Free War Machine (The Combat-K Series) by Andy Remic Page B

up her strengths and weaknesses. They were both fast—inhumanly fast—but Pippa was flesh and bone, easily diced, whilst the GG combat model was hardened TitaniumIII over a core-mesh frame. It could take an HTank on the head and still operate.
    The GG stalked forward and halted. It spoke, jaws working in a loose approximation of speech mimicry. “You cannot survive this encounter. Forfeit now.”
    Pippa grinned, shaking her head, black hair bobbing. “Come and eat steel, dickhead.”
    The GG leapt, Pippa rolled right, one sword hammering across the machine’s metal abdomen as the left stabbed towards its shoulder—where the point struck—and lodged in the opening between shoulder joint and chassis. There was a screech of stressed steel. The GG spun around and Pippa’s sword was torn from her grasp.
    She backed away, her one remaining blade held in both hands. She looked nervously about, as if seeking exit from a battle she could no-longer win.
    The GG looked down at its torso, worked hard to remove the lodged weapon, its free hand fixed on the trapped blade and tugging on steel with tiny crunches of compressing metal. It didn’t see Pippa’s boots until they connected with its chest, and then it was too late.
    The GG flailed back, struck stone in a shower of sparks with Pippa above it and driving down hard, knees on its chest and side, leaning her weight on the gripped and trapped sword, which acted as a leverand pinned the GG to the ground with its arm locked in position. The machine’s free arm lay trapped beneath its torso, and Pippa manoeuvred across the GG’s squirming body as it snapped at her with incisors, straining to inject her.
    With the enemy pinned, Pippa lifted her free sword and hacked viciously at the GG’s neck. Once, twice, three times... the machine started to squeal, a sound of metal raped by metal, thrashing its head and squirming around in circles leaving grooves in the rocky shore. Its legs kicked, splashing in the water as Pippa continued to hack with a determined grimace. Her arm became a mechanical hammer, her sword a guillotine blade.
    There came a final crack and sparks fluttered silver. Then another, and the GG’s head rolled out and away, splashing into the lake where it was instantly swallowed.
    The limbs eventually stopped thrashing—slowly, as if reluctant to relinquish life—and Pippa stood and nodded towards Keenan and Franco, and the several hundred convicts lining the ridge with grim faces and glowing, proud eyes. She placed a foot against the GG’s chest and started to work at freeing her blade.
    Keenan leapt down and moved to her. “Neat. You wedged the sword there on purpose, to use as a lever.”
    Pippa nodded. “I’ve fought these before. Their arrogance precludes a need to acknowledge and understand their own weaknesses. However, I did have an ace up my sleeve.”
    “What’s that?”
    “The swords; made from TitaniumIV. Not many things can damage a combat GG. Even your bullets would have struggled to drop this son of a bitch. You have to know your enemy, Keenan. Always know your enemy.”
    “Been a problem for you, this one?”
    “Killed sixty of my Clan.”
    Franco whistled, and watched as Pippa gave up trying to free the sword. She stretched, and gave a single wave to the criminals on the ridgeline. They faded away, like ghosts, and Pippa climbed and sat back on her cube rock to stare out over the still waters of the lake. She composed herself, arranging her body into a precise posture of meditation.
    There came a minute of silence; then she said, “So you want me to come with you?”
    “That was the idea,” blurted Franco, and Keenan gave him a kick on the ankle.
    “Yeah.” Keenan met her gaze. “I’ve been given a mission, to travel to the planet of Ket. There I must find the Fractured Emerald, an ancient artefact, which can predict the future... and also see into the swirling chaos of the past.”
    “And what do you require of it?” Pippa’s