by D. Rus
“Time!” the lookout cried, pulling me away by the shoulders.
Boom! The armor shook again.
Nodding my thanks to him, I readjusted the collar of my poncho and looked through the hole again. “Armament…” I continued, studying the combat drone’s stocky frame while Muromets listened to me like I were a messiah – with suspicious eyes yet believing every word. “Counter-air defense/anti-missile defense cartridges. Their status is unclear, but they are not a threat. The double railgun has a deformed set of barrels. The pulse gun is busted; most of its front half is gutted. I’ve no idea how it can even find targets… Next; the right flank defense turret has been destroyed. The left one is still working. I can’t make out the rear one. Let’s consider it functioning. Armor status…”
“Time!”
This time, I jumped back on my own. After a short pause, I resumed my inspection. This bot had really gotten roughed up good.
“Force field reflectors and the Umbrella module all look damaged. No active or add-on armor installed. Anti-laser coating is 90 percent burned. Factory composite kit – significantly damaged. The most vulnerable areas: right flank for two and five hours. Front - homemade armoring with random materials. The bitch wants to live; it’s no use to attack the front.”
Muromets scratched his crew cut, thinking. We weren’t allowed to have hair in other places; the roots had been removed. Things with head hair weren’t simple either. I was sure that our hair would only grow to whatever the maximum length the rules allowed.
“We’ve less than a two percent chance of winning,” the corporal observed, checking his claim against his implant’s analytical conclusions.
“A little over seven percent,” I corrected. My Alpha was a little more creative and had better knowledge of the Crab’s weak spots. “But it’s still low. That thing will paint the walls with us. It won’t even notice our clubs and homemade knives. How are the batteries?”
The batteries were of critical importance; if we could revive the TT gun I had salvaged, we could increase our chance of winning by nine percent.
I didn't put my hopes on looting the third corpse in that hall. My implant had identified the corpse’s chevrons and gear, and it wasn’t promising; it was a tiny female skeleton wrapped in a white robe typically worn by junior medical staff. She had a lightpen in her pocket, and on her chest was an active pheromone generator. Her rucksack contained instant make-up, a few video crystals that lacked serials numbers – that was illegal, by the way, - and other such female sundries. Should we defeat the bot, our girls would be squeaking with joy upon finding these Christmas gifts in this gray, post-apocalyptic world.
Muromets shook his head: “All the batteries we have are dead. It looks like someone had passed a beam of intense electromagnetic radiation through this place. Only the capsules survived; they have decent shielding and an additional external power source. A cordless one. Who would’ve ever expected it? An electrician’s dream come true.”
I pulled a face. “I see. So, there’s but one option left…”
Muromets raised a brow: “Which is?”
I didn’t answer and headed to the quarantined hallway. The bot guarding the entrance opened its paralyzer shutter, but didn’t aim at us – guess we were making progress.
“Servobot! As your senior, I demand you follow my orders!”
Muromets chuckled in surprise. He followed me like an inquisitor.
The bot replied indifferently: “Denied. Conflict with priority task.”
“Your priority task?”
“Prevent dissemination of nanoterminator.”
I nodded with satisfaction, “Can you take on a heavy cyber-bot, type Crab?”
“Object’s combat readiness?” inquired the quarantine bot.
I snapped in irritation, “What’s the difference?! It can move, control its arms, and is out for scalps!” But then I calmed down, having read the information supplied by my implant, and answered the question, “Over 23 percent. Can you handle it?”
“Negative.”
I collected all the analytical and factual data and sent it to the bot: “Accept this packet via open channel. A hacked Crab is going to burst in here in two hours. Question: what will it do after crushing us?”
The bot didn’t take long to answer, “There’s a 70 probability that it will infect me with a virus of the technosentients; a 19 percent probability that it will destroy me; a six percent probability that it will ignore me…”
I bared my teeth: “Don’t even count on it! At least one of us will try to hide in your hallway. And the Crab has at least a dozen sensors for locating living flesh. He will definitely find you. Need I go on?”
“…probability that it will…”
“Shut up! Now, there’s almost a 100 percent chance that the Crab will invade the quarantined sector. The worm will spread and the technosentient population will increase. What will you do?”
The droid fell silent for at least a minute. The blinking info exchange glyph on my interface indicated that my implant sent the droid the open access info that the droid had requested.
Finally, the bot came to. Its voice was almost completely unemotional. It was preparing to die. And any individual, even a programmed one, wants to live just like any one of us…
“Granting limited energy cell access. Purpose: to charge Corporal Lucky’s personal weapon. Mandatory condition: destroy the nanoworm colony before engaging in combat with the Crab. At least 10 maximum density plasma impulses are required to eliminate a single cyst.”
The corresponding mission popped up before my eyes. Considering my Alpha-prime implant ad my TT gun, the message window had a green border, signifying an easy difficulty level and a minimal reward – improved relationship with the medical droid and complete access to its gear.
I accepted.
A service port popped open with a barely audible click on the once-white body of the droid. “A single block with 48 elements,” the bot warned coldly. “Maintain smoothness of movements and carefully follow the instructions sent to you. I’m warning you that in the event of aggressive or unauthorized action, I will be forced to drive my reactor to a state of uncontrolled nuclear fission chain reaction.”
Muromets, who was reaching for the open port, froze halfway. Wiping sweat off his brow, he cautiously stepped back. “Paul, you do it… all these instructions… bureaucracy isn't my strong suit.”
I nodded silently, opening the file the droid had sent. It was a puny picture with two lines of text. And the bot had made it sound like I was about to receive a physics textbook. The important part was not to take anything else besides the block from the droid, who was clearly nervous.
Extraction of the block went smoothly. The servobot suffered, my implant sympathized with it, and Murom and I perspired.
Muromets kept whispering annoyingly, “You’re a risk taker, Squadron Commander! Do you even realize the droid could’ve wasted us all? If there’s no one here, the Crab has no reason to invade this place anymore.”
“We would’ve respawned in five minutes,” I replied in a constrained voice, carefully releasingthe bracketry clamps.
“Just to die again! You really are a lucky guy, evading death time after time, healing yourself with herbs and mollusks. Else you would’ve remembered that dying twice in 24 hours doubles your respawn time. And don’t get me started about the side effects! Your droid would've twisted our timers big time! We would’ve respawned once a week, on Wednesdays, spending the rest of our time in the virtual purgatory. You should know that it’s a place of great sadness and pain.”
My cheek twitched. I had really walked into that one. “But the droid did no such thing, did he?” I parried. “And do we have a choice? If not the droid, then the Crab. We don't stand a chance against a heavy drone with such pathetic armament. You said yourself, two percent chance of winning.”
“And you said seven!”
“Same thing! Buzz off already! And stay out of my way. If I brus
h the sockets, there’ll be nothing but boots left of us. My boots. As for your plastic footwraps, they’ll laminate your scorched soles.”
Carefully disassembling the block, I surveyed its contents. The batteries were enough for two energy clips for my TT. The reaction mass vessel contained enough for four. Barrel life was ten times higher, even when firing at full power.
I spent the next half hour burning the nanoworm colonies with plasma. At first, everything went smoothly, like boring routine. But I had to assume a more stable position; the TT gun was like a pulse engine, overwhelming me with recoil. I aimed from 20 paces away, pulled the trigger all the way in, and fired blinding beams at the center of the pyramid of cysts.
The first two leaked off the wall like liquid metal, losing their structure and molecular memory in the outrageously high temperatures. The next three managed to team up and attack. As I soon realized, their attempt was hopeless. As I incinerated the aggressive nanites suspended in the air, an infected servobot appeared out of nowhere. It dragged the precious Nomad colony out of the hallway.
Alarmed, my Alpha-prime told me to fire at the bot’s technical tunnel. I did, sealing it off, then spent ten minutes chasing the swift servobot. I really didn’t want to waste the limited ammo or break a working bot.
When I finally cornered it, I broke off its arm holding a plasma burner and stepped on the bot, as it was shaped like a thin pancake. Then, I carefully burned the Nomad colony which contained a nano replication factory. After that, I opened the cover of the bot’s external dashboard and, flipping the archaic toggle switch, cut off the infected robot’s power.
I wearily squatted down next to the 16-inch-diameter bot and viewed my current status. I had lost 40 percent of my peripheral protective layer nanites and spent nine percent of the all-purpose nanomass. That was a lot.
If I could just find an iridium nail and chew it up, that would help a bit. Even a bundle of cords made of rare-earth elements would suffice, but I would never find one. There was nothing but fourth generation optical fibers and immaterial air-wiring around me.
I pensively chewed the colorful berries. The yellow, heart-shaped ones – which we had aptly named “valentines” – were great for burns. The servobot had dealt me a few blows on the limbs with its plasma burner. My wonder-boots sealed their holes with difficulty, their resources down by a third.
The red, bead-shaped berries were essentially seedless “cranberries.” They regenerated HP, but made your jaw cramp like hell; a blend of unripe persimmon and wasabi. Life was a pain. Even healing made you cry.
As I repaired the damage, I ignored the alarmed looks of fellow group members and waited for the territory acquisition timer to count down.
The rapid trumpets playing a Roman march on the public channel signaled the expansion of our habitat. Everyone received a little bonus, and our group finally climbed up on the list a little, out of its usual location at the very bottom.
I personally heard bells as I received 40 points on my RC along with a luxurious badge “One can conquer alone.” Nothing to be proud of. As the psi-sniper girls had said, a good soldier received about 50 achievements in one year of service.
I gave the loot team the go-ahead. The team included our most sharp-eyed, most observant, and most dexterous pickpockets. More than half of them were girls. They must’ve had an inherent eye for freebies.
The rest of the group continued preparing for battle. Lina tugged at my sleeve, inquiring with ingenuous female curiosity, “What did you get for territory acquisition? Spill it!”
I sent her a screenshot. She wrinkled her nose jealously with the exigent look of a child relieved of candy. “I don’t have that badge.”
I waved her away. “You’ll get one eventually. You’re young.”
Apparently, that wasn’t the correct answer; I felt resentment sweep over me, distracting me from the tasks at hand. I put up a weak shield and instantly felt her surprise. That’s right, I thought. I’m no weakling either! I’m learning too.
The medical droid was satisfied with the disinfection. No longer saving battery life, it spoke in a triumphant, ringing voice, “My perimeter defense mission is complete, just like your mission to eliminate the technosentient infection! Upon completion of my primary task, I must either go back to the place of registration, or, in case that withdrawal becomes impossible, join the nearest unit of allies. At your command, Corporal Paul Lucky!”
The group enlivened. Everyone was excited to have received our first battle unit. My implant already displayed the most rational way of using the new resource. Our chance of winning increased by an entire 19 percent. But something didn’t feel right…
I explored other options: “How do you suggest we use you in the coming battle with the Crab?”
After a second’s hesitation, the droid replied reluctantly, “I have no means of firing at the heavy military bot. My only option is to self-detonate my reactor. Or, if you wish to preserve the lives of all the sentients within a 160-foot radius, a misapplication of energy circuit elements is also possible. The output of annihilating a single battery plate equals the output of detonating a quarter ounce of an all-purpose blasting powder. I have 512 such plates. It’s not much, but enough for a few warheads.”
“Can you function on your reactor alone?”
“No. External boundary needs a battery as a medium.”
I nodded understandingly. Even in my days several devices could be charged via power outlets, but couldn’t be made to run on a power outlet without a battery. There was a difference in force, power, and frequency.
“You have already given us 48 elements,” I noted. “Means you have a power reserve. How many more can we extract without impairing your functioning?”
The robot gazed at me mistrustfully with its optical sensor. Then it put some device out of its trunk and conducted a more detailed scan. I wondered if it was checking me for idiocy.
My implant didn’t favor excessive humanism either. With a hint, it displayed the diagram of the group’s combat efficiency, preparing to recalculate our current value based on the droid’s response.
“Double margin of safety, true of all Russian Empire technology… It is possible to extract 208 more back-up elements from the edge. Do you… do you want to retain me as a combat unit? I am honored by your offer, but I have to warn you that I can last mere seconds against the Crab.”
“I won’t let you fight. We need you. You have the power of a dump truck. And my boys are sick of sawing fixtures with pieces of iron and removing rusty screws and tearing composites with their bare hands.”
An approving murmur of many voices rose behind me. We really were tired. Like damn destroyers we worked 20 hours a day, tearing our muscle fibers and overwhelming our nervous systems. Just exercising, right.
The next two hours went by quickly. The productivity of group 13, aided by the loyal, motivated servobot, increased tenfold. The bot hauled and lifted heavy items, sharpened weapons, forced in the doors of the cabins we hadn’t yet broken into. It did all this slowly, like a toy with dying batteries, but still.
Terrific prospects opened up for us; we received another neurogun, a vintage broadsword from the Space War One era, a dozen first-aid kits, and a large box of field rations for planetary troops. These blocks had a peculiar taste, but we found them to be sweeter than ambrosia. The other loot was mainly domestic junk. But a plastic chair was like a king’s throne for us.
The dull, post-apocalyptic life suddenly acquired the colors of hope. Our group’s rating increased, moving us closer to the second-to-last space on the list. We could almost eat mercuric chloride and rejoice. But the soldiers looked tense; we still had to battle the Crab. Many would die. Some would die more than once. Our boys had a strong dislike of death. The Virtual Purgatory went beyond the physics of reality; it made you experience all the degrees of pain which numbered far more than 50…
The group’s crafters rolled copper into optimally-shaped cones. We tried to ensure t
hat the demolition charge would have cumulative properties.
I stuffed my pockets with two extra TT cartridges and checked the force field spacesuit’s status again. We had reconfigured it into a front shield mode the best we could. The force field’s density had grown over five times its initial value. It would now cover the more vulnerable areas in a head-on encounter – limbs didn’t count.
This defense was a joke, but better than nothing. If the Crab focused even a single turret on me, my shield would be gone after three seconds. During that time, I would be able to fire six maximally pumped shots.
Was six enough? At surprise close-range fire distance, plasma cloud could burn through a steel sheet a third of an inch thick. But armor composite was no ordinary steel. Firing a hand-held weapon at it made sense only if you aimed for external sensors, or areas with already damaged coating.
That was our plan. Four bomber kamikazes, one gunner, passive traps, and a crowd armed with pieces of iron. We looked like we were hunting a mammoth in the bowels of a spaceship. I would definitely order the group to create cave paintings on the ship’s bulkheads.
The lookout on station four made an alarm go off in the public channel. It was time. The gate would be destroyed within minutes.
"In positions!” I commanded as I activated the encrypted Plan A glyph.
The pre-written orders were sent out to everyone in my subdivision. Such is the headquarters’ job; prepare a scenario for the upcoming battle, taking into consideration all the reserve, optional, and retaliatory actions.
The privates’ implants displayed readiness icons. The tactical map gave me full control of the situation, but would only hinder me now.
I closed all irrelevant windows, leaving only the sighting grid and ten service screens on the very edges of my interface. Then, I dove into my trench on the right flank. My number two – Lina – covered me with a strip of moss, then hid nearby. We had no noncombatant troops; the more targets the Crab faced, the more chances we had of dealing it damage. Although my implant was skeptical; the Crab’s target designation system easily sorted enemies by threat level.
