Titanium (Bionics) by Alicia Michaels

how the rest of us don’t have impenetrable skin, I whip out my comm. device and quickly put in a call to Jenica.
    “Swan, this is Janner. We have a problem.”
    Jenica’s voice crackles over the line and I quickly turn the volume down so that the M.P.s can’t overhear. They’re nowhere near close enough, but one can never be too safe.
    “I’m kind of busy here, Janner!” Jenica snaps, her voice tinged with annoyance and strain. The sound of the Hovercraft’s weapon and the hum of hover bikes zooming through the air fills our frequency with background noise.
    “Just thought you’d want to know these bastards have an Annihilator out here,” I say casually. “No big deal.”
    “Shit,” Jenica yells as she fires again. “We’ve got to find a way to take it out! What is your position?”
    “A few hundred y ards from where you are, in a southeastern direction. I’ve got eyes on the big boy; they’re wheeling it toward you now. Sol has eyes on it from the sky so I think I’ll see what she’s got in mind. Just wanted to give you a heads up.”
    “Roger that, Janner, do whatever you have to. Take it out. Now!”
    The line closes off and I immediately pull up Blythe’s frequency. “What do you think, B?” I ask, watching as the Annihilator creeps through the underbrush, slowly making its way to the clearing. I’m separated from it by several feet of brush and trees, so I continue watching its progress from relative safety.
    “Rosenberg here,” Laura says from the other side of the comm. device. “We’ve got a plan, but we’ll need your help.”
    “Go ahead, I’m open to any ideas that don’t involve us getting fried by that thing.”
    “I need you to catch Blythe. I’m going to fly as low as I can and she’s going to jump to you. Then I’m going to crash this thing into the Annihilator.”
    My eyes widen at her crazy-but-genius idea. “Are you nuts? You’re going to get yourself killed!” I hiss over the line.
    A feminine laugh filters through before Laura says, “Kid, when the blasts hit in ’06, I took a six inch shard of glass to the chest, and so much shrapnel they had to replace my tits with a metal plate and my heart with one that has a V-6 engine. I’ve already cheated death once— I think I can do it again. This isn’t a kamikaze, okay? I’ll jump at the last second, once I’m sure the bike is aimed at the Annihilator.”
    I don’t like it; the risk of losing Laura is too high. In the short time I’ve know her, I’ve become attached and I want her on our team permanently.
    “Use you r head, kid,” she says when I am silent for too long. “Even if you lose one man, it’s worth it to save the rest of you from getting your faces melted off. Trust me.”
    She hasn’t steered me wrong yet, so I’d be an ass to ignore her plea for trust.
    “All right, Rosenberg, you’re up. I’m about a hundred yards from the target now and they’re approaching the clearing. If we’re going to do it, we need to do it now.”
    “I see you,” Laura says just as the hum of a hover bike’s engine grows louder. “Heads up.”
    I have about two seconds to react before Blythe’s body comes hurtling at me out of the sky . I catch her and we both go hurtling into the underbrush. I turn to my back so that I take most of the impact, bringing Blythe down on top of me as we skid across the dirt and brambles below. I barely have time to register the sting of branches scoring my back through my t-shirt before Laura’s bike comes whizzing out of the sky at full speed, aimed right at the Annihilator.
    The M.P.s scatt er like cockroaches, all but two of them getting out of dodge in time. An orange ball of flame billows upward, followed by thick black smoke, as Laura’s aim proves true. I swiftly switch me and Blythe’s positions, placing her under me and covering my head as shards of metal and fiberglass rain down in a cloud of smoke, dirt and debris. I flinch as a shard of falling shrapnel embeds