Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole

by Doug Dandridge

  “I understand your concern, Captain,” said the Colonel, who from his own tone was holding back what he really wanted to say about what was going on. “Unfortunately, it’s not my call. The General has deemed this strategy as the most likely to break the enemy.”

  Douglass shook his head, cursing under his breath. The General was a retired Imperial Army Major General who had been assigned as security chief for the station. While the Imperial Army were the experts on ground combat on planets, most Marines felt that they were really unsuited to any kind of space action. And this was just more proof of it.

  “All I can tell you is to keep on with the mission, but with an emphasis on keeping your people alive,” said the Colonel. “I’ll keep lobbying to get you off the surface of this rock and inside, where you can do some good.”

  “What about the other nests?”

  “Don’t you worry about them, son,” replied the Colonel. “There are only a couple of those left, and we should have them contained in no time Probably sooner that we could get your people extricated from below and sent that way.”

  The Colonel killed the com, leaving no doubt that he had other things to worry about. Douglass sent the command to his forward platoons to fall back and establish defensive positions in the shafts. As he did that he saw another of his people showing no life signs on his HUD, and he cursed this damned cluster of an operation once again.

  * * *

  “This is Peregrine Alpha Actual to commander F Company, 2405th Marine Regiment,” called out Marine Flight Major Monica Luewenholz, looking at the tactical holo over her cockpit board. The other eleven ground attack craft of her squadron were arrayed around her in a standard sweep formation, alert, weapons ready. The drones they had launched to scout ahead were over the nest, or at least near enough where they could escape fire while they took a look into the position.

  “This is Lieutenant Nagano,” came a call back over the com. “I’m the acting commander of the company. The Captain ate a missile from one of those damned robots.”

  “Understood, LT, and I’m sorry. Let’s stick to business. I need you to illuminate every target within sight, and to give us a one second IFF pulse from all of your suits. I’m bringing in a dozen Raptors, weapons hot, and I’m going to visit hell on the target area. So I need to make sure your people aren’t in that area.”

  “Understood. Pulsing company IFF now.”

  The icons appeared on the holo map of the target area, ninety-six of them, representing all of the remaining Marines in that company. Hell, thought the Major. That’s a little over half of the original complement.

  “We’re coming in low and fast, people,” she told her squadron over their internal com. “Full stealth, and com silence until we’re past the target.”

  Acknowledgements came back by burst signal, then all ships stopped transmitting at the same time as they engaged stealth fields, fading away from sight and sensors. All ships now had to maintain their pattern within a very limited maneuver envelop, lest they collide while trying to avoid something. Their own IFF systems were offline, and they had to count on the Marines on the ground to not shoot at them.

  Targets started lighting up her holo as her craft sped over the surface at three thousand kilometers an hour. They would have seconds over the target, and only seconds. She started assigning targets within her sweep over the target, knowing that the others would do the same, and hoping they didn’t waste too many weapons on overkill.

  The target area came up fast, really faster than a human could react, even pilots who had limited augmentation to help them handle the speed and gee forces of their craft. As she hit the firing line the attack craft cycled off a dozen missiles, dropped four cluster bombs, and fired lasers and particle beams at anything that was in their arc of fire.

  The target area exploded as small antimatter and fusion warheads detonated across it. The icons of targets disappeared, and several beams swept up at Luewenholz’ craft, one splashing off her electromagnetic screen.

  Moments after they cleared the area all of the ships came back online, sending their targeting data to the lead craft. The Major sucked in a breath as she noted that one of the ships was not with them.

  “Anyone see what happened to Mitchell?” she asked over the com.

  “He ate a missile,” said one of the other pilots. “Right at the end of his run. He missed the Marine perimeter, though.”

  “Nagano,” said the Major over the Marine company freq. “How’d we do?”

  “I think you blew the shit out of them, Major,” came the reply from the company commander. “But we’re still taking fire.”

  “Roger, LT. We’re going to make one more run. Get ready.”

  They expended all ordnance on the second run, coming through with only their lasers still armed. One craft was damaged, and the Major was happy to see that it was capable of getting back to their base without outside aid.

  “Everyone return to base,” she ordered over the com. “Rearm, and we’ll be back in the fight.”

  The acknowledgements came back, this time in the clear, with the voices of people who were relieved to have flown their first real combat mission and made it through.

  * * *

  “They’re coming,” called out the mind of Lonzzarit Andonna over the quantum entanglement link to his brothers, sending the image of a swarm of the wasp robots heading down the corridor. In the distance were the forms of the battle bots, loping along faster than most humans could run, which meant they were not as fast as Klassekians.

  “Be careful, brother,” called out Nazzrirat to his sibling. “From what we have heard, those insect things are deadly.”

  He received the acknowledgement from his brother at the same time as the view changed, his sibling looking back at the oncoming insect sized robots. The weapon he was holding, not made for his kind, was still kind of clumsy, but the Klassekian visual system more than made up for it. The aliens had four eyes in a mostly forward orientation. The two larger interior eyes were much like those of humans, with huge quantities of their equivalent of cones. And they did not have a blind spot, while the actual receptors were arrayed at the front of the visual area, with the nerve connections in the back, in reverse of the human eyes. They gave the Klassekians the equivalent of twenty/five vision. The two outer eyes were packed with the Klassekian equivalent of rods, the shades of gray motion sensitive receptors. And in the visual centers of the Klassekian brain, a unitary lobe at the front of that organ, the views of all four of those eyes were combined into a picture that made up an almost perfect organic targeting system.

  Lonzzarit aimed and fired, aimed and fired, over and over in a five second time span, blasting nine of the insect sized robots out of the air while damaging scores more. The other Klassekians with him, scouts for the other sibling groups that were standing with Nazzrirat, took out many of the wasp bots as well. They then turned and ran, keeping ahead of the battle bots, and barely keeping distance from the wasp robots that buzzed after them.

  The four scouts ran into the cross corridor and turned into the passage the other Klassekians were set up in. They were fifty meters up the long corridor, habitat sections behind. The four sibling groups were sheltered behind a barricade of tables and crates, all they could find in the time they had. And one little addition. An electromag field generator built to install on an attack fighter, fifty kilograms of machinery with almost twice that mass in battery packs.

  “Hurry up,” yelled Nazzrirat in his native language. He sucked in a breath as the first of the robot wasps came around the corner close on the tails of the Klassekians. He wanted to fire as he watched the small robots gaining on his people. “Look out,” he yelled as one of the robots landed on his brother’s neck and instantly swung its stinger into flesh.

  Lonzzarit yelled out in pain, a cry that was taken up by the other three scouts as they were stung moments later. Nazzrirat cried out in the sympathetic pain that he felt over the link, wondering a moment later w
hy it hadn’t hurt more. He waited for his brother to fall dead, as had been reported by the humans after some of theirs had died quickly and painfully from the same kind of sting.

  “You’re alright,” exclaimed Nazzrirat as his brother jumped through the electromagnetic field and hauled himself over the barrier. Klassekians were fast runners, and poor leapers. The other Klassekians grabbed with their tentacles and helped the scouts over.

  “Why aren’t you dead?”

  “I’m not sure,” said the sibling, rubbing his neck. “It felt like liquid fire for a moment, then started to fade. Whatever they use doesn’t seem to have the same effect on us as on the humans.”

  “Thank the Gods,” said one of the members of another sibling group, looking at her sister.

  “Everyone to their firing quadrants,” yelled Nazzrirat, coming back to the here and now, leaning over the barricade and aiming his weapon. The wasp robots were being repelled by the electromagnetic field, those forcing themselves through frying out from EMP in an instant The Klassekians were arrayed in their four sibling groups, a total of thirty-four beings, each group having its own zone of fire. As the full sized battle bots came around the corner and into view they opened fire.

  The Klassekians now showed why they would someday become the supreme infantry in the Empire. Each sibling group, using their quantum link, selected their individual targets. There was no overlap, no overkill. Each picked out a separate target. And each fired at the exact same moment. As each group fired, the electromagnetic field, slaved to the rifles, dropped for a moment to let the particle beams through without distortion.

  The first blast of thirty-four particle beams, fired with perfect timing through the advanced organic targeting systems of the Klassekians, killed thirty-three of the targets in front of them, all that were in the first wave. Scores of the wasp robots fell from the air as collateral damage as beams swept through them on the way to the more important targets. All were made of base alloys, not the high tech materials of the Imperials.

  The shots taken, the electromagnetic field rose back into place, just in time to take the incoming beams of the next, larger wave of robots. The Klassekians ducked behind their barricade as the low powered beams of the robots struck the electromag field. The field distorted the incoming protons, spreading them out, bending them. Beams struck the barrier, and while they were not as focused as they could have been, all they had stopping them were furniture and crates. Metals melted, some all the way through, and two of the Klassekians received killing hits, while three more were burned.

  “Now,” yelled Nazzrarit, and everyone who could came back up to lean over the barrier and fire, killing thirty machines. This time, instead of ducking back, they sighted in on the next set of targets and fired again. And again. And again, until there were no more robots in front of them. Two more Klassekians were killed in the exchange, and several more were wounded, while the corridor filled with smoke and vapor. When the vapor cleared there were no more robots in the corridor, only their smoking forms.

  Nazzrarit looked over his people. One of his siblings had been among the four killed, the other three coming from a single sibling group. Nazzrarit’s head reeled at the death of his brother, and he could understand how the other group felt losing almost half their number. They recovered quickly. The ancient Klassekians had been warriors and hunters, and as such had evolved to handle the death blast over their link.

  “We need help,” came a call over the com. “Dear God, someone. We need help. The children.”

  “It’s from the nursery on this habitat level,” said Phazzarit, holding a small disc in his hand that displayed a holo of the level, with the nursery highlighted. It was six hundred meters from where they were standing, down the maze of corridors.

  “By the Gods, we must not let this happen,” said one of the other Klassekians.

  “No,” agreed Nazzrirat. “We must not.” With that, he started running forward with the long, loping stride of his people, the others on his tail.

  * * *

  “What is going on, General?” asked Admiral Anaru Henare, splitting his attention between the holos hanging in the air to his front. One was the frowning face a Major General Isaiah Goldberg, the retired Imperial Army officer who was head of system security, meaning anything that wasn’t either in orbit or on a ship. The other showed the Bolthole asteroid, with all of the excavated areas, habitats and factories highlighted. And showing red where the machines had overrun the humans and their allies. The inhabited area was tiny as compared to the overall volume of the rock, and red area controlled by the machines was only a five percent that of the habitat.

  It’s still entirely too much, thought the Admiral, stopping himself from slamming his hand down on the desk. The whole defensive plan of the asteroid and its constellation of satellites had been to stop an enemy from getting a foothold on any of them. To stop the enemy in space, and, if that couldn’t be achieved, to at least contest their landing. And the damned robots snuck onto the asteroid and our habitats like our security didn’t exist.

  “We’ve stomped out all of the nests on the surface, Admiral,” said the retired officer. ‘We’ve destroyed their ability to make more of their kind.”

  “And what is going on in these hotspots, Isaiah?” Henare highlighted a dozen areas within the enemy zones, spots that were radiating more than the normal amount of background heat.

  “I’m, not sure, Admiral.”

  “Those are fucking factories they have up and running, General,” roared the Admiral. “They are making more of their kind, right here in our home.”

  “But, how?”

  “They’re robots, you moron. Each and every one of them carries the program to make more of their kind. Each and every one of them can become a factory. And now they have access to our materials, and what do you think that means? I‘ll tell you what it means. It means the next wave of those things we face will be better armed and armored than the ones that are already giving us the fight of our lives.”

  “I didn’t realize that, Admiral. I’m sorry.”

  The General looked down at the floor in his headquarters. After a moment he looked up, and Henare could see that he wouldn’t have to relieve the officer, that he had found his resolve.

  “Orders, sir.”

  “You have all of my Marines, all of the militia, and from what I understand, even some of the Klassekians have taken up arms. I want you to put out a general call for any armed civilians that will also contribute. Understand?”

  “Those civilians will get themselves slaughtered, sir,” protested the General. “They aren’t trained for this kind of thing.”

  “And if we don’t crush them before they can build more of their kind, we’re all going to be slaughtered, General. So get your people together and overrun them. I want those new nests taken out at all costs. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir. And what about the orbital stations?”

  “You let me handle that, General. The Fleet will deal with them. You just get me my base back.”

  Henare blanked the com holo, letting a tactical display of the system take its place. He studied the vector arrows on the plot, wishing it was he who was still in charge of the entire system. But I’m not, so it’s up to someone else, someone I don’t know, to fight the naval battle that will save or lose this system. I sure as hell hope she knows what she’s doing.

  * * *

  “They seem to be doing what you wanted them to do, ma’am,” said the Flag Tactical Officer.

  Bednarczyk nodded as she leaned forward in her chair and studied the plot. All of the enemy ships were heading her way, with a spread of three times their number of the ten thousand ton weapons forging ahead. Her own missiles, at least those the enemy could see, were also heading out, still a couple of hours flight time before they crossed paths with the incoming enemy weapons. What were also on the plot, and hopefully still unseen by the enemy, were the missiles they had launched through the wormholes. They were goin
g ballistic toward the enemy at point nine light, and, if everything worked out, they would not be picked up by the robots until they had gotten into attack range. And if they were picked up before then, and engaged by all of the enemy ships, they would not accomplish much.

  Then we’re really fucked, thought the Fleet Admiral, shaking her head.

  Nguyen’s force had been ignored so far. They would launch their attack at the same time that Bednarczyk launched hers. Hopefully, by that time, the enemy force would be a shadow of itself, and the Imperial force would just be mopping up. If not, they would be in for a fight that would probably kill most of her people.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  BOLTHOLE.

  “Quiet, child. Quiet.” Nursery Mother Nella Lien stroked the hair of the five year old boy who she held in her lap, cradling his face into her breast as he sobbed. She looked around the chamber, where the other employees, the Mothers and Fathers of the facility, talked with the small children, or held them, or did anything they could to distract them from the events outside the main entrance. Other adults had made it to the Nursery before the robots had arrived, come to get the children they had left there to be watched during their work shifts. Some were in the chamber with the infants. Those little ones were also howling at the top of their lungs, having picked up the smell of fear from the air while not really aware of what was going on. It was part of their genetic heritage, calling for the adults to protect them from danger, though evolution had never programed them for a situation like this.

  The thick door still held, though the center was now glowing white hot as the robots attacked it with lasers. Lien knew those machines had been made to kill living things, with humans at the top of the list. The sound of helpless children was like ringing the dinner bell for the murder machines, and they seemed to be committed to getting in and ending those small lives as early as possible in their spans. Nella whispered to the child, then looked up at the door. To her horror there was molten metal, white hot and flowing like syrup, running down the door onto the floor.