Horizons

by Donald B McFarlane

  “Running, Sir.”

  “NASA is telling us that there is a massive force of small objects entering the atmosphere.”

  “Drones.”

  “There are also reports of ten larger objects entering the atmosphere as well, and they are all headed for your location.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Joe continued to jog at his steady pace while the President carried on a conversation in the background.

  “Joe. Is it right that the Alliance is currently unable to communicate with its forces in space, or call for reinforcements?”

  “That is correct, Mr President.”

  “I’m not sure what it’s worth, but we’ve got three squadrons of F15s on the way from Idaho, and the Canadians have a squadron of jets en-route.”

  “I’ve seen what these guys can do up close. Unless the incoming force is vastly inferior to the Sentinel Commander and his old team, we’re in trouble. We better hope that the Alliance can get some reinforcements here fast.”

  A loud screech rang in Joe’s ear, cutting off the call. He attempted to contact the Sentinel Commander, but nothing happened. He focused his mind and tried again. Nothing. He tried Rhea, but it was again fruitless. A final attempt to the PCS confirmed what he was starting to suspect: the Coalition was jamming his signal.

  Joe knew that the combat air patrol consisted of two US Air Force Raptors, and two Canadian CF-18s, certainly not enough of a force to hold off whatever was being thrown at them.

  Reaching the fence-line of Rhea’s parent's property, Joe took one easy hop in his armour to bound over the wooden fence that surrounded the land. Landing without missing a beat, Joe smiled as he raced towards the house, this suit gave him increased power, and agility, something that would come in handy in a fight.

  Not far from the front of the house was the formidable figure of the Sentinel Commander, looking skyward. Rhea was standing by his side, a pair of her father’s binoculars in her right hand.

  Joe stopped running, and slowly walked up next to them, and tilted his head towards the heavens.

  “What do you see?”

  “Nothing. But my sensors are detecting an enemy carrier directly above us in orbit. They’ve launched drones towards our position, and they have also launched drop-tubes, most likely carrying Sentinels.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “The drones will be here in less than two minutes. The drop-tubes will be here a minute later.”

  “Can you pinpoint where they are going to land?”

  The Sentinel Commander looked down at Joe. “Impossible to predict.” The robot picked up his standard weapon and attached it to his back, then picked up a much larger weapon and checked its systems. “They most likely will target the PCS.”

  “Even so, that’s got to be the safest place to be right now, right?” Rhea asked, looking up at the large robot.

  “Mostly likely. It will be the best-defended location on the island until reinforcements are available.”

  Just before Joe could suggest they start making their way to the PCS, a series of loud bangs erupted from the sky above, sending both humans ducking to the ground.

  “What was that?” Joe asked, standing back to his feet.

  “Drop-tubes slowing down before landing.” The machine turned its head and looked south. “They came from an area towards the PCS.” The Sentinel Commander whipped his head around and looked back to the sky.

  “Get down!” The massive robot ordered as he started to bring his heavy weapon upwards.

  Without thinking Joe quickly tackled Rhea to the ground just as a flight of enemy drones buzzed Ogden Lake, firing green bolts from their cannons at the trio. The laser blasts were on target, but the Sentinel Commander was a superior machine, and had quickly switched into Combat Mode, and deployed his energy shield, absorbing the blasts without any hesitation.

  Just as the group of ten drones passed over the hulking robot, the SC dropped his shield and brought to bear his large weapons and quickly fired off ten well-aimed shots, hitting each of the ten drones once, and knocking them all out of the sky.

  Joe looked up just in time as one of the drones smashed into Rhea’s parent's house, hitting the gas line, and destroying the house with a ferocious blast that sent chunks of wood and burning furniture flying high into the air.

  Propping herself up, Rhea surveyed the wreckage, and then looked up at the SC. “Nice shooting.”

  The robot looked down at the two humans, “Life is more precious.” The robot turned its attention to the south again. “There are ten Sentinels between here and the PCS, drones providing overhead cover. The odds of your survival are not good.”

  Joe let out a laugh as he got back to his feet, and checked his weapon. “Anyway to shift those odds?”

  “Yes, but she won’t like it.” He pointed at Rhea.

  Rhea looked at Joe, then up to the machine. “What?”

  “The suit has a pharmacological potion that it can inject into the user to give them enhanced speed, strength, and mental powers. But the individual who takes the serum is usually dead within 30 minutes.”

  “No.” Rhea looked at Joe.

  “If it’s the only way to get you to the ship alive, it’s worth the risk.” Joe looked up to the robot. “Will the healing baths cure me?”

  “They should.”

  Joe looked back at Rhea, and grabbed her wrist, pulling her to him. Running his hand to the small of her back, he pulled her tight against the armour and gave her a deep kiss.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  She nodded and put her hand on Joe’s chest. “I trust you.”

  Joe looked back to the SC, “Will I be as fast as you?”

  “No.” The robot took hold of Joe’s forearm and tapped a command into the suit's system. “But you’ll be fast enough for them.” The robot leant forward until his head was level with Joe’s. “This might feel, a little weird.”

  The chemicals hit Joe’s system like a freight train. An icy feeling surged through his body, and his fingers and toes started to tingle. His head throbbed for a moment, and then his vision blurred. He brought up his left hand and rubbed his forehead.

  “The sensation will pass.” The robot commented. “We need to start moving. “You’ve only got 30 minutes to kill.”

  The drugs that the Sentinel Commander had activated in the suit made Joe feel like he was walking on a cloud. Every step felt effortless and almost without thought. It was almost as if there was some symbiotic relationship between his limbs and the idea of where he wanted to go, and what he wanted to do. It was instinct on the most primal level. Look left or right, his weapon was already there. His brain was playing catch-up on itself. His feet felt light, his limbs felt powerful. His eyes were darting about without any direction, automatically focusing in on the slightest noise that was out of place in the woods that made up the bulk of this island in the Georgia Strait.

  It was several hundred yards from the remnants of Rhea’s parent’s house to the PCS when the sky above Lasqueti started to fill up with Coalition drones. Off in the distance, Joe could hear a noise that was all too familiar to him after his years of service to his country: that of combat. But this sound was very different from the sound that he had heard during his first contact with the aliens. Six months ago it had been the elegant sophistication of high-tech laser beams knocking him on his backside. The shootout in Paraguay with forces loyal to Tohil was short, violent and brutal. The noise that filled the air and the vibrations that he could feel through his enhanced senses made Joe realise that the scale of this battle dwarfed those of his previous encounters. And perhaps for only the third time in recent memory, Joe understood the side he was on was on the receiving end of a fight where they were the side that didn’t have the advantage.

  Joe knew that his first encounter with a Coalition Sentinel would be decisive. He was aware that the SC was more than capable of handling more than his own weight in enemy contact, but he was mindful of the fact that h
e’d have to carry his own load. That reality came sooner than he expected as they were making their way along the road towards the PCS.

  The first indications of ground combat was a dead fire-team of Canadian soldiers. Their bodies were surrounded by a pool of empty brass casing from their rifles, which were still lying next to their bodies. They had discovered an inconvenient truth that Joe had found out months ago: Sentinels are impervious to high-velocity lead-based rounds and armour piercing ammunition.

  Twenty yards down the road there was a slight bend to the right, and Joe could just make out the faint silhouette of two Sentinels, and for the second time in his life, Joe was going up against mecha.

  “Take the one on the left.”

  Joe looked at the SC who was standing on his right. The powerful machines rifle up and ready for combat.

  “Can’t you take them both?”

  The machine looked at him. “That would be too easy, and you need the practice. Greater challenges will present themselves before we are victorious today.” He looked back to the front.

  Joe turned around and looked at Rhea, who was standing in the middle of the road a few paces behind him and the SC. She had a defiant look on her face, but there was something about it that betrayed her confidence. Taking a step towards her, Joe leaned in a kissed her on the left cheek.

  “I love you.”

  Turning quickly, Joe brought his focus to the two robots that were still oblivious to their presence and gritted his teeth. “Game time.”

  He wasn’t sure what it was, but Joe felt a sense of symbiosis with the Sentinel Commander. The minute Joe stepped off on his attack the run, the hulking robot on his right moved off in a complementary fashion. As Joe darted off the road into the woods, he kept the robots in his sight-line the entire time, and it didn’t take long for the hostile robots to hear the snapping and breaking of the deadfall to be alerted to the attack that was closing in on them.

  The first shot fired came from the SC who was cutting through the forest like a ballet dancer weaving their way through an obstacle course designed for five-year-old children. Computations run at a rate that would make a humans brain go dizzy allowed the Sentinel Commander fire a series of shots that would cover all the possible outcomes of where the hostile robot was or could move to. One shot was directed at where the enemy Sentinel was standing, the following shots were aimed at the three most likely locations where the Sentinel would move once fired upon.

  The first shot missed, but that was not a shock. After hearing the impending approach of Joe and the Sentinel Commander, the hostile Sentinel on the right had immediately twisted towards the direction of the approaching noise and adopted a defensive posture. Its surveillance suite allowed it to detect the distance and direction of all oncoming threats, and it knew immediately that it was being approached by an Alliance Sentinel, and its reactions were textbook, but while its movements and reactions might have worked on forces less capable that it, and perhaps even its peers, its actions, reactions, and plans to counter-attack this approaching threat had already been anticipated, analysed and predicted by the more powerful, and much more capable Alliance Sentinel Commander, and in the time it took to plot a counterattack, and execute the standard counter threat evasive manoeuvres, a bolt of charged energy had hit it in the centre of the chest followed up by another bolt of energy that split the units head in two, scorching the ends of the data matrix that made up the neural net of the Coalition robot.

  While the SC might have been able to dispatch his target without too much effort, Joe was having more trouble dealing with the robot that he was responsible for.

  The second he had moved off the road into the woods, the robot had become alerted to his presence and quickly spun around and fired off a volley of shots in his direction, one of which nearly grazed Joe’s head. Joe wasn’t ready for the sudden flow of high-energy laser fire that was directed his way. No longer could he rely on trees and bushes to deflect bullets, these lethal energy rounds bored right through everything that was in their way. Trees were scorched with comical looking holes that were cut through them or scared with fresh chunks burned out of them as the multiple laser blasts started to decimate the forest surrounding Joe.

  Bringing his rifle to bear, Joe let off a series of shots at the enemy Sentinel. The first bolts of energy missed, but the following three scored hits but didn’t quite have the same effect that the SCs shots did.

  “Change the setting!” Came a booming order from his right.

  Joe’s head quickly swivelled to see the SC standing fifty yards away, pointing at the hostile robot that was now boring down on Joe.

  Looking down at his rifle, Joe found the weapons energy setting and turned it to full power. Snapping his head and the gun back up, he took aim at the approaching robot and fired off a single shot which raced away from the rifle at a tremendous pace, vaporising everything that it came into contact with until it hit the centre of the advancing robot, and punched a hole through the machine just second before the chassis of the robot exploded in a shower of parts and a rainbow cascade of colours.

  “Change the setting!”

  Joe looked down at his weapon, and toggled the setting down a few notches, and gave the SC a thumbs up. Looking to his rear, be spotted Rhea getting up from a prone position she had taken on the road. Before he could say a word, a massive volley of fire rained down on Joe and the SC from a pair of attacking Sentinels.

  Diving to the ground, Joe rolled onto his back, and aimed his rifle through his legs and fired off a burst of cover fire, before rolling back onto his stomach and crawling towards Rhea who had dove back to the ground.

  His shots had been more defensive and suppressive in nature and hadn’t scored any hits. When he reached Rhea, he positioned himself in between her and the approaching machines and propped himself up on his elbows to get a more stable firing position. Looking through the optics on the top of the rifle, Joe focused on the closest Sentinel and fired off two shots. The first missed, but the second caught the machine in the left shoulder, tearing away the arm, and forcing the robot to the ground.

  By the time Joe brought his attention to bear on the second machine, it was gone. He brought his head up from the gun sight and scanned the forest, but didn’t see a thing. Looking to his right, he spotted the Sentinel Commander charging towards him, knocking over everything in his way in his attempt to reach Joe and Rhea as fast as possible.

  Bringing his head back to the front he noticed that the damaged Sentinel was staggering to its feet, but moving slowly. A well-placed shot from Joe hit the machine in the neck, cutting its head off cleanly.

  Bringing his head up, he scanned to his left just in time to see the other Sentinel moving towards him at a rapid pace, the machines right arm appeared to house some form of weapon that was pointed directly at Joe. Swinging his rifle towards the approaching robot, Joe fired off a series of shots too early, missing the robot by a wide margin, and in return, the machine fired off a purple ball of energy the size of a grapefruit right at Joe’s head.

  His eyes widening, and pulse racing, Joe brought his rifle in line with the charging robot a second after the machine had fired at him and just in time for him to pull the trigger on his own weapon. Unfortunately, the gun didn’t make a sound. His energy pack was empty, but at the speed the purple ball of charged particles was moving, it didn’t matter.

  Using every ounce of speed and power the suit of armour and the chemical mixture in his body could give him, Joe quickly rolled towards Rhea and shielded her with his body from the incoming attack.

  But just as the grapefruit-size ball was about to hit him, a flying Sentinel Commander landed on the ground in between Joe and the threat, energy shield raised and absorbed the blast without missing a beat. The hulking machine twisted its head quickly to check the vital signs on Joe and Rhea before charging towards the advancing enemy at close to fifty miles an hour.

  The attacking machine might have been faster than Joe, but it
was no match for the Sentinel Commander, who elegantly executed a forward roll towards the Coalition robot, ducking under another aimed shot. Springing to its feet, the SC used its energy shield as a sword, bringing his arm forward in a sweeping motion, and cleaved the enemy robot in half at the torso. The cut was clean and uncompromising. With a death gurgle, the machine fell to the ground with a thump.

  Like clockwork, the SC deactivated his energy shield and picked up the torso of the destroyed machine with its left hand and snapped the robots head off with his right, before tossing the remains to the side.

  Collecting himself, Joe got to his feet and offered his gloved hand to Rhea, who took it and stood. “That was close.” She said, giving Joe a concerned look.

  “Yeah.”

  Joe moved off the dirt road into the woods to where the SC was still standing. “Find anything?”

  The machine had run a cable to the back of the detached head and was giving the skull a thorough examination. “There is a fleet of ships in orbit. And roughly four hundred drones operating in Earth’s atmosphere.” The SC retracted the cable from the back of the robot's head and then crushed it in between its strong hands. “This model is surprisingly old.” He let the destroyed metal pieces fall to the ground. “But there are six more on the island.”

  Joe watched as the mighty war machine went back to the other side of the road and picked up the heavy cannon it had been using. Moving back onto the road, Joe removed the rifles energy pack and slapped a fresh one in, this time checking that he had the power settings just high enough to counter the Sentinel threat.

  Off in the distance, the sound of machine gun fire could be easily heard. Joe knew that there was at least a company of soldiers on the island and further afield Joe could hear the heavier cannons of the ships that surrounded Lasqueti firing off in an almost non-stop barrage skyward, trying to keep their attackers at bay.

  Looking up, Joe could make out the occasional drone through the thick canopy that covered this section of the road. Even if the drones were relatively simple, without air superiority, the PCS was going to be overwhelmed by the swarm of enemy machines.