and tripped over downed brethren.
The town’s militia opened fire with its own primitive muskets and bolt-action rifles, joining the fight. As the Hydrae at the head of the charging remnants fell with bullets puncturing their organs, the remaining attackers renewed their charge, leaping over black-scaled corpses twisted in the dirt.
The New Olympian pilot reached for another javelin, but the horde was suddenly too close to the skirmish line defending the town. They would be caught in the spear’s blast radius. Artem15 leaped, soaring over the space between herself and the Hydrae as the first bayonet sank into a citizen’s chest. Anger stirred inside the metal-wrapped warrior’s heart. With a feral rage that Are5 would have been proud of, she landed on the necks of a half-dozen clones, her four-toed hydraulic leg squashing them into the soil with the force that only a ton and a half of metal propelled at 150 miles per hour could produce. As she landed, Diana bellowed through her suit’s loudspeakers, an inarticulate, amplified war cry that froze a score more of the deadly clones.
Her backup opened fire, slicing through the stunned and distracted Hydrae, ending their vat-born lives in a hail of bullets. Artem15’s throat filled with bile, however, as she saw Greek men and women twist and fall alongside the Hydrae.
“Fall back!” Artem15 ordered. “I’ll hold the line!”
The horde of attackers twisted, eyeing Artem15 as she drew her javelin from its hip quiver. They lunged forward, snarling, swinging, stabbing their bayonet-tipped muskets, determined to down an elite clockwork warrior. Pike-sharp points penetrated her armor, razor-sharp steel coming far too close to Diana’s all too vulnerable human body in the pilot’s compartment. She didn’t dare sweep the enemy away, not if she wanted to protect the New Olympians who raced back to shelter. Diana had vowed to defend the citizens with her blood.
A clawing bayonet opened a gash on her cheek. Another needled into her thigh. The strength and fury of the Hydrae horde were more than the metal skin of her war suit could fend off.
Artem15 stabbed the earth with her javelin, and the warhead belched out a sheet of flaming death and flying metal. The concussive shock wave and heat were dampened by the cushioned tub of armor that cradled her pilot’s seat, and the mobile suit’s armor deflected the notched razor wire that had wrapped the explosive core of the javelin’s point. Hydrae corpses were hurled off the armored battle suit’s massive frame.
Dazed by the nearby detonation, Artem15 looked down to her hydraulic right arm. The metal sleeve that protected the skeleton’s carpal manipulators and ulna framework had peeled back like the petals of a steel flower. The clockwork gears and pistons, composed of secondary orichalcum, had withstood the powerful detonation as if it were nothing more than a stiff breeze.
The attacking Hydrae, however, were retreating, fearing another lethal javelin strike.
“Artie!” Are5 called out. “Artie, report!”
She took a tentative step, noting that the right leg’s mechanisms had been knocked out of alignment. The metal components of her legs were vulnerable to explosive displacement. She’d need realignment back at the base.
“I’m still standing, Airy. So is the town,” she stated. “But it’ll take some extra time to walk home.”
“Thank Hera,” Are5 answered.
Artem15 glared silently at the two backup units as they stood between the fleeing Hydrae and the besieged townspeople. Diana pulled aside her microphone and opened the window on her cockpit. “You two!”
The pair took a step closer and their own cockpit windows opened. They both knew what was coming.
“You fired on your fellow citizens,” she hissed.
“They were overwhelmed,” one offered. “We couldn’t rescue them. They were dead anyway.”
“That is not your call to make,” Diana said. She looked at the tangle of human and mutant bodies. Six Greek men and women lay among the scores of Hydrae mutants. Bite marks and bayonet wounds marred faces and chests, but she also saw the ugly puckers of gunshot wounds on the humans. “They trusted us to die for them. Instead, they died because I was too slow and you were too hasty.”
The warrior drone heads lowered.
“Remember this in the future,” she snarled. She turned away from the drones. “Airy, Pollie, how goes it?”
“The Hydrae are pulling back,” Apo110 answered. “They no longer have any stomach for battle.”
“Airy?” Diana called.
“Broke one of my axes again,” Are5 complained. “But I found something in the mix. You have to come see this.”
“Bring it back to base, “Artem15 replied. “I’m too slow as it is to make the walk worth it. If it’s that important, then we have to show Zoo and Her Highness, as well.”
Are5 transmitted his camera image to her screen. “Just look, Artie.”
It appeared to be another reptilian variant, similar to the basic Hydrae clone. However, where the scaled hordes of Thanatos were naked, bony-limbed and distorted abominations, this reptilian was tall, strong and of perfect build. He also wore a second skin that conformed to his muscular frame, glinting in the sunlight like metal.
“What the hell is that?” Artem15 asked.
“Beats me, but we’re bringing the remains back,” Are5 confirmed.
Artem15 turned to glare at her Spartan units. “Go back with the rest of the main force. I’ve got some thinking to do.”
As the war robot limped back to Strike Force Olympus headquarters alone, Diana looked at the stored image of the lifeless, metal-skinned newcomer, trying to cope with the mystery.
IT TOOK AN EXTRA half hour for Artem15 to return to base. When she arrived, she backed the war suit into its storage berth. Mechanics swarmed around, looking at punctured and blood-caked steel skin.
“Lord, Artie, you fucked this suit up again,” Ted “Fast” Euphastus noted. He was the head of maintenance for the magnificent clockwork machines that had been discovered by the goddess-queen of New Olympus.
“Shut up and just fix it,” Diana grumbled. “Where’s my chair?”
“We’re bringing it,” Carmine, another repairman, said. He looked at the dented, distorted chest plate. “Damn shame those mutants had to mess up a nice pair of boobs. We’ll get right to work on—”
Diana crawled out of her couch, glaring at the metal-breast-obsessed mechanic. Carmine froze as angry blue eyes gleamed from the half-fused mask of a burned, ruined face. “Do whatever the hell you want. Do I really look like I give a damn about a pair of robot tits?”
Carmine shook his head as Diana unplugged the cybernetic trunk cable from its port at the base of her spine. She swung the metal capped stumps of her half thighs out and into the seat of her wheelchair. Slender, ropy arms braced themselves on the wheelchair’s armrests, and she lowered herself down. Her gymnast-tight arm muscles stood out as they flexed under the weight of her torso and half legs.
“You’re bleeding,” Fast noted.
Diana looked
