U.N.E.

Chapter Twenty Three

“I need everyone else to get away from the Destroyer! Stay away and get ready for the Meteors! How much time do I have?”

“Twenty seconds! What are you doing? Why did you just make Sarah eject a live explosive round?!” Michelle answered a second later and the doubt in her voice was palpable.

Angela chose not to answer. It was insane. Completely and totally insane, and what was worse was that she herself knew it. But she couldn't think of anything else in that moment. They had lost the attention of the monster that she had promised Alex that they would take care of, and now there was a missile strike coming in that could potentially wipe out of the front firing line if they didn't get the damn beast away from it. If she had a better plan, one that didn't involve her nearly blowing herself up, then she would do it.

Without a second thought, Angela kicked her Rogue into motion and sped off towards Sarah. Without even stopping she typed in a quick command to force the Rogue to pick up the live round from the ground and then turned back towards the battlefield, a literal ticking time bomb held in her hands. Now she just had to hope she could get to the Destroyer before the thing blew up in her face, and she also hoped that she had enough time to lure it away and then get away herself before the missiles hit and tore her machine to pieces.

Yep, this is the dumbest thing I have ever done, she thought to herself as her machine screamed through the air, only a few feet above the pockmarked ground. It easily eclipsed the kiss she almost planted on Alexander back by the lake.

The live round she had clasped in the unmoving hand of her Rogue weighed heavy on her mind. How long had passed since Sarah had ejected it? Five seconds? Ten? It might not seem like a lot of time, but in this case it was an eternity. The explosive round was a heavy artillery round that was used during a bombardment to kill off stragglers or before an attack to effectively create a minefield where there wasn't one before. It was an effective weapon, but Angela doubted that the creators of it hadn't had what she was about to do with it in mind when they first got the idea. Hell, she didn't know anyone who would think of something as stupid as this. Besides Alex that was. For some reason this seemed right in his wheelhouse.

“Fifteen seconds!” Michelle warned in the exact same moment that Angela found herself hovering right above the abomination that was tearing a path towards the front line; a wake of dead and crushed UNE tanks behind it.

“Get ready to attack!” she yelled.

A bead of cold sweat rolled down her cheek and tickled her, but Angela ignored it. She also ignored the roiling pain in her gut and the fact that her heart had suddenly seized in her chest. Worrying about that stuff would come after this; if she lived. Now it was time for action, and that's exactly what she set out to do. She had been told once during her first few weeks of training that combat was chaotic and you never knew how things were going to turn out. That statement had never been more true than it was right in that moment.

With no time left on the clock and everything on the line, Angela released the explosive device held in the hand of her machine right on top of the monsters head. She wished she could have stuck around to see what happened next up close and personal, but she didn't want to be anywhere near this creature when the round detonated or when the missiles hit their mark. Instead she had to settle for watching it on a small screen in front of her that was fed video from one of her three rear facing cameras. Still, it was a hell of a show.