Not that I was too worried about the gunshots if it gets too bad, I can get us out of here, or neutralize the threat easily. So, as we continued down into the small settlement that was supposed to be safe for deliveries.
I couldn't help but notice the predatory eyes on us as we moved on our way to the town hall, where we could complete the delivery and get out of here.
We made our way through the town with all of their beady eyes following us through the streets, even bender was getting uncomfortable. And I know this delivery was going to be a difficult one unless our cyberware changed something so I was on constant alert just like Leela.
When we finally arrived at town hall, we saw a pig of a man looking like he just finished gorging himself on a rather large meal. He was sweaty and had stains on his off-white suit.
Some pit stains, somewhat looks to be barbeque sauce. It was disgusting but he ran to us and we got a whiff of his ungodly stench.
"Greetings, I'm the mayor of these parts, I'm sorry you had to come to our little town under such dangerous conditions."
"Yeah, what the hell was that anyways."
"Oh, nothing you need to worry about, after all every planet has its own criminals. But don't you worry we'll make sure they don't get away with it."
Just as he said that I pulled out the package and the clipboard for him to sign. It was looking like this was going to end early and I wouldn't have to worry about any extra nonsense on this mission.
Unfortunately, as soon as I though that two flash bangs and a smoke grenade appeared in the my kiroshi's immediately dimmed, but I didn't have any cyber ear protection so I was immediately disoriented, Leela got double as she lost her sight, bender was fine but couldn't see through the smoke.
I switched to infrared and started looking around still feeling disoriented and Disney, and I may have a busted eardrum. So far, I saw no targets in the mist, then just before I could catch a glimpse of the attackers, light out.
3 hours later.
I woke up groggy with a head ache. I tried to move but I felt my wrists bound by heavy duty cable. When my wits finally returned to me, I looked around to see the layout of the room and used the scanners in my eyes to get a general location. I also listened closely to see if I could hear anyone talking.
Damn I really need some ear cyberware after this nonsense is over.
"What part of make sure you didn't involve any innocents didn't you understand you absolute chicken sandwich!" one man screamed at another. His voice sounding stern like a general in a war.
"Yeah, they were delivering spices to make our corpses taste better, real innocent!" the other man yelled back fiercely.
"They're a delivery company it's not their fucking job to care about what's done with the spices, now we have three captives we can't do shit with."
"Why not just ransom them." The man spoke putting forth his plan.
"TO WHO YOU MORON? Their ship is impounded, and we have no communications equipment capable of reaching off world!" the leader screams in frustration, then I hear footsteps coming towards us. It's obvious that this is a splinter group.
Likely "cattle" that went rogue. That explains their outdated equipment, compared to laser guns and advanced tech traditional guns are basically toys.
"Wake up!" the leader says in an authoritative voice, I feel Leela shoot up next to me only to realize she's tied up.
Bender starts begging for his life and I elbow him. We do not beg we demand. The general looked at my hard eyes and immediately his stern visage became pensive.
"So, I'm going to be honest we have no idea what to do with you and the regime in control of this planet and now that you have been taken to a rebel encampment every record of you being on the planet is scrubbed.
You aren't going to be able to get to your ship without fighting your way to it." He says in a rather plain voice. he's obviously tired, likely from trying to herd what amount to a bunch of armed cats.
"We're not getting involved in this. I'm already on a watch list for overthrowing a planets government. I don't need more attention." I say with a much venom as I could. i had already hardened my heart to what I was going to see before coming here.
The only reason I agreed to do this mission in the first place is because I was hoping the flimsy lie that they used synthetically grown human substitutes was at least partially true. If it were then there would be a business opportunity.
After all the professor had better cloning tech than most other people have access to.
Still the people in front of me were nothing but a rag tag group of insurgents without assistance from another government and trained soldiers there was nothing I could do without draining my wallet, time, and heart dry.
"We're not asking you to. We kidnapped you and this is our fault, but we can spare the men to help you fight through the blockade and get to your ship."
"Theres no need just tells us where our ship is." I saw as a compartment on my cyber arms opens up and out pops my mantis blades slicing through the cables. I slice through Bender and Leela's cables as well.
The man looks at me with alarm and raises his gun at me.
"Put that toy down before you hurt yourself." I look at him with a face that lets him know if he doesn't, he will die. I may be a bit of a bleeding heart but I'm way to pissed right now to care about their struggles.
"I. Yes, Yes sir." He says putting his gun down and away from us.
I stand up and pull Leela and Bender into a standing position as well. Leela looks at me concerned. Ah I'm still wearing my pissed face. I calm down a slight bit.
"Now tell us where our ship is."
He does so and I barely hold myself back from driving a mantis blade through his skull. Apparently, our ship is currently being held in a military depot where it will be chopped up and studied to make more advanced systems to end the war.
He gives us a rundown of the different military assets in the area, and gives us a few weapons to fight our way through. we leave and find that we're about 2 miles away from the military depot, and they've already told us they wouldn't give us a ride.
I swear if they're just sending us on an attack run against the military to further their own cause ill kill them all then sell them as high-grade beef.
So, we start our long trek towards the military base that holds our ship. The trip was annoying as we ran into multiple military patrols. I ended up killing almost all of them. Leela did the rest. Some might wonder why I'm so okay with murder.
But honestly, I've always seen the robots of this time as people as well. So, I kind of got over the whole murder thing after a short mental breakdown after Chapek 9. I ended up coming to the same conclusion most soldiers from my time came to. if its me or them? Its 100% going to be them.
When we finally got to the military base holding our ship, I saw it was being guarded by two young men with bright red military uniforms. No camo which did twig my brain a bit as an American, but it was fine they weren't going to exist long enough to bother me.
I pulled out the rifle that they gave us and line up the shot for the one on the right, I had targeting assistance installed in my neuralink so with one shot the one of the left's head disappeared.
A quick realignment and the one on the right disappeared as well. Quickly Bender, Leela, and I booked it towards the entrance, we were halfway there when claxons started to sound the buzz of the alarms reverberating in each of our ears.
A large group of soldiers started pouring out of the barracks, I started shooting with the m1911a pistol I was given by the insurgents while Leela started using the outdated Ak47 just as quickly as the hostiles started pouring out, they were sent to hell.
When we finally reached the actual military base, we were taking heavy fire, luckily none of it was strong enough to get through our ballistic armor weave or Bender's chassis. When we got into the base, we noticed it was one of the sorriest bases we'd ever seen for a military.
There were no heavy weapons, vehicles, or personnel. It was just a bunch of nerd in labcoats being guarded by what was left of their battered forces. Not wanting to deal with war crime charges I threw smoke forcing the scientist to separate from the soldiers, and when I had a clear shot, I took it.
Their equipment was shit. Its no wonder that they needed to research our ship. Their technology was still stuck in the 2010's. still we had to get through this place and to our ship in at most 10 minutes before the nearby bases respond to our invasion.
It wasn't easy as we had to tear through multiple soldiers to make our way to the planet express ship. I ran out of ammo halfway there and had to start using my mantis blades, which will definitely need to be cleaned with the amount of blood that's caking them now.
Finally, we arrived at the planet express ship. When the ship came into view we noticed one problem. There were docking clamps attached to the planet express ships engines and body. Trying to take off with them still connected would run the risks of ripping off chunks of the engine and hull. Making the ship incapable of space travel.
Luckily there was a control panel I could hack into and release the docking clamps. Unluckily that would take more than the five minutes I give us before heavy reinforcements start to show up.
"Leela get into the ship and use the swivel gun to keep any aircraft off the ship. Bender pick up a gun and defend me while I get these docking clamps off!" Leela didn't even question it just ran inside the ship and hopped on the swivel gun. A gun attached to the top of the ship that I personally installed for ground warfare. Bender took Leela's AK and shielded me with his body.
I started to tear through the trillions of lines of code looking for any small mistake that would give me access to parts of the system that dealt with credentials. By the time I had finally got to the point where I was in the system to give myself the credentials to remove the clamps, bender was taking heavy fire, he continued to shield me with his body and return fire.
Still, every once in a while, a glancing shot would get past him and test my subdermal armor. That didn't matter though. As long as it didn't hit the same place multiple times It wouldn't break through the armor.
Finally, I managed to give myself the credentials and when I looked back to tell bender I could see he was riddled with bullet holes, nothing had hit any of his internal circuitry but I was going to spend at least a week buffing dents and patching bullet holes.
Something else I noticed was hundreds of dead or dying soldiers laying on the ground and multiple aircraft turned into burning wrecks by the planet express swivel gun. I gave the command to take the clamps off and they came off one by one.
It wasn't until the final clamp came off that I was greeted with the sound of rumbling, quickly after a tank for that's the only thing I could name that monstrosity. Drove straight through a building, it was only 5 minutes away from us by my calculations so I grabbed bender, activated my sandy, and instantly disappeared into the planet express ship.
The tank was only a few seconds out and Leela was still in the swivel guns so I ran towards the captain's seat threw bender into the tactical station, and put the petal to the metal. Figuratively of course. Withing a second, we were in space far away from the tank.
I went a got Leela out of the swivel gun station, she looked incredibly stressed but when she realized we were in space, she calmed down. and then collapsed.
fuck