The Planet 1.4

1.4.

Battle at DOD Suzuka Zentai

“You are getting old, codger.” I leaned back into the small protection space which had some beating. The sparse wall of stone was however able to accommodate the two of us then. I was with my other mercenary mate, Mac Duggan. He was a nut with the wilder streak that was the marks of a wild horse. We were Duggan Duds; the construct group paid for by the wrong side then. We were employed by DOD to steal some prototype at the Suzuka plant. It was a simple task but the whole task was screwed up from the start.

“Well, pull in your legs.” I replied while I cramped up my legs close to my body with the phaser rifle held around it. It was not the best but with the credits available, we got some mean model there.  Mining corporations pays well, for they demanded the best. And DOD gives you the best.

Well, it was until then.

“Remind me to get rebate on these models.” We paid good credits for the PH375 double shot phaser but the energies pack was unreliable. “They are good for the earlier batches but these last ones sucked. So you reckon we were played for pawns in the Mining game again. It happened before; the mercenaries were sacrificed when the corporations drew new conditions in their corporate games. It was then we were the last to get the revised terms.

I drew in my breath and hugged my legs closer to me. I wanted to discard the phaser but it was holding my legs close to me.

“You said to trust you.” Duggan was my commander and his words were sacred like in trust. I did and followed him here. For that, I was seated on my rear haunches and cowering behind some cover because of trust. I should have said I was fucked but that will be too harsh on my commander who was in the same predicament. Another literary term was we were both fucked. That felt nicer then.

“Clam it!” Duggan turned his body to fire the phaser over his shoulder. He must have read my mind. Besides mind reading, he was also reckless. I had joined him with fifty others to be part of the DOD Assault Team but from the moment we arrived, we were given the beatings of our lives. He did tell us then before we land that we were going in without much Intel. I wished I have backed off.

“Do you think we were played out?” I asked Duggan. The other nodded.

“It happens. We get screwed and get sacrificed. Who cares? We are mercs. They will stay pay us but it will be our beneficiaries who gets paid.”

I laughed. So the task had changed to a game of survival now. Both teams are now being teamed to fight for the entertainment of the corporations. And I was not planning to die that day.

I crouched up while firing my rifle phaser. One thing I was good as the shooter. Sometimes to get the best shots, you need to be exposed. And that means being shot. I rushed forward after I took down the fore shooter with a chest shot. By then the rifle phaser was a goner; the energy pack had jammed in the powering turn. It was useless to me then so I had it discarded. I grabbed my side arm with my right hand; the PH450 with the seven energy shots. I shot while running; it was not to kill but to give me some cover. It worked then for the fourth wound of mine appeared. It blew of my right shoulder and left me with a dangling arm. I was a construct there and I have no time for useless parts; I pulled out the useless arm by the socket and discard it. It was then a stump with exposed cables and circuitries. I jumped ahead and landed on my right side. It was there I retrieved the enemy rifle phaser. Damned, they had better models; PH375-2 Upgraded. I turned my body and took my aim of the enemy with the left hand. It was my organic arm and held a firm aim on the targets. I downed the second and third shooter with well placed shots. Then the rifle energy pack went dead. It was time to change the pack but I was one arm short. I threw the rifle and grabbed the side arm. Left or right handed, I was better at both. I took off the fourth shooter at fifty yards and then I was up running. I ran at random directions and thankfully Duggan was giving me god cover. I hit the far wall at running speed with my right side slamming the wall. With sixty five percent constructs on my body, the wall went down with a gap big enough for me to fall through.

It was a fully assembled droid. No wonder it could put in three shots into me. It was a four limbed model with each limb a built-in rifle phaser into three limbs, while the fourth was the loader limb. It was a Suzuka construct and it was deadly in the battle field. It had a rectangle upper body and it was rest on a double triangular shaped tracks. The head piece was an inverted round bucket with the red sensor slots. They were not built for looks but they held serious fire power. I did not stop there with a body slam into it with my body. Biggest mistake, the darned droid was three times my mass and heavier. It threw me off like a discarded toy but I was a persistent pest when it comes to close body contact. I like to pick the toys off bigger bullies.

I smiled.

The droid registered it late. The energy pack was armed and it was ticking. I had left it in the energy pouch there.

Bad place to leave an armed pack.

I ran and jumped out of the walled area just in time when the energy pack went off. The droid did not stand a chance of taking another shot at me. I laid there on the ground face down and with my organic body screaming for medical attention.

I guess I won the battle and downed the opposing squad. I stood up with my punctured holes. Instead of body fluids, I was seeping hydraulic oils. I guessed it pays to be half droid where the living anatomies are my brains, heart and my lower body. Thankfully the healers kept that intact, or I will be accumulating oils too.

“John, one of these days they are going to miss your mechanical parts and hit one of those remaining body parts.” Duggan stood by me and smiled.

“Isn’t anything the healers cannot replace?” I was sixty five percent mechanical inside me. That was how I kept on surviving. “So tell me are we winning?”

We did win eventually with half the team dead. We also blew the plant that cost Suzuka more pain. It was nothing compared to the reception which we had when we returned.

“You were to stand down.” Craig of DOD snapped at us. “We already have a stand down agreement with Suzuka.”

“And nobody told us. So we proceed with the task. Task completed and we are here.” Duggan replied on our behalf. “So pay up and clam it.”

“You don’t know what you had done.” Craig glared at us. “Suzuka is waging war on us. You are all responsible.”

We ignored the man and walked out. It was soon I found out that DOD had a contract on all of us who survived. Only five of us survived when Kingsley bought the contracts. We were saved by Kingsley but DOD never forgave us.