The Knockabouts

by DK Williamson

  He pointed it out to Ursula. “This path leads back in the direction Teller and Ned were going. The Lance also.”

  “So that’s where we’re going.”

  “No. The landslide might have blocked the route. We move up the high ground here and observe, then move toward Teller and Ned if we see no sign of bounty-killers.”

  “If we do find the killers, we fight them?”

  “Prefer to simply kill them as they would us, but a fight is likely.”

  Ursula looked at the steep incline nearest them. “How do we get up there?”

  Ord looked up and down the portion of the path visible to him. “Make path.” He placed his D91 on the opposite side of the trail, then ran at the steep side of the cut and leaped, his hands digging into the ground near the top. He clawed and kicked vigorously, making almost no progress upward, but loosening and pulling free copious amounts of dirt. For a moment, he was engulfed in a dark cloud, but his efforts soon created a steep, but passable incline. He stomped the soil around his feet into a firm walking surface, then brushed himself off and retrieved his weapon. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Ursula could do little but smile in amazement and follow. “Instant landslide,” she muttered.

  The hill above was of a much gentler slope. Ord stopped and looked things over. “If landslide cut off the path, they must detour. They may come back this way or go up the other hill. We go up and see.”

  . . .

  “You still alive?” Teller said once the dust from the collapse settled.

  “Apparently,” Ned replied as he stood and shook off dust while minding his wounded arm.

  A huge and twisted alloy I-beam sat embedded in the ground just a few steps away. The pair looked at it and shook their heads.

  “Let’s see if it did the job.” Teller stepped out of the indent in the wall with his blaster ready, Ned a step behind. They drew no fire, and it was easy to see why.

  They found the canyon clogged with dirt and debris from the collapse of an entire building made of permacrete blocks, alloy beams, metal sheets, and duralam panels. One look told the pair they would be seeking a way out other than the one that brought them in.

  “The cable was obviously securing something more than a retaining wall,” Ned commented. “I’m guessing other supports failed prior to the cable. That was a catastrophe waiting to happen.”

  “We weaponized a building. That’s what is called overkill. You up to climbing a canyon wall?” Teller asked as he looked at the sheer face nearby.

  Ned pointed behind Tell. The knockabout looked over his shoulder and saw a caged stairway on the opposite wall of the canyon.

  Ned shrugged. “It might be in as poor shape as the building you brought down.”

  “We’ll see. We need to make tracks. Those mercs have a head start… and they’re headed for the Lance.”

  . . .

  Ho discovered he was on the right track, literally. The bipedal warbots made no effort to cover their pad prints, though most military bots were capable of doing such. Ho believed they didn’t expect pursuit. Their path led them along the top of the ridgeline, another indicator they were not worried about detection, their pace was a steady walk.

  Ho surveyed the rudimentary map of the area he had placed in his navigation files, one of thousands gathered in a life of travel, and some of the few not damaged or excised by the mind butchers in Protectorate space.

  They follow the ridge because it gives them a long line of sight, he thought. If they can spot a vessel matching the configuration of a Lancer class strike sloop, they’ll follow their orders, attack or report the finding would seem the most likely.

  When viewed from above, the ridgeline’s jagged and meandering course jutted out and cut back, looking like a V carved by a psychotic. They must travel far before they encounter the Lance. I must stop them before they get to that point.

  Ho followed a route directly across the extensions of the V, crossing the rough terrain swiftly, his utilitarian nature and sturdy build well suited to the task. The journey took some time, but he was confident he was now ahead of the war machines. He found an area within a rotting site of some sort he felt would work to his advantage. Erosion-cut ravines crossed the surface and down the steep outside slope of the ridge, effectively demolishing many of the structures there. It was here he chose to fight.

  They will likely detect me before I detect them without obfuscation on my part, he thought. Their sensor and scanner arrays surely exceed my own. I must gauge their capabilities before I fully engage them. A risky proposition, but a necessity.

  Ho walked the area, surveying the battleground to be. He knew better than to formulate a detailed plan until he understood his opponents, only then could he act. Playing it by auditory sensors, I believe the Humans call it.

  A glint of light flashed in the distance and Ho knew it was the warbots approaching. He guessed the likely path the bots would follow into the worksite and found a position where he could observe them from the inside of one of the more substantial structures still standing in the area. As they closed, Ho heard interference on the data pad bands. No time to analyze, he thought.

  The bots came into view and then descended into a ravine, emerging several seconds later and halting at the edge of the old worksite. Their heads scanned back and forth as illuminated photoreceptors took in the area in front of them. Ho saw each of them carried a general-purpose autoslugger, still called a machine gun in some parts of the galaxy, and more than capable of rendering a Mech into a heap of parts.

  Ho slowly moved behind a vertical support pillar and said in a loud voice, “You are entering a hazardous area.”

  Each bot fired a burst, slugs punching through the wall panels on each side of Ho, others ricocheting off the outside of the pillar with sharp rings.

  “Cease fire. You are entering an area of lethal threat,” Ho said. “I would also point out you are trespassing on a private worksite. For your own well-being, you should—”

  Another pair of bursts tore into the building. Ho backed away, keeping the pillar between himself and the warbots. The sound of gravel grinding under foot pads told him the bots were on the move.

  That was auditory detection, not visual or thermal. Hearing is their strength. An affordable alternative to those who seek an economical killing machine, but an alternative with even more economical counters. The illuminated photoreceptors are also an indication of economy measures. These are not state of the art warbots I oppose, but then, there was little art involved in my design either.

  Ho backed into a ravine and watched for the warbots to come into sight. One bot rounded the corner of the building as the Mech moved to a favorable position. Ho stopped and turned to fire before the other warbot showed itself, but his motion was enough to catch the attention of the lead bot. Before the Mech could let fly a shot, a burst from the warbot’s weapon sent rounds tearing into the ground and hissing through the air nearby. A loud ping came from Ho’s weapon, a slug slamming into the barrel. Ho ducked and ran down the ravine. A quick look at his weapon made it clear it was disabled. I must be most creative now, he thought.

  The ravine passed between a pair of dilapidated buildings before it dropped off into nothing at the edge of the ridge. Ho clambered up the side of the ravine to his right and moved along the edge of a nearly sheer incline that loomed more than a hundred meters above the ground below. He passed in front of the building and rounded the far corner, stopping before he reached the next corner.

  He saw the faint illumination from the bots’ eyes as they followed his path down the ravine.

  “Flee. It is the only chance you have to survive,” one of the warbots said loudly. “We are built to fight. You are built to perform petty chores. We are armored and programmed to operate lethal weaponry. You are programmed to mop floors.”

  They are bots, but have a certain amount of autonomous thought processes. These were programmed to be merciless and cruel. To a degree they have no choice, but
such mockery indicates an innate sadism within them, one they have chosen to develop. They express an enjoyment of causing fear and death, much like the bounty killers Ord and Ursula oppose.

  Ho waited until the war machines moved out of sight on the other side of the building before he acted. A loose coil of rusted cable rested near the back wall, on one end was a large and broken shackle. As quietly as he could manage, he set his weapon aside and lifted the shackle, waiting, timing the bots progress. Through a crack in the wall, he saw movement on the front side of the building as the bots continued to follow his path. He backed away, the cable playing out as he moved. Estimating he had freed a long enough segment, he raced toward the building and hurled the shackle over the roof. It cleared the opposite side and began a plummet over the edge of the ridge, pulling cable with it.

  The cable fell across the metal roof with a scraping sound that grew in intensity when its rough and rusty strands chewed at the edges and abraded the upper surface as the shackle pulled more and more of it over the roof. The noise would have been deafening to most biological beings, and Ho hoped it might have a similar effect on the bots by masking his next move.

  He ran around the building to the front, coming at the bots from behind. They stood looking upward as the cable flowed by them and over the side of the ridge. The nearest bot turned as Ho reached him, moving quickly, but not fast enough to bring its weapon to bear. Ho’s utilitarian hands knocked the autoslugger from the warbot’s grip with a vicious blow. The bot grabbed at Ho’s arms, but found his own suddenly immobilized by the surprisingly strong utility machine before him. A twist of the torso, the thrust of powerful appendages, and the sudden release of Mech hands had the warbot following the course of the shackle-pulled cable over the side of the ridge. The war machine barely had time to process its situation before impact with the hard ground below rendered the bot into a sparking scatter of junk.

  The other warbot turned as Ho reached for the autoslugger that rested on the ground. The grating sound of the cable ceased as the last of it fell from sight creating a moment of near silence just before the bot fired on the Mech, its rounds chewing off Ho’s left arm above the elbow. Despite the damage, and despite the internal warnings of possible critical failure, Ho turned and fired back, autoslugger held one-handed and low. His burst tore the warbot from hip to shoulder to head, collapsing the bot’s leg and toppling it against the face of the building. The mangled war machine slid to the ground with a grating clatter.

  Ho crossed the distance between them swiftly, disarming the warbot before he realized the damage he caused was soon to prove terminal for the war machine.

  The warbot slowly turned its smoking and blasted head, its sole remaining photoreceptor locking onto Ho. The bot spoke, its wavering voice proof of damage to its vox projector. “I do not understand. How—”

  “I came here of my own volition to conduct the petty chore of eliminating two warbots, bots with programming and experience insufficient to the task of contending with a mere Mech. Do you understand.”

  “Yes,” was the reply. The photoreceptor dimmed to black.

  Ho detected a signal on the data pad bands. The warbots had local jammers, he surmised. As do the Human mercenaries. He tried contacting Teller.

  The spacer soon responded. “Ho? You all right? Been trying to reach you.”

  “My power routers are damaged and endanger my central processes, but the warbots are eliminated and are no threat to ARC Lance. I require immediate repair.”

  “Where are you? We’ll come help,” Tell said.

  “No need, I can make my way to the Lance. Her workshop has the necessary equipment I need. I believe Gotmil is using small, localized jamming devices to cloud the data pad communications bands. That is the source of the interference. I am sorry I cannot be of better service.”

  “Taking down a couple of warbots all by your lonesome? Not many sentients could pull that off. Pretty strac, old utility Mech or new. Patch yourself up and watch over the Lance.”

  “I shall. Thank you, Teller.”

  Ho moved to leave the ridge as fast as possible. I have little time to spare.

  . . .

  Teller and Ned exited the stairway on top of the high ground. Despite considerable junk littering the area, it was easily traversable.

  The pair smiled at one another.

  “A shortcut,” Jessop said. “Gotmil is circling around this land feature.”

  Teller nodded. “We move fast enough, we’ll be well in front of them. We can pick our ground, but I doubt we can take down a dozen mercs.”

  “You have something in mind?”

  “Two things. You come up with another engineering trick or we keep the mercs busy long enough for Ord and Ursula to come help.”

  “That assumes they can deal with the bounty-killers.”

  “It does, but Ord can deal with Wego. That monster goes down, I’d bet the others back off.”

  . . .

  Ord stopped once they were high enough up the incline to see the bottom of the neighboring hill where the landslide occurred. It appeared to have inundated the path.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Ursula said.

  “No. Let us make for higher ground,” the giant replied.

  As they neared the top, the pair found a fissure that ran down toward the landslide area, to their right was a saddle that linked the hill to the ridgeline that would lead to where they believed Teller and Ned were.

  A bit uphill was a foot bridge that spanned the fissure. They made their way there, winding through debris and dirt mounds from past work of some sort.

  “Looks a little beat,” Ursula said when they stopped at the bridge. The fissure was deep, the chasm below dark and rugged, the bridge rusty and well worn, but still intact.

  Ord grunted. “You cross, then Ord. Not risk the weight of both of us.”

  “So I get to be the test subject,” Ursula joked. “Follow me.” She led the way across the footbridge, Ord waiting and scanning the wide area downhill.

  Movement down the hill and across the chasm drew Ord’s attention, then the sound of a low velocity launcher firing caught his ear. “Run! Find cover!” he bellowed as he dove for cover of his own.

  An explosion blasted the giant’s ears with concussion as he landed behind a debris infused mound of dirt. The rattling collapse of the footbridge followed the sound of the blast. Ord rose to a knee to look for Ursula, but an Ork and a Gorsaurian charging up the hill to his left became his focus. He brought his D-91 to his shoulder and fired. A pair of blaster bolts tore through the lizard’s torso ending the Gorsaurian threat. A shift of sight revealed the Ork aiming and firing a blaster, the bolt sizzling past Ord’s head. The giant’s aim proved to be superior to his opponent’s, a single blaster bolt felling the Ork dead, sending the carcass rolling and sliding a short distance down the incline.

  Ord came upright and looked to the left for more bounty hunters, worried they might have moved in behind them. A stifled shout came from Ursula, prompting him to turn to his right. He heard the sound of pounding footfalls closing and caught a flash of motion in his peripheral vision just before the massive form of an Ork crashed into him, lifting him from his feet and sending him and his weapon flying.

  . . .

  Ursula was fortunate to have reacted immediately to Ord’s cry. The sound of the grenade launcher was not familiar to her, but the giant’s tone made it clear she faced mortal danger. She sprinted a few steps and threw herself into a shallow fold in the ground just before the grenade detonated on the footbridge and sent it to the bottom of the crevasse as fragments hissed overhead.

  She rose up, seeking the source of the grenade, but blaster fire to her left induced her to look that way. She saw Ord firing down the hill from a kneeling position. To his right charged an enormous creature—an Ork, and one larger than her giant friend. She brought her blaster up to fire on the threat and yelled, “Or—!” but searing pain knifed through her left thigh and she collapsed i
nto the fold. She gritted her teeth against the pain, sitting up and looking for her assailant, she found Wego trudging up her side of the fissure in long strides, his mouth twisted into a frightful sneer and weapon in paw.

  . . .

  Ho rounded the side of the berm and saw the Lance just fifty paces away. He was uncertain he would make it that far, and if he did, would he have time to stop and reverse the system failures that threatened to end him. Fear was no stranger to him, but it was not a frequent companion. It walks with me now, he thought. I am machine… and mortal as any being. He trudged resolutely for the ramp that led to the port airlock. I wish to live.

  . . .

  Ord landed on his back and immediately rolled to come upright. A dark shape passed in front of his eyes—an arm! The press of a large being came from behind as the arm sought a chokehold around his neck. Ord thrust his left arm up as a bar against the hold. The Ork’s arm clinched. The strength of the Ork was great, Ord not having dealt with such power since he lived on Gizzen.

  The Ork pulled Ord upright, his breath hot on the back of the giant’s neck. It also told Ord where the monster’s face was, and with a sudden strike over his shoulder, he landed a blow with his free hand that would have felled most opponents, but failed to accomplish that in this instance. It was enough to loosen the Ork’s grip though, an opportunity Ord used to free himself with a hard stroke downward the broke the hold open.

  He spun to face his reeling opponent. The Ork snatched a heavy hand blaster from his belt as the giant charged and launched a driving front kick. The Ork was forced to block the strike with his gun hand, stopping the kick, but losing his weapon as it tumbled end over end and out of sight.