Argonaut - The Vestige (Part III)

Chapter 5 - Coming Home

“It’s absorbing the energy I throw at it,” I added, “This could be a problem.”

“Let me handle it,” Gallagher said evenly, drawing both of his railguns.

I held a hand in front of him as he lined up to shoot. “Don’t kill them.”

“You just love making this harder for me, don’t you?” he muttered, firing both of the railguns simultaneously.

The bolts thundered across the street as the Humvee raced on, slamming into two of the Scorpion’s front-mounted cameras. Gallagher quickly cracked open both of the guns to reload, calling to the geek as he did so.

“Take a left here!” he shouted through the window as the all of the Scorpion’s cannons started to fire.

The slow, heavy chugging of the Scorpion’s cannons echoed through the streets; the few pedestrians scattered as the chase moved further into the city. I brought my hands up, tearing the road apart as the Scorpion scuttled around the corner. The debris that flew into the air formed a loose shield that caught the flak shells, letting us gain more ground. Using one hand to maintain the destruction, I threw one hand to the side to collect as many empty cars from the sidewalk as possible. They scattered themselves along the road, obstacles to slow the Scorpion’s progress as much as possible.

“Five, get your head down!” Gallagher shouted, falling to his knees.

I wordlessly obeyed, crouching just moments before the Humvee burst through a personnel barrier and entered a tunnel. The ceiling of the tunnel whizzed overhead, and the Scorpion crouched to continue its pursuit. It stepped effortlessly between the cars I had thrown in front of it, not even slowing down.

“We can’t manoeuvre much in here,” I yelled to Gallagher as we raced past abandoned cars, “You’d better have a plan!”

“I do,” he yelled back, “Just keep that thing off us for a bit.”

I nodded, throwing cars as fast as I could to stop the Scorpion from targeting us. My brothers ran alongside it, pursuing us deeper into the tunnel as Gallagher started to shoot again. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him lying forward, aiming at a point about half a mile in front of us.

“Mind giving me a hand?” I shouted, “You’re shooting the wrong way!”

“It’s part of the plan, just fucking slow that thing down!”

I returned to staving off the attackers, sending as much energy as I could spare forward to try and keep them off us. No matter how much I threw at them, my brothers tore through it without much effort. Combined, their power made mine look pitiful. My only hope was speed, where I wouldn’t have to face them head-on.

“What are you doing?” I shouted as I shielded myself from a prolonged burst from the Scorpion’s tail-mounted turret. Normally my shield would have been ripped apart, but when I supercharged it with energy it stood up to the assault. It wouldn’t last long.

“What do you think?” he snapped back, “Taking out the fucking roof! Come on, give me a hand!”

I turned to see the area he was shooting at, now riddled with holes from his rails. All of the shots had been evenly spaced mere feet from each other, and in a line that stretched horizontally across the tunnel’s roof. It was barely a hundred metres away, and we were closing the gap fast. I dropped the shield, pushing both hands towards the weakened section of roof. I trusted in the few seconds I had bought with my distractions, pulling down on the weakened ceiling as we shot underneath.

The Scorpion slowed its pace as the ceiling cracked, seeing stream of water entering the tunnel through the rift. We must be underneath a river. One held up both hands, calling my brothers to a stop. All of them did, except for Two. He continued to race forward, bounding between the ruined cars with a speed I thought was beyond him.