Page 84 of Red Scale Daddy
“Everything nice you say wears a uniform.”
“Everything reckless you say wears a grin.”
The first drone launches from above.
I fire, miss the kill shot, and hit the plating along its side. It still crashes into me with enough force to drive my boots deep through loose dust. Claws rake my shoulder guard. Another limb punches toward my helmet. I catch it, feel the joint strain undermy hand, and slam the creature sideways into a stone spur. The impact cracks its plating. It shrieks in my face, mandibles opening wide enough for me to smell its breath through the filter: sour, wet, and chemical, like rotten meat dipped in battery acid.
“Gods, you need a mint,” I tell it.
I drive my knife up under its throat.
The blade sticks.
The drone thrashes.
Roma’s voice cuts from behind me. “Duck.”
I duck.
A flare streaks over my head and bursts against the drone’s face. Its eyes rupture in a spray of dark fluid and sparks from the charged dust clinging to its plating. I wrench the knife free and shove the body away.
“Nice shot,” I say.
“Do not sound surprised.”
“I am delighted, not surprised.”
“Be delighted quieter.”
A second drone hits me from the side before I can answer. We roll across the rock, my shoulder slamming into the ground hard enough to send pain down my ribs. The low gravity makes the tumble strange and slow, but the claws are fast. One slices across my side where the armor gap never sits right. Heat opens there, sharp and wet.
Roma sees blood.
Her eyes change.
That should not matter. It does.
She rises from the actuator housing with a tool in one hand and the launcher in the other. “Move your arm.”
“I’m using it.”
“Move it.”
I twist just enough.
She fires into the ground beside the drone’s lower limbs. Expanding foam blasts over the rock and catches two of its claws in a hardened grip. I use the half second she buys me to grab its head with both hands and twist. Something inside gives with a brittle crack. The drone collapses across my chest.
I shove it off and sit up. “You are getting bossier.”
“I was already bossy. You were insufficiently attentive.”
“Wound hurts. Insults help.”
“Then you should feel wonderful.”
I laugh and push to my feet. Pain pulls along my side, but it is shallow. Messy, not dangerous. Roma looks at it once, evaluates, and returns to the actuator.
“Bleeding?” she asks.
