by Isaac Hooke
“I do, at that,” Rade said. “But sometimes, I don’t make enough of it.”
The one-hour mark before combat came, and the remaining members of the team joined Rade in the hangar bay and suited up. When they were ready, they boarded their mechs, and waited for the call to battle.
“Hurry up and wait, people,” Bomb said.
At the fifteen-minute mark, a hologram of Lieutenant Commander Scotts appeared in the hangar bay. “The Marines are already heading out. I’m authorizing you to join them immediately. Good luck out there, men. I’ll be observing for the duration of the mission. If you need anything, give me a holler. The support units are waiting for you outside.”
The bay doors opened. Rade saw a group of sixteen Centurions standing next to two Equestrians.
“TJ, Bender, divvy up the Centurions among yourselves,” Rade said. “Nicolas, you take the two tanks. Have them lead the way. I want the Centurions following directly after them. The rest of us will pursue fifty meters behind. Cyclone, define the marching order.”
The two Equestrians began rolling across the base, followed by the Centurions jogging behind them. A moment later Tahoe transmitted the number five to Rade. Lui and Bender took point, and Rade waited until Manic and TJ followed, then he assumed the fifth position. Tahoe came just behind him, and the other members of the team pursued in their specified orders. They formed a zig zag formation as they moved at a quick trot across the base. Lui maintained a fifty-meter separation from the leading support units at all time.
According to the overhead map, Bravo Platoon and its support units were converging on the base entrance ahead, well ahead of Alpha’s Equestrians.
“Good shooting to you guys,” Chief Rowlock, their platoon leader, sent.
“Good shooting,” Rade replied.
“How about I shoot up your ass, Rowlock?” Bender sent. “For target practice.”
“The only ass you need to practice on is your own,” Rowlock replied, before disconnecting.
“I’ll vouch for that,” Fret sent. His skinny avatar appeared in the lower right of Rade’s HUD.
“Dude, you really gotta start hitting the gym more,” Bender said. “Every time I see you or your skinny ass avatar, I think here’s a man that needs to eat. And hey, what you doing commenting on the Bravo Buffoon’s jibe? ‘I’ll vouch for that.’ The only vouching you need to do is for your own skinny ass. Man, I should give you a whooping.”
“Shut up,” Skullcracker sent. His skull-tattooed face appeared in the lower half of Rade’s HUD.
Bender didn’t reply. When Skullcracker told you to shut up, you did.
“What’s eating him?” Manic said.
“Nothing,” Rade said. “He simply wants the fighting to start. We all do.”
Again, an image of Shaw and that taunting engagement ring flashed into his head, and Rade’s finger inched involuntarily toward the trigger. It was a good thing he hadn’t deployed any weapons yet. Wouldn’t do to start shooting up the base.
The Equestrians and Centurions reached the base entrance and passed through. The Jupiters followed shortly, striding past the razor-wire fence that lined the perimeter on either side. They quickened their pace as the low to mid-rise buildings of New Coronado proper surrounded them.
Rade glanced at his overhead map. He could see that the Marine infantry battalion they were assigned to assist had already engaged the enemy, and were spread out along the perimeter of the red zone marking their territory. The battalion had three rifle companies, a weapons company and a headquarters company, the latter of which contained Lieutenant Colonel Brightyard along with his support crew, along with a Scout Sniper platoon and Medical platoon. The individual rifle companies had their own HQs and were composed of three rifle platoons, along with a weapons platoon armed with mortars and assault lasers. The weapons company had an HQ, a dedicated mortar platoon, and an anti-armor platoon consisting of Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided missiles mounted on trucks: TOWs for short. Apparently more advanced tech was unavailable…
On the map, the blue indicators of Bravo Platoon joined up with one of the weapons platoons, spreading out between the rooftops of two mid-rise buildings.
Around Rade, the pristine streets quickly transformed into a war zone of collapsed buildings and buried vehicles.
As he got closer, he tapped in Lieutenant Colonel Brightyard. “Where do you need us, LC?”
“I want you with Second Company,” Brightyard said. “Near the heart of the action. Join their weapons platoon.”
A waypoint appeared on his HUD, indicating where the weapons platoon of Second Company was deployed.
“Roger that,” Rade said. He relayed the waypoint to the team. “We head here.”
The Equestrians reached the street where most of the weapons platoon had taken cover behind debris from the surrounding buildings. Their exteriors changed color to blend in with that debris, as did the metallic skins of the Centurions with them. Those Centurions spread out, crouching behind damaged vehicles or blast craters, or the Marine trucks that harbored TOWs, and aimed their laser rifles into the street beyond.
So far, Rade couldn’t see any of the enemies, but he knew that was because they were dug in on the far side of the street, behind similar debris, with their own hulls blending in with their surroundings.
The Jupiters also changed colors as their environs changed, becoming a convincing mixture of gray and bronze that matched the concrete and rebar jutting from the damaged buildings nearby.
“I want two teams,” Rade said as they closed with the Equestrians. “One on either side of the street. Hug the buildings. Cyclone?”
Tahoe divvied the mechs into two teams. Rade was part of T1, and he kept close to the building wall on the western side of the street. T2 hugged the building on the eastern side.
In front of him, Bender, TJ, Lui, Pyro and Kicker formed a thin line. They all crouched at different heights, separated by five meters each. When they reached the front lines, they spread out, taking cover behind the closest objects. For Rade, that was a chunk of the building beside him that had broken away and crashed into the street beside an abandoned vehicle. Marines with mortars were crouched there. Not far from them were another pair of Marines who had set up a laser defense turret behind a fallen tree. All were decked out in jumpsuits that looked little different from his own, sealed in case of biological attack.
A high-pitched keening told him of an incoming mortar.
“Nicolas, triangulate that,” Rade ordered.
“Got it,” Nicolas said.
Rade glanced up and saw the path of the mortar visualized on his HUD as a smooth arc. It headed straight for the two mortar men.
Rade quickly swiveled his stingray into his right hand and targeted the incoming mortar. Not trusting his own aim, he said: “Take it out.”
Nicolas took control, and after initiating a series of micro aim adjustments, fired. The mortar exploded harmlessly twenty meters above the target.
The two mortar men meanwhile had already retreated, but when they realized Rade had detonated the mortar prematurely, they returned to pick up their mortars and quickly relocated to another position. When you were spotted, it was unwise to remain in the same spot.
Speaking of which, he was going to have reposition as well.
He switched to a low crawl, and maneuvered behind an area where the asphalt had buckled—it formed a slight rise next to a blast crater. He lifted his stingray over the edge, and switched to its scope.
Rade glanced at his overhead map. No red dots indicating targets.
He scanned the street beyond, but didn’t spot anything obvious. He switched to the thermal band. Didn’t help. He searched the rooftops, the windows, the debris on the streets between the buildings. Nothing.
He reminded himself that the Sino Koreans were equipped with thermal masking, just like their own mechs. Well, assuming that’s what the targets currently were.
Rade switched to the comm ch
annel used by the platoon they were to be aiding.
“Do we know what we’re facing?” he asked the local Marine commander, who was listed on the comm as Lieutenant Buckwheat.
“Some kind of mech units,” the weapons platoon commander said.
“Why haven’t we spotted their positions yet?” Rade pressed.
“Dunno,” Lieutenant Buckwheat answered. “My guess is it’s a new class of mech. They don’t show up on the visual or thermal bands, and whenever we try LIDAR, we hit nothing. Has to be some kind of cloak. They’re out here, somewhere. We just don’t know where. We’re taking impacts from ghosts!”
“Maybe they’re performing a series of hit and runs,” Rade said. “Guerrilla attacks. Retreating before you can pick them up on LIDAR.”
“Maybe,” Buckwheat agreed. “We’re only equipped with directional LIDAR, so that doesn’t help.”
“We have LIDAR 360,” Rade said. He switched back to Alpha’s channel. “Nicolas, monitor the Marine channel for me.”
“You got it,” Nicolas replied.
“Cyclone,” Rade sent. “I want someone on your team to try a LIDAR burst. All directions.”
“I’ll do it,” Lui said. A moment later, Lui’s blue dot repositioned on the map—he’d have to, because a LIDAR burst would give away his location to the enemy. “Got nothing at all. If you ask me, I’m guessing they’ve finally perfected their LIDAR blurring capabilities.”
“I thought that tech was only in the prototype phase,” Bender said. “Years away. You mean that shit is real?”
“Looks that way, yes,” Lui said.
“Wait, if that’s true,” Pyro said. “That means they could be right on top of us, and we wouldn’t even know it.”
Rade felt a sudden tingle running across the small of his back and up his spine, as if someone was watching him at that very moment.
Targeting him.
“Retreat, now!” Rade said. He switched to the Marine channel. “Marines, retreat!”
Rade rose at a crouch and raced away from the buckled portion of roadway that provided cover. From one of the rooftops overhead, incoming plasma fire launched; it rammed into the roadway behind him, tracking his movements.
For the attackers to open fire at him like that meant the Marines watching those rooftops had to be dead.
Rade dove into a blast crater, and curled underneath the lip where the asphalt overhung the gaping hole. The attack ceased.
He checked his map, and was relieved to find that most of the platoon had retreated past the far edges of the buildings to the south. Only Bender, like Rade, was trapped relatively close to his previous position, crouched behind an overturned semi.
Most of the Marines had escaped with the Jupiters and Centurions, except for the TOW operators: their trucks had been totaled. Unfortunately, the Equestrians had also been destroyed.
So much for my promise not to let any AIs die.
“I thought we were the only ones supposed to have stingrays!” Snakeoil transmitted.
“The Sino-Koreans have spies in all our tech companies,” TJ said. “Especially the military ones.”
“There has to be a way to defeat their cloaks,” Pyro said.
Rade switched his comm node to directional mode, and pointed it toward his companions, wanting to reduce the chance of enemies picking up his new location. His communications had to be how they had pinpointed him in the first place, considering he hadn’t detected a LIDAR burst, and his camouflage and thermal masking would have blurred him on the visual and infrared bands respectively. Well, the thermal masking wasn’t perfect, especially during the heat of battle when thermal leakage was at a high because of the weapon usage. But still, communications seemed the most likely culprit.
“Bender, switch to directional mode,” Rade told the only other member of the platoon pinned on the street with him.
“Already done,” Bender transmitted.
Rade gazed at the small section of road visible from beneath the overhanging asphalt above him. He searched for signs of motion… the background-matching hulls weren’t perfect, and if one paid attention, artifacts in the camouflage could be spotted. It would appear as pixelization along the edges of a tango, with large squares of the same color momentarily blinking into view. The faster the tango moved, the more artifacting there would be. But if his attackers proceeded at a crawl, there would be very little, if any, and very likely he wouldn’t spot them until they were right on top of him.
If LIDAR wouldn’t detect them, what other options did the platoon have?
Rade heard explosions in the distance, echoing from the building facades as the other battalions fought in the streets nearby. Echoing…
Closer, he heard something somewhat incongruous: a songbird chirping.
Echoing… and chirping.
He transmitted: “I have an idea.”
9
The enemy might have thermal masking, and background-matching hulls, and LIDAR blurring, but most likely they did not have a way to evade echo location. No one possessed that tech, at least on Earth.
Unfortunately, these particular mechs weren’t equipped with echolocators, nor were the Centurions with them. But…
“Bender, TJ,” Rade said. “Can you program our external speakers and microphones to function as makeshift echo locators?”
“Hell yeah!” Bender proclaimed. “I’m going to turn us all into regular squawk boxes!”
“We can synchronize the chirping across all our mechs,” TJ said. “Casting an echolocation net across the street.”
“Do it,” Rade said.
“Won’t the buildings interfere?” Fret asked. “I know I sure as hell can’t pinpoint an enemy based on sound alone, not when the explosions seem to be coming from all sides thanks to the echoes!”
“In this case, we know where the sources are,” TJ said. “Since we’re the ones generating the sounds. And because so many of us will be producing the squawks, we can use our subtle differences in position to put together a complete picture of our environment. We’ll overlay the calculated acoustic profile—based on the visible landscape—to the actual, which will allow us to highlight any objects not visible.”
Remaining in his hiding place in the blast crater, Rade continued to sweep his stingray scope across the road beyond, searching for signs of camouflage artifacting.
He heard squawking sounds of various volumes echoing from the nearby buildings.
“You got it?” Tahoe sent.
“Just a second, Red Man,” Bender replied. “Doing some quick tests… gotta find the optimal squawking frequency, duration, strength, shit like that. It’s not like we can just magically create echo locators from our speakers without any testing.”
“Did you call me Red Man?” Tahoe broadcasted, a dangerous edge to his voice.
“Shh!” Bender sent. “Let the masters work.”
More chirping sounds echoed from the buildings, then Bender said: “All right you ungrateful bitches, prepare to accept the initial echolocation program. I’m going to have to make some more tweaks post-install, so don’t freak out when your mechs start squawking like parrots taking it up the ass.”
Rade received an upload request and accepted it. He installed the resulting program, and had to give it authorization to access his HUD.
“Accept the upload and install, everyone,” Rade transmitted. There was still nothing out there. He resisted the urge to fire a few test shots; they would only serve to reveal his location.
“How will we know when it’s working?” Pyro asked.
“I’ve got it programmed to interface with your HUDs,” Bender said. “So, any tangos spotted by the echolocation will appear as augmented reality overlays.”
“This better not give every tango a dick on its head or something,” Manic said.
Rade switched to the Marine comm channel.
“Lieutenant Buckwheat,” Rade sent. “We’re going to have some fresh targeting data for you momentarily. Prepare to
open fire.”
“Roger that,” Buckwheat replied.
Not only was Alpha Platoon sharing the same comm channel as the Marine platoon, but they were also sharing targeting data, so any enemies would show up as red dots on the overhead map, if they weren’t outlined on the Marine HUDs.
Rade’s mech started to emit a series of high-pitched clicks. The sounds rose and fell in volume and pitch; the clicks crescendoed, becoming so high they vanished from the audible range, only to return a moment later.
And then the yellow outlines of four mechs appeared on Rade’s display. They stood on the street directly above him, forming a half circle above the blast crater. They had their right arms extended and pointed down at him.
“Fire!” Rade roared.
There was no time to aim, so he activated his jumpjets, smashing into the overhang above him and tearing right through it.
Plasma bolts hammered his previous position in the blast crater. The aim of those bolts lifted as the mechs attempted to track him.
Rade’s speakers continued to click like a cicada on steroids as he rotated his ballistic shield for protection. He fired a lateral burst at the same time so that he passed over the attackers, and aimed his stingray over the notch in the shield. He opened fire when he acquired one of the mechs as a target.
Alpha Platoon and the local Marines attacked as well—twelve stingrays from the Jupiters, sixteen laser rifles from the Centurions, six mortar shells from the Marine mortar men, and six laser rifles from their riflemen.
All four mechs went down before Rade touched the ground. Their hulls were melted straight through to the AI cores.
“Got more on the roofs!” Kicker shouted.
Rade’s missile alert sounded.
He fired his Trench Coat and dove behind the semi where Bender sheltered. Explosions riddled the air behind him. The blast sent him reeling forward so that he landed face down close to the semi. He rolled the rest of the way, digging up the asphalt beneath him.
He hit metal—the undercarriage of the tipped semi. He switched to a crouch. Bender’s Jupiter was beside him, firing over the top of the semi. Bender suddenly ducked, and the truck’s upper section became riddled with plasma fire.
