Chapter 3 – Combat Test
Emi hoped that her voice sounded intimidating as she leveled her particle beam rifle at the heavily armed maids. From the surprised looks on their faces, she’d made an impression with her landing at least. Diagnostics showed that the rifle was fully charged and ready to fire, control linkages were all engaged, recoil compensators were all active. She thumbed off the safety, again blinking away sweat; at least her visor wasn’t fogging up in the oven-like confines of the suit. “This is your last warning! Drop the guns!” She couldn’t exactly hear herself, but she knew that her voice should have been deep and robotic.
“Hey, just so you know, there’s a cellular call in progress a couple hundred feet behind you. Sounds like a cop’s watching you and is reporting it in.”
Another maid peeked out from the corner of the building, and the suit’s software automatically locked a new targeting ring around it. Emi gasped, though, her mouth falling open. It was a child! She was dressed like the other maids, even held a submachine gun, but she couldn’t have even been thirteen yet!
“Fancy…we don’t like fancy around here, though! Fuck the robot, girls, take it out!” yelled the little maid, waving her MP5 at Emi with a one-handed grip. Warnings beeped as multiple impacts registered on the armor’s outer plating. Emi could barely hear the metallic pings and didn’t even register the strikes from the bullets as the quintet unloaded on her. Seeing that her vitals were mostly fine aside from increased temperature and heart rate, she remembered to breathe.
“You okay? Talk to me!” Becky said over the comm. “The armor says its fine, but you don’t have any new holes?”
“Uh, yeah, er, no, I”m fine…” Emi said, still looking at the little girl who gleefully laughed as she sprayed lead at Emi’s armor. “Do you see that?”
“Yeah…that’s some kinda messed up bullshit right there. I keep tellin’ everyone that we need to spank our kids more these days than ever. Oh shit, watch out!”
The little girl had reached under her skirt and came back up with a hand grenade, plucking the pin out with her teeth. As Becky gave her warning, the girl yelled “Suck on this, robot fuck!”, and lobbed the grenade at Emi.
Stunned, Emi watched as the grenade seemed to move in slow motion, arching perfectly from the girl’s hand toward her, hitting the ground and rolling to her feet. Her armor registered the explosive device and flashed a warning to move immediately, but then her visor went dark, and the whole suit vibrated as the explosion enveloped her. Louder warnings blared in her ears as damage readouts lit up on the HUD.
Yet, Emi hadn’t moved. She remained planted where she had first stood. Her rifle was still aimed in the direction of the maids, who were in the process of reloading according to the thermal imaging, a cloud of smoke and debris having enveloped her.
“So much for that soup can,” said the little girl maid, coming in loud and clear over her audio pickups.
“Emi! You okay? I’m seeing damage on your suit!”
“It’s nothing…” she said at last, sucking in her breath. True, there was damage, a few of the lighter outer armor plates had been blown off (the whole purpose of the Chobham-style armor in fact), but the internal armor was unaffected, aside from some stress on the outer frame and some possible damage to some circuitry; even the rifle was still registering in great shape. She still showed 98% overall functionality.
Narrowing her eyes, Emi took aim at the closest maid, targeting the rifle held in her hands. As the target-lock tone sounded, she made sure the rifle was on its lowest power setting and pulled the trigger halfway, causing the particle beam to prime, the tip of the rifle glowing in a bright purple.
“I don’t’ think it’s dead, Suzie!” said one of the maids, taking a step back.
“Then fucking kill it!” the little girl yelled, slapping the bolt on the MP5 after she had inserted a fresh magazine, then sent another volley at Emi.
The maid she had targeted staggered backward and opened fire, screaming with fear as she realized Emi’s cannon was pointing her way.
As more bullets rained down harmlessly on the armor, Emi’s display focused on the maid’s rifle, zooming in to target straight into the barrel. In the next moment she squeezed the trigger the rest of the way, and the bright purple beam surged from the barrel of the big gun, streaking toward the maid.
One of the trucks the maids had driven crumpled under the blast, launching backward down the street, and rolled end over end for a good hundred feet before it came to a stop in a smoking, flaming heap. Somehow, the front end of the truck, with the wheels, hadn’t moved, though the engine block was missing, and a large hole had been blown through the grill.
The maid turned, saw the destruction, and promptly fainted into a heap on the sidewalk.
“Ooops…”
“That was the low settin’? Damn…” Becky said, whistling. “Might not wanna fire that thing again till we get to the range, hon.”
“So glad I wasn’t aiming at her…” Emi replied, her voice shaky. She really shouldn’t have fired the gun without proper testing or sight alignment, but she wouldn’t make that mistake again. Sweating from more than the heat now, she lowered the rifle and replaced it on the rear equipment rack as the trio of maids ran inside, firing at her as they went. The one they’d called Suzie snatched another grenade from beneath her skirt and lobbed it at Emi before she too ran inside, but Emi was already walking toward them, the grenade exploding behind with only a slight jarring of the armor, the shrapnel pinging harmlessly off the plates.
Passing by the other truck, Emi paused, turning to regard the vehicle. “Any thoughts about dealing with that girl? I really don’t want to hurt her.” Checking the power levels on her armor, Emi stepped over to the front of the truck.
“I’m a workin’ on it,” Becky replied, her voice sounding a bit tense. “Tryin’ to see if I can get an ID on any of’em you’ve seen so far while thinkin’ up a way to deal with a brat packin’ heat. I’m tellin’ ya, spank your kids!”
As more bullets rattled against the rear of the armor, Emi drove her right hand forward, easily punching through the thin sheet metal of the truck’s hood, and part-way through the engine, stopping it dead. Going a step further, getting a good grip on the insides, she gave a sudden pull, and the whole engine block ripped free, tearing part of the transmission out with it. She casually tossed it aside onto the blacktop, and turned back toward the storefront, recalculating the power in the servos to a lower setting as she walked toward the truck that had plowed through the building.
“I’m going in.” More intense gunfire washed over her the moment she stepped around the damaged truck as all the maids save the little girl opened up on her with their rifles, though none of their rounds were making headway against the highly resilient alloys of the armor, not even the heavier bullets that a few of the maids fired. Her threat display lit up with over a dozen maids, all marked with a targeting reticle. She spotted the little girl at the rear of the store for a moment as she skittered into the back room. Where was the driver of the truck who had rammed into the store?
Trusting her calculations on the output of her armor’s flight systems and the adjustments to the servos based on her earlier test with the truck outside, Emi kicked her thrusters on for just a moment, crossing the distance to the first group of maids in a flash. She tore through the empty display case like it was a wet paper bag, arms outstretched to clothesline two of the maids who had been using it for cover.
Emi couldn’t even feel the impact through the thick metal as she brought the maids to the ground, slamming them to the floor hard enough to knock the wind from them, and then slamming them down again to make sure they were out cold. As she crouched over them, she let her scanners take a few moments to read their vitals; they were unconscious, and probably wouldn’t feel too good when they woke up, but they were far from any permanent damage.
With a grim smile on her face, Emi stood and turned into another barrage of rifle fire, leaping high and into the midst of a quartet of maids, the impact of her landing causing a small crater in the floor and staggering them. While they were off balance, she spun, sweeping her leg into theirs, sending them crashing to the floor. A quick punch to each of them had them out of action, and then Emi focused on the remaining half, who had backed away from her and spread out as they ducked behind display cases to reload.
Fearing that dealing with all the maids was taking too long, Emi did a quick calculation of their positions and came up with an idea. “Make a note…more anti-personnel weapons for multiple targets.”
“Gotcha,” came Becky’s reply. “Police are on the move. Hey, be mindful of those maids’ line of fire; that cop that called in the robbery has moved closer to the building, near the second truck you took out.”
“Roger that,” Emi said. Sucking in hot air, deciding that better cooling was top priority once the test was over, she fired her backpack and leg thrusters, shooting herself across the foyer, banking sharply before she twisted herself in midair to redirect her thrust to send her directly toward the first maid in the line. The maids were unable to keep up with her speed, and by the time they had readjusted their aim to try to shoot at Emi, their ally was in the line of fire, but only for a moment.
Emi collided with the maid, holding her arms wide so that she was basically doubled over her elbow, and kept her thrust steady, She hit the next maid a heartbeat later with her other arm, and then the third maid. The remaining maids seemed to get the idea and turned to run, but Emi pushed her thrusters to higher output, catching the remaining three in her arms.
WIth the speed she had built up, Emi couldn’t stop or change course, and all of them plowed through the shattered, but still standing windows on the far side of the foyer from the first truck’s entry point. She banked and backed her thrust down just a bit, slamming the maids into a light pole. At least two of them were knocked out from the impact, and had broken ribs based on her readouts. As the pole crumpled in the middle and toppled, she released the maids, but quickly grabbed the already deformed metal and bent the end further, wrapping it around the group of maids, following suit with the other end. In a matter of seconds, the six maids were wrapped up inside the light pole, their arms pinned at their sides, struggling against themselves and the pole and flinging curses at her.
Turning back to the store, Emi jetted back inside, catching a glimpse of the cop Becky had told her about, thinking the woman looked like a detective given the business-like suit she wore. Emi landed on the floor just outside the back room, and turned on her vocalizer. “Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up! This is your only warning!”
“Eat a dick!” came the little girl’s shouted response, followed by a burst of 9mm rounds that tore up the door frame in front of Emi.
“Damn it…” she muttered, her mind still trying to come up with a way to disable the girl without hurting her. Hoping a solution would present itself, she stepped through the doorway.
“Hey, good news! That girl-”
Becky’s message was lost in a cacophony of emergency alarms as the world turned to fire in front of Emi. Her visor darkened in a split second, but fire consumed the space in front of her, and she felt a shockwave impact her a split second before a massive hunk of metal, a vault door, slammed into her and tore through the wall, taking her with it. Emi was aware that she was on the ground, a dozen different warnings flashing on her display as the huge door came to rest on top of her, and she was suddenly consumed by hot, sweaty darkness.
The armor had been shut down! She couldn’t move!
The action is ramping up, and it looks like Emi is in a bit of a pinch! How’s she going to get out of this one? What do the maids have in store for her? Stay tuned for the next chapter to find out!
Hope you’re all enjoying this so far. Trust me, the kinky stuff is coming! Some things just take a little time to earn is all 😉
Stay tuned for the next chapter in a week!
Till next time, Urban out!
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