Metallic banging interrupted the conversation. The Insurgents dropped into a crouch. Chen signalled the scout patrol to go on ahead of the rest of the company. The six soldiers, humans and itterim, covered one another into the underbrush. Chen heard the rustle of their passage growing more faint as they advanced, then silence.
He spoke into his radio. “Scout party, respond.”
Nothing. He exchanged a frown with Naal.
“Send others,” she said.
“Until there’s no one left?” he asked. “Hell with that.”
“Those were not inexperienced soldiers!” the itterim argued. “If they were taken in silence, then there is something very fierce in there.”
“Our orders are to take this route to the Carrot Palace,” Chen said, irritatedly.
“We can take another route, Captain.”
Chen merely lifted a hand and gestured forward. The second scout team took point. In silence they passed from Fairy Hollow into Jungle Adventure Land.
O O O
“Are they coming?” Boland asked, at ease in his royal leonine disguise on a gigantic gunnera plant made of an indestructible plastic set in a low, dimly lit clearing.
“Aye, chief,” said Mose, an occasionally visible, flickering outline. Streb, dressed as a spotted orange hyena named Giggles, directed his puppet force to withdraw into the thick trees.
“Why didn’t you want to wear a puppet suit, Poet?” Boland asked, admiring his fistful of custom made claws. They fit very neatly into the trigger of his machine gun, currently concealed in the folds of the cushiony leaf, and he could pick up a hair as if he was using calipers. They fit even more neatly on the controls of his special weapon the park engineers had made for him and the others for this occasion. Thanks to the CBS,P he didn’t feel overheated by the addition of a thick fake-fur costume over his already bulky armor.
“I prefer to be an ‘eminence grise,’” Mose replied, with a chuckle. “The power suit behind the throne. A successful one is never seen, only hinted at. You’re living out your fantasy; I’m living mine.”
Boland settled the crown in between his ‘ears,’ and waited for the Insurgents to arrive. Software, dressed in a coral flamingo costume, stood over him waving a fan that looked like it had been fashioned from her tail feathers. “It’s good to be the king.”
O O O
The scouts emerged into the clearing, their guns at the ready. A huge yellow beast saluted them from a thronelike plant.
“What the hell is this?” one of them asked.
“What is it?” Captain Chen demanded.
The lead scout hesitated. “Well, it looks like a theater setting, sir.”
“A what?” Chen asked, pushing forward into the clearing himself, with Naal on his heels. A tall pink bird met them at the edge of the clearing. She gestured toward the throne, where the lion sat beckoning with his long claws.
“Forward!” she said. “Come forward and pay homage to King Tullamore!”
“Bow to the king!” added an ominous voice.
“Bow, or else!” other voices chorused.
“Or else what?” Chen demanded, lowering the muzzle of his gun at the flamingo.
“Or this!” The lion reached around with one paw and came up with a strange-looking weapon. Chen sprang to one side. The stream of bright blue liquid that shot out of the muzzle caught soldiers in the next three rows. They brought up their own weapons … or tried to. Their arms were caught in place. More blue streams squirted out from between tree boles, covering the troops in glue. It hardened quickly, changing from blue to clear as it solidified.
“Break away! Break away!” Chen ordered. The twelve soldiers wearing armor or microplate suits were able to shrug off their chemical bonds and stumble forward. They opened fire on the lion, who dropped his paste-launcher and ducked behind the big leaf with another gun. Rapid-fire bursts of real bullets caused Chen and the others to back hastily into the trees. The flamingo bounded after them, and was joined by another flock of birds, all firing guns they must have been concealing under their wings.
“What about the others?” Naal asked, as they ran.
“Leave them!” Chen shouted.
“But they are still alive!” the itterim argued, shocked.
“Our objective is more important,” the captain said sternly. “Ayala would say the same. Now, come on! Find another way forward!” One of his bursts of fire took the head off a flamingo. It wavered and fell, but there was no blood. He spun on his heel and shot another one, full in the chest. Its head bobbed at the shock of the bullets passing through it, but it neither bled, nor died.
“They are not real!” he shouted. “Colonel, can you hear me?”
O O O
“Sir, you’d better hear this,” Borden said, over the mastoid channel. “Turn to frequency 268.07.”
Wolfe looked toward Borden, even though she was concealed behind a pile of rubble. “Is that the one they’re using?”
“Aye, sir. Listen, quickly.”
Wolfe knew better than to question Borden’s assessment of an emergency.
“…Machine parts! Wires and gears, components like that. No people in them. They’re not a threat. Ignore them. They’re playing soldier.…”
Wolfe took a deep breath, down to his belly. The secret was out. Ayala and his officers had discovered that they were facing automata, not living soldiers.
“What should we do, sir?” Borden asked.
He growled in frustration. “How can they disbelieve the puppets as fighters? A lot of them are shooting real bullets!” He pounded a hand on the nearest concrete chunk, reducing it to powder. “This can’t fail now. If the Insurgents think they can ignore our forces, our squads won’t be able to chase them here. We need all of them here! Squad … I mean, company leaders, listen up! It’s time to show them the ‘normals.’ We’re going to have to give ourselves away. Do you read?”
“Aye, sir!” the chiefs responded.
“Your real troopers are pretty badly outnumbered,” Wingle’s voice said in Daivid’s ear. “If you need the park security forces, just say so. The station’s over in this part of the park, near my cottage.”
“I shouldn’t, sir,” Wolfe said. “We don’t want to draw attention to that area.”
“Got it, sonny. Shouldn’t interfere. I like a man who knows his own business.”
Daivid scanned the park overview, hoping he did know what he was doing.
***
Chapter 20
“Puppets?” Captain Marsea Gundsdottir laughed, marching through The Doll Kingdom at the head of Company A. The section of the park, designed to delight young females of all species, had been decorated almost entirely in shades of pink, ranging from palest shell to hard-hitting intergalactic distress hot pink. Every building was a castle, with battlements adorned with pearls and precious gems. Friendly little faces peered up at them from wall panels, refreshment stands, and the entrances to rides. At Gundsdottir’s stage of life the color and the décor made her feel homicidal instead of social, but the concept amused her. “That’s funny. Heavily armed puppets! I knew the guy was crazy! Look, there’s some of them now! Company, fire at will!”
A dozen or so animal characters dashed out of a doorway, guns leveled. Gundsdottir’s soldiers blithely potted away at them, making them duck back and forth like targets in a midway booth. The captain cut the head off a slithering snake, laughing out loud as it continued to undulate around, unaware that it was ‘dead.’
“Wait a minute, ma’am!” Lt. Polin cried. “Look! TWC troops!”
Behind the frolicking animals, a dozen humans in familiar blue armor and clear helmets fanned out, firing. The Insurgents dove behind the nearest doll store. Sharpshooters leaned around the corner to return fire.
“Frax them into a black hole!” Gundsdottir shouted. “Colonel! TWC!”
“What?” Ayala’s voice came through full of outrage. “Impossible!”
“I’ve got a dozen troopers pinning
us down here, Colonel! How could Wingle have gotten CenCom to send a ship here so fast? We only arrived four days ago!”
There was a long pause. The blue-clad troopers laid down heavy fire as two of them lugged a black pipe out of a pink playhouse, aimed it, and dropped a heavy gray cylinder down it. Gundsdottir hastily signalled her troops to split up and move. “Colonel! How…? Incoming!”
The unmistakable screech of a mortar shell drowned out Ayala’s reply. “Repeat, sir!”
“It’s got to be a trick,” Ayala shouted. “It must be more robots.”
“Well, if it’s a trick, it’s a good one! They’ve got artillery!”
“Blast them with plasma! They’re only frameworks! If you burn them they can’t shell you any longer. Do it!”
“Yes, sir!” Gundsdottir shouted at her officers. “You heard the man! Blast them all!”
O O O
“Oh, slag,” Somulska said, finishing a final pirouette in her cat costume. “Mustache, they’re ordering the plasma gunners forward!”
Vacarole, dressed as a Florentine Merchant, part of the Walk Through History section of the park, groaned. “They’ll incinerate the whole company. Everyone’s going to die!”
“Everybody! Retreat! Duck into any building. Move it! Numbers, we’ve got problems,” Somulska radioed her squad leader. “Our cover’s about to be blown, and not in a nice way.”
“Get out of there,” D-45 instructed them. “We’ll be there in a sec to give you cover.”
“Whoa! Get them!” Vacarole shouted, brandishing his machine gun in one hand and his sword in the other. “Armor-piercing rounds! Attack!”
If the Insurgents were surprised to have come upon a party of TWC troopers, they were even more stunned when a velvet clad giant in tights and ribbon garters came barreling down upon them. They froze long enough for him to let off several bursts, killing the plasma cannon crew and some of the soldiers around it. Somulska followed as soon as she regained her wits, peppering the enemy. At that range the 6mm caseless rounds couldn’t fail to shred the thin microplate suits. Two armored itterim came after her, visible only as six-armed blurs of pink-in-blue. Some of her shells bounced off their nearly-invisible suits, but the armor was old and in poor repair. Black flecks seemed to appear out of nowhere as she picked away at the flexible armor. Eventually she bored holes in them. One fell right away, his machine gun spraying its entire magazine into the tree full of dolls above him. The other managed to hit her repeatedly in the chest, then knee, then foot. Somulska staggered backward, pain radiating through her body. Her CBS,P squeezed hard against the concussion. She fired back, searching around for her shooting buddy.
“Mustache!” The Florentine Merchant was on his back. The color of his armor was fading from blue to green, and his red silhouette was turning pink. “Numbers, he’s down! Send cover!”
“On our way!”
The enemy had been beaten back ten meters by the force of the big humanoid’s attack. Suddenly, it realized it was facing one solitary trooper in a torn-up cat suit. In spite of the burning pain in her leg Somulska went rolling, stopping occasionally to fire off short bursts that kept the enemy off balance until the trigger went limp. She switched her frequency to the puppeteers who ran her squad as she slammed another magazine into her gun. “The rest of you! Keep shooting at the enemy! Keep them busy! I have to get to him. Oh, God, sir. There’s blood all over his costume. I think he’s dead!”
O O O
Daivid almost felt his own heart stop. He switched from park telemetry to the vital signs of his platoon. Nearly everyone had elevated pulse and respiration—all but one. The indicators, except that of brain activity, had gone down to zero. As he watched, the last one descended gently. Daivid felt as though he was watching the man die in front of him.
By that time, D-45 and half of his company had burst out of a tunnel in The Doll Kingdom. They started to drive back the Insurgents and envelop Somulska.
“What’s happening?” Wolfe demanded. “How’s Talon?” His audio pickup rattled with the sound of metal on metal, and metal on plastic.
The squad leader contacted Wolfe a few moments later. “She’s okay, sir. Just a couple of small laser wounds and a few dents she’s going to have to beat out later. A couple of the puppets are taking her to Doc. We’re going for Mustache.”
“No!” Wolfe exclaimed.
“No?” D-45 asked, clearly astonished.
“No?” Borden demanded. “Sir, we have to extract his body. It’s our code, sir. No one is ever left behind, alive or dead.”
“No,” Wolfe said firmly. “And he won’t be left—later. For now, you have to leave his body there. He’s beyond help, Numbers, but he can still serve. Let him lie there.”
“But, sir…!”
“Leave him! Get out of there now! Numbers, taunt them! Get them to follow you. Everyone head toward the Carrot Palace.” Wolfe cut the connection, hating himself. He clenched his fists tight.
“Why, sir?” Borden asked, through the bone implant. She sounded betrayed.
“Because …” Wolfe’s voice shook with anger. “Because we made a mistake, Axe. We gave the puppets body temperature, but we didn’t give them bodies. The Insurgents think they’re all puppets. They didn’t believe in the TWC troopers. They will have to, now.”
O O O
But the incident was not without repercussions. Word spread through the platoon that the CO had failed to honor the remains of one of their dead. He overheard, deliberately, he was sure, Streb giving a very detailed, heartfelt description of a painful and thoroughly obscene punishment the afterlife held for soldiers who failed their comrades in arms. It sounded as though it was aimed at the Insurgents he was chasing toward the Carrot Palace, but Wolfe wasn’t fooled.
The Insurgents seemed to be, though. Word had clearly gotten around their command that some of the troopers they were facing were real. Ayala was bewildered as to where they had come from, and who had summoned them. A chittering, panic-stricken voice Wolfe supposed belonged to an itterim officer gave a warm-body count of the defending force and come up with between two and three thousand, some in uniform and some dressed as characters. Wolfe, waiting impatiently under cover, grinned mirthlessly to himself. Those tunnels were proving to be a terrific tool. If the enemy only knew the real troopers only numbered twenty-three—twenty-two now—they’d wet themselves laughing. He wished he could laugh. He wished the whole thing was over, one way or another.
A hand tapped him on the back, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He sprang up, sidearm trained on his assailant. His reactions saved him from firing. It was Sparky.
“You know, everyone is saying what you’re doing is wonderful,” the puppet said, seating himself on a plascrete block with ease.
Wolfe felt a ray of hope that not everyone hated him just then. His heart slowed to a normal pace. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “We’re glad you appreciate our efforts.”
The puppet cocked his head. “Oh, not me! I think you’re just trying to get attention.”
Wolfe groaned. “Why in hell do I listen to you?”
Borden’s voice broke in. “Sir! Telemetry!”
Wolfe was relieved to be able to ignore his animated gadfly, even if it was for bad news. Part of the group that Boland’s company had been chasing around Fairy Hollow had gotten away from them. According to his tag, Boland was closing in on them through the tunnels, but the Insurgents were going to reach the Carrot Palace ahead of them.
“Into position, everyone!” Wolfe announced to his own company of puppets. “We’ve got a dress rehearsal!”
O O O
Captain Chen raced through Gamehaven with the remains of his company around him. Every time the gaudy arcade attractions rang or flashed he thought it was more of the weirdly costumed beings coming at them. Only twelve of his thirty-five people left! The others, suspended in glue, had continued to shout at him through their helmet audio until abruptly, they were cut off. He supposed the TWC, or
Oscar Wingle’s costumed freaks—were they androids or robots, or what?—had killed them all. He would almost certainly have done the same. He knew the Insurgency’s policy: if a captive wasn’t worth trading and refused to sign on, he or she died on the spot. They didn’t have the budget for prisoners.
“Are they puppets, or aren’t they?” he shouted at the other captains.
“Dammit, I can’t tell,” Captain Gundsdottir growled back. Her company was under fire from a fresh wave of fur-bearing combatants. “We killed someone. We’ve got the body.”
“Some of these can’t be real,” Captain Zebediah of Company E insisted. “I’ve seen crocodiles crawling on their bellies. No TWC personnel do that. They have to work for the park!”
“What about the mortar?” Gundsdottir demanded. “Do amusement venues usually have artillery?”
“Don’t try to sort them out,” Ayala ordered them. “Destroy anything that moves. Get to the Carrot Palace!”
“Almost there, sir,” Chen assured him, his breathing sounding loud in his own ears. He checked the magazine on his machine gun. Still about half full. He had another ammunition box strapped to his back. Every shot had better count.
Naal dropped back to his side, the camouflage of her power suit giving her a bizarrely-colored leopard-spot appearance in the midway lights. “Life signs ahead in the Carrot Palace, sir,” she said. “Not many, about twenty. There might be a few other emissions, but there are heat sources blocking my scan. Some have powered armor. I have the traces.”
“Good,” Chen replied. “Twenty or even thirty is easy. We’ll clean them out for Colonel Ayala.” Maybe that would make up for losing two thirds of his company to something as low-tech as glue!
The Meadow Pavilion was ahead, a wide-open expanse of rides and attractions. Above it all, soaring to orange heights, was the Carrot Palace. Chen gestured over his head. “Come on!” he signed. Three fingers sent the advance gunners, what was left of them, forward in a crouch around the edge of the Bounding Main, a pirate ship tableau made entirely of inflated cushions to jump on.
“Sailing, sailing!” the speakers sang deafeningly as the Insurgents crept forward across the speaker grates in the teal-blue pavement. “Over the bounding main! Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!”
Strong Arm Tactics Page 37
