Book One: Chapter Five: iii
Reginald tore off his uniform in a single rapid motion. But before the clothing had even landed on the ground, his body had already begun to transform. Thousands of metal articulations across his body shifted position in a synchronised manner, allowing for the emergence of several advanced weapons systems.
Reginald activated the thrusters in his legs, ascending into the air whilst the stunned Usturs simply looked on dumbly. But a sharp command from their leader quickly snapped them out of their paralysis.
“Fire at will,” yelled the leading Ustur as they flicked the switch on their assault rifle to rapid-fire mode and pulled down on the trigger. A stream of brilliant, blue-white spheres of superheated ionized gas spewed forth from the barrel, heading directly towards Cillian. The white-hot radiance of the airborne plasma lit Cillian up in a brilliant flash. For a moment, he looked like the lead actor on a movie set, illuminated by the key light. The hovering recording drone zoomed in on the brightly lit image of Cillian. Head held back, whisky pouring into his mouth, right arm held wide, he was the very image of a fearless Bohemian playboy. Another image of Cillian’s absurd exploits captured for posterity.
The drone began to swivel in the air, panning out as it did so, in order to capture the full scene. As the leading ionised plasma rounds approached Cillian, his combat under-armour detected the presence of the imminent threat and activated its personal energy shield. Instantly, a field of energy leapt into existence around Cillian. It tightly hugged his form and covered him from head to feet with an energetic barrier. It initially caused a slight distortion of light around Cillian, resulting in a brief blurring of his body, but this quickly disappeared. If it sustained enough damage, it would of course eventually fail, but because it was a very high quality personal energy shield, the critical breaking threshold was much greater than most personal energy shields on the market.
The stream of plasma rounds finally reached Cillian and were rebuffed by the energy shield in consecutive flashes of scintillating blue-white-purple light. Three seconds later, the assault rifle was dry, all the available ammunition having been fired. Cillian’s head was still tipped back, and he was even at this moment shaking the final drops of whisky from his upheld hip flask.
Smacking his lips with satisfaction, Cillian lowered his arms and pocketed his now empty hip flask. He smiled at the shocked expression that had appeared on the mercenary leader’s face. His military glasses allowed him to gauge the damage that was taken to his energy shield by simply glancing at the readings in the top right corner of his vision.
Cillian now spoke, his voice directed up at the hovering drone above. “Only eighteen percent damage sustained from a direct frontal assault lasting four point three seconds by an assailant with an upgraded plasma assault rifle in rapid-fire mode. Once again, the superior tech of the Bohemian National Military prevails. And now folks at home… it is time for us to dance.”
Cillian brought both hands together before him and clenched his fists tight. The silver rings on each finger caught the sunlight as he did so, which made the mercenary leader notice the rings for the first time.
Cillian looked up at the mercenary leader and reached back with his right arm in a windup for a punch. As he did so, the rings on both hands activated, connecting magnetically together to form a straight line across the fingers. For the briefest of moments, a red haze covered the hands as the light was distorted in the region. The lead mercenary recognised this phenomenon as the tell-tale signs of the activation of an energy field and this was sufficient to finally break them out of their state of shock. They began fumbling at their waist for a spare ammunition cartridge but they never got a chance to load it because in the next moment Cillian launched himself from his standing position, the mini-thrusters in his military boots activating, and he was propelled forward through the intervening space in a flash of movement.
As he reached his destination, Cillian’s right fist crashed into the face of the lead Ustur. There was a brilliant burst of white-purple light on impact. The Ustur’s personal energy shield capacity was instantly reduced to zero and the overflow of force smashed into the Ustur’s face. The mercenary leader’s body was suddenly airborne as the force of the punch lifted them off their feet to fly backwards through the air.
The rings on Cillian’s hands had been transformed into powerful energy field manipulators and Cillian smiled with satisfaction as the leader who had been sent flying presently crashed into another Ustur, knocking them both down in the process.
As Cillian straightened up, he observed Reginald begin his aerial assault on the other combatants, who had only just recovered themselves sufficiently to start aiming up at the airborne robot. A burst of fire exploded from Reginald’s fifty calibre machine gun as he began mowing down the mercenaries on the left side of the field whilst he simultaneously engaged combatants on the right with his energy rifle. Seconds later, a mercenary’s head exploded as a result of a well-aimed headshot from the energy rifle.
Two other combatants on the right were, however, able to jump away and duck behind one of the VZUS ambwe ships. On the left side of the field, though, the combatants had not fared so well, their bullet-ridden bodies collapsing beneath a relentless onslaught of heavy calibre gunfire. Reginald ceased firing the machine gun, halting the shower of spent fifty calibre shells that had been raining down in a continuous stream.
“Sir,” said Reginald. “There are two hostiles who have sought cover behind the nearest ship. Permission to pursue and neutralise?”
“Permission granted. I will deal with these two.”
And with that, Cillian began to walk towards the two prone combatants, who were lying some four metres away. The recording drone followed him, coming in closer to just above and behind his left shoulder. As he neared, Cillian observed that one of the Ustur was still conscious and was futilely trying to extricate themselves out from beneath the mercenary leader. This struggling Ustur was the one that had been knocked down by the mercenary leader, but Cillian quickly saw the reason they were unable to stand. His enhanced vision was able to observe that the Ustur had broken something in their neck and for this reason they were struggling to use their limbs properly.
“As much as I hate their kind, no one deserves to suffer needlessly,” Cillian said aloud for the benefit of the hovering drone. There were now over sixty-five thousand viewers watching his live stream. “Even in war, we should remember our humanity. For without our humanity, we are no better than these ‘things’. Which is to say, emotionless… heartless. Monsters. Without compassion or the capacity for empathy. And so it is with the greatest of compassion that I will now terminate this unholy creation. For we all know that the most compassionate thing we can do for an Ustur… is assisting them in ceasing to exist.”
Cillian brought his fist up before the Ustur’s wide-eyed face. A moment later, a sudden, intense pulse of energy was directed through Cillian’s fist. At such close proximity and with no intervening shield, the Ustur’s head simply imploded, crumpling inwards on itself under the immense and instantaneous pressure.
“Okay, beloved fans,” said Cillian as he turned to face the hovering drone. “Here ends another impromptu livestream. I hope you have enjoyed today’s adventure and please do not forget to subscribe and share this post. I will now proceed to interrogate the remaining Ustur and unfortunately, because it relates to matters of national security, I will have to end the livestream here. Till next time. Stay free, stay aware and please remember that the only good Ustur… is a dead Ustur.”
Cillian closed off the livestream and ordered the drone to shutdown. He needed no witnesses for what was to come.
Four minutes later, Cillian finished binding the mercenary leader and was attempting to rouse them from their state of unconsciousness. Reginald had disposed of the other two remaining Ustur but was now chasing after Luna, who had finally emerged from the Fimbul Lowbie.
Unsurprisingly Reginald’s form had by this time returned to its usual Robutler appearance, all evidence of weaponry gone and the tools of destruction once again hidden away within his body. He had also re-donned his butler uniform, however, Luna had taken the opportunity to steal one of his yellow gloves and it was for this reason that was she was presently being chased by Reginald. Cillian smiled slightly at the scene.
“Sir,” said Reginald as he ran after Luna. “I am pleased to advise that the remaining hostiles have been neutralised. The area is now secure. However, the canine has escaped and has stolen my glove… again. It is resisting capture.”
“Very good, Reg,” said Cillian as he gave the Ustur leader a hard slap across the face. There was no response from the Ustur so Cillian continued his conversation with Reginald. “I know in your cold metallic heart that you secretly enjoy the chasey-game with Luna. Plus, it is good exercise for you, old chap. I have noticed that you have been getting a little pudgy around the middle. Too many screw snacks, I suspect, or maybe you have been hitting the engine oil whisky again, aye?”
“I must admit that I have. Apologies, sir. I am absolutely ashamed of myself. You’ve certainly caught me out on that one. I will try to refrain from drinking the engine oil. It is my one vice. I just have a weakness for swilling dirty engine oil.”
“My gods, man. Did you just make a joke? Was that a sarcastic comment made in jest? I knew it. You do have a sense of humour. A truly historic moment.”
“But… I wasn’t actually joking,” said Reginald who had by now given up on catching Luna.
“Ha, there you go again. You are a veritable comic! Haha. Hilarious,” said Cillian between laughing. But his laughing soon subsided as he realised that Reginald was not actually joking.
“My gods above and below. You actually drink engine oil?”
“Yes, sir. I am not proud of it.”
“Oh dear. Well, we all have our vices. I guess you must take after me then. Cheer up, old chap. We will do some research to find you a therapist when we go back home later. I am certain there will be a cure for this ailment. But… errr…” said Cillian, hesitating for a second before speaking again, “just to be clear, you do not also eat screws for snacks, do you?”
“No, sir. That is an absurd concept,” said Reginald in an affronted tone, a look of disgust upon his face.
“Right… right, of course. Apologies for asking. Absurd indeed.”