“These flying buggers are popping up again just about as fast as we can put them down.” She paused and three loud blasts blared across the connection. “I’ll tell you this, though. With a little training, Michella here might’ve been a darn fine soldier.”
“This power cell’s getting low. Ronzone, be ready to swap me for a fresh one,” Michella said.
“There’re only three left,” replied the harried agent.
“Then we’d better make sure we don’t miss many more, or else we’ll have to get creative before much longer,” Silo said.
Garotte leaned back and prepared to resume counting, but a different and much more significant distraction suddenly presented itself. A Carpinelli Field indicator was flashing. He wasn’t the only one to notice either.
“Multiple CFI hits, Captain… no transponder codes. They are adhering to the zero-radio-emission protocol. Attempting to establish visual… It’s Response Team Beta.”
“The cavalry has arrived ahead of schedule,” Garotte said, snapping to attention and assaulting the control panel. His engines flared to life, and the cloaking device activated.
“You people are telling me that there is a ship en route to the planet, and it is ready, willing, and able to nuke the entire hemisphere I’m in right now!? Screw the robots, we’ve got to get out of here!” Ronzone said.
“We’re in a tank, hon. We’re not getting anywhere before those bombs start dropping,” Silo said.
“Trevor…” Michella said. From the sound of it she was still blasting targets, but the tremor in her voice betrayed the bolt of fear cutting through her.
“I’m on my way. I don’t know how many people I can fit in the SOB, but I’ll try to—”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Garotte growled.
“Garotte’s right. We’ve got a job to do. We knew the only way we’d make it out of this was if the plan succeeded, so all we can do is keep at it,” Silo said.
“I’m our man in the air. I’ll deal with this. Captain, I am about to vacate your cannon. I don’t suppose I can ask for your word that you won’t fire upon the planet in my absence.”
“Tactical, order Arbiter Alpha into standby and set a target solution for the primary Gen-Mech cluster. Be ready to coordinate this target with Arbiter Beta. Communications, open a channel to Response Team Beta, highest priority.”
Moments later the orange pulse around him visibly slowed.
“Damned decent of you, Captain,” Silo said.
Without another second of delay, Garotte pivoted the ship to the mouth of the cannon and maxed out the thrusters.
“Do you need me up there?” Lex offered urgently.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, my boy, but your job is still a third undone.”
“I’m also the ace pilot on the team and the only one on the planet with half a chance of getting off if things go south,” Lex said.
“You have your assignment, focus on it. Lives are lost if any part of this plan fails.”
The Declaration burst from the cannon and set a direct course for the incoming ships. They’d dropped down to conventional speeds at extreme range, a typical precaution when entering a system without an operational travel corridor. Now all of the ships were in the process of spilling off the speed they’d built up, which was no small task for the ponderous Arbiter Beta. Maneuvering a vehicle that large and thoroughly stocked with weaponry was a bit like walking an elephant across a frozen lake. Motions had to be very slow and deliberate, or the whole enterprise would come to a sudden and spectacular end.
A communication ship and a dozen more drone ships composed the rest of Response Team Beta. A handful of the drones were unarmed messengers, probably dispatching orders to the capital ship in a way that maintained radio silence. The rest were armed and ready for business. Making it past a slightly larger defensive force had taken every ounce of Lex’s skill. Garotte couldn’t hope to match that performance, but with a cloaking device he didn’t have to even attempt it. That left his mind clear to tackle the equally insurmountable task of at least delaying the second of two military forces capable of laying waste to a small civilization. Thus far no suitable plans had presented themselves, but it would be several minutes before he was near enough to the fleet to act. Plenty of time for inspiration to strike.
#
“I repeat, Response Team Beta, please respond. We have information relevant to the successful completion of this mission,” the communication officer said. The fact he was able to remain steady and dispassionate despite the hundreds of thousands of lives hanging in the balance was a testament to his training.
“We have lost containment. The quarantine has failed,” Captain Paltrowe added. “The circumstances of the mission have changed significantly. It is my recommendation that we halt the operation and request new orders from central command.”
Again there was no answer. Training and discipline are often the difference between life and death, allowing one to keep one’s head and act sanely in the face of chaos, but they have the flaw of making those rare departures from procedure nearly impossible to embrace. The orders were to maintain radio silence and reduce the infrastructure to its component molecules, so that’s what would happen until such time as it became impossible.
The captain signaled for the connection to the second response team to be muted. “Do we have Garotte on sensors?”
“Negative, the cloaking device is active, and we are not equipped with the proper apparatus to detect him,” replied her tactical officer.
She directed the connection to be restored. “There is a hostile in the area with cloaking capability. It has been able to neutralize our Arbiter and it is headed in your direction. Recommend you divert course and harden your defensive posture until the threat can be eliminated.”
Still, there was no response and no evidence of a change in direction.
“I’m ready for another shot down here,” Lex said.
“Tactical, you have permission to fire on the spotter’s orders,” the captain said.
“Firing,” the tactical officer said.
The massive laser discharged, tracking a point on the surface. The target indicators representing several dozen Gen-Mechs on the surface flickered away. Paltrowe scanned the map. All that remained of a yellow haze of weak sensor hits that had been spread across hundreds of kilometers was a small blob of targets with Lex headed toward it and a piercing yellow point with thousands upon thousands of them. Assuming the pilot could round up the remaining stragglers, and the sensor readings were accurate, two more weapon discharges could end this infestation. But that would take a few more minutes. Paltrowe weighed her options, then signaled for the Arbiter connection to be muted again.
“How long until Arbiter Beta is in position?”
“Seven minutes,” tactical replied.
“How long until you can finish rounding up this final cluster of stragglers, Lex?”
“I’ll be there in three minutes. The best time I’ve managed so far for wrangling these things was twelve minutes,” he said.
“Tactical, scramble three dozen nearby drones. I want them on unlisted command codes so that we maintain control. Put them on close-range defensive maneuvers around Arbiter Beta. And give me back the com. Response Team Beta, in order to protect your Arbiter, we have assigned additional defense drones. They will be in tight defense positions. We advise you alter course to a shallower approach vector to avoid collisions.”
With a few taps of his fingers, the tactical officer sent the reprogrammed drones to their new assignment. He brought up a video window in the corner of the main display, showing their glowing thrusters moving in formation toward the approaching ships. Paltrowe signaled for the connection to be muted again.
“Monitor any attempts to recall or reassign the drones. The moment they break radio silence to attempt to call off the drone defenders, hail them again and request a response.” She allowed herself a smirk. “If they insist on adhering to the rules
in spite of changing circumstances, I’m willing to resort to a bit of malicious adherence of our own.”
#
The hovertank was hanging over the patch of marsh that had formerly held little more than a pile of crates. Now it was a teeming mass of robots. There were thousands, if not tens of thousands, and they had covered a football-field-sized swath of the landscape several layers thick. It was like watching a swarm of clattering metallic ants swarming over a carcass. The sound was deafening, an endless cacophony of clicking legs and hissing torches. Worst of all, as the ratio of robots to Poison Pills became ever higher, the proportion of Gen-Mechs with enough spare time to reassemble their cannibalized brethren was growing. There were mercifully few robots with enough equipment to achieve flight, but the legion of repair-bots meant that no downed robot stayed down for more than a few seconds.
Michella blasted three more out of the air. Until their first encounter with the robots a few days prior, she’d thought she’d never fire a weapon again. She was out of practice, but over the last few hours the muscle memory came flooding back. With a look of focus on her face and a look of determination in her eye, she was picking off target after target. Silo’s own weapon had exhausted its final clip, and she’d switched to the antipersonnel cannon of the tank, but it had a greatly reduced range of motion. This left Michella with the task of warding off and taking down whatever Gen-Mechs got past Silo, and with a fraction of the firepower. She was losing ground. Fast.
“Silo…” Michella said. If she’d had more mental bandwidth to spare, she might have screamed the word, but as it was she was too busy aiming to do anything more than let the words tumble out. “We’ve got a problem…”
Two shots went wide, and the nearest robot touched down. It was centimeters from her leg, its torch out and ready to harvest, she pressed the gun to the mechanism and pulled the trigger, punching a hole out of its center and flecking her hand and leg with molten metal. She gritted her teeth and tried to target the next robot, but it was upon her. Mechanical legs punched into the metal of the tank on either side of her, and a torch sliced toward her face. With a heroic—if not terribly ferocious—growl, Squee clamped down on the power cable to the torch and shook her head violently. The cable sparked and the torch died a heartbeat before a second robot landed atop the first and began to gut it. The tank pitched violently to the side as Silo made a sudden maneuver. It was enough to send the pair of robots tumbling off.
“We’re going to have to pull out the trump card now, everyone. Things are about to get a whole lot worse,” Silo called out from inside.
Ronzone tried to object, but when he opened his mouth a demented wail composed primarily of vowels and exclamation marks was all he could muster. He had one hand in a death grip around Michella’s slidepad and the other around a handrail at the edge of the tank’s hatch. Silo’s hand jutted up beside him, holding what looked like a grenade. She flicked the activation button with her thumb and heaved it blindly into the air. She then guided the tank into a steep dive toward the edge of the mass of writhing technology.
“Okay, everyone,” Silo said to those on the tank as well as those on the radio. “I just deployed the biggest EMP I have left. Good luck on the rest of the mission, we’re about to go silent.”
“Oh no we aren’t!” Michella cried.
She dropped the gun and snatched her slidepad from the VectorCorp agent, who had reacted to the news by almost managing to sculpt the words we’ll crash out of his yodel of fear. Michella fished Ma’s foil bag from her pocket and tossed the slidepad inside.
Silo managed to get the tank a few meters over the swarm of robots when the EMP went off. Even the most powerful pulse device wasn’t an impressive device to see detonate. This fist-sized weapon made a simple clap of sound, flash of light, and pitiful spray of sparks. The results, however, were quite impressive indeed. Every robot in the mound suddenly jerked madly before going limp, and the tank went completely silent. Ronzone’s already continuous cries of terror turned briefly to a sharp yelp of pain as his implant was slapped by the EMP as well.
Unlike the Declaration, which was designed with at least a nod toward aerodynamics, the tank was little more than a fancy brick, and without its thrusters it flew about as well as a regular one. They plummeted the short distance down, rattling their bones but remaining relatively intact. The vehicle slid along with an unholy metallic screech and crunch, grinding up a few dozen Gen-Mechs as it moved toward the sticky marsh beyond. When it struck the mud, it came to a swift rest.
For the first time since the plan had begun, there was no sound of machinery whatsoever. All Michella could hear was the thunder of her heart in her ears. She turned to Ronzone, whose cry had only silenced due to a lack of oxygen. His brain hadn’t gotten the message from his lungs yet, and so he was producing an odd croaking sound interspersed with short gasps. Other than that, and a bright red line across his chin where it had struck the handrail upon landing, he seemed intact. Next she turned her attention to the places where the splash of metal had struck her. The flecks had been mercifully small, scorching but not penetrating her pants. Her hand had a nasty welt and a smear of blood, but considering the damage some of the larger droplets had done to the armor plating of the tank, she counted herself lucky that she didn’t have a hole through her palm.
“Silo, are you all right?” she asked.
“Decent restraints in this rig,” she called from inside. “I held together okay. How about you?”
“Some burns and bruises, but pretty good, all things considered. Ronzone is fine too.”
“This. Is. Not. Fine! We just crash landed on a—”
“Sorry to cut you off, hon, but I think we all know your opinion of the situation,” Silo said, squeezing past him and onto the top of the tank. “How’s the critter?”
Michella expected to have to calm Squee down, but found her to be as relaxed as though she had just been walking through a meadow. The little ball of fuzz, when held in front of Michella’s face to be inspected, offered up a lick to the nose.
“I’m beginning to think Trevor’s flight habits have desensitized her,” Michella said.
“You think the animal is desensitized!?” Ronzone raved.
“You’re really starting to remind me of my assistant,” Michella said. Suddenly her eyes lit up. “Oh!”
She placed Squee on the tank beside her and dug into her pocket, eagerly tugging open the foil bag. Inside, the slidepad screen was still lit, displaying the error “Connection Lost.”
“So far so good,” she said, wiping some sweat from her forehead and tapping “Reestablish.” A few seconds passed, then, in the same split-second the message indicated the connection was restored, Lex’s voice burst through.
“What happened? Are they okay? Where are they? Get a visual reading or something!” he cried.
“Trevor, we’re fine.” She glanced at Ronzone. “In relative terms. For now. The robots are out of commission for the time being, but so is the tank. Once they wake up we’re going to be in trouble.”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can. There are a ton of robots in this last batch and I’m having a hard time getting them together. I guess Ma’s little baggy thing worked, huh?”
“It sure did!” Michella crouched down and tousled Squee’s hair. “Thanks, Ma, you’re a lifesaver.” She stood again. “Now wrap this up so we can get out of here.”
“I’m on it.”
Michella tipped up the slidepad and began to scan it across the carnage, slipping smoothly out of action-hero mode and into reporter mode. She stopped sweeping when she reached Ronzone in the hatch of the tank, who was eyeing her incredulously.
“What now?” she asked.
“What the hell was that between you and the skunk just then?”
“You don’t always get all of the answers, Agent Ronzone. Now, while we’re waiting for my boyfriend to finish saving hundreds of thousands of lives, would you care to say a few words about why you have been ha
rassing him and assaulting his many livelihoods? I’m sure my viewers would love to know…”
#
Garotte was closing in on Response Team Beta, and thus far his brilliant plan had included putting on a deep-space survival suit. The only thing he was relatively certain of regarding the next step was that it would mean heavy damage to the Declaration, and he may as well be ready for it. Fumbling with the large gloves of the suit, he tried to scan the Arbiter with visual sensors, looking for the bridge. If they were dead set on ignoring radio transmissions, perhaps flash code would work. As his viewer settled onto what had to be the bridge and focused on the windows, a cold realization dawned. He switched on the transmitter in the helmet and linked it to the ship’s com system.
“Captain, I’m going to patch my visual scanner through. Would you please confirm that the command bridge of Arbiter Beta is empty?”
“Empty? … Bring it up, Officer. … Mr. Garotte, please widen your view by twenty percent until the array of conduit lights to the left of the bridge window is visible. … That’s an automation indicator. Arbiter Beta is on automatous.”
“I gather then that we are up against a machine. The sort that won’t listen to reason or break rules.”
“That is correct.”
“And because that ship received orders more recently than you, am I correct in assuming that central command would have given it firing authorization?”
Captain Paltrowe did not reply.
“No need to answer. I’m quite certain such is the case. And I’m further certain that the only possible chance to belay that order will be when the relay ship finally reestablishes a connection to central command. Any thoughts on how soon that will be? … Again, something of a rhetorical question, since the answer is clearly ‘not soon enough.’ I’ve got a good view down that barrel, and it is ready to fire.”
He looked across the control panel, drinking in the information available and scouring it for some glimmer of inspiration. The dozens of blips representing the automated drones patrolling in front of the Arbiter caught his eye. Slowly an idea formed. With a sigh, he looked to the cargo door of the Declaration.
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