Blood and Iron p-2

by Tony Ballantyne

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Spoole, the excitement in his voice. ‘And then the second offensive begins! Are you ready Sandale? Are you ready, Generals?’

  The Generals had scratched wire wool across their bodies, dulling the shiny surfaces. They carried rifles and blades, they wore grenades and determined expressions.

  ‘We’re ready!’

  Kavan was impressed to note the steel in their eyes. They were going to attack, he was sure of that much. After that… he would just have to wait and see.

  More of the pulse-bomb devices buzzed overhead. But now white tracer was streaming up from the smaller of the two human spaceships lying there in the middle of the compound. The tracer caught the missiles, exploding one of them overhead, the force of the blast knocking Kavan and the rest to the ground. Some of the robots didn’t stand up again.

  ‘Lights,’ said Calor, peering into the night. ‘All over the human compound. They are running this way and that. Climbing into vehicles. Coming to meet us.’

  Yellow and red flames flared up inside the compound, they arced up and over the perimeter fence to drop down on the infantryrobots just beyond, disintegrating their bodies, flinging shrapnel everywhere, damaging the fence itself.

  ‘Now,’ said Kavan. ‘Generals! Redeem yourselves!’

  The Generals stamped the ground. They began to march forward, they broke into a jog, and then they ran. All around them, shuffling forward through the marshalling yard, the infantry-robots and Storm Troopers and Scouts saw them and began to do the same. A grey and black flood, flecked in silver, was unleashed towards the compound, rolling forward to the accompaniment of the buzzing symphony in the sky.

  Kavan and his entourage began to walk forward too, following the advance.

  ‘Something new,’ shrieked Calor. ‘Can you hear it?’

  They all picked up on it. A rising note, engines spinning to life.

  ‘Something’s moving!’ called Calor. ‘The ship! One of the ships is taking off!’

  ‘That’s their gun platform,’ said a nearby robot. ‘That’s the one that attacked us back when we first tried to take Artemis.’

  A dark shape was rising from the centre of the compound. As Kavan watched, lights moved across the shape.

  ‘Ada! Bring it down! Bring it down now!’

  Ada was speaking into a radio.

  ‘Ninety seconds!’ she said. ‘We have to bring the next trains up to speed.’

  ‘Will it work?’ shouted Kavan. He could hear the roar of the diesel engines in the distance.’

  ‘It’ll work,’ said Ada. ‘Will your troops be ready?’

  ‘They’ll be ready.’ And, in an uncharacteristic moment of doubt, Kavan added, ‘Let’s hope what Goeppert told us about the whalers is right!’

  The human craft rose higher. White flame spurted from its nose, missiles slamming down on the attacking troops beneath. The pulse bombs that dodged and rolled in the sky, chasing the helicopters, now turned their attention towards the rising ship, flinging themselves towards it, running themselves into the needle missiles it fired, exploding in balls of flame that illuminated the grey and black battlefield below. The humans were also bringing new guns into position: mobile guns on vehicles, they poured their fire into the solid mass of troops that crept inexorably towards them.

  ‘Sixty seconds!’ called Ada.

  The ship was turning as it rose, sliding towards the city. Black and gold bands travelled slowly down its length, and Kavan recognized the meaning. It was signalling a warning. Two hatches opened beneath the craft, and smaller craft, very much like Ada’s own pulse bombs, fell from them. Their tails ignited as they fell and with a lurch they streaked towards Kavan, passing over his head in blur of flame. Heading for the Centre City.

  ‘Get down,’ said Ada. They fell to the ground just as the repeated percussion of the explosions shook the earth. White light glowed so hard it burned into the eyes, dark shadows tore the brightness apart.

  ‘Atomics,’ said Ada. There was a moment’s pause on the battlefield. Robots looked back to the clouds that rose, dark above the centre of the city.

  ‘They hit the Centre City,’ said Calor. ‘Wiped it out…’

  ‘Thirty seconds,’ said Ada.

  The noise of the battlefield was increasing. Even with hearing turned right down it rattled the shell: the rumble of diesel engines, the noise of trains on tracks, thunder of explosions, chatter of gun shots, the drone of pulse bombs, rippling of human guns, pulsing of pressure, crackle of the first of the Tesla towers discharging. The night sky was alive with dancing devices, trails of tracer, and now, rising higher and higher, launched from the trains, the remainder of Ada’s devices. The ones that Kavan had held in reserve, streaking towards the human craft, each trailing a long cable behind it.

  ‘Rocket engines,’ said Ada with satisfaction. ‘Harder to build. Harder to manoeuvre.’

  They moved fast. But not fast enough. The human ship rippled with light as its weapons picked them off, the guns on the ground turned upwards to destroy them.

  The infantryrobots took advantage of the lull and surged forward, breaching the compound perimeter, and the guns turned their fire back to earth again. And so the first of the new devices finally saw a pathway and struck home, piercing the human craft. The long wire trailing from it looped down to the ground.

  ‘The barbs should extend on impact,’ said Ada. Robots were already running forward, seizing hold of the cable. Pulling at it. To no avail. The craft was rising into the air, dragging them up with it. More devices streaking forward. Piercing the craft. More cables. Storm Troopers took hold of them, other robots gripping their bodies. Bazookas and guns were trained on the craft. The orange bands of light that ran the craft’s extent flickered, the ascent hesitated, halted, and slowly, the black and gold ship began to tilt sideways.

  ‘Pull!’ called Ada. ‘Pull!’

  ‘Pull, Pull,’ came the shout, echoed by all those robots on the plain that dragged at the huge ship.

  More devices slammed into the craft, cables whipping across the battlefield, tangling around robots, cutting them in two. Other robots took their place, seizing the ropes and pulling. Robots climbed the wires, adding their weight to the craft. Wires snapped and robots tumbled to the ground. But some of them made it inside the craft itself. The turning point was reached. The craft was descending.

  ‘Pull!’

  They were whaling. Whaling for a craft from another planet. It slid earthwards, it clipped the perimeter of the compound. The lights across its hull winked, once, twice and then went out. With a grinding shriek, the ship ploughed its way into the ground.

  Stamp, stamp, stamp!

  A huge cheer sounded.

  ‘Now, take it!’ said Kavan, and he smiled.

  Spoole

  The Generals ran towards the stricken human craft, the last bands of colour fading from its side.

  Spoole would have put a bullet through their heads. Kavan was a fool to put them in the middle of the charge, where they could let the other soldiers form a protective wall around themselves and allow better robots to take the flak for them.

  ‘The guns!’ called Sandale. ‘Aim for the guns!’

  Obediently, the surrounding Storm Troopers turned their bazookas towards the turrets that had sprung open on the downed craft’s side and were already rippling bullets towards them.

  As they closed on the craft its enormous size became apparent, and Spoole was filled with wonder at just what the Generals had attempted. How could they have been so foolish as to try and make a deal with these creatures? Just how powerful were the humans in comparison? He was reminded of the story of Janet Verdigris, how she had made a deal with the robots beneath the world.

  Something screamed like a buzzsaw being crushed by an adamantium snake; something whipped across the battlefield and half the robots beside him flashed and died, their bodies had been sliced in two, the parts tumbling to the ground.

  ‘There!’ cried Sandale, and
Spoole saw something hurtling forward through the crowd.

  ‘The devices!’ observed Spoole. ‘More of them!’

  They looked up to see Ada’s inventions streaking overhead, heading towards the second and larger of the human craft as it rose into the air, seeking escape. Its bulk blocked the sky above them.

  ‘Idiots!’ screamed Sandale. ‘Trailing cable through the battlefield! Don’t they realize they could hit us?’

  He still hadn’t got it, reflected Spoole. He still didn’t see that he was expendable.

  An explosion up ahead drew his attention back to the battlefield.

  ‘We breached it!’ called a Storm Trooper. ‘We blew a hole in the side!’

  Spoole looked and saw. The grounded ship was ripped open near the nose. Infantryrobots were already forcing their way in, peeling back lovely long strips of the strange human alloy.

  ‘We’re in!’ shouted Sandale. ‘Robots of Artemis! Attack!’

  The call was unnecessary. What else would the robots do? Spoole watched as the Generals assumed control of the capture of the spaceship. They were back in power already.

  Kavan was a fool, he thought once more.

  Susan

  Susan’s body had been broken when she was hurled from the troop train as it ran off the end of the lines at speed. Two engineers had found her and quickly put her back together again, then sent her on her way. She joined the other infantryrobots heading towards the human compound. And then the air had filled with so much metal that she had dropped, terrified, in a shell hole, and waited for the battle to stop.

  A Storm Trooper sheltered there too, and she had felt his shame as he crouched there, big black hands clasped above his head. He had said something she couldn’t catch amidst all the noise.

  Eventually the firing passed over, and she raised her head up to see the smaller of the human ships rising into the air, the target of those strange devices that streaked towards it, dragging cables of destruction through the battlefield behind them. Several of the devices became entangled and were jerked to a halt in mid air, ripping themselves apart in red and yellow fire.

  She saw the ship fall and break itself open on the ground, and she paused, gripped by indecision. Where would Nettie be? On the craft? In the compound?

  What good would it do her if she got killed here on the battlefield?

  There were engineers everywhere, running across the stony plain. One came towards her, shouting. Susan turned up her ears a little to hear what he was saying.

  ‘Take this,’ he said, thrusting a metal mesh into her hand. ‘Pull it over your head. Don’t take it off until you’re told to.’

  She did so automatically. The mesh interfered with her hearing, muffling it. Well, that was good.

  The second human ship was lifting up now. What if Nettie was on board that one? The devices were aiming for it, but it seemed just too large to bring down. What if it escaped with Nettie still a prisoner?

  There was nothing she could do about that.

  She made up her mind and ran for the compound. Maybe Nettie would be there.

  She couldn’t just stand still, that was for sure.

  Kavan

  Kavan saw the second human ship lift into the breaking dawn, the cables of several devices trailing uselessly from it.

  ‘It’s escaping,’ said Ada, the disappointment audible in her voice.

  ‘It will be back,’ said Kavan. ‘They’ll all be back.’

  ‘The Generals have taken the first craft,’ said Calor. ‘Do you think it’s wise to leave them in control of it?’

  ‘I don’t think it matters,’ said Kavan. ‘Everything will be different by tomorrow. Artemis City is changed for ever.’

  Behind him the Centre City burned. Ada had set up a radiation detector that pinged a signal of the atomic destruction there.

  ‘Calor,’ said Kavan. ‘There are still humans left in the compound. I think it would be well to remind the troops we want as many of them alive as possible.’

  ‘Okay, Kavan.’ Calor’s words trailed behind her as she sprinted off.

  ‘She needed to expend the energy,’ observed Ada. She watched Kavan, running the fine metal mesh she had handed him between his fingers.

  ‘You should put that on,’ she said.

  ‘When it’s time. Are you sure it will work?’

  ‘The Faraday Cage? It’s the best solution given the time we’ve had. The humans will want to inflict maximum damage over the widest range.’

  ‘I notice you haven’t put yours on yet.’

  ‘What we have been told is plausible, but I want to see if it’s true. I want to see this weapon as best I can. I want to learn as much about it as possible, and so I’ll put my cage on at the last second.’

  ‘And if you die?’

  ‘Then there are other engineers to take my place.’

  Kavan smiled.

  ‘You are a true Artemisian, Ada.’

  ‘Look, here it comes.’

  The second ship had climbed out of view, lost in the pale dawn sky. Now something was falling back down to Penrose. Kavan could just make out the lightning forking around it.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘In its own way.’

  ‘There is something strangely beautiful in everything the animals do,’ replied Ada. ‘It’s an unearthly, twisted beauty, but it’s there if you know where to look.’

  The device was falling faster now. Kavan saw the lightning reaching down from it, seeking the robots of the battlefield, most of whom were pausing to pull the mesh over their heads. It was like waves in the water, all those silver and black bodies kneeling for a moment and pulling.

  ‘What about the humans left behind?’ asked Kavan. ‘Will they die too?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ada. ‘Perhaps the animals are closer to being Artemisians than we allow.’

  ‘Put on your mesh, Ada.’

  ‘Not yet. You put on yours, Kavan. You’re more important than I am.’

  ‘That concept does not exist in Artemis.’

  They gazed upwards as the crackling fell ever closer, illuminating the brightening sky in blue and silver. The robots on the field gazed upwards in awe and horror as the few remaining humans continued to fire at them. The Centre City burned in the background and Ada and Kavan found themselves looking at each other, and for the first time in his life he felt a sense of understanding.

  They both pulled on their meshes. The lighting raced across the battlefield…

  Spoole

  Spoole had seen this before. Battlefields where defeat had been bought at such cost to those still standing that it could scarcely be said that victory had been won.

  The humans had been driven from Artemis, but Artemis City was broken, and the surviving robots wandered aimlessly across the plain.

  There were so many robots dead. Robots who had failed to pull the protective mesh across their heads, or those who had simply never received one. Their bodies were pulled apart and picked over by others looking for spares.

  There were humans there too, so fragile-looking in defeat. For the most part they were under the guard of infantryrobots, but a few of them wandered free, or attempted to fix their broken vehicles under the interested gaze of engineers.

  If there was one impetus left to those shell-shocked forces, it seemed to be the force that was driving robots towards the downed ship. It lay, huge and alien in the middle of the plain, halfway between the remains of the compound and the shattered city, trails of plastic and soot and cable and spent metal radiating out from it. Robots were congregating around its broken side.

  Spoole walked to the centre of the crowd, the robots who saw him coming recognizing him and pulling back as he approached. He made his way to where the surviving Generals still stood. San-dale was there.

  ‘Spoole,’ he said, all polite efficiency. ‘What are your orders?’

  His deference made sense, he supposed. It was woven deep inside: Sandale had tried rebellion and had failed, but th
at wouldn’t stop him clinging to power by any means. And if, in a few weeks, or months, or years, he thought it safe, then he would turn upon Spoole again. Him and the rest of the Generals.

  ‘Orders will come soon,’ said Spoole. ‘For the moment, round up the surviving humans.’

  Spoole looked around at the wreckage, looked around at all the robots. They were waiting for him to speak, he realized.

  He turned his voice up full.

  ‘This is only a temporary victory,’ he called, and as he had done so many times before, he heard his words relayed out through the listening crowd. ‘Only temporary. The animals will return. They have more metal, they have better machinery. They have the capability to destroy us.’

  He paused. He saw the robots shifting, heard the hum and the buzz as his words sank in.

  ‘But to despair is to have forgotten the lessons of history, because it was ever thus!’ he cried. ‘Robots stood on this plain before, surrounded by superior forces and technology, and they triumphed over them. Those robots had little metal, they were few in number, but they had something more powerful than guns and flying craft and bombs! They had Nyro’s philosophy!’

  Somewhere in the crowd, feet were stamped. One, two, just like in the old days, back when Spoole addressed the newly built troops on the parade grounds.

  ‘Well, I say that those same robots stand here today! Because today, all of you who have fought on this battleground are the true children of Nyro! And Nyro’s children were not defeated in the past, back when Artemis was young, and so they will not be defeated in the future. Artemis will never be defeated!’

  More stamping, but this time there were shouts too. Shouts of approval. Spoole saw the way the Generals looked at him. Envious, but there was a grudging respect there as well. They couldn’t have done this, he knew. They needed a figurehead. For the moment it may as well be Spoole.

  ‘The animals will return,’ he called. ‘When they do, we will be ready for them! We will have studied their craft and we will have built our own machines. We will take the fight to them, and we will defeat them!’