Mecrats

by C J Klinger

  Greg burst through the second floor door just as the floor gave away. The third Islamic fighter, who had been standing to one side stared down in disbelieve at his two comrades being threatened by some apparition from hell. His instinct took over and he raised his weapon to kill this Allah cursed devil. Greg cut him down before he had time to shoot. The man toppled into the opening and fell in front of his two cowering comrades.

  Randy looked up and said, “Thanks, Boss.”

  Outside the gunfire was subsiding, marking the end of the battle. Now would come the hard part, counting the dead and taking care of the wounded.

  Chapter 31

  Cathy’s mind tried to understand the sound she kept hearing in her dream. Finally she realized it was her phone. She woke with a start and lunged for it on her night stand. She feared for the worst when she said, “Hello” in her sleep drugged voice.

  Colonial Bridges’ distinctive voice said, “Major Donavan is okay, Doctor Williamson. I don’t know any of the details, but I do know the major was among the survivors. They should be back in Nevada by this time tomorrow. I’ll call you later this morning when I get more details.”

  Tremendous relief flooded Cathy, an emotion she had not experienced so intensely since the first Mecrats had woken up. Trying to keep a tremble out of her voice she said, “Thank you, Colonial Bridges, thank you very much.” When the colonel hung up, Cathy sat on the side of the bed and cried uncontrollably. Drying her eyes, she said aloud, “I’m not sure I can do this.” She would have to think long and hard about a future with Major Gregory Donavan.

  Then Colonel Bridges’ words sunk in; Greg was among the survivors. That meant there had been casualties. Where her Rats okay? Did he mean other men had been killed? She reached for the phone and then hesitated. Colonel Bridges had also said he didn’t have any details. The now familiar dread of not knowing returned.

  Sleep was out of the question. Her clock said three AM; too early to go for a run and she had no desire to go to her lab. She finally settled for a cup of coffee and reading the material she had ordered on the requirements for getting an advanced degree in psychiatric medicine. It occupied her enough to distract her from worrying about the Mecrats. At six she put the literature down and got dressed for her morning run. A number of other people were already out, following their passion for the consuming form of exercise. Running was not a social event, so the runners did little more that wave a hand if they met another runner going in the opposite direction. Cathy started on her usual route, out one of the taxiways and back and if she felt up to it, up the other taxiway and back for a combined total of five miles. Half way through her first leg another runner fell in beside her. It was unusual enough to make Cathy look to see who the runner was. It was Captain Carl DeWitt, the air force officer who had tried to butt heads with Greg. Cathy was surprised and hoped the encounter was not going to turn ugly.

  “I wish to apologies for my behavior, Doctor Williamson. It was inexcusable.”

  Cathy was tempted to ignore him and speed up her pace to signal she was not interested in him or his apology, but manners won out and she said, “It’s not necessary Captain DeWitt, but thank you. I’ll pass your apology on to Major Donavan.”

  Carl DeWitt smiled his hundred watt smile and said, “When will the Major and his troops return, if I may ask?”

  He had hesitated at the word “troops” and she knew that a lot of people were having difficulty figuring out whether the Mecrats were people or machines.it was the same issue that had concerned Cathy about how the military would view her precious wards.

  “I don’t know,” she lied. “It’s classified.”

  “I heard it was a real rumble and there were a significant number of casualties,” the captain said offhandedly.

  Cathy couldn’t tell if he was saying that conversationally or if he was trying to get back at her for refusing his advances, but it was apparent he knew something she did not. She slowed and then stopped to face him. “All right, asshole. Tell me what you know.” She was angry and wasn’t sure exactly why.

  Carl DeWitt had followed her pace to a stop. The surprise on his face at her words couldn’t be faked. “I didn’t mean,” he sputtered and stopped.

  Cathy’s emotions boiled over. The worry, the raw fear and doubt about making a life with Greg all came to the surface. “I don’t give a damn what you think. Tell me what you know.”

  Carl could see how upset Cathy was. “I just heard chatter on the radio about an action in Northern Iraq involving the IS and some of our Special Forces and I figured it involved Major Donavan and his troops.”

  “Mecrats,” she corrected angrily. “What else?” she demanded.

  “There were some casualties who were being evacuating to Germany,” the captain said frowning, trying to remember details of what he had overheard.

  Cathy sagged, her anger spent. “I’m sorry, Carl. I didn’t mean to tie into you like that. I’m just worried, that’s all.”

  Carl was relieved at her change. He liked Cathy and had been disappointed when she had rejected his overtures and upset when she had appeared at the officer’s club with the Army Special Forces major, but at the moment all he had was sympathy for her situation.

  “If there’s anything I can do,” he said and let the sentence trail off.

  “Run with me,” she said and took off.

  He quickly caught up with her and kept pace without saying anything. Neither one of them said anything until the sun started to peak above the horizon. By then they were on the final leg back to the base.

  “Buy you breakfast?” he asked.

  “Deal,” Cathy said not understanding why she had accepted his offer.

  Over coffee and eggs, Carl told her about himself, something he had been trying to do for the past two years. He had graduated from the Air Force Academy and had earned an advanced degree in aeronautical engineering at Caltech.

  “My obligation is up in six months and I have been offered a position with Boeing in Seattle, which I have accepted.”

  Cathy could see he very excited about his future. “Flying?” she asked.

  “Hell no,” he answered quickly. “Flying is something I do and am good at, but it’s not my life. I want to design the airplanes of the future.”

  Cathy decided she liked him in spite of the ugly situation at the officer’s club. He was bright and cheery and, like most pilots very sure of himself. In different circumstances she would have seriously considered dating him.

  “I need to get to work,” she said breaking off her thoughts.

  He grinned and said, “Me too, the wild blue yonder beckons and my stead is snorting on the runway.”

  “A poet,” she said and laughed, feeling her tension lessen. “Thank you, Carl. I enjoyed your company.”

  They stood up and he took her trey. “Until again, my fair Lady, Your Blue Knight awaits your orders.” He bowed slightly and left to put the treys on the counter. Cathy left to get dressed for work. Her worries had returned.

  Chapter 32

  Abdullah was in great pain, both physically and emotionally. His forces had been humiliated and routed by a force less than half their size. He had been wounded in the left leg and left shoulder and felt lucky it was not worse than that. Good medical care was in short supply in the Islamic State and complex care was out of the question. The central hospital at Mosul had been damaged in the offense that captured the northern Iraqi city, plus all of the non-Sunni personnel had fled the area. Some of his fighters were going to die because of the State’s inability to properly treat the most seriously wounded. He was sick of hearing the medics say “Inshallah” instead of being able to deliver proper medical care.

  What really bothered him the most was the effect the American Mecrats had on his fighters. When he first received the intelligence report from his agents in America about the large mechanical fighters the American military was developing he was skeptical. Robots were clumsy, slow moving machines. These things had mo
ved like cats. And those wings; how had they done that? Most of his fighters had some degree of education, but a fair percentage of them had an education limited to madras schools, which focused on the Qur’an more than anything else. They had been susceptible to their beliefs and when they had seen the angels of death coming for them, the normally brave men had freaked out. When they bolted, it had caused a general panic

  Now he had a bigger problem than losing an insignificant battle over an insignificant village. The news that the Angels of Death had visited the battle field and fought on the side of the enemy had spread like a cancer. He had to act swiftly to counter the impression that Allah did not bless their cause. If even a quarter of his fighters lost their will to fight, the Islamic State would crumble like a house of cards. He knew the American fighting machines were vulnerable. He had seen one of them fall after being hit by a machine gun. As good as that news was, it had caused another problem. Some of the men were saying they had killed one of Allah’s angels and they were doomed.

  Abdullah could feel his plan slipping away from him. He had to act quickly or lose it all. The only thing he could think of was to capture one of these Mecrats dead or alive and let the people see they were only clever mechanical constructions and not messengers from Allah. Abdullah winced in pain as he shifted his position. It seemed to him the Americans had a soft heart for hostages and were willing to risk ground troops and their monster machines to rescue them if the hostages were important enough. Getting hostages was easy. He wanted more than that; he wanted to kill the people who had created them, but to do that he needed more information from America.

  “Get me Hasim,” he ordered one of his orderlies.

  Chapter 33

  Cathy, along with a crowd of other people, most of them involved in the Mecrats program watched the C5A complete a lazy turn and line up on the long, north-south runway. The morning sun illuminated the giant plane against the dark mountains, as yet untouched by the rising sun. The somber waiting crowd knew one of the Mecrats had been killed. Earlier Cathy had received a cryptic note from Colonel Bridges’ office informing her that the Mecrat in question was Jerry Billingsworth, 2Rat. She had cried for the loss of the young man she had worked so hard to save.

  She remembered each of them as when they had arrived at Groom Lake, grievously wounded and close to death, but recognizable as individual human beings with different colored hair, eyes, skin and distinctive facial features. Jerry’s black eyes had followed her whenever she had visited him during those early days. He had listened to her with total concentration as she had described the only living option left to him as he was approaching death. His only question had been, “Do you think I should do it?” The awesome responsibility of that question still haunted her. She had nodded her head silently, not wanting to lose him. He had closed his eyes for a final time assigning his fate to her hands with the trust of a child. Now he was dead. Had she acted wisely? She was not sure.

  The noise from the C5A’s thrust reversers brought her back to the present. The big plane slowed to a crawl and turned on to the taxiway leading up to the central parking area. It grew to giant size at it approached, dwarfing the two parked, Boeing737s as if to emphasize its purpose, to carry large things. This morning it ferried heroes and the dead.

  Colonial Bridges had arranged for an honor guard to meet the plane. After the engines had been shut down, they advance to the rear of the plane and lined up in two rows facing each other as the ramp descended. As soon as it touched ground nine Mecrats came walking down the ramp carrying an improvised liter, four on a side and one at the rear bearing the covered body of Sargent Jerry Billingsworth. The Air Force honor guard fell in on either side of the entourage and together they marched in the direction of the Mecrats complex where Jerry’s last remaining body parts would be removed and prepared for burial. There was no music and no sounds, only the rhythmic sound of the men and Mecrats carrying their fallen comrade.

  Almost unnoticed in the solemnity of the occasion were the support personnel coming down the ramp after the Mecrats had moved away from the plane. The Special Forces soldiers had returned to Bagdad in the Black Hawks with their wounded and two dead. Colonel Barzani and his band of Dizha Tiror had lost two men. The Kurdish Peshmerga did not share the number of casualties they had suffered, but most estimated their losses to be minimal. The Islamic State had lost ninety fighters, most of them in the initial surprise attack. Forty-three had been captured and turned over to the Peshmerga, presumably to be used as bargaining chips in future dealings with the Islamic State.

  Cathy’s eyes went back and forth between the Mecrats and the ramp, torn between watching Jerry’s body being carried to the lab hospital and looking for Greg. Finally she saw him and her heart stopped, he had been wounded. His combat fatigues were bloody on his left side. She saw him stop at the bottom of the ramp and look at the line of Mecrats moving away before looking at the crowd standing silently in witness. He saw Cathy and moved toward her. She moved away from the crowd and walked toward him at a deliberate pace. Regardless of how she felt about being attached to a soldier, he was hurt and he needed her. They met halfway and Greg silently embraced her. It was not affection; it was solace. He whispered, “I lost one of our men, Cathy. I’m so sorry.”

  At that moment she knew she loved Major Gregory Donavan. They were MomRat and DadRat grieving over the loss of one of their children. Without saying a word she led him in the direction of the Mecrats Lab hospital, her arm around his waist and his around hers. The assembled people knew their grief was personal and private; no one said anything or attempted to talk to them.

  Jerry was laying on the custom built operating table where Cathy and the team of scientists had brought the Mecrats to life. Most of the scientists who were still working on the base were present. Cathy knew it was not only out of respect for Jerry, but also out of scientific curiosity about the exact cause of death. Because of the success of the Mecrats first two missions, most of them assumed the program would be continued. The Pentagon rarely cancelled a program that worked as well as this one. Finding out what went wrong was not morbid curiosity, but instead the most practical way to improve the end result, a stronger, less vulnerable vehicle to house its precious cargo, an American soldier.

  Greg wanted answers too. He wanted to be able to tell the surviving Mecrats exactly what had gone wrong, what needed to be improved to protect them in the future. They had already known they were vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire, but how vulnerable and where was uncertain. An autopsy would reveal that. Cathy joined the team and Greg stood on the sidelines looking around at her workplace. He marveled how anyone could know how to operate all the complex looking machines surrounding the surgical table. It occurred to him it was similar to the military; many different specialties operated by trained personnel attacking an objective with life and death consequences.

  In the end it was determined that the Kevlar skin covering the carbon steel skeleton and carbon-polymer muscle structure had failed to protect the internal, vital mechanisms including Jerry’s brain. Fortunately he had died instantly. Greg was impressed that by the time he and Cathy left the lab, the engineering team was already discussing an improved skin version using newly developed material.

  Outside in the brilliant sunlight, Greg said, “I have to go see the Rats and tell them what your team found.” He looked off at the mountains for a moment before continuing, “The men want to bury him up in the Papoose Mountains. Can you arrange for the base shop to prepare a small casket for his organic parts? A simple wood box will do.”

  She was relieved the Mecrats had not asked to bury the entire nine foot Mecrat. She was certain the military would never agree to have their top secret technology buried in some remote mountains.

  “I’ll call Colonel Bridges right away. When do you need it?”

  “Tonight, do you want to come along?”

  Cathy’s heart lurched. “Yes, but how?”

  Greg smiled for the first time s
ince he had left four days earlier. “You can ride with me in my pulpit.”

  Later that afternoon she helped Greg get into a hot tub of water where she checked his wound carefully. He had been stitched up by a medic on the plane. “You were lucky,” she said, her fears about being involved with a soldier rising again.

  “Yes I was,” he said matter-of-factly.

  She was glad he had not said something like, “It was nothing,” or “It’s just a scratch.” Cathy relished facts and hated dancing around reality.

  “Is this something I can look forward to in the future?” she asked looking at him without blinking. “Your luck running out?”

  Greg knew this was the moment of truth in their relationship. He didn’t know how they had gotten to this point so quickly, but they were there and it was time to deal with it.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said slowly, carefully picking his words. “What we just did was a foolish risk of the Mecrats and the Special Forces. Never mind that we saved eight hundred people. We should never have attacked the IS forces in daylight in such an open terrain.”