Man Vs Machine

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  With the armor sealed, the reek of his suit almost brought tears to the veteran’s eyes. Once more he resolved to stay up one night and at least try to decontaminate and clean his interior pads. It didn’t help much, but breaking down a MAPerS to actually change each piece of pressure sensitive padding also involved refitting the several hundred contacts that passed through them. That could take a trained crew of armorers a week. The Fourth had seen no more than one day of downtime since the war had started.

  The human race had been at peace for almost a century when the Jenkle attacked. Those few, like Astin, had to hold the line until the race could prepare and relearn how to fight a war. But no one in the Fourth really complained. Forty million slaughtered civilians and a now lifeless planet generated a real sense of urgency among those whose job was to protect them. They had been part of the clean up, and every man in the regiment had taken the disaster personally.

  This mission had been given the highest priority, and the Fourth, as the most experienced and toughest unit in the fleet, had been assigned. This mission had to succeed at any cost, in lives or anything else the Fourth could expend.

  “Okay, seal up Fourth and stand by,” the Captain announced over the squad’s com sets. “Drop in five, stand by for final briefing.”

  Astin felt his heart rate increase, and he took a few deep breaths to control his adrenaline output. Everyone got psyched before a drop, but the navy twerps were monitoring the vitals of each man in his squad, and Astin wasn’t going to give them any ammunition for comments. The briefing started a few seconds later, and Astin forced himself to concentrate on it.

  He had heard it all before, but as the new squad leader Astin studied every word and diagram, hoping he would note something that might help later. He was the fourth squad leader in seven months, and the twenty-four man squad was now reduced to a dozen men. So he studied every word and image, even though logic told him that there couldn’t be anything new. They had been out of contact and running silent for over a week. There had been no chance for any new intel to arrive. They were going with what they knew when they had lifted from the marine base at Port Cozumel.

  A map appeared, showing one of the few hundred islands that were the only land masses on their final destination, the water world of Khumn. This island was located almost exactly on the planet’s equator. Located on one side of the ten-mile long island was a Jenkle communication station. The humans knew of other systems like this. No doubt floating among the asteroids and other space debris were sensors that would send through that station detailed information on any vessels passing through the system.

  The brass didn’t tell troopers what was really happening, but everyone knew that the last two months had been spent clearing Jenkle-occupied planets, each one taking them a bit closer to three different heavily developed enemy worlds. The Jenkle were a lot better prepared for this war than the humans were. Each of those assaults had been a tough battle against an entrenched foe. Finally the Navy was in a position to do just that in any of three places. If the Jenkle tried to defend all three worlds, there was a chance of successfully hitting them hard. Astin was fairly sure that a large number of human ships that would prefer to not be spotted would be passing through this system soon. With most of the human fleet positioned to prevent the Jenkle from doing to the Earth what they did to Delos, what followed was likely to be the only offensive force humanity had.

  The communications station sat in a half buried dome. They had found similar emplacements on several other worlds. If they were part of a feint, the island and relay station could be obliterated, but if the station went silent and stayed that way, it would also alert the Jenkle. Since the squad’s mission was to capture the station intact and attach a surprisingly small black box to a specific casing, it looked to Astin as though they were clearing the way for the actual attack force. The device, a naval tech had told him, would continue to assure the Jenkle the system remained operational but not relay any real data. Each trooper had a box, a dozen total. Any one of the boxes would do the job. Casualties were not a consideration.

  There was only one concern. Probes had detected no Jenkle life, or any other living thing larger then a small crustacean, on the island. But they had seen something metallic a few meters across moving around the land mass. Given the Jenkle’s propensity for using artificial intelligence and robot combat units, the squad would drop hot and ready. The twelve men of his squad had the firepower to turn that island into a lifeless steaming rock. They just hadn’t been fighting the Jenkle long enough to see their every trick, so that mechanical unknown was a worry.

  Going in on a hot drop was not much different from being fired like a missile at the target. The Navy ship would push through the warp point, putting out as little signal as it could. Traveling at high speed, it would actually launch the drop capsules behind itself as it flashed by the unnamed world. The problem was not so much one of getting to the target quickly, as it was of being slowed enough to be able to drop to the planet. That process would give the Troopers, if everything went right, a low enough velocity relative to Khumn to allow them to descend through the planet’s atmosphere. A small autopilot would guide their shell until they were low and slow enough that they would have enough power to use the grav units to swoop into combat.

  The briefing ended, and Astin realized he had been worrying more than listening. He might have worried about that, but he was interrupted by a familiar thud. This was followed by the armor tightening and kneading in an effort to keep him conscious while being crushed by the massive deceleration.

  Astin could follow their approach to the planet from the crude diagram on his helmet’s com screen. It showed him and the other eleven troopers as green dots approaching the gray mass of Khumn. Adrenaline and the suit kept the squad leader awake until the press eased as they reached the edge of the atmosphere. That was when the first of the green dots vanished. A short screech over the com confirmed they had lost a man to enemy fire. What worried him the most was that they were almost on the exact far side of the planet. The Jenkle worlds they had dropped on before had not been able to do that. This was something new and very deadly.

  Before the squad leader could react further, a second light vanished. Less than a very long minute later a third trooper died. They were just entering the atmosphere. Astin hoped it might provide some cover.

  It didn’t.

  Three more lights blinked off, three more of his troops, were gone in seconds. They were still almost twenty seconds to release. But the kill rate seemed to be increasing. At the rate they were dying, no one would make to the ground.

  “Emergency punch out,” the squad leader yelled over his com to the Fourth remaining men. “Kick it now, water is better than dead.” He prepared to follow reaching for the emergency break level. Astin could only hope there was enough battery power to allow the energy-hungry grav unit to lower him and his suit to the surface. A friendly island would be nice. Then two more lights went out even as he reached up.

  As he pulled the release with a mumbled obscenity, Astin thought he saw the last green light go. The flash to his side confirmed that the last other man had been hit. He was falling free and beginning to spin. Spreading his arms, Astin looked around him. The small cube on which the survival of mankind’s only attack fleet depended pressed into the trooper’s side. As the loss of the men he had lived and fought with began to register, he hardly cared.

  The trooper saw the target island on the horizon. The sky was almost purple under the light of a redder sun than Earth’s. Most of the planets they had hit so far had reddish suns. The Jenkle home world circled a red star, one briefing had said, so it was theorized that they saw actually saw much further down the spectrum into infrared. They had been warned that this gave the Jenkle excellent night vision.

  Evan at a distance the island looked jagged. It had, in geological terms, recently been a volcano. The sand was dark, almost as black as the hundreds of obsidian rocks that covered most o
f its surface, giving the impression that the entire place was on fire with jagged, black flames. It was early morning, and no other land was in sight. No matter what the risk, Astin had to make for that island. He dropped low, and a bright orange beam cut through the air where he would have been if he had continued in a straight line. Then he guided his powered armor low over the water in a twisting, jerky pattern he hoped would confuse whatever was targeting him. The grav unit in the armor was never designed to fly the suit. It was meant to provide a short boost in a combat-jump situation or over hazardous terrain. The unit whined from the strain as Astin watched the level of energy in his batteries visibly drop from the strain of flying distances the MAPerS was never meant to handle.

  Two more orange beams lanced through Khumn’s moist air. One came so close, half his recon gear overloaded in a burst of sparks. They hurt for a second, but then the wail that warned of low power began rising and falling, and nothing else was important.

  Astin aimed at the nearest corner of the island and flew straight toward it. An orange beam tore the air in front of the desperate trooper. Once he saw the bottom, he dived in. The powered armor was not designed for underwater use, but he hoped being submerged might help, and, walking, the suit just might have enough power to get him to shore. The low battery warning continued to scream.

  After slogging toward the island for several minutes, the corporal began to hope he had evaded the Jenkle machine. The water was shallower now, and he saw the surface only a few meters over his head. Then an orange beam boiled away the water to his right. The pressure of the expanding water tossed Astin about and would have killed him if his suit hadn’t compensated. Then the sound of the low power warning began to fade. The legs of the combat armor began to stiffen. Hoping there was enough energy left to open the suit, Astin hit the button that activated the emergency release code.

  The top half of the armor literally peeled away from him, and water rushed in and up Astin’s nose. The water was cool and hinted of spices or worse. Using his last breath to clear his nostrils, the corporal tried to kick free. Less than a meter above him the surface tantalized, but got no closer.

  As the armor had failed during his swirling fall, the pads in the legs had closed tightly against him. With water filling the top and moistening the pads, they now formed a plug that held him so tightly that his feet were still dry. He was free from just below his waist, but trapped by the inert remnants of his armor.

  Lungs beginning to burn, Astin forced himself to relax. Using his hand to push the wet, clinging pads away from one of his thighs, the trooper felt the suit’s hold lessen. By now the need to breathe was nearly painful. He forced his hand down the other leg and once more broke the suction. Finally his leg came free. As his hand withdrew, it brushed against something unfamiliar. Almost without thinking, he grabbed the small cube and broke for the surface.

  After a few very deep breaths and a few strokes, the trooper was able to stand with his head above the water. The insertion and his swim had taken only a few minutes, but he was exhausted. Moments later, Astin collapsed panting on the beach, oblivious to the fact that whatever had wiped out his squad might still be targeting him.

  This was corrected just as the corporal’s vision cleared enough to notice one piece of his back armor rise to the surface about fifty meters from the shoreline. He got up, hoping there might be some way to recover a weapon from it, when it disappeared in a flash of orange and steam. Without his armor, Astin found the blast deafening and the crush of air from the explosion of the ammunition that had been in his pack threw him flat onto the sand.

  Astin knew he was next. Unarmed and unarmored, he was defenseless. For a few moments the veteran just lay there, soaked and despairing.

  But nothing happened.

  He did not die in a flash of orange energy. A Jenkle did not rush onto the beach to kill him. In fact, as he looked around and studied the small hill that he remembered from the map dominating this end of the island, nothing—not a single enemy or Jenkle tank, or even a sea bird—moved. In the distance he could hear faint sounds of something large receding.

  Once his sheer astonishment at still being alive passed, the trooper crawled into a cleft between two large, jagged rocks. He lay there barely thinking for several minutes, simply overwhelmed by the loss of his squad and his own hopeless situation. His hands shook, and he wasn’t sure if it was the cold or his failing nerves. Finally Astin looked back at the beach and noticed the black cube that had been the reason for this cluster jerk of a mission. After staring at the sealed plastic square in the sand for a very long time, Astin reminded himself it was still his mission to acquire the Jenkle relay. The Fourth had been sent on this mission, and he was still alive.

  Even with his renewed determination, it took an act of will for Astin to force himself back onto the beach. With each step into the open he could feel the Jenkle lining him up for a kill shot. In the ten steps to the cube he died a dozen times in his mind. Once he had grabbed it, the trooper couldn’t stop himself from dashing back and diving into the relative protection of the volcanic rocks. Still breathing hard, the corporal found himself smiling. He was alive. It was apparent that whatever defended the island didn’t even know he was here, or didn’t care. All he had to do now was get past the Jenkle’s defenses and lock the cube on the relay.

  All. . . . The smiled faded. He was half-naked, alone, unarmed, and had no idea what he was even facing. For all he knew there was a cunningly hidden base full of Jenkle infantry and armored vehicles just over the hill. Exhausted, the Trooper lay there warmed by the morning sun, fighting off despair, until he finally slept.

  The day on Khumn was long, and the planet’s sun was still high in the sky when Astin woke up. Amazement at being alive was quickly replaced by a new concern. He felt the beginnings of hunger, and it reminded him that he was alone on an alien world with no supplies. Then the trooper realized that was hardly a concern. If he didn’t succeed in sabotaging the relay station, the Navy would have no way of knowing he was alive. He would be stranded on this damp rock forever. There was fresh water, but he had no idea if he could eat anything here. Most alien critters were just too, well, alien to digest, and on many planets the indigenous food was fatal to humans. Of course, that might be preferable to spending the rest of his life alone on Khumn. Completing the mission had suddenly become very personal. If the Jenkle did manage to intercept the attack fleet, the chances of his ever being picked up dropped to zero.

  So far the Jenkle had taken no prisoners during the war, and in their one planetary assault that had killed every living thing on Delos. For a panicky moment the trooper realized the Jenkle were as bloodthirsty as they appeared, and if humanity lost, there was a sickening chance Astin Olowoi could become, due to his very isolation and the Fourth’s failure, the last survivor of his race.

  One final man doomed to die alone on a distant world.

  The thought gave the corporal a surge of determination, enhanced by a reckless realization that he had nothing to lose by getting killed. He really had to try to complete the mission. The consequences of failure looked a lot worse than dying in the effort. And if he was the last of the Fourth, then he sure as hell was going to complete their last mission.

  Still aching from the battering he had taken while getting to land, Astin Olowoi crept cautiously up the hill. When he reached the crest, it was a disappointment. The island was the jagged top of a long extinct volcano. Small hills and a line of cliffs blocked his view of the Jenkle relay station on the far side, less than two kilometers away. Mostly he saw bare rock, moss, and some low-growing plants. The only good news was that there wasn’t a massive Jenkle base hidden in the middle of the island. The problem was that he still didn’t know what he faced. What had shot his entire squadron from the sky in less than a minute?

  Again Astin faced the dilemma that if he moved toward the Jenkle Station, he might draw down fire. He had no illusions about what effect that orange ray would have on an unpro
tected body. But staying put just wasn’t an option. Cautiously, with growing surprise at the lack of a response, he ran from boulder to boulder across the small island. A passing storm drenched him once more, but the exertion needed to make his away across the broken terrain kept him comfortable even as what remained of his uniform got soaked again.

  The unarmed trooper crawled up the final rise before he reached the Jenkle station. What he saw was not encouraging. The station itself was a small metal dome, similar to others they had encountered on earlier drops. Beyond the dome was a beach and empty sea. The area around the dome had been scorched clear for about fifty meters. The dome’s door was visible and likely easily opened. No living Jenkle were visible, but guarding the area was some new sort of Jenkle combat vehicle.

  The unit stood two meters tall and seemed to operate like a hovercraft. That made sense on a world where most of the surface was covered with water. The air being driven from the fans below kicked up a steady stream of dust. There was no turret. Two barrels protruded from the front of the weapon platform. The larger one was almost half a meter thick and made of crystal. It protruded only about as far as it was wide. Astin guessed that this was the source of the orange beam. A second, smaller crystal also paralleled it at about a quarter of the first one’s size. The top was covered with bulges and two antennas. Long, small slits along the top of the sides of the vehicle were likely air intakes, Astin concluded. As he watched, the unit shifted a few meters. It turned slowly, but it covered the ground in an impressive burst of speed.