by Dale Brown
“Let’s go live to Governor John D. Farrell’s country estate, where our crackerjack reporter I. M. Sofullofshit will once again prattle on for thirty seconds about nothing at all,” he grumbled to Amy Maguire, his petite, red-haired sidekick. She was the production crew’s audio assistant.
She laughed. “I think he told New York we had some really hot breaking news this time.”
“Like what, for Christ’s sake?”
Maguire shrugged. “Well, that sheriff’s car that’s been guarding the gate did pull out of here about half an hour ago.”
Ericson rolled his eyes. “Seriously? That’s his big scoop? A couple of Cowtown cops go off on a kolache and doughnut run?”
“‘I’m not saying it’s evidence of a black-ops conspiracy, Tom,’” Maguire said portentously, mimicking the earnest, soulful tones favored by their not-so-favorite piece of on-air talent. “But it could be a conspiracy—”
And then the darkness beyond the circle of TV lights erupted in fire and shattering noise. A fusillade of high-explosive bullets ripped into the crowd of reporters and cameramen—mowing them down in a flurry of blinding flashes. Parked production trucks started coming apart under the shattering impact of more 30mm cannon rounds.
Wide-eyed with horror, Ericson turned to grab Amy Maguire and drag her away . . . and abruptly found himself sprawled on his back several yards away from where he’d been standing. Flames boiled off the wreckage of their vehicle. More explosions rocked the ground, but he couldn’t hear anything. Everything seemed to be happening in an eerie, unearthly silence. He couldn’t feel his legs.
Through glazed eyes, he saw a tall, terrifying shape emerge from the drifting smoke. Its head, a smooth ovoid bristling with antennas, spun in his direction. He opened his mouth to scream as it raised a metal arm, aiming a massive weapon at him.
There was a final blinding flash. And the whole world went black.
Baryshev turned away from the American he’d just killed. It was time to move on. His audio and visual sensors weren’t picking up any more signs of life in the immediate area. He strode back through the tangle of burning vehicles, untouched by the searing heat that swept across his KVM’s outer armor.
Another robot waited for him across the road. “I don’t want to worry you, Lead, but it’s possible the enemy now knows we’re here,” he heard Imrekov say with dry amusement.
Baryshev laughed, gripped by the sense of fierce joy he increasingly experienced whenever given the chance to demonstrate his power. “Much good may it do them, Two.” He switched his attention to his computer. “Replay radio transmissions intercepted from the enemy compound since we opened fire here.”
No transmissions recorded, the computer reported.
He arched an eyebrow in surprise. None? Shouldn’t this sudden slaughter have sparked a flurry of radio chatter among the different elements of Farrell’s security detail? In fact, triggering such a burst of signals was one of the reasons he’d carried out this massacre in the first place. He’d anticipated learning more about the Americans’ plans and current deployment by analyzing their frantic emergency transmissions.
Imrekov confirmed that his computer hadn’t picked anything up either. “Are the Americans so deeply asleep? Or only deaf?”
Baryshev shook his head. “Neither, I suspect, Two. They are only exercising remarkable communication discipline.” Mentally, he shrugged. Let the Americans cower in silence. It wouldn’t save them in the end. He opened a channel to the rest of his assault force. “Specter Lead to all Specter units. Commence main attack. Repeat, commence attack.”
Joy-filled, guttural voices poured through his headset, acknowledging his order with animal-like glee.
Imrekov’s KVM sprinted toward the wrought-iron gate closing off a winding, paved drive that led deeper into Farrell’s ranch. Its hands gripped the bars, yanked hard, and with an earsplitting shriek of rending metal tore the whole gate loose from its hinges. Then, like an athlete throwing a discus, the robot spun through a half circle and hurled the crumpled shape away into the darkness. Its head swiveled toward Baryshev. “What do you think, Lead? Shall we just go strolling on up that road and say hello?”
The colonel shook his head with a slight smile. “Let’s not be quite that obvious, Two. Follow me!”
Together, they raced through the opening and ran across a large grazing pasture, angling northwest toward a tree-lined 140-meter-high hill that overlooked Governor Farrell’s ranch house from the east.
Forty
ON THE FARRELL RANCH
THAT SAME TIME
Inside the cockpit of his CID, Brad McLanahan listened to the quick, staccato beeps that indicated the Russian robot pilots were talking to each other. Like the Iron Wolf Squadron, their radio signals were encrypted and then compressed into millisecond-long bursts. Given enough time, his computer might be able to decompress and decipher those transmissions. But time was exactly what he did not have. Nor could he draw an exact bead on the locations of those radio calls. All he knew now was that two of the Russian combat machines were somewhere south of him, two were off to the west, and two more, those that had just butchered the journalists at the main gate, were to the east.
With active data links between his CID and those piloted by Nadia and Whack Macomber, triangulation based on relative signal strength and bearing would have swiftly yielded the positions of those enemy robots . . . accurate to within a few meters. But open data links would also reveal their own existence to the Russians. It was the typical wartime trade-off: Which was most important? Obtaining information about the enemy? Or denying the same kind of information to them?
In this case, given the disparity in numbers, Brad had opted to stay still and silent for now—relying on his camouflage systems to hide from visual and thermal detection, while his passive sensors gathered information about the Russians. His CID was fully prone about a thousand meters south of Governor Farrell’s ranch house. Lying flat against the ground meant that only half of his robot’s thermal tiles and electrochromatic plates needed to draw power, which significantly reduced the drain on his fuel cells and batteries.
According to their battle plan, Nadia’s robot was stationed north of the house, guarding against a possible threat from that direction. And Whack’s CID was in position to the west. Brad swore fiercely under his breath. He’d guessed wrong, foolishly assuming the Russians would be unwilling to blow their cover so soon by going after the unarmed TV crews, who would have seen any approach from the east. Innocents had died because of his mistake. And now the enemy had found a gap in their defenses.
Brad checked his display, quickly reevaluating the tactical situation. From his current position, he had a field of fire along part of the road coming from the gate. But if the Russians coming from the east chose to cross that wooded high ground to the north instead, it would be up to Nadia to stop them.
Colonel Wayne “Whack” Macomber hoped his old boss’s son wasn’t beating himself up too badly for missing a single piece of the enemy’s plan of attack. Sometimes the kid forgot that real war was almost always barely contained chaos, not some board game with set rules. As it was, the deployment Brad had selected at least gave them a fighting chance—which was more than a lot of soldiers down through history had ever had, from Leonidas’s three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae to Pickett’s Virginians stoically marching into the cross fire of more than a hundred Union artillery pieces at Gettysburg.
His CID was stationed near the edge of a thicket of cedars and oaks in a little valley west of Farrell’s ranch house. From here, he had an almost unobstructed view down a dirt track that ran all the way to the western perimeter of the ranch. Spotting enemies moving through the jumble of hills and ridges to his north and south would be a little trickier, but his thermal and audio sensors should still be able to get a read on them.
Warning, Macomber’s computer suddenly pulsed in his consciousness. Movement alert west. Two enemy machines advancing toward our position. Ran
ge six hundred meters and closing fast. Reacting instantly, he slaved several of his visual sensors to the new contacts. The Russian combat robots had just emerged from behind the sheltering mass of one of the neighboring hills and turned in his direction. They were loping along parallel to the dirt track at roughly sixty kilometers per hour.
Macomber eased his electromagnetic rail gun out from under his CID’s torso. It powered up with a shrill, high-pitched whine. “Zdravstvuyte. Hello. I do svidaniya. And, good-bye,” he murmured, sighting quickly on the lead enemy fighting machine.
Inside the cockpit of Specter Six, Major Alexei Bragin felt a sharp jolt sizzle across his brain as the KVM’s computer sent an emergency alert through his neural link. Strong electromagnetic signature detected, it reported. Unknown type. Range five hundred meters. Bearing zero-nine-two degrees. A red dot blinked rapidly, centered at the edge of a grove of trees up ahead.
Bragin blinked. What kind of enemy sensor was that? He started to raise his 30mm autocannon—
And then his view of those woods disappeared, eclipsed by a dazzling, sun-bright white flash. One-third of a second later, a small superdense tungsten-steel alloy slug smashed through his KVM’s torso at Mach 5. Bragin died instantly, vaporized by the massive impact that ripped his robot in half and sprayed molten fragments high into the air.
A hundred meters behind the blazing wreckage of Specter Six, Major Dmitry Veselovsky’s highly trained instincts kicked in. He spun Specter Five, his KVM, away from the threat, and darted north toward a rocky spur jutting out from the nearest stretch of high ground. While on the move, he triggered a burst from his autocannon—sending a hail of high-explosive, armor-piercing rounds ripping downrange toward the still-unseen enemy. “Specter Five to Lead,” he radioed, plunging into cover behind the boulder-strewn spur. “Enemy contact! Six is down. My computer evaluates the weapon used as a rail gun.”
“Engage and destroy the enemy, Five,” Baryshev snapped. “That has to be the Iron Wolf machine we were warned about. Kill it while the rest of us destroy the primary target!”
“Affirmative, Lead!” Veselovsky pushed on, digging his robot’s feet deep into the crumbling soil as he climbed fast up a wooded draw that offered him a sheltered route straight to the top of the hill.
Macomber flattened as the stumpy oak and cedar trees around him exploded in a hail of splinters and flying debris—shattered by a sudden burst of autocannon fire from the second Russian fighting machine. That son of a bitch out there sure has fast reflexes, he thought. Bits of shrapnel pinged off his back armor.
Minor damage to rear-facing visual camouflage elements, his computer told him. Wood fragments and razor-sharp pieces of shrapnel had slashed through some of the paper-thin electrochromatic plates layered across the CID’s rear torso, head, and legs.
He raised up again, just in time to see the Russian combat robot disappear behind a spur of high ground. Quickly, he pulled his rail gun to the right and squeezed off another shot. Hell, who knew, maybe he could punch a round right through that rise.
CCRRACK!
Dirt and shattered rock fountained high into the night sky—spraying away from the deep crater the rail-gun slug gouged out of the hillside. No hit, the computer reported.
“No shit,” Macomber growled out loud. With one part of his mind, he zoomed in his tactical display. What he saw made him frown. That enemy machine now had a covered route all the way up to the top of the forested hills that bordered this little valley. And from there, it could move swiftly along the high ground to any number of good vantage points overlooking Farrell’s ranch house and its outbuildings.
Which left him no choice, he knew. He needed to intercept that Russian robot before it found a clear shot. Moving fast, Macomber shut down the CID’s camouflage systems and scrambled to his feet. Broken tree branches and smoldering leaves cascaded off his back. Then he sprinted out of the thicket, thudded across the dirt trail, and started uphill himself, angling toward another draw that climbed out of the valley.
His skin crawled. Apart from a few trees and shallow limestone outcrops dotting the slope, there was no cover here. He’d be a sitting duck if the Russians attacking from the south blew past Brad’s position and put him in their cross hairs.
Macomber was about two-thirds of the way up when his computer blared a warning. Movement alert left front. Range close. One hundred meters. Swearing, he swiveled to the left, seeing the bright green thermal image of a Russian autocannon protruding from between a pair of weathered boulders perched at the top of the hill. That enemy robot hadn’t been heading for the ranch house after all. Instead, it had picked out the perfect spot to bushwhack him. He raised his rail gun, knowing it was already too late.
WHANG. WHANG. WHANG. WHANG.
Armor-piercing 30mm rounds hammered his CID with enormous force—slamming home at point-blank range. His rail gun went flying, destroyed by a direct hit. He tumbled backward, rolling over and over down the slope in a spreading cloud of dirt and gravel as the Russian kept shooting.
Macomber crashed heavily into the scarred top of a rock ledge. The impact stopped his fall. Immediately he scrambled across to the other side and dropped prone. The outcrop provided him with a small amount of cover . . . at least until that clever Russian bastard up there moved over to a new firing position.
Damage readouts scrolled across his displays in a dizzying sea of red and orange. Severe hydraulic systems damage. Forward thermal and visual camouflage tiles off-line. Fuel Cells Two, Five, and Seven down. All weapons packs and ammunition destroyed. Torso armor holding, but effectiveness significantly degraded.
“Translation: I am totally fucked,” Macomber said, tasting blood in his mouth. He’d been slammed around inside the CID’s cockpit pretty badly during that wild-assed tumble down the hill. He ignored the pain. Whatever injuries he’d taken would have to wait their turn. Right now, he needed to assess his tactical situation. Not that it required any deep thought. Apart from having no working weapons, no serviceable camouflage, and no way to run away, everything was just peachy-keen. Even bailing out of this shot-to-shit tin can wasn’t an option, since it would only leave him more exposed . . . and he had a serious hunch their enemies weren’t planning on taking any prisoners.
Which left—what, exactly?
Movement detected, his computer reported unemotionally. No visuals from this position. Assessment derived from audio sensors only. An icon blinked into existence on his flickering tactical display. It showed the CID’s estimate of that Russian robot’s position based on the sounds its highly sensitive microphones were picking up . . . in this case, the noises made by metal feet cautiously picking their way down the battle-torn slope.
Macomber whistled softly. That other pilot was coming straight downhill toward him, apparently determined to finish off his crippled enemy at knife range. “Jeez, what a dumb-ass,” he said with a slow, twisted grin.
He ran a quick mental calculation, weighing the speed at which that Russian robot was making its way toward him against the time he needed. Finished, he nodded sharply. What he planned was doable. Calling it “survivable,” on the other hand, might not pass the laugh test. Still, any chance was better than none at all.
Macomber took a deep breath, suddenly seeing a vision of Charlie Turlock’s bright-eyed face floating before his eyes. She was laughing. Impatiently, he shook the vision away. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I really don’t need any bad omens right now.” Through his neural link with the CID, he ordered, Initiate self-destruct sequence. Authorization Macomber One-Alpha.
Self-destruct authorization confirmed, the computer replied. Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight . . .
Without waiting any longer, Macomber pushed his damaged machine upright. He was less than thirty meters from the oncoming Russian combat robot—which stopped dead in its tracks the moment his CID rose above the shallow limestone ledge. It started to raise its weapon.
“Boo, motherfucker!” Macomber snarled. He lunged uphill, cover
ing the intervening distance in a few awkward, shambling strides. The CID’s servos and actuators shrieked in protest. More sections of his system schematics winked out as his computer rerouted most of the remaining power reserves just to keep moving.
Twenty-five. Twenty-four . . . the computer said, continuing its dispassionate countdown.
The Russian robot opened fire again—scoring more hits on his torso armor. Through his neural interface, Macomber felt the impacts like red-hot daggers plunging deep into his vitals. Groaning aloud, he clenched his jaw hard against the pain.
And then he crashed headlong into the enemy machine. His CID’s large, articulated metal fingers curled around the other robot’s arms and gripped tight. It stood frozen for a millisecond and then started thrashing around, trying to free itself.
Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen . . .
Time to go, Macomber decided. He squirmed out of the haptic interface and wriggled around to the hatch at the bottom of the cockpit. Fingers crossed, he thought coldly, remembering how Charlie had died when her hatch jammed in a similar situation. He punched the emergency release.
With a grating sound, the hatch slid open.
He squeezed through the narrow opening and dropped out onto the ground. He hit with a thud that rattled his teeth and jarred his spine. Without hesitating, he rolled away from the entangled machines, scrambled to his feet, and ran full tilt across the slope—determined to put as much distance between himself and them as he possibly could.
Inside his head, his mind kept up a running count. Eight. Seven. Six . . .
Behind him, the Russian combat robot tore one arm free from the Iron Wolf CID’s grip and started working to pry the other loose.
Three. Two . . . Macomber dove for cover behind a boulder and curled up, covering his head with his hands.
