Robot Wars: Thrown Into the Fray

by Nicholas Haring

  “Well, if Kelly goes up and finds the coast clear, then what?” Lander asked as he flicked an insect off his arm.

  “We’ll find somewhere with a better vantage point and lay low. They’ll probably be blowing the bridges soon, and once they do the robots will eventually retreat; we then sneak out, and swim across the river,” Wilcox said, confident in his plan.

  “Sir, I can’t swim,” Lander said.

  “Can’t swim? It’s easy, just do a doggy paddle, and you’ll be fine,” Nguyen said like it was so obvious.

  “It’s not easy if you’ve never done it before,” Lander said to Nguyen.

  “Hey, we’ll figure something out, Lander. I’m sure there’s a store between here and the river that carries those little arm floaty things,” Wilcox chuckled, causing Kelly and Nguyen to quietly laugh at him as well.

  Lander reached down for his rifle, but stopped when he remembered that he was out of ammo.

  “Funny,” Lander said; he was really wishing he had at least three shots.

  *****

  Several hours had passed by, or at least Lander thought; he really couldn’t tell except that the light coming through the crack in the cellar door was fading fast.

  “Should I go check to see if the coast is clear?” Kelly asked.

  “No, wait …” Wilcox said as the group started to hear a low rumble in the distance; it sounded as though it were headed their way. “The robots are heading back this way.”

  The rumble got louder and louder and then Lander could hear the robots as they walked by. It was a terrific noise produced by thousands of clanking metal feet on the paved road outside. The noise and vibration grew in intensity; it felt as though the whole house were going to buckle under the tremors.

  It then quickly subsided as the noise and vibrations faded off to the south; it was eerily quiet outside now, just a spout of laser fire every now and then could be heard.

  “Did they blow the bridges?” Lander asked.

  “No, we would’ve felt that kind of explosion,” Nguyen said.

  “Okay Kelly, go up and check it out. Be careful,” Wilcox said as Kelly nervously started up the stairs.

  Kelly made his way up to the cellar door and carefully inched it open. He got it open just enough to see out. He then looked back to Wilcox, gave a thumbs up, then slowly opened the door, and cautiously went outside, quietly closing the door behind him.

  Ten or twenty minutes went by and there was no sign from Kelly. Lander started to wonder if Kelly made a break for it, or worse.

  “Crap,” Wilcox said as he jumped off the washing machine he was sitting on. “Okay, we’re going to have to take our chances. Nguyen, toss Lander one your mags, I think he’s out.

  The three gathered at the bottom of the stairwell. Nguyen handed Lander one of her spare mags and nodded; he ejected his spent mag and put the fresh one in; he now had thirty shots to work with.

  “Okay, stay behind me. The backyard is relatively hidden from the street, so stay low, and be quiet. Hopefully, Kelly hasn’t gotten too far, if he’s alive, and if he isn’t, then he shouldn’t be too hard to find anyway. Lander, I want you to stay behind me, and Nguyen I want you to bring up the rear, watch our six,” Wilcox said as Lander and Nguyen both nodded.

  The three slowly made their way up the stairs. Wilcox cracked the door open and peered out, and then whispered for Kelly, but after a minute with no response, he opened the door, and the three stealthily made their way outside. There was still the ambience of an ongoing battle raging around them, but it sounded distant and was a far-cry from the intensity of just a few hours ago.

  Lander heard the roar of engines above; he looked up, and was comforted by the sight of several flights of Phaetons zipping by high above them, heading south.

  “Looks like we received reinforcements,” Lander said with a relieved smile, but neither Wilcox nor Nguyen took any real notice.

  “Lander, we still have to find Kelly and make it back to our lines, even if the main robot army is retreating, we may still encounter some stragglers, possibly in overwhelming numbers, so stay focused, all right?” Wilcox said; he then leaned carefully around the northeast corner of the house.

  Wilcox went around the corner; Lander and Nguyen quickly followed. Wilcox stopped when he came to the old wooden gate that led to the front yard. The gate was wide-open, even though they had closed it when they came in earlier. Lander heard some rustling coming from the large unkempt hedges on the other side of the fence.

  “Kelly? Kelly, is that you?” Wilcox asked in a hush-tone, but the rustling continued.

  Wilcox worked the charging handle on his laser pistol and then quickly jumped through the open gate, with Lander following. Lander and Wilcox had their weapons drawn on the rustling when it stopped and a squirrel jumped out and ran up a nearby oak tree.

  Wilcox shook his head and lowered his pistol. He signaled for Lander and Nguyen to follow him as they made their way down the hedge row to the sidewalk. The road south looked clear, and the neighborhood they were in looked relatively untouched compared to the rest of town.

  They were in what was left of the old downtown historic housing district. The houses were of a Victorian style, and were mostly crumbling due to a lack of maintenance and care. He knew that a lot of them had been restored during the early 2000s, but after the robot attacks they had fallen into disrepair.

  The large fire blazing downtown looked as though it were engulfing most of the buildings there; the heat from it, it was intense. His hometown was burning away to ash before his eyes and there was nothing he could do about it. He wondered if his house was still there, if that even mattered now.

  Wilcox made his way to the end of the hedge row and peered around it to view the street to the north.

  “Looks clear, stay behind me; we’ll use the abandoned cars on the street for cover,” Wilcox said; he then rounded the hedge to a brown four-door sedan thirty-feet away.

  Lander and Nguyen quickly followed. Lander could hear yelling and friendly laser fire not too far away. We’ve got to be close, he thought.

  The three went from car to car, keeping low and moving as quietly as possible. Wilcox would call for Kelly as quietly as he could at each stop, but there was no sign of him. The houses and storefronts all around them were boarded up with no signs of entry.

  At a large, black truck, Lander glanced to his left down an alleyway near a fenced-in storage unit complex and spotted a soldier laying face down in a pool of blood; it looked like it could be Kelly.

  Lander tapped Wilcox on the soldier and pointed over to the body. Wilcox looked over Lander and Nguyen.

  “Shit. Come on, let’s go check and see if it’s Kelly. Stick close and watch for anything suspicious,” Wilcox said as he ran to the parked car closest to the body on the other side of the street.

  Lander and Nguyen then followed one at a time over to Wilcox who was already preparing to move over to the body.

  The three hurried quietly over and Wilcox turned it over; it was definitely Kelly, or what was left of him anyway. Kelly’s throat had been crushed beyond recognition and he had a large gaping wound in his chest; it looked as though most of his rib cage had been violently ripped out of him.

  “Oh god,” Nguyen said as she covered her mouth to keep herself from throwing up.

  “Looks like a One got a hold of him,” Wilcox said as he motioned to Lander; the two of them moved the body out of the alley.

  Lander could hear something moving down at the end of alleyway.

  “I think it’s still here,” Lander said; Wilcox nodded in agreement.

  “Let’s get that bastard,” Nguyen said as she cocked the charging handle on her laser rifle.

  The three cautiously made their way down the filthy, narrow alleyway, following a small trail of blood. It sounded like the robot was around the right corner at the end, banging on what sounded like rocks or something similar to that. At the corner of the right wall, Wilcox, Nguyen, and Lander were
ready to take it down.

  “Okay, on three, we jump around the corner and take that fucker out. Ready? One… two… three …” Wilcox said and the three jumped around the corner.

  Lander was horrified by what he saw in front of him. The alley was filled with twenty or more Mark Ones; they were trying to bust down a brick wall at the far end of the alley and it looked like they were almost through.

  The robots in the rear turned around and spotted the three; the other robots further to the back turned around quickly soon after. The machines moved towards them, the closest robots flailing their arms trying to strike at the three as they fired. Lander fired a couple of shots and took down the robot closest to him, as it fell Lander noticed there were probably more than twenty down the alley as they were now pouring out of a large doorway from the adjacent building to the left.

  “Fuck! Fallback!” Wilcox ordered as the three ran back down the alleyway to the street, but they came to a halt when they saw their escape route blocked. Mark Ones were now in the street, heading into the alley after them. Nguyen tried to open a freight elevator door to her right, but it wouldn’t budge. Lander spotted a fire escape ladder right above him. He jumped up and grabbed it, but it was too rusted and broke away almost immediately once his weight was on it.

  “Keep firing!” Wilcox yelled out, but the three quickly exhausted their remaining ammo only destroying a few robots as they closed in.

  Lander had one shot left in his rifle. He knew he didn’t want to share Kelly’s fate of being torn alive by cold metal claws. Lander put the rifle up to his head. Wilcox looked at Lander, but didn’t protest, giving him an envious look instead.

  Before Lander could pull the trigger, a large armored vehicle pulled up and quickly stopped on the street behind the encroaching Mark Ones.

  “Hit the deck!” a voice yelled out.

  Lander, Wilcox, and Nguyen went to the ground immediately just as the laser cannon on top of the vehicle opened up on the robots. Lander could hear the Mark Ones dropping like flies.

  “Clear!” the voice yelled as the laser fire ceased.

  Lander looked up; the alley was filled with destroyed Ones in jumbled, sparking piles. Lander and the others picked themselves up off the ground.

  “Y’all okay?” the gunner on top of the IAC asked.

  “Yeah, we’re good. What unit are you with?” Wilcox asked as the three made their way over to the IAC.

  “278th ACR, Phantom Raiders Squadron, sir; we’ve come to save y’all’s asses! Hold on for a sec and I’ll call-in an extraction for y’all!” the gunner yelled over the noisy IAC’s engine. “Havoc One Actual; this is Gunslinger Seven; we’ve got three needing extraction to the safe zone, requesting a pick-up at grid – India, X-Ray, Zero-Nine, over? Roger copy, Havoc One Actual; Gunslinger Seven is Oscar Mike, out. All right, Lieutenant, a JLTV will be here in ten to take y’all to the safe zone. Y’all need any water or anything before we move out, sir?”

  Wilcox walked closer to the IAC to go talk with the crew as Lander sat down up against the wall to his left close to the sidewalk on a collapsed cardboard box. He felt like crying he was so relieved; he felt like he might finally make it out of this nightmare. Lander looked down at the rifle lying on his lap; it was still flashing a red number one on the charge level indicator; he shook his head and tossed his rifle aside.

  Lander glanced over to his left and then watched as the IAC slowly drove off to the south. Wilcox walked over to Lander, but Lander didn’t look up.

  “Lander, here,” Wilcox said as Lander looked up.

  Wilcox was holding out a water bottle for him. Lander grabbed it and chugged half the bottle in one go.

  “Thank you, sir,” Lander said after wiping his mouth.

  “I just wanted to say -- you did good, Lander, you did good,” Wilcox nodded, turned away, and walked over and knelt down next to Nguyen who was hovering over Kelly’s body. She looked to be paying her last respects.

  The IAC down the road, opened up again, firing a couple of short bursts. It then moved further down the road, fired again, and kept up the pattern until it was out of his field of view. Lander looked down at his water bottle and blankly stared at it until the JLTV arrived; he was ready to get out of here.

  Chapter 40

  “I saw you on TV, Fish, looking good,” Rhodes said jokingly to Fischer, causing him to shake his head.

  Fischer, Rhodes, and Harlan were heading to the temporary command post to meet Major Rayne for their debriefing. The Grantsburg Airbase and the entire area north of the river had been turned into a huge camp. Refugees, wounded soldiers, and piles of supplies and equipment; it was pure organized chaos.

  “So, Fischer, there’s something I wanted to know before we head in to see Rayne,” Harlan said.

  “What’s that?” Fischer asked.

  “How did you know the HRUOs were going to attack us like that?” Harlan asked.

  The three stopped as a long column of trucks made its way down the road in front of them. They paused to let the trucks pass.

  “I can’t tell you that, Harlan,” Fischer said.

  “Why the hell not? What, did your tech guy Jones find something he wasn’t supposed to, again?” Harlan asked a she crossed her arms.

  Fischer didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to; his face immediately gave it away.

  “Shit, he did, didn’t he? Well, what are we going to do about it?” Harlan asked.

  “Nothing we can do,” Fischer said as he looked at the convoy.

  “Wait. High Command knew we were going to get hit like that and they didn’t do anything to warn us about it? Hell, we could’ve retreated and set-up a way better defense …”

  “I know, Rhodes, but if High Command finds out we came across that intel, we risk getting ourselves into a world of shit,” Fischer said as he interrupted Rhodes’ rant.

  “So, we can’t confront Rayne or Snow about it?” Harlan asked.

  “Correct, though I doubt Rayne is even aware of it, the message was sent from the UMI to Snow and General Williams, but we can’t even be sure that they saw it either,” Fischer said.

  The convoy of trucks finally made their way down the road and the path in front of them was clear as they continued walking.

  “So don’t let it slip, especially you, Rhodes. I know how you can’t keep a secret after four beers,” Fischer said.

  “Four? You give me too much credit, Fish; it’s actually closer to three,” Rhodes chuckled.

  “I’m serious, Rhodes. Jones is already in enough trouble as it is, I at least want to try to keep him in my squad,” Fischer said.

  “Why? The man gets drunk during a battle and you let him off with a slap on the wrist? I would’ve shot him right then and there; that kind of insubordination is un-called for,” Harlan said.

  “No. Jones is going through some personal problems right now, but he’s still one of the best tech guys I’ve ever seen,” Fischer said; he could see the command tent from where they were.

  “So. He still got drunk and probably cost people their lives. There’s no excuse for that! You can’t let that go unpunished, Fischer,” Harlan said.

  “I’m not, Harlan. I told Jones earlier that I’ll be sending him off for a psyche evaluation and rehab as soon as we get back to Orion. If he passes he can come back, if not, well, then he’ll be dishonorably discharged,” Fischer said as he showed the forms for Jones’ transfer that he was going to pass on to Rayne when they got there.”

  “Who are you going to get to replace him? Do you have anybody lined-up?” Rhodes asked.

  “I might, actually. The lone survivor from the Reservists that were attached to my squad has some technical expertise. I approached her earlier and asked her if she was interested in being transferred to the Dark Horses. She was unsure, but I think she was interested. I told her to give it a day to mull it over,” Fischer said as he opened the door to the command post for Rhodes and Harlan.

  “A Reservist? Do you think she’
ll be good enough?” Rhodes asked with a skeptical tone.

  “Lieutenant Brookes vouched for her and she did reasonably well considering that she is still alive,” Fischer said.

  “Well, I’m sure she’ll join you then. Who could say no to the great Captain Fischer?” Rhodes said half-jokingly as he walked in.

  “I could,” Harlan said as she followed close behind Rhodes.

  Fischer smirked at Harlan, and then walked in as he closed the door behind him.

  *****

  Rayne was already in the briefing room with Captain Hazzard. He already had the holo-projector running and was looking through the IARs as Hazzard sat across from him in a wooden folding chair with his legs crossed.

  “Who let in this jerk?” Fischer asked jokingly as Hazzard stood up and the two patted each other on the back. “Thanks again for saving our butts back there, Hazzard.”

  “Well, someone had to take the glory this time, might as well have been me, ha-ha!” Hazzard laughed.

  “Yeah, but it was Fish who got the interviews, again,” Rhodes said with a smirk.

  “All right, let’s get this debriefing started,” Rayne said as he pulled up the map of the Grantsburg area and everyone took a seat. “First off, I just wanted to say great work everyone, GNN is declaring this a major victory, and we might even make the 24-hour news cycle with this one.”

  “That’s good. I’m sure the soldiers I lost out there today would feel happy to know that, sir,” Harlan said sarcastically, drawing a look from Rayne. “Sorry, sir,”

  “Very well. I know it was a tough fight out there and I’ve already analyzed your IARs. You all did well, considering that nobody in High Command saw this coming. I spoke with General Williams and he was relieved that we were able to hold the bridges and take back the town,” Rayne said.

  Fischer started to tune out Rayne as he went on and on about all the praise he and the 2nd Battalion were getting after fending off such unexpected attack strategy employed by the robots. He was certain that High Command knew what was going on. Were they covering their own butts for blundering so badly, or was there something else to all of this? Fischer wondered.