by Dean M. Cole
Staring at his display, Rourke watched the boulder pass behind the aircraft and arc downward. Then he turned wide eyes to Rachel. “The caterpillars are hurling rocks at us.”
“Well … shoot ‘em!”
“The rocks?”
“No. The caterpillars.”
He blinked. “Y-Yes, ma’am.”
She shifted her gaze to Bingham’s swinging body. “Chauncey-baby, quit screwing around. I need you watching for Taters.”
“Oh, bloody hell.”
Returning his attention to the display, Rourke spotted another caterpillar-turned-doodlebug rolling down a sidestreet. A short burst of fire later, the spinning monstrosity dissolved beneath a blossoming onslaught of white-hot explosions.
Cursing and swinging his arms, Bingham finally got his feet back underneath him. He scrambled to each of the port windows and shook his head. “Still no Taters.”
Major Lee spoke over the intercom as she maneuvered the airplane. “Maybe you guys killed all of them.”
As Rachel started another diving run, Rourke quickly dispatched three more rock-wielding robots.
The formation was beginning to tighten around Team Two again.
Shifting his aim, he fired another fifty-round burst into the circling ring of bots. As he did, two more of the caterpillars began to roll toward the aircraft. He managed to blow up one of them before it could launch its cargo, but the other sent a large chunk of broken masonry flying into the sky.
“Incoming!”
Rachel banked the aircraft sharply.
Bingham’s feet shot out from under him. “Blimey! Come on!”
Continuing to focus his fire, Rourke shouted over the intercom. “I don’t have enough rounds. I can either keep them away from our people, or I can stop them from throwing the rocks, but I can’t do both.”
Monique shook her head. “I cannot help from back here. The weapon will not slew past ninety degrees left or right.”
Bingham regained his feet and held up a finger. “If our Asian-American princess can keep the aircraft level for just a moment, I might be able to do something about your problem.”
Walking unsteadily, the wing commander moved over to a crate strapped to the center of the cargo flooring. He started opening the large box with one hand while extracting a device from his pant pocket with the other.
“Major Lee, can you bring us to a high hover, well above the range of those damned boulders?”
“Uh, I guess so, what’s your plan, Chauncey-Baby?”
Ignoring the question, Bingham stared into the open crate and punched commands into the face of his smartphone.
Suddenly lights began to twinkle inside the box.
The wing commander looked at Rourke and Monique. “Don’t worry about the rock-chucking bots for now. Just focus on clearing a landing zone around our people.”
Chapter 49
Vaughn stared into the sky, watching the now hovering tiltrotor aircraft as it climbed straight up. It quickly passed out of the range of the rocks.
When the V-22 had first shown up, its initial shots had slammed into the far side of the enemy formation, driving some of the robots closer to his team. However, the belly cannon operator, likely Rourke, had adjusted fire and, on the third attempt, hit the caterpillars closest to Vaughn and the rest of Team Two, driving the machines back.
The tiltrotor aircraft had screamed overhead and began to climb. It quickly faded into the night.
Standing up from the nuke, Vaughn had held his arms out. “Where you going?!”
Then a line of white-hot rounds had streamed from the tail of the V-22 and flown over his head. He had started to duck, but before the signal could reach his legs, the grenades had slammed into the ground behind him.
The near flank of the robotic horde had dissolved beneath an expanding cloud of flailing metallic limbs and disembodied heads, the direction of the blasts carrying all of it away from the team.
Vaughn had shouted, “Oh, thank you!” Then he’d bent over the nuke, and, keeping his finger well clear of the enter key, disarmed the device. Afterward, they had returned it to BOb’s backpack.
Now staring up at the hovering tiltrotor and watching another line of explosive rounds stream from its belly cannon, Vaughn saw a boulder rise into the air.
Teddy pointed at it. “Check it out, El Capitan.” He chuckled. “Stupid caterpillars still throw rocks. Aircraft too high now.”
Vaughn shrugged as he watched the hunk of broken concrete lose energy and fall earthward well before it reached the aircraft. “Everyone keep an eye out. Eventually, they’re going to figure out that they can’t hit the thing. Then they might start chucking ‘em at us.”
The smile dissolved from Teddy’s face, and the man turned and scanned the horizon.
Once again, Vaughn wished they’d been able to use radios. He had worried about what the Necks might do with the radio signal, especially to BOb. However, his primary concern lay with the digital underpinnings of modern military transceivers. The Necks could possibly track or sense a modern radio, even if it were off, just as hackers had often done with mobile phones.
Firing almost straight down, both of the tiltrotor’s weapons began to pound the entire ring of caterpillars.
Dozens of robots disintegrated under the twinned assault.
The aircraft began a slow rotation.
No longer having to split its efforts between the stone-chucking robots and those encircling Team Two, the belly cannon was able to focus all its attention on the ring of caterpillar bots. Combined with the firepower coming from the tailgunner's automatic grenade launcher, the attack radically reversed the flow of the battle.
Explosions leaped into the air all around the team. Like a stadium wave made from expanding clouds of yellow fire, dual lines of explosions raced through the enemy formation.
The fusillade of incoming grenades and exploding belly cannon rounds finally forced the caterpillar bots to retreat. The circle of clear ground around the team expanded. Soon, more than a football field’s worth of open land sat between the team and the nearest still functional caterpillar. The force of the blasts had even swept much of the metallic detritus from the field.
Then Vaughn realized it wasn’t just the blasts. He saw one of the horse-sized robots carrying away the fractured body of a destroyed caterpillar. He wondered idly if it was to scavenge the metal, or if the machine saw it as a fallen brother.
As he watched the two cannons continue to pour fire into the enemy formation, Vaughn saw a problem with their tactic. There were more bots than the tiltrotor had rounds. They had already cleared more than enough room to permit a landing, but as soon as the V-22 touched the ground, the caterpillar bots would just rush in and pounce on the aircraft. The belly cannon wouldn’t be of much use after the landing, and the grenade launcher on the ramp could only cover about a hundred and eighty degrees around the back of the aircraft. There’d be little to stop the robots from starting a full-on attack.
Vaughn saw something falling from the back of the V-22.
The tiltrotor continued to rotate about its vertical axis slowly. As it did, a stream of small dots flowed from its tail, falling like black rain in a wide perimeter around Vaughn and his team. If not for the night-vision goggles, he wouldn’t have seen them.
Looking down, he saw the small objects now littered the ground in an arc between him and the circling caterpillar bots. However, they’d left a wide, clear area at the center. It was more than big enough to permit the aircraft’s landing.
The belly cannon and tail gun continued to pour fire into the enemy formation. However, two of the large, segmented robots broke from the group and started to sprint toward Vaughn.
He took an involuntary backward step. “Oh, shit! Watch out! Incoming!”
It appeared no one in the aircraft had seen the movement. They hadn’t adjusted fire.
Vaughn raised his grenade launcher. Beside him, BOb did the same. However, before either of them could finish the movement, bo
th robots exploded.
No fire had come down from the aircraft. The machines had simply detonated.
Then Vaughn understood. Those small black cubes had to be magnetically activated explosives. Team One had covered the land between his team and the retreating robots with the SLAM mines they’d loaded into the aircraft. The metallic debris that littered the field wasn’t big enough to trigger them. If programmed correctly, the Selectable Lightweight Attack Munitions would only detonate when something with the mass of an armored vehicle, or caterpillar bot in this case, crossed its magnetic sensor.
Looking up, he saw the V-22 had started to descend. As the aircraft dropped lower in the sky, a couple of caterpillar bots began to roll across the ground. However, each time, a line of explosive-tipped rounds or grenades would slam down into them. The robots disintegrated before they could build sufficient inertia to throw their stones.
He wondered why the robots hadn’t used the same technique to attack him and the rest of his team remotely. Then he remembered what Angela had said about the caterpillars simply just holding them at bay until the Necks could escape.
Vaughn had a pretty good idea of what would come out of that wormhole once the last Neck passed from this world.
Bill, Teddy, and BOb were preoccupied with keeping the caterpillar bots at bay and hadn’t noticed the descending aircraft. Angela was standing next to him, staring up at it transfixed.
He reached out and grabbed her arm and started pulling her back from the center of the clearing. Then he yelled to the two men and the robot. “They’re coming in. Back up! Give ‘em room to land.”
Vaughn turned to BOb and raised hopeful eyebrows. Shouting over the noise of the descending tiltrotor, he asked, “Is the BFG working yet?”
The robot looked back at him and shook its head.
Staring up into the tail of the still descending V-22, they all squinted as Monique fired the autocannon, sending yellow flames over their heads.
Rescue was imminent, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Where the hell could they go?
Chapter 50
One of the caterpillar bots appeared to be staring straight at Vaughn. It began to slither its way inward from the north side of the ring. He felt his pulse quickening as he watched it successfully negotiate its way around several of the black dots. Then it garnered magnetic attention and blew up. Fortunately, the surrounding mines weren’t sensitive to nearby explosions. Monique had told them that they had been hardened to prevent cascading detonations. Otherwise, if one of them detonated, they could all light off.
As the V-22 dropped below twenty feet, its belly turret fell silent. However, the tail gun continued to roar overhead as the slowly rotating aircraft descended the last few meters. Monique was doing a damned good job of wiping out the robots. Each time a new one curled into a wheel and started to roll in their direction, the end of the automatic grenade launcher would slew toward it and quickly dispatch the thing.
Vaughn and Angela alongside Bill and Teddy crouched as the rotor wash threatened to topple them. Only BOb remained fully upright. The robot turned and fired a grenade at a caterpillar that was inching closer to the minefield.
Rachel and Mark turned the V-22 so that the tail was just over his team.
Beneath the exhausts of the aircraft’s massive jet turbines, steam rose from the street’s wet ash. Then, cooked into flaky cakes, the long-dead embers began to fly away in large chunks. They rapidly devolved into a cloud of dust that drifted over the minefield.
As the aircraft descended the last few feet, Vaughn squinted against the flying debris and peered under the ramp, looking toward the front of the tiltrotor. He saw a caterpillar beyond the main body of the formation curl into a wheel and start rolling toward the aircraft’s unguarded front side.
Eyes widening, he looked up at Monique. He pointed forward, gesticulating wildly. “Incoming!”
Apparently, someone inside had seen the same thing. The tiltrotor stopped its descent and then rapidly spun about its vertical axis. Monique wrenched the automatic grenade launcher ninety degrees left, pointing it over the side of the ramp. She loosed a short burst at the accelerating robot. The rounds quickly found their target, obliterating the articulated, multifaceted body of the machine, but not before it could launch the rock. The chunk of masonry flew in a shallow arc straight at the hovering V-22.
Grabbing Angela, Vaughn pulled her sideways. “Everyone down!”
As the two of them dropped to the pavement, the rotor wash turned into a hurricane, blowing them across the ground. At the same time, the aircraft rocketed up into the sky.
The tumbling hunk of broken bricks and concrete narrowly missed slamming into the cockpit. Instead, it passed just beneath the aircraft.
Vaughn slid to a stop and rolled onto his back. He watched the rock sail toward them. It looked like it was going to strike BOb. The machine raised its arms as if it were going to deflect the boulder. However, it glanced back at the team members and saw that the rock would easily clear them. At the last instant, the robot stepped aside, opting for self-preservation.
Just as quickly as it had ascended, the tiltrotor dropped back down, this time landing in a low spot right next to Vaughn and his team.
He helped Angela up and pulled her toward the aircraft. Beside him, Bill and Teddy jumped to their feet and ran up the open ramp.
Angela pulled up short, refusing to enter.
Vaughn grabbed her hand and urged her forward. “What are you doing?! Get in!”
She shook her head and yelled something, but he couldn’t hear her over the raucous roar of the tiltrotor’s engines and rotor blades.
Bingham leaned out and shouted in their faces. “Get in the bloody aircraft!”
Angela looked across the field and continued shaking her head.
Rourke ran to the back of the aircraft and tossed a pair of headsets to them.
As soon as Vaughn slid one over his ears, Rachel’s voice barked from its speakers. “What’s going on back there? Why in the hell aren’t they getting on?!”
Angela shook her head. “We can’t leave. We have to get below ground!”
“Negative, Commander Brown!” Rachel shouted over the intercom. “We have to fall back, regroup. We’ll figure out a different way to come at the problem. Now, hurry up, and get your ass in here before another one of these damned robots chunks a rock at us.”
“We don’t have time for that. The Necks are retreating through the wormhole.”
Chance Bingham smiled. “Good riddance! Let the buggers go.”
“No, you don’t understand. Once they’re finished retreating, they’re going to send the light through again.”
This was taking too long. Vaughn pointed to BOb. “Go around front, and guard that side of the aircraft.”
The battle operations bot nodded. It turned to head out but looked back. Leaning in close, the bot spoke over the roar of the V-22. “FYI, Captain Asshole, the BFG has rebooted. I estimate it has one discharge left. After that, I fear the circuitry will be irrevocably compromised.”
Vaughn started to wave the bot on but then held up a finger. “Save it! Use grenades only for now.”
BOb dipped his head and then disappeared around the side of the V-22. At the same moment, Monique loosed another burst of grenade shots. In his peripheral vision, Vaughn saw a rolling caterpillar disintegrate.
As he looked across the battlefield, an idea struck him.
Vaughn turned and stared into the cabin. “Let’s take the Osprey over the nearest shaft.” He pointed at Doctor Geller. “Rourke said there was a workstation at its bottom. We can fast-rope down.” Vaughn looked at Angela. “We’ll cover you while you start the reset. Between the guns on this thing and all of us, we should be able to keep the caterpillars at bay.”
Angela’s face started to light up, but before she could reply, Rourke’s voice crackled over the intercom. “I’m sorry, Captain. That’s not gonna work. I saw the bots weld
ing steel plates over the shafts … all three of them.”
Detonations rang out from BOb’s side of the enemy formation.
“Oh, bloody hell!” Bingham blurted out, sounding as if he’d had a realization of his own. “The chap is right. I saw the welding arcs. And from the way those caterpillars were struggling with the panels, it must be some damned heavy steel plating, too.”
“Get down!” Monique yelled. The muzzle of her grenade launcher swung straight at Vaughn and Angela. The two of them ducked. Then fire erupted over their heads as the autocannon launched a volley at the ringing formation of robots. Vaughn looked over in time to see the rounds punch into another rolling caterpillar, disassembling the thing before it could launch its cargo. “Get some!” Monique yelled. “Take that, you son of a bitch!”
Vaughn did a double-take and then nodded appreciably.
“Angela,” Mark called from the cockpit. “We’re out of options. We have to retreat. If the light comes again and we end up in Hell, we’ll just have BOb beam us back.”
She shook her head vigorously. “The emitter has been glitching, and now it’s completely offline.”
Vaughn held up a hand. “BOb said it’s back up now, but he thinks it only has one more shot left before the whole thing goes Tango Uniform.”
“Doesn’t matter. BOb and the BFG won’t be there. The light the Necks shoot through the wormhole only beams out life. It doesn’t send everything to Hell, just living beings.”
“Oh, shit,” Bill said.
Teddy’s pale face stared out at them from inside the cargo bay. “You’re right, Command-Oh.”
Twinned explosions came from the front. “BOb just took out two more caterpillars,” Mark announced.
Monique swung the cannon left and destroyed one coming in from the right. Releasing the trigger, she looked at Vaughn and shook her head. “Whatever we are going to do, it needs to be soon!”
Frustration building, Vaughn looked around, desperately seeking a solution?
What could they do?
The Necks had systematically cut off every point of ingress.
