Robot Wars: Thrown Into the Fray

by Nicholas Haring

  “Oh yeah, Saunders, meet 2nd Lieutenant Madison Brookes. Brookes, this here is Tech Sergeant Colby Saunders. If you have a Phaeton with a million holes in it and on fire, she’ll be the one to tell you to get a new one,” Martin said, chuckling as Saunders saluted Brookes.

  “Nice to meet you, Sergeant Saunders,” Brookes said.

  “It’s a pleasure, Lieutenant. Don’t mind the old oaf here; he’ll be retiring in a couple of months, thankfully; isn’t that right, Martin?” Saunders said.

  “Yeah, the squad is going to fall apart with Hartford and Sanchez as the top NCOs,” Martin said.

  “It’s falling apart now! Besides, you got the new Lieutenant here; she’ll keep ‘em in shape; right, Lieutenant Brookes?” Saunders said jokingly.

  “So where’s Haggardson? Why isn’t he out here helping you guys fix these things up?” Martin asked.

  “Pfft… He and the other Phaeton jockeys are going over kill-cam footage right now. Hey, you guys should see this one video; I think it was Lieutenant Michelson’s Phaeton, swoops down and wipes out twenty Mark Twos in one pass and then rockets a Mark Four, which then falls on a Mark Three!” Saunders excitedly exclaimed.

  “Yeah, I already saw it. Of course my angle would be a little different since I was in a mud soaked trench, not in a Phaeton,” Martin said.

  “Yeah, you should still check it out anyways; Colassanti was thinking about putting it on the net. He thinks it might get over a million views,” Saunders said.

  “I guess while we’re waiting for Haggardson, do you mind if I show Brookes Dark Horse One?” Martin asked.

  “No, go right ahead; the only thing left to be done in there is restocking the barf bags for ya,” Saunders said with a wink causing Martin to shake his head.

  “This here is the Dark Horse One. It’s not your typical Phaeton either, it’s an ADS-2CT, which as you know means it’s the commando transport variant. It has the latest stealth tech, allowing us to get behind the HRUO sensors and radar to attack their factories, since we can’t bomb them from the air. This transport variant also has dual laser cannons in the nose and a Gatling laser on the side door. It has enough room for twelve troops and their equipment. Heh… when I first enlisted we were still using Blackhawks and Chinooks to get around; I wish we had this baby back then,” Martin said as he moved his hand across the left wing of the Phaeton.

  “Wow… Blackhawks? I’ve only seen those at the Academy museum,” Brookes responded as she poked her head through the Phaeton’s side door to get better look inside.

  The interior was smaller than what she had originally envisioned. It was about eight-feet in width and twenty-feet in length inside with just enough head room to stand up. The heavy armor plating - used for crew and passenger protection - took up quite a bit of space.

  Brookes noticed a strong odor of burnt electrical wiring and grease lingering inside, probably from the recent maintenance work. The cockpit had two seats side-by-side; one for the pilot and the other for the co-pilot. There were only a few analog gauges, the rest was displayed on the digital screens and in the pilot’s HUD.

  “Have you guys taken many hits in this thing?” Brookes asked.

  “All the time; it would be odd if we didn’t get hit at least once. The armor does an excellent job of keeping us protected until we get on the ground. The biggest AA threats are the Fours and the SAM bots. We still haven’t figured out why the robots never use their interceptors in frontline action. They always keep them patrolling for our bombers, which we never send out anymore,” Martin said.

  “When was the last time you were sent out to destroy a robot factory?” Brookes asked.

  “It was two years ago, if you can believe that. It was before the massive HRUO armies and Mark Fours. We knocked out a factory outside of what used to be Atlanta, but ever since then our job has been plugging up holes in the lines or reforming new defensive lines after those damn fuckers breakthrough,” Martin said with frustration in his voice.

  “I’ve never understood why High Command just doesn’t send out cruise missiles and nuke ‘em, already,” Brookes said, though she already knew why.

  “The factories are too hardened and nukes aren’t that effective; they just spread radiation everywhere. The radiation doesn’t harm the robots, it just makes them radioactive. They’re EMP shielded too, so the EMP bombs have zero-effect as well. Nope, the only way to kill them is to blast them, blow them up, or take out their factories so they can’t make anymore,” Martin said.

  “Sergeant Martin? And you must be Lieutenant Brookes,” a voice behind them said.

  Brookes turned around to see a man who looked more in place with the 1940’s than he did now. He wore an old faded leather bomber jacket with remnants of past unit insignia patches and the Diamond Ace patch on the sleeves. He walked over to Brookes and Martin with a confident, slightly hobbled gait. She took note of how he looked just like he did in the pictures all those years ago, he still looked pretty good for a man in his late-40’s who had been through a lot.

  “So what do you think of Dark Horse One, Lieutenant? Pretty nice, ain’t she?” Haggardson said.

  “Yeah, it is,” Brookes said.

  “Captain Haggardson, Captain Fischer wants to know if you’ll be ready to go tomorrow,” Martin said.

  “Yeah, I am, but that’s more of a question for Saunders,” Haggardson said.

  Haggardson leaned around the Phaeton and looked over to where Saunders and her crew were working.

  “Hey, Saunders!”

  Saunders popped her head out of the cockpit of Red Hat Two.

  “Yeah, what’s up, Cap’n?”

  “How are you progressing on the maintenance?” Haggardson asked.

  “This is the last one. We should be finished in about thirty minutes, assuming dumb-dumb here doesn’t screw up anymore,” Saunders said.

  “Hey!” a voice inside of the Phaeton protested as Saunders smirked and disappeared back into the cockpit.

  “Yeah, will be ready to go, but I would have preferred to leave once Birkholz’s Flight and CS-12 got back, but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to be an option,” Haggardson said as he looked to the floor, shaking his head. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Lieutenant Brookes, if you will excuse me; I have some pressing matters that need to be taken care.”

  “Come on, Brookes, let’s head back to the barracks,” Martin said.

  “Yeah, okay,” Brookes said.

  Brookes thought she would be more anxious about tomorrow than what she was, but she was just too tired to think about it.

  Chapter 15

  It was a cold Sunday morning as Lander and his squad was at the makeshift firing range that they had finished constructing last night. Lander was keeping track of hits on target and the results weren’t looking very good.

  “Ellerby, that’s five misses in a row! Try aiming at the tackling dummies!” Lander yelled over the noise of the gunfire.

  Ellerby took a couple of more shots at the tackling dummies and missed. Lander put his hand to his face. “Ellerby, those tackling dummies are twenty-five meters away! How can all of your shots miss?”

  “Sorry, Sarge, I’m having trouble aiming with this thing and I’m not used to the recoil yet,” Ellerby said.

  Lander looked over at Thompson who nodded his head and walked over to Ellerby to show him the proper way to hold and aim the rifle again.

  “Sergeant Lander, how’s your squad progressing?” Forsythe asked as she came up behind Lander.

  “Not very well, ma’am, we’re averaging at forty-percent hit rates. We just need more time on the ranges,” Lander said; Forsythe nodded and crossed her arms behind her back.

  “We’re going to have to make do with what we have. I’ve been assured that we’re just going to be used for security detail, helping the city police and so forth,” Forsythe said.

  “That’s a relief, ma’am; I think we’ll be able to handle that without too much trouble,” Lander said.

&
nbsp; “You will have fifteen more minutes here, and then I want you to rotate with 3rd Squad over at the obstacle course before lunch. At 1300 hours we’re going to have a Company briefing about our mission here in town. We should be pretty well off if the grunts on the line hold, which they will,” Forsythe said as she turned and walked away.

  *****

  “Come on, Ellerby, try the ropes again. You have to at least get halfway,” Lander said as he watched Ellerby try and fail to climb the rope for a third time.

  “You should just let him skip it, Chet. I don’t think the little pudgy guy has the upper body strength to make it,” Thompson said.

  “Yeah, okay, Ellerby, skip the ropes!” Lander yelled to Ellerby who had just fallen for a fourth time.

  “Okay!” Ellerby responded as he sluggishly picked himself up off the ground and then slowly ran to the next obstacle.

  “I think that kid has been playing too much GameBox,” Thompson said to Lander.

  “Well, at least the rest of the squad seems to be doing okay,” Lander said.

  “Heh… as long as they do better than what they did at the range, I’m happy,” Thompson said.

  *****

  Lander was eating in the mess tent going over the results of the firing range and the obstacle course when Thompson sat down across from him.

  “So what’s the damage?” Thompson asked.

  “Let’s see … if the town is attacked by fluffy puppies; I think we might be to handle them, but as it sits right now, we might have trouble taking down a single Mark One,” Lander said, and then looked up from his notes and rubbed his eyes.

  “Shit, fluffy puppies would be a handful. You would lose all unit cohesion the second someone goes ‘awww’ and runs over to pet one,” Thompson said.

  “Good thing the robots haven’t figured that one out,” Lander said.

  Ellerby, with a tray full of spaghetti, plopped down next to Lander. “Hey, Sarge, boy I’m starving. That obstacle course wore me out,” Ellerby said as he began to dig in.

  Lander thought about telling Ellerby to maybe eat only half of that, but he wasn’t going to lose weight in the next few days nor was he going to get in shape by then; so there was no real point. The other squad members sat down at the table and it occurred to Lander that he had never really talked to any of them.

  Lander looked at the squad’s marksmen, who had - to no surprise - done the best on the range. Specialist Devin Riley had been in the regular army for four years and was the only one at the table to see any actual combat, besides Thompson and himself.

  “Hey, Riley, you work at accounts receivable at the COTAX factory office, right?” Lander asked.

  “Yup, I’ve worked there for about two years. I think I’ve seen you around there,” Riley said.

  “Yeah, it’s possible. I recently got promoted to 2nd shift manager, though it doesn’t seem that they needed me, because I’m here,” Lander said.

  “Yeah, I don’t think anyone from accounts was kept on; we’re just expendable, I guess,” Riley said, causing Ellerby to perk up from his food with worry.

  “Expendable?” Ellerby said with a gulp.

  “Nah, don’t worry about it, Ellerby. We’re just security. We won’t see any action, even if we have to fallback,” Thompson said.

  “I don’t know; I was at the Blue Ridge Front and they would rotate reservist units in, every now and then. Guessing on this build up though, I think they’re just expecting a one-off attack,” Riley said.

  “Yeah, I guess we’ll find out for sure at the briefing later today,” Lander said.

  Ellerby went back to his food and Lander looked over him to Private First Class Vivian Porter who was quietly eating and staring off into space. Lander was also wondering what time it was and Porter was the only one who seemed to have a watch on at the moment.

  “Hey Porter, hey Porter,” Lander said as he snapped Porter out of her daydream. “Would you tell me the time?”

  Porter looked down at her watch.

  “Umm… 1230 hours,” Porter said.

  “You need to get your watch fixed, Chet,” Thompson said with a smirk.

  “Well, I think we all need to get watches actually,” Lander said.

  Lander looked back over to Porter, who was already staring off into space again. Then there was Private Reggie Samson, the squad’s machine gunner; which was just as well since he missed sixty-percent of his targets at the range, only besting Ellerby by a few percentage points. Samson looked liked he might have been a star linebacker in high school who never progressed any further than that.

  “Private Samson, how’s everything going?” Lander asked.

  “Oh, fine, sir… I mean, just fine, Sergeant. I uh, don’t really have much to say,” Samson said.

  Lander saw that the gears were turning slowly in his head just from that question; he didn’t want to push him too much.

  “Are you going to be good to go?” Lander asked.

  “You can count on me, Sergeant Lander. This waiting around has got me on edge,” Samson said.

  “Yeah, I think everyone is, but hopefully in thirty minutes we can relieve some of our worries,” Lander said as Samson nodded.

  Lander glanced over to his right; Ellerby was eyeing Lander’s plate that he had mostly finished off with the exception of the applesauce.

  “Are – Are you going to eat that?” Ellerby asked.

  “Nah. Go ahead, Ellerby, I hate applesauce,” Lander said, causing Ellerby to gleam.

  Ellerby dug in as Thompson just shook his head.

  *****

  “Everyone ready? Ok, we’ll begin. As you know by now I am Captain Chow Ho-Wan, your Company CO. I know we haven’t had much time to do much of anything in the way of training, but you have all served in the military in some capacity before. I expect you all to perform to the best of your abilities. Lieutenant, can you get the holo up?” Ho-Wan said as the holo-projector flickered on.

  “Nice light show, huh Chet?” Thompson said as he nudged Lander in the right arm with his elbow.

  “Here is the 32nd LRD’s main AO, just south of our town,” Ho-Wan said as the map scrolled to the south. “They’ve been holding this fixed line for some time now, so it’s well-prepared with concrete pillboxes, laser turrets, and bot traps.”

  Lander stared blankly at the holo-projection as he began to zone out. From what Lander had seen of the 32nd, the Grantsburg Front was no picnic; so why call up the reserves now? Lander shook his head at the thought of what the robots were throwing their way.

  Lander worried; he was sure that they were going to be used for security and manning check points, but he wondered when presented with those trying to flee town if he and his unit would be able to keep them from leaving or if they would even want to. He thought about if his family were amongst those trying to flee. Would he let them or abandon his post and flee with them? Lander mulled over in his head different scenarios, some came down to him stealing an army JLTV, grabbing his family, and driving north. What would he do afterwards? He would be a deserter and he couldn’t put that on his family, but at least they would be alive. There were so many no-win scenarios.

  A loud chorus of boos and groans filled the room, waking Lander from his daydream. Most of the reservists seemed visibly upset and others were in shock. Lander looked over at Thompson who was muttering obscenities.

  “What’s wrong Paul? What did I miss?” Lander asked as it seemed like he was the only one left out of the loop.

  “You didn’t hear what these fuckers are going to do to us, Chet?”

  “No, I was zoning out, what’s going on?”

  Thompson looked Lander straight in the eye, with a look that a doctor would give to a family member who’s loved one just contracted inoperable cancer.

  “They’re sending us to the front, Chet, those good for nothing bastards!” Thompson said as he yelled the last bit to the front of the room where the officers were.

  “Son of a …” Lander mumbled to him
self.

  New and more frightening scenarios began popping up in his mind, as the old ones; some of which were bad in themselves, fell away.

  Chapter 16

  “High Command ordered you to do what?” Fischer asked so that he could make sure that, he did in fact hear the stupidest thing in his life.

  “We’re sending the reservists to the front, we have no other choice in the matter,” General Williams said as he was viewing the holo map.

  Fischer couldn’t believe what was happening; for the first time in years the robots were changing their tactics. Two smaller HRUO armies were going to attack Leesville and Sherman, which flanked Grantsburg to the sides. It was odd for them, since there was nothing there of strategic value or importance; they were just towns nestled in dead end valleys. They had no factories; they were barely even towns. Fischer thought about it for a second and realized he was probably more appalled by the fact that High Command wanted to pull off a regiment to defend both of them.

  “High Command doesn’t want to concede any ground to the robots, but they also can’t send us anymore reinforcements right now. There are attacks just like this going on all over the place,” Williams said as he expanded out the map. “Some of the fronts are worse off than we are, so we have to make do. I’ve conferred with General Snow earlier - before your arrival - and she thinks the best strategy is to attach a reserve company to your commando squads. What do you think, Captain Fischer?”

  Fischer thought it was ludicrous, but so was the whole situation.

  “That’ll be fine, sir. Do you have a Reserve Company in mind?” Fischer asked though he thought it made little difference.

  “Yes, I think Major Daniels here can answer that for you,” Williams said as he motioned over to Major Daniels who was standing in the back corner of the room.

  Daniels walked up and cleared out his throat.

  “I’m going to assign three-fourths of Captain Ho-Wan’s Bravo Company to you; the other quarter will remain under his direct control.”