The mission was supposed to be a routine cleanup operation, to wipe out a nest of rogue self-replicating robots, which was why the team leader with years of combat experience was only along as a liaison with the native population. Anyway, these robot infestations always followed the same game plan, making them easy to obliterate—except that this time nobody had told the killer robots about that part.
Heuristic Algorithm
and Reasoning Response Engine
Ethan Skarstedt & Brandon Sanderson
A lone dropship passed across the face of Milacria’s gibbous bulk, a pinhead orbiting a beachball. From its launch portals streamed a hundred black motes—each one a mechanized infantry unit clinging tightly to the underside of its air support craft, whose broad armored back served as a heatshield. They torched down through the hazy cloud-speckled atmosphere in precise formation, trailing thick ropes of smoke and steam, a forest of uncertain fingers pointing back up to the ship, the MarsFree.
Within his mech’s cockpit on the western edge of the formation, Karith Marvudi hunkered in a loose cocoon of straps. He caught himself watching the grip indicators. If those failed, his mech would come unhooked from the underside of Nicolette’s airship. He’d burn in from too high and Nicolette’s agile but flimsy airship—deprived of the thickly armored protection of his five-meter-tall mech—would tear apart and burn up in the atmosphere.
He stretched, spread-eagled, suspended by the feedback straps. His fingers and toes just brushed the edges of his movement space within the torso cavity. Perfect. The faint scent of his own body, mingled with that of plastic, electronics, and faux leather, swirled in the canned air.
He was surprised at the trepidation he felt. He felt a certain amount of fear every time he dropped, but this time was different. This was like . . . No, not as bad as his first drop. Maybe his fifth or sixth. He hadn’t felt this jittery in more than two hundred planetfalls.
He wondered if Nicolette felt the same way.
He pushed at the fear, shoving it down where it could be ignored. It pushed back. Maragette’s face flashed into his mind, smiling next to the squinting white bundle they’d named Karri, after her grandmother.
“You about ready to shunt some of that heat up to me, Karith?” Nicolette’s voice was as buttery as ever, not a hint of tension.
“Maybe if you ask me politely.” Karith overrode the mic on the common circuit. “Harry, we about full?”
The baritone voice of his mech’s AI filled the cabin. “Ninety-three point seven percent, sir. Shall I route fifty percent of the sink product to Captain Shepard’s power banks?”
“Make it seventy-five; Nic needs it. Show me what it looks like out there: focus on the D-Z.”
Nic’s voice came again from the cockpit speakers. “Politely? Oh, it’s manners you want now, is it? We’ll see how you like it when all my lasers can deal out is a bit of a sunburn. I—Ah, there we are.” She had seen the power surging into her ship. Her voice changed to a purr. “Karith, you shouldn’t have.”
Karith let out a loud patient sigh over the mic. She giggled.
HARRE said on the private circuit, “Is Captain Shepard displeased, sir?”
“Nope. That’s sarcasm, Harry.”
“Noted. I must point out, sir, doctrine states that the mechanized infantry unit in an entry pair has priority on power collection.”
“It does say that, doesn’t it.” Karith frowned at the 3D representation of the area around his drop zone that HARRE was feeding into his HUD.
Nicolette’s voice slipped into the cockpit again. “I can’t believe I let you and Maragette talk me into transferring out of RGK with you. I’m about ready to fall asleep up here with no anti-air fire.”
HARRE spoke, his deep voice mechanically precise. “Captain Shepard, had the Self-Replicating Machine Infestation evolved to a stage with anti-aircraft weaponry on this planet, your former comrades in the Recon Group Kinetique would have been inserted, not a line infantry unit with you for advisors.”
Silence filled the circuits for a moment, until Karith chuckled. “That’s right, HARRE, Captain Shepard has obviously forgotten . . .”
“Well, well, don’t we have a fine grasp of the obvious,” Nicolette interrupted, voice dripping honeyed acid. “I don’t remember him talking this much, Karith. You screw up his settings?”
“No. He lost a lot in the reset.”
“Hmmph. I suppose I owe him some slack since he was wounded.”
“Especially since we were saving your ass, Nic.”
“That was a hairy mess, wasn’t it?” Somehow she managed to convey the impression that she was shivering over the audio circuit.
Karith grunted in acknowledgment, brow furrowing as he zoomed in on an area of ground to the northwest of the drop zone. “HARRE, can we get any better resolution on this area?”
“We have not yet launched sensor drones, sir.”
Karith nodded. “Right, right. Countdown?”
“We separate from Captain Shepard in fourteen minutes fifty-one point seven seconds, sir.”
“You can start inflation any time now, Nic.”
“You think?” She hmmphed at him again over the audio circuit.
Moments later he felt the first gut-churning rumble, press, and drop as Nicolette deployed her inflation scoops. They used the howling wind and heat to fill the first few hundred lift-body spheres with superheated air.
Karith ignored the creeping feeling of unease. He’d land in the mouth of an east–west running valley on the western edge of a big Panesthian city, name unpronounceable. It, in turn, sat in a bigger north–south valley.
The D-Z’s valley carved through the mountains to the west and opened out onto a plain overlaid with red haze. The main boiler infestation, a plague of self-replicating machines. A cluster of the simplest and sturdiest of them had likely arrived in a lump of meteor and been bootstrapping themselves ever since. He circled several map-areas at that end of the valley, highlighting them in pale yellow. “Harry, what’s the uncertainty over here?”
“Sir, from the limited data I can collect with the range-finding lasers, those areas differ from the historical models by just over the margin of error given the current level of interference.”
“That’s a little strange. The model’s only a month old. You suppose the Panesthians have been doing some remodeling out there, maybe defensive works? It’s right on the edge of the boiler’s zone.”
Silence.
“That last bit wasn’t me talking to myself, Harry. It was for you.”
“Noted. Unknown, sir. I have no information on any Panesthian earth-moving operations of that scale. I have very little data on their construction projects at all, sir.”
“You can call me Karith if you want, Harry.”
“Yes, sir.”
Karith chuckled. He zoomed out and slewed the view over past the yellow end of the valley and beyond, into the red zone on the plains where the boilers were building their industrial compounds. “That’s a pretty big infestation for stage seventeen.”
“Agreed, sir, but it is within parameters. I note the stage fifteen on Brindle Eight, the stage sixteen on—”
“Right.”
The boilers were mostly predictable. Stage of development followed stage of development like clockwork. Small simple foragers like four-legged crabs running on springs. Steam-powered crawlers and cutters. Hydrocarbon-burning, motor-driven mechanicals bent on mining and refining. All the way up to nuclear spiders, tanks, and aerials. There was always some variation, of course, in response to environmental factors, but the basics stayed the same. His eyes flicked to the grip readouts. They were solid.
“Hey, Nic.”
“Wait one.”
He slammed hard against his restraints again and his stomach floated up into the back of his throat. Moments later, he settled back into the webbing. That would be the second-stage inflation scoops. Outside, hundreds more of the little spheres were lining up to get inflated with superheated air and then roll away on smart velcro into the thick braking ribbons trailing behind Nicolette. The surface of Milacria stopped sliding away to the right and resumed its steady flow beneath them.
He heard a touch of strain in his own voice when he said, “You feeling this, Nic?”
“Yeah, I felt that.”
“No, I mean, I feel like a green kid. Butterflies in the guts and everything.”
“You do?” Her tone was faintly incredulous, and he could hear laughter behind it.
“I’m going to regret telling you, aren’t I?”
“After twelve years in RGK, you’ve got drop jitters? You can’t be serious.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Wait until I tell Jarko. You transfer to advisory to keep yourself safe for your wife and baby, and the first drop where you’re not getting shot at, you get a case of the shakes?” She laughed again. “You want a tranq?”
“Oh, shut up.”
Her giggle filled the cabin.
Karith hissed and then stabbed the button that would connect him with Major Kewlett, the commander of the mech-infantry unit dropping with them.
“Major, how goes the drop?”
The major was chewing something. “Fine, fine. Nobody’s let go of their airship yet anyway. What about you? Must be old hat, eh? You on track to meet up with the indig?”
“Yes indeed, sir.” As a member of the Advisory Corps now it was his job to be the liaison between the major and the locals.
“Good to hear. Luck. Out.” The connection clicked off.
“Sir,” HARRE said, “the Panesthians are trying to raise you on the beacon channel.”
“Put ’em through, Harry.”
The soft hiss of a long-range transmission filled the cabin, and a rectangular hole opened in Karith’s HUD. The image solidified and filled with a nightmarish mandibled visage. Karith was struck again by how much Panesthians looked like big cockroaches—big enough to eat your head. Fortunately, there had been a few Panesthians in RGK, and he’d gotten used to them.
This one hissed and clacked at him, its mouthparts writhing. It took a moment before he was able to parse the heavily accented Spranto. “Greetings, Sir Marvudi. We await your arrival with great awaitingness.” As it talked, there was close movement in the background, other Panesthians crawling back and forth over its back.
“Thank you. You are?”
The Panesthian buzzed for a moment. “My apologies, Sir Marvudi. My name is ‘hzzzclackyow.’ The humans at the embassy speak to me as ‘Yow,’ and as a male.” He buzzed again, wingcases opening slightly, disrupting the footing of a passing Panesthian, which slid forward over Yow’s head. Yow used his forelegs, triple claws pinching, to move the other along before crawling closer to the camera lens. “I wish to confirm, Sir Marvudi, that your dropping is indeed on these coordinates?” Yow did something offscreen, and coordinates appeared in Karith’s HUD next to the visual.
HARRE spoke up, “Confirmed.”
“Wellness!” Yow replied. “I will come up to meet you in how many minutes . . .?”
“Harry?” Karith asked.
“Approximately twelve minutes, sir.”
Yow’s antennae waved. “I hurry. Few of my nestmates speak Spranto. Your class awaits on the surface already, Captain. I will join them. Drop with great trepidating!” The image went dark and blinked away.
Nicolette’s awed voice came over the audio circuit, “Holy shit,” at the same time the alarms started.
Red warning icons began to populate Karith’s HUD.
“Incoming, sir,” HARRE said calmly. “Brace for maneuvering.”
“Damn it!” Nicolette swore. “There wasn’t supposed to be . . .” She trailed off and Karith’s restraints cinched up tight as they accelerated, swerved, and side-slipped all at once.
“Outside view, Harry!” Karith shouted. His cockpit blinked away and he was speeding through the middle reaches of Milacria’s atmosphere, high above the mottled green-and-yellow landscape. Something dark flashed past him, its red glowing backtrail leading to a computed point-of-origin deep in the red boiler haze. His computers held the view steady, but his body felt the chaotic maneuvers Nicolette was putting them through.
They were losing altitude faster than they’d planned. Below, the Panesthian city streaked by. It looked like a pile of dusty intestines. The surreal look of the place held his attention for a moment even as Nicolette tried to make him lose his lunch. The Panesthian burrow-buildings wormed over and around each other in a great heap, spreading out into the surrounding countryside like the roots of a tree, giving way to cultivated land.
“Holy Moses, Harry, is that correct?” He jabbed a finger at the icon for the MarsFree. It was black.
“Yes, sir. The MarsFree is no longer in communication. Presumed destroyed.”
He goggled. “By what?”
“The first salvo of hyperkinetic rounds was largely ineffective against the mech-infantry drop formation, sir. It was likely not intended for them or us.”
Black puffs began to blossom in the air near and far, all at about the same altitude. Anti-air, targeting the droptroops.
“Sir, I recommend a redirect to the company headquarters area—”
Karith cut him off. “Overlay unit locations and status.” HARRE went silent and complied. Karith clenched his fists. The fear had teeth now. Aborting to a nice, well-defended company headquarters appealed to the monkey part of his brain, but he was supposed to embed with that Panesthian unit. That was the whole point of his being here.
Behind him, the sky started filling with icons for the infantry unit he was inserting with, each one a mech shielding its airship from the violence of entry. He and Nic had preceded them out of the ship. Close to a hundred icons filled the sky. Additional icons over the horizon showed HARRE’s best guess at the location of enemy weapon emplacements.
He glanced back. Well over a third of the infantry icons were already flashing or black. So many casualties. A hypervelocity round could go right through a mech and its airship.
Explosion after explosion rocked them, black smoke obscuring his view time and again as Nicolette jinked them through the kind of evasive maneuverings that had made her famous in the RGK. The kind of maneuvers that had kept them both alive through a hundred hot drops.
“Karith,” she said, strained, “you need to make the call right now. I can still get you to that D-Z if you want, but I’m with Harry about redirecting to the company area. I think the embedding gig is out the window.”
“Sir,” HARRE said, “doctrine clearly indicates that when encountering a superior force, retreat and regroup is the—”
Karith gritted his teeth. “Can’t do it. Are you seeing this, Nic?”
“Yeah. Thirty percent casualties. Damn. They shouldn’t have hyperkinetic weapons yet.”
Karith growled. The boilers didn’t usually develop hyperkinetics until stage thirty, usually a good two years after stage seventeen. It was extremely dangerous to drop this close to a boiler complex at that stage of development, even for RGK troops.
These infantry were just troops of the line. Most of their missions were holding and clearing actions against early-catch boiler infestations, not assault strikes against advanced strongholds, which was what this was feeling more like every second.
HARRE’s count of casualty icons ticked up on the overlay to seventy-eight. They were approaching fifty percent casualties, mechs and airships alike, on the entry alone. Adrenaline filled Karith.
“Sir, I say again, I highly recommend that we redirect to the headquarters D-Z.”
“Noted. Nicolette, put me in on the original. The major’s going to need eyes out this way and there might not be anyone else in contact with the local military. Besides, I’ll be damned if I’ll let a little boiler anti-air fire . . .” he gasped as they swooped into a long curve and his restraints pushed the air out of his lungs. “. . . scare me off. I bet our D-Z’s under the maximum depression of those railguns anyway.”
“Damn it, Karith.” He could hear a mixture of exasperation and excited anticipation in her voice. “This is exactly why I love you.”
“What?”
She went on. “Can you expose your guns?”
He checked their airspeed and did so. He and HARRE started intercepting some of the rounds coming their way.
At fifty feet above the deck Karith cut loose and dropped away from Nicolette’s airship into free fall. As he fell he engaged the feedback mechanisms and the straps tightened up around him.
Nicolette peeled away and shot to the south, her lift spheres held in a streamlined bullet shape by their smart velcro. Her cockpit and lasers were inside the mass of spheres somewhere. As she rose back into the railgun’s target zone, she took a glancing hit. The spheres rippled, parted to let the missile pass, and then reformed again. A hundred meters beyond her the round exploded. She clawed for height, changing shape for more lift. She shrank smaller until he couldn’t pick her out anymore.
“Ready for operations, Karith,” she said. Her breathing was tight and fast in his ear.
“What was that you said to me a little bit ago?”
With a crash and a spray of dirt, he plowed into the ground at the center of the D-Z, rolling to absorb some of the impact. He stood up and shook himself to free his mech of dirt.
“Sir,” HARRE said. “I can play back any traffic you may have misse—”
“Shut up, Harry.”
Nicolette’s voice was tight, “Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
He smiled. “’Cause it sounded like you . . .”
“Leave it, dammit.”
Karith dropped the grin. Her reaction worried him a little. “Right. Nothing. Got it.”
Two Panesthians scuttled up to him. Hip high to a human and about two meters long, he could have covered either one with his mech’s foot. He tried to imagine what his fifteen-foot-tall, multi-turreted, thick-bodied, thick-limbed bipedal mech must look like to a rural Panesthian and crouched down. “Yow?”
“It is I,” the Panesthian on the right replied. “We,” he waved with one foreleg and an antenna at a seething pile of agitated Panesthians on the edge of the D-Z, “are hearing that the boilers are having effective firings on your droptroops.”
The seething mass of giant insects was the 1st Company of the 3rd Milacrian Armored Battalion. Of course, they didn’t have any armor yet. Karith was there to learn their combat tactics and advise them on how best to augment their abilities with mechs like his own. That would all have to wait now.
HARRE spoke in Karith’s ear. “Sir, the company restructured its drop points. They are consolidating in the city to the east. I recommend—”
“Not now, Harry. Yow, we understood that the boilers were at stage seventeen. Railguns are at least stage thirty. Care to explain?”
Yow squeaked and clicked at his companion, who replied, trilling and buzzing. Yow’s wingcasings raised, and the gauzy wings within fluttered. “Truly, it is the first we have seen of the magrails. We cannot explain.”
“Well, we’re all stuck into it now. Give me your latest information on boiler disposition and activity.”
“Of course. Immediately.” Yow spoke to his companion, who used his multi-clawed legs to manipulate something on his underside. Karith saw that he and the other Panesthians all had equipment strapped to their bellies as well as fiery circles emblazoned on their wingcasings.
“Sir,” HARRE said, “the link has been established and I’m receiving the information. Updating models now.”
“Good. Put me through to Major Kewlett.”
The HUD had Major Kewlett on the ground in the city to the east. A moment later his voice grated into Karith’s cockpit.
“Whattaya got, Marvudi?”
“Sir, I’ve made linkup with the Panesthian ground forces.”
Major Kewlett’s gum popped in Karith’s ears. “I’m glad somethin’ went right. They gonna be any use to us? MarsFree is gone, we got twelve hours before the next follow-on ship, and I got close to a hundred of my boys and girls broken already.”
“I’m not sure yet how useful the locals will be. I’ll have to get back to you on that, sir.”
“Good copy here.” Snap, chew. “Out.”
The connection went dead. “Harry, transmit the data from the Panesthians to the general situation model.”
“Done, sir.”
Karith turned his attention back to Yow. Before he could speak, another bit of motion caught his eye. He turned. “What the hell is that?” he asked, pointing behind him.
Yow turned. There was a separate group of adult Panesthians on the other edge of the field, and they numbered almost as many as the soldiers. Half of them had smaller ones swarming on and around them.
“The families, sir?”
“Those are your families?”
“I am unmated, sir. But I believe they are the mates of the soldiers, sir, yes.”
“Are you hearing this, Nic?” Karith said.
“Sir,” HARRE said, “the noncombatants should clear the field.”
Nicolette snorted. “Yeah, what he said. You should feel right at home though, Karith, with little ones to dandle on your knee and all that.”
“Shut it.”
She laughed again.
Karith reopened Yow’s circuit and poked one finger down at the other Panesthian. “Yow, who is this?”
“Sir Marvudi, that is the commander of the Company. He is choosing the human name Delbert.”
Delbert said, “Delbert!” and fluttered his wings.
“Ah, okay. Yow, tell Delbert that he needs to get the families under cov—”
“Sir!” HARRE’s voice was urgent.
“What!”
HARRE’s voice was normal again. “Sir, I am detecting a great deal of movement on the far end of this valley.”
Nicolette whistled. “He’s not kidding. There’s a whole lot of something going on over there.”
“Show me.”
HARRE opened another window in Karith’s HUD with an overhead view of the area in question, icons and indicators overlaid. The western end of the valley was alive with red, active machine units sweeping toward their location. They were maybe five miles away.
“Okay, we’re out of time. Yow, tell Delbert those families need to be evacuated to the city to the east of here. The boilers are coming, and they’re coming now.”
Yow’s antennae froze and then waved excitedly as he jabbered at Delbert. Delbert turned and buzzed loudly at the soldiers. At his words, the families on the periphery of the drop zone jerked into frenzied activity. They turned as one churning mass and fled, followed by most of the soldiers, disappearing into scattered holes in the ground.
“Harry, give me a radar shot of the surrounding ground, eh?” Karith formed his mech’s hand into a blade shape and jammed it into the dirt. He was on the western edge of a huge warren complex that seemed to run all the way to the city. He grimaced. “That’s a lot of civilians, Harry.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nic, I need you to engage the lead boiler units. Slow them down and try to trigger their ‘seek cover’ response.”
“Roger that, Karith.” In the background he could hear her motive engines kicking in and the mutter of her battle song.
“Sir,” HARRE said, “she should target the railguns. They are the primary threat and liable to—”
“I know, Harry. She’ll be fine. We have to get those lead machines stopped first.”
“Sir Marvudi,” Yow said, “Delbert wishes to know what you would have him do?” Yow and Delbert were still at his feet. In front of them there were perhaps a dozen soldiers left in the short grass. They were in some semblance of a single rank, their shiny brown carapaces like giant wooden toggle buttons on the ground.
“Get the civilians out of here, Yow. Delbert and the rest of his soldiers should evacuate as many civilians as they can to the city. Get them behind the human defenses.”
“Sir,” HARRE said, “that is not a viable mission. Given the statistical population densities I estimate that there are thousands of Panesthians between here and Major Kewlett’s lines, far too many to move in the remaining time.”
“So we need to stop those lead machines pretty quick, eh, Harry?” No response.
“Sir Marvudi,” Yow said, buzzing. “Delbert wishes to know what your plans are?”
Karith looked down at the two Panesthians staring up at him with broad black eyes, mouthparts moving slowly in and out.
“I’ve got a few ideas.”
Yow and Delbert conferred urgently. Yow said, “We were hearing that you were in the RGK?” Dimly, muffled by the automatic filters on the comm system, Karith could hear Nicolette howling and growling along with her battle song over the deep coughing of her lasers and her jet’s roar.
“Was. I was in the RGK.”
“We are honored. You can stop them?”
“No, I probably can’t.”
A small Panesthian, a tenth Yow’s size, buzzed unsteadily out of the sky and landed on the face of Karith’s mech. It squeaked and buzzed, peering into one of the darker radio portals in his faceplate. Raising one foreleg, it rapped its claw on the portal. Faintly, Karith heard a muffled tapping through the confines of his cockpit. He raised a giant metal hand but hesitated to pluck the child off his face.
“Sir Marvudi,” Yow said, “allow me?”
“Of course.” Karith laughed nervously, reminded of when the nurse had handed him Karri. He had been afraid to touch the little thing for fear of breaking it.
Yow, ponderous on his big wings, buzzed up to Karith’s mech, even more unsteady than the youngster had been. When he was about to touch the child, it squeaked and zipped over Karith’s head and down his back. Seconds later it was in speedy but erratic flight toward the warrens.
Yow thumped back to earth.
“Harry, put Yow in contact with Major Kewlett directly.”
“That is against protocol, sir. The connection should properly go though you as the liaison advisor.”
“Well, I’m going to be too busy to handle it, Harry. Just do it.”
“Done, sir.”
“And put me through to him too,” Karith said, “Good luck, Yow.” He stood and turned away from the retreating Panesthians, striding toward the hills and accelerating into a thundering trot over the rolling ground.
“Kewlett, go.” The major’s chewing was furious now.
“Sir, Marvudi here. The locals won’t be much use. I’ve got them herding all the civilians they can toward your lines, but they won’t be fast enough. My air is currently putting the hurt on the lead boiler units, slowing them down. I’ll get into it and slow them down even more.”
“The hell you will, son. I’ve got boilers coming up out of bogtaken tunnels not two miles to my east. Tunnels! Who the hell”—snap—“ever heard of that? I need you and your air unit back here.”
Karith let the mech run by itself for a little bit and slewed his map over to examine the city where the major was holed up. Red icons dotted the suburbs on the far side. Energy weapons lanced down from the sky and kinetics flickered across the battlefield. Zooming in, he could see treads, crawlers, walkers, and blasters.
“I concur with the major, sir,” HARRE noted. “We are facing a far superior force. Doctrine advises us to consolidate in defense with other units in the area.”
Karith confirmed with a glance that HARRE had not put his quoting of the book out over the open circuit. “Can’t do it, Harry. Major, I wonder if you’ve seen what the boilers do to civilians they catch in the open? I think I can reverse the boiler’s focus if I hit a piece of their primary infrastructure. They’ll turn around to protect that instead of expanding for the moment. It’ll keep them out of your rear area. Normally I’d just call in an orbital strike but—”
Nicolette chimed in, privately. “I don’t know Karith, they look pretty determined. I’ve got them taking cover for now but I’m seeing heavy-treads, heavy-rollers, and full complements of cutters and blasters for each.”
Snap. “Marvudi, there’s civilians here in the city too. The boilers don’t care one way or the other. Now get your ass over here ASAP.”
Karith isolated Nicolette’s circuit. “No crawlers or hummers?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s something.”
“Yeah. It’s only a matter of—” Her reply broke off and faded out under the howl of her motivator engines.
The ground started to rise sharply and Karith leaned into the first foothill, clawing with his hands. “Sir, I’m going to cut through these hills and try to get behind them. If I can smash something important enough, their subroutines will switch over to protect and rebuild before they tear into these warrens.”
He waited a tense moment. Finally, the major spoke. “You really think you can do this, don’t you, RGK?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. Go make something happen.” Snap, chew. His voice was tense and rising. “Keep me apprised.”
“Roger that, sir.” Dead air.
Karith’s HUD tracked him as he accelerated through the hills. Red machine units seethed along the valley floor while he passed up high in the opposite direction.
He kept an eye on the battle on the east side of the city, watched it grow into a big smear of red on his screens. Hopefully he could keep the tide of red below him from sweeping into it from the west.
“Sir, Captain Shepard has taken a direct hit to one of her lasers. Her lift bodies have been depleted by seventeen percent. Without a repair depot—”
“Nic,” Karith said, “how you doing up there?” Her icon soared above him on his HUD.
“Just fine, Karith. Too high and the railguns can target me, any lower and the treads can lock on with their main guns. And I keep running into needle streams from the bloody crawlers.”
Karith studied the model HARRE was making from the sensor-drone feeds. The boilers were digging in under Nicolette’s onslaught.
Reaching up and grasping a knob of rock, he levered himself up over a ridge and rolled down, armor crushing boulders and snapping trees.
“Okay, Nic. Go take out a few of those railguns if you can. Make yourself some breathing room.”
With an exultant yell, Nicolette flipped her airship into a backward loop and pulled out to race down the center of the valley at treetop height. Looking down a long draw, Karith saw her flash past the mouth of it, lasers on full, burning the ground and enemy units in her path in a fountaining rooster tail of flame and smoke.
The airships over the city wouldn’t be able to go all out because of the civilians on the ground. He was just grateful the machines hadn’t achieved a stage with aircraft yet.
“Sir, Captain Shepard has dropped off my radar.”
“Yeah, I expected that. She’ll fly nap-of-the-earth all the way until she takes out those guns.”
“That is very risky, sir. The concentration of smaller-caliber weapons on the ground along her route is likely to be extremely high.”
“Yup. Moving that fast, though, they’ll probably miss her.”
“But with concentrations of fire—”
“What else, exactly, is she supposed to do, Harry?”
HARRE’s response was immediate. “Retreat with us to the main perimeter, sir. The concentration of antagonistic force here is too high to justify operations in this area.”
“Can’t do it, Harry.” Karith flattened himself against the side of a ridge on the edge of the red zone and lifted a sensor pod to the crest. Leaving it in place, he backed up, sidled along the ridge, and put another one up. “All right. What do we have out there?”
HARRE had started building a real-time model of the plains beyond the ridge as soon as the second pod was in place for triangulation. A smoky, torn landscape unfolded before Karith’s eyes, filled with endless banks of raw functional machinery, thick power cables snaking along the ground and through the air, trenches and canals filled with oily water and mud between metal walls, and fences as far as the eye could see.
“Okay, Harry, we need something important enough to sting ’em good, right here so those units in the valley are the nearest units for defense.”
While HARRE scanned, Karith adjusted the mech’s missile batteries.
“Surely, sir, Nicolette’s action against the railguns will draw the boiler’s attention.”
“You’re bloody right it will, Harry me lad, but that’s too far away. What are the units in the valley doing now?”
“I’m afraid they are up and moving again, sir.”
“Bog take it. We need to hit something fast. What do you see out there?”
“There is a class seven power node quite close to the mouth of the valley, sir.”
“Seven?” Karith was looking over the situation back at the city. Kewlett was holding on the east, barely.
“Yes, sir. It seems to be feeding most of the machinery and infrastructure in this area.” HARRE lit up a rough circle several miles in diameter at the valley’s mouth.
“Nice. We’ll do the old high lob low fastball. We may not get another chance.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nicolette’s voice sounded. “All right, this little strip of sky should be clear now.”
“Excellent. Glad you’re still alive, Nic.”
“Yeah. Where do you want me?”
Karith launched three top-down missiles over the ridge.
“Hit here.” Karith passed her the power node as a target along with the flight paths of his missiles which were dodging and weaving through an upward rain of fire from the machine’s defenses.
Three more missiles streaked from his shoulder racks and over the metal landscape, straight for the node. The flash and expanding concussion wave was followed closely by another from the last of his high flyers.
Nicolette screamed past, lasers digging a fiery trench straight through the node. Karith resisted HARRE’s automatic instructions to duck behind the ridge, instead drawing a bit of fire off Nicolette. The ridgetop exploded under a fire-hose stream of metal splinters and energy weapons, even as he returned fire. He leaned into the storm, trusting his armor. The incoming fire drummed against him like pounding horizontal rain. Energy beams scored bright streaks across him, raising his internal temp. He could feel the heat on his skin as he shook and rocked from the force of it all.
He stood firm, sending streams of metal from his arm-mounted kinetic weapons ripping into the defensive pods scattered around the fantastic metal landscape. HARRE orchestrated a symphony of destruction with the shoulder and hip turrets.
Karith’s inner-ear protested. Suddenly, dirt piled into him from the side. He found himself stumbling.
“Contact!” HARRE yelled.
Looking down, Karith saw a walker fastened to his mech’s lower abdomen, sparks flying where its plasma cutter chewed into his hip joint.
“Shit!” He smashed the spiny metal thing with his fist. Three more scuttled out of a newly opened hole in the ridge’s side. Their leggy angled shapes scrambled past a machine he’d never seen before, a conical spinning drill bit as big as the rumbling combustion engine backing it.
“This is a new behavior, sir.”
Karith smashed at a second walker as three more leapt onto his chest and shoulders. He caught himself screaming in anger and gritted his teeth. He triggered a burst of explosive rounds into the driller thing and leapt at it, pushing it back into the hole it had come from. Spinning, he flailed at the walkers cutting into him from above.
The dirt under his feet gave way and he slipped face first into another cluster of walkers scrambling out from between another driller and the edges of the hole it had made. He choked back another yell and curled up into a ball. They looked more like fantastic metal spiders than anything else, long legs supporting a bulbous body. One of them was digging into his abdomen again. He felt and heard something give down by his feet, a tearing, crumpling sound. Not his mech’s feet, his actual feet. A whiff of ozone reached his nose.
“Sir, units in the valley are turning back toward us.”
Thrusting with his mech’s feet against the top of the second driller, he fired another burst of explosive rounds into its engine as he jumped away, or tried to jump away. Two more walkers dragged at him and upset his balance. The dirt and brush at the bottom of the ridge rushed up to meet him. Impact tightened his harness. Sparks flew in three directions across his face.
He grabbed a handful of walker and ripped it away. It went limp when he slammed it against the ground, pieces breaking off. He flogged his armor’s upper torso with the remains of the thing and felt it impact other walkers.
“Karith!” Nic’s voice was frantic. “I can’t see you!”
“Wait one.”
A walker lost its grip and fell to the ground. Karith stomped on it as he struggled to his feet again. Sparking, it blew up, clouds of smoke boiling out of it.
“Sir, your armor is compromised at plates T-12 and T-13.”
“What?” Nic screamed over the link.
“I’m fine! Relax.” The screaming sound of a plasma cutter was starting to vibrate his cockpit. Frantically Karith swept his hands over his head. Ah-ha! He grabbed the thing and crushed, dragging it to the front where he could see it. The cutting stopped. Metal corpse in hand, he flung himself to the ground on top of the two still on his back and rolled away. One stayed down. He fired into its body and it spasmed, smoking.
A shadow overtopped him and his sensors registered a flash of heat. He ground his back against an outcropping of rock, spun, and smashed his fist into the power plant of the boiler clinging to the rock face. It exploded. Eyes going up, he casually fired a burst into a walker stirring at his feet.
Nicolette’s airship floated over him, just below the ridgetop. He stared in consternation for a moment. Most of her lift spheres were discolored from heat and impact.
“Nic?”
“Well what was I supposed to do, you jerk?”
“Sir, this area is riddled with tunnels. I deem it likely that more drilling machines are on the way and recommend retrograde movement.”
“Harry, if you ever say ‘retrograde movement’ again, I’ll erase you. It’s bogtaken ‘retreat.’ What are you doing down here, Nic?”
“Just thought I might lend a hand.”
“That’s crazy. Get out of here, back up high.”
“Fine, screw you then.”
She sounded upset but jetted away down the ridge, picking up speed until she lifted into the air.
Up and down the ridge, earth slid and a literally earthshaking rumble started. Karith turned and sprinted back the way he had come, into the hills. “Harry, what are the machines in the valley doing?”
“Approximately a third are returning toward their damaged power node.”
“Damn it. The rest?”
“They have reached our drop zone and are continuing toward the city.”
“Nic, I need you to hit those boilers in the valley again.”
“Roger that.” Her voice was cold.
“Hell, Nic, that was stupid and you know it. What if a walker had gotten up into your lift spheres?”
Silence.
“Whatever, Nic. I’m on my way down.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m going to hit them from the rear. That’ll get their attention.”
“Are you crazy? There’s a hole in your armor!” Her voice was frantic.
Karith found a draw going his way and started loping down to the valley.
Major Kewlett broke into their common circuit. “Marvudi, can you hold that valley yourself?”
“Why?”
“I need your air.”
Nicolette’s voice was cold as iron. “No, Major, you’re not pulling me off Karith’s top cover.”
“That’s up to him, little miss.”
Karith raised his eyebrows. It had been a long time since anybody dared call Nic “little miss” or anything like it. He examined the situation model as he ran, Nic’s lasers coughing in the background.
HARRE said to him, privately, “Sir, our armor is breached. We must return to the depot for repair.”
“There is no depot, HARRE. The MarsFree is gone and the next ship is hours out.”
“Yes, sir. There are, however, class three repair facilities with the major. We should consolidate with other units in the area.”
Karith stopped just below a hilltop overlooking his drop zone and a little closer to the city. Panesthian civilians were a glittering brown carpet moving along the ground toward the city. The boilers were already upon the near edge of the mass. Curled and flaming bodies littered the torn earth. The boilers ground on, weapons burning, ripping, and smashing. Dimly, Karith could hear a roaring sound, the frantic buzzing and wailing of the dying Panesthians.
Taking up a stable posture, he readied every top-down missile he had. Nicolette orbited overhead, lasers coughing in his ears. Rippling explosions of smoke, steam, and molten metal stuttered across the valley floor. He could see the boilers digging in to shoot up at her, but not all of them. Some still moved toward the city.
“Major, you’ve got plenty of air.”
Snap. “It’s not enough, son. This damn city is oozing civilians. My mechs keep breaking through the tops of their bloody burrow-buildings when they try to move. The airships are the most effective weapons platforms I’ve got for offense, and I need ’em all. You’re not the only one. I’m pulling air off all my outliers.”
The major had a point about the air. Strange that a quirk of architecture made air assets more precise and civilian friendly than ground units here.
HARRE was using data from all the sensor pods they’d dropped earlier in the day to build the current situation model. The boilers were deep into the suburbs now, and breaking into the burrow-buildings themselves too. They weren’t empty.
“Bloody hell.”
“What was that, son?” Snap, chew.
“Can do, Major. Nic, go.”
“Damn you, Karith.”
Karith didn’t say anything. She sounded on the verge of tears, which was just odd. Nicolette did another low screaming pass over the boilers in the suburbs in front of him and curved away toward the city.
Major Kewlett said, “Son, you see what’s going on over here?”
“Yes, Major.”
“Good.”
The connection went dead.
HARRE spoke to him. “Sir, are we going to attempt to engage and defeat the boilers in the valley?”
Karith triggered his first salvo of top-downs and sprinted off the hill just ahead of the counterfire, which ripped into the ground behind him until he made it into a wadi. He put his shoulder turrets onto automatic and sprinted along the gash in the ground.
“Harry, if we don’t stop them here, they’re going to plow into the major’s rear area and they’re going to be slaughtering civilians the whole way in. This is it, my friend.”
Karith popped up to the top of a swelling hill and fired off another salvo of top-downs. The counterfire was slower this time, and he was well away before it hit.
“Sir, the boilers are still advancing.”
They were into the suburbs now. Karith moved carefully as he fired, trying to avoid stepping on the crushed and burned Panesthians scattered around the shells of their tunnels and buildings now cracked and open to the sky. He gritted his teeth and choked back the bile. Panesthians died easier than their smaller lookalikes from Earth, apparently.
A subsonic round from a tread he hadn’t seen in time slammed into his shoulder plate and knocked him over. Through the concussive haze he could feel a breeze playing around his feet. There really was a hole in his armor.
From flat on the ground he sent an armor-piercing round at the boiler tread. The bulbous shape jumped and exploded. Lucky hit. Another one rolled up behind it.
He regained his feet and ran on. With HARRE’s targeting help, he kept both armguns firing at once. Counterfire whipped around him, glancing off his armor.
He paused in a depression filled with trees, a wide spot along a stream bed.
“Fire off the rest of the sensor pods, Harry.”
“Including the reserves, sir?”
“Yes.”
HARRE launched the remaining eleven sensor pods from their racks. They arced out from Karith in a spreading cloud, came to earth, and dug in, leaving only their antennas protruding. The situation model sharpened up almost immediately. The boiler advance seemed to be clumped up before a small hill in the center of the valley. Beyond, he could see hundreds of unsteadily flying and scuttling Panesthian shapes fleeing overland.
He took a moment and ducked down to examine the inside of his cockpit. There, just to the right, down by his feet, was a jagged hole leaking daylight. He swore when he realized that he couldn’t use a sensor pod to examine the exterior because he’d just launched them all. It occurred to him to dismount and examine it but he discarded the idea before it had even fully formed. The smell of a summer afternoon wafted up to him, laced with that of burning plastic.
He sprinted out of the depression, running toward the hill, firing as he went.
He hadn’t gone ten steps before he broke through the top of a burrow-building and crashed to a stop. To his great relief, it was empty, a colorful mural on one wall looking down on bare floor.
The boilers were flowing around and over that hill now, moving on. He had to get in front of them somehow.
The machines were thick on the ground. His guns howled and screamed along with him as he stomped, smashed, and burned a thick swath of destruction through the metal foe. Karith was no longer speaking aloud. Once again he and HARRE were one in dreadful destructive purpose.
Just before he reached the hill, a swarm of walkers, crawlers, and blasters erupted over a stone ridge and on top of him, metal limbs flashing with terrible speed. He caught a glimpse of one blaster’s stocky cylindrical body up close before it triggered its main weapon into his mech’s face.
The crash shocked him backwards. His flailing right hand latched onto a thick-limbed crawler and swung it around himself. He could feel the smashing impacts through the fabric of his suit.
Horrible clicking sounds came to him, through his external sensors and through the hole at his shins. He rolled frantically over, left hand clapping to the hole in his mech’s abdomen even as he pulled his real right leg up away from something moving down there, toes curling.
There was a boiler at the hole. He couldn’t see it; he could only feel it move under his metal left hand. He bore down, crushing hard. At the same moment he felt a deep terrible pain in his left leg. He stomped with his right and smashed something to the floor of his cockpit. Something withdrew as he pulled the boiler away. It was a walker, limp in his hand, holding a smoking monoblade cutter.
“Sir, there is a hollow in the top of that hill, a crater.”
And there were a dozen more boilers around him. He started shooting and crushing again, and began pounding his way toward that hilltop, left leg going numb.
“Harry! Have they stopped?”
“Yes, sir. You have occupied their attention sufficiently to stop their advance. They are coming for us now.” Blaster fire, waves of heat, washed over him, licking through the hole at his legs with sharp tongues as he ran.
“Good.”
A huge blow took his mech in the right arm and spun him around and down. One of the treads. He looked for it, blinking sweat out of his eyes, and fired one of his three remaining missiles. The noise pounded at him. He’d never had a hole all the way through into his cockpit before. A sharp burning smell came in through it. He felt like throwing up.
The hill loomed over him, and he strained back to his feet to fling himself at it. Moments later he tumbled into the crater at the top. It was full of boilers.
He curled reflexively around the hole in his middle, flesh cringing away from it. Blaster fire filled the crater with orange plasma.
“No! This is my crater now!” He put the hole out of his mind, straightened, and fired point-blank at the boilers swarming over him. He kicked a boiler clear over the edge of the hole and grabbed another in his left hand, using it to scrape the others out, smashing and flinging. His mech’s right arm twitched erratically as he fired its gun blindly. He smashed and stomped through the pain in his real leg, and fired until the boilers that were left in the hole were nothing but gears, cabling, and chunks of metal hull.
He blasted a few more as they came over the rim, launching them into the air in pieces.
“What’s going on out there, Harry?” He gasped at a sudden wave of pain from his left leg and stumbled. When he tried to put out his mech’s right hand to steady himself he fell against the wall of the crater as it only twitched limply. There was a sweet coppery smell heavy in the cockpit now.
“They are pausing in their assault of our position, sir. They are gathering.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, then snapped them open. Closing them was a bad idea.
He could see now it wasn’t really a crater. It was an excavation of some sort.
He tried to stand, but slipped. Glancing down, he saw among the shattered boilers a layer of dead Panesthians. Panesthians with equipment strapped to their bellies and fiery circles on their wingcasings. So that was why the boilers had stopped at this hill. Not all these boilers were his kills.
“Karith?” Nicolette spoke to him. “I’m coming, baby.”
The fire in his leg made him almost scream. “Harry, what’s she doing?”
“She is breaking formation to come to our aid, sir.”
“Stay where you are, Nic! That’s an order.”
“Go to hell, Karith!”
“Dammit, Nic, stay where you are. You gonna let the boilers break the line after I went to this much trouble? Stay where you are!” He filled his voice with as much energy as he could. In the background he could hear Kewlett bellowing at her.
“Fine,” she said. “You come to me then. Just run. You can make it.”
“Can’t do that, Nic.”
“Dammit, Karith!” He could hear tears in her voice.
“Hey, Nic.” He blasted a boiler off the rim and watched for another. None came.
“What?” She sounded angry now.
“Tell Maragette and Karri I love them, okay?”
No answer but the roar of her engines and a long screaming curse. The noise filters kicked in.
“Harry, what are they doing out there?”
“They have located and destroyed seven of our sensors, sir, but they appear to be bypassing us.”
“What? They’re advancing again? Toward the city?” Karith had never felt this tired.
“Yes, sir.”
Karith chuckled, a sound weak in his own ears. “Up we get.”
He propped himself up on the rim of the hole and started shooting. Boilers fell and return fire shattered the crater rim around him but still they advanced.
He gasped for air. “We’re gonna have to . . . get them to . . . notice us again . . . Harry.”
Karith gathered his legs under him, braced his left hand on the rim of the crater, grunted, and fell into blackness.
The mech froze.
“Sir?”
Karith did not answer. HARRE noted a thick stream of blood pouring from the hole in his armor. He used his emergency override to ease the mech back behind cover.
“Sir?” Still nothing.
“Karith?” Nicolette’s voice was frantic. “Your icon’s dark, Karith. Karith!”
HARRE answered. “He is unconscious, Captain Shepard.”
“Damn.” Her voice was thick. “Okay, you’re in charge now, Harry. Get him back here.”
“It is true that command falls to me if my pilot becomes incapacitated.”
“Why aren’t you on your way back already?” Her voice held ominous overtones. “Get up into the hills and make your way back here or he’ll die.”
HARRE looked over the field, the fleeing clouds of Panesthians, the advancing boilers carving into them.
“It is true, ma’am, that Captain Marvudi has a much higher chance of survival if I return to headquarters at this time.”
“So go!” she screamed.
HARRE paused. Doctrine advised that he do as she said, but it was his call now. And he found . . . he found himself rebelling. As if Captain Marvudi were speaking to him. He knew, somehow, that Doctrine could be ignored. Had to be ignored.
“I can’t do that, ma’am.” He vaulted the crater edge and charged the boilers, all guns blazing. They noticed him, and turned to engage.
Sometime later the CambriaDawn took up orbit around Milacria and dropped another three companies of mechanized infantry onto Major Kewlett’s perimeter. Only forewarning and fast maneuvering saved her from the same fate as the MarsFree. Her bombards destroyed the boiler railgun positions shortly thereafter.
Human forces pushed out to the east and the west. Captain Nicolette Shepard flew west, over the tangled wreckage of what seemed like thousands of broken boilers.
At a certain spot she lowered her airship to the ground and jumped out. Over thirty percent of her lift spheres were gone, and those that remained were discolored and ragged.
Karith Marvudi’s mech lay face down in a dry streambed surrounded by hundreds of dead boilers, like the center of a blast ring stretching for hundreds of meters.
Nicolette folded her helmet back as she ran. The stench of smoke, burning oil, and plasma assailed her nostrils. Ignoring the hot metal she scrambled up and forced her way past the dead boilers on the mech’s back. She tapped a code into the hatch’s touch plate. No response, not even a power light. She ran back to her ship and returned with tools. Sparks flew and tears boiled off the metal as she began cutting.