Robot Wars: Thrown Into the Fray

by Nicholas Haring

  “I’m a dreamer, Hart,” Sanchez said, and then started pounding on some pipes below the counter.

  Brookes began to tune Hartford and Sanchez out as they went back and forth over the decrepit soda fountain. She looked over at Porter who looked like she was thinking of a billion other places where she would rather be.

  “How are you doing, Porter?” Brookes asked.

  “Fine, ma’am,” Porter said as she turned her gaze to Brookes. “You know, I saw a GNN news van drive by when you were talking with Fischer.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, heh… I felt like jumping in and begging for my old job back,” Porter said as she tried to perk up a little.

  “Well, I think it may be a little too late for that now,” Brookes said jokingly, but Porter didn’t respond and became a little more sullen. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah… it’s just -- Riley and I, are all that’s left of Lander’s squad; heck, we might be the only two left from our entire platoon for that matter. I knew some of those people and recognized a lot of them from around town, and to think they may all be gone and that my home is about to be gone too; it’s almost a little more than I can bear. It was easier before when I was looking through the camera, there was always that disconnect. I wish I could feel that right now, but I can’t,” Porter said as it looked like her emotions were welling up inside her, just below the surface.

  Brookes couldn’t think of anything to say. She thought about what Fischer might tell her; she was sure he would tell her some jingoistic bullshit to try and make her feel better, but that was the furthest thing that Porter probably wanted to hear right now.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am, where’s your home?” Porter asked. Brookes could tell Porter was trying hard to keep the tide back.

  “Orion Airbase -- I guess. To tell you the truth, I don’t really have one. My parents live in New Omaha. My mother is a UN High Councilwoman, and my father works for the Unified Nations too; he coordinates aid-relief to various parts of the world; he’s usually gone about nine-tenths of the year. I haven’t been back to their house since I left for college. That was almost six years ago now,” Brookes said as she picked up and looked at the crusty metal and glass salt shaker next to the rusted napkin holder on their table; its ancient contents still inside.

  “Heh… I guess you and I have something in common,” Porter said.

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “We’re both practically homeless,” Porter said with a slight smile.

  Brookes smiled too. She poured out some salt onto her right hand and threw it over her left shoulder. She held out the shaker for Porter.

  “Here, Porter, for good luck,” Brookes said as she handed the salt shaker to Porter.

  “Aw… what the hell,” Porter said as she threw the salt over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to have any horseshoes or four-leaf clovers?”

  Brookes smirked and was about to respond when Fischer walked into the drug store.

  “All right everyone, we’re moving out with the rest of the battalion. We’re going to hold a critical road junction just south of the bridges. We need to hold it long enough for everyone to get across the river. Let’s move,” Fischer ordered as he clapped his hands and motioned everyone out.

  Brookes stood up and looked over to Sanchez; he looked disappointed as he jumped over the counter and said under his breath indignantly as he walked by, about how he just got the soda fountain working. Brookes was the last out of the drug store as she shut the broken, boarded-up double door behind her, and then caught up with everyone else.

  Chapter 36

  Lander opened his eyes and found himself face-down in a small pool of rust-colored mud; he could only feel his forehead, and the pain was killing him. He looked up; the rain was falling down heavily as it washed the mud into his eyes. He felt his forehead; a nice little gash and tender to the touch, but he didn’t think it would need stitches, he hoped.

  Lander then suddenly realized where he was as he sat up and looked to his left in the direction of the large number of heavy explosions. They were off to the south less than a kilometer away. It was artillery fire, possibly from the heavy mortar brigade. He could see the majority of the robot mass waiting behind the wall of dust and fire, as though they were caged lions ready to be released on their prey. He had to get out of here, and fast. He tried to stand up, but quickly fell down; he hadn’t fully got his strength back.

  “Ellerby? Captain Fischer? Any-Anybody?” Lander yelled out, slowly picking himself up as he looked around.

  Lander could see that hundreds of robots had already made it past the artillery wall, but they were scattered in small groups spread throughout the valley. He looked quickly around where he was, but luckily none of the robots were close enough to notice him, and if they did notice him, they didn’t show any interest in attacking him at the moment. The ground around him was covered in smoking craters slowly filling with water. The farmhouse to his right had been blown to bits; it had become nothing more than a smoldering pile of lumber and bricks.

  “Uhh… La-Lander,” said a voice of someone struggling to breathe; it came from behind him.

  Lander turned around to see a soldier sitting on the ground, up against the door of a mostly collapsed, chipped-red, wooden barn; it was Ellerby. Lander ran, hobbling slightly over to him. Ellerby was holding a piece of tin roofing from the barn over his stomach; he looked pale, paler than usual; a small stream of blood coming out his mouth fell to the ground and coalesced into the puddle he was sitting in.

  “Ellerby, oh my god!” Lander said as he rushed up and knelt down beside him. He looked at the tin over his stomach; a large quantity of blood was soaking his waist and pants just below it.

  “Lander, you’ve got to get out of here,” Ellerby coughed.

  “Not without you, Ellerby,” Lander said he looked around and saw a JLTV no more than a hundred yards or so away, up the slight rise to his left. “Look, there’s a JLTV. I’ll carry you over and we’ll get you to a med station.”

  Ellerby shook his head, but Lander tried to pick him up anyway, causing Ellerby to groan in terrible pain.

  “No… please, Lander, you have to leave me. I-I-” Ellerby said, struggling to finish the sentence, but he suddenly stopped and slumped over. He wasn’t breathing.

  “Ellerby? Ellerby? Ellerby!” Lander exclaimed as he shook him, trying to wake him up, but it was no use.

  Lander looked around for someone – anyone - to help. He then looked back to the JLTV. He saw that there was soldier manning the gun on top. Lander waved frantically and yelled out to them. They remained where they were; they weren’t coming.

  “I’m sorry, Ellerby,” Lander said as he closed the young man’s eyelids.

  Lander removed Ellerby’s dog tags, and then took out the thermal blanket from his pack and covered him up. He had a brief moment of silence for him, but he soon noticed the artillery bombardment was beginning to trickle-off and then cease altogether.

  The robot mass began to pour through the clouds of dust. Seeing this sent Lander into a semi-paralyzed state of terror as it sent chills all throughout his body. He knew he only had about twenty minutes at the most to get out of here and find his family.

  Just before Lander turned around to leave, he heard something moving inside the barn, knocking stuff over. Lander walked closer to the noise.

  “Hello? Is anyone in there?” Lander asked.

  He could hear the sounds getting louder and faster paced as they moved towards him quickly. Lander backed away from the barn as the noise of movement got louder, then the door flew off its hinges, as though it had been blown out by an air cannon.

  Lander shielded his eyes from the splinters and then looked up. It was a heavily carbon scarred Mark One; likely a survivor of a close explosion.

  “Oh shit!” Lander yelled out as he ran away from it.

  The Mark One took a swing at him with its arms, and missed. It then pursued Lander
as he ran to the JLTV, waving his arms frantically and yelling, trying desperately to get the guy on the machinegun’s attention. He could hear its engine running the closer he got.

  Only when Lander got close enough did he realize the soldier on the machinegun was dead. The MP was slumped over; the center of his chest was partially caved-in; it reminded him of uncooked hamburger. Lander ran around to the other side and saw the driver side door open. He got to the door and was stunned when he saw the driver - a young private - bent over the steering wheel. The left side of his face was missing. Lander was frozen for a second by the sight of this, but he heard the robot to his right, closing in.

  Lander dragged the poor private out of the driver’s seat and threw him unceremoniously on the rain drenched ground. He hopped into the blood soaked driver’s seat. The steering wheel was covered in blood and small bits of flesh. The windshield had a tennis ball-sized hole through it, just about head high. He slammed the door shut, and glanced at the rearview mirror; the Mark One and the horde behind it were getting closer.

  Lander threw the vehicle in drive and gunned it. It spun-out for a moment, but then at the last second got traction before the One got close enough to attack.

  The terrain was rough as Lander bounced around at high-speed. The dead soldier on the machinegun fell back into the vehicle and lay face up on the floor between the front and back seats.

  Lander got on the paved road and drove through a barricade at an abandoned MP checkpoint. He looked in his rear-view mirror; the robot shrank and disappeared as he drove away. Lander glanced back at the dead Corporal. He could just barely make out the name on the blood stained tag on his uniform. He recognized the face and the name.

  “Smith …” Lander said to himself as he looked back to the road in front of him. He swerved quickly to avoid another abandoned roadblock, almost crashing into a telephone pole in the process.

  He turned right onto a road that led to his house. He was determined to find Deb and Carly, and get the hell out of here before it was too late. Lander wasn’t sure if Thompson had gotten to them or not, if he had even made it to them. He sped up as he blew through stop signs.

  *****

  Lander slammed on the brakes as he arrived at his house, creating a nice line of steamy skid marks on the wet road. The right front wheel of the JLTV was on the curb as Lander jumped out and ran to his front door. The neighborhood looked completely deserted. Lander noticed that all of the houses - including his own - had markings on them. The markings were orange X’s spray-painted on all of the front doors. The x on Lander’s door had 11-29 inside the top of the x, the right side was blank, the bottom had 2-0, and the left had C-2055; his reserve company had been here. Lander busted through the sealed door and entered his home.

  “Deb! Carly! Are you here?” Lander yelled as he went from room to room.

  Lander could hear the TV in the living room. He ran in, but no one was there. He looked at the TV, it was tuned to GNN; there was no mention of Grantsburg, not even on the scrolling news ticker at the bottom of the screen. The afternoon pseudo-talk show was too focused on the latest celebrity sex scandal and this year’s must-have toys for Christmas. Lander, disgusted, quickly left the room.

  Carly’s room was a mess, some of her dresser draws were on the floor; piles of her clothes scattered on the bed. It looked like they had left suddenly and in a hurry. He heard a crunch as he took a step forward. He looked down and noticed he had stepped on Carly’s crayons and her dinosaur coloring book; she had been coloring a yellow triceratops before she left. He lifted up his boot; the book was now stamped with his muddy print.

  His room was in the same mess. His closet was wide open. He saw that their suitcases were missing, along with most of the clothes. The old photo albums on the top closet shelf were gone too. The digital picture frame on Deb’s nightstand was missing as well. Lander sat down on the bed to rest for a second. He could still hear the TV in the living room, and the electric hum - which he had been tuning out - suddenly, became more prominent again.

  Lander didn’t rest for long. He stood up immediately when he heard the foghorns blast over the noise of the hum, he knew had to get out quickly and try for the shelter. He ran out of his house and looked to the south.

  He could see a Mark Four behind one of the houses way down at the far end of the street. The smaller Twos and Ones were busting through the hedges and fences of its back yard. Then he heard the sounds of mortars being fired behind them. It had to be the Threes, and they were shelling the town indiscriminately.

  I have to get to that shelter! Lander thought as he saw the shells land in the center of town.

  Lander jumped into the JLTV and drove over his mail box as he sped away. He glanced back in the rearview mirror and saw a flash. He then saw a missile fly over and past his vehicle; it slammed into a house on his far right. It exploded violently upon impact, sending shrapnel and flaming debris careening into the vehicle’s armor and onto the road in front of him.

  Lander swerved hard to the left to avoid the flaming piles of debris. He turned so hard he almost tipped the top-heavy JLTV over. He saved it at the last second, and then drove off. He turned off onto Main Street as the mortar rounds began to explode around him the closer he got to downtown.

  *****

  Lander crashed the JLTV through a checkpoint downtown. The soldiers were running for cover into the surrounding buildings, trying to escape the incoming mortar blasts. A soldier ran out in front of him, trying to wave him down. Lander swerved around him, but lost control and ran into a telephone pole.

  The impact sent Lander into the steering wheel; dazed he threw it in reverse and tried to drive away, but the vehicle seemed to be stuck, like it was hung-up on something; his tires were spinning out.

  The driver’s side door was thrown open and Lander was grabbed by a couple of soldiers and dragged out of the vehicle.

  “Get to cover, damn it!” a Sergeant yelled as the soldiers dove into a florist shop.

  “Damn it! We should have picked a place with less glass!” A young private yelled as Lander and the three soldiers lay on the floor surrounded by glass and porcelain vases filled with various flowers.

  A nearby explosion shattered the store’s front glass, throwing shards on to everyone. The blast wave knocked everything off the store tables and shelves. A glass vase crashed onto Lander’s back, bounced off, and shattered on the floor next to him. The explosions started to head north. Cries and yells could be heard outside as Lander and the other soldiers picked themselves up.

  Lander wiped the shards of glass off of him and turned to head back to the JLTV, which had escaped damage from the explosions.

  “Hey, where do you think you’re going, soldier?” a voice behind Lander demanded to know.

  “I’m going to find my family,” Lander said, but was stopped at the door by two soldiers in his way.

  Lander turned around to see to a twenty-something-year-old lieutenant and his slightly older sergeant standing there with their arms crossed. They looked as though they had seen some heavy action; the sergeant’s uniform was partially singed around the left shoulder, the area was covered in bandages, but she seemed ready for whatever was coming.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Sergeant -- Lander. You’re going to stay here and help us hold the line. We need everybody we can get,” the Lieutenant said as he walked closer to Lander.

  The lieutenant motioned for a laser rifle and some ammo. A soldier hurried over and gave it to Lander. The rifle looked heavily used and had scorched marks on it.

  “There. Let’s hope you fair better than the guy who had it before you. I’m Lieutenant Kenneth Wilcox and this is my second-in-command, Staff Sergeant Patricia Nguyen. Welcome to Foxtrot Company, 17th IR, or what‘s left of it anyway,” Wilcox said as he looked at everyone in the room.

  Lander looked around too, there didn’t seem to be many soldiers left. There were only ten in the room and just as many running about outside.

&n
bsp; “How many do you have?” Lander asked.

  “Thirty-four, but I guess now it’s up to thirty-five,” Nguyen said with a smirk. She walked past Lander, hopped through the broken store-front window, and then climbed up to the top of the JLTV. “Hey, Lieutenant, I think we can use this JLTV. It still has its machinegun up top with plenty of ammo. There’s also a dead MP inside, sir!”

  “Okay, have Kelly move it around to the alleyway, after he takes the body to the med-station!” Wilcox ordered.

  Lander watched as the JLTV drove away. The rest of the soldiers exited the store, except Wilcox who came closer to Lander.

  “I’m guessing that wasn’t your vehicle with the dead MP inside, was it?” Wilcox said; Lander hesitated in responding. “Well, this can work out two ways for you, Sergeant. You can either stay here and fight with us -- or you don’t. If you don’t, and assuming we survive all of this, then I’ll report you in for desertion, and you can take your chances with a firing squad; I hear they don’t miss, Sergeant Lander. So what will it be?”

  Lander gulped and thought about it fast. Sure, Foxtrot had only thirty-four soldiers, but there had to be at least a thousand Regs, if not more, in the downtown area alone. He wouldn’t make it far. He had no choice, maybe during the chaos later he could slip away, but it wasn’t looking good.

  “You can count on me, sir,” Lander said, and then followed Wilcox outside.

  “We’ll see. In the meantime you’ll stick close to me. And you won’t go anywhere unless I or Nguyen tells you too, clear?” Wilcox said as he pointed to Nguyen who eyed Lander.

  Lander nodded and looked to the south. The robots were getting closer, maybe ten minutes before they were in firing range. Wilcox turned and saw them too, and ordered everyone to their positions. The same order could be heard all over the downtown area as Wilcox and Nguyen hustled to the lightly damaged three-story brick building across the street. Lander followed close behind.