Darklight Pirates

Explosions all around rocked the warbot, but Cletus felt no danger. The antiaircraft artillery was not meant to take out rapidly falling objects but rather those crossing from horizon to horizon.

“There are no anti-ballistic missile defenses capable of damaging our warbots,” came Leanne Chang’s reassurance. “Keep a close watch on the type of sensors trained on us, though. Kick out countermeasures when you see lidar. Don’t worry about radar. It’s not accurate enough and doesn’t respond quickly enough to aim their kinetic weapons.”

Cletus nodded, in spite of Leanne not being able to see him. Lidar meant a laser-based weapon. It would track them all the way to the ground, unlike the artillery which hit safety stops at about thirty degrees above the horizon. Fall under that angle and they were safe.

“Where’s it coming from? I can’t tell.” He turned his head from side to side reading all the HUD virtual panels possible.

“Mobile artillery. Tanks? I cannot tell, either.”

That admission caused him some concern. She didn’t know? Or she couldn’t tell? A tank could fire on them all the way to the ground, unlike the antiaircraft artillery. Leanne, expert in the usage of the powerful robotic fighting suits, should have given him a precise answer. At it was, he found it impossible to keep up with the flood of data pouring into his displays.

The flashing lights evaporated and only two panels remained dancing in front of his eyes. He panicked. A shell must have damaged his warbot.

“I muted your HUD. You should concentrate on these alone and let the auto system deal with everything else. It is a robot, Cletus. Let it operate as such. If serious damage occurs, you will know right away.”

“Thanks.” Cletus settled down tried to enjoy the ride, but he found it disconcerting that the ground rushed up at him so quickly. His father had instilled in him distrust of AI--and that guided all the systems not under his direct control. He saw lights flashing red on muted panels and then the warriorobot set down with a huge crash.

The legs bent to absorb the landing shock that braking jets did not cancel. He went to one knee, reached out with his left arm and supported his huge robotic shell. He looked up and panicked when he failed to see the expected military base.

“We’re near Scarlotti’s house! We’re at the coast. What happened?”

“During our descent corrected, the target was located more accurately. The Shillelagh’s ranging equipment needs recalibration.”

“We’re two kilometers from the house. We should get there as quickly as we can.” Cletus got to his feet and performed a quick scan. From all the fire they’d taken getting here, he expected to be in the middle of the Cork Low Guard base, not near the CIO’s home.

“I detect a carrier half submerged in the sea a few hundred meters from the house.”

Cletus squinted as Leanne transferred her view to his screen. He identified the carrier model but had no way of knowing if this had been Scarlotti’s. A fast examination showed only superficial damage from sliding down the embankment.

“It wasn’t hit by drone or aircraft fire,” he said. “They fared better than we did.”

“From the method of landing and the skid marks, it ran out of fuel.” Leanne cut off her view and returned control of his screen.

He matched her long stride along the seawall toward the house. Barely had he reached rocket range when laserifles opened fire. If his readouts hadn’t alerted him, he would never have noticed. A quick scan showed where three snipers had set up shop. He shrugged and sent a 10cm rocket blasting into each enemy position.

“Don’t waste your rockets,” Leanne cautioned. “Use your energy weapons. Lasers. Save the aurora guns for heavily armored targets.”

“The soldiers wore armor.” Even as the cocky words escaped his lips, he saw that not even a smear of carbon remained where each rocket had impacted. The craters were a meter deep and nothing human or human-built remained. To be sure, he let the warbot analysis unit run a spectrographic analysis of the atmosphere. In the rain and wind, even carbon vapor was whisked away, as if the soldiers had never existed.

“The house has four units, no more.” Leanne stopped. Cletus saw her lasers charging. He duplicated the move as he came even with her warbot. “What should we do?”

“If I read the sensors properly, all four are armored. I don’t see anyone else inside. My mother and sister wouldn’t have armor. Scarlotti might, though I doubt it.”

“We need one for interrogation.”

“How do we go about that?” For the first time Cletus realized the overwhelming power in the mechanized suits. Destroying the opposition was simple. Taking one of them alive might prove impossible because he was hitting a tiny insect with a nuke.

“I am unfamiliar with your coded signals. Which is the officer?”

Cletus started to say he couldn’t tell, then realized one soldier had to be able to contact the other three, but those three might not be set up with a duplex between their peers. The fog of war included the intense static caused by dozens or hundreds of soldiers trying to contact one another. Standard procedure let the commander speak with each of his unit, sometimes on a tight band only to his squad leaders, who in turn passed orders along to individual troopers.

“That one,” Cletus said, moving a green cross along his HUD to mark the squad leader. His polarizer cut in when Leanne fired three beams that took out each of those in the leader’s squad, leaving him alone.

“Your life will be spared if you surrender.” Her offer sounded lame to Cletus but not to the squad leader.

“I surrender. Don’t shoot! I’m putting down my laserifle.”

“Come out of the house and stand ten meters away.”

Cletus watched the shimmery form on his sensor screen come down stairs and step outside where it firmed into a distinct image. The man wore light armor that would fail with even the lightest of shots from a warbot laser.

“Do you have them prisoner?”

“The captain took them ten minutes ago. Are you going to kill me?”

“Where are they being taken?”

“To the fort outside Cork. A troop carrier landed and left.”

Cletus cursed under his breath. They should have ignored the new Intel and gone directly to the base where they could have cut off the carrier as it approached a well-defended position.

“How many were there? How many prisoners?” Cletus’ finger tightened on the laser cannon trigger. The wrong answer would result in a greasy, molten blob.

“Three. Two women and a man.”

On a tight security band, Cletus asked Leanne, “What do we do with him?”

The single dazzling beam from her lefthand laser removed the problem.

“He was a prisoner! He’d surrendered!”

“Did the Highlander think to take prisoners? You are in a war of extermination, Cletus.”

“No, it’s not like that. This ...” His voice trailed off. She was right. The attack on the Shillelagh had been unprovoked and only providence had saved them.

“The soldiers took prisoners. That must mean something.”

“Your mother and sister will be tried and executed publicly? Weir is not the kind to allow opposition to persist long. He tried to kill your father and you. What are two women to him?”

“He won’t execute them publicly,” Cletus decided. “He’ll do it secretly to avoid unwanted explanations after he’s learned all he can from them. His address to the citizens spoke of a Drop error destroying the Shillelagh. An accident killing both my mother and Bella would be too much of a coincidence.” Cletus turned grim. “A few citizens might wonder what became of them, but not many.”

“Weir needs only say they have gone into seclusion after their tragic loss of brother and father.”

“Do we use jets or stay on the ground and run to get to Cork?”

“Your expertise with the jump jets is limited.”

“Take over,” Cletus said, “and then relinquish when we get to the fort.” He disliked giving up control this way, but Leanne’s experience got them where they could rescue his mother and sister faster. If Scarlotti was with them, he could be added to that roster of those being saved.

Leanne engaged the QED. The jump jets kicked in, sending the warbot arrowing upward, then tipping over to drive through the atmosphere so fast the top of the armored head began to glow. As suddenly as she had assumed control, she released it. Cletus watched Cork expand in his display and immediately regained command of the powerful robot as it settled down along a paved road meandering through a forested area. Small fires exploded from dried undergrowth as the jets died. He ignored such minor destruction as the fighting machine walked forward. Cletus allowed its AI to handle the random fire from scattered knots of soldiers as he searched the buildings ahead with his most advanced sensors.

“I found the prison. There are a couple dozen people in cells, another twenty outside cells that must be guards. We’ll have to free them all. Avoid damage there, Leanne. None at all to those in the cells.”

“I understand. However, we are beginning to take more serious fire.”

A rocket collided squarely with his chest and erupted in an oily fire that spread as it dripped down his torso. The napalm stuck to the heavy armor but did nothing to melt it. Cletus realized this wasn’t the intent. The fire blanked his forward sensors with intense heat that rendered IR and most of the visual spectrum ineffectual.

“Turn around, face backward. Your rear sensors are as acute as the forward looking ones.”

Cletus took the advice and located the prison again. No amount of work using his sensors identified the prisoners, though. As he spun about to stride toward the detention center, red lights began winking at him on his HUD. The robot reached the limit of what it could do on its own and required human direction.

He quickly saw that the weapons directed him were increasingly potent. The napalm burned itself off and gave him a better appraisal of what he faced. The laser cannon mounted at the corner of the detention building cycled and licked at his chest. The warbot automatically sidestepped, reacting faster than he could have. But with increasing computer power required for such active defense, he had to direct the lasers and rockets himself.

A quick sweep of lasers on both arms wiped out the most dangerous of the weapons clusters firing on him. A sudden lurch sent him staggering forward. It was as if someone had clubbed him on the back of his head. A 360-degree sensor scan showed that aircraft entered the fight now.

He had only two rocket tubes covering his rear. He started to launch when he saw contrails snaking up toward the fighters. Leanne had launched a pair of 25 cm missiles that would not quit until they found their targets. And they did. Two fighters vanished in fireballs.

“They released a new nanodrone swarm. We can’t wipe them all out.”

Cletus saw the problem, agreed with Leanne, but tried to sweep the sky with a continuous wave laser anyway. Tiny electric sparks popped up above him, but for every gnat-sized drone he destroyed three remained. Worse, the defenders could pump up the numbers in the swarm until the sky turned black. They had to use their onboard sensors. The soldiers had only to access the data sent from the swarm to know every movement, every detail of the warbots’ movement, armament and condition.

“I’ll make a dash to the prison. Cover me.”

“Wait, Cletus. I’m picking up heavier artillery. Tanks. What we faced until now were all automated responses. These are human-controlled and likely to be erratic.”

He saw that she allowed her warbot to fire automatically. With computer versus computer, the destruction quotient tipped in favor of the towering mechanicals. With humans hunting for weaknesses or devising on-the-spot tactics, the fight would be tougher. A quick look at his HUD damage panel showed no significant problem. As with the Shillelagh, there were internal repair nano assemblers constantly patching and shunting around seriously impaired systems. More of a problem was his lavish use of the rockets earlier. He had to depend more on his energy weapons.

“When is it good to use the aurora gun?”

For a moment he thought she hadn’t received his question. Just as he started to repeat it, she answered, “As a last resort, if you want anyone to survive. A discharge, even a low power, will level the entire base.”

“Understood.” Cletus shrugged, reloaded the launch tubes on his shoulders and set the fiery-tailed dragons loose against an approaching column of tanks. The first four tanks lurched and skewed about, a tribute to the immense power locked in each 25cm warhead. But more clanked past the damaged ones. He triggered a few tentative bursts and saw he had to crank up to full power to put these land behemoths out of commission.

“Go, free the prisoners.”

He started off with Leanne engaging the metallic tsunami launched at them, then stumbled and sank as the ground beneath his feet turned to molten slag. The internal gyros worked so hard he smelled the ozone coming through the internal air system. He worried that the kilometers of foptic cable in the electronic gyroscope would melt. Then he realized he had ignored a real danger. His warbot stood knee-deep in the slag.

“What do they have that generates that much energy?” He monitored the swarm spying on him and realized the data transferred to space, not to the ground units now. A cold lump formed in his gut. “The orbital lasers are coming into position!”

A new scintillant blast beside him caused the warbot to lean heavily. Instinct or plain luck caused him to fire his jump jets. He blasted free of the molten pit, spun crazily in midair and then crashed. The AI system took over to prevent a devastating collision with a building. A few staggering steps allowed him to regain his balance. His sensors screamed in his ears as a new attack came from space.

Against the potent space-based lasers, even the warbot was vulnerable. Those beams had been designed to level entire cities.

He crouched to present a small target and plunged forward. He slashed through buildings and vehicles and, although he couldn’t tell, soldiers trying to stop his rampage with nothing more than sidearms or laserifles.

Ahead of him a shimmering picket fence formed. A half dozen orbital continuous wave lasers blocked him from the prison. To attempt to go through that deadly picket fence would be suicidal. Alternate beams winked out for their batteries to recharge the weapons. Even with such space, he would be easily destroyed in he tried to squeeze between.

A tank shell crashed into his back. The explosion knocked him forward toward the deadly energy curtain. Only by flopping forward to land on his front did he keep from being destroyed.

“I can take care of the tanks,” came Leanne’s still calm voice. “The Shillelagh must do what it can to destroy the orbiting laser battle platforms.”

“Message sent,” Cletus responded. “I was already keying in the microburst message. Voice com is out.”

“Lasercom is useless with the orbital lasers discharging like this. They ionize the air and disrupt line-of-sight lasers.”

“My father’ll do what he can, but we’re on our own for a few more minutes.”

Cletus doubted his father would destroy the orbital station, even if he could. Those were loyal citizens obeying orders. Worse, if the station was destroyed this might encourage Eire and Uller to press the ground troop advantage they held along the borders. To protect his son and rescue his wife and daughter, Donal Tomlins had to risk his entire nation. That was a decision Cletus wasn’t sure he could make, even as he took increasing fire from both tank and artillery.

He used his lefthand laser to kick up a cloud of dirt and rock when an energy blast came from above. The debris momentarily hid him from the spying nano-swarm and caused the orbital laser to miss. He swung his laser around, firing continuously until he realized his constant discharge sapped the power of his weapons and forced recovery time he dared not take. Across his HUD a river of fiercely glowing red lights showed how he was overheating too many systems.

Through the haze he created he saw Leanne’s warbot standing proudly, firing rockets with measured regularity from both shoulder hard points. An occasional contrail appeared at her waist, showing her judicious use of the 25s. Her arms moved constantly, but the lasers only discharged occasionally. She conserved her energy and fired only for maximum effect. He took this lesson seriously as he bulled his way parallel to the energy beams preventing him from reaching the prison.

The barrage had to cease eventually. He knew the capacity of those battle platforms. He dodged for a few minutes, then acted when the beams. eased up. He applied full power to his legs to surge forward. Response came sluggishly, showing how drained he had become. A frightening thought of being trapped inside this metal coffin to suffocate, to be cooked alive, to die, turned him cautious for an instant.

This saved his life. If he had bulled on, the downward stabbing laser would have cut through his head and the entire torso of the warbot. He raised his right hand and fired at the prison. The ravening beam melted the razor-wire fence, cut through the maze intended to slow escaping prisoners and caused the entire front to evaporate in a haze of destruction. The prisoners inside had to get free on their own.

Cletus found himself engaging a tank that had circled about and came at him from the right flank. He depressed the trigger for a shoulder rocket to take it out. Empty. He tried his left shoulder. The tube there exploded, a rocket malfunction. He felt the vibration throughout the ponderous metallic body, but worse, the explosion damaged the sensors on the left side, leaving him virtually blind there.

He twisted about, brought the tank into his sights and fired both lasers. The eye-searing beams crossed at the tank turret. The explosion as all of the MBT’s inboard shells went off simultaneously caused him to lose balance and sit heavily. Even the warbot had to obey the laws of inertia and momentum transfer. Most of the tank turret had crashed into his chest.

With savage fury, he erased more of the HUD panels showing the damage he had sustained. Coming to hands and knees, he found the proper sequence to stand again. His visuals were gone, but IR ghost images of prisoners flooding from the stockade made his heart race. At least he thought they had to be prisoners since there were so many.

He frantically scanned his virtual panels for an external circuit that would allow him to call out for his mother and sister. If there was one, it had been destroyed. The prisoners began scattering. If he wanted to rescue his family, he had to act now. He began working to pop open the chest so he could look out.

“What are you doing? You’ll die if you breach the seals on your unit.” Leanne’s usually calm voice rose to a shrill pitch. “You can’t find them now. We have to rendezvous with the Shillelagh immediately.”

“I won’t leave them. They’re out there somewhere and need me.” Cletus started his robot moving. It canted to one side, corrected and almost became vapor when a new assault from space lit up the prison compound. “The lasers will kill them.”

“You’re drawing that laser fire! Keep hunting and you will seal their deaths. Return to the Shillelagh immediately.” Leanne’s voice was more controlled now. “We are out of rockets and between a new wave of tanks approaching and the orbital lasers, there is no hope for our mission to succeed. Retreat, Cletus. Now, while we have enough fuel to reach orbit.”

“No!”

He slammed full power into robotic legs, driving the warbot forward. No response. He worked through the HUD panels. Only one appeared in front of him.

“You can’t take control. Let me go!”

His angry protests were drowned out as the jets kicked the warbot aloft and higher into the atmosphere. The seals began leaking precious air the higher he flew until it became a race between reaching the safety of the dreadnought’s pressurized cargo bay and dying in transit.

But nothing he tried reversed the warbot’s flight away from the prison and his mother and sister. Nothing.