Nina won the test of speed. Her rifle launched lethal shots just as her foe raised its arm. Some bullets missed wide but in the storm of full-auto fire quantity overcame a lack of quality. The Commando shivered and then fell in a heap to the concrete floor. Its red eye flickered before fading black.
Nina ran across the intersection spitting suppression fire to her left as cover. She raced between a high stack of potato sacks to her left and large red shelving holding drums and crates to her right.
To her surprise, a second Commando stepped over the body of the dead one and into the passage leading north; directly in front of her. Nina braked hard and nearly fell as her momentum grappled with the traction of her boots.
The new arrival had a clear shot at her. This time Nina did not win the test of speed, but she reversed course quickly and jogged side to side to avoid incoming bullets. Fragments of rotting potato peels blew out from her right and jets of smelly liquid shot out from her left as the Commando’s rounds hit the walls to either side but missed the zigzagging mark.
As she raced toward her previous position another of the Commandos-the Sergeant with black Chevrons on silver shoulder plates-appeared 15 yards ahead.
Nina fired her weapon but just as her mental tab sheet knew it would, her gun ran dry before hitting home.
The Sergeant rocked its metal-encased head side to side in what might have been a kind of robotic taunting and launched a pair of burning grenades as Nina approached at full speed with enemy bullets from behind chasing her all the way.
She reached the intersection before the explosives and jumped left. The devices hit a pallet of boxes and exploded. A thunderstorm of peanuts and cashews filled the four-way intersection with nearly shrapnel-like velocity. Nina rolled east beneath it all then found her feet and ran. As she moved she struggled to change out another empty magazine for a fresh one.
The Commandos pursued. She heard their garbled, synthesized conversations and the roll of their wheels. The passage she traveled straightened with crossways every five yards.
A flash of bronze to her left.
Nina fired a burst to ward off the shadow.
A volley of enemy fire from her right.
She responded with another burst, but kept moving east.
Nina slowed and turned about and saw one of the skeletal Commandos following her at a distance. She paused and it fired but did so with no real attempt to aim from its concealed position behind a stack of containers.
Bam!
Jugs of fouled sweet peppers exploded in a corridor to the south. Liquid and slimy slivers of green and red oozed to the floor.
She fired in that direction then ran again to the east. Rolling wheels sounded to her right-and her left-and from behind.
They’re herding me.
She ran faster, stopped at an intersection, and aimed to her left-the north. She fired bullets before she saw anything. One of the Commandos-rolling parallel to her flight-drifted into the stream of fire. It spun around like an off-kilter top and went down in a pile of scrap.
Its partner learned from the mistake, stopping shy of the open corridor and holding its arm around the corner, letting fly a hail of rounds. At the same time, to the south, Nina heard the distinct pop of more grenades: the Commandos shadowing her on her right flank had arrived.
She did not wait. Nina grudgingly ran east again: the way they wanted her to go. A moment later a pair of small explosions blew apart chunks of concrete where she had just stood.
The rolling wheels began again, content to contain her and direct her rather than engage.
She ran faster-faster, trying to reach the next intersection before the enemy did, as if maybe she could change direction north or south to avoid the trap. It did no good. The metallic soldiers increased their rolling speed as if sensing each change in her momentum.
She fired bullets to the left. The enemy there had learned not to charge into intersections without caution.
She fired more to her right. The Sergeant and his companion avoided the shots and answered with their own.
Nina ran forward again although her sense of direction-confused as it had become-felt as if all her running, dodging, and avoiding led her closer to the starting point where she had left her comrades than the end. As she moved she changed out yet another clip as ammunition became a scarce commodity.
The pallets piled high with boxes and crates and barrels stopped at an open space facing a trio of loading dock doors in the vast expanse of the eastern wall of the chamber. She arrived there a moment before the Commandos.
My last stand.
She turned south, knelt, and fired at the first sign of movement. Her volley hit the Sergeant’s wingman as it emerged full speed from the maze. That robot rolled across the open space and slammed lifeless into one of the loading dock doors.
The Sergeant blindly launched grenades in defense to ward off her automatic fire. The maneuver worked: the explosive balls hit one of the concrete walls between garage doors. Pieces of stone and mortar fell around Nina and the concussion wave knocked her off-balance. Her fire stopped; she fell over flat onto the cold floor, her rifle slid several paces away.
The three remaining bloodhounds reached the end of the hunt; one from the passage Nina had come, one to the north, and the Sergeant to the south.
They paused in what might have been a soldier-to-soldier courtesy as she stood in preparation for liquidation.
The turrets on the Sergeant’s shoulders swiveled with the sound of whirring gears. The one big red eye dominating its robotic head shrunk to a sliver as if squinting for better aim.
A series of fiery sparks engulfed the Sergeant. The thing shivered and spun around facing a new enemy to the south.
Vince Caesar-a trail of blood behind him-lay on the floor thirty yards to the south holding Carl Bly’s SAW.
Nina dove across the floor, grabbed her M4, and launched bullets into the Commando to the north. It went silent and fell backwards as if something flipped its ‘off’ switch.
The machine gun rounds tore apart the Sergeant. Vince tried to draw a bead on the second one, but it swerved side to side like a smart duck in a shooting gallery. Vince’s fire went high partly because he could not risk hitting Nina.
The remaining red-eyed soldier met Vince’s machine gun with shots from its own weapon. Before it found its mark, Nina blasted it from behind at close range. It emitted a sad electronic hum and fell face-first on the concrete.
The warehouse went quiet. The loudest sound to her ears came from her heaving chest.
Nina hurried along the outer wall to Vince. He lay on the floor. Blood pushed through the makeshift bandage on his knee. He had exerted a dangerous amount of effort.
She spat, “Vince, are you crazy? Your knee-“
“Shut up. I wanted to rescue you for once. About time someone did. That all of them?”
Nina spoke through huffs of deep breath; the adrenaline still ran through her veins like burning aviation fuel.
“There’s one still up on the catwalk,” she glanced in that direction but the maze of crates and shelves blocked her view and therefore, in return, blocked any view of them from the spotter.
“Nina Forest.”
Nina turned around fast expecting to see the Bishop standing over her with some implement of torture. She saw nothing other than the labyrinth of stacked pallets and the de-activated Commandos.
“It is good to be near you again.”
The voice came from a PA system. She did not know if that system belonged to the remains of the Sysco facility or something The Order installed. She supposed it did not matter.
“You were always a good soldier,” the Bishop’s words slithered through the air. “Always focused on accomplishing the mission.”