Giant Robots of Tunguska

by Dave Robinson

  “Right behind you.”

  Lugging the heavy cylinder as best he could, Doc headed for the doors, Gilly hard on his heels. Doc’s breath whistled through his nose as he tried to draw in as much air as possible. Doc’s personal best for the hundred was a hair under seven seconds, well under the official world record, but that wasn’t cradling a four-hundred-pound deadweight in his arms. The way his shoulders ached he wasn’t sure he was going to make it all the way to the hangar either.

  “Doc!” He turned to see Gilly shoving a flat decked cart towards him. “Put it on this.”

  Doc smiled and waved Gilly towards the door. As the smaller man kept running, Doc carefully placed the blanket-wrapped cylinder on the cart and strapped it in. Another glance told him the robots were still rising but he didn’t have much choice if he wanted the cylinder to stay on the deck. The first robot was almost on its feet when he tightened the last strap.

  Not daring to look behind him again, Doc got behind the cart and pushed; running through the warehouse made suddenly claustrophobic by the shadows of the towering figures behind him. Up ahead, Gilly was struggling with a small door. After another fruitless try at the lock, Gilly pulled back and delivered a massive flying kick to the lock. Wood splintered everywhere and the door sprang open just in time for Doc’s cart to career through the opening at full speed.

  With the alarms and sirens already screaming, Doc headed straight along the tracks towards the waterfront hangar. For the moment he could only hope that Gilly was keeping up, as any sounds he made were drowned out by the sirens and rending steel.

  The ground shook as the two robots smashed their way out of the warehouse, and Colonel Senda’s heavily amplified voice battered Doc’s ears. “Release the power core and surrender now Doctor Vandal. You cannot escape.”

  Instead of stopping or trying to answer, Doc kept pushing.

  Seconds later a fan of flame cut through the night, assaulting Doc’s nose with the smell of unburned petroleum. The flames illuminated everything, and moments later Doc found himself speared in the beams of half a dozen searchlights.

  A line of tracers reached out towards him from the nearest tower, but a second burst of flame turned the tower to ash as the sirens drowned out the screams. Two of the searchlights blinked off but the other four followed Doc and Gilly as they ran for the hangar.

  Despite the urge for speed, Doc did his best to weave as he ran. The growing thunder of each footstep reminded him that the robots were a lot faster than even he was. As if drawn by the thought, a massive metal fist crashed into the ground a few feet to his left, spurring him on. At least they were close now, less than thirty feet from the shadowed opening.

  Some sixth sense made him duck a second later, so the massive iron fist only grazed his back, sending him flying forwards and into the hangar. Gilly joined him a few moments later. Raising his eyes, he saw a beautiful sight; Tigress’ flying wing floating peacefully just a few yards in front of him.

  #

  Moments later, Vic shuffled through the open doorway into the hangar. The building was huge, over five hundred feet across and extending a good hundred yards out into the harbor. Pausing for a moment, she leaned on her cane and fought for breath. Damn it, she was only twenty-eight years old, not sixty-eight.

  No sooner had she caught her breath than Vic looked up and lost it again. Tigress' flying wing dominated the open space inside the hangar, so large no one light could cover it all. It hulked in the darkness, the single largest heavier than air vessel Vic had ever seen. The heavily swept wings were so wide that they only had a dozen feet of clearance on each side of the hangar.

  She had flown bigger Zeppelins, some with rocket assist, she had even flown autogiros. She'd never flown an airplane like this. As a pilot, all she could think of was taking the controls.

  “Wow.”

  Then the sirens drilled through to Vic's attention and she shuffled towards the gangplank into the port pontoon.

  Tigress and Ming were already waiting for her inside the pontoon, which was bigger than some houses.

  “Sorry, but we're going to have to take the ladders,” Tigress told her. “We won't have elevators until we get the engines going.”

  Vic's jaw dropped again. Elevators, on an airplane? Then she chuckled; she couldn't help it. If they weren't running who cares if the plane was big enough to need internal elevators.

  “So how far up do we have to go?” Vic hefted her cane.

  “You'll be flying her from the bridge, on deck eight. Ming and I are going to have to reach deck nine for the engines.”

  “What deck are we on now?” Ming asked.

  “Two.”

  “Oh.”

  That shut everyone up. Vic followed Tigress to a circular stair near the front of the pontoon. At the hatchway she stepped aside. “Don't let me slow you down.”

  Ming nodded and slipped past; following Tigress up the stairs. Vic gritted her teeth and followed. Her feet felt like lead, and every step upward reminded her of the Tunguskite just a few hundred yards behind. The mineral's pull was unmistakable, but somehow she forced it back. Besides, Doc and Gilly were supposed to be bringing it to her.

  With that thought gripped firmly between her teeth, Vic put her legs to work on the stairs. Her muscles burned, but she made it all the way up to deck eight, going around and around the stairway. Coming out of the hatch onto the navigation deck was like being a debutante stepping into a ballroom. It was huge, with a high glass ceiling and polished parquet floors.

  “I thought this was a pirate ship?” Vic was staggered by the design.

  “From what I was told, the original design was intended to be more a luxury liner of the skies. The Imperial Navy worked with what they had.”

  Vic shook her head and shuffled over to the pilot’s station. At least it looked normal; two seats side by side with double yokes much like Doc’s Trimotor. A set of speaking trumpets rose between the seats; one marked engines and the other weapons. Before she took her seat she dragged the shapeless dress over her head, revealing a set of khakis and a flight jacket. Even at her best, she wouldn’t want to try flying with her feet caught in that much fabric.

  “No gun crews, so let’s see about engines,” Vic muttered as she uncapped the tube, and then took another look around. The space between the two seats held a separate engine control panel with twenty tachometers and switch sets.

  Scanning the controls, she found what had to be the main magneto switch and flipped it to on. Glancing at her watch, Vic saw she had already lost fifteen minutes. With all the sirens blaring she went through an abbreviated preflight check. Despite its size and complexity, the flying wing didn’t look particularly difficult to fly.

  Still, even a short check took time on an aircraft this size. Just balancing the engines and feathering the props was going to be a good five minutes’ work. Vic didn’t even want to think what starting them was going to be like for for Ming and Tigress.

  Vic had just feathered the fifth propeller when she felt the Tunguskite. It was just a tingle at first, barely noticeable, but growing stronger with each breath. Doc and Gilly had to be close, she could taste it. That same acuity that let her sense the Tunguskite spread to her other senses. The alarm got louder and she found herself having to block it out as she worked the control panel.

  She was up to ten engines when she finally flipped on the front lights and looked up. “Shit.”

  The hangar doors were closed. Five hundred feet and Doc only knew how many tons of steel doors blocked the way forward. Getting out was going to be fun. Hopefully there was a motorized system out there or they were well and truly blocked.

  Vic had almost finished what she hoped was the right startup sequence when a burst of strength coursed through her body. The world snapped into tight focus as she straightened in her seat. A new sense flared into existence behind her eye sockets: Doc and Gilly were already inside the hangar heading toward the flying wing, illuminated by the power core in Doc�
�s arms. Two more power cores approached, about thirty feet off the ground. One was heading straight for the rear doors, while the other circled around to block the front.

  There was no way Doc or Gilly could open the doors before the robot blocked their path. They were trapped!

  Not if she could help it. Vic turned to the speaking tube. “Get down here and watch the engines! Doc can take off if I don’t get back in time!”

  Reveling in the strength Tunguskite gave her, Vic ran effortlessly to the stairway and jumped. One hand caught the center pillar; she couldn’t help smiling as her hair flew upwards. She could feel her strength rising as she ran aft through the pontoon towards Doc and Gilly but she needed more. More, more, always more!

  The two men were almost ready to board when she came tearing down the gangplank. “Gilly, undo the lines. Doc, you’re going to have to fly her while I open the doors and clear the robot blocking our takeoff.”

  “What?” Gilly shook his head, looking backwards towards the doorway.

  “No time.” Vic reached for the power core in Doc’s arms and plunged her hand through the lead shielding like so much tissue paper. Her hand inside the core, she closed her fist on the first fuel element. Energy raced up her arm in an almost orgasmic rush but somehow she controlled herself. As the power from the now spent element slowed to a trickle she pulled her arm free and clamped the end of the cylinder closed with so much force the lead practically melted together.

  “That should hold it.” Her voice sounded different now, throbbing with power.

  Dismissing the others to do her bidding, she looked around for the mechanism to open the door. Small donkey engines in the corners drove chain arrangements that pulled the door up and along the ceiling in sections like a giant garage door. With no time to worry about getting the engines running she bent at the knee and jumped straight up to the nearest door track almost two hundred feet above the floor. Balancing along the track, she ran forwards to the doorway.

  Running out along the top section of the door she made her way to the center of the doorway and then leaned outward so her hands were on a support beam while her feet rested on one of the upper door sections.

  “Up we go.”

  Digging her heels into the steel section, Vic started walking. Metal groaned as she took up the weight, moving faster and faster with each step she took. Green water splashed as the last few segments rose out of the depths below. The whole building shook as she dug her fingers into the support beam but somehow it held together under the stress.

  Less than a minute later, Vic hung from the beam, taking in the view. In front of her stood a robot at least fifty feet tall, with a crown above the Soviet hammer and sickle on its chest. It raised its fist and sent a jet of flame a hundred feet into the sky.

  “Surrender now Doctor Vandal or I will burn the lot of you like rats in a trap!” Vic didn’t recognize the voice, but the nature of the threat was unmistakable.

  Growling in a voice she didn’t recognize, Vic began swinging back and forth. How dare the robot threaten her as a mere afterthought? She was the true threat, not Doc and she deserved to be treated as such.

  Yelling loud enough to drown out the still wailing alarms she launched herself down at the robot, aiming straight at the middle of its barrel chest. As she closed, the radiation from the power core triggered her extra sense giving her a complete picture of the robot inside and out. Instantly she understood everything about the machine and its workings, from the windings of the power core to the control harness the pilot wore.

  Something else teased her brain too; a sense of flying, burning up in the atmosphere, hurtling towards certain doom, and then a sudden touch of hope.

  Then Vic hit the robot and the impact drove the thoughts out of her mind. Armor crumpled like tinfoil as she dug inward towards the power core, its radiation pulling her like a magnet. Cables whipped through the confined space, hydraulic fluid soaked her from head to toe, but it hardly registered. Nothing registered but her target. More life, more strength, more power.

  Power, power was the key. There was something inside her she needed to unlock but she needed more power.

  The robot toppled as she ripped her way through the gyros on her way to the core. For just a moment she saw a woman’s face float in front of her with black hair and sparkling eyes; but then the vision was washed away by the overwhelming need for power.

  There it was; her Holy Grail.

  Vic shredded the shielding, sending wires and converters flying everywhere as she reached into the core for the fuel elements. Energy danced across her skin sending her hair spiraling outward in all directions. Some buried part of her mind remembered a man telling her radiation was dangerous, but the details of both the man and the dangers escaped her.

  As the power flooded through her, Vic’s senses expanded even further, always focused on the only thing that mattered: Tunguskite. There were two small concentrations close behind her, barely worth noting at her current power level. No, it was north that mattered; somewhere in Siberia. A river, a lake, flattened trees, and all the power she could imagine.

  Vic pulled the last erg of power from the core and looked around. She was standing amidst the wreckage of a robot on the harbor floor and somehow wasn’t drowning. All that mattered was the pull, the Tunguskite drawing her northwards. With an explosive heave she threw the remains of the robot up and out of the water.

  There was something she had to do, something important, but Vic couldn’t remember. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She had to reach Tunguska.

  Thought became action. Seconds later Vic broke the surface like a breaching whale and headed north.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tunguska

  Doc reached the navigation deck just in time to see Vic leap towards the giant robot.

  “What the Hell is she doing?” Tigress asked from her position in the co-pilot’s seat.

  “Clearing our way.” Doc strapped into the pilot’s seat and began his own visual check of the instruments.

  “Against a giant like that?” Tigress shook her head. “The last time I saw something like that we had to kill it by driving a tram into its kneecaps. It’s going to rip her to pieces.”

  “If there’s any ripping to do, Vic will do it,” Ming piped up from a nearby seat at the flight engineer’s station, where she looked utterly uncomfortable. “You didn’t see what she did to the ship that attacked us.”

  “I know you said that mineral makes her stronger, but there has to be a limit.”

  “If you call three hundred foot vertical leaps in a hundred pounds of armor a limit,” Doc said mildly, turning his gaze back to the windscreen.

  Outside, Vic was digging her way through the giant robot like a honey badger chasing a vole. Even Doc was impressed by how rapidly she ripped her way through armor plate with her bare hands. In seconds she was inside the chest cavity sending cables and hydraulic lines flying every which way. She hit so hard and so fast the machine seemed unable to stop her. No sooner had she vanished inside than the machine began to wobble in the knee deep water.

  It raised a fist, the arm jerked, and then it crashed down into the harbor taking Vic with it. Ming left her seat and went to the windscreen, standing with one hand in her mouth as they watched the water for any sign of Vic.

  Just then, Gilly made it up to the navigation deck. He looked around, and then went to the empty seat at the flight engineer’s station. “Where’s Vic?”

  “Underwater. Clearing our way out of here.” Doc replied.

  “Gotcha.” Gilly turned back to his station.

  “What’s going on?” Ming whispered. “She’s been down there forever.”

  “Actually,” Doc replied. “It’s been less than a minute, and with the amount of energy she’s absorbed I’d be very surprised if she couldn’t stay down there for hours. She’s probably already drained that robot’s power core.”

  “Already?” Ming was aghast. “How much are we talking about?”r />
  Doc did some mental calculations. “Well if we call the amount of energy Vic currently needs for normal functioning one Frank, then the amount she’s probably absorbed by now is at least ten thousand KiloFranks, possibly more.”

  “But what does that mean?”

  “She’s more powerful than the Titanic.”

  Ming gasped, drawing Doc’s attention back to the view just in time to see the remains of the robot come flying out of the water into the harbor. Less than a second later Vic followed, launching herself upwards out of the water like a rocket. If he had blinked he would have missed her, she was moving so fast. According to the mathematical part of his brain she must have pulled at least fifteen gees on the jump and was traveling over two hundred miles an hour heading a little west of north

  “Vic!” Ming cried, sagging against the windscreen.

  Tigress moved to comfort her daughter, while Doc slowly taxied the flying wing out of the hangar. The flying wing rocked a little as they crossed the wave from Vic’s former opponent. He eased the throttle forward and moved out into the harbor.

  It was still dark, but the flying wing’s lights were enough for Doc to see any ships even if small boats might have to take their chances. He pushed the throttles forward and brought the wing into open water. Ten minutes later he had leveled off at two thousand feet as the flying wing bored a hole through the sky at almost two hundred miles an hour.

  “Where are you going?” Ming had come up beside him and was staring fixedly into the night sky with runnels of tears marking her cheeks.

  “Tunguska.”

  “What about Vic? We need to go back to Dairen and find her!” Ming looked to be barely holding herself together, and Doc finally saw the true nature of the emotional toll this trip had taken on the young woman. Yes, she was a medical doctor, but she wasn’t even thirty and having to deal with the woman she loved wasting away couldn’t be easy for anyone.

  Ming had just answered a question he didn’t know he’d had. Why his parents had left Earth together on that ill-fated flight to the Moon so many years ago. They must have loved each other so much that they had to share the risk, and now Ming was powerless and unable to share Vic’s risk.