followed by a strange mechanical whir as he steadied the weapon on the man atop the tank.
“Sir,” the soldier said as many of the carrier’s turrets began to turn towards Colin, “We really don’t have time for this.”
“I think we do,” Colin shot back, standing his ground.
“Listen,” the soldier conceded, seeing that Colin was not going to be reasonable, “You came up in a scan… Dr. Sun won’t finish her project ‘til anyone that can be injured, is accounted for. It’s for your own protection.”
“Did you say Dr. Sun?” the woman Colin had helped, who shielded both her son and Margo, protectively, as Colin began his assault on the soldiers, suddenly interjected, “You know where she is?”
“Yes mam, she’s aboard our barracks ship,” the soldier then added pointedly to Colin, “Where she is working to end this whole mess.”
“I’m Mari Swan, you need to take me to her at once,” Mari said to the soldier as she gathered up Margo in her arms and carried her to the back of the personnel carrier, setting her within, she ordered, “Help me with my son.”
“If you can help us get this man aboard you’re welcome to come along,” The tank commander said gesturing to Colin, the Royal name Mari just dropped clearly held no weight with the man above, “We’ll be going to her directly.”
“Listen,” Mari whispered as she approached Colin, “They clearly want to use an EM device, or maybe an ion cloud, either way anything with any kind of electronic function is going to seize for a good long while. Unless you got a way to keep your blood pumping during this time, I suggest you let them take you outside of the dead zone.”
Colin found himself awkwardly conceding his ground. He once again flicked his wrist, with another strange mechanical whir the powerful hand gun returned up his sleeve.
Colin got the two soldiers back on their feet, both rather sore at him.
Just as they loaded Mari’s still wheezing son onto the Carrier with both Margo and Mari, one of the soldiers pointed out the disturbance rushing towards them on a small radar device attached to his forearm.
Colin recognized the rather large figure as it approached in the distance. He was shocked to find a mining-bot charging at them. Something he recognized due to the fact that the central hub of his father’s ‘Organization’ was stationed on an old abandoned Crucible.
While the mining-bots Colin was familiar with were all lifeless junk; due to the factory portion of the Crucible no longer being in use. Often times the remnants of said bots were used as decoration around his home. Thus there was no mistaking, for Colin, the large armored form that currently rushed at them.
How the hell a mining-bot got to Twin Crown was beyond Colin.
The large, charging, unhappy, mining-bot suddenly appeared fully from the smoke and debris with a concrete laden streetlight in one hand. Colin watched as the bot threw the repurposed device with so much force that it streaked from his hand like a missile to soar through the air and crash, full on, into the armored personnel carrier. It left such a massive dent in the armored carrier that Colin feared it would no longer run.
Not to mention what such a collision may have done to those hidden within.
