Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

“I’m outta juice!” Morris answered, ditching the huge power pack with a curse. He snatched up the controls for MAARS-bot, muttering a litany of profanity as he adjusted the robot’s controls.

“Any second now, Morris! Feel free!” Nielsen bellowed. The barghest was almost on them, growing wider by the second, undeterred by the gallons of blood and black hydraulic fluid pouring from its wounds.

“Got it!”

The robot chirped pleasantly, and suddenly the rocket pods on its central chassis burst into life. Four 66mm incendiary rockets screamed through the air, each one landing right on top of the other. The monster’s front legs were sheared clean off. One of the rockets detonated inside the barghest, showering all of them with blood, guts and machine parts. The metallic skeleton of the creature was revealed, along with sparking wires and steaming organs.

The barghest mindlessly pushed itself toward them with its hind legs. The kill team kept up their rate of fire until it was only a few feet from them. Finally, it stopped, right in front of Folen, a mechanical screech signaling the death of its primary power source.

Folen peered down at its massive, bloody jaws. He chuckled, and kicked it in the eye.

The barghest lunged forward, its teeth sinking into his leg. Folen screamed as it savaged the wound, jerking its head back and forth. His limb came away at the hip, bright arterial blood fountaining through the air. The others yelled, dumping rounds into the creature’s head until its skull was nothing more than a black and red smear on the shattered tile.

Nielsen immediately went to Folen’s side. The soldier clasped his sergeant’s arm, looking up at him with a mixture of sorrow and annoyance.

“Nielsen,” he whispered. “Tell my wife…”

The sergeant squeezed his hand. “I will, Folen. I promise.”

“No... listen. Tell my wife I said…” Nielsen leaned forward, until Folen’s lips brushed his ear. “... fuck Obama.”

“Goddammit,” Nielsen said, standing up as Folen briefly cackled at his own joke before dying. “Macy, how much ammo you got left?”

“I’m Winchester,” Macy answered, unceremoniously dumping his MK48 onto the ground. “I’ll take Folen’s LAW. And his M4, so I can shoot myself once this is all over.”

“Great idea.” He turned to Morris, and gestured at the huge corpse blocking the corridor. “We aren’t getting around this. Is there any other way to the bionics bay?”

“Yeah. We gotta backtrack a bit, but we’ll make it there quick if we hustle. Follow me.”

The bionics bay was as big as some brigade-level operation centers Nielsen had seen. Massive screens covered the walls. Multiple rows of desks were set up, as well as what looked like a laboratory in a separate chamber near the eastern end of the bay. There was no sign of violence like there was elsewhere in the camp; everything was still, almost bizarrely serene.

“You better put me in for a bronze star with valor,” Macy said to Morris, taking up a defensive position behind a row of desks. He unlimbered his LAW, extended the rocket tube, and placed it lightly on his shoulder.

“I’ll deny any award he puts you in for,” Nielsen replied, kneeling behind the row across from Macy. “You’ve got a bad attitude. Maybe you’ll get a certificate of achievement. Maybe.”

“All right, ladies,” Morris said from one of the computers, typing away furiously. “I sent the return command a minute ago. Now all we gotta do is wait.”

The words had barely left his mouth when the sturdy steel doors they had entered through collapsed, along with much of the wall. The remaining barghest exploded into the room, barreling straight for Morris and the command console. Nielsen cursed, squeezing the trigger of the recoilless rifle as Macy opened up with his LAW. Nielsen’s round went wide, landing in the bionics lab with a muted crump. Glass flew everywhere, the lethal shards forcing him to duck and cover.

MAARS-bot opened up with all four machine guns mounted to its frame. The 7.62mm rounds pinged loudly as they penetrated the monster’s subcutaneous shell. The .50 cal rounds blasted huge chunks out of the barghest’s flank. Despite missing most of its left front limb from Macy’s accurate rocket attack, it barged through the rows of desks and threw itself at Morris.

There was a brief moment of panicked screaming, rising only slightly over the nonstop barrage of bullets. Macy fired the LAW he’d recovered from Folen, managing to completely shred the creature’s left rib cage. Blood and pressurized lubricant sprayed everywhere, live wires hissing as they crossed each other.

It turned to face them with most of Morris hanging from its jaws. The console the SF soldier had been busily typing into was mangled, destroyed beyond repair. The barghest roared, sending a chunk of Morris’ leg flying through the air.