Onward!: Pt. 10

The rebels backed away from Smith as he lifted himself from the far wall of the room with their leader in one of his powered fists. The man was not suffocating, as Smith knew exactly how much pressure to apply, but his feet were dangling about a meter off the ground. Smith pointed a pistol at him.
"I'm only going to say this once. Leave now with your weapons on the floor, or the Marshals will come in here and slaughter you all. I'm here to stop the latter, but if you want to be burned alive by them, fine by me, I'll leave. But any chance you have of cooperating will be null and void if I walk out that door with your leader," Smith said. He waited for several minutes.
Two of the largest rebels moved towards each other and exchanged glances. They began to talk and one nodded to the other. He did not move though. The other man moved towards Smith. He held up his rifle and put it down on the floor. The rest of the rebels did the same.
"We just want to talk, and you, Deacon Smith, are the Operator we wanted," the man said. His accent heavy with the local street mix of Spanish, Jamaican and English.
"Why didn't you just ask for me?" said Smith.
"We did, the Marshals cut the feed links. They want to come in here. You're the only one that can get us out of here Smith," the man said.
"You see, we just want to get off world. Away from the City and away from Marshal Amon. He's the one that killed our clansmen over in the DungJillie Factory near the old refineries. It was just him and we have him on a live-stream disc. The other Marshals don't know, but he's the one that pushed for them to come.
Smith released his grip on the rebel leader and then walked over to the taller man. He was about to shake his hand when the man's brain matter was sprayed across his faceplate. The Marshals had lost patience with the situation.
"Macon, what the hell's going on. I just had them stop firing and now someone's coming in here guns blazing?" yelled Smith.
"Sorry Deacon, the Marshals outrank us here. Best bet is save as many as you can and try and get to the roof. We've got a gunship waiting for you and any survivors," Macon said.
"Operator Smith to Company Handler Graves, Line 4812, transmit signal. Get a Marshal Ashtree on the the line, Marshal Amon is compromised, repeat, Marshal Amon is compromised, Send now," Smith said.
He grabbed the three closest rebels, two women and the leader, and made way for the elevator. He jacked into the mainframe once more and was ready to key the door closed when an armored fist smacked into his faceplate. He was grabbed from his right shoulder guard and yanked out of the elevator. The elevator jack snapped but the doors closed and Smith heard the hum of the elevator rising. He smiled inside his faceplate and sighed heavily. Then he was smashed against the metal doors of the elevator by Marshal Amon's Judgment Suit.
"Well, look what he have here boys, looks like we have public enemy number one," clicked Marshal Amon. The vox units built into the Marshal's suits made their voices sound cold and inhuman.
"Who is that Operator?" said Marshal Raihu. The green skinned Marshal wore no helmet. He preferred to see who he was talking to at all times, even in the depths of space Marshal Raihu was renowned for wearing only an oxygen mask. He walked over to Smith and pulled off his helmet.
"Deacon Smith? You were helping these rebels? Why? Are you not considered a hero of the City?" said Marshal Raihu.
"He's scum, always has been, always will be," said Amon. There was a click and then a quick whirring of gears as Amon's Judgment Suit brought forth the deadly Ragnarok cannon that each Marshal carried in the forearm of their suits. Smith watched the chromed barrel grow bright yellow as it powered up.
"Smith, how could you betray the side of justice to help these people?" said Raihu. He shook his head. Suddenly his pointed ears twitched and he turned behind him.
"Put him down Marshal Amon. And back away slowly," said Marshall Ashtree. Both his Ragnarok cannons were out. Since he was considered the High Marshall, his suit had two cannons and other gear awarded only to the high ranking judge. He moved slowly toward Amon.
"Marshal Ashtree, what are you doing?" said Amon. He had not let Smith go.
"I said stand down Marshal Amon," said Marshal Ashtree. He moved in close enough to place both cannons at the back of Amon's suit.
"Okay, why are we letting this law-breaker leave?" said Amon.
"He didn't break the law. You did," said Ashtree. He slammed an armored gauntlet into the back of Marshal Amon's suit.
Amon twirled and fired his cannon at Ashtree, missing by mere centimeters. Marshal Raihu tackled Smith out of the way and led him outside.
"What happened?" Smith said. He gasped for air.
"Marshal Ashtree told me you sent him a message about Amon. He's a crooked judge and we will not stand for that. Justice will be served," Raihu said. Then he ran back inside the spaceport.
Concrete slabs were blasted from the foundation beams of the building. The gunship took off with the three survivors in tow. Smith watched as it headed for the nearest precinct. There was no sounds coming from inside the building. The crowd that had gathered held their collective breath. Suddenly Marshal Raihu was thrown through the facing wall and landed behind the crowd. Smith ran over towards him and made sure he was okay. There were deep lacerations to his face and thick bluish-green blood streamed down his face.
"Marshal Raihu, are you alright? What happened in there?" Smith said. He helped the marshal to his feet.
"Smith, evacuate everyone here now, Amon just keyed his suit for termination. Marshal Ashtree is trying to undo the sequence but Amon put some kind of code blocker in his suit's mainframe. We don't have much time," Raihu said.
"Fine, just help him out, we can't lose him to Amon," Smith said.
Raihu flew back into the building just as Smith started yelling at the crowd to get away as quickly as possible. They were not dispersing so he keyed into the City's vid-feed monitors and his voice boomed from the floating speakers.
"This is Operator Smith, leave the area as quickly as possible. Marshal Amon's suit has been set to self destruct, move as quickly as you can from this building," yelled Smith. He waved his hands as he ran through the surging crowds.
The last of the stragglers had ran down two full blocks when Smith heard the loud groaning sound coming from the building. There was a crumbling of another wall followed by Marshal Raihu carrying Marshal Ashtree. Ashtree's face was covered in blood and one eye was completely shut. Raihu's Ragnarok Cannon had been smashed to his arm and blood flowed from his right arm. Ashtree's left cannon had been ripped from its mooring and only the hydraulic interior remained. And he carried the limp body of Marshal Amon.
"Run!" screamed Raihu as he flew passed Smith and took cover behind a building several blocks down.
Smith pumped his arms and legs as fast as his powered armor would allow and then dove behind the wall of a building just as the spaceport structure collapsed inward as the foundation gave way. Smith put his head against the cool wall and sighed. Then the world was bathed in smoke and debris as the Judgment Suit exploded. Smith curled into a ball and covered his head as best he could. The world was still around Smith.
When he woke he found that he was buried beneath debris and rubble. The wall he had chose to provide him with cover held and he used the hand held rail gun to shoot his way out of the small cave that had formed around him. His armor was scratched and dented in several different places. His left arm was not moving either. The servos that were in place in the shoulder area had been sheered off by the falling masonry. He was thankful that his arm did not break.
What was left of the area was not much and it was bathed in the dust and ash of the blast. No sooner had Smith stood on the debris to look at the remains of the spaceport than the first of the Media Orbs arrived. Their metallic orb bodies taking in the view of the area with Smith standing in the foreground. Several minutes later the rest of the media showed up and microphones, vid-cams and reporters stormed him.
"Operator Smith," said one of the reporters wearing a Newspeak Gazette cap came running up to Smith.
"I want to talk to only one of you, and that would be Dwight Anders," Smith said. He sat down on the pavement and sighed deeply.