Metal Monsters

by G. D. Stark

  I switched my com channel to see if I could raise Jock. “Scotsman, we’re on our way. You holding out?”

  “Roger that, Fox,” came the reply amidst the crackle of plasma and the sound of yells and explosions. “We’re holding our own at the moment, but we got minitanks incoming. Maybe one or two-man jobs. We tried hitting them at extreme range with the Feempers but they seem to be unaffected.”

  “Roger,” I said. “Sit tight. We’re bringing in the cavalry.”

  “Cavalry?” he replied, then I heard some more plasma fire. “Oh, you got some knights with you?”

  “Roger on that,” I replied. “Four are airborne and just flew over the ridge in front of us. You should see them any moment now.”

  “The ridge…there! I see ‘em!” he yelled. “Holy hell, look at those monsters!”

  “Be there in a few,” I said. “Over.”

  We stopped at the ridge and abandoned our jeeps. I assigned Jordan and Zelag the RPGs and we clambered over the ridge on foot. We looked down into the valley in time to see two Sfodrian knights facing off against three squadrons of minitanks as Axiosi infantry scattered to find cover. My display showed the other two knights hovering over the other side of the circle of ruins where the Sfodrian militia and Wardogs were pinned down, sending huge blasts of fire from their swords down into the enemy ranks.

  “We’ve got more enemy incoming!” Jones said. “Look to the west. Off behind us a bit, there!”

  I zoomed out my tactical view but my sensors hadn’t picked them up yet. But I was able to see a column of dust rising from beyond a patch of twisted trees.

  “The knights have it under control down there,” I said. I saw a minitank exploded as one of the knights sent a rocket through its armor. “Let’s see if we can get eyes on the incoming.”

  We moved along the ridge and into the woods. They were a lot thinner when you got close. The ground was mostly cracked earth and gravel around scattered trees.

  “RPGs, lock and load,” I ordered. “Everyone take cover. If this is a column of tanks, just stay down. Don’t engage, we’ll just call it in to the big boys below.”

  Ward and I took cover inside a patch of twisted trees with 10-centimeter thorns. Thank Ares for armor, I thought, as I pressed myself against a trunk that would have torn me up if I were in civvies.

  My heart thumped and my palms sweated as my helmet mic picked up the sounds of engines as well as feet marching. There were definitely vehicles incoming. I checked my display and saw the heat signatures of two of minitanks and a half-dozen enemy infantry blink into view. Then another four minitanks appeared on screen, as well as another dozen men.

  “We can take ‘em,” Ward said.

  “You sure about that?” I said. “We don’t know their armor or what sort of penetration they’ll take.”

  “These are light one-man jobs,” Jordan said. “Tin cans.”

  “And we have Feempers,” Jones added. “We jam up the first few, pick off the soldiers, maybe stop the advance.”

  “You heard Jock. The Feempers didn’t work. Maybe they went old school.”

  “At extreme range,” Jones said. “We’re going to hit them nice and close.”

  I shouldered my rifle and looked through the scope. I could feel the climate control in my helmet compensating for the cold sweat on my forehead. I didn’t see the approaching column yet, but my visor told me it was close.

  I thought it through. We could hit them as they passed, find out our weapons were ineffectual, and risk getting torn to shreds. Or, if the Feempers and RPGs were capable, we’d take them out quickly. Or we could let them pass, then harry them from behind, putting them between us and the knights. I looked ahead towards a point where the rocks made a natural bottleneck. They’ll roll through there, I thought. If we can take out the point vehicle, we can trap them there..

  “Retreat beyond that bottleneck,” I ordered. “We’ll hit them with everything we’ve got as the first vehicle comes through those rocks. If it’s not immobilized, we run like hell, got it? Now move!”

  We ran through the brush and got to the other side of the bottleneck and broke up into four two-man teams. I was with Ward

  “They’re coming,” I said, seeing the movement of the tanks and men on my visor. “Steady. When the first two tanks are between the rocks, let them have it.”

  I raised my rifle to my shoulder and watched the gap. Four infantry came through, moving forwards. They looked around, then I saw them raise their rifles expectantly.

  “They’re seeing us,” Ward hissed.

  They must have picked us up on their scanners—but as they scanned, I spotted the tanks still rolling in towards the gap behind them. Stupid—first thing I would have done was stop the column if I was seeing enemy beyond a chokepoint. They must have thought we were simply crummy Sfodrian militia troops and not any kind of threat.

  “Ready,” I said. “Watch for them to move in.”

  Then three things happened almost at once. First, lead elements of the enemy infantry opened fire towards where they believed we were based on their scanners. Second, the first minitank emerged from the gap. And third, I yelled “FIRE!” just as it came out, and the two grenades were away, along with six high-intensity blasts of combined electro-magnetic pulse and plasma.

  I couldn’t tell how many direct hits we got on the first tank, as there was a big explosion of dirt and rocks as at least one of the grenades hit a rock instead of the tank, hurling a small plume of rubble, dust, and smoke skyward. Our fire had exposed our positions to the infantry. I switched my Feemper to broad dispersion and fired it in case any of them had implants. No effect—but it didn’t matter anyway, as some of our guys had a better vantage point than me. They took the enemy out in a hail of fire, their less protected positions putting them at an extreme disadvantage.

  The smoke cleared around the tanks, and one of them shoved the lead tank, which appeared to be immobilized, through the gap.

  I jacked my Feemper up to full and tight and blasted at the second tank. It stopped for a moment, as if paralyzed, then moved again, rotating its turret towards our position.

  “DOWN!” I yelled as a torrent of 20mm projectiles chipped away at the big rock behind which we took cover. Fortunately, they weren’t high-explosive shells.

  We rolled down and back. I heard the explosion of more RPG fire as the teams reloaded and let the tank have it.

  “These guys have better armor than we thought,” I head Jones pant into the com. “The tank we stopped just got free.”

  There was another buzz-saw rattle of 20mm fire and a tree near us exploded into splinters.

  “Retreat!” I yelled. “Get back to better cover.”

  Ward and I took off for a position further down the hill, but the cover was thinning out.

  “Dammit!” Ward said, as we ran. “If one of those tanks emerges from the brush, we’re toast.”

  “There’s a ditch coming up,” I said. “Dive in.”

  We got down in the ditch and lay flat. I could see our other teams were still moving and with the GPS overlay it looked like they had some cover. The four other tanks had joined the first two and made it through the gap along with the rest of the enemy militia. Then I realized we were in deep shit, as I saw two of the minitanks and a team of four Axiosi infantry making their way down the hill to our position.

  “They have us on their scanners,” Ward said, reloading his RPG. “They’ll be here in a minute.”

  “We can’t take them,” I said, as I watched our end appear. Pinned down in a ditch, what a way to go. Live by the sword…

  “Fox!” Jock’s voice came over my com. “You all right?”

  “Hell no!” I yelled at him. “We have armor right on top of us! We’re in a ditch, other side of the ridge.”

  “Help is on the way” Jock assured me. “Stay down!”

  I felt the ground beneath me start to vibrate as the minitanks closed in.

  “Is there a god of mercenaries?
” Ward said. “I’d just like to know who to pray to.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “We’re on our own.”

  BBBBBBBRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAPPPPP!!! I heard the sound of a miniball cannon opening up, but it wasn’t towards us!

  A deafening sound of rockets filled the air and a huge shadow fell over us. There was the sound of plasma discharges, explosions and a few screams, and then there was silence. I glanced at my scanners and saw no enemy movement, so I ventured a glance over the edge of the ditch. Standing there in front of me was a massive Sfodrian knight, all alone amidst the wreckage and bodies of the tanks and men that had almost had our number. I checked my visor and saw nothing of the robot, then realized he must be completely shielded against scans.

  The massive head of the knight rotated towards our position and I waved. He ignored me, then tucked himself into into a huge ball and rolled away from us, leaving a quarter-meter deep rut behind him.

  “That was rude,” Ward commented as we brushed ourselves off and got our bearings. I checked my screen for the rest of our men and saw the enemy had been immobilized and the rest of the squad we reforming about a tenth of a click from our position in the woods where we’d staged our ill-fated ambush. “I think I can forgive him, though.”

  “So long as he’s shooting at the enemy and doesn’t step on us, I don’t care if he’s the antichrist,” I replied.

  “You all right, Tommy? Ward?” Zelag’s voice came over the com.

  “A-okay,” I replied. “Everybody good over there.”

  “Roger,” he replied. “Knight bailed us out.”

  “Same here,” I replied. “Nearing your position—there in two.”

  “Well, this was a total SNAFU,” Ward said.

  “Builds character,” I said.

  “Gets you killed unless you’ve got a giant killer robots in your pocket,” Ward replied.

  “There is that,” I admitted. I shouldn’t have approved an ambush with weapons not tested on the enemy. Just because the tanks were small, it didn’t mean our RPGs were made for us. They were better weapons against trucks and transports, not tanks. Even minitanks, apparently. The important part of “live and learn” was the “live” part. And if I let the enthusiasm for battle take over my men without a good knowledge, I would get us killed. Every battlefield was different, every enemy was different, and we got thrown into new stuff all the time. I made a note to myself to exercise more caution in the future.

  “Tommy!” Jones said, slapping me on the back. “You boys ran the wrong way out of the woods.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” I said. “Realized too late we had almost no cover.”

  “We had 20mm fire incoming and would have been overrun in a moment,” Ward said. “We made the only choice.”

  “We shouldn’t have tried the ambush,” I said.

  “Why not?” Jones said. “Now we know RPGs and Feempers won’t take down those little tanks. That’s good intel.”

  “I’d rather not gather intel at the risk of my skull,” I said. “Let some other idiot shoot at tanks and find out.”

  “The knights just smashed them like nothing,” Ford said, waving towards the smoking and twisted remains of the tanks. “It was unbelievable.”

  “Tommy bring your men down,” Jock said over the com. “All clear down here. We’ve got some captives, too. Couple of officers.”

  “All’s well that ends well,” Jones smiled. It was not a pretty sight.

  As we rode back in the jeep, I found myself unable to dismiss a nagging thought. Four knights had come down and smashed up tanks and basically won the whole damn battle by themselves while we Wardogs, badasses though we be, didn’t manage to accomplish much more than get overwhelmed by the enemy armor. I put my thoughts into words. “Guys, what the hell could possibly take out those knights?”

  “Good question,” Zelag said. “They shrugged off RPGs and 20mm cannon fire, small arms… they were practically invulnerable on the field.”

  “They don’t even show up on scanners,” Ward added. “Twenty feet tall and they’re invisible!”

  “Yeah,” Jones added. “Gigantic invisible wrecking balls.”

  “So what could possibly take out a weapon like that?” I said. “Who are these mercenaries?

  “We got the officers,” Jones said, and winked. “I’ll find out for you.”

  Chapter 7

  Jones whistled a happy tune to himself as we prepared for the prisoners to reach the interrogation room. I tried not to think about the last time Jonesy found his happy place with a prisoner and a knife. Whatever it is that WDI screens out, it isn’t psychopathy.

  “Hey, Falkland,” Edgerton said when he arrived. “I assumed you want Babbage to serve as our lie detector, so I took the liberty of setting him up for physiological scans and so forth.” Edgerton held up a little silver scanner.

  “Very good,” I said. “We saved you the desk in the corner,” I said. “You should put your helmet on, though.”

  “Why are we wearing our battlesuits?” he asked.

  “Intimidation,” I said. “We don’t want them to see our faces.”

  “Yeah, and it’s also because our armor scares the shit out of people,” Jones added, lovingly studying the edge of a straight razor. “I wonder why?”

  Jones, Ward, Edgerton and I were in a private warehouse WDI had rented for the occasion. Technically, the Sfodrians and Axiosi had a treaty that disallowed enhanced interrogation, but given the way their most highly-valued warriors were being lost, the Sfodrians only cared about the letter of the law. The niceties of a treaty from decades back weren’t going to restrain them from saving their best, and if we took care of the details, they could also deny knowledge.

  “Tommy, we got candidate number one ready,” Zelag said over my com. “You ready?”

  “The first prisoner is here,” I told Jones. “You ready?”

  “Always.”

  We flipped down our visors and Jones killed the lights, except for the spotlight over the “chair of misery”, as he’d dubbed it. I think it was actually a gynecologist’s chair to which he’d added some additional straps and spray-painted black, but “chair of misery” it was. Freaking Jones.

  Zelag came in with a disoriented Axiosi officer in boxers and an undershirt. When the guy saw the chair, his eyes widened and he started to struggle, but Ward and Jones easily tied him down thanks to their servo-powered suits.

  “I shot him up with some strong stuff,” Zelag said over the com so the prisoner couldn’t hear him. “He shouldn’t remember any of this. The Sfodrians might just shoot him or they might let him go, but one of them told me to be careful about leaving too many marks just in case.”

  “Low energy,” Jones said, shaking his head and picking up the razor again, then setting it down mournfully. “How is a guy supposed to put in a good day’s work under these conditions? We need a union.”

  “It’s mostly psychology anyhow,” Zelag said. “You don’t really need to carve your initials in his spleen with a rusty pocketknife to get what you need.”

  “You don’t understand art,” Jones said. “It’s not always about what’s necessary.”

  “Get to it, Jonesey,” I told him. “Enough foreplay.”

  Less than a kilosec later, the officer was ready to talk. It was a smart move on his part as Jones was starting to get bored and he got considerably more creative when he was bored.

  “Grachev,” he finally admitted. “They’re from Grachev!”

  “Grachev?” I said over the com. I’d never heard of the place. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a planet on the edges of the Man-Machine Unity,” Edgerton said. “It’s under Unity control.”

  “Jones, ask guy dude what their mercenary friends look like,” I said.

  “Describe your buddies from Grachev,” Jones ordered.

  “I didn’t see much of them,” the officer pleaded. “I swear!”

  Jones stepped a little closer. “It’s the
truth,” the guy said quickly. “You can’t see much of them. They keep covered up for the most part. You know, in their suits.”

  “For the most part?” Jones said. “Tell us what you know about the lesser part.”

  “I didn’t actually see them myself. But there’s another officer who told me he saw their eyes once when a flash from an explosion lit up the merc’s faceplate from the side.”

  “So, what about it?” Jones said.

  “And he said the guy’s eyes looked silver.”

  “That proves nothing,” Ward muttered. “Could just be medical implants. A cam augment, maybe. Enhanced vision.”

  I thought back to Betty’s wide-spaced silver eyes. Eye replacements weren’t all that common, but it didn’t necessarily mean someone was a true cyborg. But then, the mercs were from a Unity-dominated world.

  “Silver eyes,” Jones said. “Anything else?”

  “No,” the officer said firmly.

  “That’s not enough,” Jones said. “Think harder!”

  The man was quiet for a moment, then spoke. “I know one more thing. They talk weird.”

  “How so?”

  “Just weird. I don’t know. Not like us.”

  “Dammit,” Jones said. “Do I need to take your ears off just to get you to pay attention?”

  “No,” the man said. “No, it’s just… they’re just different! Real cold and direct. Precise. Everything they do and say is, I don’t know, efficient, I guess.” He blinked a few times and started to slouch in the chair.

  “We’re not going to get much more out of him,” Ward said.

  “That’s enough for now,” I decided. “Put him under and we’ll talk to the other guy. Zelag, get him out of here.”

  We worked on the other guy for a while and didn’t get much more, though the second officer said he was convinced the mercenaries had prosthetic arms, as he’d seen one of them get injured by a knight and lose a chunk of his armor. The merc had wires and tubing up his forearms, with strange fingers that looked like some sort of silvery alloy. Edgerton’s AI confirmed the man was telling the truth and we sent him back to his cell with a much better idea of what we were facing. It wasn’t certain, but there was enough evidence for us to pin them down as cyborgs, which meant they were almost certainly Unity. We had a pretty good idea what they were, and now we needed to learn was how they were taking out the 6-meter-tall robotic wrecking balls that ruled Sfodria.