Spinebreakers

by Mitch Michaelson

  They prepared for their missions. The probes gave them a lot of information. The AndroVault’s army had assaulted many facilities on Lazuria 27. Casualties were high and rising. The defenders couldn’t hope to win against such overwhelming numbers.

  On Steo’s command, the Eye of Orion took a short FTL hop into the system, stopped outside the atmosphere and then entered it, descending as fast as possible. Their hope was that in all the chaos nobody noticed them.

  They found a base with fast skimmers. These were common, enclosed craft used for surface transportation. There were many skimmers on Lazuria 27. The ones they found were triangular when viewed from the front. That meant they could travel quickly with little drag. In fact they were capable of brief trips to satellites, though not out to the stations floating in the open spaces of the solar system.

  CHAPTER 32

  Firepower Demonstration

  Battles raged across the planet.

  The people of Lazuria 27 were mostly civilians, employees and families of merchant clans in this rugged part of the galaxy. There were humans, croymids, ezwegians, honna, novorians and a few tirrians and foaz (even a kalam or two) intermingled in the dozens of villages and cities. They were distrustful and insular, keeping their trade routes and ship schedules to themselves.

  Life on the galactic frontier was savage and perilous but Lazuria 27 was one of the safer places. In the enclaves and villas, merchants planned expeditions to the undiscovered reaches of the Percaic spiral arm. In their warehouses, they stored the rewards of this dangerous profession: wood from exotic trees, quartz that made the finest lenses for lasers, and even the strange blue gel used in Valence processors.

  Now they were overrun. Lasers flickered and hypersonic bullets flew. Screams rang out as men in gray jumpsuits leapt from skimmers and fired wildly. The numbers were imbalanced. For every guard who stood with a laser pistol there were six men with automatic rifles. They weren’t skilled. There was much indiscriminate death.

  A factory ship had armed the awakened people from the AndroVault. They had guns, ammunition and bombs to breach doors. They reported every instance of aliens they encountered, fueling their righteousness. Dressed in gray jumpsuits with white bandanas hanging around their necks, they attacked outposts with abandon. They raised no banners and took no prisoners. Instead they loaded goods onto their skimmers for transport back to the generation ship.

  Cyrus and Glaikis boarded a skimmer. Steo, Renosha and Yuina boarded another.

  Skimmers had rectangular bottoms and peaked tops. The front and back were flat. They were sometimes called A-skimmers for their profile. The face was transparent, allowing visual flight, but heatshields could be deployed for high speed.

  “How will we draw all three escorts away?” Renosha asked Steo. “This is just a skimmer. Those are small ships in space terms, even smaller than cutters, but they’re bigger than a small transport like this.”

  “They need to think we’re worth chasing.” With his lee he brought up flight controls. He grabbed the icons and slid them in front of Renosha’s seat. Then he brought up a duplicate set for himself. They were remote controls for two other skimmers. “I’ll fly one. You fly the other. Keep them in front of our skimmer, as if we’re chasing them.”

  Yuina was at the helm. As they left the base Steo said, “Yuina, chase those skimmers. We’re controlling them. Fly low to the ground. We don’t want to get shot down before we get there.”

  “Aye,” she said.

  They headed over the horizon to the AndroVault.

  News rolled in rapidly, faster than the awakened could process it. They knew that they had overwhelming firepower and victory was certain. They didn’t have a complete picture of what was happening on the planet but the operation wasn’t a long siege. It would be over in a matter of hours. They didn’t want to be around if one of the merchant company’s fleets returned.

  Within the dome of the AndroVault’s magnified shields, Lord Muuk felt confident. Three small escort ships floated nearby and their mercenary allies controlled the space above. More had arrived to Admiral Slaught’s call. Those that were captained by aliens were told the budget was strained and they couldn’t afford more. Naturally those ships left rather than get caught in an unprofitable war. In private, the Reminders planned ways of dealing with such ships if they continued to show up in the future.

  There was a great deal of excitement on board the ship.

  The AndroVault had many skimmers stored in its bays and they used those to transport troops to their targets. The men captured more wherever they went.

  There was no squeamishness about their goal. They were Exceptionalists on a divine mission. The troops had been given instructions to allow people to flee. If due to their youth they were perhaps over-eager, that was a respected part of their warrior culture. Aggressive patriotism was nurtured. Speaking out against the decisions of soldiers on the ground in a time of war was treason. No one in their right mind questioned that.

  In fact, Lord Muuk and the Reminders met with the mothers of the volunteer soldiers. The women were some of the staunchest guardians of the Exceptionalist culture. At the end of the meeting, when one of the women said Lord Muuk was “our boy,” he knew he had their backing.

  Recently the soldiers began wearing white bandanas around their necks. This showed reverence for Councilor Ulay’s blindfold. Lord Muuk and the Reminders approved of this. It was a groundswell of public support for a brave champion of Exceptionalism. Councilor Ulay’s image was treated more like a celebrity than a prophet (and certainly not a star messiah).

  Lord Muuk heard a commotion in the bioark’s control room as he entered. A discipline robot was stationed near the door. Its iron mask and arms ending in strange implements were designed to evoke a reaction and Lord Muuk liked that in rooms where important decisions were made.

  “Report!” he commanded loudly.

  “Sir! Lord Muuk! Two of our skimmers are being chased! They are trying to get back under protection of the shields! They shout for help!” said a crewman.

  Over the communication system they heard “Help! Under … fire! Not going to … please … help!”

  “They’re speaking over an unsecure channel?” Lord Muuk saw the two dots on the scanner. A third followed them closely.

  “Yes sir! We think their security systems may be jammed or destroyed! What are your orders sir?”

  Suddenly there was a bright flash, and both dots disappeared.

  “Destroyed, sir! Huge explosions! Our men couldn’t have survived that!”

  Lord Muuk got hot under his white bandana. “Kill that enemy skimmer! Order the escorts to chase it down!”

  Renosha and Steo shut down their flight control holograms. Steo had blown up the two empty skimmers.

  “Slowing,” Yuina said.

  “Give them a moment to react,” Steo said.

  Renosha brought up a local map. “The escorts are heading toward us.”

  “Gun it, Yuina. Get us out of here. Don’t lose them though.”

  “Aye. Deploying heat shields.” The front window went dark as metal shields connected around the front of the skimmer.

  “How unsafe is this?” Renosha said.

  Steo said, “They have guns and missiles, but these skimmers can safely travel at maximum atmospheric speed. Technically nothing can catch up to us, if we go fast enough.”

  Though no one on the AndroVault or Eye of Orion knew it, there was a factory 40 miles from the colossal ship. The sprawling facility was part aboveground and part below. Camouflage netting, a simple and effective method of avoiding detection, covered many of the aboveground buildings. A few dull, concrete structures were visible. The artificial trees gave the impression of an unimportant community of meager means.

  Deep inside the factory, a red-skinned honna in flowing robes addressed a room of military men, especially their senior officer. “General Heethe, we know of no reason for this attack on Lazuria 27. It seems coincidental. This is the
largest mobile ground force in the recent history of this quadrant. The assault seems barely coordinated and poorly managed though.”

  A nearby robot added, “General, your personal vessel is secure within our underground docking bay. Your safety is guaranteed.”

  General Heethe was a human, with a tall, bright purple hairstyle. His uniform sparkled with gold awards and decorations with inset gems. He gazed in admiration at a wall-sized panel. It showed the course of combat operations across the planet. Standing in his stiff suit, surveying the movement of troops, he had a voracious look in his eye.

  He said, “This is almost too good to be true. We couldn’t have asked for better proof of your equipment’s capabilities.”

  “General Heethe,” said the honna, “the factory is completely secure. The prototypes are in no danger. We need do nothing.”

  The general spun on his heel, not a single purple hair out of place. “I require a firepower demonstration,” he said pompously. “We will pay for replacements so there’s no loss to you. Release them. I want to see how far they get against that target.” He pointed at a large icon on the panel.

  Lazuria 27 had been occupied for at least a millennium. The landscape was littered with the remnants of old foundries, manors, fortifications and bastions – all from a variety of technological eras. Yuina flew the skimmer over the ground, juking to use anything as cover.

  The escorts closed. Steo’s goal was to keep them interested long enough for Cyrus and Glaikis to get into the AndroVault. The question was how far the escorts would chase. Another was whether the escorts’ bullets were faster than the skimmer. The skimmer had light shields and no weapons but it was fast.

  The escorts fired at the skimmer. Yuina anticipated and pulled hard right. The bullets ripped up the ground in their wake. She faked again, deceiving the enemy gunners. Her feints kept the skimmer ahead of the ships. A gully provided cover for a bit.

  As they pulled up out of the gully Steo said, “Open ground! We’re on open ground!”

  “I know! Sir!”

  She sped up, slowed down and sped up again. The shock wave from crossing the speed of sound so suddenly threw dirt and debris up in a hundred-foot cloud. They accelerated ahead of the escorts, who were clearly growing frustrated.

  “How much longer sir?” she said.

  He studied a small map. “Just a minute more. Cyrus and Glaikis are on their way.”

  Yuina said, “We may not have a minute. I think the skimmer’s hit. The controls are starting to get stiff. We’re probably losing fluids.”

  She used trees, rocks and ruined buildings as cover.

  General Heethe said with a sniff, “A proper demonstration would be to allow the snake chain robots to operate automatically. In our strategic plans, we won’t have pilots and gunners within range to conduct missions.”

  “Understood, General,” said the honna salesman.

  “What is the target, General Heethe?” asked the robot.

  “That. The dropship that attacked this planet. I want to see if they can take that out.” The general winked at one of his officers, a man with glowing green beads under his skin.

  “Do you wish us to deploy all the prototypes, sir?” asked the robot.

  “All of them. Everything you’ve got!” General Heethe said with a clenched fist and a crazed look in his eye.

  “That will be the Cataphract 13-component lead vehicle and ten Hussar 4-component vehicles.”

  “I’ve waited a long time to see a battle like this,” the general breathed. “I’m getting so excited. I’m flushed!” He summoned his cosmetics aide to freshen his makeup.

  A silo in the ground opened.

  Into the light roared the 13-car snake chain robot Cataphract: a war machine protected by shields alone needing no armor or plating behind invisible wards that protected from heat and resistance and bullet and laser and shrapnel with its prodigious armaments, bristling barrels and cupolas of compressed-bead guns and turrets of artillery and banks of energy weapons and visible chassis marked by innumerable rivets and coiled with servos and cylinders cabled to engines thrusting spinning gears and shining rods simply engineered to kill.

  Had anyone stood next to the silo they would have thought the two-story tall flying train went on forever. Other silos spewed forth ten Hussar snake chain robots with four cars each.

  Yuina found it increasingly difficult to avoid the spray of bullets. It was fast approaching time for a decision. If they took off at high speed they could escape, but maybe that wouldn’t give their teammates time to infiltrate the bioark.

  The front heat shields were closed so she flew by controls under her hands. The panels portrayed the exterior environment. Then she saw something disturbing.

  “Movement ahead,” she said. “Multiple vehicles. They’re shielded and armed!”

  She slowed and pulled up. Their skimmer was caught between the three angry escort ships and something long and dangerous roaring at them. When the Cataphract and Hussar snake chain robots powered through the trees into sight, she gasped.

  “Firing! Whatever they are, they’re firing artillery! That’s hard to dodge!”

  The skimmer was moving too slow to avoid the escorts’ bullets and was hit. Fortunately, it avoided huge explosions that lifted the ground and threw dirt in the air.

  “Shields down,” Renosha reported. “Any hit will penetrate the walls and destroy us.”

  The escorts closed on the skimmer.

  Steo said, “They’re firing missiles … at those train things!”

  The escorts assumed the skimmer had led them into a trap, zipping this way and that to lure them into an ambush by the giant flying trains. Plus they could calculate that the trains’ course would take them to the AndroVault.

  Yuina accelerated again and flew past a wall that was immediately riddled with gunfire. The bullets punched through the thick stone but not the skimmer.

  The escorts and war robots met in battle. The articulated robots had long turn radii, circling wide, but their weapons pointed in all directions. They filled the air with streams of bullets and the sound of detonations shattered the air and shook the ground. The escorts were more nimble, raining torrents of bullets on the snake chains.

  The skimmer was in the middle of the fight. Yuina struggled to maneuver. The controls were sticky.

  An escort was caught in a triangle of bullet streams and suffered damage but clung tenaciously to the fight.

  “I have to ditch!” Yuina said.

  A bullet made a loud bang and a bright hole appeared in the side of the skimmer. They could hear the wind roar by. Steo went pale.

  She aimed the little skimmer at a rusty building of corrugated metal. They crashed next to it, the front of the skimmer collapsing. Because of the overreaction of the internal gravity controls, Yuina’s seat detached and she was thrown into the back of the skimmer. Steo and Renosha ducked as she flew by.

  At a stop, but still in grave danger as the battle raged around them, Steo yelled for Yuina to see if she was injured. She shook her multicolored hair and unbuckled her safety harness. Steo and Renosha grabbed her, opened the side door, jumped out of the skimmer and ran to the corrugated metal building. They dove behind a wall and rolled into a crater as shrapnel raked the area.

  The escorts learned to their dismay that the vehicles they were fighting could fly. The snake chains ascended, spiraling and wiggling like their namesake. An escort took a great risk and flew between two. The robots calculated too slowly and as they turned, collided with one another. Their shields didn’t hold and the trains exploded as they tumbled from the sky.

  The escorts destroyed another robot train. The men began taking greater chances, seeing the slow response times.

  “How did they collide?” General Heethe said.

  The red-skinned alien said, “The battle is physically close, General. Robots can’t predict. The escort took a greater than calculated risk flying between them and when they turned to pursue, they col
lided. Remember, they are just robots. Any losses are easily replaced. That is the beauty of the Cataphract and Hussar snake chains, sir. I have every expectation they will succeed.”

  A Hussar stopped in mid-air, supported by its graviton engines. It hung like a strange party favor, neither firing nor moving. The escorts took no time blasting it to bits.

  “What was that?” the general demanded. “It froze!”

  The honna was a salesperson, not an engineer. He didn’t know what to say. A nearby robot spoke. “There was a stall in the order-of-battle subroutine. It tried to correct without introducing new variables.”

  “So it stopped?” said the general.

  “That seems like a big flaw,” one of the officers said to the general.

  Artillery shells and bullets rained all around. The metal sheets weren’t enough to protect them. Yuina had a sprained ankle but was otherwise healthy.

  “This crater and cover of sheet metal aren’t enough!” Steo yelled over the battle’s deafening noises.

  Renosha looked out at the battlefield. “There is a solid concrete building about 350 feet away. It could be a bunker. It’s certainly got thick walls!”

  Steo supported Yuina. She said uncertainly, “So we’re going to run for it?”

  “Yes!” he said emphatically. “No crewmember of mine gets abandoned. We run together!”

  As the three of them got to the edge of the crater, Renosha smiled at Steo.

  They jumped up and bolted for the big concrete building. It looked like the head of a mace, an ancient hand weapon, a club with four flanges pointing in different directions. Steo helped Yuina move as fast as she could.

  They covered their eyes when dirt flew into their faces. A shockwave boomed right over their heads, throwing them to the ground. Renosha helped them up.

  A Hussar flying along the ground detected them. It turned and raced straight at them.

  Renosha dropped his metal staff and rose in the air. He reached out with his right hand, palm toward the approaching train. A tiny cyan beam lanced from his palm to the Hussar. The giant robot train barreled forward, making a direct line toward them.