Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

he angled the suit forward. The combination of engines on the arms and legs afforded him amazing control of his flightpath. It still wasn’t the gutsy acceleration of a CASPer, but the memory of an old movie about a comic book superhero brought a smile to his face. “Yeah, I can fly.”

His feelings of exultation and freedom were his undoing. He hadn’t bothered with detailed scans of the former garbage truck. If he had, he’d have noticed there was a turret on the roof as well as the gun slits on the sides. As he angled his flight forward, the armor’s threat assessment noticed the turret at the same time he spotted it.

It looked like it came off some sort of tank, and was probably alien made. Considering there’d been a good deal of fighting around Houston as well, he shouldn’t have been surprised. A lot of merc-quality hardware was just lying around. Some of it had made its way into gang hands, and onto a garbage truck.

“Oh, fuck,” Rick said and altered his flight path, which didn’t respond as quickly as he thought it would. The armor’s anti-fire control system augmented his inputs, though too late. The alien manufactured high-velocity chain gun opened up with a brrrrrt! sound, tearing through the air and across Rick’s flightpath.

His poorly executed dodge was enough to get out of the path of gunfire from the surprise turret. It also jinked his flightpath into one of the other gunner’s sights. A 20mm round ripped through his right leg just below the knee, severing it.

“Argh!” he yelled as the kinetic force of the impact sent him spinning wildly. He tried to control his flight, unsuccessfully. He slammed into the top of the garbage truck hard enough to crush the turret. “Ouch,” he said, trying to concentrate through the sea of warning lights projected into his brain. I need a way to tone these down.

By the time he’d overridden all the warnings, a hatch had opened in the top of the garbage truck less than a meter away, and some dude was pointing a laser rifle at his head. Rick triggered the arm blade and punched with lightning speed. The man gave a gurgling scream as a quarter of his head fell away in a wash of blood.

Yells sounded from inside the improvised armor. Already missing a leg, Rick wasn’t in the mood to climb inside and sort it out. He reached behind his back and triggered the armor to release one of the six grenades fitted around his waist, programming it for a 5 second detonation at the same time. “Little something for you,” he yelled and dropped it inside the hatch.

He activated the flight controls to make good his escape. Nothing happened. <WARNING—Flight Mode Offline>

“Well, that’s inconvenient,” he said as the grenade exploded.

* * *

Sato hunkered behind the heavy wall section Rick had propped up to shield him as heavy rounds tore up the ground all around him. He was on his knees, hands over his head, and someone was screaming. With a roar of electric turbines, Rick jumped away, and the gunfire followed him.

They have a damn tank! he thought. Rick had to be right about that of all things. He peeked around the now partially shattered wall he’d used for cover and saw Rick soar through the air like a superhero. He had a moment to admire how well he flew. The flight system really was quite elegant. For a moment Sato completely forgot he was in a deadly battle—at least until the Æsir was swatted out of the sky by the heavy guns.

Sato watched as one of the Æsir’s legs spiraled away, and Rick crashed into the ‘tank,’ and out of his view. He stayed on his knees, blinking in disbelief.

“Hey, asshole!”

Sato’s head came around. Four men were a few meters away pointing a variety of guns at him. They looked tough and pissed. He slowly raised his hands.

“See, I knew they was after something,” one of them said.

“What we do wid dis one?” another asked.

“Kill ‘em and take that box.”

No. Sato thought, and a veil fell over his vision.

<Blink>

“Mr. Sato, wake up!”

He opened his eyes and looked up at Rick, standing absurdly on his remaining leg. How did I get on my back?

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Sato said. Other than maybe a bump or two, he felt fine. He moved to get up, and realized the compact laser pistol Rick had given him way back on Karma was in his hand. Just like lying on the ground, he had no memory of removing the weapon from the pocket where he’d carried it. He blinked in confusion.

“What happened with those idiots?” Rick asked and pointed.

Sato followed his gesture and saw the four men who’d confronted him seemingly moments ago, all apparently dead. He could see one had a laser wound in his head, but another had his head and neck twisted in an impossible angle. He opened his mouth, only no explanation came out. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Fair enough,” Rick said and held out a hand to help him up. Sato took it gratefully. Even with just one leg, the Æsir was powerful enough to lift a car.

“How about you?” Sato pointed at the shredded leg. “That hurt?”

“The sensor data and warning kinda hurt, yeah. But I managed to sort out the sensations and feedback after the armored car blew up.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder to the smoldering wreck of the modified garbage truck.

“You warned me,” Sato said. “I should have listened to you about these gangs.”

“You got us out of Mexico to here. Call it even. Can you pick up my leg? I can make it to the car,” Rick picked up the armored box they’d come for. “But I can only carry one