Metal Monsters

by G. D. Stark

  “We did,” Squid replied, “but they’re for missions, not for our stay here.”

  “Quit bitching,” Park said, shoving a spoonful of porridge into his mouth. “It’s good.”

  “That settles it,” Jones said. “It’s officially inedible.”

  “Enough about the food,” Zelag said. “We got a lot more money to work with now. Captain, weren’t we supposed to be just advising? This looks like a serious revamp to our core objectives.”

  “Yes,” Yost said, taking a bowl of soup and sitting down. “We’ll start our in-depth review tomorrow and see where we need to go from here.”

  “Get ’em some better armor,” Ward said. “And at least some PN-60s. They’re still on the 40 platform according to what I looked up.”

  “Hardware isn’t the answer,” Jones argued. “Training, training, training. Give ’em better rifles and we could still take out these militia jokers using pointed sticks. Lord General doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the commoners, as he calls them, and it shows.”

  “No pride,” Ward said. “No reason to fight.”

  “I don’t know,” Zelag said. “I think it’s hard to reach any conclusions when we haven’t even talked with the men yet. We need to get a feel for the culture before we try to make any drastic changes.”

  “Drastic changes are just what they need, Zee!” Jock spoke up from the end of the table. “We got a real budget now. Jones is right about the training, but let’s get a helluva a lot of good, useful stuff for them to train on. Get them up to date and turn them into a proper fighting force in one swoop. Right, Tommy?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Without a solid sitrep, I’m not feeling it.” I stopped and pinched some chunky salt crystals out of a bowl and sprinkled them on my cooling gruel, giving myself a chance to think. “Intel first, then analysis. For now, let’s just stick to the plan.”

  “Yeah,” Zelag said. “Tommy gets it.”

  “They need heavy gun platforms,” Ace yelled.

  “And chemical weapons,” Park added.

  “And an orbital death station, by God!” Jones added vehemently, slamming down his fist and upending his gruel.

  “You bastards really are the bloodthirstiest sons of bitches I’ve ever met,” Squid said, lighting a cigar. “I’m getting a little misty over here.”

  Captain Yost scraped a final spoonful out of his bowl and ate it, then put the spoon down and looked around. “Well, now that you all got that out of your system, most of you will be glad to know that I have indeed decided to revise the plan.”

  There were some cheers from the table. Zelag looked at me and shrugged. Hey, we tried.

  “We’ll have Pitt look into weapons and armor, starting tomorrow. I’ll work out a budget with accounting and see where we’ll go from here. In the meantime, Falkland, you’re going to go out with Ward, Zelag and Jones and do a little recon. Squid tells me you four have worked together before. You say we need intel, so go get some. Get out in the field, look at some of the previous engagements, and link in with the militia.” The captain got up to leave. “I’ll expect a full report within a week.”

  “Dammit, Tommy,” Zelag said once the captain was gone. “You went and got us homework.”

  “Hey, you were on my side,” I shot back, feeling betrayed.

  “You’re part of the problem too, Zelag,” Jones said. “You and Tommy have been straight-up downers this time out.”

  “In fairness, they may have kept us from dying in space,” Ward pointed out. “Or being sold into slavery by pirates.”

  “Maybe,” Jones said. “Of course, for all we know, the Gondola was hijacked by bikini models looking for handsome sex slaves. Still, Tommy, you should’ve shut your big mouth this time.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I said. “Trust me, I’m not thrilled either.”

  Trying to figure out what would help these amateurs was a job for analysts. I’d rather just worry about me and my team. I wasn’t an analyst, I wasn’t an officer, and I wasn’t logistics like Pitt. Or even a specialist nerd like Edgerton.

  But that didn’t matter now. For the next week, we were Wardogs Force Recon, whether we liked it or not.

  Chapter 5

  The Sfodrian militia were the crummiest group of soldiers I’ve ever seen. I mean, they were even worse than those actors who do historical reenactments with bags of fake blood hidden in their uniforms, timed to burst when they get shot by lasers built into their antique retro-guns. Seriously, those reenactors are observably better than the Sfodrians. At least they can follow orders and stand in a straight line.

  I spent the day after we arrived reviewing everything I could find on the militia. Most of it was data already collected by Pitt and Yost with help from Jimbo the AI. I ignored the considerably more massive amount of information available on the knights, since they weren’t relevant to my assignment. What I found was that the militia was called up according to long-standing families and land contracts that allegedly dated back to the landing of the original colonists. It didn’t matter if a militia member was a doctor or worked as a cleaning bot maintenance tech, if his family was on the commoner list and he was of the proper age, he had to go when called, and there was no pay in it for him. It was a duty to the state. I had to admit, that I’d say to hell with the state if I was in the same situation.

  I decided to strike out beyond the initial reports and jack in to the local net. After ten minutes of near-fruitless poking around, I realized that the subject must be heavily censored by the Sfodrian government. National security, no doubt. I got up from the little desk in my room and stretched. I’d been sitting too long. Ward looked up from the book he was reading. “So, Tommy. You got it all worked out now?”

  “There isn’t much to work with,” I said. “Net seems to be censored so all I’ve got is what Yost and Pitt already threw together with that old AI box. I got enough to learn that the system is a mess, though. Guys don’t even get paid. They’re basically hereditary cannon fodder. You can’t expect to teach them any discipline, morale, or esprit de corps when they’re actually incentivized to desert!”

  “Maybe try to give them a sense of purpose,” Ward said with a shrug. “My son sometimes spends an hour or two filling up a cup with pebbles, then dumping them out, then filling it up again. He seems to find fulfillment in that.”

  “Sure, and if the Sfodrians were drafting three-year-olds, I’d say you’re onto something. There’s no point in even trying to think about this until we go out with them on a mission, see what’s cooking.”

  “Sounds like a party,” Ward said absently. He’d already tuned out and was back reading his book.

  “I’ll just go talk to the captain about jumping in, then,” I said. He ignored me, so I walked out to look for Captain Yost. Me and my big, stupid mouth.

  “Welcome, sirs,” a redheaded guy in a saggy brown uniform with a round, bronzed face greeted us, saluting with a thumped fist on the chest. I couldn’t tell what his rank was but I mirrored the salute, as did Zelag. Ward and Jones half-waved, which was about as diplomatic as they ever got. Pitt made some arrangements and a driver took us over to the nearby Sfodrian militia base. We put on our battlesuits but left the helmets off, opting for hats and shades instead. I figured it would humanize us a bit, maybe let us connect better. I also lathered up with all-weather sunscreen, as did the other guys. It was sunny and hot outside and I’d rather avoid the radiation.

  “I’m the citizen in charge of today’s mission,” the guy said. “I am Stylen Gardoros.”

  “What’s your rank?” I asked.

  “I am a commoner,” he replied, as if that explained anything. “Though I have been appointed Overseer for the current call-up.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’m Corporal Falkland with Wardogs Incorporated. This is Zelag, Jones and Ward.”

  “What did you hope to do today, sirs?” Gardoros asked. “We don’t have much time to talk, as our two decades have a mission we’ve been o
rdered to undertake in a few short minutes.”

  “I know. We’re going with you,” I said.

  “Decades?” Jones said, looking puzzled.

  “Units of ten,” Gardoros said, waving around at a group of uniformed men slouching around five battered Toymo jeeps. “Doesn’t your force have any organization?”

  I heard Ward suppress a snort.

  “It’s a different organizational system,” I said. “What you call a decade, we would call a squad.”

  He nodded. “All right. Well, who ordered you to accompany us?”

  “One of the knights. Sir Something-or-other. I can’t even pronounce his name.”

  As I expected, Gardoros wasn’t about to question anything that even might have come down from on high. He nodded.

  “Certainly, sirs. It would be our honor to go to war with famous warriors such as yourselves!”

  The other militia guys looked warily at us as we walked over. In our armor, we dwarfed even the biggest of them.

  “You guys are mercenaries. You actually kill people for money?” one of them asked. He was a middle-aged guy, a little overweight with thick hands like a laborer.

  “Damn straight,” Jones said. “No payee, no killee. What about you?”

  “We fight for the Lords,” the man said, standing straighter. “As did our fathers before us.”

  “Good for you,” Jones said, rolling his eyes.

  “We’re hoping to help you learn how to fight a little more effectively,” Zelag said, trying to smooth things over. “Get you better set up and organized.”

  “We know how to fight,” another guy chimed in. This guy looked like a banking clerk. He was thin, with pencil-like arms and a prominent Adam’s apple.

  “Sure,” Jones said. “That’s why the Axiosi keep kicking your asses.”

  The guy stood up a little straighter, eyes flashing, and I half-expected him to put up his fists. Well, at least he had some fight in him.

  “Don’t worry,” Jones said, relenting a little and clapping the guy on the shoulder. “The Lord General and our captain have got some good ideas for you. We’ll get you fixed up. Honest, we ain’t the enemy.”

  “In truth, we could use some assistance,” Gardoros admitted. “We’ve never heard of our knights losing before. If they can’t defeat the Axi, what chance to do we have?”

  “We’ll fight to the death,” the guy with thick hands said bravely, if unconvincingly.

  “Let’s try to keep you all alive first,” I said. “So tell me, Gardoros, what’s the mission?”

  “We have an info gathering patrol to the location of a grave crime. As you no doubt know, two of our noble knights were lost this week. We have determined the area to be clear of enemy at this point and our job is to determine what happened to them. There’s also an Axiosi patrol that was spotted this morning a bit farther out—we’ll see if we can find them and take them out, if possible.”

  “Very good,” I said. “Lead on. We’ll observe and render what assistance we can.”

  A few minutes later we loaded up the jeeps, only to find one of the five wouldn’t start. After some arguing back and forth with the base mechanic and a failed attempt to jump start it, we were packed into four jeeps. We locked our helmets on just in case the Sfodrians were as bad at driving as they were at vehicle maintenance. The heat of the sun was already getting to us and our battlesuits are much better at temperature regulation with their helmets on.

  It’s also easier to talk amongst ourselves, and we did.

  “These guys are hopeless,” Jones said over his com so the Sfodrians couldn’t hear.

  “No officers,” Zelag said.

  “No training,” Ward added.

  “No chili,” Jones said.

  “Yeah, but they’re the client,” I said. “Don’t be total jackasses if you can help it.”

  “The government is the client,” Jones said. “Or the knights. Though I guess they are the government. These guys are total POGs.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I admitted. “They have no clue. But they’re really just draftees, after all. What more can you expect of them?”

  We hit a bump and I grabbed onto the handle. The four of us were jammed into the back seat of the jeep and it felt like whatever shocks the thing may have had were long-lost somewhere in the dust of this godforsaken planet.

  “Look,” Ward said, pointing up at the gun mounted on top of the Toymo. “There’s a PN-60 for you.”

  “Space,” Jones said. “So it is. They mounted a freaking PN-60 as their vehicle gun. That’s gotta be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I shook my head at the dust-covered rifle. They were good guns, but you’d figure they’d go for at least the long-range 120 or even a good old-fashioned rapid fire projectile gun. Nope. It was a standard issue PN-60.

  Zelag patted his blue rifle. “Maybe we can borrow it if these Feempers give out on us.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Ward said. “That thing looks like it’s long overdue for a good cleaning. Contacts and the plasma chamber are probably corroded to hell.”

  We hit another bump and it felt like the seat beneath me gave a little too much. I thumped myself up and down a couple of times to see. Yeah, it was loose.

  “We’re just gonna park in a minute and walk to where the incident took place,” our driver yelled back to us. “Terrain is too rough to drive, and maybe we can take them by surprise if we come in on foot.”

  I looked back at the huge trail of dust following in our wake and laughed in disbelief. Surprise. Yeah, that seemed likely.

  We parked the vehicles and walked about a kilometer up the side of a cactus-covered ridge. At the top, we looked down into a valley where a dry stream bed lay amidst huge boulders and the ruined columns of an ancient temple.

  “There was a report of some enemy activity in this area,” Gardoros told us as we walked down the hillside. “Since the militia was in the middle of a base rotation, Sir Hexarvald and Sir Joshimo traveled together. A drone went first and spotted a small force before going blank. The enemy force should have been easy for two knights to handle. Yet even as their families watched the live feed of their exploits, they were cut down in an ambush.”

  “Do you have those recordings?” I asked him.

  “Oh no,” he said, looking appalled. “They belong to their families. Such dishonor can never be viewed by commoners!”

  “Oh, for-” Jones expostulated over the com.

  “Shut up, Jonesy!” I cut him off and turned off my external speaker.

  “They entered the valley there, and there,” Gardoros said, pointing. “You can still see the impressions of their mighty strides.”

  There were two sets of deep indentations entering the valley from the east, that ended on the other side of the stream bed where the ground was scorched and broken.

  “That must be where they rolled in,” Jones said even as I made the observation.

  “I was told they were hit on several sides at once,” Gardoros said.

  “Don’t they have pretty good armor?” Ward asked.

  “Mighty armor,” Gardoros replied. “The Axiosi soldiers have never carried weapons heavy enough to harm a knight. Two knights together should have been indestructible.”

  “Looks like they were taken out pretty damn fast,” Ward noted as we reached the spot of the ambush and saw scorch marks and turned earth. “If they were tearing it up and fighting back like that other guy we saw, they would have left a lot more damage to the ground.”

  “Geez, how big are their suits?” Zelag said over the com as he looked into a large rut. “This is a little damage? The ground looks pretty damn ripped up to me.”

  I looked around to see where the knights might have been hit from. A few large boulders looked like good locations to hide, plus the fallen remains of a temple wall were at a good height for hiding behind and shooting over.

  One of the Sfodrian militia members was taking pictures of the entire area. A few of th
e soldiers gathered in a group by the stream bed and took off their hats and put them over their chests for a group shot.

  “What are they doing?” I asked. “Why take group photos here?”

  “They are showing their respect for the fallen knights. They will offer the image as a tribute to them at the memorial.”

  “I wonder if the Axiosi are hiring,” Jones muttered. Ward laughed bitterly.

  Gardoros stopped for a moment and put his hand to his ear. “Yes, Overseer. Thank you.”

  He turned to me. “The enemy patrol has been located and our decades have been honored with the duty to engage it. Do you wish to join us in battle?”

  “It is our fondest wish,” I said, ignoring the sarcastic comments in my ear. “Let’s see what our Axiosi friends have got!”

  Since the patrol was on foot, we closed in on them in under a local hour. The AI in our buckets scanned them in once we were close enough, revealing an eight-man squad ahead.

  “Stop here,” Gardoros ordered the drivers and they came to a halt behind a group of boulders and cacti. “We’ll move in on them on foot,” he announced. “Let’s head in.”

  The guys jumped out and started moving towards the enemy’s position, using boulders as cover.

  “Screw this,” Ward said over our coms. “We can get a jump on them by cutting down and around. Let them face off with the Sfodrians and we’ll get behind the targets.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, and the four of us took off at a right angle down into the brush of a trickling stream bed. I saw Gardoros looking down at us in confusion and saluted him, then we disappeared into cover.

  “Those guys have no tactics,” Jones said. “I could take all of them out myself.”

  “Too bad they’re our clients,” Zelag said. “I’d help.”

  “Enough of that,” I said. “Like I said, they’re civvies.”

  “POGs,” Ward said.

  “Fine, POGs—but they’re our guys for now.” I glanced at the enemy position and saw they were balled up behind some rocks. I wondered if they had any heavier artillery with them—and as I had the thought, I heard the THUMP of an RPG or some other incendiary and watched the dots of the friendlies scattering about.