Swarm (21 page)

We put the men, a company of them at a time, into large steel containers for transport. Nothing on Earth could move troops better than one of our ships carrying them with that giant arm. Like some kind of insane helicopter raid, we brought thousands of men down to a staging area. We flew very low and landed about twenty miles north of the fighting, so we wouldn’t get shot down by enemy AA. Each dome had a missile launcher that could rise up and nail aircraft with precision. Every large Macro carried a similar AA system on its back.

The plan was to deploy our first large groups of laser-armed troops just after the Macros hit a buried line of tactical nuclear mines. Every man in the unit had protective gear: full body-suits of lead-lined Kevlar with oxygen and a power pack on their backs. They had special headgear too, with darkened goggles. I’d heard the first volunteers to fire my system had been blinded and given instant sunburns, due to the intense infrared emissions. Their retinas had been burned out of their heads in the first second. Now, we had the whole kit working, but it was still crude. Altogether, the system weighed over a hundred pounds. Because of the weight of their kits, the troops couldn’t carry much else. I could tell right away I needed to get the weight of these units down. I didn’t have much trouble with the backpack and hazard suit myself due to the strengthening effects of the nanites in my body. But the heavy protective suits also redoubled the steamy heat of the jungle, making each mile a suffocating experience.

The troops had a strange reaction to me, knowing I was from the enigmatic fleet. Some thought of us as the enemy, but most had to admit we’d just air-lifted them thousands of miles southward to a field deployment position in hours, something no chopper could have done. They were impressed that I was down there with them, ground-pounding. They considered me a real officer, which was refreshing. A navy commander translated to a major in the Army, and they treated me like one. Or maybe, they treated me respectfully because I scared them. Sometimes I felt like a large, dangerous snake they were required to salute.

“Commander Riggs, sir?” asked Corporal Jensen, who’d been assigned to me as my aide. He was a lanky kid with wide shoulders and red sideburns that looked like they were at little past regulation length. I figured he was here primarily to make sure I didn’t cause any trouble, but I was glad to have him.

“Yes, Corporal?”

“It’s time to get into the bunkers, sir. The enemy should be hitting our firewall any time now.”

The ‘firewall’ was what the troops called our string of nuclear mines that had been laid in the rainforest to the south. We were stationed along the mouth of a wide slow river that connected to the Amazon River somewhere upstream. The muddy brown shorelines on both sides of the river were dotted with bunkers and foxholes. The vibrantly green jungle growth crowded up against the encampment and seemed ominously thick and dank. Any moment, one was left expecting something huge and terrifying to come out of those trees.  

I nodded and followed the corporal. He stopped me however, and directed me in the opposite direction. “No sir, you need to go to the command bunker. They’ll be waiting for you in there. You’re part of the briefing.”

“Thanks Corporal,” I said, turning in the indicated direction.

“Commander?” asked the Corporal.

“Yes?”

“Did you really make these guns?” he asked, hefting his.

I nodded. “I designed them, with some help from the Pentagon.”

“They’re really cool, sir.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you think they will stop a Macro, sir?”

“I hope so, Corporal,” I said.

I continued in the direction of the command bunker. I tried to act coolly, but in reality I was out of my element. I wasn’t used to military encampments. Everyone seemed to know what was going on and where they were supposed to be except me. They’d all been on maneuvers like this, if not in actual combat. The only serious combat I’d seen had been from a reclining position inside a tin can I called the
Alamo
.

I found the command bunker and paused outside it. I looked around at the Brazilian jungle. Rainforests are hard to describe. They are gorgeous and unpleasant all at once. When you are caught up in one as a trooper with a hundred pound kit on your back, a lead-lined hazard suit wrapped around your face and a nervous tickle of sweat under your arms, it’s not inviting. But to the eye, standing there in the camp as everyone tucked themselves into bunkers underground, it was inarguably beautiful. White sands, glowing blue water, sun-drenched skies. Birds trilled and whooped. A thousand tiny living things waved and crawled over every yard of soil under my boots.

I had to wonder how many creatures were about die in this jungle so we could kill a few giant robots. It didn’t seem fair to the wildlife. I took in a deep breath. At least it would be quick.

I tramped down the steps to the heavy bunker doors and heaved them open.

-23-

The conversation slowed to a buzz when I entered the bunker. A dozen eyes swiveled and locked on me. I threw back my hood and removed my goggles because everyone else had. I ignored their scrutiny and stepped up to the big tabletop computer that filled the center of the room. Everyone had circled around it.

“Welcome, Commander,” General Kerr said, without a smile or any hint of warmth.

I saluted him. Everyone stared for a moment, then the General returned my salute. I knew not everyone accepted that I’d earned my rank, much less the right to stand among them. I pretended not to notice or care.

He went back to the briefing. There, on the tabletop computer, a map of the region was displayed. Various tributaries of the massive Amazon River were all around us. In between the squiggly lines representing the river were areas of bright green, which I felt certain represented millions of trees. We were a blue hash mark to the north. A dozen other blue marks representing troop concentrations were strung along the line in front of several hundred advancing red dots. As I watched, the red dots shifted a pixel or so north about once a minute.

In between the Macros and us was a tight line of yellow hazard symbols. I didn’t have to ask what they were.

As we watched, I saw the Macros were even now passing over some of the yellow hazards. I fully expected them to poof and thought it odd we hadn’t yet buttoned up our suits. But the line kept marching, and the bombs sat idle.

“Any questions?” asked the General at length. There were none. “How about you, Commander Riggs?”

I looked up from the battle screen. “Just one,” I said. “Why don’t we smoke the Macros now? I count three that have passed over the mines.”

He smiled at me without friendliness or amusement. “We want a few on our side of the firewall before we light them up. Do you approve?”

I shrugged. “It’s your show, sir.”

“Very good. Well, as you say, we are about to ‘smoke them’ now. Hard to believe they are churning through this dense growth at close to thirty miles an hour, isn’t it? Just goes to show you what having huge metal legs will do for you. They can walk through jungle like a man pushing through a dense cornfield. Any more questions?”

I raised my hand again. The General gave me a nod.

“How are we going to catch up with them if they are running around so fast, sir?” I asked.

He gave me another indulgent smile, as if I was eight years old. “Don’t worry. They will come right to us. And once they engage, they won’t leave targets alive. They’ll stay on top of us until every one of us is dead, or they are.”

“I take it you’ve fought with them before, sir?”

“Yes, my last command was part of the rapid-deployment force in Argentina. We were among the first to encounter the enemy directly.”

“Glad you made it out, General Kerr.”

“Very few of us did.”

“But I have seen the Macros retreat, sir. It is possible. I’ve fought and destroyed four of their ships in orbit. At the end, they did try to back out.”

All of them were looking at me now. I wasn’t smiling. Neither was anyone else.

“I’ll take that under consideration. I have to admit, we’ve never really hurt them enough to make them retreat down here.”

I nodded, satisfied. A klaxon went off then, alerting us to take cover. Everyone moved to a wall and braced themselves. We put on our headgear and stood ready.

First, the flash of light hit us. That came before the rest of it. Even though we were in a sealed bunker the light seeped in somehow. Camera hookups went white as well, adding to the effect. The light of a million suns flared up on the surface of the Earth. I wondered how long it had been since we’d done that—lit one off at ground level on Earth.

It wasn’t long until another flash loomed up, then a third and a fourth. Then the initial cracking sound hit us, rolling over the camp. We were too far out for a pressure wave. Too far away to feel the blast itself. But we were in range of the gusting winds.

More flashes. More rolling thunderclaps. The walls shook.  Each grain of sand around my boots shook individually, dancing a thousandth of an inch from the surface. Dust rolled around inside the bunker as the weight of sandbags shifted and released fractions of their contents.

Finally, the all-clear sounded. The General pin-wheeled his arms. “Out, topside everyone. Let’s have a look at what we’ve done today.”

We marched up onto the sandy soil and gaped at the sky. A dozen mushroom clouds expanded in a line to the south. No, I thought. There must be nearly twenty. I counted, and came up with nineteen, although they were beginning to overlap.

“What about fallout, sir?” asked a colonel. It was the first time I’d heard one of the other officers dare ask a question. I had gotten the idea that General Kerr didn’t really like questions.

The General huffed. “In three or four days the hot zones will be livable as long as we stay in our suits. I believe I’ve mentioned that in previous briefings.”

“Yes sir, but will the fallout come in this direction?”

“No, not unless the weather boys are complete morons. The prevailing winds are to the south in this area at every atmospheric level. And today, luckily, is no exception.”

“And what will attract the surviving Macros to us, sir?” I asked.

The General turned toward me. One of his eyes was visible through the portholes in his suit. His voice came through in a muffled manner, as if he spoke through a pillow.

“Our decoys. They are already headed down there to tease them. They’ll come back this way as soon as they get their attention. Based on past behavior, the Macros will assume whatever is buzzing around is the culprit and needs to die.”

“Decoys, sir?” I asked.

“Helicopters. A few hundred of them.”

“But the radiation, the pilots...” I said, trailing off. I had assumed when he said decoys he had meant remote-controlled aircraft. I supposed however, now that I considered it, we probably didn’t have any drone craft designed to tease huge robots into following them.

“Volunteers, Commander,” the General said sharply. “They were all volunteers. Just as every man on this beach is a volunteer, including you.”

I couldn’t but help notice he used the word
were
, rather than
are
when referring to these volunteer pilots. Perhaps it had been a slip of the tongue.

I nodded and fell quiet. Internally, I did not call myself a volunteer. I recalled having been drafted by a silent, black starship, in the middle of the night.

-24-

“Move out! Move out! Keep moving! Move OUT!” shouted a sergeant with an amazingly loud voice. It seemed his suit didn’t dampen his natural volume at all. Squads of men trotted dutifully in the directions he pointed. I followed a platoon of men that were stationed along the riverbank. We’d left our bunkers behind. Veterans all agreed, that was the first thing the Macros would blow up when they got here.

Our assault plans were simple, direct, and somewhat suicidal. We were here to test these weapons I’d built. Oh sure, the army had done plenty of testing. There was enough power in these laser rifles to feel them kick lightly when you turned them on. They could burn through the trunk of one of these palm trees that surrounded the area with less than a one second exposure. But that wasn’t what we needed. We need to burn through solid metal. Lots of metal, and quickly.

The Macros were coming. The estimates were that we had less than an hour to position ourselves. Now that the nuclear mines had gone off without a hitch and the helicopters had managed to tease the Macros into charging in this direction, all we had to do was hide and wait. Supposedly, we were going to ambush the monstrosities. I hoped they would feel ambushed when they got here.

Avoiding all structures in the base, we waited in foxholes dug everywhere. On top of every hole was a layer of fabric and on top of that was a layer of dirt for camouflage. The Macros had infrared heat-sensors for targeting systems, but according to the techs, an inch or two of soil could foil that.

We had men everywhere, buried in gopher holes. When a Macro came near, the bubble of their shields would pass over us. We would then pop up inside the shell of their electromagnetic shielding and fire for all we were worth. We were to shoot the small automated turrets on the thing’s belly, then take out the legs. When it was helpless, we would bore in with concentrated fire until we penetrated the hull and killed it.