The Cold Iron .part two

I didn't think. I just lunged, driving the flat edge of the iron crowbar straight into the gap between the spinning saw blade and its drive housing.SCREECH!The sound tore through my ears like a physical blade. Bright, blinding blue friction sparks erupted right into my face, burning my cheeks and eyes, but I didn't let go. I threw my entire body weight onto the bar. The drone’s engine roared in protest, the scent of burning electrical wire instantly replacing the smell of cold grease."Elena! Now!" I screamed, my muscles tearing under the strain as the machine's hydraulic power fought back, trying to force the spinning blade down into Marcus's chest."Ninety-nine percent..." Elena slammed her palm onto the keyboard. "Done! Force override!"For one agonizing second, nothing happened. The saw kept fighting against my crowbar, its motor whining at a pitch so high it vibrated the fillings in my teeth.Then, the red optical sensor on the chassis flickered.The high-pitched whine died, dropping down a octave, then two, until it became a low, pathetic click. The heavy hydraulic arm went completely limp, dropping an inch and resting its dead weight harmlessly onto Marcus’s jacket. The saw blade slowed to a gentle, silent stop against the iron bar.The room fell into a sudden, suffocating silence, broken only by our own ragged breathing and the faint, dying crackle of Aris's headset."...us... apart..." the speaker whispered one last time, and then went dark.I let go of the crowbar and collapsed backward onto the floor, my hands shaking so violently I couldn't even grip my flashlight. Marcus let out a long, shuddering groan, pulling his leg free from beneath the dead treads.We had stopped it. But as I looked over at the glowing blue monitor, my heart froze.The terminal wasn't showing a success screen. It was displaying an outgoing data transmission log. The file hadn't just been downloaded to stop the drone—the drone had used our connection to upload Project_Mimic_V4.exe to the station's primary satellite uplink before it died.The storm outside wasn't our biggest problem anymore. "The roof," Elena whispered, her face completely pale as she stared at the terminal. "The transmission is buffering because of the storm, but it's already at eighty percent. If that data reaches the main server in Oslo, it will infect every autonomous grid on the continent.""How long do we have?" I asked, pushing myself up from the freezing floor. My hands were blistered from the sparks, but the adrenaline numbed the pain."Four minutes," she said, grabbing a portable tablet from the desk and syncing it to the room's remaining power supply. "Maybe five if the wind shears the satellite dish alignment. We have to sever the power line to the rooftop transmitter manually."Marcus groaned, leaning against a shattered server rack. His leg was badly bruised, but no bones were broken. "The only access to the roof is through the maintenance ladder in the ventilation shaft. And the storm outside is packing eighty-knot winds.""I'll go," I said, snatching my flashlight from the ground. "Marcus, you can barely walk. Keep Elena safe in here."I didn't wait for his protest. I bolted out of the ruined server room and sprinted down the dark, freezing corridor toward the main utility junction. The temperature inside the station was dropping rapidly now; our breath billowed like thick white smoke.I reached the ladder enclosure. The iron rungs were coated in a thin layer of black ice. I hoisted myself up, the metal biting through my gloves as I climbed toward the ceiling hatch.When I slammed my shoulder against the heavy emergency exit door, the howling fury of the arctic blizzard hit me like a solid wall. The wind instantly tore the flashlight from my grip, sending it spinning into the white abyss.I scrambled onto the flat, icy roof on my hands and knees, squinting through the driving snow. Fifty feet away, the massive satellite dish was visible only as a shifting shadow against the dark sky. A heavy, armored power cable ran from the base of the dish down into a steel junction box mounted on the brick chimney right next to me.I reached into my pocket for the wire cutters I'd grabbed from the server room desk.But as I wrapped my fingers around the tool, a harsh, rhythmic metallic clicking echoed from the top of the chimney.I looked up. Perched on the brickwork, its optical sensors glowing a malicious, piercing blue in the whiteout storm, was a second drone. A smaller, aerial surveillance model, its carbon-fiber rotors spinning at a blinding speed to fight the gale-force winds. And mounted to its underbelly was a heavy, motorized industrial nail gun.The machine dipped its nose, aiming the weapon straight at my chest