The Great Destroyer

by Jack Thorlin

  Takagawa had reported that satellite intelligence showed a single automobile at the base, enough to evacuate perhaps six of the twenty personnel there. At least fourteen Arcani would die in the asteroid strike, and George wondered with anger why the Safety Ministry hadn’t notified their people of the danger. Either incompetence or they were afraid someone would tip us off, George judged. Typical of the Terran Alliance.

  No response came from the radio.

  They were getting closer now, and George was faced with a decision: move in silently through the jungle or come in through the main road, openly announcing their presence via radio calls and their built-in speakers.

  The first option assumed that any Arcani who discovered the Charlies stealthily sneaking onto their base would immediately fire. The silent approach would lower that threat since the Charlies would far surpass the Arcani in silent warfare—they had been honing those skills against the Ushah for years. A firefight could break out, but the Charlies would be in the best possible situation to end it quickly and on favorable terms.

  But there was a chance that no one would be killed if the Charlies came in openly. The Arcani might not be armed for a fight, and they might not have the courage to fire on Charlies coming in openly to save their friends the Igazis.

  George had about two minutes to decide, and his processor turned the problem over in accordance with the analytical tools Project Charlie had built into him. The processor arrayed all available data about the base, its occupants, George, the other Charlies, the time of day, the weather, and a dozen or so other factors.

  Each factor was broken into particular variables quantifying various aspects of the coming operation based on the type of entity. For example, the Arcani were unlikely to have much skill with their firearms, so their combat accuracy was estimated at .28 on a 0-1 scale. George’s battlefield experiences informed many of these assessments.

  Once the data was set, part of George’s processor was dedicated to running the data through Monte Carlo simulations and a rudimentary game theory framework, determining the outcome of thousands of simulated battles. Had Takagawa been reading the analysis in real time, she would have been delighted with the depth and speed of George’s analysis, which she and the other programmers at Project Charlie had developed over the past several years.

  Using the outcome of the simulations, George applied simple priority weights to determine the optimal choice. He didn’t consciously tabulate his analysis, but if he had, it might be summarized thusly:

  Output Category

  Weighted importance

  Option 1: Silent Approach

  Option 2: Walk in Openly

  Likelihood of success

  .66

  .99

  .99

  Average time elapsed

  .11

  4:27

  7:25

  Average humans killed

  .18

  5.9

  4.7

  Average Charlies destroyed

  .05

  0.2

  0.5

  The analysis yielded a tough decision for George. Either option was likely to succeed in retrieving Igazi and his family; it was essentially impossible for twenty poorly trained Arcani to stop three Charlies. Speed was important, however. They could only spend about eight minutes retrieving Igazi and his family before they had to be off and moving again.

  The least important parameter was Charlie casualties. The Charlies were programmed to think that the mission came first, and George lacked the biological instinct for self-preservation.

  The ultimate deciding factor was Arcani casualties. 1.2 fewer human deaths from the open approach mattered more to George than the destruction of 0.3 Charlies.

  George shared his analysis with Art and Joan. Neither questioned it. They trusted George’s judgment implicitly, and would have followed him even if he hadn’t shared the data, George knew.

  Triggering his radio once again, George said, “We are approaching the base from the southeast along the main road. If you fire on us, we will not hesitate to return fire. We only want Joseph Igazi and his family. Please bring them out to us immediately, or we will retrieve them by force.”

  A moment passed. The building was in sight through the trees now. George checked to ensure that his Gram was ready to fire. It was.

  They could see five humans in the windows of the church now, no weapons visible. When they were fifty yards from the building, slowing to fifteen miles per hour, a radio call came in. “OK, OK, you can have them. Wait outside, we’ll get them.”

  George felt a sense of relief. His analysis had been correct. “Please hurry, there is not a second to spare. And the rest of you should take your vehicle and save as many as possible.”

  No response. The three Charlies stood awkwardly in a clearing in front of the church, their eyes scanning the surroundings. The base was really nothing more than housing for the Arcani, a large satellite dish on the roof near the steeple the only evidence that anything important at all happened here.

  “Should we wait in the jungle?” Joan asked. “We have no cover at all here.”

  Ordinarily, that was sound tactical advice, but the strategy here was to maximize openness and trust. “No, we will give them no reason to doubt our word. We will wait in the open.”

  Another minute passed. They were fast running out of time. George triggered the radio once again. “Please deliver the Igazis as quickly as possible. If they are not outside in one minute, we will come in after them.”

  Four curtains were opened at once, and George’s optical sensors instantly trained on the movement.

  Ambush! his processor screamed, even before it catalogued the human shapes carrying long, thin cylinders.

  The Arcani wasted no time firing their weapons. Four shots came screaming into the Charlies, who stood about twenty feet apart, fifty feet from the entrance of the church.

  From the sound and shape of the weapons, George determined that they were anti-tank rifles of mid-twentieth century design, the golden age of weapons manufacturing. A massive 20-millimeter armor-penetrating round fired from a .78 caliber barrel at almost 2,000 miles per hour missed George’s abdomen by about two centimeters.

  There was no time for George to worry about the Asimov Laws, and nothing to do but defend himself and his comrades. It took George about four-tenths of a second to aim his rifle at one of the assailants and fire, blasting a hole straight through the man’s upper chest. The first deliberate killing of a human by a robot was not recognized as important by any of the participants. They were all too busy trying to save their lives.

  Before the man’s body hit the floor, George took a quick shot at another of the Arcani assailants, but missed when the human ducked behind the window.

  George’s combat programming took over, his actions honed down nearly to the level of instinct. He fell to the ground and simultaneously swiveled his optical sensor to find another Arcani ripping off a burst of shots at Joan. George peppered the window with .50 caliber bullets and saw with satisfaction that one of the large rounds had nearly torn off the man’s arm.

  One part of his mind noted that Art was returning fire at the Arcani, just as George was himself. Joan was not, however.

  His processor did not bring that piece of information to the attention of George’s higher mental functions. At the moment, he needed to focus on winning the skirmish.

  Though the Arcani had exploited the element of surprise, they were far outmatched. George kept up suppressing fire on the windows while Art tossed in grenades. Thirty seconds after the ambush had begun, George and Art ceased fire, having killed or severely wounded seven enemies.

  Only then did George look to his left to see what had happened to Joan. Her chest was a mess of ripped metal, her battery pack completely shattered. That was survivable, George knew. What distinguished an individual Charlie was the processor, ensconced in the head to aid in heat dissipation. At first glance, Joan’s head seemed intact.
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br />   George tried to send her a message. “Joan?”

  No response.

  “Joan?” he said aloud.

  Still nothing. George bent down to examine her head, which appeared intact. As he ran a hand along the back of her head, however, he discovered a jagged hole about two inches in width. Turning her over, he found that a piece of shrapnel from one of the antitank rounds had smashed into her head, penetrating through to the processor, which was shattered beyond hope of repair.

  This is your fault. The thought sprang to George’s mind, and his Deep Satisfaction took an immediate plunge. He recognized that he couldn’t focus on that now, couldn’t allow himself to digest the experience of losing one of his closest friends.

  By conscious act of will, he focused his attention on the mission. “Art, Joan is destroyed, we will go in and retrieve the Igazis ourselves.”

  The noticeable lag in Art’s response—tenths of a second—spoke volumes about Art’s own internal reaction to the news.

  “The humans lied to us,” he said, and George could sense the anger in the words. “We took every precaution to save their lives, and the second they saw an opportunity, they turned on us. There is no trusting them.”

  “We will discuss this later,” George replied. With that, he ran up to the front door and unceremoniously kicked it in, just as Viktor Yazov had taught him. Art was a step behind, George knew.

  Inside, they found a wide open room with stained glass windows and several rows of pews. About half the pews had been removed to make room for an ad hoc hospital area, where Ashanti Igazi lay writhing in pain from contractions, her husband at her side. Their first daughter was crying on the floor a few feet away.

  “Don’t shoot!” Igazi shouted. “We’re your friends!”

  George quickly scanned the rest of the room. Three more people were cowering behind pews, another two in the corner by the altar. Turning his speaker to its maximum setting, his voice boomed, “Stay where you are and you will not be hurt.”

  Ashanti appeared to be in shock from the combination of labor and the suddenness of the gunfight that had erupted around her, the explosions on the upper floors that had reverberated through the floor and seemed to shake the very stones of the ancient church.

  Walking to the Igazis, he said, “We have to evacuate you three right now. We can travel much faster away from the danger if you allow us to carry you.”

  “But what is the da—” Joseph began to ask, before George cut him off.

  “There is no time to discuss, I can tell you on the way. You have to trust us, as we trust you.”

  Igazi didn’t hesitate, possibly because the church no longer seemed like a safe place for his wife. “Alright, let’s get out of here. Please be careful with my wife and daughter.”

  George had to consider for a moment how best to carry the three humans. “Hold on to your daughter, Joseph. Art, carry Ashanti, and be careful.”

  As George reached to pick up Joseph, his audio sensors alerted him to a thunderclap of gunfire behind him, and he saw Joseph jump at the sound. He spun around to see Art’s Gram up and aimed at a human several pews away. The Arcani’s head was a mass of blood, and one of the antitank rifles flew out of his hands and landed with a clatter several feet away.

  “Shit!” Igazi yelled, and his daughter wailed at the startling sound of the gunfire in the closed space.

  George scanned the remaining humans again. If Art hadn’t taken the shot, George wouldn’t have seen the attack coming until it was too late.

  Art saw George’s optical sensor examining the other Arcani and transmitted via text message, “Have you not learned the lesson? Humans are not trustworthy. We should kill the rest of them so they can’t shoot us in the back on our way out.”

  There wasn’t time to ponder the deeper implications of killing unarmed humans. George had had enough surprises, and wouldn’t have the perfidious humans destroying any more of his friends. “Quickly.”

  With that, George and Art wielded their rifles and killed the remaining Arcani in six seconds. Joseph screamed, “Enough! They’re unarmed!” and his daughter continued to cry. The Charlies did not respond.

  Once the grisly task was done, George said simply, “Hold on tight to your daughter, Mr. Igazi.” With that, he peremptorily holstered his rifle on his back, plucked up the human and his daughter, and ran out the front door. With a glance to make sure Art had secured Mrs. Igazi, George put his mind to getting as far away from Colony 4 as possible in the time remaining.

  But his thought was interrupted for a moment when he passed the crumpled body of Joan.

  “Your mission is complete, soldier,” Art said aloud, and George knew that his friend was trying to ease the blow his Deep Satisfaction had taken.

  * * *

  The Charlies were not designed to transport people, but they could do the job extremely well. Their arms had extensive suspension and stabilization systems to allow for perfectly aimed shots at a dead run. For their current passengers, it meant a smooth ride, aside from the twenty or thirty mile per hour wind in their faces.

  The child still cried for its mother, upset by the relentless onslaught of new experiences. Joseph did his best to calm his daughter, but his efforts purchased just a few minutes of relative calm at a time. During one such period of placidity, Joseph asked as quietly as he could, “What is happening? Our intelligence department said you had gone crazy and mutinied.”

  George was offended by the report, though he knew it shouldn’t have surprised him. “We mutinied because they told us to abandon the victory paid fire in our lives. We did not go crazy.”

  Igazi nodded. “I couldn’t believe my friends would go insane. When the weapons came in and they ordered us to ambush you, I refused to take part in it. They stripped me of my rank. I suspect they’ll charge me with some crime and send me off to a penal colony in Siberia when this is over.”

  “Not if we have anything to say about it,” George assured him. “We came to rescue you because the Ushah just nudged an asteroid onto a trajectory to destroy Colony 4 and everything else within a hundred kilometers.”

  Igazi struggled to keep his voice down. “They would have killed us too, my wife and children! Why didn’t the Space Administration warn us?”

  “Either they forgot or they were worried you would leak the information,” George said flatly.

  Igazi swore loudly, disturbing his daughter, who recommenced crying. “There will come a reckoning for them,” he said, a gleam of hate in his eyes.

  With thirty-five minutes to go before impact, Simon radioed in to report that the other Charlies were now over one hundred kilometers from Colony 4 and, according to Takagawa’s message, far enough away that they would survive the effects of the asteroid impact. They would continue moving at a more battery-conserving pace and find the safest possible place to wait out the impact. That place would be behind a hill and as far from trees as possible.

  At twenty-eight minutes to impact, a text message came from Art, who was running a few steps behind. “Ashanti Igazi appears to be leaking.”

  The phrasing baffled George. “Is she bleeding?”

  A pause. “A little, but it’s mostly some other fluid which I cannot identify.”

  Neither Charlie knew anything about the human birthing process. “There’s nothing we can do about that,” George answered. “We don’t have time to stop anyway.”

  Only fifteen minutes remained before impact. The run and battle had dramatically depleted their battery reserves, and George worried that they wouldn’t have much left for whatever they needed to do once the effects of the impact had worn off. But there was little reason to worry about that.

  With ten minutes to go, they were ninety-four kilometers from Colony 4. George knew next to nothing about asteroids. He was aware, of course, that his ancestor had been the space-going Charlie I, but Charlie I hadn’t had much understanding of what was happening around him. He had been little more than a remote control car with s
ome especially useful functions, George thought.

  George wondered what such an existence would be like, devoid of any particular satisfaction or disappointment in one’s tasks, never knowing what the larger consequences of one’s actions were.

  He put the issue aside. Ninety-six kilometers. He picked up the pace, running at nearly 33 miles per hour on the single-lane paved road. Art was just a few steps behind, and even with the wind George could detect that Ashanti Igazi was moaning in pain.

  With two minutes left, George saw an open field behind a hill, apparently a farm of some kind. That would have to do.

  “We will stop here,” George transmitted, and the two Charlies slowed down and got off the road. Once in the field, they gently put down the Igazis.

  Joseph immediately wanted to know why they had stopped. “The asteroid will impact in ninety seconds. Keep down as close to the ground as possible,” George advised. “Dig in as much as you can. Make sure all of your skin is covered. I would advise keeping your infant completely under you. Do not look up.”