Bootstrap Colony (34 page)

“Oh, sorry, Tina Riley, Corporal
Riley medic,” she explained.

He nodded. “Okay, you’ll have to
check in with Doc, medics are her department.”

 Tina nodded. “She is a real
Doctor?”

“We have her, a couple nurses,
and some med students here,” Mitch replied with a nod.

Tina nodded in return. “Thank
god,” she muttered. He gave her a quirked eyebrow look. She squirmed a bit.

“Don’t like having to patch
people together without support?” Mitch asked, clearly understanding her view
point. She nodded. “I don’t blame you. I brought along an entire hospital
package as well.” She nodded. “You took care of the wounded on the way here?”

“Yeah. A red head took over,”
Tina replied.

“That was Doc,” Mitch replied.

She nodded. “I didn’t want to jog
her elbow,” Tina replied.

The AI beeped. “Miss Riley please
report to the infirmary.”

Tina sighed. “No rest for the
wicket.” Mitch nodded. “Duty calls, thanks for the beer.” She smiled as she got
up to leave.

Mitch turned his attention on the
remaining people. “All right, now, you three pitched a proposal to Jack?” The
trio nodded as the woman left. “You want to,” he looked at the tablet, “let’s
see here, enter the caves and kill the shark hounds? You do realize, you three
and a handful of others scattered over the four villages are our only military
assets right?”

They nodded. “And you want to
take most of our weapons, and enter unmapped caverns, up against pack hunting
animals on their own turf, in the dark?” Again they nodded.

“You do realize they will be
quite fierce, defending their young, backed into a corner right?” Mitch asked
patiently. The Gunny nodded, but the Seal looked a bit thoughtful. “Charging up
San Juan Hill with a k bar may be a jar head thing but a squids?” Mitch asked,
turning to the Seal.

Akira’s face stormed over. The
Gunny gave a textbook reply of “Semper fi! OOo Rah!”

Mitch snorted. “Okay, Jack has
denied your request. I came up with an alternative, an ambush, but he is not
happy about it. He is all for killing these things, but he is also concerned
about well, getting bit in the butt if things go south.” They reluctantly
nodded.

“We can’t be out in the open with
these things; they are just too damn fast and maneuverable. They are smart too,
adapt fast and are prone to flanking enemy. When we got our first look at them
they were downright nasty, they immediately spotted weapons fire as ranged
threats and used superior speed to attack from flanking positions. They soaked
up casualties in order to get to the attacker.”

The Seal looked dubious, Akira
frowned. “The only way we could bag these things safely is at range with the
robar or Barrett,” Mitch finished. Akira scowled, toying with the beer in his
hand.

“Unfortunately I only brought a
dozen of them, and the rounds are a royal pain in the arse to make, even with
salvaged brass. Don’t even get me started on the poison dart ones,” Mitch
grimaced.

Gunny looked confused. “Wait, you
rigged fifty cal rounds as poison darts? Why?”

Mitch shrugged. “I wanted
something that could drop something big fast without being able to get a heart
or head shot. I only have a few rounds left,” he replied. The Seal nodded. “Bob
wanted me to go with spitting cobra venom; it is effective, easier to get then
the tropical snail one, but it took up to thirty minutes to kill something, even
the distilled version. The concentrated snail venom killed in a second,” Mitch
replied. The Gunny and Travis nodded.

“Anyway, as I was saying, we
might be able to use an ED or CAT to add weapons fire for an ambush, but they
are valuable assets, as you three are.” Mitch looked into each of their eyes.

“Akira, you are...” He looked at
the tablet. “An avionics specialist?”

“Yes sir.” The young South Korean
gave a short bow.

Mitch snorted. “Don’t call me
sir, I work for a living.” Mitch responded. The marine snorted. Mitch waved his
hand. “Sure I am in charge, but it is my dime so my ball.” The Seal nodded. The
AI beeped. He stood. “Okay gents, I think I promised a demo.” He ushered them
out then led them back to the garage.

Within the cavernous garage space
Lisa was a bit annoyed at seeing the robots standing at attention. There were
nine, an R-2 style robot, scout track, mini me droid, Andy android, GP droid,
CAT, donk, Crusher, and ED. The Gunny whistled at the Ed, eyes wide. “Damn! Hot
diggedy damn!” The Seal snorted a laugh.

“As you can see gentlemen the R-2
and androids are for household work.” Mitch waved his hand, and then placed it
on the dome of the R-2. “The R-2’s and others like it clean and fetch and carry
like the mini-me’s do. The GP,” He waved to the Short circuit style tracked
robot. “This is the general purpose robot, used outdoors.”

“These,” he waved to the scout
and Crusher, “You are more familiar with. They are a basic scout or patrol
unit.” He waved to CAT. “CAT three here is one of the security robots, and ED
one here is the heavy security.” Akira looked amazed. “I also have a banged up
predator drone, a bunch of other UAV’s and a few other toys.” They nodded.
Akira crouched down, examining the robots.

Gunny looked the ED over, awed by
the robots fierce stance and firepower. “Walking tank!” he commented.

Mitch nodded. “Yeah, it is. It
has bailed my bacon out of the fire a few times when some dinos got frisky and
put me on the menu.”

The Seal chuckled. “Wish we had
had a few.”

“Unfortunately I can’t see doing
a live fire exercise right now; I only brought a finite amount of ammo,
grenades, and mortars. I can show you the lasers later though,” Mitch offered.
They nodded.

“I Never thought I would be the
one watching a dog and pony show,” the Seal commented wryly. The Gunny
chuckled.

“The ED here has three guns on
each forearm. One laser each, two guns sighted for two hundred fifty meters,
and two for fifty meters for close in work. The short range gun is a shot gun,
with shredder rounds,” Mitch replied, pointing each weapon out.

He stepped behind the robot and
pointed. “ED squat a sec here.” The robot stepped its legs out and then
squatted.  Mitch went around and pointed to the back. “Okay, here we have the
mortars, there are two. They are variable target, variable round. I have loaded
them with a half a dozen flash bangs, four frag, six flares, and two area
denial rounds.”

The Gunny whistled softly. “Hot
damn!”

“The Eds are slow, but they make
up for it with firepower.” The Gunny nodded.

“When you entered through the
first gates you may have noticed the two robots there? Right?” Mitch asked.
They nodded. “They are a cross between the GP’s and ED. They were the first
prototypes for the ED robots. We weren’t sure about making the deadline on time
so I had the build team build each of them to test things out. They are P one
and P two.” He shook his head. “Cracking a track on one of them is a major
hassle like the GP’s,” he said and sighed, waving a hand to the GP.

“The CATs here,” He waved at the
CAT. “CAT take a jog to the gate and back.” The robot moved off, and then speed
up into a thirty kilometer lope. Professional military eyes turned their
attention to the metal cat. “The CATs are faster, and able to handle a variety
of terrain that would bog down the ED. They have the two guns on the back. They
can carry a small module that can be loaded with equipment or gear, such as
food or medical kits... or sensor pods.” The robot returned to its previous
position with barely a sound. Akira looked it over, crouching down to get a
better view.

“The Donk here.” Mitch rested his
hand on the largest robot. “The Donk here is a brute. It is general purpose
mover, like a forklift, but it can do some minor tasks as well. It has six
wheels instead of tracks. There is one here that has tracks, that is the first
prototype. When I found out how hard it is to crack tracks with these mothers I
had them switch to wheels,” he said wrinkling his nose in disgust. Gunny
nodded. “Loss in traction and a higher center of gravity, but a heck of a lot
easier to repair.... and they are faster now too,” Mitch finished.

“They don’t tear up the ground as
much either I bet,” Gunny added.

“Yeah, that too,” Mitch nodded as
he answered. “There is an armed UAV helicopter, actually two of them, about
half the size of an Apache.” He looked out over the park then back. “Damn
things never did work right, maybe you can take a look at their software Akira,
I still haven’t found the faults,” He sighed.

“What’s the matter with them?”
Akira asked, now interested.

“Oh, they just like to shoot at
anything that moves,” Mitch answered.

Gunny and the Seal looked at each
other then shrugged in unison. “Yeah, I’d say that is a problem.” They gave the
other armed robots a wary look.

“What about sending some of these
robots down into the caves?” the Gunny asked, looking up and piercingly at him.

“Well, to do that we would have
to get them there, stripping some of the defenses here,” Mitch replied. Gunny
nodded. “They are also terrible at night, poor night vision in low level
light,” Mitch explained. The Seal nodded.

“Then there is the problem of
mobility, getting the Cats to the caverns isn’t a problem, but the Eds here
aren’t as fast... nor are they exactly fitted for cave work.” He pointed to the
three meter tall robot. “Some of those caves are pretty narrow, or have low
ceilings. Ed here would have trouble getting in and moving around.” Akira
nodded slowly.

“Then they could have course get
stuck, damaged or destroyed,” the Seal commented.

“Yeah, that too. We have to be
conservative with our assets right now,” Mitch replied, glad they were thinking
with their first brains instead of their balls. The Gunny and Seal nodded.

“So, you were pretty set huh?”
Travis asked.

“Not hardly, but I knew we would
be in a crack, and would have to bootstrap civilization all over again without
proper planning,” Mitch replied.

The Gunny nodded. “Proper
planning prevents piss poor performance.”

Mitch nodded. “Yeah, I had Bob,
my security chief quote that one to me a lot. He was a former marine.

“Once a marine always a marine!”
the Gunny quoted.

“I stand corrected,” Mitch
replied dryly. He turned to the glowering Lisa and then back to the men. “Now
gentlemen, why don’t I give you the ten cent tour so we can get out of the
ladies way before she beats us to death with a wrench?”

Travis looked over to the
glowering Lisa and then chuckled. “She looked just like my ex-wife when I dared
enter the kitchen.”

Gunny looked over to the young
woman and snorted. “Mine too.”

Akira gave her a look, and then
shrugged. “Can I stay and check the robots out?” he asked. She nodded.

“Okay, have fun kids; don’t be
late for supper or Janet will crown you,” Mitch said with a smile as he opened
to door for the soldiers.

“Let’s start in the armory. I
managed to acquire quite a few Glocks, Bushmasters, and Shotguns, along with
the handful of Barrett’s I mentioned....”

They paused in the tour to admire
the Great Hall and waterfall. “So you redirected the water in here?” Gunny
asked, looking around.

“Yeah, I redirected the water to
fall in there.” Mitch pointed to the ceiling dome. “It filled up the chamber
below.” He pointed to the plate and grate covered floor at the center of the
chamber. “I had to work fast to get the concrete in and fused before it
overflowed.” He indicated the ground floor openings.

Travis nodded. “But it went down
on its own right?” Mitch nodded.

“I haven’t checked the sub
basement beyond the tank farm area, but I believe there is a passage to the
pond or beyond.” He shrugged. “As we expand and the need arises we can open it
up and explore.”

Gunny nodded. “So, in theory the
sharks could come up into the basement right?”

Mitch paused then let out a sigh.
“Good point,” he said quietly, now eying the grating with fresh eyes.

Travis nodded. “Well, they won’t
get through that plate, but are there other areas that lead below?” He turned
to the other passages.

Mitch nodded. “Yeah, three more,
all blocked with an airlock set up,” Mitch replied.

Paul nodded. “We still have some
leakage though, scorpions and bugs come in from time to time, and when we find
a gap we seal it.” Travis nodded as he and Gunny left.

Mitch noticed a young woman
arguing with Vance in a corner. The argument was going downhill; the two were
getting rather heated. He decided to take a look. “What’s going on?” he asked.
The young woman was obviously a new arrival, a short rail thin flat chested
black haired lady.

“I was telling this person
here...” She raised her nose haughtily in Vance’s direction. “That since we
have plenty of space for farms we should all become vegetarians.” Vance was
starting to get a little steamed.