Page 176 of Dustwalker

“Are you ready to show them what an attack looks like?” Maul asked.

The soldiers offered an affirmative shout in response.

It had only been one hundred and four days since Ronin met Lara, since his existence was irrevocably altered, but it felt like an eternity had passed. Now, this part of their story would be done. Warlord would be no more.

Ronin charged out of the building, leaping over the shattered remnants of the doors, walls, and ceiling. Guns roared in front of and behind him. His optics took in the chaos ahead, and despite the speed of his processors, he didn’t immediately understand what he was looking at.

The retreating gearheads had been intercepted by a group that had come from the south, a mob of bots and humans—Bravo Team and the residents of Cheyenne. Some fought the gearheads with firearms, but most wielded pipes, prybars, and all manner of improvised weapons.

Cooper and a group of soldiers advanced on the shrinking cluster of gearheads. Warlord stood in the center of the enemy group, brows low over the bridge of his nose and lips pulled back in a snarl. The gearheads fired into the crowd, heads turning rapidly to track their many targets, but their leader’s attention was fixed on one person.

Ronin followed Warlord’s line of sight with his own.

He glimpsed red hair behind a synth soldier named Chester, and his processors buzzed, nearly overloaded with anticipation. The soldier shifted to line up a shot, revealing Lara. She held a large pistol with both hands. It jumped when she pulled the trigger, but she calmly brought it back down and aimed again.

Warlord stared directly at her, wearing his hatred plainly upon his face. He thrust a finger toward her and snarled, “Kill her!”

Though she was positioned toward the rear of the crowd, one of the most distant and obstructed targets, the gearheads swung their weapons toward Lara.

Had Ronin had a heart, it would’ve stopped at that moment.

“No!” Ronin pushed his legs faster. As the gearheads opened fire, he lined up his automatic rifle and pulled the trigger, sending armor piercing rounds into two of the bots’ heads.

At the edge of his vision, he saw Chester turn and sweep Lara into his arms, using his back as a shield. Ronin’s audio receptors isolated the sound of Lara’s cry from the cacophony. He couldn’t tell if there was pain mixed in with the distress and terror. He knew only that there was no guarantee Chester’s casing would stop all the bullets.

Chester’s clothes tore, his skin broke, and his body shook with the force. He collapsed over Lara, catching himself by jabbing the barrel of his rifle into the ground for support.

“Lara!” Ronin shouted.

Pouring additional power into his legs, he leapt off the ground, launching himself at the remaining gearheads. Two swung around and fired. He registered new damage to his torso casing, but he didn’t waste computing power to assess it. His only priority was to stop them from shooting at his wife.

Ronin’s momentum knocked the gearheads to the ground, and he fell with them. Despite the groans of protest from his hip, he swung himself up onto a knee and pivoted toward his scattered enemies, emptying his firearm into them.

The soldiers who’d followed him from the clinic fired at the remaining gearheads. Their gunfire drowned out all other sounds. When it ended, a heavy silence settled over the area.

Only two of the enemies were still moving. A prone gearhead with smoke billowing from its perforated casing extended a hand and dugits fingers into the ground. Actuators whining, it dragged itself a few centimeters forward.

Rising to his feet, Ronin tossed the assault rifle aside and approached the other bot—Warlord.

Warlord pushed himself up onto his knees. One of his optics was a gaping hole, and the synthetic flesh on his cheek had separated entirely from the bottom of his face, exposing the underlying plating and his teeth. His casing was riddled with bullet holes, and his clothes were in tatters.

He glared at Ronin. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

Warlord’s jaw fell open with the first word and ceased its motion.

Ronin swung the AMR into his hands. “From what I’ve learned, so are you, Kevin.”

It was a battle to keep from turning around to find Lara. He needed to see her, needed to know she was all right, but the possibility that she wasn’t…

Warlord snickered, shaking his head. “Haven’t heard that name in years.”

The crowd moved in, slowly surrounding the pile of deactivated bots. Their anger charged the air with static. No one spoke.

Warlord ran his remaining optic over them, his exposed face plates oddly neutral in their positioning.

Ronin halted with three meters between himself and Warlord, leveling his rifle at his target. “It was yours, long ago. When you were human. Kevin Turner.”

A gasp ran through the humans, and the crowd murmured.