The enemy will attack on foot, tonight. They have night vision capability and they will have some heavy weapons. The village itself is indefensible. We cannot let them come to us. Bees reports the presence of Bioform soldiers: at least two dog packs. I am uneasy at the thought. I know how dangerous I am. There will be four per squad, and each one will be far more dangerous than a human soldier.
I am not supposed to design attacks, but I am supposed to have battlefield command of a squad. That means I am able to assess circumstances and change the plan in response.
There is not much difference between that and making my own plan.
Dragon will be our last line of defence. He will take a high vantage point and kill enemies that approach or fire upon the village.
The rest of us are going into the trees. Guessing that the enemy will attack at night gives us time to plan our counterattack. A flitter has been overhead twice; we have kept out of sight. Once it is gone, we move swiftly into the trees to the east and work our way round until Bees’ vanguard detects sign of the enemy. Then we wait. Honey and I slow our metabolisms and reroute blood supply, drawing heat into the core of our bodies. Our thick, reinforced hides further mask our heat signatures. We are ready.
Bees is burning her units’ reserves for tonight’s battle. She is anticipating mass casualties amongst her personal army. Bees channel: But we are going to die anyway. We will die soon. I want us to die killing the enemy.
My comms channel is full of ghosts, more than ever. I pick up words, codes, numbers. They are familiar to me. I try not to think about them, but the static on the comms is insistent. We wait. We wait. We wait. Distantly on the air I scent the other dogs.
Then Bees reports that the enemy are moving into position to attack the village. She has identified two shoulder-launched rocket systems as the most likely source of the initial strike and requests permission to deal with these.
My channel: Permission granted. Priorities afterwards: (1) targets nominated by me (2) targets nominated by Dragon (3) targets nominated by Honey (4) available targets of opportunity. Dragon gets a promotion because if he is nominating targets then the village is under direct attack. Bees’ channel: Confirmed (image of dead bird). Stretching our cold limbs, Honey and I begin to move. We gather speed. We are approaching from downwind. We can smell humans, but more than that, we can smell dogs. A dog pack holds this flank of the enemy advance. I can smell them as they creep through the trees. Soon they will be able to smell me, downwind or not.
My channel: Honey, fire at will.
Honey’s channel: Confirmed. Target acquired.
We have few enough advantages but surprise is one, and Honey’s Elephant Gun is very powerful. This is the advantage of a Multiform Assault Pack. I am already running when Honey shoots over my head (Boom) and explodes one of the enemy dogs, her round lodging in its throat and then tearing it open. The dog goes down and I am amongst the others, my Big Dogs loosing. I am lucky, very lucky. One of my shots takes an enemy in the eye and through to the brain, damage even we cannot survive. I have a moment, as I am fighting the other two: all that reinforced bone, all that dense muscle and bulletproof skin; everything has its weak point.
Then I am doing badly, two on one. I get my jaws in one and gash it open, but another is worrying at me, teeth caught in my harness. The one I have bitten claws me back, and then throws me off. We are heavy, but we are stronger than we are heavy. We can throw our own bodyweight easily.
I land on my feet, mostly, and also against a tree, hard. I snarl and bunch to pounce.
Honey’s channel: Hold.
I hold. One of the dogs takes a round in the groin from Honey’s gun and has time for a brief whimper before it detonates.
Bees’ channel: Commencing assault. She will keep the human enemy busy as much as she can while we deal with these.
The last dog jumps for me, but I dodge aside, ripping my claws across his muzzle. Looking into his rabid, snarling face is like looking in a mirror: he is my brother. Perhaps we came from the same laboratory.
I take him and I pierce his hide with my claws, I have him by the throat and the arm, and I twist with all my strength until the weakest part gives: the elbow, the shoulder. He howls and I bury my teeth in his throat.
My channel: Dog pack down, and then we are closing with the humans.
Honey’s channel: Enemies. Because the human smells are familiar. They have names and ranks and numbers. But we have agreed that they are enemies.
Honey’s channel: (targeting information identifying a squad that has formed up at the tree’s edge).
My channel: Targets approved.
The main body of the enemy force is fighting Bees. Bees is using swift-action neurotoxin. It is expensive to manufacture but her units have been gorging themselves on sugar water, and she can make almost anything she needs with enough sugar. She goes in, targeting the launchers. The enemy are well-equipped with armour vests and stab-retardant fabric, with masks and goggles, but there is always a little bare skin if you look, and Bees’ senses let her home in on it very swiftly.
We hear their shouts and screams.
Honey’s channel: Boom.
The Elephant Gun roars and explosive rounds rip into the targeted squad. Honey is already changing position. The comms ghosts are coming thick and fast as the enemy become aware of us.
I drop to all fours and charge in. My Big Dogs are already picking targets, shooting for the thigh (femoral artery), the armpit (axillary artery), the face (brain via eye); secondary targets: knee, foot (remove mobility); elbow, hand (remove combat effectiveness).
We have a short space before the enemy realise what we are and how we have flanked them. We use it. I kill three men with my Big Dogs before I am in amongst them. Bullets zip past me like Bees. One impacts on my ribs and slants off, leaving a bloody gash and a suppressed memory of pain. Time to lick wounds later.
I track down the comms ghosts, follow them to their local source. I find an enemy officer. His name is Sergeant Martin Price. I know his name and face, although I have never seen that expression on him before as when he sees me. I sink my teeth into his leg and whip him about until he has sustained sufficient dislocations and injuries to cease to be a threat. I move on. I shoot Malcolm Okewe in the face. I shoot Patrick Flynn in the thigh. All these men I know.
But we have agreed they are enemies.
Honey fires and moves, fires and moves, her explosive rounds sowing confusion and impeding the enemy’s ability to offer an organised response. Still, the return fire is growing more determined. Both Honey and I are hit several times, but we were built to be shot and not care. Neither of us have more than scratches, already scabbing over as our accelerated healing gets to work.
Bees’ channel: Integrity at 41% If you have any complex orders now is the time.
Dragon’s channel: Multiple targeting opportunities. Target acquired. Bang. Target acquired. Bang. Target acquired. Bang. My channel: Status?
Dragon’s channel: Holding. Bang bang bang.
I tear through another cluster of humans but I am looking for the other dog pack. I cannot smell it. It is not here. That is bad.
Dragon’s channel: Multiple targeting opportunities. Too many. Under fire. Rex, Rex, they’re here, Rex.
That is worse.
I am used to going into these assaults with human squads to back me up. I have few tools to work with: just the four of us. Honey, you and Bees continue to fight here. I will help Dragon.
Honey’s channel: Confirmed. Good luck, Rex.
I am already running on all fours towards the village. Dragon’s channel: Target acquired. Bang. Under fire.
Relocating. In my mind I can see him slithering down from the church, his scales as white as the painted stone. I scent the dogs. They are ahead of me, closing on the village. As I watch, one of them pitches backwards, from a bounding warrior to a heap on the ground. In my mind, Dragon says Bang.
Bees’ channel: Integrity at 36%.
/> Honey’s channel: Run, Rex.
The dog pack has scattered under Dragon’s attack and I overhaul one of them, leaping on his back and holding him down while my Big Dogs send shot after shot into his struggling body. The fifth, seventh and twelfth rounds find vulnerable targets and he is dead. I am chasing the others. Honey’s channel: Right, Rex.
I swerve right and one of the running dogs is hit in the side, the wound bleeding bright fire as the shell detonates.
One remains, losing himself between the buildings. Up ahead, as though the dog’s death was some sort of signal, I see parts of the village explode. I see running human figures. Some are enemies, some are not. Dragon tells me of another target he has acquired and an enemy falls, one more perfect headshot. My Big Dogs are coming into range. I talk to them and we find our targets together. There are a lot of the enemy. They are desperate to destroy the evidence that is here. Why is it so important to them? I suppose they have their orders too.
The comms flare and gabble at me. …nder fi… …ioform…
…ex? Is that you…?
I begin to shoot, picking targets as best I can. I am trying to minimise non-enemy casualties but the air is so thick with dust and smoke and fear that it is hard to tell humans apart until I am close. I do not know where the other dog is, but his presence worries at my mind.
Honey’s channel: Not long now, Rex. I do not know what she means.
Bullets patter off my harness and my skin. One strikes my brow-ridge and the impact resonates through my skull. I have blood in one eye and switch dominance to the other. Some of the resident humans are fighting. I see them with their hunting rifles and their old military cast-offs. I see them fight and many of them die. But I am coming. I come up behind three of the enemy as they crouch behind the corner of a house and I fall on them and tear them apart, their blood in my mouth and on my hands. But the night is young and there is plenty left to do.
Dragon’s channel: Target acquired. Under fire. Relocating.
Relocating. Help.
I kill another, but I am getting sloppy now. Too much is going wrong. There are enemy everywhere. I smell explosives.
I target the explosives, killing those men as they try to set their bombs. They are trying to destroy the clinic of Doctor Thea de Sejos.
Comms: …anyone see a logo on…? …forms deployed by… …ex, can you hear me? Disenga… …ad dog!… Bees’ channel: Integrity approaching 25% Priorities locked in Lower cognition threshold imminent so saying goodbye now Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye… And then there is no Bees, just bees following her last orders, the mind between them no longer possible.
Honey’s channel: Falling back on the village. Do not listen to the comms, Rex. Trust me.
I am too far engaged with the enemy to worry about whether I trust Honey. We hunt each other through the streets of Retorna. I am shot a dozen times; I feel the grating discomfort of bullets lodged in my muscles, impeding my efficiency. When they see me, they pepper me with automatic fire, inaccurate and panicked because they know what I am and what I can do. When they do not see me, I explode out at them and tear them apart.
Dragon’s channel: Pain pain pain pain pain.
Bees’ channel is silent. Her units carry out their last programming, harassing the enemy wherever they find them.
I run for Dragon, dodging fire. The bullets blur past me in the air, but I am blurring too. I am burning all my reserves, faster and faster, hotter and hotter. Their night sights can see me, but I am so fast they only hit me by chance.
Dragon’s channel: (no words, just images, a random outpouring of them. Warmth, satisfaction, rage, pain, fear). Dragon’s nervous system has been damaged and he is broadcasting at a subliminal level.
I arrive in time to see him die, writhing and thrashing, his tail lashing the walls and shattering bricks and windows, his bloody mouth gaping its broken teeth at me as the enemy shoot and shoot and shoot. I pounce on them, striking them down, tearing into them. My Big Dogs shoot and then are silent: I have no more ammunition.
Honey’s channel: Hold out, Rex! Hold them!
Comms: Rex?
I stop, a mangled corpse in my teeth. The surviving enemy flee me, and I crouch in the building’s cover. Dragon’s body twitches and thrashes, but these are just the random last firings of his neurons: life has fled him.
Comms calls my name again, in a voice I know. What the hell are you doing? Disengage! We are not your enemy. Return to base immediately. And coordinates, callsigns, passwords, clear as can be.
My channel: Master?
Honey’s channel: Ignore comms, Rex.
But it is Honey I ignore, even as the fighting goes on around me.
Master speaks: Rex, return to base. Disengage, that’s an order, Rex. Bad Dog, Rex!
I whine. I feel terrible. I look at the bodies around me, the Redmark insignia on their tattered uniforms.
Master speaks: Rex, what is this? You know me, boy. You haven’t forgotten me, surely? Why are you fighting us? You’re my dog, Rex. I’m your Master.
I see men at the clinic again, obeying their own orders.
My channel has no words. I cannot make any in my head. I am a Bad Dog. I must be a Bad Dog.
Master speaks: Come home, Rex. Come on.
My channel: I do not want… And I am out of words again. I cannot tell Master I do not want to go home. I cannot say I do not want him to destroy Retorna. I cannot even ask him why. These things are not part of my relationship with Master.
I see them exchange fire with the resident humans. Jose Blanco is there, who never liked me. I see him shot down trying to save the clinic and Doctor Thea de Sejos.
Master speaks: Rex, just get out of there, right now! We’re working to a deadline here, Rex. You’ve already set us back a hell of a way. Will you get your fucking mongrel ass out of there?
My feet are moving me, but I don’t know where.
Master speaks: Rex, acknowledge. More codes, more passwords, meaning: Master is master; you are dog. Dogs do what Master says. Obey Master, Bad Dog! Bad fucking dog, do you hear me? Do what you’re fucking told you bastard liability fucking hound! Then Master is trying to link direct to me, to make me be a Good Dog. I cringe and wait for the lash.
There is no lash.
I reach out to confirm the command hierarchy they built into me.
There is no hierarchy. Hart’s last communication removed it.
I know Master is my master. I know I am a Bad Dog: Master says so. But Master is not here and his signal is weak and there is nothing in me that forces me to do things. For the first time I can decide whether I am a Bad Dog or not.
I am moving towards the clinic. The men there with explosives see me. They start shooting and hit me several times. Master is shouting at me.
I tell him: I am a Good Dog. Master says I am a Bad Dog but his signal is blurred and broken because Honey is interfering with it. He cannot access my feedback chip. His words are just words. Just as when Doctor Thea de Sejos said I was a Good Dog.
That means I can choose who to trust.
I trust Honey. I trust the doctor. I am a Good Dog. Dragon was a good dragon. Bees were good Bees.
I am shot again. A stab of pain in my gut tells me one bullet has gone deep, punching through skin already compromised by previous wounds. I hook the shooter and ram him into the wall, feeling the dry-twig snap of bones that neither Kevlar nor a stab vest can protect him from. I crush the skull of another between my jaws, helmet and all. They are running. They have left their bomb. They have left their dog.
The last dog: he stares at me with mad hatred. Bad Dog! that stare says. Bad Dog, Rex! Bad Dog, disobeying Master.
I want to explain to him, but I cannot. I do not have the words. I cannot even explain to myself.
We close; we clash. We are both wounded but I am worse. Every movement hurts, and only keeping moving keeps the pain at bay. I am mad; I am savage. He opens up my arm with his teeth. I drive a claw through his eye. He tears my ear
off. I kick him in the gut and rip open his bulletproof skin.
I throw him off. The bomb is still there, and the humans will remember it. Is it set? Is it timed, or will they simply send a signal?
I take it and I throw it as far as I can towards the enemy. Even shot, even compromised by my wounds, that is a long way. Let them send the detonation signal now. Let them kill fields and cows with their bomb.
I feel very weak and sad when that is done. I drop down – I mean to drop onto all fours but I end up belly to the ground. I hurt. I hurt badly.
The other dog is gone. I do not understand at first, but then it comes to me. He is gone to fetch the bomb. Fetch, boy, fetch.
When it goes off, I wonder if he was close enough to be caught by it, or if he lived, and is running after Master, like a Good Dog should.
Honey’s channel: They’re going, Rex. The enemy are retreating. Well done, Rex. Good boy, Rex. Good Dog.
My feedback chip is silent, but I trust Honey.
I can hear engines, though: my database says… my database returns error messages, but it sounds like some model of heavy combat flitter, several of them. I tell Honey, who even now is lumbering towards me.
Honey’s channel: I know, Rex. These are not enemies. Do not engage.
But I want to engage. I am filled with fire and anger and pain, and when I stop fighting the pain will get much, much worse. I am filled with guilt and fear and confusion, and they will get so much worse as well, when I am not filling my head with fighting.
I tell Honey, I will fight them.
Honey’s channel: No, Rex. I called them here. Please surrender to them. We can live, Rex. We have a future. The world is changing. But if you fight them they will kill you.
I can see the flitters now: big armoured models with their turbines screaming as they come in. There is a loudspeaker voice telling the resident humans something in Spanish. I think it is to be calm, and that the newcomers will not hurt them.
I know they are targeting me. I am not hiding. They will kill me, and that would mean an end to pain and guilt and fear.
Honey’s channel: Rex, please. She has cast aside her gun, ripped off her harness to let it clatter on its arm on the ground.
Dogs of War Page 11
