July 1, 2394 AD Tau Ceti, New Tharsis Friday, 3:44 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time "It would appear that your father has sent a fleet of ships to rescue you, my dear." Elle Ahmi looked at Dee with what she would have described as a crazed look. "I had better take care of this. Don't bother trying to escape. And don't worry. You are perfectly safe here, Dee. I wouldn't want anything to happen to you."

"Then why don't you just let me go?" Dee argued with her terrorist grandmother.

"Ah, I wish it were that simple. But there are things happening here today that are bigger than all of us." Ahmi held her hand up to Deanna's cheek and touched it gently. "I wish we could have met under better circ.u.mstances. I'll return shortly." She turned and met the elevator as it rose up from the floor. Dee tried not to shudder from the touch. Ahmi donned her ski mask as the elevator dropped out of sight.

Several minutes pa.s.sed before Dee decided to gather herself up and try to find a way out. She walked around and around the periphery of the terrorist leader's penthouse but couldn't really find anything of use. Every drawer, closet, door, or other moving part, blunt instrument, or sharp object was behind an AIC lock that probably only Ahmi's AIC could unlock. Dee was trapped in a very good prison, behind SIFs, and several stories up.

What do I need to do here? she thought to herself. If her father had sent a fleet to Tau Ceti, then she needed to contact them. She decided to allow her AIC to handshake briefly with any so-called friendlies that might be out there. she thought to herself. If her father had sent a fleet to Tau Ceti, then she needed to contact them. She decided to allow her AIC to handshake briefly with any so-called friendlies that might be out there.

Be careful, Bree, but see what you can see, she told her AIC. she told her AIC.

Sure thing, Dee. I'm looking.

Well?

I don't see any fleet vessels, but that could just mean they are too far away to detect. I am getting a response from two different AICs. One from that supposed CIA lady again...and the other from DeathRay!

DeathRay! He's here!

Apparently so. All the security clearances check out, and it certainly appears to be Candis-DeathRay's AIC. The probability of the Seppies being able to forge such an exact replica of Candis, much less having known to do so, borders on nil.

Put me through!

Okay. Go.

DeathRay, DeathRay! Is that you? Dee thought frantically. Dee thought frantically.

Yes, Dee. It's me. I have a CIA agent with me as well. We are on our way right now to free you. We'll be there in about thirty seconds.

Holy s.h.i.t! I'm so glad to hear from you. Ahmi just left about five minutes ago from this penthouse, saying that my father had sent a fleet of ships. Are you with them?

No, Dee! I don't know anything about that. I'll check into it. In the meantime, if you can, go to the south side of the penthouse and take cover!

Roger that, DeathRay!

Dee looked out the window, trying to decide what south was on a moon orbiting a Jovian. She applied the same logic as she would on Earth. The rings of the Jovian planet had risen earlier, so she a.s.sumed that direction was east. She pushed the love seat over and dragged it next to the far window and then crawled under it. About that time, an enormous blast made the penthouse ring and rattled her teeth. At first she thought they might be explosions, but then she realized it must be AA cannon fire coming from the rooftop. h.e.l.l, she was practically on the rooftop, so that fire was coming from just outside. No wonder it sounded so d.a.m.ned loud. Then there was an explosion from somewhere down below her that seemed to shake the entire building....

I've got the fleet signals, Jack. I'm boosting them through the mecha's comm system, Candis told him. Candis told him.

Good, put me through.

"Fleet ships, fleet ships, this is Captain Jack "DeathRay" Boland, CAG of the Madira Madira G.o.ds of War squadron. Do you copy?" G.o.ds of War squadron. Do you copy?"

"Roger that, DeathRay. This is CO, USS Anthony Blair Anthony Blair. Please advise of your status and status of our missing package." DeathRay recognized Admiral Walker's voice.

"Admiral! It's d.a.m.ned good to hear your voice, ma'am. Be advised that Ahmi knows you're here. The package told me that herself. I'm engaging her location as I speak and hope to be in physical contact with her in seconds...at the coordinates my AIC is sending now!"

"Roger that, DeathRay! Be advised that we are about to hit this system with everything we have, as hard as we can. You had better get in there and get out."

"Yes, ma'am. I am painting two Seppy Gnats with the blue force tracker for you. That is me and a friendly operative code-named Bachelor Party, ma'am." Jack wasn't sure if Admiral Walker had been briefed on Nancy or not, but it didn't matter as long as she knew not to shoot her out of the sky.

"DeathRay! What is your plan?" Walker asked.

"Ma'am. We just rammed a Lorda into the SIF generators, and are now attacking the penthouse where Dee is being held. All due respect, Admiral, I really need to focus on what I'm doing at the moment." DeathRay twisted the enemy fighter through a corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g trajectory around the firing solution of the AA boxes atop the Seppy Capitol Building. He grunted slightly; the maneuver wasn't that rough compared to others he was used to.

"Roger that, DeathRay. Keep us posted."

"Aye. DeathRay out."

Jack continued to draw the fire of the AA boxes until Penzington screamed over the top of the building at about mach two, blasting away at them. The boxes exploded into pieces, and the tracers stopped tracking his fighter. He toggled the Gnat into bot mode and grunted through full-reverse thrusters, coming down feet first through the roof of the penthouse armored windows. The windows cracked at the impact and absorbed most of his force. Then they gave way completely, sending Jack crashing through onto the floor below. The ceiling of the penthouse was no more than seven meters high, so he was stuck at his upper torso. He carefully tore out a large-enough chunk of the domed top and tossed it behind him, then bent over and reached a hand through.

"Dee!" he shouted over the loudspeakers. "Come out! Now!"

Jack could see her crawling out from underneath some furniture and running toward the fighter's outstretched hand. Jack gripped her gently and stomped the upward kick pedals and threw the bot-mode mecha in full upward flight. As soon as he cleared the penthouse, he covered Dee with his other hand to protect her from wind, debris, and any potential incoming fire they might get into.

"Hang on, Dee!" He skyrocketed with the mecha. "CO Blair Blair! DeathRay! If you can lock on to Dee now, QMT her to safety!"

"Roger that! We've got all three of you, DeathRay!" Admiral Walker replied.

Jack could see out of the corner of his peripheral vision that Nancy was in trouble. The remaining AA fire from the ground tracked her still, and she was diving right at it. As far as he could tell, she was going to sacrifice herself to take out the box. Well, that would keep it from firing at Jack and the First Daughter.

Just as her fighter careened toward the ground and the AA box, her canopy blew and the ejection seat exploded out. Then DeathRay was standing next to a shivering Dee and a fast-panting CIA agent on a QMT pad inside the Blair Blair. Jack couldn't believe his eyes: just off the pad were the president and the First Lady...in AEM skin suits. Jack helped Dee to her feet. She stood and rushed off the pad to the Moores.

"Daddy! Mom!" She reached out to hug them, and there was a flash of light and the sound of sizzling bacon as she vanished into thin air.

"Motherf.u.c.k you, Ahmi!" Moore shouted, grasping at the air for his daughter.

Jack and Nancy rushed to where Dee had stood and scanned around. There was no need to scan, because they all knew that it was Ahmi's backup plan. They should have expected such.

"I am going to kill that b.i.t.c.h!" President Moore's rage seemed uncontrollable.

"Sir! We'll get her back. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't think about a b.o.o.bytrap." DeathRay wasn't sure what to say. "I'm at your disposal, sir."

"Me, too, Mr. President," Nancy offered. "Sir, the SIFs can't be back on line yet. There is no doubt she was teleported back to the penthouse. Send us now, sir!" DeathRay realized that Nancy was right-there was still a window to get to Dee. They'd just have to figure out a way to deal with that snap-back b.o.o.bytrap that Ahmi was using.

"Right!" Moore and the First Lady started to climb into nearby AEM suits while the QMT techs started gibbering into their comms and the QMT CW rushed up to the president.

"Mr. President, I've strict orders not to allow you and the First Lady to-"

Moore ignored him, as he nodded to the First Lady and the other two AEMs, who stepped onto the pad. The First Lady twisted on her helmet, as did President Moore. Nancy reached over to her shoulder harness and pulled out the railpistol from her flight armor. The five of them stood at ready on the pad.

"Agent Penzington, send my AIC the coordinates," the president ordered.

"Sir?" DeathRay knew the president was one heck of a marine, but the CW was right: he was was the president. "Agent Penzington and I will go get her, along with your men. We'll bring her back to you." the president. "Agent Penzington and I will go get her, along with your men. We'll bring her back to you."

"Coming, DeathRay?" the president asked. Jack could tell from the expression on the president's face that he was talking to his AIC.

"In for a penny..." Jack sighed under his breath and pulled out his own railpistol, stepping onto the pad. "Wild horses and a repulsor tugship couldn't keep me away, Mr. President."

"But sir!" the CW protested.

Even as the CW was shouting for the techs to cut power to the pad, Jack heard the president quietly say, "Any time now, Abby-"

The room flashed, and Jack could hear that frying-bacon sound again. The next thing he knew, they were standing in the penthouse of the Seppy Capitol Building, looking up through a big hole in the ceiling. Dee stood just in front of them with a bewildered expression on her face.

Chapter 26.

July 1, 2394 AD Ross 128, Arcadia Friday, 3:44 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time "G.o.dd.a.m.nit! They know where we are!" Colonel Mason Warboys and the odd-numbered Warlords had their M3A17-T hovertanks in bot mode. The mecha splashed out of the water at the foot of the dam and into the enemy tanks with a vengeance even though they were outnumbered a little more than two to one.

"Watch out, One! Guns, guns, guns!" Warlord Three shouted.

"s.h.i.t! Guns, guns, guns!" Warboys maintained a constant bombardment from his DEG into the Arcadian tanks' line as they advanced on them and went to the smaller but more rapidly directed forty-millimeter gun on top of the DEG turret for in-close and rapidly maneuvering targets. The forty-millimeter gun usually ran in anti-artillery and anti-missile mode. Warboys had put the guns to use by giving his AIC control of them and telling her to shoot any enemy thing it felt necessary to shoot at. While in bot mode, the turret-mounted railgun looked like a half dome head atop the bot's c.o.c.kpit, with the barrel sticking out for a nose. Below the tank torso two large metal feet thudded into the soil, squishing up mud and the underlying vegetation.

"There's another one targeting you, One! I got him. Fox Three!" Mason saw an anti-mecha missile scream out from Warlord Seven and twist out in front of them toward an enemy tank. The enemy tank dropped backward and fired his countermeasures, setting off the missile just in time to save his a.s.s. Mason didn't like that.

"Stay on him, Seven! Guns, guns, guns!" Warlord One fired his main gun across the river at another rushing tank-mode enemy vehicle. A bright blue-green pulse of energy separated the turret from the main body of the Arcadian M3A16 tank. Mason turned and leaped across the river, running headlong at the exploding enemy mecha. As he jumped over the fireball and on top of the tank beside it, he rammed his heavily armored fist into the enemy vehicle and punched through to the inner workings of the linkage between the torso and the right arm. Infantry railgun fire spitapped spitapped against the armor plating of his tank, and a couple of larger rounds shook him violently. He looked up in time to see a third tank dive-tackling him. against the armor plating of his tank, and a couple of larger rounds shook him violently. He looked up in time to see a third tank dive-tackling him.

"Watch out, One!" Warlord Five shouted. "Guns, guns, guns!"

Warboys could see the glint of a DEG blast digging into the back of the bot-mode tank that had tackled him. He rolled over, stood and stomped into the back of the enemy tank. The force of his foot stomping into the mecha broke through the armor plating. Sparks and steaming black and red hydraulic fluids spewed from within it. Warboys grabbed at the main gun turret on the dead enemy tank, ripped it free, and then tossed it like a hammer thrower at the enemy tank-mode tank chasing after Five. The turret bounced into the second tank, knocking it sideways just as it fired. The blow caused it to fire a DEG blast into the dam by accident. A crack formed in the dam, and water started pouring through it. Warboys spun to his knee, firing his main DEG through the pilot of the enemy mecha. Five fired his guns just over the colonel's shoulders at another target.

"Colonel, on your six!" Warlord Three burned a blue-green DEG bolt across the sky just behind Warboys, taking out a tank that had caught the colonel unaware.

"Thanks, Three. Son of a b.i.t.c.h b.i.t.c.h, we are outnumbered here!"

"You got that right, Warlord One."

"Warlord One, it looks like the Seppy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have figured out that we are here," Warlord Nine noticed. "We gonna get some help anytime soon?"

"Just keep pounding at the f.u.c.kers, Warlords! Whether we get help or not, we kill as many of these Seppy motherf.u.c.kers as we can, until there ain't a one of us left. Just like that time on Mars! Got it? We've got to punch a hole through here and get these jarheads to the mansion!" Warboys had to go to guns and fired blindly behind him as he ran and leapt toward an outcropping of rocks for cover.

"Hooah! Colonel!"

"One, Duck!" Warlord Five shouted. Mason saw two Arcadian tanks trying to sandwich him and trap him at the edge of the river.

"s.h.i.t!" He took off running in an orthogonal direction while he continued to fire the forty millimeter behind him blindly. His AIC tracked on to one of the tanks with the auto-cannon and slowed him down some. He scanned to his left and caught a glimpse of the mecha glinting in the red light of the setting sun as it slowly dropped behind the hill to their left. The governor's mansion was less than a kilometer in front of them up the river, and the enemy tanks were heading them off in that direction, too. There were tanks behind them, to their left and right, and they were trying to get in front of them. Warlord One turned his gun toward the general direction of the glint and fired.

"Guns, guns, guns!"

Enemy cannon fire from his other side knocked him to the ground. Mason tried to roll his mecha over onto all fours and then up. Then he caught a quick glimpse of four of the Robots bouncing with HVARs firing just over his head. Warboys could see that one of them was Colonel Roberts himself. The AEMs kept firing anti-tank rounds from their suits, mixed in with continuous HVAR fire. Warboys bear-crawled out of their way as best he could and then came up into a trot toward the tank to his right.

The Robots and the odd-numbered Warlords had made it almost all the way up the river to the intersection of two other rivers in front of the governor's mansion before they had been discovered. Six tanks and a dozen AEMs had bounced underwater for nearly a half hour until they reached a dam that blocked their path. Their original plan had been to just lock through it, but they couldn't convince the AIC guarding the locks to cycle without a visual confirmation of a ship. No matter what they tried, they couldn't get the water level to fill the dam's lock so they could just swim through the dam. So the Robots had done what they do best. They crawled out of the water and took the f.u.c.king dam, which was a mixed blessing. Now they could cycle the lock, but there was no need because they had gotten in a shoot-out with a guard unit stationed to protect it. They alerted the other Arcadian National Guards that the AEMs were there, and then a squad of tanks and enemy infantry were on top of them in no time. There was no need to hide the Warlords at that point. Especially as Arcadian tanks started rushing the AEMs at the dam. The s.h.i.t got thick very quickly, and the Warlords were getting pounded. They pounded back even harder.

The AEMs dove for cover as a bot-mode enemy tank with a missing leg tumbled to the ground where Mason had been knocked down. First Sergeant McCandless rushed out from the other side of the downed enemy mecha and tossed a grenade into the shattered c.o.c.kpit, then dove for cover as it exploded.

"Thanks, Marines!" Warlord One said as he returned the favor and went to guns on the tank running for cover behind them. "Guns, guns, guns!"

"Warlord One, Warlord One! Colonel Warboys, are you okay?" Warlord Five rushed to the side of his leader and turned his back to him, laying down more cover fire with his DEG to give Warboys time to regain his composure.

"I'm all right, Five. We've got to get these AEMs to the mansion before those tanks ahead close us in! Let's keep moving north, Warlords. Faster! Let's move it! Let's pave the d.a.m.n road."

"Yes, sir."

"Ramy! Get your AEM a.s.ses moving. If that squad of enemy tanks beats us to the front lawn, we'll be totally outnumbered and surrounded, and there ain't no way you're gonna get in there."

"Roger that, Colonel, the Robots are moving!"

Warlord One looked at the battlescape in his mindview and realized that the Warlords were not going to be able to outrun the enemy squad of tanks, but the AEMs might. It was a race through a closing gauntlet that they would just have to by G.o.d endure. The only thing he could do was to push against the enemy line as it closed around them, slowing them down enough to give the marines a chance. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, we have got to move! Lay fire on that enemy line, Warlords, with everything you have."

"Oorah, Colonel."

The AEMs spread out in front of the tank squad, bouncing in zigzags, firing their HVARs and anti-tank grenades as fast as they could manage. Warboys knew this was the last play of the game and the clock had run out on him. He had to push the marines through. The Army had to get the marines to the objective! Even if that meant that the Army was going to be surrounded and have to fight to their last breath once they got the AEMs where they needed to be.

G.o.dd.a.m.n that support from on high would go good about now! he thought. he thought.

Roger that, Colonel. The air boss claims it is only seconds away, his AIC replied. his AIC replied.

Hope we last that f.u.c.king long!

"First to fight for the right," Warboys started humming. And then he started singing to himself in a barely audible tone over his open tac-net tank channel. As his mecha's legs moved so fast they were a blur to the human eye, he pounded across the terrain, picking off targets with every bounce. "Guns, guns, guns!" he shouted. "And to build the nation's might, and the Army goes rolling along!"

"Guns, guns, guns, motherf.u.c.ker!" Three shouted as he fired at a tank in the closing line. The enemy tanks from the rear were crossing the river faster than water pouring from a bursting dam.

Mason could see the tanks to the west going to bot mode to keep up with them, and the tanks to the north had beaten them. The enemy vehicles were in tank mode and firing DEG plasma bursts through the scattering AEMs and the six Army tanks. Mason pushed on as the railgun fire got thicker.

"Proud of all we have done, fighting till the battle's won, and the Army goes rolling along!" He'd found his voice, and let out a full-throated roar. Twice he leapt over AEMs so as not to squish them under his mechanized feet, and each time he went to his DEG or his auto-cannons to take on an incoming anti-tank missile or another tank. He locked onto two tanks with his lidar and QMs and went to anti-tank missiles.

"Fox three! Fox three!" The two missiles spiraled out through the air, leaving purple and white glowing ion trails in the twilight. The missiles crossed paths about seventy meters out and went in opposite directions into two different tanks. The tanks blew out at the turrets almost simultaneously. Then all the tankheads joined him.

"Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!"

"Fox three!"

"The Army's on its way..."