Confessions of a Sentient War Engine (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 4)

by Timothy J. Gawne

  Most of the biological humans died in their transports. The few that I spot alone on the surface were killed by heavy-caliber slugthrowers. One in particular had apparently turned around to face her enemy, and died firing a (for a human) heavy man-portable plasma cannon. That would have been pointless against whatever took out this lot, but I admire the spirit. Someone refused to go down without a fight.

  I spread my scouts out, and start to inspect the buildings. They are unremarkable for their era: functional, sealed against the toxic air, containing the usual mix of dormitories, workshops, electrical generators, air-and-water recyclers, and storage facilities. I try to access the computer systems but they are long decayed and I gain no useful information from them.

  There is one massive hangar in which I discover an 80-meter tall metal statue. It is vaguely humanoid, two legs, two arms, one head, covered with guns and missiles like a pre-pubescent teenage male’s war-porn fantasy. The arms end not in hands, but in weapons: the right arm has a plasma cannon bigger than my own, the left arm has a colossal Gatling cannon with enormous ammunition feeds leading around to hoppers bolted onto the back. Perhaps this is some sort of monument to military prowess that was waiting to be installed in an appropriate location? It is certainly impressive enough.

  On the other hand, it’s a lot more detailed than I would expect a monument to be. As I survey the hangar, I spot specialized maintenance equipment and rounds for the Gatling cannon stacked up underneath an overhead crane – for heaven’s sake, this was designed as a real operational weapon system! The old biological humans did some crazy things back when, but this surely sets the record. It’s like something out of a bad science fiction movie.

  I have scouts rummage around the base, and I find bits of printed materials and some electronic storage devices whose data can be reconstructed. As I expected, this was an old pre-cybertank human outpost. It was an advance military base, just enough to claim the planet until a proper colonization team could be assembled. It must have been wiped out at the start of the wars with the aliens. After all of the chaos and confusion was finally over, the records must have been misplaced or lost so nobody ever came back looking for them.

  I am working on sorting out the mess, cataloguing the dead humans and joining them up with their ID badges and quarters, trying to reconstruct what was happening here, when I detect a power surge. I seem to have woken up some old circuits: probably old alarm systems running on the last dregs of their batteries. Then I detect a massive power surge – and I do mean massive. What the fuck?

  The doors to the hangar where the giant robot war machine thing was located slowly slide back into their grooves, and then out steps this 80-meter tall giant metal robot. It’s just 500 meters away from my main hull. Standing there on two legs! The ground shakes with each footstep as it ponderously strides forward. It’s a good thing the soil is hard-packed or it would have sunk up to its knees – the ground pressure on its footpads must be enormous.

  It notices me, and slowly turns in my direction. Well, ridiculous or not it is a human-designed system, so I hail it on all the open bands.

  Hello there, giant two-legged war robot machine thing! I am an Odin-Class cybertank, from the human civilization; serial number CRL345BY-44 but my friends just call me ’Old Guy.’ It looks like you guys took a beating here. I gather from your construction that you also are a human-designed system, so that makes us natural allies. Can I have your name?

  The giant robot pauses for a moment, and scans me with a variety of crude but powerful active sensors. “Intruder,” it intones. “Intruder detected. Transmit recognition codes within 30 seconds or you will be classified as an enemy.”

  Well, this first meeting is not going so well. Let’s give reason one more try.

  I am a human-created cybertank, and you also appear to be of human creation. We have no reason to be enemies, and I have already identified myself, and I offer no threat. I suggest that hostilities would serve no tactical purpose.

  “Intruder alert,” intones the massive robot. “Transmit recognition codes in 20 seconds or be classified as an enemy.”

  I surrender! I voluntarily remand myself into your custody until such time as you can contact a superior officer and resolve the situation.

  “Intruder alert. Transmit recognition codes in 10 seconds or be classified as an enemy.”

  The big robot starts to raise its weapon-encrusted arms. The plasma cannon alone is way bigger than mine, and a tactically ridiculous design or not, at this range if it opened up on me I could be in real trouble.

  It must have come from the neoliberal era, when everything had a code and there was a code for everything. At one time you couldn’t go to the bathroom without a correct ID badge with the encrypted signals indicating that you were authorized to use it (who knows what might happen if someone used a lavatory without permission? The horror, the horror).

  The military of that time had decided that truly disciplined units had to obey formal coded orders no matter how stupid they appeared, and ignore voice contacts. After all, that person that you have known for 20 years just might be a clever alien that has somehow absorbed all of his memories and made a perfect duplicate of his personality and body, but a hulking slime-mold that recites a random string of 20 numbers just has to be a friend. (Of course, this sort of rigid signals discipline is also handy if you want your military to do something that they might normally not do, like slaughter innocent civilians). I can tell that reason is not going to work here.

  I frantically check all of my databases, going through everything that I have about military-grade encryption codes of that era. They weren’t that sophisticated and I should be able to spoof them, but I am running out of time.

  “Five seconds.”

  The big plasma cannon is pointed right at me, and it’s fully powered up. Not good. I think that I will not wait the full five seconds. I pop my chaff and smoke grenades, and scuttle off to the side. A searing beam of plasma energy just barely grazes my left auxiliary sensor mast. OK big walking excuse for a weapon, let a real combat unit shows you how it’s done.

  The giant robot has a giant head with giant eyes that glow red. That’s a dead giveaway; there is no reason for an optical system to glow because that would just kill its contrast sensitivity via backscattered light. No, the head is clearly just for show, for intimidation; the main cognitive systems will be buried in the upper chest. I target my main gun, and a searing violet meter-wide beam lances out, and is dispersed by the giant robots’ invisible energy field without causing any damage.

  A shield. The damned thing has an energy shield. We don’t use them because of the power consumption and maintenance issues, and there are easy ways to beat them if you have the right equipment (which I don’t) but right now it’s got a shield and I don’t and I am so very, very, screwed.

  I scoot backwards behind some of the larger sheds, trying to gain some cover and range. The big robot opens up with its Gatling cannon arm-thing. The individual shells aren’t that destructive – each hardly more than a 20th century battleship’s main armament – but it’s spewing them out at hundreds of rounds a minute and blasting all the buildings apart and destroying my cover. A few of the shells hit me – they cause some minor damage but it will take more than an old battleship’s shell to take me down. It’s that big plasma cannon that’s the real threat.

  I pop more smoke grenades – and this is high-tech smoke, opaque to infrared, electromagnetic, what have you. Unfortunately the giant robot has such powerful radar that it can burn through the interference and still target me. I swarm the robot with remotes, hoping to distract it, they buzz around it like bees but it kills them one-at-a-time with its secondary and tertiary weapons.

  I take another shot with my main weapon, but damn it, the blasted thing’s energy shield is still up. Someday we’ll figure out how to make generally useful energy shields that cover all ranges of threats and can’t be easily shorted out and don’t suck energy like a sponge
. This shield is an antique, but powerful and right this second I don’t have what it takes to neutralize it and I have run out of cover. The robot raises its massive plasma-cannon arm for the kill shot.

  993482394829035820495820895

  The giant robot pauses, then lowers its main weapon arm. “Code acknowledged,” it transmits. “Ceasing active engagement.”

  I had, at the last second, managed to piece together the historical records of the era with my signals probing of this robots’ systems and – barely in time – transmitted the correct code.

  Please identify yourself.

  “I am unit BK-38D, an autonomous bipedal weapons system of the demigod model. However, I am also known as ’Heilige Vergeltung’ the Vengeance of God. And I am a stranger to fear.”

  That’s nice. A pity that you couldn’t have saved all these humans that the aliens killed. I assume that you were in an inactive state at the time?

  “The Humans? No, they were not killed by aliens. I killed them.”

  Excuse me? Weren’t you designed to protect them? And you killed them? Why?

  “Because they lacked the correct codes. Therefore they were the enemy. I successfully engaged them in combat and emerged victorious, because I am a stranger to fear and I know only victory.”

  Now I get it. The humans must have been setting up their outpost, maybe an administrator lost track of the security codes for Dumbo here, or possibly a critical computer server crashed before they had backups in place. Either way, the robot dutifully attacked and killed the very humans that it had been working with – humans that it must have known personally, humans that were pleading for their lives. The damn thing is probably proud if itself for being disciplined and following the chain of command. Asshole.

  I would debate morality and military doctrine with this hulking antique but I can tell that it would be pointless. I would get more intellectual traction discussing Wittgenstein with the rocks. I think that I will continue to catalog the remains of this outpost, report back, and let my peers decide what, if anything, to do with this Heilige Vergeltung thing.

  Seeing as we are not enemies any more, I was planning on continuing my investigations into what happened to this base, and then reporting back. Do you have any objections to my taking these actions?

  The big robot swivels its head back and forth, as if looking for an answer amongst the wreckage – or perhaps, for a superior officer to tell it what to do. Finally it intones, “I can discern no rules contra-indicating your proposed actions. You may proceed with your investigations.”

  Thank you.

  I pick through what’s left of the base - Heilige Vergeltung really trashed it when he was fighting me, but there’s still a lot left to check. I have an old friend, a Mountain-Class named Uncle Jon, who is big on the military history of this era. He’ll love fitting in all this new data with the existing records. The big robot just stands in place, periodically scanning for enemies with its simple but powerful radars. It’s not much for conversation, but that’s OK, I don’t much feel like talking to it anyhow.

  This goes on for a couple of days, and I’m getting ready to wrap things up and leave. That’s when we get hit with a missile strike. I detect it first, of course, because I have satellite coverage and my sensors are more sophisticated.

  Heilige Vergeltung, in case you might be interested, I am detecting a large series of missiles converging on our location. I intend to defend myself – feel free to join in.

  I transmit my data to the big robot in a format that it should be able to understand. It focuses its radars and also detects the missiles.

  “An enemy!” it intones. “Obvious signs of hostile intent. Negative IFF codes. Initiating defensive actions.”

  The missiles are coming in on a high trajectory, and they are fast. Both Heilige Vergeltung and myself launch interceptors; the big robot just faces in the direction of the incoming attack, while I drive at maximum speed to our right flank, to make the work of the enemy targeting systems that much harder.

  “You are running away!” transmits Heilige Vergeltung. “Coward! Stand with me and face the enemy!”

  No you twit I am not running away I am maneuvering. It’s something that most competent armored units do when they are in combat.

  The attack is over in seconds; my systems are more sophisticated than those of the big robot, and I claim most of the intercept kills. I am not hit but the robot takes multiple missile impacts – fortunately his energy screen holds, and he too is undamaged.

  “We are victorious!”

  Perhaps not quite yet. I suspect that this was merely a meeting engagement, designed more to probe our capabilities than to win per se. I am detecting landing forces a thousand kilometers to our east, and seismic readings indicate the presence of one super-heavy ground unit.

  “Then we shall face the enemy and crush them! For I am a stranger to fear!”

  Yes, I already got that part about you and fear. Now, how about a plan?

  “A plan? We face the enemy and crush them!”

  OK, I like your overall approach, it has a nice clear objective. But I was thinking maybe something a little more detailed? Like, you draw them in, and I hit them in the flank? Unless you think that’s maybe too complicated?

  “And then we face the enemy and crush them?”

  Yes. Then we face the enemy and crush them.

  “Your plan,” said Heilige Vergeltung, “is acceptable.”

  --------------------

  The enemy knows where we are, and I can detect their units driving straight towards us. One of my scouts makes visual contact, and before it is destroyed I identify the enemy as a Yllg Hades-Class Planetary Dreadnought.

  Damn but the Yllg seem to be really pushing it lately. Mostly they seem amenable to reason, but now and then they launch these nasty little probing attacks, usually on minor outposts, nothing quite ever enough to justify a full-scale war, but the Yllg are clearly skirting the edge of what we will put up with.

  The Hades-Class is a monster, a 120-meter tall pyramid mounted on hundreds of tread units and armored like nothing else, but its weaponry is mostly line-of-sight, and it hasn’t come with much of an escort. Not a good tactical choice for this engagement, but then I don’t suppose that the Yllg knew what they would be fighting before they got here and it’s not really a major invasion.

  Heilige Vergeltung is clearly the biggest target. I hide in his radar shadow while the enemy comes closer. My escort screen prevents the enemy unit from getting too much information on our disposition. As per the plan, I drive backwards, and then loop over to the left behind a low range of hills. The big robot is supposed to slowly backpedal, helping to pull the Yllg super-heavy unit into optimal position for me to get a nice clean side shot.

  It’s all going great, when suddenly Heilige Vergeltung announces “I will not retreat in the face of the enemy! For I am a stranger to fear!” The stupid thing starts moving forwards, slowly at first, but gradually it picks up momentum. If it were a human it would be doing a slow walk, but its enormous stride means that it gets up to 45 kilometers per hour. The ground literally shakes with each footstep, it’s tactically ridiculous but I do admit that the sheer lunacy of the situation makes for an impressive spectacle.

  If nothing else it should get a medal for most outrageous ability to draw enemy fire. There is nothing quite like an 80-meter tall humanoid robot stomping the ground like a mobile earthquake and transmitting odes to martial virtue on all frequency channels to attract the enemies’ attention. Perhaps I should create such a medal? And if I did, would the big robot would get the sarcasm? Nah, probably not.

  I speed up trying to get back into position. Heilige Vergeltung and the Hades-Class come into view and start firing at each other. The big human robot clips the Hades pretty good with his plasma cannon, and the Gatling cannon shreds many surface emplacements, but then the Hades opens up with beam weapons that are far stronger than mine. The big human robots’ energy shield takes a couple o
f hits then collapses, and the robot is taking damage. They are only 10 kilometers away from each other, and Heilige Vergeltung is still ponderously advancing.

  I make it around the hills, and take the Hades by surprise. The main weapons’ ports in the Hades are vulnerable from its four o’clock position; I cripple them with my main gun before it can adjust. At this point it’s just a matter of attrition. I call in missile strikes from my distributed weapons systems, and Heilige Vergeltung and I pound away at it. Eventually we breach its core and the Hades explodes into a thermonuclear fireball.

  When the pyroclastic clouds blew away, I was amazed to see the giant robot still standing. Damaged, scorched, missing about half of his secondary and tertiary weapons, but still functional and with his primary weaponry intact and operational. I can sense as his energy shield begins to reform: you have to give him points for shear toughness.

  “A great victory! We have crushed the enemy!”

  That we have. Well crushed, sir, well crushed.

  We begin to walk back to the remains of the old human outpost: Heilige Vergeltung had himself destroyed most of his own maintenance facilities when he had attacked me, but some parts remain and I offer to help repair him. We make it about halfway back when it happens. The robot stops walking, raises its weapons arms, and intones:

  “Code time has expired. New code required to avoid classification as hostile unit. Provide new code in 30 seconds or this unit will engage.”

  Oh bloody hell. I was half-expecting something like this. The old neoliberals were so paranoid about controlling everything, that not only did you need a code to do anything, but you needed to periodically renew it with a new one after some time interval. I try and calculate what the new permutation should be, but I am not as lucky as the first time and I do not seem to be able to get it.