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Behind Zack, in the direction of travel, he heard the sound of several welding torches as they spot-welded the robot under construction there, and he realized he and Wren were traveling to that station next.
•••
Zoya Zakharova and Kimmie Lin ascended one flight, and then Kimmie stepped up to a closed door.
“Through this door and down the hall on the left, that’s the assembly floor.”
Zoya pushed past her. “Stay directly behind me. Once you scan your hand at the door there, I want you to come back here and hide in the stairwell till I return for you.”
“Yes.” The terrified woman nodded. “Thank you.”
With her rifle in front of her, Zoya reached forward and pushed down the latch, then pulled it towards her.
There, in a hallway not ten feet away, a pair of Sentry bots with P90 rifles moved in the opposite direction, away from assembly, but they stopped and spun with the sound of the door.
Zoya flipped her selector to fully automatic and began firing, spraying both machines from the doorway. Enemy return fire cracked inches from her head, but she kept shooting, emptying an entire magazine into the two bots.
The closest machine fell onto its back; its rifle clanked away in the corridor, but the second machine kept its feet. Its weapon had been damaged by Zoya’s AK fire, causing a failure to eject a spent cartridge.
The robot reached over with its left hand to pull the charging handle to clear the breech.
Zoya’s magazine was empty in her own weapon, so she ran forward, stepping onto the first Sentry, and then she leapt into the air, kicked the gun out of the second LAW’s hand, and then kicked the machine directly in the chest. It tipped backwards, smoke from its many holes spewing from its face and neck.
It crashed onto its back and stopped moving, but Zoya wasn’t taking any chances. She flicked the magazine out of her AK with a fresh mag pulled from her chest rig, then snapped it in the magazine well. Reaching under the gun to rack the charging handle, she suddenly felt a quick, hard pressure on the back of her head.
Something had just poked her, with force, and it felt a lot like a warm gun barrel.
A voice behind her said, “Put it down.”
It was the woman. Zoya did not charge her weapon, but she didn’t drop it, either. She wasn’t afraid of some billionaire’s personal assistant, even an armed one. She said, “If you want to get out of here alive, you will—”
“Zoya Zakharova, we are going back into that stairwell and we are descending two flights. Drop the bloody Kalashnikov or I will shoot you where you stand.”
Her voice had a confidence and an authority in it utterly different from her demeanor before. Reluctantly, Zoya tossed her AK-47 onto the floor, out of reach of the second bot even though it showed no indication it was still operational, and then she turned around.
The woman held the FN P90 she’d taken from the hand of the destroyed bot on the ground right next to her.
Zoya just looked at her. She could see it in the woman’s eyes. She wasn’t Hinton’s personal assistant. No. She was something else.
“Who are you?”
“I am Major Xinyue Liu of the Strategic Support Force of the People’s Liberation Army, Electronic Warfare Department, and you are my prisoner.” She backed away, then motioned with her rifle barrel towards the stairwell they’d just exited. “Go.”
“Go where?”
“Down.”
“Down to…where?”
Major Liu raised the weapon higher. “I will not tell you again.”
Zoya raised her hands, headed into the stairwell, and began descending, the woman behind her staying far enough back that Zoya knew she didn’t have a chance in hell of going for the gun.
•••
Outside the SIGINT HQ building, Captain Sarzo’s command vehicle had been hit, his driver catching the brunt of it and dying instantly, while the captain suffered an injury to his left arm and leg. Screaming in pain, watching through the shattered windshield as four-legged robots emerged from the building at a run and began shooting his men, he grabbed his radio and broadcast to all his men still alive, “All forces retreat! All forces retreat to the garrison!”
He staggered out of the truck and began running towards the gate at the northern end of the campus, several of his men running with him, firing wildly into the air as more drones buzzed overhead.
