He was watching as a Warden began its approach on the library building. It was a massive stone-faced thing that looked as if it had been a truly large endowment from a wealthy contributor.
Probably to buy the silence of the school as well as entry for the child of a well-known super.
Or a delinquent.
As the Warden made its way across the field towards the building, the tension mounted. This would be a defensible area, for both students to find shelter, and for a hostile force to make home.
When the Warden reached the halfway point, a missile flared to life from an upper window.
In a second, that missile closed the distance and exploded into the Warden. A ball of flame went up around the figure, the camera feed giving way to static and red glare.
Two seconds later and the Warden was visible again. Around it, a blue glowing shell flickered.
The Warden angled itself backwards and engaged the jump jets on its legs and fired, sending it rocketing back the way it had come.
As it flew, the Warden spun around, bringing its railgun up to its shoulder. It lined up a shot, and fired. Having fired, it finished its spin, putting its back to the building.
The massive round lit the air on fire as it boomed out. The slug went through the window the heavy explosive had come from.
Switching from the Warden’s camera to an aerial drone, Felix flipped over to its heat camera.
All around the interior of the window and ground was the bright red of heat. Splattered liberally in every direction, the Warden had landed their shot, and blown apart the combatant.
“Enemy down,” reported a tech over the comms. The Warden who had been engaged on came to a graceful landing behind a building.
“Damn good shot,” Felix muttered.
“Thank you, sir,” came back the immediate response.
He hadn’t meant to congratulate the soldier, but whatever.
It really was a great shot.
The other long-range Warden was moving to the other side of the building now to set up a crossfire. The two Shield Wardens continued to clear and search.
Half of the deployed squads broke off and began to cordon off the library.
Curiously, one squad broke away and was making their way back towards the landing area.
Routing his helmet’s feed to a drone in that area, he found the reason.
Crates had been dropped in by Telemedics after the area was secured. Telemedics could carry quite a bit with them, but the original power had been built around the measurements of humans.
The crates themselves looked as if they’d been designed to maximize what a Telemedic could bring with them.
There was a squad watching over ground zero and those crates, but there was no indication of what was in those crates.
Turning his focus back to the library, the Wardens were watching for heat signals in the windows. They weren’t cleared to fire yet, as they couldn’t ID those targets, but that wouldn’t be the case for much longer.
Part of each squad was assigned an electronics warfare and reconnaissance member.
A number of small drones were being launched, both into the air and on the ground.
Making sure his voice wouldn’t carry, and that his comms were on silent, Felix cleared his throat.
“I’m glad to see that constant training preparation is paying off. Remind me to approve whatever Ioana wants after this.”
He meant it, too. This was smooth. He couldn’t deny they were reacting to the enemy movements, but this was a planned reaction. Planned reactive movements.
“You already did approve everything she asked for. I’m still surprised you approved the armored cars,” Victoria said, watching one of the monitors.
Felix cast his mind back. Now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t remember not approving anything Ioana asked for.
Everything had been drawn up with plans, expectations, and costs that had seemed acceptable at the time.
“Armored cars,” Felix said slowly.
One of the techs directed a camera to the roadway entry. There sat six armored cars, blocking traffic on both sides of the street. Their turrets were pointed down those open streets.
They were painted a dark black, with white lettering and a logo on the side.
He didn’t need to read what it said. There would be only one thing that would be written there.
A serial number, a garage loading bay, maybe even what unit it belonged to. Above all that, though, it’d say one word.
Legion.
“This’ll be on the news for sure,” Andrea said, clapping her hands together. “Can we go do an interview? I always see the after stuff on the news when I visit somewhere, never during.
“I promise not to mention that I’m your personal secretary and that we’re sleeping together.”
After a moment, Andrea tilted her head to the side, looking at him.
“Do you think they like pancakes?”
Chapter 31 - Outplayed -
“Let’s not and say we did.” Felix started flipping through the monitors and feeds in his helmet.
A blueprint had been shared on the war-net, their version of a privatized shared working space for information. That and more info was being quickly drawn in and hostiles counted and placed.
The drones were earning their keep and then some.
A light on the inside corner of his helmet turned on. It was a deep red color. The kind that screamed “warning” without the word.
Felix focused on it and a screen came up.
One of the squads had gotten their drone into the center of the library. There, hunkered down in a sphere of magical energy, were his kids. There were wounded amongst them, but it looked like everyone was there.
A man was pounding on that shield, his fists glowing red with each strike. On the opposite side, someone was firing a never-ending stream of rifle rounds into it.
Pausing only to reload and shove a new magazine home.
Before he could say anything, the screen he was looking at was forcibly changed as Ioana began documenting orders there.
Flipping back to the overview of the library, Felix watched as a super with speedster powers moved around the library.
The tactically loaded super stopped at each squad, handed over what looked like a black piece of sheet metal with handles, and left for the next group.
As if it was by designation, a member from each squad ended up with that black piece of metal and moved to the front of the group.
A timer began ticking down in the corner of the war-net from two minutes.
Felix looked away from that, focusing his view towards what was actually happening around him.
He caught the eye of the Telemedic team lead and then crooked a finger. “We have eyes on the kids,” Felix said as the woman came in close. “I’m betting you can’t get through as long as that shield is up?
“That’s correct, sir. We can’t through barriers if they’re sealed up.”
“Okay, I want your people familiar with the location, and be ready to bounce in, grab one, then bounce out if that shield goes down. Be ready as soon as possible, because we have no idea how long that thing will hold. Lily builds ‘em tough, but it can only take so much.
“Use the monitor feed to familiarize yourself. Got it?”
The team lead nodded her head. “Yes, sir. We won’t fail you.”
Turning his head back to the screens, Felix accessed his helmet feed and routed it back to the war-net.
At one minute, the timer turned yellow. The two long-range Wardens opened up, their railguns coughing out their high-powered rounds.
Drones recorded several kills before everyone took cover inside. The long-range cover kept the windows clear.
At fifteen seconds, the Shield Wardens sprinted forward. Several of the hostiles tried to return to the window, only to be driven back. Both melee Wardens reached the walls before the timer hit zero.
Not stopping there, both Wardens began scaling the building. Nimble as a spider, they leaped from window to window to the top.