Doc sighed. “You can’t expect anything more from them. Not after what they’ve gone through.”
“What about Vic?” Gilly asked. He pointed to where the three women stood against the pod. “Why isn’t she doing anything?”
“Because she’s probably dead; if she ever existed.” Doc pointed back towards the pod where the three women stood outlined in the metal’s faint blue glow. “The Vic we knew wasn’t real. She was just a vessel for a Tralthan Guardian AI.”
“What the Hell are you talking about?” Gilly shook Doc by the shoulder, and then pointed at Vic. “That’s Vic, you know, the woman who’d run headlong into Satan’s mouth with a smile on her face for any of us.”
“No, that’s the body that we thought was that woman.” Doc took another look into the darkness where the Japanese were building morale for the charge. “Instead she’s the forerunner of an alien invasion force that’s attempting to remake and then destroy the Earth.
“I’m just waiting for Ming to give up and then I’m going to try and snap Vic’s neck. Unless Senda hits us first.” Doc swallowed. “We aren’t going to survive the Japanese attack, so I’m going to have to kill Vic’s body before Senda kills us.”
“You’re supposed to be the smart one, Doc?” Gilly sighed. “Look at those women, really look. I don’t know who the other woman is—“
“Vic’s mother.”
“—But I know Ming and there’s no way she’s going to give up on Vic.” Gilly waved his arms around the makeshift defenses. “Look, maybe it’s not my place to tell you about aliens; but give those women the faith they’d give you. Vic’s not dead until she’s dead—and as long as she’s breathing she ain’t dead.
“All we have to do is hold out long enough for her to come back to us and treat this Senda the same way she did those robots. You gotta have faith, Doc.”
“Faith?’ Doc kicked at the ground. “You mean what those preachers who think the world is only six thousand years old teach? They’re wrong; I’ve seen records that go back over a hundred million years without a gap. I’ve seen stars that are so far away that if the Universe was only six thousand years old the light wouldn’t have got here yet!”
“You mean people like my Pappy? He may not know everything you do about the Universe, but he knows a Hell of a lot more about believing in people.
“Giving up isn’t like you, Doc.” Gilly finished. “I’ve seen you face down a lot worse than those soldiers out there without getting into a funk like this.”
“It’s not the soldiers; it’s the Tralthans.” Doc looked back at the pod. None of the women had moved; Doc could only imagine the mental battle being fought within. “There’s nothing on Earth powerful enough to stop them once they emerge.”
Gilly laughed. “Sure there is; you’re looking at her.”
“Vic?” Doc hadn’t got through to him. He should have told Gilly more when he joined up, but the secret was already set by then and he didn’t want to spread the truth any further than he already had.
“Yes, Vic. You said it yourself, they turned her into a weapon—all we have to do is turn their weapon against them.”
Gilly had a point, it wasn’t Earth against the Tralthan pod, it was their own weapon being turned against them. If he could hold Senda off, then yes, Earth did have a chance.
“Banzai!” Senda’s voice echoed through the camp, and this time the response was louder. The crack of half a dozen Arisakas followed the yell. Moments later came the unmistakable sound of charging troops.
Cursing all the time he had wasted, Doc picked up one of the rifles and some ammunition and then sprinted towards the remains of the nearest Soviet robot, still laying beside its Japanese counterpart along Vic’s route into the compound. The escapees alone were never going to stop this attack. They had no chance, not unless Doc could somehow change the odds.
Unlike the other robots, Vic had left this one largely alone. She’d punched through the chest and drained the power core, but she hadn’t blown it to bits like most of the others. Maybe they had a chance—if Doc could get the flamethrower working.
Behind him, Gilly and Tigress continued trying to organize the prisoners, giving orders in broken Russian. They were doing their best, but Doc knew that best wasn’t going to be good enough.
The cold air hid the scent of battle, but did nothing for the sounds. Unfortunately for Doc, bullets were supersonic, and he never heard the one that hit him. A single lucky shot hit him in the leg, barely missing the femoral artery, and he crumpled. The Arisaka’s bullet was light enough that it didn’t break his reinforced bones, but it hit more than hard enough to slow him down.
Growling, he tried to stand, but his leg wasn’t cooperating.
Dropping his rifle, Doc started crawling toward the fallen robot as fast as he could. He was only going to get one chance at this so he had to make it count. The robot mounted flamethrowers in both arms, so at least one was pointing roughly towards the Japanese.
The arm was huge, at least twenty feet long and four feet across at the wrist and Doc reached it with seconds to spare. Without the bayoneted rifle to use as a club, Doc had to scrabble at the wrist access port with his fingernails. Luckily the quarter-inch thick plate had been bent during the battle, and he found just enough purchase to get his fingertips under the steel.
The yelling mass was getting closer, and now he heard the heavier bark of the Moisins mixed with the Arisakas. He hadn’t much time before the two sides closed.
The panel came loose and he dropped it on the frozen ground with a clatter. Seconds later, he was inside. Much of the wrist was taken up with the fuel hose, but there was just enough room for Doc to reach the ignition system
Yells and screams reached his ears and he redoubled his efforts. With a mighty heave, he ripped the fuel hose from its fitting, sending its flammable mixture spraying towards the Japanese troops, and over the flaming carcass of another robot.
The night flared red as the highly flammable mixture caught. Japanese soldiers screamed as they turned into human torches in the river of flame coursing across the battlefield. Doc gritted his teeth as the hose came alive in his hands, like a boa constrictor trying to escape. It took all Doc’s strength to hold the hose steady as the high pressure fluid jetted across the field. All it took was for one jet to wash across the defenders and the whole battle would be lost.
The Japanese made it three steps before they broke. After facing robots and a Slavic war goddess, fire was the last straw. For a moment, it looked like Senda was going to continue the charge on his own, but even he seemed to realize it wasn’t worth it.
Doc kept the flames chasing the troops until the tank lost pressure. Finally, it was safe to drop the hose, as the trail of fire burned itself out. Levering himself upright he turned back to see Vic waving at him from behind the berm.
Love had won; programming had lost.
#
Vic nodded to her relief as she handed over the controls. The young Chinese man slipped into the co-pilot’s seat and quickly adjusted it to fit his stature. Doc had stared at her when she said she wanted to continue taking pilot rotations even after they picked up some of Tigress’ old crew at Hong Kong. What he hadn’t seemed to get was that it was a return to normalcy for her. After all the chaos of the last few weeks it was a great way to remember who Vic Frank really was.
“I have it,” the co-pilot said with a small smile. “They’re waiting for you in the lounge.”
Vic threw him a mock salute, and headed for the elevator, shaking her head. The flying wing was crazy: designed as a luxury liner, the Japanese had changed it as little as possible, basically just slapping a couple of gun turrets on the pontoons and adding a hangar for pursuits. It didn’t make sense to Vic, but from what she’d seen it fit Tigress. That was a woman with much more expensive tastes than her daughter.
In a matter of minutes, Vic was down two decks and on her way into the lounge where her family was gathered around a low table. Her moth
er was sitting in a wheelchair, sipping hot tea while Ming fussed over her. Tigress was talking to Doc, while Gilly seemed to have got his hands on some kind of pulp novel with a halo on the cover. In some ways it still hadn’t sunk in that she had a family; even if Doc had been her de facto brother ever since she left England.
Reaching the group, Vic kissed Ming and found a seat near her mother.
“About time you got here, dear. Your girlfriend has been telling me she should have my cough cleared up by the time we reach New York.” The older woman smiled fondly at Ming b who smiled back before heading toward the rear of the lounge.
Vic leaned over and hugged the Countess. “Good, so what are you doing when we get to New York? Are you staying with us?”
Ekaterina shook her head. “No, though this fine young man has been insisting we would be welcome. I think Mrs. Li and I will find somewhere in New York to rent for a while. We’ll probably take in your cousin Viktor. The boy needs someone to look after him.”
Tigress looked up and smiled, before returning to her quiet conversation with Doc.
A moment later, Ming returned with a glass of Coke and a fresh deck of cards. “They aren’t sharp, but they are new.”
“Thanks, hun.” Vic took a long pull at her Coke and then slid the cards out of the box. They were cool and smooth under her fingers; she cut the deck and began to shuffle. The cards danced under her fingers and she began to deal. Vic had just put down her first row when she noticed everyone had gone silent. She looked up to see five faces staring at her.
“What? I was dealing.”
“Honey, you were dealing faster than any human I’ve ever seen,” Ming told her.
“At a guess, I would say your neuromuscular response is at least half again as fast as it used to be,” Doc said quietly. “If the same holds for muscular efficiency, you’re probably at least as strong as I am, too.”
“Does this mean I still need Tunguskite?” Vic whispered, the cards falling from her hand.
Doc shook his head. “No, I think it’s just the result of the Tralthan programming healing you when you got shot in the mine. It rebuilt you better than you were before; better, stronger, faster.”
Vic looked at her hands; they looked the same as they always had.
She looked at her friends and family; they looked at her the same as they always had.
Vic took one more pull at her Coke and started picking up her cards. She looked at Ming. “Is there a cribbage board back there?”
It was a long flight home, and she’d spent enough time playing Solitaire.
Afterword
It’s probably no surprise that Vic is my favorite character in the series to write, although Gus does have his moments. When I create a character, I often make notes of elements of their backstory and personality that don’t end up on the page. With Vic, one of those elements was that she was conceived in an airship over Siberia during the Tunguska Event. It was a plot seed I buried in my notes so that I had something to say about the character; something that fit the kind of world I was trying to create.
I took Vic’s origin, added giant robots and started writing.
The end result was the story you have here; a story that took less time to write than anything else I’ve ever written.
As to the background: The Genrikh Lyushkov of our Earth was in charge of the NKVD in the Russian Far East in 1937, but he didn’t try to set up his own private empire with the aid of an army of giant robots. There is no evidence he ever visited the Tunguska region, and there were no camps in that part of Siberia. In the history we know, he defected to the Japanese and was last seen on a railway platform in 1945. Perhaps most importantly, there’s absolutely no evidence that the Tunguska Event was caused by an alien probe seeking to seed the planet with its own biosphere.
While Western histories have tended to downplay the Soviet-Japanese rivalry and Sin0-Japanese conflicts of the late thirties in favor of the Spanish Civil War, there was a lot going on in Asia at the time, which makes it a perfect setting for pulp adventure.
Cast of Characters
The Team
Doc Vandal. Raised by artificial intelligences on an alien moonbase, he is the world's foremost scientific adventurer.
Victoria "Vic" Frank. An expatriate Russian Countess, she's a daredevil pilot and adventurer.
Augustus Q "Gus" Ponchartrain. A silverback gorilla, he has a dozen doctorates, a fondness for Earl Grey tea, and excellent manners.
Gilbert "Gilly" Chanter. The son of a Baptist preacher, he's the team's driver, mechanic, and photographer.
Li Ming. Daughter of an Indonesian revolutionary, she's a medical doctor and Vic's girlfriend.
Kehla Ponchartrain. New to the civilized world, she's Gus's wife and also a gorilla.
Associates
Shard. Last survivor of an extra-universal race, she is all that remains of a civilization older than time itself.
Tigress. Formerly the Air Pirate Queen, she is an Indonesian revolutionary and Ming’s mother.
About the Author
I’m Dave, and I write. I’m also a father, a reader, gamer, a comic fan, and a hockey fan.
The problem with those terms is that they don’t so much describe as label me; the map is not the territory. Calling me a father says nothing about how my daughter thinks I’m silly. It ignores the essence of the relationship for the convenience of simplicity. It’s the same with my love of books, comics, role-playing games, and hockey; labels miss all the good parts.
The best way to understand me is to read my works. Writing is like telepathy; it’s a window from one mind to another. The Doc Vandal series is my attempt to recreate what I like to describe as “Yesterday’s Tomorrow.” This is my homage to the pulps, from Doc Savage and the Shadow to Astounding Stories, Planet Stories and so much more. Expect to see giant robots, alien races, lost cities, and world-spanning conspiracies. I call it dieselpulp dialed to eleven, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
If you want a biography: I was born in the UK, grew up in Canada, and have spent time in the US. I’ve been freelancing for the last decade. As a freelancer, I’ve done everything from blog posts to novels. Before that, and in no particular order, I’ve managed a bookstore, worked in a pawnshop, been the guy you get transferred to when you ask a phone rep for a supervisor, and even cleaned carpets for a living.
Right now, I’m working on Doc Vandal and the team’s next adventure.
Giant Robots of Tunguska Page 17
