"Yes, sir…we'll sanitize the area right now." Singh and Reaves grabbed Mighty Mite and Sergeant McReady, the other SDC, to set up HERF guns covering every direction. With enough warning from Superfly, they could hold off a sizeable force for awhile using the radio frequency stun fields. But only for awhile.
Winger piloted his own swarm right into the heart of the melee.
"Whatever you are," he muttered to himself, "you act a helluva lot like ANAD." He worked the config controller, at the same time pulsing in and out of contact range with the main enemy group, slashing and weaving, scrunching up atoms and twisting bonds to zap the bastards with their own electron charge.
Doc, I hate to do this but you leave me no choice…keep coming, you atomic assholes…keep on coming…right into my hands--
He bored right into the heart of the Doc horde, slashing left and right.
Winger drove his own ANAD deep into the formation. He cruised in at flank speed, propulsors whining, and seized a phosphor group off the nearest mech, twisting atoms until the bonds broke. Liberating thousands of electron volts, ANAD's disrupter zapped the Doc mech and shattered its outer shell, ripping off probes left and right. The enemy assemblers shuddered and spun with the pulse, then re-engaged to fight off another bond snap. Throughout the cavern, trillions of ANAD replicants duplicated the same tactic.
The air burned with furious combat.
Gibbs was exultant at the maneuver. "Eat my carbene effectors, you jerks!"
Winger grinned in spite of himself, deftly steering through the floating detritus of shredded assemblers. "Gotcha…" He changed config, realizing he had to grab one of the mechs before it was completely disassembled. "…right with your pants down."
Like a backhoe scooping up dirt, he closed on the nearest Doc mech and extended his cage effectors to grapple. This command was not duplicated by the rest of ANAD; Winger wanted his army to finish off the enemy formation for good, while he grabbed a mech for analysis. He armed the ANAD master's carbene fingers and set to work, folding and tucking the enemy device neatly into a scaffold nestled in its base.
Like a carpenter fitting a door frame, Winger pronounced himself satisfied. He heaved a sigh of relief. Gibby's swarm was gone, nothing but atomic fluff now and his own force probably wouldn't be able to fend off another determined assault. For the moment, the Red Hammer swarm—with the remnants of Doc--whatever they were--had been immobilized by the ferocity of ANAD's attack. Working with Gibby, he'd managed to pinch off a small portion of the enemy force and isolate it, then smash it atom from atom. Somehow, he hoped to grab the master bot that ran the Doc swarm before they were all eaten alive.
But how long would it be before Red Hammer regrouped?
Behind him, he heard more voices echoing across the boulder fields on top of Shih Ho Mountain. Distant beamfire ripped the air, just over the edge, as bots engaged enemy making their way up through the crevices and folds of the hill. Red Hammer was moving in and remote coil guns were going off all over the place.
At that moment, Winger knew they couldn’t go any further. Their mission had been to locate the pulser and put it out commission. Nanotroopers always completed their mission. But with the Doc swarm now lost and enemy mechs advancing, it was just a matter of time before the Detachment would be consumed and the blasted pulser would still be operating. Winger hesitated a moment, but he had to make a decision now.
Time to get the hell out of Dodge. Nanotroopers couldn’t complete their mission if they were sliced and diced into atom fluff.
Winger sent final commands for all ANAD replicants but the master to commit seppuku, disassembling themselves into atomic fluff, and handmotioned Ray Spivey to get TinyTown ready for a combat extraction.
"Quantum collapse, Lieutenant?"
Winger shook his head. "No way. I've got precious cargo with me…the innards of one of the mechs and with any luck, I’ve got the Doc master too. We need it to study what happened. Soon as ANAD's inerted, I'm pulling the plug."
"Understood, sir." Spivey was already off and running, hustling the TinyTown unit into position by the edge of the mountain. In a few minutes, Winger’s ANAD master would be exiting Shih Ho's northwest service entrance in one hell of a hurry. It was his job to capture the master and secure it.
Spivey moved the containment pod into position while Winger readied the ANAD master assembler for the trip out. Speeding back up from the depths of the Lions Rock, a faint green phosphorescent glow boiled out of the side of the mountain. The green light became a fuzzy patch of fog and drifted upward toward the camp. As it came level with the camp, Ray Spivey readied the pod for insertion, signaling ANAD to configure itself for capture. The coruscating green fog intensified in glow, becoming a pearly white, as ANAD shut down systems and sloughed off unnecessary atoms. Deep inside the master's carbene embrace, the kernel of the rogue Doc master bot was still imprisoned, still ticking over, ready to burst out at the slightest chance. ANAD would not give the mech the slightest opening to squeeze out.
There was a breeze around the pod as the pressure pulse cleaved the air. In an instant, ANAD had transited the capture tube and plunged into the soothing homewaters of the TinyTown container, still clinging to its prey.
Spivey capped and stowed the end of the tube and stabbed a button, sealing the tank. "Got 'em, Lieutenant! Safing now…pressure coming up, temps okay, pH in the green. ANAD's sealed in and safe."
"How about our little guest, Ray?"
Spivey grinned. "Caught like a fly in a spider's web."
Winger was already snapping shut the IC panel, even as he powered down. He hung the control pack on a sturdy wire frame slung off Spivey's back, buttoning down the catches. When he was done, he slapped Spivey on the shoulders, then got on the crewnet.
"Detachment listen up: we can’t get past these Red Hammer defenses with what we have. Doc got hosed…must have been those pulser signals. I managed to grab the master and a few enemy mechs with my own embedded ANAD, but the enemy’s regrouping. We’re outnumbered and outgunned today. We’ll have to go after that pulser with something bigger. DPS1, what are our options?"
Reaves' voice was breathing hard. She had been sprinting from one weapon site to another around the mountain top, trying to keep the camou-fog up, the weapons trained, and the bad guys off the summit. "More company, Lieutenant. I'm down to a few charges left on the HERFs. Mags and coil guns are okay, but the camou's giving out. Red Hammer's pushing in a dozen places…some kind of mech attack…but so far, the barrier's holding. It won't last much longer."
"We didn’t get to the pulser today but at least we gave ‘em a black eye," Winger said. "We need something to shield us from that pulser…maybe Table Top can learn something from the mechs I grabbed. All hands…grab your gear…let's exfiltrate like hell!"
Taj Singh took one last look at the deco wakes he was detecting, then stowed the instrument and began dismantling one of the HERF guns, to shrink the perimeter around the lifter, as the rest of the unit collected and stowed their equipment. The mission was done; now it was up to him and Reaves and their Superfly scouts to get 1st Nano out of harm's way.
They scrambled across the rocky escarpment, even as Red Hammer mechs probed the barrier around them. Seconds later, the first breach occurred as the camou-fog generator ran out of steam. A thick black horde darkened the night sky and trillions of enemy mechs poured through the gap.
"Fry 'em!" Reaves yelled back to Singh. Singh re-sighted his HERF gun and lit off a charge. The thunderclap of the discharge sent searing waves of hot air roaring across the ground. Winger and the rest of the unit flattened themselves against the mountain top, letting the pulse pass. It was like riding out a tornado.
For the next few minutes, they fought a series of running duels with Red Hammer's flying mechs, all the way to the very edge of Shih Ho Mountain. Below and behind them, night time Hong Kong lay liked a jeweled carpet, Victoria Peak fe
stooned with lights as the din of midnight traffic from the streets below wafted skyward.
"Bots!" yelled Spivey as the first of the Detachment made the lifter with their gear. "Here they come…hit the deck!"
Johnny Winger swatted at the clouds of stinging mechs closing on their position. Red Hammer had discharged clouds of the mechs around the top of the mountain, hoping to penetrate the Quantum Corps barrier and snare the intruders before they could escape. ANAD had already been safed and inerted inside TinyTown. It was too late to launch countermeasures.
"Fall back!" he shouted, running for cover. "Fall back to the lifter!" He got on the crewnet. "Helix One," He yelled to the lifter pilot-- "get that jalopy spooled up fast! We're making a run for it!"
The Red Hammer horde of micron-sized bots fell on the Detachment with a fury.
"Arrrggghhh--my head--!" cried Nico Simonet. She stumbled across the rocky ground, slogging through the lifter's downwash, as she flailed wildly at the swarm engulfing her. "--my eyes!--"
Winger dove for Simonet and flung her to the ground, covering her body with his. He heard the high keening whine of trillions of mechs buzzing at them. They were dumb bots, without the smarts or the assembler coding of an ANAD or a Doc, but dangerous all the same. Unprotected, a soldier had about ten minutes before his skin was flayed open and he was sucked dry by the little bastards.
"Reaves? Where's Superfly?"
"Assembling now, sir!" DPS's voice was shaking, as she pecked out commands on her wrist keypad, calling the unit's own microfliers to the rescue. Superfly couldn't match the Red Hammer mechs in numbers, but it could drive a wedge in the enemy swarm, carve out a bubble and let the troops make it the last few meters to the lifter.
Reaves swung and swatted at the buzzing cloud around her head, finally sending the command to the lead bot. From well down the slopes of Shih Ho Mountain, a mass formation of mite-sized fliers formed up and raced up the escarpment, homing on Reaves' transmitter, seeking gaps in the camou barrier.
Deep in her bones, Reaves shuddered. Come on Fly, get…up…here…now….she could feel the mechs whirring away on her neck and forearms--"get the hell up here…."
Suddenly, the air thickened to a gelatinous mist and the shriek of the mechs became unbearable, tearing at their eardrums. The nighttime glitter of Kowloon dimmed momentarily as Superfly swarmed onto the mountaintop and enveloped the Detachment. The shriek of the attack screeched into inaudibility, a scream of rage no longer heard but felt in the interstices of every bone of her body.
"Attack config--" she squeezed out, nearly out of breath, burrowing as deep as she could against the cold rock of the mountaintop. "Give it to 'em, Superfly! Right in the chops!"
The onslaught slackened just enough for the rest of the Detachment to make a final dash to the lifter. Reaves stumbled, crawling, pitching forward, pushing somebody along ahead of her. It was Simonet, bleeding badly from her forehead, dragging along her web belt of gear. Lucy, Barnes, Gibbs, and the rest raced the last few dozen meters, beating against the lifter's downdraft. McReady and Gibbs helped Taj wrestle the TinyTown cylinder into its niche in the rear.
They fell one after another into the open deck of the lifter, rolling around like balls, as the pilot jerked the craft away from the landing zone. The lifter shuddered under full military power, fighting remnant clouds of mechs, as the craft careened and bucked and shot skyward. A hurricane of dust and sand and swarming mechs tore by, all blown to the wind, as the lifter spun and wobbled until the pilot could right her. Reaves wiped sweat and grit from her eyes and squinted up at the cockpit, seeing a familiar face. It was Angelo, the Cuban jockey who'd joined the Corps last year. Angelo, who'd veetolled them onto Shih Ho's summit a few hours ago. A welcome face. Reaves laughed in spite of herself.
Angelo pitched them up and away from the mountain slope, hauling the stick back full. They screamed across the night sky of Hong Kong like a bird of prey at max thrust…scattering mechs everywhere.
Too bad about Superfly, Reaves thought, as she sat up and wiped streaks of grime from her face. He'd always been a kickass bot, her personal toy and a damned good scout for Detachment missions. They'd miss this model for sure. But Table Top could fabricate another one in no time.
One hundred, two hundred, five hundred meters. Reaves barely breathed until they'd put kilometers behind them and the only thing she could hear was the thrummmm of the liftjets and the cold wind whistling through the cockpit holes. She shook her head, startled at the sight. Mechs had burrowed into the lifter…the holes, she hadn't seen them before. It had been that close.
A few meters away, Johnny Winger was feeling much the same. He sank back, sweaty and exhausted, and killed the crewnet. His eyepiece went dark and he shoved it away from his face, pleased they'd been able to grab one of the enemy assemblers inside Shih Ho Mountain, but dejected they’d failed to get to the pulser. Kraft would have his ass for that but the truth was they needed bigger guns to penetrate Lions Rock. But they had stung the cartel and it was a sure bet Red Hammer would be scrambling in the days ahead to recover from the smash and grab.
Even more important, they had a better idea of just what they were up against with the cartel’s pulser. The speed at which the device had corrupted Doc and turned that swarm against them was sobering. At least, Taj was now reporting the decoherence wakes had slackened a bit. Maybe the cartel had closed down the pulser and UNIFORCE could regain control of its killsats.
Winger and Reaves exchanged wry glances. DPS1 had been following a feed from the newssats and showed it to the Lieutenant. Winger read the crawl silently: Red Hammer issues ultimatums… Paris, New York, Tokyo and London…to pay ransom, allow cartel operations a free hand or risk destruction…bubbles of toxic, unbreathable air already penetrating Svalbard and Scandinavia…ice cap melting advances…flooding in Mumbai and Miami….
Quantum Sword had failed in its basic mission because no one understood how to deal with the pulser. New ideas were needed, not to mention new weapons. But all that would have to wait for another mission to Lions Rock. In the meantime, spaceplane Archimede had already left Chek Lap Kok, winging her way across the top of the atmosphere back to Kourou; she would be needed for further trips up to Gateway. The Detachment itself had a long haul to make Quantum Corps' Eastern Command base at Singapore. There would be hours and hours of debriefings and after-action reviews and then would come all the ass-chewing and the head-banging. The thought of it made Winger’s head hurt. Best to get some shut-eye now, while he could.
Above their heads, massaging the controls like a master pianist, Angelo grinned back at the sight of Reaves and Winger, sacked out next to each other, then trimmed the lifter for cruise, settling in for a nighttime hop across the South China Sea.
END
About the Author
Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a large company that makes products everyone uses…just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He’s been happily married for 25 years. He’s also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3-4 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Keeshond dog named Kelsey.
To get a peek at Philip Bosshardt’s upcoming work, recent reviews, excerpts and general updates on the writing life, visit his blog The Word Shed at: https://thewdshed.blogspot.com.
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