SNAFU: Future Warfare

by Geoff Brown

  Brutiful’s shotgun aligned briefly on a deebee closing fast on the left, and coughed a swarm of tungsten balls…the creature was fast, dodging aside as the weapon spoke, but the spreading cloud of balls covered too large an area. Struck by three balls the creature went down, chest and head ruptured completely, the deebee’s equivalent of blood gushing into the dirt.

  The creatures continued to close, and Graves backed his exomech away slowly, sending out a cloud of tungsten every six seconds or so – it took that long for the belt to feed the next round, chamber it and align the heavy barrel onto the target. At a kill every six seconds, that was ten dead deebees a minute, but it was going to take them a bit less than that to get to him, and there were more than ten of them out there.

  The first of the deebees launched itself at him, a four-legged beast that shimmered with the residual energy of the alien dimension. Its mouth opened wide, showing row after row of gleaming, serrated teeth, and Graves swung his suit’s right arm to block it. More by luck than design, he managed to catch it in mid-air, and squeezed the creature as hard as his exomech could.

  Trapped in the metal grip, the creature swung its hind legs down and began to rake, long claws gouging chunks of armour of Brutiful’s thick torso. For a moment Graves thought the creature might get through, but then the suit’s grip tightened and the creature exploded into a multi-coloured burst of flesh.

  He didn’t even see the other one coming. It was big, strong, and travelling at speed, and barrelled the heavy suit over like a man pushing over a child. Brutiful’s gyro-stabilises shrieked in protest as they tried to correct the unexpected fall, but to no avail. With a loud thud, the exomech went down, the fall stunning Graves for a moment.

  When he came to, the creature was on top of him, clawing and biting away at the glass canopy, only a foot or so from his face. The heavy glass was holding for now, but wouldn’t for long…Graves needed to end this one quickly and get Brutiful back on its feet.

  The creature was inside his reach, so his two heavy weapons would be useless. I Instead, he activated the cutting torch on the exomech’s smaller right arm. With variable settings for welding or cutting through thick steel, the torch was a legacy of the suit’s original purpose, and one he’d never gotten around to replacing.

  Pushing the flame against the creatures hide brought a shriek of pain, which did nothing to reduce the creatures frenzied clawing on the glass canopy; in fact, it only seemed to make it worse. He couldn’t quite bring the torch to bear on something that might prove vital, and he had to endure the creature’s attacks for another 30 seconds before he finally managed to find something important. The creature gave one enormous spasm and then died.

  Flicking off the torch, he pushed the creature off him and slowly struggled to rise. The exomech wasn’t designed for agility, and it took him a good five minutes to finally get back on his feet. If there’d been any more aliens around, he’d have been dead for sure.

  Sweating – the suit generated a lot of heat – he checked his scanners and toggled the radio.

  “Honey?”

  “Here Hank,” Beth replied. “You okay?”

  “Scratched up, a little bruised but otherwise okay. How’s everything else look?”

  “Honey, I think we might have a problem…”

  * * *

  Singh Farmstead, Tau Ceti IV

  Unlike the other colonists that ran one small family unit per farmstead, the Singh family were a polygamous family collective that ran a farmstead twice the size of the others. Graves and the others figured there to be three distinct ‘marriage arrangements’ amongst the Singh farmstead, which gave them a requirement for three exomechs in accordance with the colony’s laws.

  Crescent Moon was piloted by Jaswant Singh, the elder of the family. Based on the chassis of an old construction suit, it was well suited for the slabs of thick armour and heavy weapons the Singh family had added to it over the years.

  The other two suits were Hawk and Eagle, two much smaller exomechs based on warehousing droids. Fast and nimble, the two light units were built for close-quarters combat only, and spent most of their time keeping Crescent Moon clear of deebees so it could do all the long-range killing.

  The three suits had cleared their first two clusters of gates, and were advancing on their third, Hawk and Eagle scouting ahead as Crescent Moon followed slowly along. Putting his suit on autopilot gave Jaswant time to update his tactical display from the various sensors around their property and from the satellite above. His update was showing some unusual activity, something he felt warranted caution.

  “Hawk, Eagle,” he said into the radio, “hold on the next hill… something is amiss here.”

  “Hawk acknowledging,” replied Agun, Jaswant’s eldest son. “Hill clear, covering left flank.”

  “Eagle acknowledges,” replied Kubai, his daughter’s husband. “Will clear the peak in fifteen seconds, will cover the right flank.”

  The two smaller suits took up covering positions atop the hill as Crescent Moon trundled slowly up behind them.

  “There’s nothing here, brother,” Agun said. “Should we push on to the next hill?”

  “No,” Jaswant said. “I need to assess the situation before we get too far from home.”

  “The place is barren,” Kubai replied. “There’s nothing to assess.”

  “Exactly… but there should be.”

  Jaswant’s exomech drew level with the smaller units and looked over the flat, ploughed field below. The next hill was a mile away, and beyond that was the next cluster of gates, which should be opening any minute.

  “Our initial reading showed six gates opening beyond that next hill… readings now show only four.”

  “Fewer gates are a good thing, isn’t it?” Kubai asked.

  “Gates never just disappear,” Jaswant replied. “They open then they close. These ones haven’t opened, yet two are missing.”

  “I don’t understand,” Agun said.

  “Neither do I,” Jaswant said, “But now sensors are showing only two.”

  * * *

  Graves Farmstead, Tau Ceti IV

  “Hank, the gates on top of the ridge are disappearing,” Beth said. “Not opening, just disappearing, a few every minute or so.”

  “Do we have a visual on the ridgeline yet?” Graves replied. “Something might be messing up the sensors.”

  “I’m sorry, honey, something knocked the drone out.” Beth said. “I’ve powered up another three and having them fitted with cameras now, should be airborne in a few minutes.”

  “Good thinking, honey. Anything else to report?”

  “A little. Jenkins is shutting down his gates, but taking his time about it, and Crazy Bill Anderson wants to know if anyone needs his help…he seems to still have gates open on his property though.”

  “Jenkins is just taking his time so he won’t have to help clear the ridgeline,” Graves said with a chuckle, “and Crazy Bill wants to be able to claim ammunition and fuel from the Colony account for helping others.”

  “Other than that, the Singhs look like they have their area under control, as always, and the others are mopping up as they advance towards the ridge. Oh, and the drones are on their way.”

  Moments later, Brutiful’s sensors picked up the flight of crop-dusting drones as they sped towards the ridgeline. As they passed, Beth switched the video feed over directly to the suit and Graves toggled between the three camera views.

  At first there was nothing but the well-ploughed fields he expected to see. As the drones moved beyond his property the vegetation grew wilder, mostly tall trees. As the passed over the first growth of forest beyond his fence line, one of the cameras went out.

  “Beth, what was that?”

  “No idea, honey,” Beth replied. “I’ll go back over the video feed and check.”

  The drones were approaching the ridgeline now, and Graves toggled the controls to make them move in a more erratic manner. Even as he did, a second camera
went out.

  “Honey!”

  “Working on it, Hank, working on it!”

  The remaining camera made it to the ridgeline, Graves piloting this one manually now to be as erratic as he could make it. The sight wasn’t a good one.

  The gates were disappearing, in a manner of speaking. As Graves watched, two gates slowly expanded until their edges touched, and then they merged into one larger gate. All along the ridgeline, gates were coalescing, and at the rate they were merging they’d be one giant gate before too long.

  “Beth, drop whatever you’re doing and take a look at this!” he said, urgently. “Take in as much of it as you can, just in case I lose this drone.”

  There was a moment’s silence and Graves could hear Beth’s breathing quicken over the radio.

  “Oh. My. God!”

  “Patch this through to the others, and make sure Crazy Bill and the Singhs acknowledge…if anyone knows what this is about, it’ll be one of them.”

  “Will do, honey!”

  “And Beth?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “It might be a good time to start powering up the Bunker.”

  * * *

  Wright Farmstead, Tau Ceti IV

  Carnigore had taken some scratches dealing with the first two gate clusters, but nothing significant. Jake was sure he’d been knocked around more than his exomech, and could feel bruises already forming where his skin had come into contact with hard metal. Not for the first time, he made a promise to himself to get a better combat suit and to put some padding around the cockpit.

  He was approaching his third gate cluster, Carnigore set on autopilot as he transferred chain-gun ammunition from the bins on the suit’s lower back to the internal hoppers.

  “Jake?”

  “What do you want, Helen?” he asked, annoyed at the interruption. “I’m kinda busy here.”

  “You’ll be busy dodging deebees if you don’t pay attention,” Helen replied. “I have some video feed from the Graves’.”

  “Are Hank and Beth in trouble?”

  Jake punched the autopilot’s ‘Off’ button, bringing Carnigore to a lurching halt. Jake had a lot of time for the Graves family, despite Graves setting some impossibly high standards for Jake to live up to. If the two of them needed his help, things were very bad.

  “I think we all might be,” Helen replied, some real concern in her voice now. “Patching some video through to you now.”

  Jake watched the video feed, recognising the ridgeline that marked the southernmost boundary of the colony area. Deebees often had gates up there, giving them time to spread out and consolidate their numbers, but this was looking weird.

  There were only three gates now, each enormous and slowly growing. The middle and left gates touched and merged, and then there were only two. Minutes later, the remaining gate was absorbed, leaving one giant gate that covered the entire ridgeline.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Jake,” Helen replied, “but I’m sure it’s not good.”

  “Any word from the others?”

  “Jenkins says he’s got gates of his own to worry about, but he’ll help out when he deals with those. The Singhs are finishing up their final cluster and are sending some drones to keep an eye on things until they can get over here, and Crazy Bill is on his way to the Graves’ farmstead right now.”

  “He’s cleared his clusters already?”

  “No, but he thinks this is more important. He’s sending his kids over to the Graves’ place now, Beth has their bunker powered up and plenty of room.”

  “You might want to join them.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Helen said. “Besides, you need me here to keep an eye on things while you wander around in your giant clown suit.”

  Jake bit back a curse; his wife always knew how to needle him.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, after a moment’s pause to regain some control. “But if things get out of hand I want you to out of there and on your way to somewhere safe.”

  “Why Jake Wright, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve said to me in years!”

  * * *

  Graves Farmstead, Tau Ceti IV

  Beth ran quickly from the farmhouse control room to the metal and concrete monstrosity standing in the yard behind the house. Affectionately known as ‘The Bunker’, it was built to military specifications as a fortified command and control facility, a legacy of Graves’ grandparents who had the foresight to see that the war with the deebees would last generations.

  With its own internal fission pile, water tanks and food supplies, it could easily house a headquarter staff for three months. Add the communication links and self-defence turrets, it was looking like a good place to be right now.

  The screens inside had already powered up, showing clearly the video feed from the last remaining drone, plus Brutiful’s cameras, satellite imagery and live feeds from the various security cameras around the farmstead. She hit the safety switch as she ran inside, dropping the armoured concrete slab that passed for a door into position, and slipped into her own combat suit and command helmet.

  “Hank? You reading me, honey?”

  “Loud and clear, Beth, loud and clear,” Graves replied. “How’s it looking?”

  “Not good at all. That one giant gate is giving off some ferocious readings, completely off the charts for even the Bunker’s sensors.”

  “I don’t have much fine detail on the drone camera,” Graves said. “Anything I need to know?”

  “I’m getting plenty of flicker, all along the gate, looks like it’s ready to open.”

  “I’m not feeling too particularly happy about this one, Beth—”

  The gate opened, and deebees poured out. The overhead satellite tracked their heat sources, counting them automatically, and Beth watched open-mouthed as the counter climbed rapidly. 100. 200. 400. 700. 1000… she tore her eyes from it when it reached four figures.

  “Beth?”

  “Hank, honey? Get the hell out of there!”

  She could see from Brutiful’s video feed that it was now moving, walking backwards on autopilot. Graves was too good a pilot to just turn and run, he’d want to keep his guns between him and the enemy.

  “Moving now,” Graves said, quite calmly. “Where do you need me?”

  “Anywhere but there, honey,” Beth said. “The sensors are showing 3000 deebees and counting.”

  There was a moment of silence as that figure registered on Graves…the biggest raid in a generation had been less than 500, and that had stretched the colony to the limit. Many families died that day, and the colony still hadn’t recovered.

  “Beth, I need you to patch this through to the others, right now…we’re going to need all of the exomechs together.”

  “All right, honey, I’m on it.”

  * * *

  Jenkins farmstead, Tau Ceti IV

  Keith Jenkins was having a bad day. He hated deebees with a passion…or rather, he hated that they made him have to do things he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to be out of the farmhouse today, and certainly didn’t want to be in his exomech having to fight.

  The only saving grace was that Shepherd, once a medium-sized agricultural exomech, was refitted over the years to be big on comfort and big on speed, so he could wander around his farmstead and avoid fighting if he could. Any fool can fight, why be uncomfortable about it?

  Shepherd’s main armament was a long-ranged, three-barrelled autocannon, firing high-velocity 35mm slugs in three-round bursts. The long barrels severely affected the exomech’s centre of gravity, so he had to stand still to fire, but the long range meant that he could deal with deebees from ranges well beyond anything his fellow farmsteaders could match.

  Right now he was in a standing in a clump of trees on a hill, taking pot shots at a group of deebees milling around his second cluster of gates a mile and a half away. At this range accuracy wasn’t great, but he was getting hits every third burst or so,
and the deebees still hadn’t worked out where the shots were coming from.

  The crackling of his suit’s video-comm interrupted as his wife, Jessie, came on-screen.

  “Keith, I have an update from the Graves’,” she said. “Things are going pear-shaped on the ridgeline, they need you to get down there right now.”

  “Tell them I’m busy, got problems of my own,” he replied, firing another burst. He fist-pumped as he saw at least one of the heavy tungsten rounds strike one of the aliens, splashing it across the soil.

  “I think they’re serious, Keith,” Jessie said. “Most of the others have acknowledged and are already on their way.”

  “They’ve dealt with all their clusters already?”

  “Nope, leaving them as they are,” Jessie replied. “That’s what makes me think this is serious.”

  “Any word from Crazy Bill?”

  “Oh, plenty of words from him…mostly to tell you what he’s going to do to you if you don’t get your arse into gear and join up with the others. Assuming you survive of course.”

  Jenkins sighed. Crazy Bill was just that. Crazy. And he hated to have to listen to him. Everything ‘back then’ was bigger, tougher and harder than it was now, and he traded on his age to influence the others. Since when was being old a substitute for being right?

  “Tell them I’m engaged right now, will head over as soon as possible,” he said. “I’ve got some suit trouble, don’t think I can disengage safely, so I’ll have to fight my way clear.”

  “You have suit trouble? I’m not seeing anything on Shepherd’s feed.”

  “No, the suits fine… though they don’t need to know that.”

  He fired another burst, missing completely.

  “Keith,” Jessie said with a sigh, “this looks serious. You might want to consider doing the right thing, just this once.”

  “You’re right,” he replied. “I’ll consider it.”

  * * *

  Peters Farmstead, Tau Ceti IV

  Carl Peters hardly knew what hit him. He’d had three clusters of gates on his property, and had cleared them out with minimal bother. His exomech, Hamfisted, was a dependable suit with solid armour and reliable weapons, and the deebees hadn’t posed much of a threat. The smallest of the farmsteads, squeezed between the southern ridgeline and the Toolong River, his clusters were relatively close, so it didn’t take him much time to find and destroy the deebees coming out of his gates.