by Chris Hechtl
As the one hundred giant cargo shuttles in the third wave came in they set off rally point beacons for the drop commandos to get a fix on. The beacons lasted less than two minutes before they were shut down. The shuttles taxied clear of the beacon area, then began to disgorge additional troops, supplies, equipment, and vehicles before they were turned around.
Those shuttles that had landed without incident and were cleared for flight were allowed to take off once more once they were unloaded. Ten shuttles had crashed on landing. Fourteen others had difficult landings and could not return to space. They were immediately designated as temporary headquarters until better facilities were set up.
Allowing the shuttles that could fly to return to orbit was a calculated risk and a ruthless ploy. Crews in space, on the ground, and most especially in the shuttles themselves warily watched for incoming fire. When none came they sighed a collective sigh of relief.
“Perimeter secure, sir. All clear,” a soldier said, nodding to the officers.
“Then let's get out of this coffin before it becomes too rich a target,” the human general said. He brushed past his staff in order to take the lead.
As General Martell exited the shuttle, he walk with a stick, a glorified riding crop tucked under one arm instead of a rifle. He had a small amount of gear on him, his sidearm, but he was rather lightly outfitted.
Elliot followed warily in his wake. He looked up to the cloudy sky, then to the contrails of their reentry still being torn apart by the winds. “If they didn't know we were here, they do now,” he said softly.
“Sir, our forces are scattered in an oval two thousand kilometers long by a five hundred kilometers wide. They are trying to get together, but those who are the most isolated are getting overwhelmed and picked off,” Major Yanakov reported, coming out of the shuttle behind Elliot.
“They'll have to hunker down and endure until relieved,” the general said.
“Most are going down fighting, sir,” the Israeli officer stated.
“Well, there is that then. A bother being so scattered,” the general mused, looking about. “Casualties?” he asked.
Elliot pulled the Velcro on his thigh pocket to pull his tablet out. He checked.
“Well? Come, come!” the general persisted.
“According to Olympus we've sustained 5 percent casualties in the lead wave so far. Another … call it four hundred dead or out of action from the shuttle crashes,” the chimp reported.
“Tut tut. They seem to have run into a spot of bother in the landing. Should have stuck it good and proper,” the general said, pacing. “We'll save those we can of course, but they'll have to wait.”
“Some of the shuttles had equipment on them. One had a mobile medic unit, sir,” Elliot reminded him, checking his notes.
“Then they best get themselves patched up and sorted out,” the general tisked. “I knew we should have done a more orderly landing.”
“We're down, sir, that's what counts.”
“Yes, yes,” the British general said, waving his crop about then tucking it back under his arm. He turned abruptly at the sound of weapon's fire. “Report!”
“Robots scouting the perimeter. They are destroyed,” a lieutenant stated.
“Very good. Carry on,” the general said. He looked about him. “Well? Isn't someone going to get on setting up the base and my headquarters?” he turned to Elliot. “See to it will you, my good man?”
“The engineers are waiting for a location, sir,” Elliot said. “We weren't certain if we wanted to remain so close to the birds in case of an artillery or drone strike,” the chimp reminded him.
The British general grunted, then waved his crop. The more he strutted the more it reminded the chimp of old historical films of that British general from World War II. Monty? Montgomery? He should his head mentally. They had all studied World War II, especially the Normandy landings. He was fairly certain now that things were going to go very differently.
“This is too bloody cute. Quite easy really, we should have done this much sooner,” General Martell said, wiggling his mustache. “Now, once we've consolidated the perimeter, I dare say we need to probe outward, picking up any survivors and gear we can find. We'll have to be careful to move during the day.”
“Sir, I prefer we move by day until we get a better assessment of the enemy forces in the area,” Major Yanakov insisted. “The first day was set aside to consolidate. Some of our forces are quite scattered, sir. Movement to consolidate could take longer if they get bogged down. They'll have to move while being wary of traps,” she stated.
“They'll get on just fine,” the general insisted, waving his crop.
“Gas! Gas, gas gas!!” a guard called out, relaying the warning as he fumbled to put his mask on.
“Frack,” Elliot snarled, pulling his own mask out. “What was that about it being too easy General?” he demanded as the older human put his mask on.
<>V<>
Skynet had access to the chemical plants worldwide. Many had been destroyed by the orbital bombardment, but shipments of chemicals had been moving via pipelines and trucks for some time to continue the A.I.'s manufacturing needs. A tendril of the hive mind hit on the idea of using poison gas to slow the spacer army and potentially cripple it.
The trucks that had been upwind of forces were directed to open up their containers. Androids sometimes helped the dispersal by cutting holes in the sides of the containers and setting up fans or fire truck pumps to get the chemicals into the air.
Some of the chemicals exploded into fireballs when they intermixed or hit a spark. While all that happened, artillery and mortar units moved in to target the shuttles. If the organics took shelter in them, they would be obliterated. If they didn't, the shuttles would be destroyed regardless.
A tendril of the hive mind put forth the idea of capturing some of the shuttles for Trojan horses. The hive ran a brief simulation but then set the idea aside in a memory buffer to be drawn on at a later date.
<>V<>
General Murtough scowled as he read the SITREP. According to the report every shuttle that had been left on the ground had been destroyed. Anyone who had taken shelter in or under them were dead.
Fourteen percent casualties due to the chemical warfare attack. Everyone had gone down with masks and gear to handle that contingency, but no one had expected it within an hour of the landing.
There had been a follow-on resupply mission scheduled before sunset. Now that was on hold as the staff scrambled to find the artillery and deal with it.
Good luck there. If Skynet had access to military doctrine, then it knew and was using the axiom shoot and scoot to good effect, the general mused darkly.
Fighting the A.I. was like fighting a very fast whirlwind. Something that reacted with blistering speed that had a very short download time between making a decision and sending the order to its soldiers to execute it. Very little hesitation. He shook his head. The chemical attack had the earmarks of being improvised, which made it even scarier. What else was the A.I. up to?
He was almost afraid to find out.
<>V<>
Elliot heard the coughing and wheezing and did his best to put it out of his mind. He scratched, then tried to force himself to stop. His skin was blistering under the fur on his hands; it seriously sucked. The medic had wrapped his hands, but she had quickly ran out of topical analgesics. Too many people had exposed skin to the chemical stew that had been unleashed on them. They'd gotten covered but the damage had been done.
“Where are we?” General Martell asked, then coughed. He turned and spat, “… with the landings? And finding that blasted artillery?”
“Units are out looking for the arty now,” Elliot replied. He looked over to the injured Israeli officer then to the general. “We can't get a fix because we don't have the right air assets deployed.”
“And we can't deploy any because the bloody A.I. will take them over and use them against us,” the general growled.
“Right. The helicopters are coming in on the third wave,” Elliot replied, waving a hand. “Fat lot of good it does us now. They are gone.”
“Shoot and scoot,” the general replied with a nod.
“Exactly,” Elliot replied. “We know where the shots came from, the general direction I mean. We're sweeping until sunset then.”
“No. Pull our people in. We need to get them under the cover of the SAM units,” the general ordered. “Deploy the sensor net to pick up the artillery so we can counter battery,” he ordered.
Elliot grimaced. “We've only got a couple of mortar fire teams with our unit, sir. Some are injured,” he said, indicating the rows of the injured. “The same for the anti-air people,” he said.
The general eyed them then nodded. “I'll see what I can do about that. We need cover.”
“If we're clustered, sir, the tin cans can send in a drone strike,” Elliot warned. “We only have handheld SAM units. They may not get a round off in time,” he warned.
“Understood,” the general said. He inhaled then exhaled slowly. He turned to see a work crew using a hose to clean people down. “But we've got to do something anyway. Spread the order. I don't want our people out dicking around in the dark when the bots come calling,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” the chimp replied with a nod and wince.
“Bloody hell. What a way to run a war,” the general muttered softly, just loud enough for the chimp to hear. “This war horse is getting to old too I dare say,” he said as he walked off to the improvised chow line.
“Right,” Elliot sighed. Apparently his chow could wait. He pulled a trooper over and started issuing orders.
“Sir, Lieutenant McGillicutty is on the horn wondering what is up. The division has been passing his message on or ignoring it for a while due to the attack,” a radio tech reported.
“I've been expecting his call. Do we have his most recent SITREP? Does he have a call sign?”
“No call sign, sir. His book has expired,” the tech said. “Are we certain it's him?”
“That I'm not sure about. But there is one way to find out. We'll direct him to a meet.”
“If you say so, sir,” the tech said dubiously.
“I do. Ask him who …” the chimp frowned then a slight smile tugged on the left side of his face. “Ask him the nickname of his boss back on Mars. If he answers right, let me know.”
“Sir?”
“The answer is 'Daddy Banana Breath.' He worked for a gorilla named Edmund Dadsworth,” the chimp explained.
The tech nodded. “Should, um, you make the call, sir?”
“No. The longer Skynet doesn't know I'm here the better. The same for the other senior officers. We don't want the A.I. to localize where we are.”
“Oh,” the tech said dumbly then slowly nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, what else,” the chimp murmured as he watched the troopers scrambling to set up fire lanes and dig in before the sun set.
Chapter 34
Jack monitored the landing from a yacht near Olympus. His intention was to remain ubiquitously out of the way while the professionals did their job but on hand to monitor it personally. Unfortunately, he wasn't alone on the yacht. Several world leaders had tagged along to get a view while not jogging the military's elbow by being underfoot on Olympus.
Sometimes he regretted his invitation. Isaac certainly owed him big time, he thought.
“It is so hard to see that—beautiful yet sickening! Thousands of facilities, did they have to destroy them all?” a familiar voice whined. “I mean, we're talking trillions upon trillions of damage here!”
“We can't leave it in enemy hands to be used against us congressman,” Queen Diane stated softly.
“Still …”
“And the people come first. I believe this will give them something of a breather,” the queen stated.
“True,” the senator rumbled.
“There will be a lot of people killed in this.”
“They are casualties of war. It is unfortunate, but to save the rest we have to take those industrial and military instillations out. Without power the machines will have trouble running their cleansing operations, let alone mounting attacks on our people.”
“Who said that the only way to save the village was to destroy it?” the congressman retorted.
Jack winced as he swirled his drink gently. Personally he was a bit disappointed that they hadn't used high yield EMP bursts over the continents. It would have caused more damage to the climate but the nuclear blasts wouldn't have pushed the rem count up as much as a ground blast. But apparently the military officers were abiding by the committee's decision to hold off on such drastic measures.
It was going to cost them. Of that Jack had no doubt. He was pretty sure Isaac knew it too.
“Well, we have a fix for that too,” Jack murmured. General Murtough had ordered orbital strikes on every known power plant, reactor, solar farm, and hydroelectric dam worldwide during the opening moves of phase 1. The bombardment was scheduled to go off just before the invasion force launched and would hopefully throw Skynet and its zombie A.I. off.
Also on the target list was every surviving groundside factory or military storage/base. Most of the rocks get through since he swarmed the planet with rocks, saturating the defenses.
“Oh?”
“Once we've cleared an area, we'll send in engineers to help rebuild. You also know Radick and other companies are seeding the planet with materials to help terraform Earth. The soot from the nuclear winter has been reduced by .001 percent. Now that they have production up and running and better data for their models they have improved the next batch.”
“But still …”
“Congressman, if we'd left them there, they would have died anyway. Starvation and radiation poisoning was already killing them.”
“There are still going to be protests from some quarters,” the young queen stated. “The deaths of untold thousands have already been reported in the media.”
Jack grunted. “And it's a drop in the bucket compared to those who were dying every day. But we can't win; we can't help them until we destroy the robot's ability to wage war.”
“I know. You know, but for many it is hitting them on an emotional level,” the senator stated.
Jack nodded. “Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs,” Jack said under his breath.
“I think I'll refrain from passing that comment on. The media has enough already,” Athena said dryly from the overhead. Everyone looked up. “The surviving Chinese are protesting the Yang Tze bombing publicly.”
Jack nodded. “I thought they would. Flooding bad?”
“Just a bit,” Athena replied, showing him the flooding from some of her probes as well as before and after satellite images. He waved the images away. “Publically they are condemning the act, but through back channels they are condoning it.”
“Don't you just love politicians and their two-faced bullshit?” Jack asked with a half twist of his lips. That earned a sputter from the people in the room. He turned to see the Queen smiling and shaking her head.
“Power is down. That should hamper Skynet and the AI's rampage significantly. At least for a time.”
“And the rest?” the senator asked. He hadn't grown comfortable with the A.I. but he had grown to tolerate her.
“Unfortunately, the distributed nature of solar panels makes them an impossible target. The farms we, of course, targeted, but the panels on homes and buildings were excluded,” Athena reported.
“Great. So the A.I. can rebuild. Recharge their mechs for more killing. What did we do that for again?” the congressman asked in disgust. He tossed a tablet across the table. It started to tip over the side. He reached out and caught it and then dragged it back to his blotter. Not because he was afraid to break it, he wasn't. No, he just didn't want to have to bend over to pick the damn thing up
later or try to remember where it went.
“The destruction of half of the industry and power on Earth will have a major negative effect on Skynet's mission. But the side effect will be a negative impact on survivors’ morale and their ability to survive, sir. It will also reinforce the propaganda campaign being mounted by some AI on the ground who are stating over the radio network that we are at war with the grounders. That we started it.”
The queen grimaced. Jack gauged some of the expressions in the room. The Senator took a swig of his drink, clearly unhappy. His face was puckered.
“I know,” Jack said quietly. “I did the assessment in my head. Without transport they can't get food. Those with solar are lucky, but without any sun …,” he grimaced darkly. “No power means no water, no utilities at all. There goes any remaining social order as people fight each other and the robots to survive and feed themselves as well as their families. Any last concentrations of people will disperse into the country if they haven't already. What there is of it. Along the way they'll be hit by radiation they can't even see,” he winced. “More Humanitarian drops …,” he shook his head. Finally his face fell in his hands. He scrubbed at his tired face, then ran his hands through his hair a few times, slicking it back as he regained composure.
“We can't drop them everywhere. And we can't drop weapons,” the queen said.
“We can drop some survival gear, rations, and medical supplies, but it is, as you pithily say, a drop in the bucket. There is no way the current infrastructure can deal with feeding so many,” Athena said gently, shaking her virtual head.
Jack's eyes cut to her avatar and then away. “Cute. Accurate, but cute. No,” Jack shook his head again. “What I was going to say was that any drop will be an invite for the enemy to come kill more people. We saw that with the Christmas drops.”
Athena nodded. “True. It is an obvious ploy. But the desperate will fall for it.”
“But … maybe we can use that. In time,” Jack murmured thoughtfully. “We can't drop in the protected countries. But we can now make more drops in Africa. Especially inside General Martell's perimeter.”
