Anthony DeCosmo - Disintegration

A-hehehehe.

A bot climbed the flipped Pathfinder and peeked down at the defenders. Boylen pulled a heavy-duty military shotgun and blasted the thing. Mechanical gears and gooey brain oozed from the smashed faceplate.

Boylen reacted with disgust, "Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph!"

Jon peered around the barricade and spied a parking lot full of enemy machines. They spread into a wide front and advanced toward the flipped cars outside the mall. Another blast of blue plasma hit, tossing one end-over-end and frying another into sparking pieces, but Jon realized that the Roachbots would be under the firing arc of the rooftop artillery in seconds.

"Artillery teams," he radioed. "Time to bug out!"

Jon then yelled to the dozens of men and women clustered around the primitive battlements, "The rest of you, inside the mall! Hustle!"

They ran again, a mob of people toting alien muskets, machine guns, shotguns, and pistols. The Roachbots fired at their backs. Professional soldiers from Prescott’s group and average citizens turned modern-era minutemen fell side by side.

One of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles tried to buy time for the retreating humans. It drove forward firing from its twenty-five millimeter cannon, scoring a direct hit on and destroying one of the six-legged machines.

A Roachbot responded by leaping into the air and landing atop the Bradley, its flat-bottom legs sliding and scraping against the armor plating as it hugged the vehicle.

A-hehehehe.

The bot self-destructed in a powerful blast that shook the ground and severed the top of the Bradley clean off. Secondary detonations tore apart what remained.

Jon and Boylen reached the barricades at the entrance to the mall. Shrapnel from the Bradley/Bot explosion rained behind them. When the hail of metal ended, Jon took a good look at the battlefield.

Pieces of the cybernetic monstrosities littered the area but dozens more of the machines continued to advance. Among the broken gears, robotic legs, and detached faceplates lay the bodies of some forty of Jon’s defenders, including several still writhing and moaning in the vain hope that assistance might come.

Jon hovered for a moment, not wishing to leave living comrades behind. Not again.

"Aye, let’s go," and Boylen dragged him through the barricades erected around the set of glass doors marking the northern entrance to the mall. While most of the alien machines followed the retreating remnants of the human army, three of them focused on the rooftop artillery. Those three robots crouched low…

…Ah-hehehehe…

…and hopped dozens of feet into the air toward the roof.

One missed the mark, bounced off the gutter, and fell to the pavement belly up. Its legs kicked air like an overturned cockroach. The other two robots jumped successfully and cut down the slowest members of the gun crews before turning their weapons on the artillery pieces.

Jon- behind the barrier of tables and planks piled between the entrance doors-called to Prescott who stood nearby after having relinquished command of his Abrams.

"Get everyone out of here, just like we planned."

Prescott did as instructed. The assembled fighters followed him through the racks of clothes, shoes, suits, and jewelry of the store's men’s department. Jon, however, stopped two of those fighters from going.

"Boylen, Casey, you’re with me."

Casey muttered, "This type of plan never worked for the coyote."

The Roachbots reached the last rampart and started to shove through.

Jon led Boylen and Casey across the department store toward the interior of the mall.

"Get the security door ready."

Casey slung his Redcoat energy rifle on his shoulder and lowered the heavy metal grated gate that shielded the store from the wide halls of the enclosed mall. He stopped halfway.

"Jon! We got ourselves company!"

Brewer saw what Boylen saw: a Roachbot in the aisle between dress shirts and shoes.

A-hehehehe.

Boylen raised his Redcoat musket and let a volley of energy fly, missing wide. The bot responded in kind, obliterating a nearby mannequin.

Jon did not need to issue the order: he and Boylen passed Casey who then dropped the security gate all the way. The three ran off as Roachbot shots sparked against the closed gate and a chorus of Ah-hehehehe echoed.

Jon raised his radio as he ran.

"Prescott? Status?"

The response came, "We’re outta there, Jon. You guys are it. Got a couple of them robots on the roof but most of the rest followed you in. Shit, there’s probably three or four dozen of them things in there with you."

The sound of the store's security gate collapsing rattled through the mall as Jon and the others rounded a corner next to a video game store. They ran along a hall that opened to a food court with exit doors on the far side.

A cloud of dust and flying panels avalanched from the ceiling.

A-hehehehe.

A pair of crazy red electronic eyes cut through the billowing debris. The men scattered. The Roachbot's twin guns fired, spraying a nearby arcade as well as ripping through Boylen.

Casey-his own alien rifle well-charged-fired. The burst blasted straight through the robot. Its beady red eyes flickered and died and it rolled on its side, motionless.

Jon stared at Boylen who had been reduced to a bloody pulp.

No time remained to mourn. A cacophony of metallic clatter announced the approach of the horde.

Jon and Casey exited the mall and sprinted across the south parking lot.

The crawl spaces and storage rooms throughout the shopping center had been packed full of the explosive Redcoat powder Omar had spent hours replicating from sand with the matter-making contraption, turning the Wyoming Valley Mall into one gigantic powder keg.

Jon heard the glass doors at the food court entrance behind him shatter outward. Time had run out. With his legs pumping and his breath heaving, he shouted into his radio.

"Omar! Hit it!"

– "Here they come!" Shepherd yelled as the attackers charged through the trees and up the hill toward the first line of defenses.

Reverend Johnny quoted Leviticus: "I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted!"

Shepherd translated, "Fire! Fire at will!"

Nearly one hundred and fifty fighters lined the sloppily dug trenches and overturned trees marking the first line of defense. A stretch of forest in front of those battlements had been cut and cleared, creating an open killing ground between the human lines and the dense woods from where the Vikings assaulted.

Shepherd watched as the aliens stampeded forward hooting an enthusiastic holler that he figured to be their version of a rebel yell.

He tried to guess the number of attackers, but their chameleon cloaks made such estimates difficult for he could only see shadows and silhouettes.

Seventy-Five? One hundred?

Riflemen fired. The crack and pop of scattered shots erupted along the front. Shepherd feared that for many of his ‘soldiers’ those shots served as the first they ever fired in anger.

The leading alien squads emerged from the dark forest and into the twilight sun that glowed softly over the field of stumps and cleared brush. The ponchos that had shaded black and gray to hide among the trees instantly morphed into a soft orange high and a brown/green pattern low but even such powerful camouflage could not hide the aliens in the open.

Human bullets slammed into Viking chests knocking one, two, then more of the invaders to the ground. Crimson stains seeped through their battle suits.

The Vikings responded. The extraterrestrial weapons swooshed and buzzed as they launched small but fast slugs.

A man in a Philadelphia Eagles jersey stumbled backwards as one of the small projectiles flew through his body so fast and so powerful that it left an exit wound as large as what Shep would expect from a shotgun at close range.