“Holy crap,” I said.
But no one was listening to me.
I took advantage by wrenching free of the Drones and throwing myself aside.
Facing the truck, the Queen puffed up to her full height. The Drones spread wide across the foundation. A cluster of them broke loose and charged.
The semi truck bounced violently over the curb, hurtled onto the parking lot, and demolished the Queen’s meteor. Rock fragments and blue-tinged goo exploded across the hood.
The tires screeched as the truck rocketed into a too-sharp turn. Those vicious undercutter tusks swung toward the advancing Drones. The driver’s window was rolled down, and I caught a perfect glimpse through.
It was Patrick all right.
My throat clutched. My mouth guppied, looking for air. For a moment I thought maybe the Queen had skewered me with her stinger and this was some weird afterlife dream.
The vanguard of Drones flew toward the semi. The semi raced to meet them.
At the last minute, Patrick raked the wheel to the side. One of the giant chain-saw blades swept right through the Drones’ legs. Amputated armor spun, suddenly airborne. Black mist exploded out of the leg holes with enough force to propel the suits off the ground. Some shot a few feet off the asphalt; some skipped across the parking lot; others spun in dying circles on the ground. In each suit the pressure of the expelled smoke lessened until nothing was left but the deflated armor. The Drones had been bled from their suits, their life matter disintegrating into the air.
The second undercutter whisked around to meet the next line of Drones. A few ducked and were severed at the midsection. Others tried to leap over the undercutter and had their boots cleanly removed. One Drone almost got away, catching only a nick in his heel. Any penetration, no matter how small, was enough. Black gas geysered from the wound with a teakettle scream of expelled air.
The semi 180’ed, lifted up onto its side wheels, threatening to tip over. When the driver’s side swept past, I swore I saw Patrick’s black Stetson dip as he gave me a little nod. The weighty back end spun toward me, pushing a wall of air before it, blowing my hair flat.
In front of me, the Queen reared up, stinger curled menacingly behind her. Gas shot through not just her neck valves but through a line of valves along her sides, too, framing her in fearsome spouts of black smoke.
The truck swept by, hammering into her, wiping her from view. Empty pieces of her armor rained down on the foundation. I stared with disbelief at the rear of the truck.
Through the dissipating smoke, a figure slowly came clear standing on the metal plate above the drive wheels. She was fastened loosely onto the back of the cab, cargo straps crisscrossing her chest like bandoliers. Her arms appeared first, glistening with sweat. Her hands gripped a shotgun. Not just any shotgun.
Patrick’s Winchester.
The hands jacked the pump—shuck-shuck—and aimed to the side, firing into a lunging Drone’s chest. He shot backward, propelled by the buckshot and the bursting spouts of his own dying self.
The black mist cleared.
I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry.
She lifted the shotgun to rest against the ball of her shoulder and stretched out a hand.
“Well,” Alex said, “what are you waiting for?”