by S. H. Jucha
The effort to move a pallet was minimal, once its significant inertia was broken. However, the reverse was also true. In an emergency, the pallets would be difficult to stop, which meant no one slept or dozed. It might prove necessary to abandon their transports at any moment.
Throughout the day, pairs of warriors hopped off the pallets to spell those pulling them. It was the duty of each pair to pick their way through the vegetation, but Homsaff gave them general guideposts to aim toward. Constantly, progress was stopped while they navigated obstacles — waterways, ravines, and fields of boulders that had tumbled from the mountain range, which they paralleled.
Nearly every member of the fleet was linked to Miranda’s broadcast, usually through a ship’s sister, to follow the Dischnya.
On the afternoon of the Dischnya’s third day out, their keen ears picked up the sound of transports. The warriors slipped off the pallets and brought them to a halt. Plasma rifles were unpacked, and squads were formed. Homsaff delegated Hessan’s squad to protect the pallets, while Simlan, with his warriors, and she crept forward.
Hessan deployed his squad in a circle, hiding them in the vegetation about ten meters out from the pallets. Then he checked his comm contact with them. As an added layer of protection, the Dischnya chose to communicate in their native tongue. The bots might hear them, but they wouldn’t understand them. Contact was kept short just in case the bots shared what they heard with Artifice.
Crawling through the brush, Homsaff and her warriors crept to the edge of a broad opening. It was a bot trail that had been carved through the terrain. Huge piles of vegetation lined both sides of the temporary route. They lay quietly for two hours, observing the flow of the broad selection of bots that hurried past. When Homsaff was satisfied, she hand signaled Simlan to withdraw. When they were out of sight, they were able to stand and pick their way back to the pallets.
Alex, Miranda, and Myron had repeatedly expressed to the Dischnya the possible sensor capabilities of the bots. Although no one was sure of what the bots could do, it was assumed that telemetry sensors of all kinds would adorn the bots.
Homsaff had chuffed at that assumption. “Do you think the bots possess the Dischnya’s keen sense of smell?” she’d asked Alex.
“Probably not,” Alex had replied, and the Omnian leader and the Dischnya queen had shared a laugh about that observation.
Back at the pallets, Homsaff described to Hessan’s squad the nature of the bots that had passed their observation post. Then she and her warriors discussed several means of using the bot trail. It’s smooth, wide expanse would cut many days off their march toward the army that protected Artifice’s towers.
It was Hessan who volunteered the most audacious plan, and the warriors waited to see Homsaff’s reaction. Her lolling tongue and dancing eyes signaled its acceptance, and the warriors chortled and yipped quietly in glee.
The plan required they wait until dark, which would arrive shortly. Miranda had indicated that many of the bots collected energy from Talus, which suggested they would shut down for the night. She also said the travelers had detected heat blooms from the heavy construction bots. In her estimation, those bots would be active day and night.
The warriors ate and slept in insulated bags that Renée and others had made for the Dischnya. They kept the warriors warm and dry even on soggy ground.
Homsaff’s locator device pulsed against her fur, and she woke from a fitful dream. A comm bot, which was responsible for stringing cables, held her by the throat and was holding her aloft in one of its long, clawed appendages. She shook her head to clear her mind of the images. In the dim haze, she could see Simlan regarding her. Homsaff snorted a dismissal and climbed off the pallet, where she’d been resting.
The warriors were woken, the bags rolled and stored, and the squads formed. Slowly, they worked their way toward the bot route. It was a laborious task to move the pallets in the dark through the vegetation.
Hidden in the previous observation post, which they’d found unerringly in the dark by dint of smell, they sat watching for the right vehicle. The smaller bots, which had streamed by previously, were no longer in evidence, but many of the heavier bots that passed were unsuitable. In some cases, the Dischnya couldn’t imagine the purposes of those that passed.
“Homsaff, the vehicles are moving too fast to catch them with the pallets,” Simlan whispered in her ear.
“Create an obstacle to slow them,” Homsaff whispered. “There,” she added, pointing to a place forward of their position where the pathway had cut through a wall of boulders.
Simlan and his squad retreated and worked their way through the dense brush to the top of a rocky outcrop. There was a plethora of heavy boulders to work with, and Simlan and his warriors shoved one over the edge. They watched the rock bounce down onto the pathway. They eyed their handiwork and continued to close the gap until only a third of the path was open. Then they retreated to join the others.
“Well done,” Homsaff whispered to Hessan, as they watched a heavy bot slow to navigate the narrow opening.
Soon afterwards, Homsaff spotted the vehicle she’d been seeking. She uttered a soft bark, which alerted the warriors, and they gathered around the pallets.
As the construction bot passed their position, Homsaff rose up, and the warriors shoved on the pallets, while others guided it. They hurried to increase the pallets’ speed, while the heavy bot slowed to ease through the boulder-strewn opening.
Homsaff’s target was a flatbed bot meant for hauling wide loads. It had no cab to speak of, and its engines and drives were beneath the bed.
The bot navigated the partial impasse before the warriors caught up with it. There existed only a short interval to catch it before it accelerated and left them behind. For a brief moment, the warriors were back on Omnia. Their tongues were hanging out in delight, as they raced to catch grav cars on the dusty, grass plains.
With a final burst of speed, the four warriors, who were guiding the pallets, leapt on the back of the flatbed. They uncoiled short lengths of line that wrapped around the pallets’ handles and tied them to anchor points on the end of the bot. As the pallets picked up speed, hauled along by the heavy bot, the other warriors jumped on them.
Two of the four warriors on the bed pulled short, wicked-looking knives that would be used to cut the lines if necessary.
Homsaff signaled the warriors on the bed, who peered ahead and signaled they saw nothing else. She stared behind them. There was no other bot in sight.
With nothing else to do, the Dischnya settled down for the night.
-31-
Bot Army
Alex surmised.
As Talus rose over the horizon, Simlan stretched, walked to the end of the pallet, and urinated on the pathway. When he returned and sat beside Homsaff, he asked, “D
o you think Artifice knows of our coming?”
“I’m sure it does,” Homsaff replied, baring her teeth. Like the wasats, the warrior commanders whom she had studied, Homsaff didn’t underestimate her opponents. She assumed the worst case, in every instance.
To relieve those aboard the transport, warriors would hop off the pallet, race to the bot’s rear, and be hauled aboard by their comrades. Then the replaced warriors would ease off the bed and catch the pallet, as it passed.
The first time the exchange was executed, a warrior on the bot prepared to jump from the bed to the pallet. Odds were that he would have made it. However, one glance at Homsaff’s face had him sliding off the bot and catching the pallet without any fanfare.
“No games,” Homsaff growled to Simlan, who passed the word.
For days, the Dischnya sped toward the frozen northern region. Nothing stopped their passage. Occasionally, the transport slowed to steer around bots that had broken down. Most could have easily been serviced, but each bot had the same directive — head to the towers’ coordinates, stopping for nothing.
The air cooled. When Homsaff saw her warriors shiver, she ordered them to don the environment suits. They weren’t burdened by the need to carry air tanks, which allowed them to strap on the heavy energy packs for the plasma rifles, in their stead. However, the suits’ power cells that kept them warm and the air circulating would need periodic charging.
As the days passed, Homsaff kept an eye on her locator. The distance between them and Artifice’s towers was narrowing quickly. On the evening of the third day, while riding on their pallets behind the transport bot, the cluster of bots, which were collected around Artifice’s towers, showed on the small face of her device. They appeared as a massive collection of dots.
Most human commanders would be unnerved by the enemy numbers that faced them. But Homsaff snarled quietly at the image, and the warriors echoed her sentiment.
During the following night, Homsaff’s locator indicated a forthcoming low rise that, on the other side, fell onto a plain of ice. The bots waited there, surrounding Artifice’s towers. She barked a command, and the warriors on duty on the transport bed cut the pallets free. The flatbed trundled on, and the pallets, facing an incline, slowed to a stop.
The warriors hurriedly pushed the pallets off the pathway and over a pile of churned-up ice until they were hidden from view.
Homsaff was under no illusion that they were safe from Artifice’s view. She was certain that the entity knew where they were and how many were in her party. She did believe that it wasn’t aware of the weapons they carried. They hadn’t used them since they came upon the bot pathway. Their weapons’ power would be their surprise for Artifice. Unfortunately, it would do little to deter the bots that would sacrifice themselves under Artifice’s direction.
The night was an opportunity to charge the environment suits, eat, plan the attack, and sleep. Unlike humans, who might lie awake for hours, worrying about the coming dawn, the warriors were instantly asleep, except for those on guard duty and Homsaff.
The queen carried the opportunity of her race on her young shoulders. She ached to prove to the Omnians, especially Dassata, that the Dischnya were worthy allies — of being treated as equals and not protected as an inferior race. Their first tests had been in the New Terra system, and she felt they had passed those. But tomorrow would bring the most important challenge for her and her warriors. If they succeeded, the doors of equality would be thrown open, and if they didn’t open, she would force them.
Homsaff’s locator vibrated. They’d had enough sleep, although it was still dark. She and the squad leaders had been warned about the unusual circumstances they’d encounter — the cold, the ice particles, which the New Terrans called snow, and the days of shortened light.
The warriors were quietly woken. Walking out onto packed ice, they emptied their bladders, laughing at the shapes they left behind. After food, they checked their weapons and took positions alongside the pallets.
Homsaff signaled, and Simlan, Hessan, and she led the way up the hill. They kept to the pathway until they were near the crest. Then, she ordered the pallets shoved over the plowed barrier and out into the jumble of rocks, ice, and stunted vegetation, which was waiting for the planet’s warmer season.
Short of the hilltop, the Dischnya leaders bellycrawled to the peak. Arrayed in a wide semicircle were the bots. Heavy equipment occupied the outer line of defense. Moving inward, the bots reduced in size until they were squeezed against the tower. The lights of the immense bots illuminated the sheets of ice between the Dischnya and the waiting army.
“Answers the question about whether Artifice expected us,” Hessan whispered to Simlan. The semicircle was centered on the pathway the Dischnya had taken.
“You can stop whispering,” Homsaff said in a normal voice. She stood and motioned to the warriors to push the pallets to the icy hilltop. “There’s no element of surprise attack for us.”
The warriors braced the pallets at the crest. Without implants or comm devices, they couldn’t signal the grav engines to shut down. They stood in straight lines on either side of their squad leaders and surveyed the amassed bots. Homsaff heard growls and a few whines.
“We can’t eliminate enough of them to reach the towers in one continuous attack,” Simlan warned. “Our energy packs will be depleted before then.”
“Agreed,” Homsaff replied. “We’ll need a means of halting the fighting, while we charge our weapons and rest.”
“Homsaff, do you remember the shots my warrior fired at the dark boulders, as ordered by the commandant?” Hessan asked.
“Yes,” Homsaff asked, as she continued to observe the bots, looking for weaknesses.
“The pieces from the explosions glowed red hot for hours,” Hessan continued.
“True,” Simlan interjected. “Miranda explained that the composition of the rock indicated it was formed under intense heat. It absorbed much of the energy of the plasma.”
“And your point, Hessan?” Homsaff requested. She didn’t mean it to come out accompanied by a growl, but the vast number of bots had made her angry. They stood in the way of her species’ future.
“We test-fired at the air, the shrubbery, and soft rocks, my queen,” Hessan said, reverting to the formal and deferential style of address. “But what will happen when we fire at the bots, which are made of metal?”
Hessan’s use of Homsaff’s title told her that she wasn’t commanding from a point of respect. She got her temper under control. Alex had always told her that his anger was his greatest challenge. He said that when it got away from him, he made his biggest mistakes.
“An excellent question, Hessan,” Homsaff replied. She glanced at Simlan for a comment.
The older warrior rubbed a hand alongside his muzzle, which had started to show gray hairs among the dark brown fur. “Miranda said this world would possess advanced technology,” he said. “Perhaps, things haven’t progressed as far as the Omnians, but we should be ready for things we haven’t seen.”
“That could be interpreted to mean that the metal of these bots would be strong and hard,” Homsaff mused. “On the one hand, as Alex likes to say, it will mean we’ll expend more energy to destroy them. On the other hand, it will mean they’ll glow red hot from our fire for many hours.”
The squad leaders chortled at the mention of Alex and his manner of speaking, and Homsaff felt buoyed too. For a moment, she wished his presence. Then an odd thought occurred to her, and she wondered who Alex wished would be present with him, when he faced challenges that frightened him. She had a sudden insight into the lofty view from the top, and it scared her. She shook her head and focused on the problem in front of her.
“We can build a compound with their bodies,” Simlan suggested.
“We need to be surrounded to close a circle,” Hessan offered. His suggestion was meant to be purely tactical, but it frightened him too.
“Yes,” Homsaff agreed. “We penetrat
e far enough to allow the bots to surround us, and we melt them down. We build a wall with their bodies. It’ll warm us, while we recharge and rest.”
“And it might prevent the smaller bots from climbing the mound,” Simlan added. “The heat might destroy their legs or whatever they move on.”
“The challenge is to get these pallets past those large construction bots,” Homsaff mused.
“Sleds,” Simlan and Hessan said simultaneously.
Homsaff looked in confusion from one squad leader to the other.
“Apologies, Homsaff. You were conversing with Alex while this event took place,” Simlan said respectfully. “Miranda showed us several vids of actions taken on ice to indicate how this unusual surface behaves. We saw humans and creatures slip and fall. We saw humans put planks on their feet to work their way down steep slopes of snow, and we saw pups board small structures to slide down the hills. This last method was called sledding.”
Homsaff looked at the pallets, and her lips curved away from her teeth. Their pearly whiteness shone in the dim light. She gathered her warriors about her and detailed her plan. When she finished, the warriors energized their weapons. The hum of the plasma chambers charging filled the still, cold air.
Four warriors sat on the front of each pallet. Most of the remaining Dischnya spread themselves along the sides of each pallet, while three guarded the rear. When Homsaff cued them, those at the rear shoved hard on the pallets. They yipped in surprise at the speed the newly crowned sleds gained.
The pallets floated off the icy surface, which meant the Dischnya weren’t truly sledding. However, the incline on the bot side of the hill was much steeper than the one they’d hauled the pallets up. With little persuasion, they accelerated downhill, gathering velocity. Warriors gripped the pallets’ material to brace themselves and prevent being bounced off by the uneven surface the pallets swept over.
The warriors were shocked at how fast they were moving. There was no opportunity to leap off and guide the pallets. They did discover that some judicial movement from side to side directed the pallets to a small extent.