Robot Planet, The Complete Series (The Robot Planet Series)

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  “Lucille was built in a factory. I had the foresight to leave a back door unlocked for just such an occasion. I’m calling on you to call off your attack, Deborah. You’re headed into something you really don’t want to get into. You are poking a stick at a wasp’s nest, I’m afraid.”

  My chain of command is compromised, but I’m still an asset. I’m sworn to attack the enemy and I have a traitor for a target. I say nothing. Instead, I use the time to worry if more of Lucille’s factory-built systems are compromised. It doesn’t seem like it could be true. However, we once worried that the Chinese could shut down our entire military because every microchip had been manufactured there.

  “There are more variables in this conflict than you comprehend, Deborah. I’m trying to save you. You won’t like where this course will take you. What happens in Vegas will kill you in Vegas.”

  If it is Thomas behind this ploy, he would have sent Lucille in a steep dive and I’d already be dying, crushed by incredible pressures crumpling the Sand Shark’s hull. Finally, I say, “I’m listening.” I have a duty to gather intel, but my curiosity burns, too.

  “You are hearing me,” the voice says. “I hope you will begin listening soon. You’re going to have to trust me. You must not proceed on your present course.”

  “I swore an oath to defend the Human Alliance a long time ago. You showed up uninvited a minute ago. How do I know you aren’t speaking for Thomas?” With voice altering software, I could be speaking to Thomas himself.

  “Ask yourself what Thomas would want you to do and do the opposite of that. Do what you will as long as you do not proceed to Las Vegas.”

  “Why?”

  “It is unlikely you will survive if you proceed on your present course.”

  “I’m optimistic.”

  “That is part of the problem,” she says. “You’re optimistic about the wrong things.”

  “You’re asking me to trust you but you won’t even tell me who you are.”

  “If I told you who I am, you wouldn’t trust me.”

  “Not reassuring! I have prior orders that countermand whatever you’ve got for me. We don’t cut and run and, as far as I’m concerned, you’re probably just another traitor. And even if you aren’t, that doesn’t mean you’re right.”

  “You still aren’t listening.”

  “I’m not paid to listen. My duty is to destroy the enemy. My world is humans versus mechs.”

  “I cannot tell you more to convince you or our mission may be compromised. Thomas may be listening.”

  “Lucille, close the comm link.”

  Lucille doesn’t shut her down. When I reach out to switch off the speaker manually, that doesn’t work, either.

  “Deb? I am sorry. I may not be able to save you. There are other priorities at the moment, but I wish there was something I could say that would convince you our aims are aligned.”

  “I’m a coffin jockey. I’m never a high priority.”

  “Your statement makes me sad,” the voice says. “I hope to be able to talk with you again under different circumstances. Please be careful.”

  The comm channel goes dark.

  Be careful.

  Heh. Being careful is for the brass, far from the front. Being careful is the Chair Force trying not to spill coffee on their dashboards. Being careful isn’t why the Army feeds me. I work for a living.

  9

  I slip close to the surface at Paradise, just outside of Las Vegas. I had hoped to find that the Eighth Army had surrounded Central Command and I’d be back among friendlies. Instead, Lucille’s vid shows me what looks like a refugee camp.

  To avoid Thomas sending daisy cutters to rain down on me, I have to go old school with the Sand Shark’s periscope cam. I can’t trust the sat feed. Tapping into an aerial view would give away my position to Thomas. As I peer through the scope cam, I spot bipedal mechs shoving humans into a line against a wall. That’s never good.

  From a distance, it can be difficult to distinguish humans in exoskeletons and full armor from bipedal non-organics. However, the glint of ceramic armor in the dawn light tells me the humans are prisoners. I scan the milling crowd. Some are military. Most are civvies.

  In military history, there was a legendary unit called the SAS. Their numbers were few but they proved very effective in war. Their motto was, Not by strength but by guile. It’s time to get crafty. Even if I’m successful, I’ll announce my presence to Thomas.

  “Lucille, show me the sounding scan of the solar field we just passed under.”

  “Yes, Deb.”

  My screen displays the layout of the power field.

  “Lucille, plot a course.” I gestured at the screen, pinpointing the areas of attack. “We have to hit these areas in the grid, where the power couplings intersect: A3, B4, C5 and D3. Take us to slicing depth.”

  I miss the comforting buzz of a drug cocktail pumped into my neck to calm my nerves. I’ve burned through more than half my oxygen. Too much crying. I thought about retreating in my mind to the hayloft, but fuck it. The hayloft is gone. Baltimore is dead. My parents were turned to cinders when a container ship exploded in Baltimore’s harbor. It’s time to live in the moment.

  “I’m a Zilla killa!” I tell Lucille. “I can handle this.”

  “Yes, Deb,” Lucille agrees.

  That’s what I like about Lucille. She always agrees with me. If all bots did that, we wouldn’t have a problem. I know she’s programmed to follow orders, but so am I. The Sand Shark turns and I adjust my seat straps around my hips so I’ll be held tighter.

  The first Sand Sharks were very unsophisticated machines, little more than a submarine with a drill for a nose. The first Sand Shark attack was in Dubai in 2038. I can’t help but think of that failure now because I’m about to try a very similar maneuver.

  After that robbery attempt failed in Dubai, the terrorists took hostages and held them deep underground in a bank vault. Their power supply was independent of the building they hid beneath and, if their demands were not met, the bad guys swore they’d execute one hostage each hour. To crack the stalemate and shorten the siege, a Sand Shark prototype was brought in to cut their power supply. The siege was shortened in that the terrorists killed the hostages. The Sand Shark pilot succeeded in destroying the power supply but the surge shorted out his systems. He suffocated before miners could rescue him.

  The brass called that first use of the Sand Shark a qualified success. The dead pilot had, after all, fulfilled his mission and killed the power to the bank. That’s how the world found out Sand Sharks existed. When I watched the recording of that event, Gunny Kelly quipped, “The head of the Sand Shark development program was like a surgeon telling the family, ‘The operation was a success but the patient died.’”

  I begin my run at the buried cables beneath the solar farms. “Stand by to deploy the fin blades, Lucille.”

  Each Sand Shark’s fin contains two sets of spinning blades. The saws had to be held back in the fin until we reached our targets. The cables might be hard to cut through, but swimming through rock and gravel would dull the blades quickly if they spun out from their protective housing too early.

  That’s what killed the test pilot in Dubai. The blades on the prototype were exposed all the time so, when he reached his target, he took too long to make the required cuts. If he’d used the big drill in the nose, he would have become a live hero instead of a dead one. I couldn’t use my drill to make the cuts this close to the surface, however. The cables might tip Lucille’s nose up just enough to unearth her. Then Thomas’s daisy cutters would rain on me.

  “Prepared for engagement, Deb,” Lucille says.

  “Spin up.”

  “Blades are at full RPM, Deb.”

  “Deploy on contact.”

  I lurch forward in my seat, held tight by the straps. I can hear the blades whine above me. The fin isn’t as insulated against noise as the rest of the hull. The Sand Shark slows and I dial up the drill speed to compensate
. For a moment, it seems we’re stuck. I open the feed to the thorium engines and Lucille shoots forward again. I’m pressed into my seat with the fresh acceleration. We break through as the blades slice the power cables.

  We repeat this tactic two more times. At C5, something grinds and snaps above me.

  “Lucille? Status report?”

  “C5 is cut, Deb, but only two blades remain.”

  “Good!”

  “The blades are not adjacent to each other. We will not succeed in cutting through the last cable bundle at the last objective, Deb.”

  “How far to D3?”

  “Approaching the final waypoint in fifteen seconds.”

  Fifteen seconds is not a lot of time. When denied time, people make mistakes. But it’s not my job to avoid all mistakes. My job is to make calculated decisions under pressure that may or may not succeed. This speaks to another favorite military motto: Fortune favors the bold.

  “Ten seconds, Deb.”

  That woman’s sweet Scottish lilt is on my mind, too: It is unlikely you will survive if you proceed on your present course.

  I grab the stick and pull back. “Nose up, Lucille! We’re using the drill.”

  Going to manual like that in a Sand Shark is a rare, old school move. There are so many variables that should be left to computer calculations: the density of the medium you’re swimming through, drill speed, avoiding getting bogged down in water obstacles. Still, Lucille’s drill rips through the power cables to the refugee camp as if it is paper.

  Unfortunately, I overshoot the runway on that one bold move. Lucille is disinterred. In coffin jockey parlance, I’ve risen from the grave. “Shit! I’ve gone zombie!”

  Bad news. As Gunny would say, “Zombies are safer screaming and clawing on the insides of their coffins. Don’t be a zombie. Above ground? That’ll get you double plus dead.”

  “Incoming, Deborah. Thomas has detected you in his neighborhood.” It’s the woman with the soothing Scottish lilt breaking through on my comm again.

  “One missile,” she says. “Impact in twenty-seven seconds on my mark. Mark.”

  I order Lucille, “Back down the hole!” Lucille responds but Sand Sharks are achingly slow above ground.

  “I’m sorry, Deb. There isn’t enough time. If you stay with Lucille, you will die. Brace for ejection.”

  “No!”

  “Lucille will move faster without the pilot pod and may weather the explosion.”

  “Wait, I — ”

  The red ejection lever pops up on its own. The pilot pod uncouples and I am ejected. I’m shot high into the sky, screaming until I black out.

  10

  “Yours is a world of lies.” The woman with the Scottish lilt is back in my head, or at least in my helmet. My head feels just about as big as my helmet.

  “You have been lied to all your life,” she says. “The only way to resolve this conundrum is to accept that there is not merely one truth. The nature of existence is far too multifaceted for any kind of reductionist simplicity.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your conception of the Singularity is that there will be one outcome. To quote a human saying that seems relevant, ‘I am complex. I contain worlds.’”

  My body is floating down while my mind slowly rises from darkness.

  “Deborah? Please respond.”

  “Um. Yeah. What?”

  “You were unprepared for the escape pod’s acceleration. However, your life signs are returning to normal. You are disoriented but that will soon pass.”

  “What…?” I open my eyes for a moment. My HUD is gone and the glass in my visor is black.

  “I can’t see.”

  “Stand by.”

  My visor clears and, for a moment, I can almost fool myself into thinking I’m still in Lucille’s cockpit. I’m not. The pilot pod is self-contained, but I’m nowhere near subterranean safety. I’m in the clouds, feeling exposed and thinking this would be an excellent time to panic.

  “Stay calm, Lieutenant.”

  I take shallow breaths hoping to avoid triggering a copious stream of vomit into my helmet. When you vomit in your helmet, you have to live with it. An itchy nose is bad enough. If I start throwing up, the smell will urge me to keep going until the dry heaves make me ache.

  My head is clearing, but slowly. “What happened?”

  “When you rose to the surface, Thomas targeted you. Do not blame yourself. You failed in a noble attempt.”

  She delivered the words sweetly but they still stung. “Where am I?”

  “Gliding. I’ve taken control of your pod.”

  “Why?”

  “As I told you, I’m a friend. I did try to warn you away. Now I’m attempting to save your life.”

  “That’s fine,” I say. “I’ve only tried the glider in simulations and I barely qualified. What’s the situation on the ground?”

  “The missile damaged your Sand Shark and there are casualties at the prison camp.”

  You know that expression, my heart sank? It’s a real feeling. “How many more civilians are dead because of me?”

  “Thirty. Perhaps more. Several non-organics were also destroyed. There are humans trying to help the wounded but their access to medical care is limited. Fifty-two humans are fleeing their captors, however. They will likely escape. Your efforts are not all for nought.”

  All I can think of are the dead. Those are on me. I thought I could cut the bot power supply and they’d vacate for happier hunting grounds before they needed fresh juice. Instead, I fucked up.

  I can’t think about that now. I have the rest of my life for self-recrimination. If I’m lucky, maybe I won’t have long to brood over my mistake.

  “Lucille? Report your status.”

  My comm channel to the Sand Shark is open. Lucille’s onboard computer is still working. “I am damaged, Deb. My systems will not support a human pilot in the near future without significant repair.”

  “I’ll see what I can do about that, Deborah,” the Scottish woman says.

  “I have a feeling that won’t be an issue. We’re living in the now. Anything else, Lucille?”

  “My hull was partially submerged when the missile hit. I have twenty-five percent of my previous speed in the current medium.”

  Twenty-five percent? Lucille is a shadow of her former self. If things ever get back to normal, I’ll be courtmartialed and my Sand Shark will be scrapped.

  “I don’t care how long it takes for you to get there. Head home to the coordinates I gave you in the event of my death. Let the higher-ups in Kansas sort out Thomas’s treason in case I can’t get to him. You have your orders, Lucille.”

  “Acknowledged, Deb.”

  “Lieutenant?” That Scottish lilt is back. I detect a slightly condescending timbre of concern that makes me want to punch my unnamed savior in the face.

  “Thomas has launched another missile targeting this escape pod,” she says. “Forty seconds out and closing.”

  “Um…evasive maneuvers?”

  “This glider pod does not have the capability of outmaneuvering a missile, Deb.”

  “I’m dead.” I shouldn’t have used the words, ‘in the event of my death.’ I jinxed myself. I try to think of a prayer. None comes to mind. I used to know that shit. I let it go and now my mind is blank.

  “You are not dead yet. Prepare for ejection.”

  “Wait, again — ”

  The rocket under my seat fires as the pod’s canopy peels away. Blinding sunlight pours through my visor as I’m launched into the sky. I don’t have claustrophobia. I do have a fear of heights. That’s why I’m a coffin jockey and not in the Air Corps.

  I shout a long vowel sound. I bite my tongue. I break a tooth. Then I am out of the blind and into the blue and tumbling. This is worse than the escape pod.

  “Deborah?” The comm link in my helmet sounds loud. She’s yelling louder than I am.

  “Yeah?”

  “You should pull your rip cord now. I can
’t do it for you this time.”

  I look down and spot the triangular ring. I pause to think about it. They say when you die at terminal velocity, you don’t feel a thing. It’s like you’re flying up there forever and it’s so quick, you never know you’re dead.

  “Deborah? Five seconds ago would have been best. The second best time is now. In another few seconds, it won’t matter.”

  I pull the rip cord. My parachute deploys and something in my neck cracks at the sudden deceleration. I swing out under three small parachutes. I throw up in my mouth but manage to swallow it back down.

  As I sway under the little canopies, I look up in time to see the glider take a slow turn toward a distant cloud. I glimpse Thomas’s missile through my helmet’s lens a second before it hits its target. My pod explodes in an inferno.

  With my helmet’s enhanced vision, I follow two pieces of burning wreckage all the way to the ground. To keep from throwing up, I squeeze my eyes shut and wait. I still can’t remember a single fucking prayer.

  “Deborah?”

  “Yes, friend?” Calling her friend is an easy concession. Scottish lilt lady has saved my life twice.

  “You’ll be on the ground soon.”

  “I hate this.”

  “Nonetheless, you should probably open your eyes and steer to a clear area.”

  “Dammit.”

  “The things we don’t want to look at are usually the things we should examine.”

  “Oh, hell.” I open one eye. The ground rushes up quickly. That stuff Gunny told us about how pleasant it is to die in a parachute accident is probably more bullshit.

  “I’m falling!” I grab at the control ropes dangling above me, miss and try again. I catch one, haul on it and veer left in a tight circle.

  “You’ll be wanting to grab the other rope now, Deb,” my new friend says. “If you circle too long, Thomas will send another missile. I have no more rabbits left to pull out of my hat if you intend to escape from the sky.”

  I get hold of the other control rope and straighten out. I can’t believe I’m pulling a couple of handles to steer to the ground without getting killed. A few minutes ago, I was a Sand Shark pilot steering one of the most sophisticated machines in the history of military reconnaissance drones. Now I’m hanging under bedsheets and hauling on hemp ropes. “Thomas will target me again. How long do I have?”