Echo-1 The Whale

39: Into the Fray

The hall was filled with smoke from a downed fighter. We came to a stop at the top of the ramp leading down the immense hallway to central computer rooms.

There were two Vedma pulse cannon tanks surrounded by battle bots. The robots were humanoid-shaped, two meters tall, with bulky reinforced metal bodies, helmeted heads, no necks, and chunky arms carrying assault weaponry. They faced away from us marching forward in precise lines that filled the roadway from edge to edge.

Between them and the entrance to the reinforced control room stood four Zero-G grunts holding metal body shields made of exterior blast doors. They were scorched black from absorbing continued blasts. Behind the four was Punchy testing the limits of a rust cannon. They were backed up to the rusty metal door and standing in the middle of the hall next to them was Dr. Death, in the open and taking on an enormous amount of fire. He blasted back, ripping through the ranks of oncoming battle robots.

There were easily a thousand battle robots, all the same, all firing forward with a single goal. Intermixed among the military bots were the wolves, taking cover behind their metal counterparts. Where the two lines met the floor was littered with dead Zero-Gs and broken robots. As the front line was cut down, the next row would step over the fallen and continue to advance. They were about to overrun our last holdouts.

A fiery explosion erupted beyond them that reminded me of a napalm strike in a Vietnam war movie. Out of the fire came a Vedma fighter and hanging of the front of it was Yaba, wearing Forklist's Rust-robo-combat suit. The fighter let loose two rockets that went straight into the backs of the soldiers shielding Punchy. The shields blew forward and ripped through the next two rows of oncoming robots. The four were killed on impact and Punchy fired wildly into the air as his body was engulfed in flames.

"Punchy!" screamed X.

Death turned around, leveled his rust cannon on the fighter, and tore through its hull killing the pilot. Yaba spotted him and dropped off crashing into Death. In the Rust-robo-suit, she had strength equal to his. The fighter burst into flames, flew over the advancing troops, and crashed not a hundred meters from our position.

Out of the burning napalm came the Chieftains of Woad. All seven of them with flames clinging to the outside of their stone shelled bodies. They passed the wrestling Death and Yaba and ran full force into the robots, bashing their way through with stone fists of fire. The sounds of destruction echoed up the hall.

As the Woad punched their way through the masses of robots and the wolf soldiers ran for their lives. Firing at the stone covered giants did nothing to slow them. The Woad giants towered over the advancing troops and flattened them in droves.

The tanks fired electric pulses at them. They connected with two hits and two warriors went down, stunned or possibly killed? The Chieftain signaled to the others. Then he picked up battle robots and threw them at the tanks. The others did the same. The tanks fired again and the Woad attempted to dive out of the way. The top of the high vaulted hall was filled with lightning and flying robots being used as projectiles.

I got on the cannon and started to fire at the back of the tanks. X raced down the ramp and Uzi was right with us. The robots at the back of the line turned and started to fire at us. I ducked down but kept firing. Two wolves stepped out from next to the tanks, both armed with a kind of rocket launcher. They fired at us simultaneously. X braked and I curled in a ball in the sidecar. The first rocket hit Uzi's Rust-a-gogo head-on and he drove right through it. The other exploded in front of our bike and the force knocked me out of the sidecar. I was blasted back several meters and violently thrown to the floor. The rust cannon went skidding across the ground, luckily missing me.