Giant Robots of Tunguska

by Dave Robinson

  “Time to go,” Tigress said, gathering her knives.

  Ming picked up Senda’s sword and nodded.

  Moments later, the three of them vanished into the night.

  #

  Vic was the first one to rise as the back door of the shop opened. First through the doorway was Doc, a little bruised but otherwise looking fine. Behind Doc, Ming assisted Tigress into the room.

  “Are you alright?” Vic fought the urge to rush to Ming's aid. She'd tried pacing earlier and as Tigress had promised she was less than fully mobile though she felt a lot better than she had when confined to a wheelchair.

  “We're fine,” Ming answered, helping her mother to a nearby chair. She had a samurai sword slung over her shoulder, which surprised Vic. Ming usually let other people handle the fighting while she stuck to the healing.

  “For now,” Tigress added. “It won't take the kempeitai long to figure out who I am. I figure we'll have them knocking on the door before dawn.”

  “Sorry Doc, I guess we have no time to get you cleaned up,” Gilly said. “You're going to have to go out dressed like that.”

  “He's going to need boots,” Ming said. “We're all going to need better clothing if we're going anywhere.”

  “I can solve that.” Tigress hiked up her skirt and looked at her leg where a bruise was beginning to form. “I know a few people who can put some clothing together for all of you. If you have enough money I can get it done in a couple of hours.”

  Vic laughed. “Ming grabbed Doc's money belt earlier. Money's not going to be a problem.”

  Tigress smiled. “Good, then let's get going.”

  #

  A couple of hours later, two men and three women slipped out of a car just outside the SMR docks in Dairen with Doc Vandal in the lead. Vic leaning on a cane, just a few feet behind Doc, could already feel the pull of Tunguskite, as the Japanese called the mineral. The South Manchuria Railway was virtually an arm of the Japanese Colonial Government, and many of its facilities served military as well as civilian purposes. In this case, the SMR held a large compound on the waterfront ostensibly used for transshipping soybeans, but just as often used for the transfer of Japanese military secrets.

  According to Tigress, this compound not only held her flying wing but also several captured Soviet fighting robots from Siberia. For Vic, the most important thing was the presence of the Tunguskite the Soviets apparently used to power the machines. Even at more than a hundred yards’ distance, she could already feel its pull.

  The one big difference between the compound and a military reservation was security. Despite the secrets within, there were only a handful of civilian security guards manning the outer perimeter.

  It was certainly going to be different on the inside, but at least getting in didn't look like it was going to be that difficult.

  After finding a shadowed spot near an alley, Gilly took a pair of tinsnips to the wire fence while the others looked on. Less than a minute later, he was standing beside an opening in the fence easily large enough for even Doc to stride through.

  “After you.” Gilly gestured with an open hand, looking like nothing so much as a maitre'd at a fine restaurant.

  Doc was the first through the opening, followed by Vic and Ming, with Tigress and Gilly bringing up the rear.

  Vic took a moment to orient herself. The Tunguskite was in a large warehouse two hundred yards to her right with railroad tracks running right through it. As she looked towards it, she fingered the small leaded vial that held the last shot of Tunguskite from New York. Even at this distance the pull was hard to resist but Vic turned her attention the other direction, toward the water.

  She wanted to head toward the Tunguskite, but she and Doc were the only pilots so one of them had to head for the flying wing. He was the best engineer, so he had to take the warehouse, so that left her with the flying wing. At least Doc drew the short straw: he had to take Gilly while she got Ming and Tigress.

  Vic and Doc synchronized watches; it was precisely 3:05 AM. That gave the women a good forty-five minutes to take the wing while the two men retrieved as much Tunguskite as they could. According to Tigress it should only take at most half an hour to get the engines started for takeoff, less if they cut corners; so they should have plenty of time.

  After checking the time, Doc and Gilly broke right and disappeared into the shadows. Vic let Tigress take the lead and followed with Ming in the other direction from the two men. The compound was dimly lit, and she found it difficult to keep up even with the cane. Now that they were inside the compound Vic saw it was much better defended than it had appeared from the outside. There were half a dozen machine gun towers inside the compound, making it look more like a prison camp than a shipping port.

  Searchlights played across the grounds, showing off the tracks running from one building to another. Vic didn’t see any guards but she was sure there were more out there ready to deal with anyone caught in the lights.

  “You’re sure it’s fueled?” Ming asked her mother as they moved along the shadowed wall of an outbuilding.

  “It’s supposed to go back to Japan in the next few days.” Tigress shrugged. “Apparently it’s some sort of pawn in an Army/Navy power struggle. The army took it when the navy’s plan to destabilize the Dutch East Indies failed, now it appears they’re giving it back.

  “I’ve spent enough time lining cleaning ladies’ pockets that I’m not surprised by much the Japanese do. Colonialists and aristocrats are all the same, they never notice the people below them.”

  “Hey,” Vic muttered. “I’m an aristocrat.”

  Ming patted her shoulder. “No, you were an aristocrat.”

  “Keep moving,” Tigress hissed. “You can compliment each other later.”

  Vic nodded, and fell back into line behind Tigress. They had made it almost all the way to the hangar when they hit a snag. The Japanese security had been lax enough so far that they had had no trouble moving from shadow to shadow without having to expose themselves to the searchlights. This last bit was different.

  Two searchlights swept a large open space with a set of tracks running down the center to a wide door at the shore side of the hangar. Between the two of them, they only gave the women about thirty seconds to cover a hundred yards.

  Vic gripped her cane tightly; normally she ran the hundred in about twelve flat, but this wasn’t normal. They were all in dark clothing, loose dresses that made it easy to hide in shadows but were a real pain to run in. Vic had her flying clothes underneath, but they were too light to hide easily. Huddling in the shadow of the last shed before the opening she drew the others to her.

  “All right,” Vic said. “Tigress, I want you to go first. Ming can follow you and I'll bring up the rear.

  “If I don't make it, you can just wait for Doc and take off.”

  “If you don't make it?” Ming glared at Vic. “What do you mean if you don't make it?”

  Vic tapped her watch significantly. “Look, there's no time to argue. You two go first, then I'll catch up. I can always pop the Tunguskite if I run into trouble.”

  Tigress shook her head. “If you use it, the next time I balance your meridians you'll feel eighty.”

  “I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.” Vic took another look at the searchlights, and then started timing them with her watch. “Okay, I make it twenty-seven seconds between sweeps.”

  She pointed to a small shadow beside the huge hangar doors. “We'll meet there. It looks like we'll have a clear path inwards. When I tap your shoulder, start moving and don't look back. You've got almost half a minute, so there's plenty of time to get across if you keep moving. Just don't trip on the tracks and you'll be fine.”

  Tigress nodded, as did Ming a few seconds later. Vic watched the searchlights make another sweep, timing it just to be sure. A moment later, she tapped Tigress’ shoulder.

  “Go.”

  Tigress took off across the darkness, her pace quick and even. Vic tried
to keep one eye on the time and the other on Tigress, but soon found herself ignoring the sweep hand. In a matter of moments Tigress made it across and disappeared into the shadows.

  Vic watched the searchlights make another pass, and then tapped Ming to go. The younger woman moved a little faster than her mother, and Vic leaned back on her cane as she watched. Taking a deep breath, she considered her options. On the one hand, she really wanted to pop her last dose of Tunguskite right now, but she wasn't sure how long it would last and she might need it to fly. Even with five of them, running the wing would be a big job and the last thing she wanted was to collapse in mid-takeoff.

  Ming made it across without trouble, so Vic readied herself for her own crossing. Twenty-seven seconds was plenty of time, even without the boost Tunguskite gave her.

  One more cycle, and go!

  Vic stepped out into the darkness, her cane stabbing ahead. The first thing she noticed was the darkness. Her eyes weren't adjusting as fast as they should so the concrete below looked black as night.

  With no time to worry Vic pushed herself as hard as she could but even her best was painfully slow. Her hips ached with each step, and the cane quickly turned from a probe to an essential element of balance. Instead of her usual stride, all she could manage was a kind of shuffle.

  Her heart thudded in her chest as Vic forced herself to make as much haste as possible. She was about three-quarters of the way across when the tip of her cane caught in the railway tracks in front of her.

  One second she was shuffling as fast as she could, the next she was flat on her back thanking God that Tigress' acupuncture hadn't given her an old woman's brittle bones.

  “Noooo.” Even with her weakened hearing Ming's voice came clearly to her ears.

  Waving her lover away Vic dug in her pocket for the Tunguskite. All she had to do was crack the glass. As her hand dug deeper into her pocket she realized the worst. The Tunguskite was gone.

  Exhausted, and feeling far more than the extra forty years Tigress said she was carrying, Vic rolled to her hands and knees. All she could do was make a break for it.

  Cold concrete dug into her palms and knees as the light swept towards her like a broom of fire, moving faster than she could hope to run even at her best. Four feet, three feet, two feet...

  Sirens screamed across the compound as the light snapped to a stop, and then reversed direction to point at the far warehouse. Without stopping to count her blessings, Vic grabbed her cane and levered herself back to her feet. Once upright, she limped as fast as her three-legged gait would carry her toward safety.

  Doc and Gilly would have to save themselves.

  #

  Doc glanced in both directions as he and Gilly leaned up against the warehouse wall. They had had no trouble getting this far, but now they had to find a way into the warehouse without being seen.

  “What's that?” Gilly pointed along the wall to their right.

  A fire escape hung about ten feet off the ground just forty feet further along the wall. Doc nodded and led the way. Keeping against the wall for stealth, he quickly reached a spot underneath the fire escape. Once in position, Doc kneeled down and made a stirrup of his hands.

  Gilly stepped into the stirrup and balanced his hands on Doc's shoulders. Doc gave Gilly a moment to get his balance and then exploded upwards in one smooth movement carrying Gilly up to grab hold of the fire escape. Gilly caught the steel in both hands and quickly made his way up and over the railing.

  Doc gave Gilly a few seconds to get out of the way, and then bent deeply at the knee. Moments later he leaped fifteen feet straight up, taking advantage of muscles trained under more than twice Earth's gravity.

  Doc caught the railing and swung himself onto the platform, bending his knees to to soak up his momentum. The fire escape extended another hundred feet up to the roof of the building in fifteen steep flights. Doc slipped past Gilly and led the way up the ladder. There were no windows in the side of the building, so the only access was on the roof.

  Doc leaped lightly from the fire escape onto the asphalt roof. Sand crunched lightly under his feet. Even in the cold weather of a Chinese fall the roof still picked up enough heat during the day to be noticeably warm to the touch. A small building in the far corner was the only apparent way in.

  It had a steel door most likely to keep people in but it was no barrier for Doc. In a matter of seconds he and Gilly were through the door and descending a ladder down to a catwalk.

  On the catwalk, Doc held out a hand for Gilly to stop behind him while he surveyed the warehouse. They were on a steel catwalk that ran the full length of the interior wall to a small glass-walled office at the far end. Two rows of powerful mercury vapor lights filled the building with harsh light. Doc leaned over the rail and involuntarily caught his breath.

  Three massive figures lay supine on flatcars in the middle of the building. Roughly human in shape, they would have been at least fifty feet tall standing up. Each one bore an unusual emblem on its chest: A three-pointed red crown over the classic Soviet hammer and sickle in the same color. The harsh lights threw hard edged shadows from every rivet on the robots' bodies. Doc had fought giant robots before, but these were something new. There was a brute power to the design that he had never seen before.

  “Ugly aren't they?” Gilly muttered, having silently moved up beside Doc. “I'd hate to run across one of them in a dark alley.”

  “I don't think it would fit in in a dark alley,” Doc replied mildly. “It's got a good twenty-foot stance at its narrowest. The shoulders are a good twenty feet wide, too.”

  Gilly chuckled softly. “That's not exactly what I meant.”

  Doc shrugged. “All right, you know why we're here.”

  “Yessir,” Gilly replied through a broad grin.

  Shaking his head, Doc took the lead and headed towards the office at the far end. As he had expected it wasn't locked at this level, and he took the opportunity to take a quick look for any documents. They had already used seven and a half minutes, so he didn't want to waste any more time than he had to. Two more minutes got him a rough schematic of the machines, complete with access hatches.

  The big surprise was that they weren't really robots; they were more like giant walking tanks, or even ground-based pursuit planes. Each one held a single seat inside the head where one man controlled however many tons of walking destruction. Doc had seen recordings of such machines in battles fought millions of years ago and thousands of light-years away but he had never expected to seem home-grown examples on Earth.

  “Come on, Doc, we've got to move.” Gilly pushed open the far door leading to the elevator and stairwell.

  Red lights flashed and sirens screamed, filling the warehouse with chaos.

  “Shit.” Gilly rubbed his forehead. “Sorry Doc.”

  “Keep moving,” Doc replied, moving past Gilly and heading for the stairs. “Our timetable just got moved up.”

  Doc plunged down the stairwell, sliding down the bannisters as fast as he could. Once he hit the second to last landing he leaped over the railing, and dropped to the ground. Behind him, Gilly was racing down the stairs as fast as he could.

  Leaving the younger man to catch up, Doc sprinted towards the nearest robot. According to the schematics, there was a main entry at the top of the head and another access hatch on the right side of the chest.

  Doc had a good view of the closest robot, and there were half a dozen work benches clustered around the side hatch, which was wide open. Doc leaped onto the flatcar and poked his head through the hatch.

  Just like the armor suits he had seen in New York, it was a mix of incredible precision with rough and ready engineering. Most of the machine's torso was filled with massive gear trains and cable assemblies. Luckily for Doc, the Japanese had taken most of the gears on this side apart, revealing a heavy metal cylinder that looked all too familiar. Taking a quick inventory of the work benches, Doc found both a heavy lead blanket and a leaded storage box. Clear
ly, the Japanese knew what they were dealing with.

  Grabbing some tools, Doc worked his way into the chest cavity and started disconnecting the power cylinder. He had just finished the first connector when Gilly showed up and immediately started handing him tools as he needed them.

  Doc worked as fast as he could, separating the cylinder from all its gears and connections. He was working fast in close quarters, and he skinned a couple of knuckles. His first thought had been to take the cylinder apart and just remove the fuel elements, but one look at the size of the machine had put paid to that idea.

  The fuel chamber was just too large, even the box and blanket together wouldn't be enough shielding without the circuitry built into the power cylinder. While Doc had never thought of family, he was fairly sure that Gilly wanted to carry on the family name.

  “Grab the box and blanket,” he called back over the sirens. “I'm going to want to wrap the cylinder in lead.”

  Gilly nodded, and went to work. Not for the first time, Doc wished Gilly had taken the time to learn sign language, but it couldn't be helped.

  With a deep breath, Doc set himself and wrapped his arms around the cylinder. Holding it tight against his chest, he straightened his back and pushed as hard as he could with both legs. Pain coursed through his back as he fought against four hundred pounds with all his strength.

  Reaching deep into the depths of his mind, Doc triggered the post-hypnotic phrase that released all his strength. Metal scraped against metal as he ripped the cylinder free of its mountings with a screech so loud it overwhelmed the sirens for a moment.

  Doc pulled himself and the cylinder free of the chest cavity only to see a wide-eyed Gilly pointing over his shoulder. Doc turned as his gaze followed Gilly's finger. The other two robots were rising.

  Wrapping the cylinder in the blanket, Doc grabbed Gilly by the shoulder. “Time to go!”