I don’t know whether it was a lucky shot or he was just that good, but the newcomer—who looked like he might have turned into a minivan—managed to hit Dugout’s bazooka with his first blast.

But Dugout was fast—he whipped around and chucked the burning bazooka at the vanbot. It exploded on impact, flinging the vanbot backward and doing a lot of body damage. The bot tried to get up, then lay still.

“Sonuva…” Flashback muttered, lowering his arm from his face. They’d both taken a little blast damage, but nothing more than cracked glass or scored paint. “Dugout, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m tough.”

“Good, because—GAH!” Flashback was holed from back to front by a thick beam of white light. His optics flickered and went out. I looked up. While the vanbot had served as a distraction, the other two had moved in to the front.

Dugout pulled a rifle out of one leg and hunkered down behind the wall. “You killed Flashback! You BASTARDS !“

Keeping myself as small as possible, I edged toward Flashback’s fallen rifle.