Don’t Play with Guns

"My Moon. We have one last option. We are not completely helpless-less just yet."

A corner of the screen changed to an aerial screen featuring the mech.

"I've tapped into the enemies' fee-feed."

"Can you take control or damage it somehow?" Anna asked.

"If I try much-try much more than this, the A.I. on that unit could-d detect my presence and lock me out."

"You said there was another option, Wolf? What did you have in mind?"

"Behind us. It's not visible to us from this angle-gle but, the hostage we took earlier had set his gu-gun down to move the rocks. His gun is behind those rocks. As you can see-ee-ee from the enemies' feed."

Anna looked closer and could see what he was talking about. Sure enough, there was something there.

"Can you tell what kind it is, Wolf?"

"Highly likely, it's a long-range solid beam gun. If used inappropriate-inappropriately, it could split the moon or even the Earth in ha-half."

Anna began to reminisce about a time in the past when she was playing a game of paintball and she had dropped her gun. She had jumped, grabbed the gun, rolled, and landed on one knee. She was being shot at the entire time. Her final shot managed to land on the opposing teams' leader before she took 20 or 30 shots from the rest of the team. She could picture him removing his paintball mask on the sidelines.

"M-M-M-My Moo-oon, we-ee-ee muuuuuuuusss-st-st-st-st hur-hur-hur-ur-ur-ur-ur-ury-ry-ry-ryyyy...."

"Wolf?" Anna got no response from the A.I. "Wolf? Where…"

The camera was still focused on the enemy in the sky. She could see the enemy aiming. He was about to shoot.

Something came into view. Something was going straight for the robot in the sky.

*BOOM*

A colossal explosion covered the sky in dark smoke.

Anna saw her opportunity. Even without Wolf, she could still control the mech. She made it stand up and run toward the giant rocks that were concealing the enemy gun.

In the corner of the screen, the enemy feed was still active. She watched as the robot seemed to rise above the smoke and look toward the ocean. The screen zoomed in and showed something new. It was zooming across the surface of the water. It was difficult to see but once Anna saw it, she smiled.

The mech hopped over the rocks.

*BOOM* Another huge explosion resounded in the area.

To Anna's dismay, the mech's foot accidentally landed on the top of the barrel. It was crushed shut.

"NO! Damnit!" She cried.

"What? What's going on?" Stephanie asked. Anna must have accidentally turned on the coms.

"I crushed the barrel of the gun. It was our last hope."

"So?" Stephanie casually responded. "Saw off the barrel before it starts to bend."

As stupid as that sounded, it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility. Anna lifted the gun barrel up, leaving the butt of the gun on the ground. It was by far the largest of the enemy weapons she had seen.

She balanced the gun against her body and dangled the claw of the mech's right hand over the barrel, kind of like the claw from that old arcade game.

Using the knowledge that Wolf had imparted on her via the chip he installed, Anna expertly maneuvered the mecha hand until the four sharp points of the claw were evenly spread apart on the barrel. The fingers began to rotate in a circle and squeeze closed. They started to cut into the barrel at high speeds until it was severed before the crushed tip.

The enemy feed showed the newcomer now getting shot at. A better view lets Anna know she was right about it earlier. It's a human-shaped mech that was painted with navy camouflage. After a close call, it seemed to disappear under the water. Just in time for Anna to finish lining up a shot on the enemy.

It turned toward her as she pulled the trigger. A tiny jolt of electricity began to dance around the tip of the shortened barrel before it could be heard charging up. The short charge up was followed by an incredible amount of kickback and an immense beam of red light. The beam seemed to widen the further it got from the gun.

When Anna fired, the enemy feed showed the tiny blip of electricity before red began to glow and then it went bright red, then the feed cut off.

The gun had so much kick, plus the added disability of missing an arm made it that much more difficult to balance. The mech partially lost its footing and the wide beam had dug into the ground, past where the mech's right leg used to be.

The battery pack on the gun shorted out and the beam had disappeared. When Anna made the mech sit up to assess the situation, she found out just how powerful the enemy weapons really are.

The enemy robot was nowhere to be seen. Nor were any clouds in the sky in the same direction. The beam carved through the earth and ocean, leaving behind a cylindrical void several miles wide as far as the eye could see. The ocean was filling that vast void as quickly as possible causing massive and violent crashes of waves on each other.

The ocean waters filled up the large hole in the beach that came up to the right knee of the mech. The lower portions of that leg being taken by the beam, Anna was at a loss for what to do next. The enemy was gone, but the mech was a mess. She may have lowered the ocean level with that blast. Anna wondered if she may have even wiped out the contacts that Wolf was supposed to meet.

Then Anna remembered.

"Wolf! Where are you? Wolf!"

She opened the coms to Stephanie again.

"Steph, Has Wolf said anything to you recently?"

"Not since we got in the water and waited for the enemy to show up. Which, by the way, I almost drowned. I couldn't keep the water out and I'm still soaked."

Anna could hear water dripping in the background.

She then looked up at the water in front. A strange giant mechanical face was sticking out of the water and staring back at her. It was the robot in navy camouflage.