Resist the Red Battlenaut

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  "I wish we could just surround the place and blow it to kingdom come." said Balko. "Just bring it down."

  "But we want prisoners, remember?" Abby's voice was getting sharper. "Otherwise, the Sun Tzu could've bombed the scudge out of these coordinates from orbit." She blew out her breath loudly. "We've already gone over all this. Now quit yapping and move out."

  With that, she started forward, marching in the direction of the cube-shaped structure. The squad fell into formation and followed--Scott in the middle, with the others arranged around him.

  Whatever was waiting for them in that mirror-walled edifice, they were heading straight for it, taking the fight to the Reds. Six Diamondbacks and one Marine were going up against unknown odds, buttressed only by mechanical armor, determination, raw courage, and A.I.s who could see what they could not.

  *****

  Chapter 15

  As the squad crossed the silver terrain, there were no signs of movement from the structure. That only heightened the tension as the Diamondbacks marched and waited for something to happen. The closer they got, the more tense they became.

  They were sitting ducks, and they knew it. Abby was leading them along the curve of the slope, approaching what might be the back side of the building--the side facing away from the heart of the valley--but they were still out in the open, with no cover or camouflage. They would be visible to anyone inside the structure, easily detectable by surveillance equipment. And because they were bunched close together to protect Scott, they provided a tighter target for any weapons fire from behind those mirrored walls.

  The pressure was on. It was cool inside the cockpit of Scott's Battlenaut, but sweat still ran down his sides and back. He'd been in tough situations before, but none quite like this.

  As his eyes flicked back and forth over the video feeds, he spoke to his A.I. "Frank. Form additional large-bore swivel-mounted guns on upper arms and hips. Add a dorsal laser turret between shoulders."

  "This configuration will limit the use of certain capabilities requiring high mass utilization," said Frank. "Drone pods and biofilm ejectors will be offline. Beanstalk function will be unavailable. Proceed?"

  "Do it." Scott wanted as much straight-up firepower at his command as possible.

  "See anything, Corporal?" said Abby.

  "Nothing new," said Scott. "The place is still buttoned up tight."

  "Maybe it's abandoned," said Donna. "Or maybe it's only periodically manned and operational."

  "Makes sense," said Balko.

  "Maybe," said Trane. "Unless you consider what a high-value target this is. I wouldn't leave it unprotected."

  "Agreed," said Khalil. "At the very least, they've left a garrison to defend it."

  "But it's invisible," said García.

  "Not to our A.I.s, it isn't," said Khalil. "Not to Scott, it isn't."

  Just then, Scott saw something twitch at two o'clock. He threw his rightside feed on maximum mag--only to realize it was just an armadillo-like creature, scampering across the terrain. No danger there.

  No nothing, in fact, as the squad drew closer. Not a peep out of the Reds--so were they inside, and if so, what were they up to? Were they waiting for the right moment to pounce, or were they all just asleep at the wheel, lulled to complacency by the facility's cloak of virtual invisibility?

  After a while, Abby spoke. "We're a hundred meters from the structure. Still no movement."

  "Come out, come out, wherever you are." Trane snickered.

  "Get your A.I.s looking for a door," said Abby. "We need a way in."

  Scott maxed the magnification on his frontside camera and scanned the side of the building. Still, he could see no seam or break in the gleaming skin of the wall looming overhead. "I've got nothing. The outer surface appears to be uninterrupted."

  "Damn," said Abby. "Looks like we might have to blast our way in."

  "If we can," said Khalil. "Maybe that's the real reason it's unprotected--because it's impenetrable."

  "Impenetrable my ass," said García. "We'll find a way in."

  The squad went further, covering another twenty-five meters. Scott kept watching the feeds for signs of trouble and saw nothing alarming. Meanwhile, his heart rate rose in direct proportion to the amount of visible danger. The more nothing he saw, the more tense he became.

  "My A.I. says there's a wall up ahead," said Donna.

  "That's right," said Scott. "An enormous wall, eighty meters high, with a mirrored surface. I can see us reflected in it as we get closer."

  Another twenty-five meters passed...then ten more. Abby's Battlenaut continued to stride forward, its broad feet crossing the silver ground.

  Then, suddenly, she stopped. "What the flux? Thing's putting out some kind of radio signal."

  "My A.I. picked it up, too," said Khalil. "It's moving out in all directions from the structure."

  "Why?" said Donna. "What's it doing?"

  "I'll tell you what it's doing," said Trane. "It's disappearing! It's blocking our A.I.s!"

  "He's right!" said Abby. "My A.I. just went blind!"

  "Mine, too," said García.

  Everyone said the same thing, and Scott confirmed it. Flicking off the comm channel, he spoke directly to his A.I. "Frank, describe your current visual input."

  "There is none," said Frank. "All visual input has ceased."

  Looking around the cockpit, Scott saw that wasn't quite accurate. All the video feeds were still coming in clear, and all sensors were still providing data. "You're telling me you have no visuals? What about sensors?"

  "No visuals," said Frank. "No sensor readings, either. I am quite literally in the dark, Solomon."

  Scott switched the comm back on. "My A.I. is blind, too," he told the others. "But video and sensor feeds are working fine."

  "Same here," said Abby. "But without the damn A.I., I can't see the Red structure."

  The rest of the squad agreed. Video and sensor feeds weren't much good if the human pilot couldn't see anything Red-related.

  "Impressive," said Trane. "That radio signal carried a computer virus that reprogrammed the visual signal processing subroutine in the A.I.s. Video's still coming in, but they can't see it."

  "And we can see video, but not the Reds," said Khalil.

  "Good thing we brought a secret weapon," said Abby. "Corporal Scott, you're going to have to walk us through this, after all."

  "Roger that." Even as he said it, Scott caught a glimpse of something hurtling down in front of the squad. "Incoming!" he cried, as loud as he could.

  The hurtling object plunged into the ground less than a meter from Abby, barely missing her armor.

  "Damn!" said Trane. "Those Reds don't waste any time, do they?"

  "What is it?" snapped Abby. "My A.I.'s blind, and all I see on video is empty ground!"

  Scott rushed up and got a look at what had just crashed down. It was a slim, triangular fin, three meters long and painted flat black, with a sharp nose driven into the metallic ground. A cylindrical housing hugged the central shaft several centimeters behind the nose. As he watched, the housing turned clockwise and started sliding forward.

  "Everybody move!" hollered Scott. "Go go go!"

  As one, the Diamondbacks lurched away from the landing site. Scott's armor lumbered after them; Frank couldn't see, so Scott had to pick a direction and tell him to run.

  "Warhead!" said Scott. "It's gonna' blow!"

  Just as he said it, the missile exploded behind him, swamping him with a shockwave of shuddering force.

  *****

  Chapter 16

  The explosion rocked Scott's Battlenaut but didn't knock it down. Frank, ahead of the game even though he was blind, managed to keep the armor on its feet.

  The others weren't all so lucky. Checking the feeds, Scott saw Donna's Battlenaut go down on its belly, while Balko's hit the ground on its side.

  "Form up!" Abby was shouting urgently over the comm. "Scott, what was that?"

  "Some kind of mis
sile!" Scott's eyes locked on the topside feed, looking for more incoming fire--and quickly finding it. Two objects launched from the roof of the structure, flashing toward the squad on arcing vapor trails. "Two more on the way!"

  Scott's mind raced. He had split-seconds until the second volley found its mark--not enough time to figure firing solutions and flash them to his squad-mates.

  Better and faster to take action himself. "Frank! Retract all projectile weapons! Form and fire shoulder-mount anti-missile missiles at these coordinates!" Using eye control, he reconfigured the topside feed, superimposing a numbered grid over the view. Watching the incoming missiles, judging their trajectories against the numbers on the grid, he barked out two sets of coordinates. He just had to hope that Frank, though sightless, still had enough geospatial awareness to program the missiles to get where they needed to be.

  Even as Scott fed Frank the coordinates, he could see from the holographic wireframe of his armor that Frank had already pulled in the guns and grown missile launchers from his shoulders.

  The A.I. didn't waste time talking. Scott felt the shock of the two launches, and holo readouts showed the missiles' trajectories as they climbed.

  It was going to be touch and go. Scott was good at quickly calculating firing solutions on the fly, but the incoming missiles were moving fast, and his A.I. wasn't a hundred percent.

  He did pretty well, considering. Topside showed one of his anti-missile missiles colliding dead-on with an enemy rocket, blowing it apart in midair.

  Unfortunately, his second shot missed. The other enemy missile streaked toward the squad, then hit the ground in the middle of the group and exploded on impact, bowling over everyone who was still standing.

  Just like that, a squad of elite Diamondbacks and one Marine were thrown in total disarray. Naturally, that was when the next wave descended on them...but it wasn't a wave of missiles.

  Seconds after landing on his back, Scott saw them: three figures leaping, not launching, off the roof. Even from a distance, they looked familiar.

  When he sat up and threw the feed on maximum mag, any doubt of what they were went out the window. "Enemy sighted!"

  "What enemy?" said Abby.

  The feed was very clear at max mag. Scott could see pale sunlight glinting off one of the leaping figures, revealing armor of a certain color he knew too well.

  "Reds!" Scott's heart hammered when he said it. "Red Battlenauts, three of them, heading straight for us!"

  "Everyone up!" shouted Abby. "Prepare to fire!"

  Scott was already in motion. "Stand up, Frank!" Glancing at the wireframe, he saw his Battlenaut roll to one side, plant its hands on the ground, and boost itself up on its knees. "Ready anti-missile launchers!"

  "Firing coordinates?" Frank's voice was calm, as if this were just another exercise on the Training Deck.

  Watching the topside feed, Scott saw the Red Battlenauts dropping fast. They were spread out in a spearhead formation--one on point, the other two fanned out on his rear flanks. They were too far apart for him to take them with one or two shots--not that he really thought it would ever be that easy with juggernauts like those.

  "Coordinates, please," said Frank.

  "Talk to us, Scott!" said Abby. "Tell us where to shoot!"

  Scott took a breath and closed his eyes for a split-second. When he opened them again, he slid smoothly into action. He'd prepared for this situation back onboard the Sun Tzu; now, it was just a matter of letting it happen.

  "Bearing two-two-niner, angle forty-five degrees," he said, giving the squad a rough direction as he watched the numbered grid. Tracing the Reds' descent on the feed, he picked likely coordinates, typed them on a hovering holo keypad, and flashed them to the rest of the squad. "I'm sending coordinates now!"

  "Received!" said Abby. "Fire!"

  Everyone who was back on their feet cut loose at the same time, filling the sky around the Reds with slugs, missiles, and laser beams. Only Khalil and García's guns remained silent, as they continued to work their way back to upright positions.

  "Keep firing!" said Abby. "Don't let up!"

  Scott released his missiles, too, and watched them cruise toward the Reds on the feed. One went wide, sweeping off to the left of the point Battlenaut--but the other slammed into the chest of the right-flanking Red. The missile blew on impact, sending the Red spinning off course--but otherwise unscathed, as far as Scott could see.

  As for the other two Reds, they just kept coming, passing through the curtain of slugs, missiles, and lasers as if it were no more than a holographic sky show, intangible and harmless. They quickly dropped out of the field of fire and touched down thirty meters away.

  "One direct hit! He's deflected but undamaged," Scott said over the comm. "The other two have touched down. Targets at ten and two o'clock."

  "Let's get this party started!" said Trane.

  "Fire at will!" said Abby.

  Scott clenched his jaw and glared at the frontside feed. Things were about to get interesting.

  Back on Chelong III, the Red's superior energy weapons had chewed through Rollins' and Scott's armor like a chain saw through tissue paper. But CORE armor was an entirely different animal with much higher tensile strength and energy dispersal capabilities per square centimeter. The big brains--Rexis, Trane, and Khalil--were confident that the Diamondback Battlenauts would hold up against Red firepower...but there was only one way to know for sure.

  And here it came. As soon as the two Reds hit the ground, the forward cannons on their chests surged to life, glowing with bright golden energy. They were about to fire the same weapons that had destroyed Scott's old Battlenaut and killed poor Captain Rollins.

  "Incoming!" Scott's pulse quickened. "Chest-mounted energy cannons about to fire!" Everyone was on their feet now--including Khalil and García--and they were all blasting away with slugs and lasers. Half the squad fired at the ten o'clock target, while the other half focused on two o'clock...though they all maintained a loose formation around Scott. Protecting him was more crucial than ever, now that the A.I.s were blind.

  Not that Scott planned to hold back any. As the squad pounded away at the Reds, he was right in there, cranking off rounds at both enemy war machines--firing with his left arm gun at ten o'clock while his right arm fired at two.

  Suddenly, the Reds' cannons flared and fired. Each Battlenaut unleashed two streams of searing golden energy, sending them blazing over the silver ground toward the Diamondbacks.

  Scott sucked in a breath and held it. One of the beams was coming in from two o'clock at an angle that would lead right to him. Even if his squadmates or their A.I.s could have seen it, they wouldn't have been able to do anything to stop it in time.

  Scott was about to find out the hard way if CORE armor measured up to Red weapons technology. The same kind of beam that had blown his armor to bits on Chelong III was streaking straight for him and would make contact in a heartbeat.

  *****

  Chapter 17

  The beam from the Red's cannon slammed into the upper body of Scott's Battlenaut with shuddering force. Bright light drowned out all the camera feeds at once except the backside view. The comm went dead, and the cockpit filled with a high-pitched, piercing whine.

  But the armor didn't blow apart. A moment passed, and the CORE Battlenaut held together against the searing assault. It was still standing, ready to fight back, long past the point at which Scott had ejected from his old armor during a similar attack.

  "Now that's more like it." Scott smirked and checked his holo readouts, which showed that all systems remained nominal. His Battlenaut wasn't anywhere near being ready to explode. "You're not getting off easy this time."

  "Excuse me," said Frank. "Could you provide me with a firing solution for one of the Red Battlenauts? I am unable to see or detect either one."

  Suddenly, Scott's Battlenaut lurched back a step, shoved off balance by an increase in the beam's power. Frank quickly restabilized, but Scott realized th
e armor had its limits.

  Time to switch off the weapon at its source. "Red Battlenaut at two o'clock, Frank. Height 12 meters. Form and fire biofilm cannon."

  "What size payload?" said Frank.

  "Maximum possible."

  "The requested strike will severely limit additional use of biofilm and other mass-hungry applications," said Frank.

  Scott already knew that. In a live fire situation, resource hogs like biofilm should be used sparingly, when other means had failed...but the Reds were coming on strong. Maybe some up-front shock and awe could take the wind out of their sails. "Fire ASAP!"

  The wireframe figure showed a shoulder-mounted cannon forming and firing a bundle. The cockpit wrenched back as the payload launched, propelled toward a target only Scott could see.

  The biofilm pod leaped the distance and burst against the Red's head. Watching the topside feed, Scott saw the lumpy green slime spread fast, expanding over the gleaming red skin of the monstrous enemy Battlenaut.

  Seconds later, the energy weapons on the Red's chest cut out, taking the pressure off Scott. That was when he finally had a moment to survey the status of the rest of the squad.

  The camera feeds told the story. Scott's six teammates were still standing, but they were taking a pounding and firing blind. A single Red Battlenaut was holding them all at bay, beating them up with blasts from his forward energy weapons. Apparently, the Diamondbacks couldn't even see the actual fire and use its path to determine firing trajectories of their own.

  As Scott took it all in, the comm suddenly reconnected, filling the cockpit with the sound of shouting Diamondbacks. Abby was louder than anyone, cursing up a storm when she wasn't bellowing Scott's name.

  "I said come in, Scott!" She cursed some more. "Wake up, you mother-fluxer!"

  "I copy, Lieutenant!" said Scott. "My comm was down, but now it's back up!"