Now that my troops had completed the garrison I wanted, I realized just what garrison duty entailed. I actually worked out a simple equation—Garrisoning = Boredom. We waited for four days before a cloud of red appeared on the horizon.
The cloud showed long before our flyers saw even a single fauna. I ran through my general plan. I hoped I hadn’t missed anything. The responsibility for this battle lay entirely with me. Could I deliver a victory?
My fluid pressure went into the danger zone as the fauna units became visible to my aerial scouts and eventually to me. The animals tallied 5,412 strong, well over five times my own combat strength. My hillock of soil and a little red dirt didn’t seem like very much now.
I watched the tactical net closely as the mass of animals marched down on us. They were advancing just to the right leg of our crescent-shaped hill. As soon as I saw the total force I made my decision.
“Tactical command: Left-most unit hold position. All other units close up 12 percent to the unit on your left. Reposition and hold.” This would keep the right-most units from hanging out where they could be seen by the approaching fauna. “All units hold fire until ordered.”
The animals came forward with a flying wedge of colorful teddies in front. If I didn’t have the tactical data from my flying spies, I might have made the deadly decision that I only needed to deal with a hundred or so units up front.
“Flame-thrower units, shift to the left side of the line. As the front row passes the right flank I want you to create a horizontal zone of fire.
“Snipers, at the first flame, pick off as many elephant units as you can. All remaining balloons launch as soon as firing starts.
“Elephants and balloons, allocate your entire fire on the opposite side of the flaming units.
“All other units, pour fire into your assigned sector of the fire sack. Don’t stop until ordered or there are no more fauna to destroy.”
The fauna marched diagonally across the mouth of our berm. My plan all hinged on an age-old Human adage—divide and conquer. As the lead units passed my right flank, Armageddon started as a flaming wall roared up from my left in the center of a company of tanks.
The burning vehicles scattered in chaos. Our tanks poured cannon and machine gun fire into the killing zone between the legs of the horseshoe. Killing zone was too kind a word for it. Animals exploded, ammunition in damaged units cooked off, black smoke poured off of units on fire.
Normally I would not get involved in the killing end of the fight, as my program was to direct, but there were too many targets for the troops to engage, so I lent a paw. Sure, I was green, but it couldn’t hurt—besides, it seemed exciting. My M16 assault rifle proved itself a sturdy weapon, even if it didn’t measure up to the more powerful Tommy Tank projectiles. I learned the skills quickly enough. After the first dozen bullets went anywhere but at my intended target, I found a reasonable enough proficiency. My shots rarely missed their targets, but they didn’t always register as a kill. This puzzled me until I noticed that my fellow units would hit a Tommy Tank right at the base of the weapon to register a kill. I shifted my aim and began to register more regular successes. Hitting teddies at the base of the neck and elephants right where the tail intersected the hind legs also proved to be a kill shot.
I relayed this information back to the rest of my brigade and our kill rate went up significantly. I figure I alone felled eighteen or twenty. I think our success was what the Humans would call a bloodbath. Granted, we had no blood in our bodies, but most of us housed a minimum of 6 liters of miscellaneous fluids—hydraulic, cleansing, lubricating. I saw that the animals were in truth the same. The red landscape was darkened with oil and liquid seeping from smoldering corpses of this first grouping.
But then my job wasn’t to deal with what already worked. I noticed that the fauna on the other side of our wall of fire finally organized enough to do something productive. A light mortar fire began to rain over our position and a ragged collection of supporting animals began to move around our left flank. The units on fire had long since stopped moving, either from catastrophic heat failure, their own ammunition exploding, or even accidentally straying into someone’s fire zone. To flank us the animals needed to come around this inferno.
“All flyers, concentrate on mortar units. I want one in every three tanks to redirect threat axis to 5 degrees west of north. Fire as you bear. Rabbits, keep the wall of flame active.”
In succession, the units turned the corner of the firewall only to be killed by concentrated fire. The bodies of the poor hapless creatures impeded the units further back. This gave my troops time to either shoot them behind the growing line of bodies or to pick them off as they broached this ever growing wall of death.
Confidence in victory overflowed my processor until a large yellow bulldozer crashed into the bodies, tearing a hole 3 meters wide. My processor voltage shot up as animals poured through the gap. I nearly panicked.
“Flyer Squad Three. Priority bombing mission.” I relayed the coordinates and an image of the earthmover. I looked over the zone between the horseshoes and nothing moved except smoke, flame, and hydraulic fluid flowing out to spend itself on the ground.
“All units refocus fire between 8 and 10 degrees west of north.” Tracers redoubled in the area of the outbreak and more animals died than could force their way through. Soon too this avenue of attack filled too high with bodies to be an effective route of attack.
The battle’s end trailed off over several dozen minutes, unlike its crisp starting point. My troop hunted down the remaining animals and executed them. It wasn’t a fight. One by one our flyers identified a target, which followed shortly by a crash of firepower on the enemy. Usually the overwhelming firepower scattered the body so widely that just a scorch mark remained on the ground.
“Damage report,” I called out, wanting to know immediately the cost of this victory.
“Negative.”
“Negative.”
“Tank 15003 main gun damaged.”
“Negative.”
“Rabbit units 143 and 5332 deactivated.”
The rest of the roll call impressed me equally. In all we lost seven total units with thirteen damaged to one degree or another. I looked over the battlefield. In less than an hour we killed 5,412 of the local fauna. We had only lost seven, and Six’s memories contained no record of a battle so one-sided.
I looked over the smoldering and broken bodies on the field. I had another victory.
Hero
I didn’t get time to enjoy my victory. I didn’t even have time to report it to Six. My flying brethren beamed pictures of additional encroaching enemies following the troops we just annihilated. Worse, their reinforcements centered on something that chilled my hydraulic fluid—something new. In the center of a pack of fifteen dozen miscellaneous units lumbered 12 meters of plastic-skinned trouble, genus Tyrannosaurus rex. The monster was immense!
I panicked, ordering all units back to active status. Almost as quickly as I sent the command I rescinded it as the flyers sent down the speed of approach. Putting my units back into alert would only wear them out for no reason. At the lumbering speed of the T.rex I would have approximately an hour to come up with a plan. I didn’t know what we could possibly do against it. Bullets would probably ricochet off the huge thing or get lost inside it.
Over the first part of that hour my sump spun and I felt like I ground a kilogram of silicon off my processor. Not one good idea surfaced. My mind drifted off thinking of the gruesome end where we all attacked with bayonets and knives as the massive dinosaur smashed us to bits just by stepping on us. In my daydream one of my teddy units, stabbing the beast in the leg, was drug along by the pommel of his own knife. I gained a new respect for Six’s decision to give me imagination. It is highly underrated.
“All heavy equipment to either end of the berm.” Time was the enemy. “I want two Nurse Nans and a squad of gophers collecting the enemy for salvage and a squad of tanks as sentr
y.” My plan was to draw away the escorts from the huge dreadnought. I cringed as I sent these units over the top. These were sacrificial lambs even though they looked nothing like the furry white lambs that Six created as assault shock troops.
The flyers reported a more accurate count of 246 mixed tanks, teddies, and attack car units. As I predicted, upon spying my small force out in sight the vast bulk of the enemy force sped up, leaving the T.rex behind. Five minutes later I ordered the rest of the units back to active stations.
I held tight rein on my hidden troops as the mass of the enemy closed on the poor victims who had “volunteered.” We waited. Ten minutes later, they hit us. Their first volley decimated those few I put out to draw them in. Every single one of my units took at least one hit, sometimes many more. Only three remained effective enough to return fire.
But behind the berm I smiled. For a change we outnumbered the enemy by four to one and they sat within our fire sack. I issued the command to open up. The term shooting gallery came to mind.
On the field it must have been like five years in hell itself. Machine gun rounds, mortar fire, and sabot tank projectiles filled the air in the low horseshoe with death. Our fire dispatched 204 of the fauna in the first volley. Twenty more of them couldn’t fire effectively for one reason or another. The fauna didn’t get a second shot. Not a single enemy who entered the horseshoe remained alive after thirty seconds.
From what damage reports I was listening to over the net, it seems we again took minimal casualties—other than those I sacrificed as a lure. I had succeeded in dividing the enemy forces. We had won the Second Battle of the Berm, but not yet the war. Gratifying though our mini-victory was, our most serious threat would be here in minutes—Tyrannosaurus rex had to die.
I sent three of the flyers to drop their remaining payloads of bombs on the monstrosity. If I was correct, there was only one way we could defeat it. The balloons spun up their props to attack speed and moved directly for the enemy. The T.rex ignored them as he continued his lumbering approach to our location. The monster wore its imperviousness like a cloak, moving straight in with no attempt to avoid our fire. It obviously didn’t care and showed it to everyone who looked.
From my distant vantage point 2 kilometers away, time slowed to a mere trickle compared to the normal river of its speed. The first balloon dropped its load and, finally free of its heavy ordinance, it leaped skyward. Each of the twelve 2.2 kilo bombs fell in exaggerated slowness until they impacted, one after another, striking the shoulder left of Tyrannosaurus rex’s plastic head crest. The rippling sounds of sequential thunderclaps pounded my ears even at this distance. A living yellow ball of flame and smoke wreathing its head dispersed in less than a moment by the moving dreadnought. When it emerged, not a single scale appeared out of place on its rubbery hide. I wish they hadn’t, but my predictions proved correct. Just call me a pessimist.
To ensure the monster hadn’t gotten lucky, I did not countermand the previous orders and the other two balloons attacked other parts of the huge animal. At its speed the bomb hits were guaranteed; however, each grouping of bombs resulted in the same insignificant effect.
The dinosaur still had eight or more minutes until it reached effective personal weapon range, so I continued to worry the problem in my mind. “We still should be able to deal with this.”
“KAABOOOM!” exclaimed a huge explosion of dirt to my right with no warning at all. Three of my units flipped into the air like crazed balloon units, only to crash heavily to the ground. I couldn’t understand where the fire had come from. The rex was too far away even if it sported a mortar. I had no other reports of units. “KAABOOOM!” reported another explosive, even farther to my right, turning five more tanks into nothing but plastic shrapnel.
“Then again,” I said as I scrambled for shelter behind a large red boulder, “I could be wrong.” This time the muzzle flash of the creature’s tiny left arm stood out clearly and only moments later came the brilliant explosion of dirt and even more units dashed against our self-made hill. That one massive weapon outranged anything we possessed in Six’s entire arsenal.
“All combat units begin a hasty retreat. Construction units and Special Squad Foxtrot follow previous instructions. Balloon units, cover the retreat of our military units.” It was a ruse. I had to draw the beast in closer. I prayed to the Humans for it to make just that one fatal mistake of being too greedy. By now each and every one of the beast’s footfalls shook the ground.
I stayed, however. I don’t know why. My memories don’t show any decision being made at that point, but I stayed. Staying was actually against my basic programming to remain outside the fight and direct action. I had violated those orders before, but this time it could be more dangerous. I think it made the difference as my presence steadied the construction units with a reassuring SAN.
The beast actually screamed a high-pitched roar as it moved forward, leveled its left arm and belched forth another fiery projectile at my fleeing brethren. My troops, bless their built-in programming, scattered, making it so that each of the heavy artillery rounds only dealt death to one or two of my units at a time.
The balloons, contrary to orders, hovered above the beast, dropping bombs on its head. To my surprise some of them blew fist-sized holes in the fauna’s rubber-like skin. These didn’t slow it or its rate of fire. The creature looked up at the flyers and screamed again. It pointed its right stubby arm at my kin. As the hand spewed fire, the sound of ripping plastic, only a thousand times louder, assaulted my ears. Hundreds of tracers flew out of the arm. The rex waved the Gatling gun in his arm like a scythe, cutting balloons apart until no flyers floated on the air currents.
I hadn’t realized just how long this had taken when I saw that the beast’s inattention now led it directly into the horseshoe. “Just one more step and we have him.” The rex took that one step. I ordered all the heavy equipment to begin moving. Between the right leg coming off the ground and it landing, all of the dozers pushed sections of our defensive berm to cover the thing’s left foot. In seconds only, the gray-green brute’s appendage was nearly encased in a hillock of red and crimson earth and stone. The monster seemed mostly unaware of our rapid movements beneath him.
Tyrannosaurus rex tried to pick up his left leg for his next step—“tried” in this case being the operative word. The foot didn’t release from its earthen cage. His balance and forward momentum required that his left foot come down somewhere in front of him. The foot didn’t budge, even as he fell. The foot even stayed firmly in place as he hit the ground with an earth-shaking rumble, one that jarred me 58 centimeters off the ground and landed me on my side. The only damage I sustained appeared to be to my ego. Still, half the plan had been accomplished.
“ATTACK!” I yelled. Special squad Foxtrot, six teddy units, ran to scale the back of the downed death machine. Their specific tasks should finish the plan and the beast. “The best laid plans never survive the face of the enemy,” was one quote my memory dredged up. None of them made it higher than a meter off the ground. A flailing arm crushed two and a kicking leg snapped the back of another of my brothers. The thrashing of the beast tossed two others so far that the fall disabled or deactivated them. The final one got caught in the right hand of the giant and was crushed in its fist. The plan had failed.
I don’t remember making any decision but my sump recorded it. I live to serve. With the Tyrannosaurus rex still flailing about, attempting to right himself, I sprinted across the open space between us. I ignored the subconscious objections of my overload circuitry as I pushed my body to even greater speeds. I ran so fast that I leaped from 3 meters and made the beast’s back even if I did so on my belly. I even impressed myself. All I had desired was enough height that I could climb up. My task was simple and straightforward. I operated under the same instructions I gave my special force—find the creature’s processing unit and shut it down. If I failed, my entire troop would perish. So would I. Worse, a single unit with this fauna�
��s firepower could destroy Six without much difficulty, a thought I found somewhat disturbing.
T.rex flailed its tiny arms backward at me. The tail lashed upward as well. I felt that as a game this left a great deal to be desired. The winner lived and the loser died. He bucked wildly against the ground like a bucking bronco. I fought to maintain a grip on his tough rubbery skin. He twisted and I scampered to the top. The monster lunged and I clung tight. All the while my internal monitoring equipment blew one overload safety after another.
Suddenly the monster rolled over. I narrowly missed being crushed. Only a divot in the creature’s skin made by the bombs from my flyers kept me active. The hole didn’t go all the way through his skin, but rather it made a dent—affording me a small niche of safety. I was pushed firmly into that fissure by the force of the rex’s weight. As the roll brought me back into the light, I scrambled farther up his back, clinging for dear life to one of his neck plates as he shook back and forth like a dog just getting out of a bath.
My search for the processing unit hadn’t ever really gotten under way. I spent all my time avoiding destruction. At the moment it seemed to be a draw—I wasn’t dead and Big-and-Scaly kept me from doing him harm. But I knew that as soon as he was able to stand, my chance of remaining more than scrap metal, while calculable, didn’t bear thinking about. I had to find the fauna’s access hatch.
My hands roamed all over the skin’s surface. He lunged upward in an attempt to stand. I slid down his back, clawing for a purchase and searching wildly for the opening. Tyrannosaurus rex had managed to free his foot from its earthen imprisonment. He stood immediately, I grabbing for whatever perch I could maintain. I clung precariously to his mid-back by just the barest of fingertips in the scale-crack of his skin. I contemplated the failure of my mission.
Toy Wars Page 5