The explosion blew Pasportu over Walker and slammed him hard to the floor. The little robot recovered and was about to return to aid his dazed friend when three enemies appeared out of the smoke. Pasportu brought up and fired the shotgun on his left side, which knocked two of them down.
Toward the third, he fired a five round burst of 5.56 armored piercing from his HnK-8 on his right side, which, at this range, penetrated his attacker's body armor and ripped into his chest, the wall behind him splattering with blood. One of the two enemies hit by the shotgun got to his feet and rushed at Pasportu, but Walker stopped him from the floor with a single round from his pistol.
Pasportu, with his eyes fixed on the cloud of red smoke, returned to Walker and was trying to drag the disoriented giant to safety when several 7.62 rounds ripped into the robot's chassis. His eyes blinked out and he fired wildly into the swirling red mass. His eyes flashed back on, and he again grabbed Walker. With all the strength that Kilo Whiskeys are known for, Pasportu pulled Walker out of the line of fire and to safety.
I ran over and knelt next to Walker who was bleeding from several small lacerations and a gash on his forehead. As I arrived, he was struggling to sit up. He felt Pasportu's claw on his shoulder, he reached up and patted it. "Thanks, man." He turned around, but there were no lights on in Pasportu's eyes. The robot sat unmoving and unresponsive, smoking.
"Walker, are you all right?" I asked, but he ignored me.
"Hey, man." He was looking at the little bot. "Hey!"
I heard him gasp a breath. "No!" Walker rose and grabbed Pasportu lifting him in his arms and ran toward the aid station shouting, "Medic!" He sat Pasportu down and a maintenance bot who was performing triage zipped over. He opened a panel on Pasportu's chassis and inserted a device.
After a moment he looked up at Walker and said, "I'm sorry, he's gone." With that, the maintenance bot moved on to his next patient.
"Hey—hey!" Walker shouted at him as he rolled off. Then he turned to Pasportu. "Come on little buddy, light up, switch on, let's go."
I knelt down next to him. "Pete," I whispered, "he's gone, pal."
"Can't we just get him some batteries or something?"
"No, it doesn't work like that."
Then he rounded on me in his anger and frustration and shouted, "How the hell would you know?" He jumped to his feet, grabbed Pasportu again and ran toward the CYB-tech. "I want you to fix this one right now dammit, or I'll—"
I grabbed Walker by the shoulder and spun him around. Tears were streaming down his face. "Pete. Get a grip, man. I need you. I need you here, now. This ain't over!"
He lowered his head and sobbed. He slowly walked to a sofa and sat Pasportu down gently onto it. A passing robot with his arms full of parts came near and Walker grabbed him. "Can you hear me?" he shouted.
"Most definitely," the bot responded.
"Do not touch this robot. This is Pasportu and, when this shit is over, I want to find him right here and in one piece. Get me?"
"Yes, sir."
Walker, the hard-as-steel Goliath of the BSC, had been laid low by the loss of what, a short time ago, he'd called a tin toy. I saw him wipe his eyes and rub his face. He turned away, ignoring me. A moment passed before he rose to his feet and slowly resumed his post. I returned to mine.
I looked around and saw that corridors two and six were taking the worst beating.
"Ava, pull a third of the troops from three and send them to two, and half from five and send them to six."
"Yes, Matt. Matt, I'm sorry about Pasportu and Walker."
"Walker will be all right, he's lost people before."
"Matt, several of you Oceania veterans are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Walker is most affected, but you suffer, too. I've seen it."
"We'll be fine, Ava. Walker has a grip now, he's—"
"I'm sorry, Matt,” Ava interrupted, “I just picked up a communication between Freya, Hildr, and Sigrún. The latter two are reporting significant losses to Freya who, like you, is shuffling troops. Freya has reported her losses to someone on the orbiting ship and she has been told that should there be another delay or any more significant losses that he would require that the two landers return for more troops, and new leadership. It seems that Freya's commander is not happy with her."
"Interesting. So, Wotan is pissed?"
"Yes, but the point is, if Freya receives another eight hundred troops, we will lose this fight. Clearly, we must destroy the landers."
A hand grenade landed at my feet I quickly grabbed it and threw it back over the barricade. When it detonated, I heard at least three men scream and one kept on screaming, obviously wounded, and in great pain. A moment later, I heard the distinctive report of an AK and the screaming stopped.
"Oh, my God, Matt, that was close!"
"I'm fine. How are we going to destroy those landers?"
"I almost lost you again!" her voice sounded panicked.
"Ava?"
"I'm sorry...I just—" There was a longer pause.
"Ava, the landers?"
"Matt, I suggest at least two forces move against the landers. A detachment from here and another from Colonel Wayne's SUBs at sector nine."
"Back up just a minute, Ava. What weapons do we possess to bring these monsters down?"
"The colonel has access to Comets, the shoulder fired smart missile. We know the enemy has the Hong Ying-10, Red Parakeet, Man Pod missile. We must capture several."
"Capture several?"
"Yes, they are not very accurate or very powerful, so we'll need several."
"I can't see us dropping one of those things with HY-10s," I responded.
"Yeah, the comets have a better shot, but the colonel only has four in inventory. The HY-10s might just make the difference, though."
"All right, I'll organize a raid—"
"You know, of course, you cannot lead this raid," Ava interjected.
"And why not?"
At that instant, an enemy soldier leaped over the barricade and landed right in front of where I squatted, leaning against it. He thrust at me with his bayonet. I could not return fire for fear of hitting one of my bots. I rolled quickly to one side and sprang to my feet. He came at me again and I parried his thrust with the muzzle of my rifle, then swung at him with the butt. He leapt back and tried to chamber a round but his weapon was jammed. In my head, Ava screamed, "Remember your strength!"
Again, he took a stance preparing to come at me with his bayonet. I watched his eyes. He was about ready, and moving in close. That's when I just dropped my rifle. His eyes became enormous and he glanced down at it. As he did, I grabbed the muzzle of his weapon and with the flat of my other hand broke the blade off his bayonet then I jerked the rifle out of his hand and with a round house swing hit him across the side of the head with the butt. I heard his neck snap.
"Matt!" Ava shouted.
"Why can't I lead the raid?" I demanded.
"Mathew, you are the commander, here. Perhaps it has escaped your attention, but you have almost been killed twice in the last few minutes. We —all of us—need you, Matt. Please, send Dolph. Walker is not yet in any condition for a mission like this."
There was something in Ava's voice…she was pleading, So, I grudgingly agreed and called Dolph and Walker to join me, explaining what was happening.
"Dolph, I want you take a small group and head up corridor three, Ava tells me the enemy has a log dump, a re-supply point, about a click and a half down that passage. When you reach hallway three forty-seven, turn right. There, on your left along the walls, you'll find an Ammo Re-Supply Point, ein Munitionsnachschubpunkt, verstehen?”
“Ja, natürlich.” Dolph replied.
“What we need are those self-guided missiles, Selbstlenkflugkörper. You’re looking for HY-10s. The enemy's own smoke screen will assist you in this raid. But be careful, I don't want any losses. I particularly don't want to lose you, Dolph.
"Walker, you form a fire brigade, if Dolph
runs into trouble and needs help, you go get him."
Dolph's team was only a few minutes from setting out when Ava called to me again. I stepped into a shadow and stood quite still as she and I spoke.
"Matt, it looks as if they are pulling back. I just intercepted Freya's order to the other Valkyries. They are pulling back to consolidate, and Freya has called all her commanders to her location, I'm sure it's to discuss their strategy."
I told Dolph and Walker this news and then took Dolph's hand. "Vorsichtig sein. Viel Glück."
He looked back at me, smiled and griping my hand firmly said, "Danke mein Freund."
The gunfire had died down considerably, but hadn't stopped altogether.
Dolph put on his respirator and he and his "boys" climbed over the barricade and vanished into the smoke. I ordered everyone but the designated observers to keep down.
Walker was fewer than two meters from me, but he didn't speak. He just stared off into the red smoke in corridor three.
"You all right?" I asked him. He just nodded without looking at me.
Just then, an oddly-familiar voice that I just could not place came over Ismay. "Matt, come to corridor six, please."
I tapped Walker on the shoulder and said, "I'll be back in a minute." He did not acknowledge me at all this time.
When I arrived at six, a bot rolled toward me, and his identifier popped up. It was Sanyo. There was a bullet hole in one of his wheels, and his rotating warning light on the top of his chassis had been shot off. As he rolled up, I picked up a piece of the Plexiglas from his top and held it before me. "Lettin' 'em get a little close, ain't ya?" I asked.
"It's good to see you, too," he said. "I saw your little hand-to-hand fight over there. Don't you wish now you'd have accepted that bayonet from me?"
"Ah, I wouldn't have had it on my rifle anyway; the result would have been the same."
"Why did you not just shoot him?"
"Armor piercing rounds—I might have hit a friendly. Just what are you doing here?"
"I was the last one to be armed. I locked the armory and followed your orders."
"Well, good to have you here. Listen; there are two Bios here with us. They are friends of mine. They don't know I'm a SUB. We need to keep it that way."
"You keep secrets from all your friends?"
"Only those I'm ordered to keep." Sanyo could see he'd struck a nerve.
"Calm down, Bogart," he said. "Ava reminded all the bots that we are not to discuss the SUB program with any Bios."
I bit my lower lip and looked down at Sanyo again. "Bogart, huh?"
"I was going to call you Rick, but you might not have made the connection."
"Casablanca, eh?"
"Yeah. This is the start of a beautiful friendship."
I smiled. "Okay, Captain Renault. In the meantime, would you go check on the condition of the troops, their weapons, and ammo supply?"
"You got it."
I returned to Walker and noticed he had not had the gash on his head treated. "Walker, go see the Bio-tech, the medic, and have your wounds treated."
"I'm fine."
"Sergeant Walker, that's an order."
He looked hard at me, then rose and went to the aid station.
Fifty minutes after Dolph vanished into corridor three, we heard distant gun fire. Walker, all patched up, and his troops, were like a coiled spring ready to rush to Dolph's aid, but I held them back. Twenty minutes more and we saw the first of Dolph's group returning. When Dolph came out of the choking smoke, he and another bot were carrying a wounded comrade who had a wheel shot off, but otherwise, was okay.
I went with him to the aid station to drop off the wounded.
"You will be fine, Ernst," Dolph said to the bot. "I see they have brand new wheels, still in the package." He patted the bot, stood and turned to me.
"Ernst?" I asked.
"Ja, he said his name to be Ernie, but I am calling him Ernst."
"So, did you have any luck?"
"No HY-10s were to be found, but we did encounter one of those rolling weapons platforms. We disabled it and took its launcher. There are three missiles with explosive warheads still in it. We just need to devise a way to aim and launch them."
"Work on that, will ya? I have to figure out how we get out of here and to the landers."
As I walked toward corridor eight, I called Ava. "Ava I presume you heard all that?"
"Of course, Matt. I can tell by your demeanor and the set of your jaw that you have already decided to lead this expedition. I don't guess I can dissuade you from that course, can I?"
"Not this time, Ava. To me, leadership means leading."
Ava was silent a second, for her a very long pause, then she said, "Let me address the question of how to exit JILL and get within range of the target. First, of course, you will need Ess-CEPS suits for you and any Bios that accompany you. There are five floors below this one as I know you are aware. Through the next level down, you can reach the damaged area and, from there, the debris field where you will have to deploy your weapon."
"How is it the enemy has not considered these floors in order to get at us?"
"They did make a recon. Every avenue they looked at was filled with EFS. They must have come to the conclusion that the entire lower level was flooded with the stuff. Another reason is their apparent mind set. It seems they desire a head-on confrontation."
"We'll find Ess-CEPS down there, I take it?"
"Of course."
"How do we get through all the EFS? Dig through it like back at the harbor?"
"No, it's far too thick. I have an alternative path selected for you."
Ava paused again, and then added, "I've been thinking. Once these two landers are destroyed, they will have no way to reinforce their soldiers already here. All we have to do is destroy the landers and we defeat their plan. Once they see their ships destroyed, the common soldiers may just throw in the towel."
"So while I've been thinking tactically you've devised a strategy?"
"We are a good team," she responded nonchalantly.
"I think I love you," I said, with a smile.
There came a longer than normal pause, and when she did respond it was with a much more serious voice than I was prepared for.
"I love you too, Matt."
Chapter 13
A Shot in the Dark
Dolph and the CYB-tech came up with a method of firing the captured enemy rockets by direct electrical connection to a power supply. We would require several hundred meters of wire and a power source.
For this mission, I selected Sanyo and three other bots, Walker, and of course, myself—despite Ava's objections. Walker and I would require Ess-CEPS, to which Ava would direct us. Two of the bots would carry the rocket launcher. The other bot and Sanyo would provide security.
Ava informed us that four SUBs from Colonel Wayne's group had already departed JILL through one of the domes and were going to approach the target from over the top of the BSC. They each were carrying a Comet. No one was sure if the firepower we were carrying would bring down or even disable one of these behemoths. But it was all we had available. It was our best—and only—shot.
My team entered the elevator that led to Ava, but we were only descending one floor.
Before I stepped in, I shook Dolph's hand. "Stay on your toes buddy, keep me informed."
"Be rested assured, my friend, we can the fort keep down."
The elevator doors opened and we started down what was the second floor version of corridor seven leading due south. Three hundred meters down the corridor, we encountered several trams all hooked up to a recharge station, just as Ava had said we would. Sanyo and I took the lead tram, the two bots with the launcher took the second tram, and Walker and the last bot took the trail tram.
Just before we all mounted, I went to Walker. "Have you introduced yourself to the bot you'll be riding with?"
He leaned forward and whispered to me, "No. I don't care to know any mor
e of them."
"How many men did you lose in Oceania?"
"Enough, but this is different."
"Why?"
He just glanced over his shoulder at the bot.
"Walker," I said, "his name is Oscar."
"Oscar?"
"Yeah. Before all this started, he worked in nuclear reactor number one. He had a rather solitary job there and didn't get out much. He was excited to meet a real Bio, and you haven't even spoken to him."
"A real Bio?"
"It's what we—it's what they call living, breathing humans."
Again, Walker glanced over his shoulder at the bot.
"Walker, when he volunteered for this, he told me that he and Pasportu were friends, and he doesn't know yet. I'm sure you'll break it to him easy."
I walked back to the front of the line and boarded my tram and sat next to Sanyo.
"How's Walker?" he asked.
"Some better. I put him on the tram with Oscar. I hope I did the right thing." Looking back, I could see Walker and Oscar sitting on the rear of their tram next to one another, Walker's feet dangling over the back. Walker was looking down at Oscar, talking. Oscar was looking up at walker; so far so good.
“Sanyo, did you know Oscar before all this?”
“No, Matt, there were over fifteen hundred of us here to service JILL.”
With all our gear secured, the trams headed out.
It was almost thirteen kilometers to the site of the damage, but first, Ava directed us to make a stop at a room that appeared incomplete. The workers who had been building Barbicane used it for storage. Here, we located several spools of wire. One would be more than enough, but we took two.
Next, we traveled down small hallways and through maintenance access passages until we arrived at a room with a pressure sensitive door. It was marked, READY ROOM & AIRLOCK—NUMBER 157. We were east of the main damaged area and south of the underground motor pool.
"This is your stop, Matt," Ava said.
"Okay, everybody off!" I shouted to the team.
"Mathew," Ave continued, "you will be careful, won't you?"
The Battle of Broken Moon Page 17
