Beyond Light

Heavy Weaponry Escape.

“Gwrraaaaaaaagh!” screeched one of the monstrous hybrids as it rammed.

John shot it with his Fireworker L23n, and a burst of blue and green lights dismembered the humanoid mid-air. No blood came out of its synthesized body.

“Damn! The door is shutting down!” cursed Derek, shooting his Rowies as he moved back. He put his hand on a soldier's shoulder and pushed him to rush to the exit.

John looked; the hexagonal door behind was slowly shutting itself close. He shot another incoming abomination before running down the stairs. “Let's go, everyone!”

Gray tracing rounds and blue beams whistled and rumbled as the creatures screeched and lounged like hungry hyenas; Derek and Heinrich halted their fire and rushed to the closing exit. The rest of the soldiers were already out, offering them cover fire.

“It’s closing!” yelled Heinrich, about to run through the thinning gate. “Seems like Goliath wants to trap us with these poor bastards!”

“Faster!” yelled John, offering them cover fire next to it.

The door was now dangerously low; Derek ran as fast as he could and got below it, using his raw force to stop it from sealing shut.

“Cross over! NOW!” he yelled. The veins on his face began to pop out, and his teeth were about to break off how much he squeezed them.

The transformed humans screamed in agony once again. Some of them lounged to the walls and crawled like cockroaches. John pulled the trigger for one last time crawling like a worm through the narrow groove Derek offered him.

Heinrich crossed right after John, and then Derek sliced out and let the door shut. Its sawed mechanisms full of cables and pipes shot white fume before a hydraulic click isolated the room. The Sergeant panted like a dog on the floor, his face as red as a tomato.

John stretched his gauntlet and helped him get up. “Nice job there. We need to get outta here. C'mon.”

“I’m getting too old for this,” joked Derek, taking a deep breath before recovering himself.

Their soldiers around then yelled; red beams and lasers crossed over their heads. The white robots had returned to finish them off. Various bipeds unleashed lasers through the dark and foggy intersection between them and the elevator on the other side, some of them compacted into their drone form.

Another type they hadn’t seen before was there too: crab-like robots of six paws and two arms, holding lilac energy barriers to cover the bipeds behind.

“Alright, we’re leaving!” ordered John. “Back to the vehicles!”

He moved to the DEFENDER.v4 Paladin and climbed to the cockpit. The hatch pressurized, and he assumed neural control of the mech. He hadn’t noticed there were at least six dead soldiers laying on the floor.

Goddamn bastards. He marched ahead to tank the damage for his team, spreading his bubblish energy barrier, and unleashing fire through his 13mm kinetic rotatory cannons. The incoming lasers faded away as they met his shield, making it gleam with steam and rainbow colors.

“Alright, Cap, everyone’s in. Let's get our asses outta here!” yelled Derek.

The three remaining V99m’s shot light blue through their three propulsors at their triangular bases, and the turrets at their backs unleashed plasma bolts at the robot formation hiding among the dark fog.

John activated his thermal sensors, all enemy units getting marked by red webbed auras. Spreading his 14u plasma cannon, the cylinder got charged by blue sparks, and a cloud of hyper-heated gas hit a crab ahead. Its lilac shield collapsed in an electrified ripple, and the bipeds behind flew away as they were calcinated.

“Keep going on, everyone!” he yelled, and his hydraulic legs sprinted, the hovering vehicles running behind him.

The alien robots sparsed themselves, making it hard for the humans to focus on them. A red rain of lasers whistled, and John's paladin steamed cyan sparks as his energy shields were getting obliterated.

He activated his thrusters and lounged, raising like a missile and then impacting the metallic ground with a pulverizing slam that reduced to scrap a group of bipeds with 53 tons of steel and titanium.

“Nice one, Cap!” said Doctor Winslow. “And I thought this got boring!”

“Keep focused!” responded John.

The three V99m's left cyan stellae as they accelerated to the hexagonal gate where the elevator stood. John rushed too. More biped units arrived on their drone forms, extending their mechanical goat legs on the ground and deploying their mounted weapons.

But they were different; their flat, slightly rounded heads had an extra section above, making them look taller; they were perforated with cylindrical bays. They focused on a single V99m, and screaming missiles were unleashed through them. The combined explosives triggered a burning explosion of lilac and cyan colors, and its hatches and turrets were sent away as broken ashes. Only a blackened, burning carcass remained of what was once a human-boarded vehicle.

“Damn! They got Delta!” yelled a soldier. “Wait. I’m detecting biosignals coming from there!”

“We ain’t leaving without them! Go and assist them!” ordered John, getting in the way and using his deployable barrier to distract the missile-armed bipeds.

“Are you insane?” complained Heinrich. “Let’s go, Cap! I ain't feeling like becoming charcoal today.”

“Heinrich, you are the medic. Go there and assist them!” ordered John, his 5'5mm and 13mm kinetic cannons obliterating the bipeds. But more arrived in their drone forms, carrying crab units with their bent legs.

"Damn! the pilot and the gunner are dead!" informed a soldier, his companions helping the survivors from the fallen Delta V99m to get aboard their own vehicle.

"Move the survivors! C'mon!" insisted John, keeping the fire on.

His energy barrier could not stop steaming from the red laser evaporating it. It was going to collapse at any moment, and his rotatory cannons had also overheated, forcing him to use his plasma cannon. Both rotatory cannons stopped spinning, their tips orange as they shot steam away.

John tightened his teeth, his plasma cannon overheating, and his interface beeping with annoying red warnings. He activated his thrusters, and used his massive weight as a weapon; he crushed a crab and various bipeds as he plummeted above them. Turning around, he raised, he used his mechanical claws to hammed the surviving units around, making his Paladin emanate sparks and fire as its energy shields were about to collapse.

"We are all done!" yelled Doctor Winslow. "Three survivors aboard!"

"Nice job! Let's go!" said John. The two remaining V99m's rushed to the hexagonal gate, followed by their drones.

More bipeds and crabs arrived from the ducts and hatches around the wicked laboratory behind. John's rotatory cannons cooled. He unleashed plasma waves at them and rushed to the exit. A soldier unboarded his V99m and pressed the control panel. Lasers tried to char them down, but the hexagonal door shut.

John's forehead sweated like a fountain. He took a deep breath. "That was a good job. Is everyone alright?"

"Now that's what I'd call a hell of a fun!" mocked Heinrich. "But I wouldn't do it again."

"Damn, son. We almost didn't make it," said Derek.

"Everyone, look up!" cried a soldier. "We've got company!"

John looked up; spheres descending through the prismatic walls filled with lights above, swirling as if they were falling through a water sink. The battle was not over.

"Hold your fire, everyone! I'm going to try something," he ordered, an idea raising on his mind.

He waited for the spheres to be closer before activating his thrusters and getting shot up at their height. He smacked one with his hydraulic claws mid-air, making it fly against another, and explode in lilac fire.

A din rumbled, and the wall got dented. He used the rest of his thrust charge to reach another sphere, impacting it against the purplish alloy and reducing it to debris.

"Move away!" screamed Derek. John returned to the elevator with the force of gravity, making it tremble and everyone on it hop. But more spheres kept descending...

"Now! Fire!" ordered John. Both V99m's and the Paladin mech unleashed combined fire, and one after another fell, the alien machines fell in clusters of purple sparks and burning scrap.

"Nice job, Johnny!" exclaimed Heinrich. "You're no longer a pup! You're a wolf now!"

John felt adrenaline rushing through his body; fear and pain didn't mean anything. He'd fight uncountable waves of those alien machines if necessary until they reached the exit.

"End of the lift!" informed a soldier! "Let's keep going!"

They were again at the colossal structure above, where the condensed bridge and the pillars making rows were installed.

But John's radars identified more foes; three of the giant dinosauric robot units of lilac lasers, wandering around and guarding the area. There was also a whole army of bipeds walking or hovering, spheres rolling through the towering walls, and crabs making defensive formations. It was a whole militia making escape seem like a suicide idea.

"More of those bastards," wished Derek. "what's the plan?"

"Too many of them, we can't fight them," responded John, his shield systems recovering. "Listen up, we rush and get the hell outta here as fast as we can. It's that or that ship's gonna turn us into those monsters."

"Give us the order, sonny. We're ready."

Time halted for John. He analyzed the battlefield. The left side had the least robots, and using the pillars as a cover would multiply their chances significantly. He tightened his controls again; the battle hadn't ended.

"Now!" he screamed. "Zigzag through the left pillars!"

His paladin rushed, reaching its maximum speed of 60km/h. The robots spotted them and began to unleash red fire at them. They bypassed the condensed bridge, which the robots made vanish to stop them.

John shot his rotatory cannons as he sprinted. The V99m's spammed fire, trying to create havoc and stop the robots to get a clear line of fire.

"Only 400 meters! We're almost there!" he bypassed a pillar and thrust to gain speed.

They almost made it, but as they were on the last intersection, two giant bays spread, and two giant dinosaurs of long necks fell from them, impeding their way.

"Don't stop!" screamed John. Both giant machines intensified the red on their heads. He activated his recovered energy barrier.

"Damn! They are going to fry us worse than they did with the Eternity!" yelled Heinrich.

"Sparse, everyone!" ordered John

Both purplish-platinized machines reached their maximum red, but as they were going to unleash their melting lasers, they got hit in the back with deafening rumbles. They tried to turn around, but they got hit again by explosives and exploded in clouds of lilac that made the structure tremble, and thousands of burning scrap fly away all across the place.

"Woohoo!" yelled Heinrich. "Look, it's Alpha! The Tortoises are here to save our asses!"

"Bravo?" spoke the pilot of one of the tanks. "We were hearing trouble. Let's get you the hell outta here!"

The clouds dissipated, and the two heavy tanks of reinforced planks and double cannons stood on the entrance, dispatching the rest of the robots approaching, unleashing shells, and wreaking explosive havoc at the now-retreating alien robots.

John smiled and kept rushing to the entrance. The V99m's followed behind, and then the Tortoises, their cannons aiming back still shooting waves of smaller units. When more dinosaurian units arrived, the humans were already out of those wicked alien structures.