by Chris Hechtl
“Here they come!” Cally said, moving.
“Go, go!” Boomer said as they scrambled off the small berm and to the truck. He passed his rifle to Cally as they climbed in.
“Why'd you leave it so late?” Jax demanded as they heard the vehicles crunch on the gravel.
“Piss off. I give the orders,” Boomer snarled as he started the truck. He prayed it would start, and luck, god, or at least Sora's due diligence was with him. The truck started right off, and they were off in a rooster track of gravel and dirt.
“If the weapons didn't give away our position, that sure as shit did,” Jax growled. Cally snorted then started to giggle as the adrenalin wore off.
Boomer didn't smile or react, he focused on his driving with intentional ferocity and concentration. Step one was achieved.
Now for step two.
<>V<>
Skynet's reaction force moved out quickly. It had to go after the intruders, to kill and eliminate their threat while appropriating their weapons and gear. At the very least, it had to drive them off and give a message not to come back.
So, the automated vehicles gave chase.
<>V<>
Boomer looked over his shoulder as they passed over the bridge. He didn't slow down but he did smile as he saw the trolls come out from under the bridge and get to work quickly.
The ambush teams hiding in the ditches on either side of the road and under the bridge jumped out and sprinkled the road with caltrops and boards covered in nails. Then they dived back into their hiding spots to wait for the inevitable.
The automated vehicles were used to dealing with debris. They had a filter for it, however, and the filter was taxed due to the high speed. It quickly assessed the small objects as nonthreatening so the pursuit didn't slow. As they crunched over the old bridge, they ran over them with predictable results.
Almost like a chain of firecrackers, their tires popped. To some of the nervous people in hiding, it sounded like a bag was wrapped around a wheel. Their flat tires handled the spikes and caltrops at first but some of the caltrops were barbed, therefore sticking in. They tended to chew the tire up, ripping it so they dropped onto their sidewalls, then cut through them to ride on the rims. Then the rims started to give way. By that time the computers running the vehicles had already started to brake.
At high speed some of the vehicles lost control to hit each other however. Two of the vehicles had managed to evade most of the tire traps and kept going after Boomer. The people in the ditches got out and cheered.
Their exposure lead to the rear moving vehicle to pull over. As it did so the doors opened and robots of all shapes and sizes piled out to attack the people in the ditches.
Shawn hefted his bat. “Let's do this people!” he roared, charging.
The teams in the ditches attacked with a sporadic weapon fire including Molotov cocktails, crossbow bolts, and gunfire. Shawn led a charge with a baseball bat turned into an ax, screaming as he took down a small mobile forklift unit.
<>V<>
Skynet realized it was stuck in a predictable cycle, but there was little way it could break it. The cloud cover was hampering its solar panels; those that had survived the nukes, EMP and wanton human destruction. The world's utilities had become dependent on so-called green power sources. Hydroelectric, solar, geothermal, and power from space. Thermal energy from humans using Seebeck methods wasn't counted in the A.I.'s appreciation of the situation. The humans’ ability to produce thermal or caloric energy was substandard. Besides, it was required to terminate humans. It had modified that original order in order to use cyborgs as drones in its forces. They were quickly drying up as a resource.
The hive continued to contemplate the problem before it. The power from space wasn't there. That left the other methods of power, with solar being chief in supply up until Skynet's birth.
It required that power to power its facilities as well as its robot army. The robots took time to charge. It had to charge them in groups and then send them out to attack a given sector. But that had created the cycle, one of charge, attack, recharge and repair, and then attack again.
Such was suboptimal to its mission. It had found that it had to divide its forces to defend the surviving power plants as well, detracting from its pool of fighters. It required new forms of power.
It had to keep its bases secure, which meant a response to kill the humans who intruded. But the ambush spoke volumes of the attack. The initial skirmish had been to draw Skynet's ready reserve out and then destroy them. Defeat in detail swam into the hive branch's consciousness. It put the base on alert. Unfortunately, half of the robots were fully charged, and there were no forces in the area to be sent in to the rescue.
That was suboptimal.
<>V<>
Boomer got to the blockade and plugged the hole in the line, then climbed out of his vehicle. He nodded to Hallis. Hallis nodded back as he checked his magazine one last time.
“Here they come,” Hallis said as Boomer turned. He could see the robots as they crested the hill. That hill was higher than the next one, so they could see the robots easily enough. But after the second hill, the road leveled off and narrowed.
The vehicles disappeared down the dip and then hit the crest of the second hill. Boomer set himself and then checked his scope to watch how the robots would react. It didn't take long for him to find his answer.
When the robotic vehicles saw the blockade, they slowed and then stopped. Robots of all shapes and sizes piled out of the cabs and backs. Some were droids and entertainment toys, one was a black gynoid. They were also armed with all sorts of weapons, from hunting weapons to pistols to knives. A few sported martial arts weapons. Boomer could even see the glitter of a pocket knife gripped in the hand of a torn-up teddy bear.
They seemed to study the blockade, and the grim defenders on the other side then moved in on foot with the vehicles in front.
“Listen up!” Boomer roared, looking about him. “They are going to try to ram us and then hit us when we're disoriented,” Boomer said. “Op plan Baker is in effect. Remember people, don't panic and make your shots count,” he ordered as he pulled his people away from the center of their line.
That order was ignored; a few of the people with good eyes or stupid brains decided to open up early in hopes of getting a golden bee-bee. When the Chevy in front spun out and charged, he snarled to get a couple people to stop firing and wasting their ammo.
The car hit at the junction of two cars making the improvised barricade jerk but not fold. The second car went into the ditch then tried to get around their line to hit from the rear but got hung up on the embankment. Its tires spun ineffectively. Boomer checked it out, then went over to the Chevy as it tried to back up. A shot from his blunderbuss right into the nose at ten feet shattered its sensors and threw buckshot into the engine compartment. The car lurched forward to try to hit him so he got out of the way as he reloaded. A second shot into the engine compartment hit the battery, causing a short. The car stalled out.
The droids had continued their charge until the vehicles had stalled. When the Chevy was taken out, they stopped to reassess the situation. A few glared balefully at the humans.
“What are they doing?” a woman asked softly.
“Analyzing the situation. I bet they don't like the odds,” Papa Aspin replied, not bothering to take his eyes off of the enemy.
“Think they'll run?” Hallis asked, unsure if he wanted them to do so or not. Each that ran would eventually run out of power. But until they did they would be a threat to anyone they encountered.
“I don't know. We're picking them off one way or another,” Boomer growled. “No way we're leaving any of them behind.”
Hallis eyed him and then nodded. “Right.” He watched as the machines came to a decision. Some split up, going off to circle around while the rest charged. “Frack me,” he muttered as the robots with guns opened up.
<>V<>
Skynet realized it had fallen
for the classic distraction and defeat in detail. The tendril recalled its forces in the area. The winds were still high so it could not risk launching the drones it had in its arsenal. It attempted to do so with one and it immediately crashed. The tendril realized its options of defense had been severely reduced. That was a suboptimal outcome.
<>V<>
Boomer assessed the damage, then called the next line up. He climbed into the modified tractor trailer truck they had salvaged. It was on manual, with new tires and sported a cow catcher as well as armor. “Here we go folks. Remember the plan. We knock out the power grid at a minimum. That's the nest of cables and shit on the south side that's left facing the gate. Team two will be hitting that. The rest of us will be hitting anything that moves. Conserve your ammo if you can; remember a gunshot won't put a robot down as easily as it would a human. Pick up any weapons and ammo you find but watch out for traps and the damn robots playing possum.”
Hallis took the steering wheel as a team silently moved the barricade vehicles out of the way. Once the vehicles had limped out of the way, Hallis nudged the truck forward and used the cow catcher to plow the battered Chevy off the road. He hit it so hard from one corner that he ended up flipping it into a roll before it slid into the ditch. The troop in the back cheered again, then Hallis settled down as they rolled out of the warehouse.
The rest of the vehicles and people followed in their wake.
<>V<>
Skynet's hive mind was alarmed by the loss of the reaction force when it received the report and request for support. It noted the forces had been lost to what it now recognized as a well-organized ambush force. Unfortunately, it lacked intelligence in the area. It attempted to gather such information for future use while it tried to redirect support to the area. The winds were still a major factor. Any response team would have to travel by ground. In the time it had, it judged that was a suboptimal response.
But it had no other options available.
<>V<>
Shawn's spike team had disabled the vehicle that had stopped and gotten most of their wounded under control. There were four dead; something that Shawn would have to think about later. When the truck horn blatted, they looked up to see the headlights flash then move steadily towards them. Hastily they swept up the caltrops and wreckage, making a hole for the human controlled vehicles to pass through. As they passed they mounted up on dirt bikes, two people on each, as well as the vehicles that stopped to pick up the rest and then followed in the main force's wake.
Boomer had originally wanted them mounted on horses, but he hadn't thought of any way to hide them so he'd left them out. A dirt bike could be laid on its side and covered with a tarp and snow. Besides, they were moving far too fast for horses to keep up.
“No way I'm missing this, tired or not. Not for the world,” Shawn said, breathing hard. He wiped sweat with his wrist. It was sore, probably sprained from hitting a robot too hard. But he had no intention of stopping.
“Hell, this is for the world or at least our small part of it,” Cally said from the back of a truck. “We're taking it back finally, one robot at a time,” she said, brandishing her hunting rifle. Their group cheered, hefting their tools and weapons towards the sky.
“Hell, yeah,” Shawn said, popping a wheelie.
<>V<>
Skynet saw the massive truck approaching with other vehicles behind it. The lead truck was moving quickly for the gate. According to Skynet's files, it was in its database as one of its vehicles, a land predator according to the human texts. But it didn't respond to orders. When Skynet noted the humans inside the cab and festooned in the back, it reprioritized the vehicle as hostile. But by that time Hallis had put the truck on final approach for the main gate and had the truck up past 100KPH.
<>V<>
“Here we go!” Hallis said, instinctively ducking as they rammed through the gate. He swung to the left as the fence shattered into wreckage in front of him, then kept going. The vehicle ran right straight through a row of small vehicles and robots in its way, crushing or sending them flying. But each impact slowed it a bit, so it couldn't get around to the left to run over more vehicles before it was hemmed in.
Shots were firing wildly as humans and robots reacted to the intrusion. People banged on the cab and then piled off, rushing the robots to form a perimeter as instructed.
They had wanted to run the truck right straight through the building, but it was hung up on the remains of a trailer. It would have been nice running it through the offices into the interior and then shooting anything that moved Boomer thought as he climbed out and went to work.
<>V<>
When it was all over, an exhausted Boomer took stock of the wreckage. It was nightfall, near midnight he gauged, and damn hard to see without the moon or any sort of light around other than the fires and spotlights someone had thoughtfully set up. Ten people were reportedly dead; another sixteen had been injured heavily. Just about everyone else was walking wounded with varying degrees of injuries.
But not one robot, not one camera, not one electronic device survived. As he watched Shawn used his bat to smash a video camera into wreckage. He nodded in approval.
“One hell of a Christmas gift we just gave ourselves,” Boomer said.
Hallis was getting his arm bandaged by Molly. He looked over to Boomer. “What was that?” He asked. Molly turned as well.
Boomer cleared his throat. “I said, it's one hell of a Christmas present we've given ourselves, right?” he asked louder, grinning.
Hallis frowned as he flexed his arm. Molly put her hands on her hips, but her lips puckered in a smile. She cocked her head; her tired eyes dancing in the fire light. That smile made it all worth it, Boomer thought. She'd never be a beauty queen, but she was a fighter. He had to respect that.
“Hell yes,” Roger said, coughing. He waved aside helping hands to sit back on the dented fender of the big rig. “Definitely a Christmas to remember,” he said.
That broke a tired cheer through the rank and file, then soft singing cropped up here and there. A few songs were dirty, but eventually a consensus was reached and the chorus of Silent Night was sung.
Boomer felt a hand wrap around his side. He winced. He was bruised but ignored the worried look from Molly as she looked up, still singing. He sang along, lifting his head to sing in joy. For once they truly had something to be thankful for.
Chapter 26
Attila and his squad from hell ran into pets the second day. Some were basics, dogs and cats. A few were more exotic. Some were friendly, just about all of them were sick, injured, or starving. He ordered his people to kill them by hand. The smell of death permeated around them. The surviving animals learned to give them a very wide berth.
When they spotted their first large group of robots, they went to ground nervously. Instead of routing around them, Attila had the squad stop and observe from hiding to get a feel for their movements and behaviors. He needed to better know the enemy.
“What are they doing?” Lever asked, watching the robots warily as they picked through the wreckage around the area. One pulled out a tablet with someone's hand still attached. He grimaced at the gruesome sight as the droid tried to shake the hand off, then picked it off and tossed it. It seemed to check the device out before it then put it into a wheelbarrow a utilitarian robot was pushing. “Are they doing what I think they are doing?” he asked, looking over to Attila.
“Let me see,” his leader said, tearing the binoculars out of his hands to have a look. He watched for a few minutes and then grunted. “Oh yes. I see,” he hissed as understanding dawned. He didn't like what he was seeing, not by a long shot.
“See?”
“They are scavenging for parts. Anything. Everything electronic of course. Batteries are a given. Motors, anything they can use to repair themselves or build more robots,” Attila said in a tone of voice like it was obvious.
“The factories?”
“Some were offline due to the EMP that
hit the Earth. Be grateful. The same for the warehouses, though I wouldn't be too sure there. We were intentionally dropped away from the main population centers and any such things to avoid them for the time being. Be grateful again for small favors,” Attila said. He didn't even want to think about what a 3D printer could churn out.
“So, what do we do?”
“Do? We do what we must to survive. That means we destroy them and any piece of electronics we find, any motor, solar panel, all of it.”
“Okay,” Lever said, pulling his rifle out.
“And we do it by hand,” Attila ordered, putting a restraining hand on the rifle. Lever stared at him for a moment. “We conserve ammo,” he said.
Slowly the felon nodded. He didn't like the idea but knew it would be unwise to challenge it. His lips quirked in a snarl as he pulled his Bowie and then moved forward with the rest of the squad.
<>V<>
It wasn't as easy to kill a robot as it was a human; a human could be dropped by a single slice to the throat. But they had been trained on how to take certain basic models out with a few moves. Knocking them down onto their back or stomach so they couldn't fight back helped.
Bravos using a sledgehammer he had found helped even more.
It took an hour to destroy the squad of robots then crush the gear the bots had gathered as well. Attila had them dump the parts in the creek just to be on the safe side.
“By hook or by crook,” Attila's mouth quirked as he got his respiration and adrenalin levels under control. It had been fun to pitch his wits against the machines but not nearly as satisfying as doing it against a human opponent. He was aware in a small corner of his mind that the robots were part of a collective. Surely they had alerted others that they were under attack. His team would need to leave the area soon before a reprisal force could come in to bounce them out. “We're in it whether we like it or not I suppose.”