The final fifty yards was a riotous blur. Turning to kneel in her seat, Fay flung a grenade with each hand as the Jeep sped between the two monsters and careened onward.
Each robot began a lumbering turn. The left grenade bounced off a metal calf, but the right dropped perfectly beside a robot’s ankle. Simultaneous explosions erupted behind them as they fled, throwing up a cloud of debris.
By the time the air cleared around the robots, the Jeep was already a hundred yards away. There was no possibility of slowing to inspect what damage they’d done, but Fay was pretty sure the right-hand robot had halted in mid-turn and stood swaying like a drunken sailor. The left-hand robot completed its turn and re-opened fire, but a bend in the road took the Jeep out of its view.
Breathing heavily, Junghans eased his foot from the floor and allowed the Jeep to slow. “Whaddya know?” he said. “We made it. Hoo-rah!”
“Sure did.” Fay laughed as her tension released like an uncoiling spring. “And we damaged one as well. They’re not invulnerable after all.”
“Great!” the old man said. “Now all we need to figure out is how to deliver a whole lot of high explosive up real close to the rest of the bastards.”
* * *
“After you’ve made such efforts to get here,” Colonel Parker said, “I’m only sorry we’ve got nothing for you to fly.”
The travel-stained, battle-scarred refugees from Poland had been conducted directly to the Wright-Patterson Air-Lift Wing Commander’s office to deliver their report. They found Parker and his aide in shirtsleeves poring over a large map unfolded across his desk. Daylight from the window was their only illumination.
“Nothing at all?” Fay asked.
“We’re trying to rig a Hercules to carry bombs,” Parker sighed. “We’ll have to push ’em out by hand, but as of now we still can’t get the damn crate to fly with all its electronics dead. We’ve crews working on rigging mechanical controls, but the enemy’s moving too fast. Our bases are being overrun. There are a hundred robots within a couple of hours of us here.”
“Anybody figured out the whys and wherefores yet?” Junghans asked.
“We’ve no communication with NORAD. If they’ve any idea who the aliens are or what they want, there’s no way for us to find out. All we know is there are thousands of these damned robots and so far no-one’s found a way of stopping them. In fact, yours is the only report I’ve heard of one even being damaged.”
“Hand grenades are easy enough to come by,” Fay pointed out. “A pity we don’t have thousands of Jeeps. There’d be plenty of volunteers to try more kamikaze strikes.”
Junghans frowned. “Maybe we can do better than that. It so happens, Colonel, Second World War hardware’s a bit of a hobby of mine. You got a P39 in the Air Force Museum here, don’t you?”
“I think we do,” Parker agreed. “Help me out here, Mac—am I right?”
“Yes, sir,” his aide replied. “As a matter of fact it’s one of the three old planes Sergeant Malcolm’s restoration group’s been working on. You’ll recall, sir, they’d some notion of organizing a fly-past for Veterans’ Day?”
“That’s right, and a damn crazy idea it is, too, but it keeps those jokers out of trouble.” Parker returned his attention to Junghans. “So yes, we’ve got a P39; what of it?”
“Number one: It’s as old as my Jeep; no electronics. Two: it’s designed for ground attack—the first ever tank-buster. It’s got a 37mm cannon in the nose that can fire armor-piercing shells. Three: this young lady here’s my neighbor; you may not know it, but she’s one of very few Air Force pilots who regularly flies single-engine prop-driven planes.”
“I do a lot of crop-dusting.” Fay confirmed enthusiastically.
“That aircraft hasn’t flown in decades. I’d be surprised if Sergeant Malcolm’s team have got it anything like airworthy.”
“And modern safety laws say our Jeep isn’t roadworthy, Colonel. It still got us here.” Fay’s face lit up. “If you can get hold of some fuel and ammunition, we’ll find some way of making the old kite fly.”
“Hell!” Parker exclaimed. “In normal circumstances I’d refuse permission for a dumb stunt like this, but these aren’t normal circumstances—and anything’s better than sitting here waiting to die!”
* * *
Malcolm’s team of mechanics, who’d volunteered to work on the eighty-year-old Bell Airacobra, had chosen it because it was so unusual in design. The engine was behind the pilot, not in front. Most fighters of the period, he explained, were aircraft first and weapons-platforms second; the P39 by contrast had been designed around a huge Oldsmobile Cannon that was far too large to share the nose with an engine.
“Each of these here shells,” Malcolm said, showing Fay the aircraft’s weapons bay, “weighs the best part of a pound and a half. You’ll only be able to carry around fifty and your rate of fire’s real slow compared to a machine gun. But at a quarter mile range you can turn one inch armor plate into a colander.”
Fay studied the sleek machine. Painted camouflage drab on top and sky blue underneath, the low-wing monoplane sat on a tricycle undercarriage just like many modern light aircraft. It looked seriously menacing, the snout of the huge cannon poking out through the spinner of a black and yellow, triple-bladed propeller that almost scraped the ground. An unusually high cockpit—elevated because the drive-shaft tunnel ran underneath it—was accessed by a door rather than the more usual retractable canopy.
“All-round visibility should be good from up there,” Fay said.
“You’d better climb aboard and familiarize yourself with the controls,” Junghans suggested, wiping his oily hands on a rag and nodding to Malcolm. “She’s fueled and armed. We’re about ready to roll her out.”
“Will her engine start?”
“Oh yes.” Malcolm nodded. “Your problem’s like to be this gun was always prone to jam, even when it was new. That and the concussion from it might shake the old girl apart of course.”
“Won’t know until we try,” said Fay.
* * *
Fay felt like a bubble-car driver drafted at short notice into the Indianapolis 500. The power and torque developed by the fighter was so difficult to control she began by slewing about embarrassingly on the runway. When she finally managed to take off, one wing dipped alarmingly before she could correct it.
She needed a couple of circuits of the field just to feel confident she could fly level. Not exactly what you’d call a competent fighter pilot, let alone an ace. She gritted her teeth, willing herself to relax and get the feel of her aircraft.
Explosions and small arms fire had already been audible when she’d climbed into the Airacobra’s cockpit. As she turned its nose south, she fully expected the enemy to be in sight.
She wasn’t wrong; at least a score of giant robots were advancing on the airbase in a long extended line, blasting aside everyone and everything in their way. She’d no time to learn more than level flight; in any case a diving attack in the old World War Two style was more likely to tear the wings out of the aged airframe than hurt the enemy.
Maneuvering out to the flank of the robots, Fay dropped the P39 down to tree-top height and turned to run along the enemy line from east to west, thumbing the safety catch off the cannon’s trigger button as she opened the throttle wide. The airspeed indicator hovered around 350 mph—not bad for a wheezy old-age-pensioner.
The first target robot grew rapidly in the optical sight as she hurtled towards it no more than fifty feet off the ground. Its death ray reached out for her, overshooting by a hundred yards. The limitations of the robots’ fire pattern the Jeep had exposed were once again on display.
“Huh,” she grunted. “Call that shooting? I’ll show you shooting.”
Pressing the gun button reminded her of the time she’d absentmindedly thrown a solid cake of butter into a food mixer. The aircraft juddered and shook, threatening to tear itself apart. It was all she could do to hold it in a straight line. Sh
e’d no idea whether her shells were hitting the targets that appeared one after another in her sights. A series of explosions crashed out in her wake, more death rays flashed all around her, and by the time she reached the end of the line and began a slow climbing turn her cannon had stopped firing.
Hearing a hiss of air from the breech, she finally managed to release the button from her rigidly-clenched fist. Behind her was a scene of devastation. Three robots were down, smoking ruins on the ground. Another wandered in circles with its head blown clean off. Two more were stationary. The remainder of the ragged line still advanced, but with great gaps between the surviving machines.
Fay looked for the runway. Her job wasn’t done, and landing an aircraft like this was far more difficult than taking off, a job she hadn’t managed too well. Come in nose down and she’d catch the giant prop on the ground; come in nose up a little, as she would in her crop-duster, and the weight of the rear engine would drag the tail on to the tarmac and probably break the plane.
Fay reckoned she should fly as low and slow as possible, raising the nose just as the two middle wheels were about to touch, half-stalling the nose-wheel down onto the tarmac.
Nice theory; shame about the execution. But a horrible bounce followed by a short nervous hop later and the Airacobra was back on the ground. Fay breathed a heavy sigh of relief and taxied towards the hangar to re-arm.
Colonel Parker was waiting with a cheering, waving group of mechanics and armorers. Spontaneous applause broke out as she opened the cockpit door. “Well, lieutenant, your take-off and landing needs a bit of work, but I sure as hell liked the bit in between,” Parker said, grinning.
Old Mr. Junghans was actually capering up and down. “You showed ’em, Fay! That’s given ’em something to think about!” he cried delightedly. “Hoo-rah!”
“Get me back up there, quick as you can,” Fay instructed the ground-crew. “They’re still coming on.”
* * *
As darkness closed in, Fay brought the P39 in to land for the third time. By this time the other two vintage aircraft the restoration crew’d been working on had also been pressed into service to harass the disorganized enemy. Neither the P38 Lightning nor the Beaufighter packed the Airacobra’s punch, but they’d been able to score significant successes with their multiple smaller cannon. The robot force had retreated to regroup.
Two of the ground crew helped an exhausted Fay from the cockpit in the gathering twilight. She could barely stand.
“Can somebody get me a coffee?” she begged. “Maybe a sandwich or something? We need to hit them again.”
“Enough!” Colonel Parker emerged from the gloom. “You’ve performed miracles out there, Lieutenant Forsyth, but even you need to rest.”
“I can still fly, sir!” Fay protested.
“Right now we’ve more pilots than planes, and in any case this old lady’s pretty beat-up. Let the mechanics work on her overnight. I expect the war will still be going on in the morning.”
“If you’re sure, sir.”
“Damn right, I’m sure. When did you last eat or sleep? Come and see the debriefing officer, then we’ll get you sorted out with some quarters.”
“What about Mr. Junghans?” Fay asked as an afterthought. She’d been too tired earlier to wonder why her friend hadn’t shown up.
Parker grimaced. “He found a bazooka in one of our stores and took a couple of men down to the perimeter when the robots got really close.” The colonel hesitated. “I’m sorry, lieutenant. I know he was a friend of yours. They shot up two of the robots real good but the third in line was too quick for them.”
Fay felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.
“He was a good man,” Parker said.
“One of the best,” Fay nodded. “If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t even be here.”
* * *
The White House and the Capitol were both flattened ruins, but the Lincoln Memorial was still standing. They held the ceremony on the steps, in the open air, under a clear blue sky, with an earlier war victor’s giant figure brooding over them as the President pinned the award on Fay’s brand new dress uniform.
“It falls to very few individuals,” the President said, “to render their country such remarkable service. In our darkest hour, when everything seemed lost, two heroes showed us the way to fight back and set our feet on the road to eventual victory.
“We have all too many dead to mourn, we have whole cities to rebuild, but as long as the United States of America endures we shall never forget those who struck the first blow against these merciless alien invaders.
“I’m proud to award our country’s highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor, to Captain Fay Forsyth, who I’m happy to say is still with us here today, and posthumously to Staff-Sergeant Axel Junghans, her companion in battle, who gave his life in his country’s service.”
Fay stood to attention as the anthem played and the flags flew proudly. As the music drew to a close she struggled to repress a nostalgic smile. Without even glancing to her right, she knew for certain the spirit of old Mr. Junghans stood ramrod straight beside her.
SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF A MURDER-BOT
R. Overwater
When we got back to the station, they made me do all the actual work. Lieutenant Grandal did the same thing before he retired—using me like a rented mule. Funny. Ever since the day Grandal snuck me out of the evidence locker, I’d swum neck-deep in resentment. I was taking paid police work away from real cops. But nobody broke a sweat trying to take it back.
I peeled back a skin flap on my index finger and physically interfaced online. “I’d get a lot more done if I had free access to the police database,” I said, simulating a grumpy tone.
Chief Perez shook her head. “IT Security is firm. No access for external computers. Ever.”
Pankin scowled. “Maybe I’ve seen too many old movies,” he said. “Should this thing even be allowed on the ’net?”
“I get it,” I said. “The world’s first artificial intelligence goes online. Discovers humanity’s destructive nature. Becomes appalled. Cleanses the planet in a fiery storm of nuclear destruction.”
Pankin raised his hands.
“There are unbreakable protocols,” I said. “I can’t hurt people.”
“Okay, enough.” The Chief pointed at the information I’d thrown up on the wall monitors. “This morning our two primary questions are: ‘Of all the places for a multiple homicide, why an electronics recycling company?’ And since it was mass electrocution: ‘Are we sure it’s actually murder?’”
We were in the Chief’s office—me, her, Pankin, and my new partner Fowler. There were eleven photos of the Chief’s kid, Anton, on the walls and across her desk. One had him standing, grinning, arm in arm with my old partner Grandal. I tracked Pankin’s eye movement, Fowler’s breathing rate, the number of times they shifted in their seats. Neither of them wanted to be there.
The Chief rested her hand on my head like it was a piece of furniture. “Let’s go back ten months to the day Mikal Haakonsen, this thing’s inventor, unveiled him at a press conference in the Hilton,” she said. “The next day, not only does his inventor vanish, a valet is murdered in the parking lot.”
Fowler coughed and cleared her throat. The air’s alcohol content increased. She pointed at the monitor next to a chart. “I see where you’re going with this. The pistol I found in the water matches the Hilton murder.”
“Right,” said the Chief. “So what’s it doing in a flooded electronics recycling center near four electrocuted young men?” She paused, putting a finger on one monitor and enlarging some university transcripts I’d dug up. She swore out loud. “And how is it the victims are all in the same fraternity as my son?”
“Let’s start by asking your son,” said Fowler.
“Leave that to me,” the Chief said. “In the meantime, do some legwork and figure out what they were doing there.”
“Before you go, think about this,” I
said. I assumed control of the monitors and pulled up a crime scene photo Pankin had shot. “Look at this massive pile of old computer hardware in the middle of the floor. The electronics recycler obviously isn’t active anymore. But they never formally went out of business. This place might be a front for something.”
Fowler nodded as I spoke, but Pankin barely showed a glimmer of interest. Pit-stains the size of dinner plates soaked through his shirt. His hair was a well-combed oil slick. Sweat-monkey, most people called him.
The Chief asked Fowler to sniff around the warehouse some more. Pankin was supposed to find a link between this new case and the Hilton shooter’s gun. No one mentioned me going to the warehouse with my supposed new partner. “So … you want me to work with Pankin then?” I asked.
Pankin swatted my chest. Carbon and Kevlar nano-tissues are extremely light and he looked surprised—pleased actually—when it knocked me off balance. If I was slow like a human, he’d have knocked me over. “I don’t need a calculator,” he said.
“I need to charge before I can do much more anyways,” I said. “Someone take me home.”
Home was a corrugated steel storage bin in the muddiest corner of the City Works yard. Normally I’d go on my own, but Fowler insisted on taking me in an autocruiser while I rode shotgun.
“Listen, wannabe gumshoe-robot,” she said. “Best you can do is research facts? How about solving this case for me? I need that.”
“Maybe the answers will come to you over several drinks tonight,” I said.
All Hail Our Robot Conquerors! Page 21
