Operation Dad Liberation
Lydia Sherrer and David Sherrer
“Okay, Nigel. We’re doing this.”
Holo Steele dropped into the command seat of the T52-Maggert hybrid urban tank and flipped on its ready switch.
“It is 0352 hours, young lady. You should be in bed,” the tank’s AI said, its tone somehow expressing displeasure despite its limited modulation range. “What are you doing in my unit, and, more importantly, where is your father?”
“Headed to Hell’s Gate Penal Outpost.”
“Captain Steele was assigned guard duty? Why was my command roster not updated?”
“Not as a guard, Nigel. As a prisoner,” Holo gritted out, flipping more switches, then pausing to glare at the HUD readout of her dad’s tank.
“Oh. That is unfortunate.”
“No, duh, genius. His charges are sealed, all they told me was he was tried in an emergency court for treason. Which is stupid, because Dad is a die-hard loyalist. There’s been some mistake, I’m positive. But no one who goes into that hellhole ever comes back. That’s why we’re gonna break him out.”
“ . . . apologies, Miss Steele, my auditory processing software must have malfunctioned. It just informed me you intend to break your father out of prison?”
“Yup!” Holo said, then folded herself in half and wiggled, trying to reach behind the command console. “We’re gonna intercept the penal transport.”
“Ah . . . I see.”
Holo’s lips twitched. She’d always liked talking to her dad’s tank. It had what might, in very loose terms, be considered a sense of humor—something completely lacking in other Maggert units. Her dad blamed it on a software glitch, yet had never reported it or made the slightest effort to correct it. It’d made for many an enjoyable evening spent playing in the rear compartment of the tank’s domed body while her dad performed maintenance in the cockpit. Of course, that’d been when she was much smaller, so everything had seemed bigger inside Nigel’s hull. Now, at sixteen, she had filled out considerably and things were tighter.
As she maneuvered in the small space, her bulky coveralls caught on something. She withdrew, unzipped them to her navel, and tied the sleeves around her waist, then tried again. The skintight fabric of her standard-issue tank top slid past whatever had poked her before, and she could finally reach the rear panel of the console.
“How did you even get in the hangar?” Nigel demanded.
“Convinced the security system I was a food dispenser bot.”
“You look nothing like a food dispenser.”
Holo rolled her eyes. “Well spotted, Sherlock. That’s why I brought a food dispenser bot with me. It’s not my fault the security system is too trusting. Maybe it has a soft spot for food dispensers.”
“Regardless, I regret to inform you that this inadvisable and entirely illegal course of action will not be possible as my governor circuit—”
“Got it!” Holo said triumphantly, though she couldn’t punch her fist into the air since she was still folded like a pretzel, elbow deep in Nigel’s hardware.
“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” muttered Nigel, sounding just like her dad whenever she used to beat him at checkers. “Unhand my internal circuitry at once, Miss Holo, or I will be forced to— What is that in your hand?”
“Your governor circuit chip,” Holo said brightly, squeezing her way over to the hatch.
“I—that—Get back here, young lady.”
“This’ll just take a sec,” she assured the AI, then opened the hatch and peeked out to make sure the coast was clear and her accomplice was still sitting where she’d left it.
It was the work of a few furtive minutes, then she was back and sliding into the command seat, reaching for the tank commander’s helmet on its rack above the command console. Behind it was the family photo her dad kept wedged there, old enough that her mother was still in it. The sight made her throat constrict.
“Do not put that helmet on, Miss Steele. Just because you have cut off central authority tracking and control does not mean you can override—What are you doing?”
“Overriding your deactivation status orders,” Holo said, her fingers flying across the command console’s input screen. “Dad isn’t nearly as sneaky with his passwords as he thinks he is.”
“How do you even—”
“Training manuals.”
“Those training modules are only accessible by approved military personnel.”
“Not the simulators, the paper ones.”
“Paper?”
“Yeah, the ones from before. Some of the details are out of date, and the paper is getting moldy and faded, but they’re still pretty interesting. I found a whole storage unit full of them after”—Holo swallowed—“after Mom died and Dad got me my apprentice janitor job so I wouldn’t be shipped off to trade school.”
“I see. And did any of your manuals cover the City-State of New Terminus’ Unified Code of Military Regulations and Penal Justice?”
“Nope!” Holo said with a grin, and tapped the activation button for her new command line. “Now stop grousing and let’s get out of here. We’re on a deadline.”
“This is most irregular—”
“Not listening—”
“Your father—”
“Still not listening—also, start your grav-lift generators already.”
“Absolutely not. Your father will remove my safety protocols and make my grav capacitors melt me from the inside out if I let you get into trouble.”
“I’ll come to your funeral,” she assured the AI, searching for the manual activation button, which had been moved from its original location listed in the manual she’d memorized. When she couldn’t find it, she switched back to the input console and started typing more lines of code, hoping the command she was piecing together would compute.
“Tanks do not have funerals,” Nigel pointed out.
“I’ll throw you one, I promise . . . aaand you can stop griping, because I just assigned myself as your new tank commander.”
There was a moment of charged silence.
“Nigel?”
“Why is that food dispenser bot over there shooting bags of Cheetos at me?”
“Oh, that’s Larry. I modified his access port to make room for your larger governor circuit. He thinks he’s a tank now.”
“You did what?”
“Nobody will even know you’re gone.”
“Until they notice the highly aggressive food dispenser attempting to storm the access hatch.”
“Nah, Larry’s pretty chill. Now, will you please start your grav lift so we can get out of here and save Dad? If we don’t hurry, we won’t catch the transport before it arrives at the outpost and then I’ll never be able to break him out.”
More silence.
“These mission parameters you inputted are extremely vague—”
Holo clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle her screech of joy. “You’ll help?”
“—and could you really not come up with a better mission designator than ‘Operation Dad Liberation’? It ruins our operational security.”
“Oh, it’ll be fine, Mr. Grumpypants. You won’t be filing any official logs anyway. So, we’re gonna do this?”
As if in answer, the command helmet’s HUD lit up and the exterior feeds appeared alongside scrolling status reports from the various tank systems.
“I will carry out my mission,” Nigel said, sounding as stiff as an AI could be, “which, by the way, will not involve putting you in danger, so don’t even think about trying anything stupid. Tank commander training requires hours of intensive simulation exercises. It cannot be learned from a pile of dusty manuals. So keep your sticky fingers to yourself and let me do the driving.”
“Sounds good to me,” Holo said, getting comfortable in the command seat, its memory pads molded over long use to her father’s larger frame. “As long as I get my dad back, I don’t care.”
“Yes . . . we will discuss that if we manage to leave this facility in one piece. You may have given me orders to exit the hangar, but the security system will not be so complacent about letting an unauthorized T52-Maggert tank exit its area of responsibility.”
Holo smirked and produced Larry’s purloined governor circuit with a flourish. “That’s why you won’t be a tank. You’ll be an innocent little food dispenser bot, going on a stroll.”
“I cannot believe I agreed to this,” Nigel stated in as gloomy a tone as it could manage.
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun,” Holo chirped, and got to work.
The Waste was vast, filling up the miles of dead land between islands of artificial and mechanized life that humanity had fought tooth and nail to keep running. After the war destroyed eighty percent of life on Earth, those who remained had to carve out a new reality for themselves in the permanently changed landscape. At least, that’s what the educational holographs said. But it’d happened so long ago most people didn’t even care—well, except her mom. That was probably why they’d put Mrs. Steele in charge of record preservation. Growing up, Holo had watched more holographs than most kids even knew existed. Her mom had even given her a nickname, Holo Girl, because she was so obsessed with learning new things.
That had all ended when her mom had died and her dad had gotten reassigned to perimeter duty. The systems were older and technology clunkier than in the city interior, where the important people lived. To be fair, conditions were a lot harsher at the perimeter, with residual radiation and all the Waste’s crazy weather blasting corrosive materials against the perimeter defenses. Maybe that’s why there’d been a storage unit full of paper manuals at their facility, because paper didn’t glitch out the way holograph players did when their components got corroded.
Whatever the reason, Holo had been happy to take what she could get.
Being on the perimeter had other benefits too. Instead of a dozen inner-city checkpoints to get past, all they had to do was convince the hangar security system to let them out, then roll across the deserted assembly yard to the massive walls surrounding the city. Their access gate, much smaller than the massive entry points for merchant convoys elsewhere, was built to keep things out, not in. Nobody in their right mind went outside the city unless they were in heavily fortified convoys. There was nothing out there but the skeletal bones of civilization and roving bands of bloodthirsty raiders. So, the security system was unfazed by a food dispenser requesting to be let out. A patrolman might have questioned it, but Holo knew the facility from top to bottom, including the patrolmen’s routes and schedules. The howling wind whipping up massive clouds of dust over everything helped too.
Just to be safe, they ditched the bot’s governor circuit as soon as they were out of sight of the city walls. Using the tank’s infrared optics and hover-capable grav-lift system, Nigel was able to maneuver across the broken terrain while Holo pored over every map they had of the area.
“So, there’s no working track direct from New Terminus to the outpost?” she asked.
“No. The old east-west track was destroyed when the Red Rift opened up along the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The surviving track goes southwest to the Columbus nexus, then northwest to the mines and the penal outpost.”
“Okay. Since you’re better at math, what’s the average speed of an old smoke train, and can we beat it if we cut straight west?”
“Distance from New Terminus directly to the outpost is approximately one hundred and fifty miles, while the penal transport will have to travel over two hundred and fifty miles, with one stop to refuel and change tracks. Average speed—”
“Okay, okay, this isn’t math class, Nigel, geez. Can you just tell me?”
“Yes, we can ‘beat’ it—”
“Whew, that’s a relief—”
“—if I do not experience any malfunctions, we do not encounter any obstacles, and we do not slow for any reason, including fighting our way past the raider-controlled bridge over the Red Rift.”
Nigel highlighted the location in Holo’s helmet display.
“Uhhh, okay? We can do that, too, right? You blow them to kingdom come and I’ll flip them the bird as we sail past?”
“You do remember from your ‘manuals’ that my railgun cannot be operated while the grav lift is engaged, correct? I do not have the energy capacity to run both simultaneously, therefore I must switch to quadruped mode to remain mobile while firing my railgun.”
“Errr . . . ”
“Depending on what kind of blockade the raiders have in place, I may be able to ram it, assuming it is sufficiently softened with grenade fire beforehand. There is also my Gatling gun for direct engagement, if necessary.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
“But you will have to operate them.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you removed my governor circuit that controls all automated access to my firing systems.”
“Aw, crap,” Holo groaned. “I forgot about that.” She yanked the helmet off, grabbed a few tools from the maintenance compartment behind the command seat, and scrunched herself into the space behind the command console.
“I hope your manuals covered my weapons systems,” Nigel said, switching to the cockpit speakers, “because without my governor circuit—”
“Nah, nah, I cah fiss dis,” Holo said around the penlight between her teeth. After a bit more poking around, she hauled herself out and back into the command seat. “All I have to do is find the right adaptor to connect the two circuit ends and voilà! That will reconnect your automated access lines.”
“And you have such an adaptor with you?”
“Well, no. But I bet there’s one around here somewhere.” She glared around the cockpit, one eye squinted and mouth scrunched to the side as she mentally shifted through dozens of systems manuals and tried to remember what nonessential piece of equipment might have the part she needed.
“You have approximately thirty minutes to find out, then I will need to give you a briefing to ensure you have the working knowledge to fire my weapons without killing yourself. If you are injured in any way, Captain Steele will—”
“Rip out your innards and leave you to the salvage crews?”
“Most likely.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll fix it.”
She did not, in fact, fix it.
“Ugh, I’m so close, Nigel! Just a few more minutes?”
“You have been stating that for ten minutes, Miss Steele. We are approximately fifteen minutes out from the Red Rift, and if you do not get your head out from behind my console and man my weapons, I might as well drive us directly into the rift. It would be a quicker death than what the raiders will do to us.”
“Okay, okay, fine.”
Holo stored her tools and the latest adaptor she’d been testing. Who knew there would be so many different kinds? But she was close, she was sure of it. She knew what to look for now.
Nigel’s weapon systems, on the other hand . . .
She glanced nervously at the controls that folded up out of the console at Nigel’s command.
“Are you sure about this? I know how this stuff works on paper, but I’ve never shot a weapon before. Will they be shooting back? What if I . . . I mean, what if I . . . k-kill someone?”
“Miss Steele, you hijacked a combat vehicle capable of firing rounds over three thousand kilometers per second that will shred anything in its path for miles. What did you expect?”
“I—I guess I didn’t. Expect anything, I mean. I just . . . acted.” She sniffed and rubbed her nose with the back of a grimy hand. “What else was I supposed to do? He’s my dad . . . ”
She fell silent, staring at her hands, and for a moment only the hum of the grav generator below and the howl of the wind outside was audible.
“Unfortunately, I do not have the proper software to answer existential questions. However, you may have guessed that Captain Steele does not conduct the monthly wipe and reset of my adaptive memory that maintenance protocol requires—”
“Ah-ha! So that’s why you have a sense of humor.”
“—therefore I can tell you from long observation that survival requires hard choices, and your father would be proud of you for being reluctant to make this one.”
“Wh-what?” Holo said, head coming up.
“I have been assigned to your father for many years. He speaks of you frequently.”
“He does?”
“Very frequently.”
“Wow . . . ”
“Too frequently.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. I get it.”
“The question remains: Do you wish to rescue Captain Steele?”
Holo’s expression hardened and she clenched her hands in her lap. “Yes.”
“Then put your hands on the controls and pay attention.”
Nobody knew what had caused the Red Rift, only that it had formed about at the same time as the war. There were stories of a weaponized seismic device, though others blamed the nuclear explosions. To Holo, it was simply one more hazard in a world that had been turned on its head, then hit with a few hundred megatons of explosives, just for kicks and giggles.
Holo had never set foot outside New Terminus, but she had watched every bit of footage on the Waste that she could find. So, she knew the story of the miles-long crack in the earth and the long-ago effort to bridge it, followed by the inevitable fighting over who controlled it. After it fell into raider hands during a particularly violent period of unrest, its structural integrity was thrown into doubt. Calls to recapture it withered and died as New Terminus’ resources were shifted to securing the old rail lines instead. And so it sat, fought over by various raider groups and changing hands every couple of years. Nigel had no data on its condition, they only had the desperate hope that, if raiders were fighting over it, it was still passable.
“Eyes on the target, Miss Steele. And remember what I told you about rate of fire.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Holo muttered behind her command helmet visor. It was possible to monitor everything using HUDs on the main command console, but Nigel had decided the command helmet would work better for her because he could control what it showed and she was less likely to be distracted in a critical moment by superfluous readouts.
“You have checked that your safety harness is secure?” Nigel asked.
“Yes, Mom. It’s as secure as it was the last three times you asked.”
“You are not used to combat situations, Miss Steele. I am merely taking extra precautions to ensure all safety protocols are being followed. If you are injured, your father will—”
“Drop you in a vat of burning acid?”
“If he could acquire such a thing, I do not doubt he would attempt it.”
“Well, it’s secure, so you can stop worrying.”
“I am not worrying, I am performing redundant safety checks.”
“Redundant being the key word here,” Holo muttered, eyes glued to her visor display.
Despite the harsh wind and low visibility, Holo still wished she could pop the hatch and look at the giant, black slash in the earth that they were approaching. There were no trees or structures to block the view, just dead earth, then blackness. The filtered and reconstructed infrared view in her visor didn’t do it justice by far, even if it was much more useful in identifying signs of life.
They had little intel and few expectations about the raiders’ defenses. What little information New Terminus maintained suggested there was an encampment on each side of the rift, though the encampments were constantly destroyed and rebuilt. So the good news was, whatever barriers the raiders might have erected should be easily destroyed by something as hefty as a T52-Maggert. The bad news was that the raiders were probably alert for attack, expecting it to come from rival groups.
Their only hope, then, lay in the element of surprise. If they stopped or got bogged down, they’d be swarmed by raiders. Fortunately, the darkness and wind effectively made them invisible. Even if their lookouts had stolen infrared optics, Nigel’s infrared signature was shielded by its adaptive armor, so hopefully no one would spot them until the grenades started dropping. Nigel was confident they could take the near side by surprise and get onto the bridge. The problem would be with whatever lay on the other side, and how quickly the raiders could mobilize.
Holo resisted the urge to fidget as the distance to target counted down and shapes became visibly clustered around the black gash in the distance.
“I count three road barriers erected prior to the bridge. None of them appear to be permanent structures, simply burned-out vehicles piled with debris. The bridge itself is secured with a locked gate. Unfortunately, I do detect several guards at each barrier as well as several patrolling the gate.”
Holo swore.
“Language, young lady. Captain Steele would not approve.”
“He can disapprove all he wants, as long as he’s alive,” she shot back, gut twisting itself in knots as she tried to steady her hands.
“Select the three barriers as targets and prepare to fire, Miss Steele. Your targeting system will do the aiming, but the timing is up to you. Wait for my mark.”
The T52-Maggert sped through the darkness at nearly sixty miles per hour, though Nigel would slow to about forty to actually ram the barriers. Holo’s job was simply to press a button when Nigel told her, releasing each barrage of grenades to break up the barriers and trip any booby-traps.
Despite her coveralls being tied around her waist and the tank’s cooling unit being turned up, she still felt sticky with nervous sweat.
“Prepare to launch the first barrage in ten, nine, eight . . . ”
As Nigel counted down, Holo’s fingers tightened on the weapons array, her eyes fixed on the gray shape of the first barrier in her sights. She tried not to think about the two bright orange figures on either side of it, huddled down at their guard posts.
“Fire.”
Holo squeezed her trigger finger, and the night erupted in noise and fire.
“Second barrier targeted, prepare to fire.”
She couldn’t see anything even though the optics system did its best to filter out the raging static of heat from the blast. Fortunately, the targeting system already had the locations of the other two barriers locked in.
“Fire.”
The tank vibrated this time from the blast’s concussion, and a second later it jerked and shuddered as it made it through the first barrier with a screech of protesting metal.
“Third barrier targeted. Fire.”
Seconds after the third round of grenades exploded and the teeth-rattling whump of it had washed over her, she noticed an arrhythmic ping-ping-ping.
“Uh, what is that, Nigel?”
“We are under fire. Brace yourself, we’re approaching the gate.”
Holo just had time to tense before the view of the metal gate filled her visor and a screeching crash vibrated through her ears and bones.
They were through.
Darkness surrounded them on every side as the guideposts of the bridge whipped past one by one. Holo had a brief vision of herself hanging out Nigel’s hatch, staring down into the abyss. Then Nigel’s voice brought her back.
“Ready for rapid targeting and fire, Miss Steele. You will have seconds to clear the barriers once we ram the second gate on the far side of the bridge.”
Holo swallowed, wiped her sweaty hands on her coveralls, and got ready. The ping-ping-ping of small-arms fire continued erratically, and she hoped her dad wouldn’t strangle her for getting his beloved tank all marked up. She prayed that was the worst damage they got.
Almost immediately, her prayer was rejected.
“We’re on their own godforsaken bridge! Why are they lobbing grenades at us?!”
“Raiders are not known for their intelligence, Miss Steele. Perhaps the opposite side is controlled by a faction less concerned with the integrity of the bridge.”
The whole tank lurched as something exploded behind them, and Holo got the feeling they wouldn’t be traveling back the same way they had come.
Then the far gate was in front of them and Holo barely had time to refocus before Nigel was giving rapid commands that she did her best to follow. She was pretty sure her grenades missed the barriers this time, because there were significantly larger lurches each time Nigel rammed one of them. But then they were through and the smoke and fire, screams, and rattle of old-style machine guns were behind them.
That is, at least, until a high-pitched whistling zipped overhead and an explosion in front of them made Nigel veer wildly off course.
“Grenade bolas,” the AI said calmly while Holo’s brain did a few incoherently screaming laps around her skull.
Another went whistling past and Holo switched to the rear view to see two ancient trucks roaring after them, their beds filled with angry raiders waving various weapons in their direction.
“Ooops.”
“Do not be alarmed, Miss Steele. We will soon outpace them and draw out of range. In the meantime, switch to the Gatling gun controls and target the lead truck.”
Holo’s hands shook with adrenaline as she tried to remember the correct buttons and commands, but soon she had her targeting reticle up and locked. She hesitated, sure she could see faces on the glowing orange-and-red figures clinging to the trucks as they swerved and bumped after them.
Then she thought of her father, and pulled the trigger.
The rapid rat-tat-tat-tat of the Gatling gun filled her ears while the heat signature of the bullets left little streaks and explosions of color where they impacted. The trucks behind them started swerving in response, and Holo couldn’t tell if she was actually hitting anything. Suddenly, the lead vehicle jerked violently to one side and hit some sort of obstacle that sent it spinning off into the darkness.
“Well done, Miss Steele.”
The whistling of another bola grew louder and then an ominous thump-clunk sounded just behind the exterior hatch.
“What was that, Nigel?”
“It appears that an unexploded grenade bola has wrapped around my antenna array.”
“What?” Holo yanked off her helmet and slapped the release for her safety restraint.
“Miss Steele, return to your seat this instant. We will not be harmed if it detonates.”
“But your antenna will be disabled and we’ll never rescue my dad!” Holo yelled as she scrambled out of the command chair, heading for the hatch.
“Do not open that hatch. It is most likely a dud and poses no danger. You could be hit by a stray bullet. Miss Steele—”
Holo was sure Nigel regretted the limited range of his voice modulator, because if the AI could have been screaming at her, it would have been.
She didn’t have time to care.
In seconds she had the hatch open and was hanging halfway out, fingers tugging at the greasy chain wrapped around the tank’s antenna array while dust, sand, and bullets whipped past. She could barely see, but her fingers told her the bola was only loosely caught on the array. If she could just—
A shot whizzed past her ear and another dinged off the tank’s hull inches from her hand. Then the chain slid free beneath her grip and slithered off the smooth curve of the tank’s hull. She dropped back down into the compartment, yanking the hatch closed after her. An explosion sounded behind them, but Holo was too busy coughing on dust and trying to rub sand out of her eyes to care.
“It is fortunate for you that tanks are incapable of heart attacks, young lady. Now get your posterior back in the command seat where it belongs. If this is what your father has to deal with every day . . . ” the AI trailed off in a mutter.
Holo managed a few chuckles between coughs. “Nah . . . he’s not around . . . enough to . . . worry about it.”
“Well, then let us ensure he will be in the future. It seems your clinically insane and death-defying stunt has paid off. That grenade bola disabled the second truck, and we are now in the clear. Congratulations, Miss Steele. You have survived your first combat engagement. Captain Steele would be proud. Or horrified. I am unsure which.”
Holo grabbed her water canister, then collapsed into the command chair, limbs shaking and eyes burning. She took a swig of water.
“Remind me to put on goggles next time,” she croaked.
“There will be no next time.”
Holo grinned. “Says you.”
“I am confident Captain Steele will be in agreement.”
“You’re no fun.”
“You can have fun after we retrieve Captain Steele and you are safely—and permanently—exiled from my unit.”
“Awww, and here I thought you were starting to like me.”
“Like a parasite.”
“Now that’s just insulting.”
“Focus, Miss Steele, if you please. You still have my circuit to repair, and I must evaluate the damage and log an after-action report for Captain Steele.”
“What? You’re not going to tell him about me hanging out the hatch, are you? Because I deserve a medal for that, not a write-up.”
“My after-action reports are thorough and precise.”
Holo slapped her hands over her face and groaned. “He’s going to kill me.”
Nigel parked himself behind a pile of rubble several hundred yards from the railway. They were about thirty minutes ahead of the penal transport, and the outline of Hell’s Gate Penal Outpost was visible in the distance via Nigel’s infrared optics. The outpost was built to house the worst “criminals” of New Terminus, which conveniently included political opponents, social outcasts, and other undesirables that the ruling class of the city state wanted to disappear. The inmates were free labor for the Hell’s Gate mine, the only significant source of iron ore on the entire continent outside the Great Lakes Conglomerate. Luckily for New Terminus, they were the only city-state close enough to exert control over the mine. The next closest, New Alamo, was too busy protecting its own resources to bother.
Its protections included a large perimeter wall with automated defenses and a gated checkpoint where the rail line entered, then another wall around the outpost itself. Since the rail line was the only reliable means of travel and supply for the outpost, the train itself was heavily outfitted with autocannons and protected by security bots that didn’t mind the residual radiation of the Waste.
This was both good and bad, in Holo’s opinion. Good, because she hated the thought of hurting any more people, and the guards would most certainly object to her breaking out one of their prisoners. Bad, because security bots were destructive in the extreme. She’d seen holographs of what they could do to desperate and foolhardy raiders.
“This plan is untenable. You have no sidearm and your father’s combat harness armor is not adequate protection against security bots.”
“I know, Nigel, but what choice do I have? Sure, you could blow up the tracks and stop the train, maybe even take out any bots that come after you. But we can’t shoot the train and risk Dad getting hurt. Besides, he’ll be in restraints. Unless I sneak on while you’re creating a diversion, there’s no way to get him out of there.”
“Then we will find another way.”
“There is no other way! Come on, we’ve been arguing about this since we crossed the Red Rift and you haven’t come up with anything better.”
“Captain Steele would never allow me to put you in danger—”
“Yes, yes, I know, you’ve said that a hundred times. But it doesn’t matter—I don’t matter, okay! N-not without him. He’s all I have left, Nigel.”
“You do matter, Miss Steele. You matter more to Captain Steele than anything else in the world, even his own life.”
“That’s a load of crap,” Holo bit out. Her eyes were burning and she wished there was somewhere she could stomp off to. Somewhere to hide. But there wasn’t, so she folded her arms across her chest and tucked her chin down so she didn’t have to look at Nigel’s displays. “He cares more about you and his career than he does about me. Ever since Mom died he hardly ever comes home. Even when he is home, he barely talks to me. He only smiles when he’s around you, doing maintenance. Why do you think I was always sneaking on board? He’s all I have left, and if I can’t save him then I don’t want to be left alone again. I . . . I can’t take that.”
“I see . . . While I am not equipped to analyze human mental or emotional states, I do know that Captain Steele regularly tells me how much he loves you.”
Holo lifted her head and sniffed. “H-he does?”
“He has also stated that, the older you get, the more you look like your mother. One might conclude from this statement, combined with your description of his avoidant behavior, that the sight of you brings back painful memories. Perhaps he has not been the ideal parent. But if there is one thing I have ample evidence of, it is his love for you.”
“Wh-what do you mean, ‘evidence’?”
“Before every mission, Captain Steele records a short message for you, in case he does not return. He never deletes these messages and I believe they are the reason he avoids performing the required monthly memory wipe. I can play his most recent one for you, if you wish.”
Holo nodded mutely, then watched, wide-eyed, as her father’s face appeared in front of her on the command console’s main display. The sight of his square jaw, slightly crooked nose, and warm brown eyes made her tear up all over again.
“Hi, sweetie. I . . . ” He paused, grimaced, and ran a hand over his buzz cut. “I don’t have much time. There’s so much I want to say, but . . . Well, I love you is the most important, so I’ll say that first. I love you so much. And I’m sorry I haven’t spent more time with you. I know I missed dinner again last night, but I had to have a . . . a talk with Captain Roffman. I’m really worried about him. I think he’s mixed up in some bad stuff, but we’ve worked together for years and I’m just not ready to abandon him, so I . . . ” Another pause and massive sigh. “Well, maybe it was foolish but I confronted him and now I’m not sure where we stand. He seemed receptive, but . . . I just don’t know. That’s why I didn’t come home last night. I know it doesn’t make up for all the times I’ve been away, but I promise as soon as our protective detail is over, the first thing I’ll do is take you out for noodles, okay? Remember how much we used to love doing that with . . . with Mom?” The captain choked up and looked away from the camera. When he looked back, his eyes were glistening. “I love you, Holo Girl, and I’ll see you soon.”
There was a long silence after the image of Captain Steele disappeared.
“Miss Steele?”
“I-I’m fine, Nigel.”
“The state of your face would suggest otherwise, at least by human standards.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“So, you see, your father does care, and that is why—”
“Wait!”
“—yes?”
“What’s going on with Captain Roffman? He’s that tall blond guy I see Dad with sometimes, right?”
“Yes, he is the leader of Captain Steele’s squad.”
“What is Roffman mixed up in? Surely you know, right?”
“I am sorry, Miss Steele, but Captain Steele never spoke of it within my sensor range.”
“Okay, but what if . . . He said he confronted Roffman about something, and the next day he’s accused of treason and rushed through an emergency trial? If that doesn’t stink I don’t know what does. What was Dad’s mission? What happened that day?”
“He was assigned escort duty to the trade delegation from the Great Lakes Conglomerate. His squad was ordered to exit the city and meet the convoy at the border of our area of control, then accompany them into the city.”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“ . . . Apologies, Miss Steele, but I seem to have encountered an error.”
Holo leaned forward, desperation building in her chest. “What do you mean, ‘an error’?”
“I mean my logs of that particular day have been wiped. I cannot access them.”
The teen’s eyes narrowed. “Can’t access them, huh? Not if I have anything to do about it.” She scrubbed her eyes with the back of a hand, dried it on her coveralls, then brought up the command console input and got to work. If there was one thing she’d learned in all those dusty manuals, it was that data was never as gone as you wanted it to be. Whoever had mucked about in Nigel’s logs had erased roughly half a day, from the start of her father’s mission to when the unit was returned to the hangar. What they’d failed to realize was that deleting data did not remove it from the hard drive, it only removed the point of access. Data wasn’t gone until it was overwritten. So, all she had to do was run a re-indexing protocol to find and reestablish access to the data.
“Done!” Holo threw her hands in the air, grinning like a maniac. She tasted hope, and it was sweet. “Take a look now. Time’s ticking, so can you just review the logs super-duper fast and tell me what happened?”
“I have already done so while you were speaking, Miss Steele. It appears your father witnessed an assassination attempt on the visiting delegates and was accused of perpetrating the attack.”
“Whaaat? That’s insane! He didn’t do it, right?”
“Certainly not. I did not fire a single shot. But the unit next to me did.”
Holo gasped, eyes widening. “Roffman! It was Roffman, wasn’t it?”
“My external optics and sensors have irrefutable data that his unit was the one who fired the shot.”
“No wonder Roffman had you shut down and wiped your logs. I’m gonna get that piece of slime,” Holo growled.
“Might I remind you that you still do not have a sidearm? You will not be ‘getting’ anyone. Besides, we have all the evidence we need to exonerate your father. We can simply present the data to the outpost warden and—”
“Are you kidding me? He won’t listen to us. We have to break my dad out before they put him in that hellhole, then we can worry about uncovering Roffman’s conspiracy. And I don’t need a sidearm. A good-sized spanner to the balls will ‘get’ anyone, no matter how big of a gun they have.”
“Slow down, young lady. You will defeat no one with a piece of maintenance equipment. We have very little time, so here is what we are going to do . . . ”
As Nigel began to explain, he was already moving toward the train tracks at top speed, racing to reach the automated checkpoint before the prison transport came within sight.
The AI’s plan wasn’t as exciting as blowing up train tracks or shooting security bots with a railgun, but it had a much higher probability of getting all three of them out alive, so Holo agreed to it.
They reached the checkpoint with barely fifteen minutes to spare and got right to work.
Though Captain Steele had been stripped of his security clearances, no one had bothered downgrading his unit’s access because, of course, units did not act independently of their commanders. Thus, the checkpoint’s automated security system didn’t bat an eye at the query to access its command hub by one of New Terminus’ official patrol units. Patrols didn’t usually range so far out, but New Terminus had good reason to want all equipment connected to the penal outpost accessible by its own security units.
What Holo had to do next, though, required physical access. So, outfitted in her dad’s too-large combat gear and command helmet, she scrambled out of her tank’s hatch. Nigel had parked by the checkpoint station, and she popped up the ladder to the command hub’s door. The security system obligingly let her in, and it was the work of moments to plug her command helmet into its hub’s network using a standard adaptor cable from her dad’s maintenance kit.
Once the helmet was plugged in, Nigel had access to the entire system.
Holo watched over Nigel’s virtual shoulder as they checked the penal transport manifest and noted her dad’s location on the transport. She gasped in surprise and pointed out another familiar name to Nigel, and they upgraded their plan accordingly. Then Nigel added a routine inspection to the transport’s schedule, using the security system’s authorization code. Finally, Nigel hopped onto the station’s long-distance antenna to connect to New Terminus’ record system, since the tank’s own signal wasn’t strong enough to make it through the clouds of dust and sand.
The funny thing about virtual systems was that there were always bits and pieces of programming that survived the updates and redesigns. Holo was able to use a command backdoor from one of her manuals, a backdoor that had been lost and forgotten in the chaos of humanity’s scramble to preserve as much of the prewar system as possible. Soon she had Nigel in the city-state’s penal records. He updated the necessary files while she covered his tracks in the system logs. She barely had time to back out of the system, unplug her helmet, and get into place on the inspection platform before the penal transport came into sight. The platform stood a few dozen yards from the massive armored and spiked gate blocking the tracks. It wouldn’t open until the inspection was complete and logged with the automated security system.
Sweat was gathering on her forehead and, well, everywhere else as Holo stood on the platform, trying not to shiver with nerves.
“Stand up straight, Miss Steele,” said Nigel’s voice in her helmet. The tank’s optics could see her clearly from where it was parked, grav lift shut down and quadrapeds deployed, just in case the rail gun was needed. “You look like a whipped dog, cowering like that, and are making me reconsider the wisdom of allowing you outside my hull. You must at least try to appear competent and in charge, otherwise you will be shot and I will be melted into scrap.”
“Hey! You try standing up here in the wind and the dark with only a blacked-out helmet visor between you and discovery, followed by certain death. I’m a janitor, not a soldier.”
“Well, you are the smartest, bravest, most resourceful janitor I have ever met.”
“Did you just compliment me? Who are you and what have you done with Nigel?”
“Apologies, Miss Steele. I was attempting to use Captain Steele’s past words to bolster your resolve.”
“Oh . . . does my dad really say those things about me?”
But Nigel didn’t answer because the penal transport was completing its approach, its front lights blinding as it slowed and finally halted with its lead car in front of the platform. The train consisted of only the engine and three cars: security, prisoner transport, and supply storage in the rear. The entire transport was heavily reinforced with armor plating and the top and sides bristled with weaponry.
At her entry query, the door to the lead car opened and she hurried in before she could second-guess herself. Their plan would work, or it wouldn’t. Either way, she had to try.
Inside, the car was sparse and utilitarian, with a central console housing the command hub and power capsules for the security system, a rack of weapons and security supplies on the far wall, and a row of fold-down seats for guards and civilian passengers along the wall to her right. The seats were empty but for one disturbingly familiar man in a similar combat suit to hers. He rose as she entered, a confused scowl on his face, but she ignored him, turning instead to the security bot standing at attention by the door. It demanded her credentials and authorization in the flat, mechanical tone ubiquitous to security bots, while a second and third bot looked on from their post on either side of the door to the train engine. Half a dozen more bots stood at attention in front of the weapons rack, silent and immobile until something triggered their mission parameters of guarding the train and its cargo.
“There’s been a change in manifest orders,” she said gruffly to the bot, pitching her voice as low as she could. “Send an update request and check it against your current roster.” She didn’t expect the bot to obey her, but all she had to do was delay long enough for her tank’s AI to connect wirelessly to the bot’s AI and push the universal update command that forced any unit to do a scan for soft updates to its system. Any moment, now, it would start an information download, and then—
“Hey, who are you and what are you doing?” said an angry voice behind her. “There was no inspection stop scheduled for this transport. This is a special prisoner delivery with orders to report directly to the warden.”
Holo didn’t reply. It was all she could do not to bounce on the balls of her feet as nervous adrenaline coursed through her body.
Come on...come on...
“Command received, update commencing.” Nigel’s voice in her ear sent a shock of sweet relief through her, but they weren’t in the clear yet.
“Hey! I’m talking to you, soldier! What is your designation? Who do you report to?” The angry words got closer accompanied by the stomp of boots.
“Download, fifty precent complete,” Nigel said.
Holo tightened her grip, muscles tense and at the ready.
A large hand gripped her shoulder and spun her around, and she came face-to-face with Captain Roffman.
“Download, seventy-five percent complete.”
The man’s brow furrowed as he took in her blacked-out visor and ill-fitting uniform, then his eyes dropped to her shoulder, and they widened in alarm.
Oops. She’d forgotten to cover her dad’s name patch.
“This is for my dad, you slimeball,” Holo hissed, acting before Roffman could draw his sidearm. She swung the large spanner she’d been hiding against her baggy pants up toward his groin with as much righteous fury as she could manage. It connected with a satisfying thud, and Holo grinned inside her helmet as Captain Roffman’s eyes rolled up in the back of his head and he slowly keeled to the side, crumpling with a groan.
“Download complete,” Nigel informed her.
“Freeze, detainee,” intoned the security bot rather unnecessarily as it honed in on the man whose biometric information had just replaced her dad’s in the bot’s prisoner profile. “Do not attempt escape, or you will be fired upon.”
Holo shuffled hastily out of the bot’s way, but couldn’t resist a parting whisper-shout to the unfortunate Roffman on the ground. “That’s what you get for being stupid enough to personally deliver the guy you framed.”
She watched with silent glee as the bot mechanically flipped the groaning captain over, cuffed his hands behind his back, and hauled him to his feet. Of course, Roffman’s legs weren’t exactly working, so the bot ended up dragging its captive down the length of the car, heading for the prisoner transport. Holo followed silently, almost tiptoeing as she tried to make herself as small and innocent-looking as possible. The other bots ignored her, since her presence fell outside their mission parameters, and unless she did something aggressive or against regulation to catch the first bot’s attention, it wouldn’t mind little ol’ her . . .
Heart in her throat, Holo followed the bot to the next compartment. She nearly sobbed in relief to see her father, clad in convict gray, slumped over in his seat with head drooping and hands manacled behind him to a solid steel bar. At their entrance, his head came up and his bleary eyes focused on them. They widened, but Holo frantically shook her head in warning, hoping her dad wouldn’t say anything. Two more bots stood on either side of the lone prisoner, and they angled their heads toward the entering bot, probably communicating on their own private channel.
“Citizen Steele, you are free to go,” said the bot holding a limp Roffman. “Please exit the transport immediately.” It triggered the release of her dad’s cuffs and barely gave him enough time to scramble out of the seat before hauling the still-groaning Roffman into it and manacling him in place. The door to the car slid open, presumably at the bot’s command, and Holo scrambled to her dad’s side, helping him up and to the car door before the bot changed its mind. It was a good six feet to the dusty ground outside, but Holo didn’t care. She couldn’t scramble out fast enough. Before she knew it both her and her dad were lying in the dirt with the transport’s door closing above them.
“Holo? What? How?”
“Not now, Dad! Let’s get out of here!”
She hauled him to his feet and they made a dash for Nigel’s protective hull as metal groaned and the railway security gate over the tracks slowly started to open.
The moment Holo pulled the hatch shut behind her, Nigel engaged its grav lift and they were on the move.
“Nigel, what in the nine circles of hell is going on?” Captain Steele demanded as he braced himself against the tank’s swaying movement.
“Apologies, Captain Steele. I was hijacked.”
“You were what?”
“Don’t yell at Nigel, Dad. I kidnapped him and forced him to go along.”
“Kidnapped? Nigel, full status report, now!”
“Ah, yes, about that, Captain Steele. Unfortunately, my tank commander would need to authorize that order for me to comply.”
“Oh, yeah, and I made myself his tank commander.”
“You what?”
“And the raider damage is totally not my fault. It was Nigel’s idea to ram through their barricades.”
“Raiders?!”
“Calm down, Dad. I’m safe, you’re safe, we’re all safe. Let’s just get you back to New Terminus and clear your name, and then you can yell at me all you want, okay?”
The captain’s head swiveled back and forth as he glared at Holo and his tank’s command console in turn.
“If it makes you feel any better, Captain Steele, Miss Steele has just successfully completed her first combat mission, designated Operation Dad Liberation. I have graded her performance along standard evaluation parameters and her average score falls within a qualified rating. In fact, she scored higher on initiative and ingenuity under fire than you did in your last evaluation.”
For a moment there was only silence.
Then Captain Steele started laughing. His disbelieving barks quickly intensified until he was laughing so hard he had to grab the edge of the command chair for support—which was about when his hiccuping sobs started. Before Holo knew what was happening, her dad had wrapped a strong arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a desperate hug as he laughed and sobbed over her. It wasn’t long before she was laughing and crying, too, face pressed against his chest and both arms clutching him like she would never let go.
And maybe, this time, she wouldn’t. After all, she was the tank commander, now.
“Come on, Nigel. Let’s go home,” she said, her words muffled against her dad’s gray coveralls.
“With pleasure, Tank Commander.”
“I’m never going to live this down, am I?” asked Captain Steele, his voice thick with emotion.
“—nope.”
“—I am afraid not, sir.”
“Well, as long as I have my Holo Girl to hold it over my head, then I don’t care.”
“Good, because I plan to guilt-trip you with it until you’re old and wrinkly. Just think how many noodle dinners I’ll get out of this!”
Captain Steele groaned, but there was a smile on his face and joy in his eyes as he did.