Speaker 1: Chapter eight, Rowland, so you were there, right, Sardar asked,
Speaker 1: you saw the white house burn Sardar was Jim's mechanic.
Speaker 1: He was a short, slightly pudgy kid with a wide,
Speaker 1: handsome face and scan a couple of shades darker than
Speaker 1: Roland's own. This was maybe his twentieth question since Jim's
Speaker 1: aircraft had dropped their transport off two hours ago. The
Speaker 1: other members of Jim's team hadn't said so much as
Speaker 1: a word to Rowland. They all listened, though he could
Speaker 1: see the tension in their shoulders and feel the vibrations
Speaker 1: in the air as their ears twitched and their eyes
Speaker 1: darted over to watch his replies. The fact that they
Speaker 1: were all cramped together inside the armored confines of a
Speaker 1: maddis a PC made it easy to read the room.
Speaker 1: Roland wasn't a hundred percent sure if the young mrk
Speaker 1: had been put up to the task of questioning him,
Speaker 1: or if Sardar was just an inquisitive soul. Roland smelled
Speaker 1: a light drizzle of nervousness waft off the boy. He'd
Speaker 1: caught several glances between Sardar and Bigsby, but neither of
Speaker 1: those facts were proof of anything. Nervousness was a perfectly
Speaker 1: natural reaction to hanging out in a cramped metal box
Speaker 1: with a guy you'd just been trying to murder. I
Speaker 1: remember pieces of it, Roland replied, fucking somebody in the
Speaker 1: Lincoln bedroom, stealing liquor from the kitchens, shooting in the ball,
Speaker 1: returned the White House bowling alley. Sardar shook his head.
Speaker 1: That's fucking loco. You're like a history book. I bet
Speaker 1: I read about ship you did back in high school, probably,
Speaker 1: Roland said with a shrug. He had about nine clear
Speaker 1: memories of his life before the shack on Camelback Mountain,
Speaker 1: and none of them felt very historic. Can I get
Speaker 1: your autograph? Man, Sardar asked Bigsby the posthuman Rowland had
Speaker 1: been about to arm club in a submission a day ago.
Speaker 1: Shook his head and groaned in embarrassment. One of the
Speaker 1: women he'd buried in his collapsed hovel grunted out a laugh.
Speaker 1: Her name was Nadine or something with an inn. Anyway,
Speaker 1: she and her partner Asime were both close assault specialists
Speaker 1: like the rest of the crew, except Tardar. They'd been
Speaker 1: cold to Roland ever since he'd beat the living hell
Speaker 1: out of them. Something occurred to him. Hey, I got
Speaker 1: a question for you, he said to Sardar. Yeah, your
Speaker 1: crew has been real pissy to me this whole ride.
Speaker 1: Roland nodded at Biggsby. How exactly did you guys expect
Speaker 1: that fight to go down? Sardar pursed his lips. He
Speaker 1: seemed at a loss for a second. Then he said,
Speaker 1: Jim framed it as just a standard guilt team action.
Speaker 1: We've done that sort of thing a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Last year there was this crumbed out Nazi in Idaho,
Speaker 1: so he tricked you. Then Roland interrupted, convince you this
Speaker 1: was just another assassination when all he really wanted to
Speaker 1: do was get my attention. Roland looked around and realized
Speaker 1: the rest of the transport was glaring at him. Biggsby
Speaker 1: spat on the ground in front of Roland's foot. We'd
Speaker 1: devised you if he'd given us another minute. Roland just
Speaker 1: laughed and turned his eyes back to Sardar. It's clear
Speaker 1: you and the other guy, he gestured at the young
Speaker 1: man next to Sardar, are the only smart bastards in
Speaker 1: the unit. Since you didn't get back up when I
Speaker 1: beat you, down. Sardar squirmed a little, clearly uncomfortable me
Speaker 1: and pedro He gestured to the other man, We're just engineers.
Speaker 1: We don't go toe to toe with the with whatever
Speaker 1: you are all this conversation, the most he'd had in years,
Speaker 1: made Roland feel uncomfortably lucid. He rooted around in the
Speaker 1: tattered old backpack he'd brought with him. It contained one
Speaker 1: rusty Mateba auto revolver that he'd found under the floorboards
Speaker 1: of his collapsed shack, and five point oh eight seven
Speaker 1: kilograms of assorted narcotics, mostly opiates. Roland remembered how fun
Speaker 1: it was to watch things explode while high on oxy.
Speaker 1: He pulled a pillbottle out of the sack, delauted, and
Speaker 1: poured half of it into his mouth. Roland swallowed, then
Speaker 1: guzzled the second half. Jesus said, will the man he'd
Speaker 1: stabbed in the throat with a piece of wood yesterday,
Speaker 1: this is the guy who kicked the ship out of us.
Speaker 1: I am sorry about that, Roland said. If I'd known
Speaker 1: we were going to wind up sharing an a PC,
Speaker 1: I probably would have just choked you out. Mortar fire incoming.
Speaker 1: Roland's hindbrain ran the calculations estimated it at around eight
Speaker 1: miles out. He sat up straight, since his focus towards
Speaker 1: the sound of the fire. Bigsby and Asim reacted the
Speaker 1: same way. They clearly splurged on the good ears. The
Speaker 1: rest of the team didn't seem to have heard. They're
Speaker 1: shooting ahead. As Amy said, sixty millimeter mortars. Get up, folks,
Speaker 1: Biggsby added, as he pulled his own S thirty barret
Speaker 1: assault rifle from its resting place on the wall behind him.
Speaker 1: The funk was that as Amy cocked an eyebrow, her
Speaker 1: left ear twitched, her tan, lean face flushed red with excitement.
Speaker 1: I don't recognize that one me either, Biggsby grunted. The
Speaker 1: other post human looked to Roland with clear frustration. You
Speaker 1: recognize that, Roland did. It's an M one forty two,
Speaker 1: he said, Mobile rocket Artillery antique U S military issue.
Speaker 1: Will looked over to Bigsby, confused, I've never heard of
Speaker 1: anything like that in the sdf's armory. It's not the SDF,
Speaker 1: Roland explained, slurring his words more than a little. The
Speaker 1: opiates had just started to hit. Holy sh it, I
Speaker 1: loved allotted. He thought that's in coming can't you tell,
Speaker 1: he said, not a not from this distance. As Ame answered,
Speaker 1: she glanced awkwardly over to her partner, need put a
Speaker 1: hand on her thigh and squeezed. Could you not be
Speaker 1: monstrously fucked up when we're about to go into battle,
Speaker 1: Biggsby asked. He seemed angry. Roland debated, offering one of
Speaker 1: his handfuls of pills. He decided he'd much rather save
Speaker 1: them for later. First off, I didn't sign up for battle,
Speaker 1: he explained, as he popped and chewed a pair of
Speaker 1: morphine tablets. Second, we still got about almost eight miles
Speaker 1: before we hit the front. Plenty of time to sober up.
Speaker 1: Eight miles, asked Sardar. The Richardson line is fifteen miles out.
Speaker 1: More mortars crumped in the distance. Roland heard blossoms of
Speaker 1: heavy machine gun fire too, and the hums of dozens
Speaker 1: of assault drones. Hey, Biggs, the voice of the APC's
Speaker 1: driver crackled over the vehicle intercom. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: craziness coming in from the main s d F channels.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a major assault. The martyrs have pushed
Speaker 1: all the way to deep Ellum. Some of the field
Speaker 1: commanders are talking about a full retreat, Jesus shitting christ Will, Bigsby,
Speaker 1: and Nadine all cursed at the same time. Roland thought
Speaker 1: it was cute. It tugged at his heart strings a little.
Speaker 1: He missed being part of a close knit team. Some
Speaker 1: of his stronger memory fragments involved really good times he'd
Speaker 1: had during and after the war. He remembered blowing up
Speaker 1: an armored school bus with a guy named Mike, throwing
Speaker 1: rotten oranges at a government sniper with Jim. His brain
Speaker 1: also brought up snatches of late night drinking sessions and
Speaker 1: watching cartoons on an old projector in the desert. When
Speaker 1: he closed his eyes, he could smell the burning man's
Speaker 1: anita smoke of their camp fire. Payne tugged at his heart,
Speaker 1: but he was jerked out of his revereree by the
Speaker 1: sound of an explosion. It was big and close enough
Speaker 1: that everyone in the APC heard it, even though Roland's
Speaker 1: hindbrain put the distance at over seven miles away. V. B. I, E. D. Bigsby,
Speaker 1: and Asime said at the same time, real big One,
Speaker 1: as Ame nodded. Roland could tell that the explosives rigged
Speaker 1: vehicle had been an E series Mercedes truck. But he
Speaker 1: didn't bring that up. No one liked to know it all.
Speaker 1: Biggsby's mouth opened and closed, the telltale sign of someone
Speaker 1: having a subvocal conversation through their deck. Roland could have
Speaker 1: read his lips, but that would have been rude. Instead,
Speaker 1: he looked over to Sardar. If the gig is called
Speaker 1: an account of war, you want to get ship faced
Speaker 1: in Austin with me? The kid blinked, then replied, I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, but I'm pretty sure boss Man's gonna want
Speaker 1: us to do the job, even if it's hot out there.
Speaker 1: Roland growled a little without thinking and start a cringed.
Speaker 1: I did not sign up to defend against an active invasion.
Speaker 1: I'm here to funk up property, not people. Jim says,
Speaker 1: that's still the plan. You funk up the property, Biggsby grunted.
Speaker 1: My fam and I are here to funk up the people.
Speaker 1: A red hot cherry of anger bloomed in Roland's heart.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the deal, he said, and Jim knows it.
Speaker 1: One of you call him and loot me in on
Speaker 1: your screen. I'll set this right. Call him yourself. Spat Bigsby,
Speaker 1: he can't Startar pointed out, he's got a dead deck,
Speaker 1: no signal at all. True, Noll, why the hell would
Speaker 1: you go null? As Am started to ask, Bigsby interrupted her,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter why this ascopters null. I'm on with
Speaker 1: Jim and he says you're under contracts. Still, we'll make
Speaker 1: sure you don't have to cack anybody. For a moment,
Speaker 1: Roland focused his attention outside the little a PC. His
Speaker 1: hind brain coalated the bursts and vibrations that echoed out
Speaker 1: around the battlefield. It compared them with his peda bites
Speaker 1: of stored combat data and the last map of Dallas
Speaker 1: he downloaded before severing his deck. In a couple of seconds,
Speaker 1: he had what his Heiden brain assured him was an
Speaker 1: accurate projection of the current fighting. It didn't look good
Speaker 1: for the defenders, and what if it's too much for
Speaker 1: you guys out there? Rowland asked, you can expect my
Speaker 1: ask to murder a bunch of strangers to get you
Speaker 1: and your fam home safe. Bigsby rolled his eyes. It's
Speaker 1: a bunch of fucking martyrs. Maybe they caught the SD
Speaker 1: off with their pants down, but they'll loose steam soon enough.
Speaker 1: Those savages are all baseline sapien. We got chrome on
Speaker 1: our side. Roland shrugged. If you're wrong, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: one of your nipples home with me, just a heads up.
Speaker 1: The other post human's face turned to purple. It grew
Speaker 1: purpler still when Sardar laughed at the remark. Sorry, Biggs,
Speaker 1: it's fucking funny, man, it wasn't a joke. Roland shared
Speaker 1: them both. They hit Dallas proper ten minutes later. Their
Speaker 1: arrival was heralded by the sounds of car horns, squealing brakes,
Speaker 1: and frustrated shouts, the songs of a city at war.
Speaker 1: Flashes of memory from this same city in a different
Speaker 1: war shot through Roland's mind. They kept him occupied while
Speaker 1: Bigsby and his squad prepped their combat gear. There was
Speaker 1: something almost comforting about the sound of men and women
Speaker 1: arming for battle. He remembered the way Mike ran through
Speaker 1: the lyrics of Iye of the Tiger before every op,
Speaker 1: and the careful way Jim had loaded his pre battle
Speaker 1: meth pipe. The crump of mortar fire and the boom
Speaker 1: of heavier artillery grew louder and louder. The sour sinse
Speaker 1: of Gamma amino butaric acid, cortisol, and epinephrin filled the cabin.
Speaker 1: Bigsby's team had good game faces, but they were nervous.
Speaker 1: Biggs the driver's voice crackled over the intercom. I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a shipload of hostile drone activity. Sky is fucking angry
Speaker 1: right now. Might be best at dismountain hit. Roland smelled
Speaker 1: the fuel burning off in the ache of the hell
Speaker 1: Fire missile roughly a second before it hit. He knew
Speaker 1: the archaic munition didn't have the ability to penetrate a
Speaker 1: man as a PC, but he still warned his fellows,
Speaker 1: missiles are coming. What Sardar asked? And then it hit.
Speaker 1: The impact rocked the vehicle on its axles and bounced
Speaker 1: its hapless passengers into the hard metal edges of the cabin.
Speaker 1: Roland bounced with them, although for him the pain of
Speaker 1: impact was more curiosity than actual discomfort. The driver braked hard.
Speaker 1: Roland heard and felt as the APEC collided with what
Speaker 1: sounded like the outer wall of a large concrete building.
Speaker 1: He smelled blood on Sardar and Nadine. From the sound
Speaker 1: of the blast and the resulting crash, he guessed the
Speaker 1: APC's front axle had splintered. Ryan the driver was unconscious.
Speaker 1: He'd hit his head hard enough that the trauma nanites
Speaker 1: in his blood stream had knocked him out while they
Speaker 1: worked to stop the swelling in his brain. Out out,
Speaker 1: move it, motherfucker's, Biggsby shouted. There was a hiss as
Speaker 1: the rear inside exit hatches of the APC fired. Open
Speaker 1: light streamed into the vehicle. Bigsby was out first, his
Speaker 1: very large rifle at the ready. Dean and Asime followed
Speaker 1: behind him. The former had a Juggernaut auto shotgun, the
Speaker 1: latter had an IM fourteen sniper rifle. There were no
Speaker 1: infantry nearby, not yet, but Rowland closed his eyes, concentrated,
Speaker 1: and after a second his hindbrain guessed that the nearest
Speaker 1: ground troops were about a quarter of a mile away,
Speaker 1: six men in Airy's pattern powered armor, followed by fifty
Speaker 1: unmodified human soldiers, a half dozen technicals, and two drone carriers.
Speaker 1: The men in the Airy suits were the only thing
Speaker 1: that concerned him. Powered armor couldn't make an unmodified human
Speaker 1: into a true match for a god fucking monster engine
Speaker 1: like himself, but it could give a squad the firepower
Speaker 1: they needed to do some real damage. If they could
Speaker 1: hurt Rowland, they could kill Bigsby and his team. His
Speaker 1: hindbrain told him that the power armored soldiers would be
Speaker 1: in weapons range within two minutes, just enough time to
Speaker 1: roll a blunt He grabbed a blunt wrap and a
Speaker 1: bag of groundweed out of his backpack and started to roll.
Speaker 1: As he walked out of the abandoned a PC, Sardar
Speaker 1: and Pedro had taken cover behind the vehicle and started
Speaker 1: to administer basic first aid to their wounded driver. Will
Speaker 1: was a few meters ahead on overwatch, covering them all
Speaker 1: with his heavy M ninety four belt fed grenade launcher.
Speaker 1: The others were nowhere to be seen. Roland heard them though,
Speaker 1: About fifteen meters west of the stricken transport. He felt
Speaker 1: them take up firing positions. Should I warn Biggsby about
Speaker 1: the armored guise, Roland wondered. He shook his head and
Speaker 1: said nah out loud. Sardar stared at him. The wheed
Speaker 1: was dry and slightly yellowed with age. Roland had certainly
Speaker 1: smoked better, but he'd smoked worse often enough not to complain.
Speaker 1: He drizzled the crumbled herb into the blunt wrap and
Speaker 1: rolled it between his fingers. He licked the seam and
Speaker 1: sealed it. As he watched Sardar shoot a stem capsule
Speaker 1: into Ryan's neck, the driver started to regain consciousness. Roland
Speaker 1: lit his blunt, took a hit, and offered it to
Speaker 1: the man. Welcome back to the land of the living,
Speaker 1: he said, with a cheerful grin pop. Sardar gave him
Speaker 1: a stern look. Is this really the time? The screech
Speaker 1: of a rocket propelled grenade filled the air outgoing fire.
Speaker 1: It must have been from a nearby SDF position engaged
Speaker 1: with the advancing martyrs. Of course there's time, said Roland.
Speaker 1: We got a solid ninety seconds until they're here. Might
Speaker 1: as well get high. The kid rebuffed his offer. Roland
Speaker 1: would have been a little hurt if he hadn't secretly
Speaker 1: hoped they'd turn him down. It took a lot of
Speaker 1: pot to get him high. One whole blunt was about
Speaker 1: the right amount for where he wanted to be. Bigsby
Speaker 1: opened up with his heavy machine gun. A vague worry
Speaker 1: started to grow inside Roland. The armored martyrs had moved
Speaker 1: faster than anticipated. Am I going to have time to
Speaker 1: finish smoking? He was thankful that he'd at least loaded
Speaker 1: up on pain killers before reaching the front. The machine
Speaker 1: gun was joined by the sharp crack of Nadine's sniper
Speaker 1: rifle and the rich bellow of Asime's auto shotgun. It
Speaker 1: sounded like she was firing tungsten core penetrators rather than
Speaker 1: the explosive Dragon's Breath round she'd loaded during the assault
Speaker 1: on roland Shack. That was probably smart. Are you going
Speaker 1: to do something, Sardar asked. Roland could smell his fear
Speaker 1: wafted off him like a fine mist. He heard the
Speaker 1: heavy hum of a suit mounted rotary chain gun, and
Speaker 1: then another incoming fire. A few rounds arced and ricocheted
Speaker 1: off the body of the a PC Startar and Pedro
Speaker 1: dough for cover and pulled Ryan with them. Roland didn't move.
Speaker 1: His hindbrain had plotted the trajectories of the errand rounds
Speaker 1: as soon as they left their barrels. There'd been no danger, well,
Speaker 1: no danger to them. By the sound of it. The
Speaker 1: power armored Martyrs had pinned a Biggsby down. Roland could
Speaker 1: smell Nadine's blood in the air. She was alive but injured.
Speaker 1: Will started to fire and pumped a steady stream of
Speaker 1: explosives out in a high arch in front of the martyrs.
Speaker 1: Roland felt as the men scattered. He also felt the
Speaker 1: footfalls of dozens of normal infantry two hundred meters behind
Speaker 1: the power armored vanguard. He heard the rich thunk of
Speaker 1: Recoilis rifles being bolted into the ground. Roland puffed on
Speaker 1: his blunt as he considered the tactical situation. Bigsby and
Speaker 1: his team seemed to have knocked out one of the
Speaker 1: armored martyrs, but they were alone and unsupported. The STF
Speaker 1: was in full retreat, and the small squad didn't have
Speaker 1: the firepower or the chrome to hold off what was coming.
Speaker 1: Roland did, but he very much disliked the idea of
Speaker 1: murdering several dozen brainwashed idiots. These kids weren't responsible for
Speaker 1: anything beyond buying into artful propaganda and law, he promises.
Speaker 1: He didn't see them as worse than any other gaggle
Speaker 1: of armed eighteen to twenty two year olds in the
Speaker 1: history of war. Hey, Sardar, you got a wrench, Roland asked, what, Yes,
Speaker 1: Sartar replied, can I borrow it? Um? The young mercenary
Speaker 1: raised an eyebrow in confusion. It's not a sex thing
Speaker 1: Roland has shared him. I never assumed it was, Sardar said,
Speaker 1: then can I have it? Sardar stared at him for
Speaker 1: a long beat and then said okay. He handed over
Speaker 1: his wrench. It was nice, more than two ft long
Speaker 1: and made from fifteen point four pounds of stamped steel.
Speaker 1: This is perfect, Roland told Sardar. Perfect for what Sardar asked, wounding,
Speaker 1: Roland replied, and with that he was off. Roland could
Speaker 1: break thirty miles an hour at a dead sprint, but
Speaker 1: with all the painkillers and weed he'd just taken, and
Speaker 1: that didn't sound super fun. So he strolled along at
Speaker 1: a brisk eighteen miles per hour, darted by will and
Speaker 1: zig zagged his way past a few hundred errant rounds.
Speaker 1: The armored Martyrs fired to suppress Bigsby squad. Two of
Speaker 1: the big recoilist rifles fired their giant explosive tipped munitions.
Speaker 1: Roland reached Nadine and Asame's position. The former was down,
Speaker 1: bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. Her lover fired from cover.
Speaker 1: Roland felt as one of the explosive rounds arched towards
Speaker 1: their position. The other was headed towards Bigsby. Roland's hind
Speaker 1: rain guessed that Biggsby would survive the hit, Nadine and
Speaker 1: Asame wouldn't. He jumped forward and grabbed them both while
Speaker 1: still airborne, and the second before missile met masonry. He
Speaker 1: threw them back out of the blast radius. He knew
Speaker 1: the landing would hurt, but both women were chromed enough
Speaker 1: to survive. After he tossed them, Roland slid to a
Speaker 1: stop on top of the pile of ruined bricks they'd
Speaker 1: hidden behind. The rocket propelled munition hit about three feet
Speaker 1: below him. The seventy five millimeter round contained a half
Speaker 1: kilogram of hexagen, enough explosive power to tear a hole
Speaker 1: in the side of a small tank. It detonated and
Speaker 1: turned the pile of bricks into a shrapnel volcano. Roland
Speaker 1: hopped again. His hind brain made it clear that he
Speaker 1: wouldn't avoid all, nor even most of the shrapnel. Medelin
Speaker 1: brick tore through his biceps, his gut, his legs, and
Speaker 1: his pectorals. Most of the shrapnel stopped at the subdermal
Speaker 1: carapace that protected his vital organs. A few pieces went further.
Speaker 1: They tore one kidney in half and pierced one of
Speaker 1: his hearts. But Roland had multiple redundant backups for every
Speaker 1: important organ. His medical nanites had already started to purge
Speaker 1: the foreign matter and repair the damage. When he hit
Speaker 1: the ground, the battle high rolled in, and roland synapses
Speaker 1: flooded with endorphins, serotonin, and enough morphine to kill a
Speaker 1: middleweight elephant. The chemical elation of imminent combat filled his senses.
Speaker 1: Roland wasn't just high on war. He was tripping balls.
Speaker 1: Sweet shitting fox, I've missed this. Roland flipped a jaunty
Speaker 1: salute to Biggsby as he sprinted forward past the man.
Speaker 1: This time he let his legs pump as fast as
Speaker 1: they could and rushed towards the five advancing armored martyrs
Speaker 1: In the quarter second before contact, Roland had his first
Speaker 1: solid look at the enemy. Their suits were definitely iteration
Speaker 1: of the basic aries design. They had the familiar insectoid
Speaker 1: helmet with its bulbous eyes and heavy nasal sensor blister.
Speaker 1: The shoulders, chests, growing thighs, and shin were all heavily reinforced.
Speaker 1: These were breaching suits meant to lead in advance and
Speaker 1: absorb an enormous amount of incoming fire. The armor was
Speaker 1: painted the dull yellow of a Texas Grassland Roland could
Speaker 1: see red and blue on the edges of the pauldron's
Speaker 1: Republic of Texas colors, but the suits had clearly been
Speaker 1: painted over repurposed by their new owners. Two of the
Speaker 1: men had large white crosses daubed across their chests. One
Speaker 1: man had a cross painted over his face plate. The
Speaker 1: paint jobs seemed new. These suits had been captured or
Speaker 1: handed over recently. Their wearers moved like competent fighters who
Speaker 1: weren't used to the capabilities of full powered armor. Two
Speaker 1: of the martyrs had shoulder mounted missile pods with angry
Speaker 1: looking rockets inside them. Three of them mounted rotary chain
Speaker 1: cannons between their targeting systems and reflex augmentation hardware. They
Speaker 1: could have hurt him if they'd had their ship together,
Speaker 1: but they didn't, and he hit the point man like
Speaker 1: a bag of concrete thrown by a gorilla. Roland didn't
Speaker 1: even bother to swing the wrench yet, He just let
Speaker 1: his substantial body weight turn him into a post human
Speaker 1: battering ram. The first soldier hit the ground, Roland atop
Speaker 1: him with a whine of pistons and internal motors. He
Speaker 1: tried to bring his AsSalt cannon to bear on Roland,
Speaker 1: but the barrel was too long. Roland slammed Tardar's wrench
Speaker 1: into the man's crotch eleven times in the space of
Speaker 1: a second. The suit's growing armor was rated to stop
Speaker 1: a fifty caliber rifle round. It caved in on the
Speaker 1: third hit. Stop, he shouted inside his own mind, Stop,
Speaker 1: you're going to kill him. Roland pulled back with considerable effort.
Speaker 1: His brain wanted more in every impact fed a few
Speaker 1: more endorphins into the hopper, but he managed to stop
Speaker 1: himself before he did a reparable harm. This hesitation made
Speaker 1: him a target, though One of the armored martyrs shot
Speaker 1: him four times and ripped deep gouges in his torso.
Speaker 1: Roland rushed the man and slapped his weapon aside. The
Speaker 1: drugs flooded into him again. As he swung his wrench
Speaker 1: up underhanded into the poor fell lose chin, bone shattered
Speaker 1: on the first swing. Biggsby fired. Roland felt one of
Speaker 1: the other armored martyrs go down, knee caps and throats
Speaker 1: shot out. The two remaining martyrs opted to retreat, but
Speaker 1: it was a fighting retreat. They bounded backwards and launched
Speaker 1: a flurry of rockets towards Roland. Discover fire. These he
Speaker 1: had to avoid. Roland could eat small arms fire all day.
Speaker 1: Rockets were not small. He shoved the wrench into his
Speaker 1: waistband and threw himself into an elegant backflip. He may
Speaker 1: be wanted to impress Bigsby a little. He landed fourteen
Speaker 1: feet back from his prior position, and the same continuous
Speaker 1: motion he picked up two fist sized chunks of concrete
Speaker 1: off the ground, flipped back again, and launched both improvised
Speaker 1: missiles at the retreating martyrs. The rockets impacted one after
Speaker 1: the other in spaces. Roland had been a millisecond before.
Speaker 1: Shrapnel from the detonations tore at his skin and penetrated
Speaker 1: his less critical organs. Roland's hind brain registered at least
Speaker 1: thirty new injuries, none of them were serious enough that
Speaker 1: he felt actual pain. He backflipped again, deaf finitely show boating,
Speaker 1: and landed eight feet ahead of the last rocket and
Speaker 1: right in front of Bigsby's fighting position. Right as he
Speaker 1: landed the chunks of concrete head thrown impacted the face
Speaker 1: plates of both martyrs at around eleven ft per second.
Speaker 1: That impact wouldn't be enough to kill men in Ari's armor, probably,
Speaker 1: but it was enough to break most of their suit
Speaker 1: sensors and shadow a lot of the bones in their faces.
Speaker 1: Roland fixed Biggsby with an evil grin as the last
Speaker 1: two power armored men staggered back, wavered on their feet
Speaker 1: and collapsed. Son of Biggsby started to curse in a low,
Speaker 1: odd voice, because I'll be taking that nipple now. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: Robert Evans here. I hope you just enjoyed the chapter
Speaker 1: you listen to. I hope you enjoyed the chapters to come.
Speaker 1: If you would like to read the text version of
Speaker 1: this book either on the web or on your e
Speaker 1: reader as an e pub, you can find those on
Speaker 1: the website a t r book dot com. So again,
Speaker 1: the free ad free e pub and the text of
Speaker 1: every chapter will be on a t R book dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks