The remaining fighters broke and ran.
The bots wobbled as their legs absorbed the impact of the jump, then fired at the fleeing crowd with a Tommy gun-like rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
An old man in a surplus Army jacket…a Hispanic woman clutching a gold crucifix…a young man who had lost an eye in a previous battle…the soldier with a bullet wound to his boot…torn to pieces by the enemy’s wild volley.
Jon retreated around the corner of an upended pick up truck and pulled a grenade from his assault vest. He yanked the pin and bolted around the truck, running in on the blind side of one of the metallic monsters.
He moved to within three paces of the bot’s frame and lobbed the explosive with an underhand pitch. It clinked among the cage-like bars lining the tube-shaped body.
Jon slipped in a puddle of human blood but righted himself in time to get behind the truck a half-second before the grenade exploded. The creature’s bars bent from the concussion and jagged shrapnel punctured the faceplate from behind. The beast flopped to the pavement motionless; another synthesized laugh silenced.
As Jon shouted, "retreat!" Boylen stepped forward and threw a Molotov cocktail. The liquid fire splashed onto and seeped into one of the things. It staggered about wildly, screeching and firing at nothing and everything before suffering a terminal malfunction.
The human defenders who had not already run fled the ring of dead automobiles comprising the outer defenses. A pair of armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles rolled forward and covered the withdrawal to a second row of defenses closer to the cluster of mall buildings. There waited another thirty men and women with a few Redcoat energy muskets and machine guns.
Jon-running across the open ground between the barricades-raised his radio and transmitted an order to the men atop the Wyoming Valley Mall.
"Artillery! Fire!"
Pairs of blue plasma balls fell from the roof of a department store, dropping on the advancing lines of Roachbots. One suffered a direct hit and disintegrated into shavings. The blast from that shot knocked two off balance and disorientated a third.
Jon leaned on the undercarriage of a flipped Nissan Pathfinder alongside other defenders, switched radio frequencies, and shouted one name: "Omar!"
Jon barely heard the response over blasts of both human and Roachbot weapons: "Do not bother me, I am being very busy."
"I hope to hell you’re ready because we’re running out of time!"
He heard the crackle and felt the vibration of more confiscated alien artillery dropping on the attackers but the clatter of Roachbot machine guns tinging and tinking against the opposite side of the flipped Pathfinder warned that the invaders approached.
Omar responded obstinately, "I will be ready in five minutes."
"We…don’t…have…five…minutes!"
A-hehehehe.
A bot climbed the flipped Pathfinder and peeked down at the defenders. Boylen pulled a heavy-duty military shotgun and blasted the thing. Mechanical gears and gooey brain oozed from the smashed faceplate.
Boylen reacted with disgust, "Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph!"
Jon peered around the barricade and spied a parking lot full of enemy machines. They spread into a wide front and advanced toward the flipped cars outside the mall. Another blast of blue plasma hit, tossing one end-over-end and frying another into sparking pieces, but Jon realized that the Roachbots would be under the firing arc of the rooftop artillery in seconds.
"Artillery teams," he radioed. "Time to bug out!"
Jon then yelled to the dozens of men and women clustered around the primitive battlements, "The rest of you, inside the mall! Hustle!"
They ran again, a mob of people toting alien muskets, machine guns, shotguns, and pistols. The Roachbots fired at their backs. Professional soldiers from Prescott’s group and average citizens turned modern-era minutemen fell side by side.
One of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles tried to buy time for the retreating humans. It drove forward firing from its twenty-five millimeter cannon, scoring a direct hit on and destroying one of the six-legged machines.
A Roachbot responded by leaping into the air and landing atop the Bradley, its flat-bottom legs sliding and scraping against the armor plating as it hugged the vehicle.
A-hehehehe.
The bot self-destructed in a powerful blast that shook the ground and severed the top of the Bradley clean off. Secondary detonations tore apart what remained.
Jon and Boylen reached the barricades at the entrance to the mall. Shrapnel from the Bradley/Bot explosion rained behind them. When the hail of metal ended, Jon took a good look at the battlefield.
Pieces of the cybernetic monstrosities littered the area but dozens more of the machines continued to advance. Among the broken gears, robotic legs, and detached faceplates lay the bodies of some forty of Jon’s defenders, including several still writhing and moaning in the vain hope that assistance might come.
Jon hovered for a moment, not wishing to leave living comrades behind. Not again.
"Aye, let’s go," and Boylen dragged him through the barricades erected around the set of glass doors marking the northern entrance to the mall. While most of the alien machines followed the retreating remnants of the human army, three of them focused on the rooftop artillery. Those three robots crouched low…
…Ah-hehehehe…
…and hopped dozens of feet into the air toward the roof.
One missed the mark, bounced off the gutter, and fell to the pavement belly up. Its legs kicked air like an overturned cockroach. The other two robots jumped successfully and cut down the slowest members of the gun crews before turning their weapons on the artillery pieces.
Jon- behind the barrier of tables and planks piled between the entrance doors-called to Prescott who stood nearby after having relinquished command of his Abrams.
"Get everyone out of here, just like we planned."
Prescott did as instructed. The assembled fighters followed him through the racks of clothes, shoes, suits, and jewelry of the store's men’s department. Jon, however, stopped two of those fighters from going.
"Boylen, Casey, you’re with me."
Casey muttered, "This type of plan never worked for the coyote."
The Roachbots reached the last rampart and started to shove through.
Jon led Boylen and Casey across the department store toward the interior of the mall.
"Get the security door ready."
Casey slung his Redcoat energy rifle on his shoulder and lowered the heavy metal grated gate that shielded the store from the wide halls of the enclosed mall. He stopped halfway.
"Jon! We got ourselves company!"
Brewer saw what Boylen saw: a Roachbot in the aisle between dress shirts and shoes.
A-hehehehe.
Boylen raised his Redcoat musket and let a volley of energy fly, missing wide. The bot responded in kind, obliterating a nearby mannequin.
Jon did not need to issue the order: he and Boylen passed Casey who then dropped the security gate all the way. The three ran off as Roachbot shots sparked against the closed gate and a chorus of Ah-hehehehe echoed.
Jon raised his radio as he ran.
"Prescott? Status?"
The response came, "We’re outta there, Jon. You guys are it. Got a couple of them robots on the roof but most of the rest followed you in. Shit, there’s probably three or four dozen of them things in there with you."
The sound of the store's security gate collapsing rattled through the mall as Jon and the others rounded a corner next to a video game store. They ran along a hall that opened to a food court with exit doors on the far side.
A cloud of dust and flying panels avalanched from the ceiling.