Robot Wars: Thrown Into the Fray

by Nicholas Haring

  “Yes, ma’am!” everyone replied in unison.

  “Sergeant Briggs, Sergeant Lander, and Sergeant Nettleson - you’re my squad leaders. I have taken the liberty of assigning each of you your squad members,” Forsythe said as she handed each squad leader their squad roster list, which told them which squad members they had.

  Lander read his squad roster.

  “Let’s see Corporal Paul Thompson, Specialist Devin Riley, Private First Class Vivian Porter, Private Frank Ellerby, and Private Reggie Samson,” Lander said as he read the list out loud.

  “How lucky is that? We’re in the same company, platoon, and now -- squad,” Thompson said as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

  “Yeah, if we were really lucky we wouldn’t be here at all,” Lander said as he folded up the list and put it in his pants pocket.

  Everyone put on their uniforms and got their weapons in working order. Now, they were just waiting for Forsythe to come back and tell them what to do next.

  “Hey Chet, what do you think?” Thompson asked as he posed with his rifle. “You ready to go shoot-up some Al-Qaeda? Ha-ha!”

  “I thought we were fighting the Taliban?” Lander said jokingly.

  “Ah… same thing. You know for giving us uniforms that won’t help at all, they could have at least given us some better looking ones. You know, I always thought the Rough Riders’ uniforms from the Spanish-American War were snazzy,” Thompson said with an undertone of frustration in his voice.

  The Army Combat Uniforms they were issued were obsolete even when the war began. The HRUOs had thermal and infrared sensors for sight and target acquisition. The ACUs couldn’t hide the wearer’s heat signatures and would standout in infrared. Lander had the Gen-Two thermals when he was in the army nine years ago, but even those were obsolete. The Regular Army was now using the Gen-Four thermals, with the Special Forces getting their own special “stealth” version, which really only increased infrared detection time against the robotic sensors.

  “Hopefully, we’ll just be used for patrolling the streets and providing security. That would free up the Regular Army guys for the front. There’s no way they would send us into actual combat, or even put us in tactical reserve in our condition,” Lander said, mostly just trying to reassure himself.

  “Maybe, but you also have to wonder why they only issued us armor piercing rounds,” Thompson said.

  Lander thought about it and he didn’t like where the thoughts were leading.

  “Sergeant Lander!” Lieutenant Forsythe yelled as she walked into the tent.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Lander said, hopping to attention along with everyone else in the tent.

  “Take your squad and set up a makeshift firing range at the soccer field. I want you to set up targets for 25, 100, and 200 meters, okay?” Forsythe said. She then handed him a hastily drawn diagram of what she wanted.

  “Yes, ma’am, we’ll get right on it, ma’am. Okay, Thompson, Ellerby, Riley, Porter, and uhh… Samson you’re with me,” Lander ordered as he and the others exited the tent.

  Lander and his squad arrived at the soccer field which was nothing more than a barren open field at this time of the year. Lander pulled out Forsythe’s diagram to study it a little closer.

  “What the …?” Lander said.

  “Let me see,” Thompson said as he grabbed the diagram and covered his mouth to stop himself from laughing. “It looks more like a bad bar chart, than a diagram for a firing range.”

  Lander looked around, he wasn’t even sure what to use for the targets until he spotted a few old oil drums, a couple of football tackling dummies, and some discarded sheet metal.

  “I think we can work with this. Samson, Riley, and Porter see if you can move the goals out down the range. We’ll cut up the sheet metal and hang it from the goals,” Lander ordered as the three hurried to get the goals moved. “Okay, Ellerby, I want you to go into the groundskeeper’s shed and see if you can find a chalk line marker. We’ll put down a line right across here to mark the firing positions. Thompson -- you and I have some sheet metal to cut.”

  After several more hours of work, Lander and his squad had made a pretty serviceable firing range. The tackling dummies for the 25 meter pistol range and the sheet metal targets hung from the goal posts at 100 and 200 meters. The oil drums were used to divide the different firing lanes and for soldiers to put their ammo and weapons on. With the last of the daylight fading, Lander thought it would be a good time to head back to the platoon tent.

  “Nice work, 2nd Squad, Sergeant Lander,” Lieutenant Forsythe said as she was walking up from the Company camp behind Lander.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Lander said, quickly turning around.

  “For all of the hard work you and your squad did, you guys get to be the first in the chow line tonight. I hear we’re having Salisbury steak tonight,” Forsythe said, then turned around and headed back to camp.

  Lander looked at Thompson and the both of them shrugged their shoulders.

  “I love Salisbury steak!” Ellerby said enthusiastically as he walked quickly back to Camp, followed closely by Lander and the rest of 2nd Squad.

  Chapter 13

  “Fifty Mark Ones, range: two-hundred meters, ten o’clock!” Fischer yelled out to Brookes.

  Fischer peered through his binoculars; behind him he could hear Brookes load the mortar and then a loud *Thup*, meaning it had fired. After a few seconds, the round landed in the middle of the group of robots, destroying them.

  “That’s a direct-hit! Targets eliminated.”

  “Cap, we’ve got twenty Mark Twos; range fifty meters and closing!” Sanchez yelled as he ducked away from their laser fire.

  “Crap, how did they get through? Kazir, take them out!” Fischer ordered.

  Kazir swung his gun to the incoming Mark Twos and opened up on them, destroying all but three.

  “Reloading!” Kazir yelled out as he began changing energy cells.

  Just then Fischer spotted a faint glow of something heading their way. Plasma round!

  “Incoming!”

  The round landed near Kazir, the resulting explosion knocking him to the ground.

  “Kazir, are you okay?” Sanchez asked as he ran over to help him up.

  “Sanchez! Kazir is fine! Help me take out the rest of these Twos!” Fischer yelled.

  Sanchez climbed to the top of the trench to fire his rifle. Fischer and Sanchez opened fire; destroying two with several well placed shots. The last robot fired a burst of lasers, forcing Fischer and Sanchez to duck.

  The Mark Two was now on the brim of the trench. Fischer readied his rifle to fire, then he heard a *thup* *bang*. The robot fell backwards and a small object fell into the trench close to him. He quickly realized what it was.

  “Oh Shh…” Fischer said as the plasma round began beeping and flashing faster and faster until.

  “Simulation failure,” a computerized voice said as the ceiling lights above came on, illuminating the large open hangar.

  “What happened?” Sanchez asked.

  “I think Brookes accidentally fragged us,” Fischer said.

  Fischer picked himself up and walked to where he could see Brookes who was surprised by what had just occurred.

  “Brookes, what in the hell happened?” Fischer asked as Sanchez and Kazir walked over.

  “I didn’t check my field of fire before I put the round in the tube. I’m sorry, sir,” Brookes said.

  “I know that, but why was the angle of fire so low?” Fischer asked.

  “Sorry, Cap, that was my bad; I radioed to Brookes that we had a Mark One cluster seven-hundred meters away,” Hartford said as she, Akiyama, Jones, and Cross came running up to see what had happened.

  “Why, Hartford? You guys were supposed to cover us,” Fischer said.

  “Sorry, Cap, I thought if we could knockout that cluster, we could beat the Master Blasters hi-score,” Hartford said as she looked around for agreement.

  Fischer wondered why
in the hell they even had that stupid scoring system in the first place.

  “Sergeant Hartford, this is a simulation not a game, and we need to treat it as such, understand?” Fischer said as Hartford nodded in reply.

  “Well, you had five minutes left and you were twenty-thousand points short of the MBs,” Martin said as he was approaching the squad from the observation terminals. “I’ve got the replay ready for viewing, Cap.”

  “All right, Horses, let’s go to the review room,” Fischer said, motioning the squad towards the room.

  *****

  “Hey, Fish, are you buying this time?” Rhodes asked as Fischer walked into the Officer’s Bar.

  “Crap, it’s my turn, isn’t it?” Fischer said, rubbing his eyes as he pulled up a seat next to Rhodes and Harlan.

  Fischer ordered a pitcher of beer.

  “So where’s your new Lieutenant, Fischer? Rhodes and I were talking about how we would like to meet her,” Harlan said.

  “Yeah, maybe later, she accidentally fragged me in the simulation earlier so I’m having Sergeant Martin run her through some more drills,” Fischer said as he poured himself some beer.

  “Well, I’ll still take her. Actually, her fragging you just makes me want her more,” Harlan said with a grin.

  “So do you think she’s going to be ready, Fish?” Rhodes asked.

  “Yeah, it was just a communications issue, probably more of Hartford’s fault than anything, but hey, it’s why we run the simulations, right?” Fischer said.

  “Yup, so how about a toast? To simulations, without them we would all be dead a long time ago!” Harlan said as the three toasted jokingly.

  “Ain’t that the truth, Harlan? Do you guys remember that private? Umm… I think we nicknamed him Snaps,” Rhodes said as he took a drink.

  “Yeah, how could I forget about him? He was the one who went berserk all the time during the simulations, but would always act normal outside,” Fischer said as he took a sip of his beer.

  “Wait, what’s this? I’ve never heard this story,” Harlan said.

  “It was ten years ago, they had just installed the first fully holographic simulator at the WS&T Building; before that, we had to train outside with dummy rounds and mock robot targets; it wasn’t very realistic. Private Snaps was in my squad and we were the first to try out the simulator. So we go in, start it up, and everything is fine for a few minutes, and then Snaps loses his mind. He just screamed and screamed and then would go crazy, destroying robots left and right. I never saw anyone move so fast. The sim robots could never pick him up. When the simulation finished, he passed out. No one had a clue what happened, the doctors, the COTAX Systems people - who engineered the damn thing - not even Snaps …” Rhodes said.

  “So did they ever find out what caused him to freak out?” Harlan asked, partially interrupting Rhodes.

  “Let me finish. Okay, well the doctors cleared him for active duty after a week and we go back to the front with no problems; he performed normal under combat. Then one month later we go back into the simulator and sure enough, once the simulation starts, Snaps screams like a banshee and goes crazy again. He even grabbed some of his squad-mates and used them as human shields!” Rhodes exclaimed.

  “Yeah, I was there watching that one on the observation terminals. It was complete insanity. I never saw anything like it,” Fischer said.

  “After the simulation ended, Snaps passes out again. This time they flew Snaps out for further study. He was gone for about a month, being looked at by COTAX and UMI scientists and doctors. He comes back to the unit with no memory or recollection of what had happened. He seemed like a different person somehow though,” Rhodes said.

  “Different, how?” Harlan asked.

  “You could tell just by looking into his eyes. Like, he just wasn’t there. I don’t know; it was bizarre. We had another sim scheduled, and I had ordered him to sit it out at first, but General Snow ordered me to put him in there. I protested, but it was no use. I ordered two of my guys to keep a close eye on him. The simulation began, and…” Rhodes stopped and took a drink.

  “And?” Harlan asked on the edge of her seat.

  “And he didn’t scream this time, but hell was he good. He took out the sims like they were nothing. They didn’t even get close to us,” Rhodes said as he finished off his beer.

  “So what was up with this guy?” Harlan asked.

  “Ehh… maybe we should pull up stakes for tonight, we’ve got to head for Grantsburg tomorrow,” Fischer said.

  “No, finish the story, Rhodes,” Harlan demanded.

  “Sure. A couple of weeks later we were sent out to help cover the retreat from Carrollton. I thought it was a little odd, since we were sent in there without the rest of the 2nd Battalion; the withdrawal had pretty much been finished at that point anyway. We encountered a small group of about a hundred Mark Ones and a couple of Mark Twos. I set up a standard defense when suddenly, Snaps runs out there and starts obliterating the robots left and right; like he did in the simulation. While being baffled by the sight of this, we had missed another HRUO group flanking us to the right. They got in close and we started knocking them out, and then out of nowhere Snaps comes and picks up Kowalski and uses him as a human shield. This time however …” Rhodes said, until emotions got to him.

  “Rhodes, you don’t have to finish, I think Harlan gets the idea,” Fischer said as Harlan nodded.

  “It’s okay, Fish. When it was over, five of my soldiers were dead, including Snaps -- he blew his brains out shortly after the fight was over and before I could confront him about what he had done,” Rhodes said as he stared off a million miles away. “We loaded the bodies, including Snaps’ into an awaiting evac Phaeton. When we got back, the UMI Service was waiting, and they confiscated Snaps’ body. I asked Snow about it and she told me to forget about the whole thing and move on. She then told me that Snaps had a history of mental illness and that he was going to be discharged because of it. I didn’t buy that for a second. He was a perfectly normal soldier until that first training incident,” Rhodes said.

  “So wait, Snow just told you to forget about it? I mean you could just access his files, right?” Harlan asked.

  “No, there’s no file, nothing. Of course, no one has had any incidents in the simulations; not like Snaps’ anyway. So you just kinda have to chalk it up to one of those freak things,” Rhodes said.

  “So does anybody know anything about it?” Harlan asked.

  “The UMI, probably, but I’m sure whatever they know is classified. One of the doctors on base told me that Snaps had peculiar brain patterns, but all of their medical records on him were erased from their computers by the UMI,” Rhodes said.

  “There must have been something weird going on,” Harlan said.

  “Yeah, I don’t know and like I said it has never happened again and that incident was ten years ago, so there’s no telling,” Rhodes said as he chugged the last of his final beer.

  “All right, let’s turn in. We’ve got stuff to do tomorrow before we head out,” Fischer said as he paid the tab and the three left the officer’s club.

  Chapter 14

  “Where are we going, Sergeant Martin?” Brookes asked as she was following Martin out of the WS&T Building.

  “Captain Fischer told me to go check on Captain Haggardson after we were finished with the mortar practice. I figured you might want to come along. Figured you could say hi to Haggardson, since you haven’t met him yet,” Martin said.

  “Yeah, that’s true I’ve met everyone except him, I guess,” Brookes said as she walked a little faster to catch up with Martin.

  “Yeah, he usually hangs out with his squadron, the PS-14 Diamond Aces as they’re known,” Martin said.

  “Wait, I thought Captain Haggardson was the pilot of Dark Horse One?” Brookes asked. Brookes had known about Haggardson from the stories she used to read, but never knew much about his squadron.

  “Yeah, he is. Dark Horse One is just the name
of the Phaeton he pilots. He also uses it as his codename when we’re on mission,” Martin said.

  “So he pilots and commands his own squadron?” Brookes asked.

  “Yeah, the Diamond Aces are here to support the 2nd Battalion in our missions. They transport us and provide us with close-in air support,” Martin said.

  “So how many Phaetons are they working with? It only takes one to transport a whole squad,” Brookes said.

  “There are twelve Phaetons in the squadron, but right now there are only nine on base; the other flight is out supporting Captain Hazzard’s Jackboots. They’ve been out at the Beltway front for awhile now. They should be coming back soon, hopefully,” Martin said.

  Martin and Brookes made their way to the Diamond Aces hangar. It wasn’t much different from the other hangars on base; the only way you could tell it apart from the others was the insignia on the hangar doors.

  “Here we are,” Martin said as he opened the personnel door on the side of the hangar.

  Inside the hangar were about five Phaetons lined up by the wall on the side they entered from. A maintenance crew was working on a Phaeton with a Red Hat insignia and a black number two above it.

  “Hey, who let this old fart in here?” asked a voice.

  Brookes looked up and saw a woman in a greasy jumpsuit pop out of the Phaeton’s cockpit; her red hair tied back in a pony tail.

  “Ah… Saunders, still smearing yourself with grease to make it look like you were working I see,” Martin said as Saunders jumped down from the cockpit.

  “Break-time,” Saunders said to her work crew as she walked over to Martin. “So, Martin, what brings you over here? It’s been awhile since you popped your sorry head in.”

  “The Cap asked me to come down and make sure Haggardson is ready to go for tomorrow,” Martin said.

  “Yeah, Haggardson told me you guys were heading out to Grantsburg tomorrow. We’ve been working our asses off getting these Phaetons ready to go. I just finished fixing that main gun malfunction with Dark Horse One over there,” Saunders said as she pointed at the Phaeton. “Well, Martin, you didn’t introduce me to the Lieutenant here.”