Why was I going through the building and not over it?

Because I had no intention of being caught by surprise and sniped while using the balconies to climb up the side of the building and onto its rooftop.

Instead, I stepped through the shattered balcony window-wall into what resembled a luxurious, spacious apartment complete with a breakfast left cold on the kitchen table that was one of those island designs where the table is more like a bench with stools surrounding it.

I used the Argus System to search the apartment and locate the exit. When I arrived at the sliding door leading out of the apartment, I discovered that it was locked. However, the Argus System located the locking bolts that were built into the doorjamb. I made short work of the bolts by firing a handful of rounds through them. Then I employed Mirai’s abundant strength to slide the door open.

Outside the apartment, I paused to run my gaze over the building’s interior that was dominated by an atrium that rose from the ground floor to an enormous glass ceiling. Balconies encircled the atrium on every floor, and some levels appeared to be home to shops, restaurants, and assorted eateries. It wasn’t entirely different from the way Ar Telica’s residential complexes were built. More alike than unlike, though on a much smaller scale. I wouldn’t describe the place as opulent, but it was bright, clean, and spacious, giving off the impression of a friendly, safe environment for children – and adults – of all ages. In some respects, it was akin to the interior of those luxury cruise ships that sailed the oceans of Teloria. Given that the habitat was located within a vessel that was larger than an island, maybe the cruise ship analogy wasn’t that far off from the truth.

As I worked my way around the atrium to the west side of the building, I pondered the true nature of the habitat. Was it home to the crew of the Citadel? And what was the composition of the crew? Were they human and Simulacra, or just the latter? Given the size of the ship, the crew complement could number in the tens of thousands – perhaps over a hundred thousand – and the habitat was certainly large enough for that number. Or maybe the Empire possessed advanced automation that allowed for the Sanreal Novis to be operated by a few thousand crew members, leaving the rest to machines and Artificial Awarenesses. So was the habitat home to the crew and their families?

On another note, while the architecture of the buildings within the habitat possessed the air of a utopia or arcology, it was comforting that the inside layout of this building wasn’t so dissimilar from what I was accustomed to in Ar Telica. Because of this, and the directions provided by multiple holo-signs, I was able to quickly traverse through the building. Emerging out of the westside exit on the third floor, I found myself running onto a station platform with two elevated monorail tracks running past it in parallel.

During my brief dash over the rooftops, the Argus System had spied these two monorails in the near distance. Now, I hoped that at least one of them would prove to be my straight run to the tower.

Summoning the left armature, I used it to holster the Punisher tightly against my left shoulder blade, then I jumped the short distance from the platform to the nearest parallel track. The Argus System reported the width at twenty-two inches, wide enough to run along, and Mirai’s boots had a remarkable grip on smooth surfaces so I was confident I wasn’t going to fall off the track.

I was soon running at a very fast jog that many athletes would have mistaken for a sprint. The wounds in my left thigh and flank bothered me with every breath and step that I took, but the discomfort gradually receded into a dull ache as the Angel Fibers patched Mirai up from the inside.

About a thousand feet south of the station, the two monorail tracks diverged. One of them routed between the habitat buildings to the east, but the track I was running along continued in a direct line to the tower. By continuing to make use of it, I didn’t waste time searching for ways to travel across from building to building. However, it also gave me time to think, and the closer I travelled to the tower, the darker and more anxious my thoughts became.

I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at the tower, yet I was certain that I hadn’t seen the last of Miss Ponytail. She’d made her presence known to me back at the Estate, something I now believed was a challenge – especially after she sniped me in the head during the paint bullet exercise – so I doubted she would give up so easily. And since this whole situation was stacked unfavorably against me, I expected that by now she’d jumped into a spare body and was waiting for round two.

Or was that round three?

I shook my head inwardly in self-reproach.

Did it matter what round it was?

For that matter, so what if she was waiting for me?

With the tower looming tall before me, I grinned to myself as I picked up my pace.

I’d kicked Miss Ponytail’s ass once already, and I was ready to kick her ass again.

Then I saw what lay ahead of me and I involuntarily slowed down.

That ass kicking was going to have to wait.

A wide, open space surrounded the tower.

As I ran closer to it, I recognized it as a parkland.

A wide stream encircled the base of the tower like a castle moat, and a couple of little bridges arched over it.

It was all very peaceful and picturesque, but the absence of buildings turned it into a no-man’s land.

I had a hasty choice to make: find another away to the tower, or sprint to the finish line and hope for the best.

Judging the distance to the tower at around a hundred and fifty meters, I decided to make a run for it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far.

As I sprinted between the last two buildings before the monorail track crossed over into the open parkland, something slammed into my left shoulder.

My mind was overclocked, but whatever struck the Regalia’s puffy padding moved too quickly for me to glimpse.

The tremendous impact killed my forward momentum, knocking backwards onto my ass.

However, I didn’t feel myself landing on the monorail.

Instead, I felt as though my left arm had been blown off at the shoulder.

The agony I experienced was so intense that for a few seconds I couldn’t cope, and my mind went white.

To make matters worse, I was still overclocked, so those few seconds of excruciating pain seemed to last for an eternity.

I don’t know why my mind continued to overclock, but the resulting experience was too much for me, and I screamed in abject agony.

That scream was still sounding in my ears when my senses recovered.

My hearing returned first, then my vision.

However, I had a trouble understanding my situation.

One of the two buildings I’d been running past was now in front of me, and my body felt like it was dangling.

So why wasn’t I falling? Had I reflexively reached out and caught onto the monorail track as I fell?

The pain burning up my left shoulder had spread to my chest. It was hard to breathe, but I was able to tilt back my head and look up to see a slender metal arm stretching from my back to the monorail track overhead.

What the—?

It took me a moment to recognize it as the right holster arm.

Its six fingers were splayed, and the air between its palm and the track shimmered.

So that’s what happened.

In order to save me as I fell, the armature had abandoned the damaged Punisher and grabbed a hold of the monorail’s underbelly.

But now what—?

A large chunk disappeared from the metal arm, as though something invisible had taken a bite out of it.

But I knew that wasn’t the case.

The holster arm had been sniped.

This time I’d seen the bullet – a cigar shaped smudge moving across my vision for a millisecond – and so too had the Argus System.

*Release! I yelled at the arm.

The effect-field grabbing onto the track vanished, and I fell away from the monorail.

As I dropped to the street three stories below me, the Princess Regalia’s skirts instantly fanned out and hardened to act like drag chutes.

The landing was painful, but it could have been a lot worse if not for the skirts’ attempt to slow my descent.

That said, my legs did shout out in agony.

They gave way, and I collapsed onto my knees.

Using a hand to support myself, I weathered the short-lived pain, before pushing myself back onto my feet.

The damaged Punisher was lying nearby, and I ran over to recover it.

As I picked it up, the sniper’s third shot slammed into the linear rifle.
It didn’t knock the weapon out of my left hand, but it made my arm swing out wide, almost spinning me around in a half circle.
The abrupt change in direction made me stumble, and for a moment my legs turned rubbery again.

I was in danger of falling flat on my face, but I recovered by kicking off the ground as hard as I could, launching myself into the air at a low angle.

I staggered upon landing, but quickly regained enough of my balance to flee toward the building to the west.

It was surrounded by a low garden wall that I leapt over with a little difficulty.

A second later, I had crossed the garden and dropped to a crouch with my back pressed against the building.

Feeling safe for the moment, I addressed the Argus System.

*Where did those shots come from?

Despite my awareness being overclocked, I’d barely glimpsed the sniper’s bullets tunnel through the air. But the Argus System operated in a nanosecond world and had recorded their flight paths when they briefly cut through the sensor-sphere. By tracing their trajectory, the system guesstimated their point of origin.

*Show me, I asked of it.

The Argus System complied, and half my vision was consumed by a recorded view of the Promenade docked high up the tower.

From the angle of the image, it appeared to have been recorded while I was running along the monorail track, a fraction of a second before I was first sniped.

Gun cues superimposed on an area just above the Promenade’s dorsal hull.

In short, the Argus System was telling me I’d been shot by someone or something standing on the dorsal hull, but the system couldn’t see the sniper.

I sighed loudly and blinked quickly, signaling the system to clear away the image from my vision.

“Wonderful…,” I whispered as I leaned my head back and looked up the wall of the building I was hiding against.

The pain blazing through my left shoulder was steadily losing its bite.

In another half-minute I’d be able to move my left arm with some discomfort, but at least I still had my arm thanks to the Princess Regalia. No matter how embarrassing it might be to wear, I swore a silent oath never to doubt its worth.

My gaze drifted over to the countdown plastered countless times across the bloodred sky.

07:12…07:11….

Now what?

I pondered the state of play.

One. I was alive because the sniper didn’t want me dead.

How did I know this?

Because, Two, they could have shot me in the head instead of the shoulder.

The implied that, Three, the sniper was an excellent shot.

Alternatively, they could have just been unlucky, but it took more than luck to take a bite of the right holster arm with their second shot.

That lead me to Four: I was pinned down and losing time.

Last but not least, Five: how the Hell was I going to get to the tower now?

I spared the monorail track overhead a studious look.

The underside was smooth and flush like the topside so there was nothing to hold onto, otherwise I could have crawled beneath it all the way to the tower.

I directed the Argus System to the ground beneath me, extending the sensor-sphere as far out as the street and sidewalk. There were tunnels and conduits running below ground, but I would need to find a way into them. Did I have the time to search about?

I released a heavy, shuddering breath, and looked down at the damaged Punisher.

The sniper had shot the weapon when I picked it up off the street. The impact had almost ripped it out of my hand, and tripped me up, but I’d recovered and held onto it as I ran for cover.

Since I was contemplating my next move, I took a moment to study the damage inflicted by the sniper’s bullet.

There was a crater in the Punisher’s receiver, just ahead of the side-mounted magazine feeder. The linear rifle was made out of lightweight but extremely strong materials because it had to withstand the enormous forces generated when it fired bullets at eight times the speed of sound. It also had to endure firing tens of thousands of rounds in its lifetime. Because of this, the heavy caliber slug had failed to smash through the rifle and had become embedded in the Punisher.

The Argus System scanned it.
[*14 mm high-velocity tungsten carbide cobalt composite penetrator with non-discarding jacket. Medium armor piercing capacity.]

My eyebrows rose sharply as my eyes widened dramatically.

Medium armor piercing? Not light armor piercing?

Though it hurt a little as I turned my neck to the left, it didn’t stop me from giving my left shoulder a good look.

The puffy padding protecting my shoulder had crumpled.

I was accustomed to seeing the Princess Regalia restoring itself by some miraculous means, but the shoulder armor had deflated like a spent
airbag and showed no signs of recovering.

Wondering if the bullet was still in there, I reached into the once puffy padding and found the heavy slug inside the deformed material. I had to yank it out because it was stuck, and that sent a fresh wave of pain rushing through my shoulder and chest.

I rolled the armor piercing round in my right palm.

Half the jacket had been crushed, and the tungsten carbide penetrator had been flattened as well.

I gave my shoulder and the Punisher separate looks.

Just what the Hell was this Princess Regalia made of.

The previous Regalia had almost stopped a twenty-millimeter round when it punched into my gut. This one had stopped a bullet capable of smashing through an ultra-strong linear rifle frame.

I leaned back against the wall until the holster arms attached to my back bumped into it.

Abruptly, I heard a rustling sound and felt something crawling over my left shoulder.

Startled at first, I soon stared nonplussed at the sight of the puffy shoulder padding slowly restoring itself. But when it finished inflating a long while later, it looked a little worse for wear.

My heart pounded loudly in my chest.

Mirai’s abilities frightened me on occasion, but at times like these, Princess Regalia was downright unnerving as an example of over technology.

But watching it had given me an idea.

After standing up, I peered along the side of the wall at the open parkland that lay between the southside of the building and the foot of the tower.

From my vantage point, I could just glimpse the base of the tower over a hundred and sixty meters away.

Back in Ar Telica, I ran a hundred and ten meters in seven point three seconds, and that was barefoot. The previous Princess Regalia I’d worn had slightly enhanced my strength, and this one was no different in that aspect, so perhaps I could shave a few tenths off my previous best. But even so, I was looking at a time of ten to eleven seconds from here to the tower.

Assuming the sniper could fire once every second, I could be shot at ten to eleven times.

There’s no way I can make it.

Even if they weren’t out to kill me, they could incapacitate me and keep me pinned down.

Mirai wasn’t a machine, and there was no way for me to ignore the pain of being repeatedly shot, thus the prospect of crawling in agony to the tower was not a pleasant one.

Taking a deep breath that lasted for a long while since my mind was overclocked, I peeked through the building’s window behind me.

If I went through the building and emerged out of its west side, I would be almost directly in line with the foot of the tower. That would make it a straight run through the parkland due south, reducing the distance I would have to cover at a full-bore sprint. But no matter how fast Mirai was, I would never be able to outrun a bullet, and if I took the shooter by surprise that would only earn me a second or two, leaving me exposed for another five or six seconds.

And there’s that stream to cross, but I think I saw a bridge over it.

In summary, making a run for the tower wasn’t going to get me far.

Neither was shooting blindly up at the Promenade.

Therefore, what I needed was a plan.

And that plan involved getting myself a shield.

---

Thank you for following the webversion of Book Three.
As promised the next section was a little longer.
And the eBook rewrite and re-editing is progressing well.

If you are new to the series, and are interested in reading of purchasing Books 1 and 2 of the Gun Princess Royale, the links are provided below:

Book One - Awakening the Princess

Book Two - The Measure of a Princess

A percentage of the purchases made through the links will go toward supporting the website.

I wish you all well.

Please, stay safe.