Absolution

by Peter Smith

  Tobor crossed her path as she barreled toward the nearest of the automated anti-aircraft systems. If they could take these out the Sean would have far fewer problems when inserting into the battle space. In her virtual vision she could see the time to weapons range clock ticking down rapidly. Tobor had shared it with her once they had left the laboratory, only able to do so by physically handling her contacts before she put them into her eyes.

  The jamming field that the Russians were producing was so intense that even the centimeters that separated the two of them were too great for Tobor’s wireless communication suite to broadcast the information. The timer helped to keep her focus, while dramatically increasing her stress with the tick of each second.

  Toby was heading toward the jammer at the center of the launch deck. The device was situated behind armored barricades and from what Toby showed her when it accessed the family surveillance satellites through its QEC, there was another fire team behind them, protecting the device.

  Because Tobor was equipped with a Quantum Entangled Communicator, and that form of communication was virtually impossible to jam given, it could still pull vital information from the network.

  That QEC occurred between particles that were linked, not by physical or electromagnetic manipulation but by quantum entanglement, meant that the data could not be intercepted or its sharing prevented.

  Tobor was in constant communication with the Spire and from there the Spire transmitted information to the rest of the empire that relied on more traditional data sharing. While Toby could send and receive, her contacts and the systems of the RU were based on the use of radio signals transmitted from point to point and could be jammed.

  Deactivating that device would allow for her to use her contacts to wage electronic warfare of her own and for the RU to organize a defensive response to this attack. It would also allow for coordination with the rapidly approaching forces that were coming to rescue her and Toby.

  Her head snapped to the side as a bullet grazed her helmet. Her balance disrupted, she tripped on her own feet and crashed into the metal floor face first. She took several seconds to skid to a stop as her forward momentum was absorbed in the screeching of metal on metal. Bullets pinged off of her armor from several directions.

  Each one that impacted was like the crashing of very large cymbals against the sides of her head. Some deflecting off the armor that covered her body and others flattened into it, creating divots. She wondered if this was what it would have felt like for a car that was driving through an intense hail storm.

  A part of her wanted to lay there, to hope that the Russian Spire commandos would stop firing at her and that somehow, miraculously, all of this would just stop. But she knew that would not be the case.

  Those that waited for life to present them with solutions were bound to be crushed by it. Those who stood on their own two feet and weathered the difficulties that were pummeling them, were the only ones that wouldn’t fail. And that was one of her greatest fears, failure. That she would let herself down, not be there for humanity or worst yet, for her family. She could never allow for that to happen. If she didn’t get up and now, some of her family might die. Maybe it would be Sean, or her father-in-law David, Tobor, or maybe all three of them.

  Toby was likely already aware that she had fallen and was calculating how to get to her to render aid. If her protector stopped trying to disable the jammer to save her, then all of this would be for nothing. There was also a significant chance that they would destroy Toby in the process.

  So as the bullets continued to batter her like hammers, she pushed herself up with her arms. The servos in the exoskeleton that wrapped over her elbows and shoulders whined from having to push up the added bulk. She almost lost her grip on the deck when a bullet smacked into her forearm, threatening to whip it backward and send her face first back down.

  Her hand kept contact with the ground, the weight of her body pressing down on trembling finger tips. Her right foot pulled up underneath her as her left leg extended outward and she took up a position similar to that of a runner about to leap off the starting block.

  She brought her face up and looked at the AA battery that Tobor had cleared for her. The meters to it popping up in her vision. “Stop laying down on the job, time to put your big girl pants on” she muttered to herself.

  She pushed off from the deck plating, grunting and screaming in panic as bullets found their mark against the outer surface of her armor. She almost didn’t think she’d be able to make it. Her virtual vision was displaying warnings that her armor had nearly been penetrated after the last impact. When she was several meters from her goal, the incoming fire stopped. Likely because the soldiers that were firing on her didn’t want to hit the Anti-Aircraft weapon.

  She staggered to a stop, the mass of the armor wanting to keep moving forward as she and the small motors that powered the suit fought to drag the material to a stop. Her gloved palms contacted the outside casing of the anti-aircraft unit.

  The device was the size of a refrigerator, four legs having been deployed from its corners, the feet of each of them bolted into the flight deck. Atop the large rectangular box was a long, single-barreled device. Her contacts weren’t able to access the family data network, but if they could have, they would have told her what she already knew.

  This was a Russian-designed SPAAm, or Squad Portable Anti Air. She still wasn’t sure why the M had been added to its designation but whenever the topic had been brought up around her as a teenager at Spire family events, the parents had always laughed at the acronym.

  It was capable of effective though short ranged air defense for Russian Spire ground forces; it did so by firing smart munitions at aerial vehicles, from attack craft to missiles. The rounds then burst in the path of and around the airborne threat, shredding it with shrapnel.

  The countdown clock in her vision was rapidly approaching zero, and she still had no wireless connectivity. This plan would fail and her family might die if she couldn’t get her contacts back into the game. She worked her way around to the other side of the SPAAm weapon system and found the command terminal. She looked behind her, searching for the hostile Russia attack drones that were patrolling the area. She saw nothing but the lush vista of North Carolina, spread out before her and a simple safety rail. She looked back at the command terminal and opened up the protective cover over the screen. She could try to hack her way into it, but without the raw processing power and assistive programs for digital infiltration that her contacts provided her, the odds of success were low.

  The timer clicked down to four minutes. She risked a glance around the corner of the machine and toward the jammer. The sound of gunfire and men screaming were all easily heard, but nothing gave away the status of her trusted companion. She slid to the other side of the weapon system and peeked around the opposite corner. Two commandos were charging toward her from their position at one of the other SPAAms. Her heart tightened, and the strong urge to pee flooded over her. There was no way she could handle one, let alone two of the soldiers.

  Her virtual vision sprang to life, informing her it was re-establishing its connection to the family servers. The two soldiers skid to a stop, their focus at first upon her and then shifting toward the jammer. She grinned, “Oh no, which one should you choose”

  One man slapped the other and pointed to the Jammer. The second soldier nodded and broke off at a dead run for the disruptive device. The first one ran directly toward her, “Crap!” She shouted, not appreciating the universe’s sense of humor.

  The man’s rifle snapped upward toward her exposed face and she rolled away just in time to avoid a bullet through her helmet visor.

  Connection Established

  She blinked as her connection to the family network and that of the RU came back on online, then she went to work. There was little she could do about the commando who would be on her in moments, but with just a few seconds, she could ruin the plans of the Russian Spire forces
in the area.

  She accessed one of her AI assistants and ordered it to use her contacts as a bridge between the processing power of the New York Spire and the local Russian command network. One benefit of the modern battlefield was the rapid sharing and coordination of data. The downside to that practice was that once you compromised one system, you could easily take out the rest.

  Her AI immediately went to work, using her proximity to this one weapon system to wirelessly connect with all the SPAAms. It identified, infiltrated all three and would be done with their firewalls in seconds. With that done, Maria moved onto her next task.

  The Commando came around the corner, his rifle pointing exactly where he was looking. He found Maria, her hand wrapped around one of the handles of the SPAAm system and her other up in the air, waving at him, “Hi.”

  The RU, normally glacially slow slammed itself into reverse and accelerated at its top speed in the opposite direction. The commando was thrown off his feet and onto the ground. Maria didn’t wait, she spun around the AA unit and ran for all that she was worth toward the location of the jammer and hopefully Tobor.

  “On your knees!” A deep and amplified voice bellowed from behind. She stopped, surprised and distraught that the soldier had collected himself so quickly. She turned, her hands going into the air.

  “Please don’t shoot” She said. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The timer was at just a few seconds past two minutes. All she had to do was delay for a little longer and she might still see Alex again.

  “You know who I am, right?” She asked.

  The man’s head cocked to the side, his visor angling away from her slightly. Then he nodded and focused on her, his rifle repositioning securely against his shoulder, “I told you to get on your knees”.

  She could feel the panic beginning to rise within her, “Trotsky would want to interrogate me himself.”

  “That’s not what he just told me, now get on your knees.”

  Her heart burst, tears flowed down her cheeks. She would never again get to see her little boy, to hear his laughter and feel his arms wrapped around her, “I’m so sorry Alex, Mommy loves you so very much” she said, recording her last words as she fell to the deck.

  A loud crack filled the air.

  The man’s head snapped backward, a steel rod embedded directly in the center of his visor. His body wavered in the breeze and then collapsed into a pile as his knees no longer received the impulses from his brain necessary to keep him upright.

  She turned around and watched Tobor striding toward her from dozens of yards away, an arm missing and dark black scoring along the same side. The adrenaline that was flooding her body became too much for her to handle. Her hand shot up to the visor that covered her face and she frantically searched for the unlocking latch. Her fingers found it just in time as she forced the material upward and then lurched forward, vomiting up her lunch.

  Anti-Aircraft Batteries Disabled

  She took as deep a breath as she could, sitting on her legs as she did. Her eyes focused on the message her AI had just transmitted to her. The countdown clock was at one minute. Her throat burned, and her vision was still blurry from the tears. She just sat there sucking down air, so grateful that she was still alive. Tobor’s footsteps forced her to turn her head toward her savior.

  “Are you hurt Maria?”

  She shook her head, “Nope, just thought it would be a good idea to make room for dinner.”

  “Humor?”

  “Coping mechanism, still not used to being in mortal peril.”

  Tobor nodded and then pointed to the North East. Dots on the horizon were rapidly growing as they approached the RU, “Reinforcement are nearly here.”

  She sighed, “About time”

  Tobor turned it’s head to look at her, but before it said what it was going to, it snapped its entire body toward the south. Maria looked in time to see an aerial attack drone screaming toward them as its small jet engines powered an attack run. Hanging from beneath it was a lithe special operations attack drone.

  Bullets hammered into her kneeling form until Tobor side stepped into their path and used its body to shield hers. She was scrambling to her feet when Toby’s laser projector sliced a wing from the attack aircraft and sent it careening off to the side. The special operations drone had already detached itself and arced directly into Tobor’s chest. Both machines collided with her, sending all three to the ground in a mass of metal and flesh. The two drones rolled over her, forcing the air from her lungs.

  She twisted so she could push herself up with her gauntleted hands and watched as the Russian attack drone straddled Toby. A long pointed blade jutting from the base of its wrist, plummeting toward Tobor’s chest and CPU. Toby’s remaining hand snapped up and gripped the other drone’s fist. The point of the blade centimeters from penetrating Tobor’s outer shell. Both of their arms quaked as the motors in their joints and artificial muscles fought for dominance.

  The Russian drone drew back its other arm and punched it through the side of Tobor’s chest. Maria’s hand shot out as she reached for her only friend. Tobor convulsed as the hand forced it’s way through the internal workings of the chest cavity. Tobor’s back arched, hips rocketing into the air in a last-ditch attempt to unseat the attacking drone. Maria scrambled to her feet, “I’m coming Toby!” She screamed, rushing toward the two of them as the Russian drone reached Tobor’s primary processor node.

  Toby’s entire body fell flat, the Russian drone riding the deactivated unit back to the ground. Maria arrived an instant after the impact. The enemy combat unit looked up at her and Maria’s blood was on fire.

  She knew that this was insane, to close the distance between a killing machine that had murdered her best friend in front of her. Maria expected the blade grazing Tobor’s chest to swiftly run her through. But when death didn’t come, her eyes went down to where Toby gripped the other drone’s fist. A smile slipped over Maria’s face as she realized that Toby quit literally held the other drone in a death grip and its other hand was trapped in Tobor’s chest.

  “Bit off more than you could chew, huh?”

  Maria’s armored gauntlet smashed into the faceplate of the Russian drone, sending a spider web of fractures across it’s surface. It wasn’t the most tactically intelligent move to make, but it made her feel better to release some of her rage into the machine’s face.

  After several more blows, shattering the sensors that existed there, she went around to the back of the drone which was struggling to free itself and likely would in a few seconds. Maria walked several steps away to the crashed aerial drone. She picked it up and walked back to the other machine. She gripped the aerial unit with both hands, brought it high over her head and then with all the force that her augmented muscles could muster. It crashed against the enemy drone’s shoulders, the jagged edges breaching the thinner outer armor and pushing into the sensitive inner workings.

  The Russian drone collapsed onto Tobor and Maria grabbed the hand it had embedded in Toby’s chest, ripping it free and then rolled the machine off of her friend. Maria collapsed to her knees next to Tobor’s still form, smoke rising from it, carried away by the constant wind whipping over the launch deck.

  She had watched Toby die twice now, and her heart ached with every beat. She knew it was irrational, that he literally existed to protect her and her family, that he wasn’t ever truly dead. But Toby had always been there for her and there was something deeply psychologically unsettling at being constantly reminded that their relationship, while resilient, was not necessarily permanent and she desperately needed it to be.

  The wind shifted, and a shadow circled over the flight deck. The metal beneath her vibrated several times, and she looked up to see nothing. She knew that wasn’t the case. That very moment dozens of extremely well armed Marines in their adaptive camouflage armor were streaming toward her, and that one of them was her husband.

  As if on cue, she felt a hand fall onto the shoulder of th
e exoskeleton suit she had commandeered. She turned her head to look into yet another reflective visor, “Maria, are you okay?” Sean’s voice said in her ear. The concern was clear from both the tone and the way his head was dipped toward her.

  She nodded, “What’s the situation?”

  He stood and extended a hand toward her. She took it and let him help her to her feet, exhaustion a constant force that threatened to pull her back down, “That’s all you have to say?” Sean said.

  She shrugged, not sure if he could see the motion of her shoulders, “Thanks?”

  He threw his hands into the air and turned from her, “Are you kidding me, you were nearly captured by Trotsky’s forces, you almost died and left our son without a mother,” He spun back toward her, his fist hammering against his chest, “me without the love of my life. What do you think I am, one of your damn drones, to be ordered around and ignored?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he didn’t let her get a word in, “And why the hell are you here in the first place, is this where you’ve been coming during the day? Do you know what this place means?”

  She stepped up to him, gripped the back of his helmet and pulled their visors together with a clack, “I love you too.”

  They stayed that way for a moment and she could feel his eyes closed as he wrestled with his emotions. He slowly pulled away, “What was so important that you just had to come back here by yourself and risk your safety?”

  She looked from her husband and toward the top of the Coliseum building, not too far into the distance. She looked back at her husband and shook her head, unable to express the guilt that she was feeling.