Toy Wars (3 page)

The net, an all-purpose power and communication system, glittered invisibly in colors
that
have no Human words.
It cove
red the valley in a crowded crisscross pattern like matted fur
from one tiny node to another with
concentrated channels h
eading off in the direction where conflicts
raged
.
Each NC
transceiver wore
a diffuse halo dancing around in changing colors as commands
flew in and out
.
Those invisible
but powerful
lines of the net were
our
life
force
.
Six ordered units to perform their task
s
through the net.
Without it, most units would simply stop doing what they had been ordered and
would
quickly run out of power.
A
s
my original design basis came from
a scout
unit
,
I could operate outside the intangible touch of these veins of our life’s blood by making my own decisions and storing my own power.

A piercing whistle stole attention away from my attempts to fill in as much of my memory as possible.
The
first
of three
engine
’s eyes watched
me closely and spat
up steam
in angry bursts.
I
was
certain
Six
had
programmed
instructions not to leave until I
embarked
.
I
knew of the notorious impatience of t
rains
from
the database Six provided
.
It had to do with their mission to stay on a schedule, which they never really managed.

“Releasing your steam that way is not becoming.
I will be there momentarily.”

“Toooooooooot!”
screamed the second engine
in protest.
This engine wore
the
green
BNSF logo
over yellow
.

“Be right there,” I replied.
I wouldn’t see this place again for a long time.
I wanted to take in as much as I could.
After a
16.8
-
second memorization period, I sighed
and gave in
to the impulse to carry out my orders.

Before I moved even a meter
closer
, a
deep claxon sounded aloud and over the net. For
sixty-four
mil
liseconds I actually
believe
d
Six
used
the racket
to chastise me for tardiness.

“Fauna attack, bearing 5
.3
degrees magnetic
,
5
.242
kilometers distant
. Force composition includes
three hundred
flyer
s,
seven hundred fifty
infantry and
two hundred four
mounted units.
”

My head swiveled almost instinctively to the north. On the horizon hovered an indistinct cloud of blue. I
trained
my sight
to maximum magnification
on the cloud to
pick out
a mass of distinct
ive
biplane
shapes. The voltage on my main power bus spiked and I dropped flat to the ground
for cover
. Those couldn’t belong to Six. His
flyer
s resembled balloons or dirigibles.

“All noncombatants rendezvous at assembly point Delta,” Six
said, speaking
firmly and without hesitation. “
Heavy fire units array at assembly point Alpha orienting toward incoming fauna. Open fire at extreme range.”

The train moved from between me and the enemy.
My voltage that finally had fallen to operational range once again ramped up into levels requiring unacceptable levels of maintenance. I looked around for a spot of safety when I realized not one shot had been fired
by either side. With reluctance I stood up and my servo voltages crept back down. Some leader I turned out to be. My first battle and I start it hiding face down in the dust.

“All infantry and light units array behind heavy units to provide supporting fire,” Six dictated.

I strode over behind the
solid
ranks of
plastic
Tommy Tank
s
that arrayed themselves side by side behind a low solid wall of plastic blocks. The tanks’
50
-
centimeter
-
height g
ave
me a good field of view
. On the firing line on either
side of the tanks, sitting on their haunches,
some
elephants
held
mortar round
s
in
their
trunk
s,
poised over the muzzle
o
n their chest
s
.
The
hollow thump o
f the
first elephant to release its weapon
caused me to duck down behind
a
tank’s short but broad bulk.

With the mortar fire now rolling out consistently, I slowly stuck my head up to look out at the barrage’s results. Vermillion dirt jetted away from impact sites in an inverted cone pattern.
The explosions rarely found targets to vent upon. Small horses, 50
centimeters
high, bore proportionally small Human
-
shaped riders with remarkable speed amongst the chaos.
Our elephants walked their fire in closer to match the rapid charge of the fauna cavalry. I couldn’t watch the entire field but o
ne time
I witnessed
a blast
that
threw both rider and horse sideways
6
meters. The pair didn’t move on the earth as a pool of their amber fluid
grew around them, mingling in the red
dirt
.

“Adjust your fire for the mounted units to 21 k
ilometers
p
er
h
our
,” Six offered.
 

Reducing my eye’s magnification
,
the scale of the attack became clear. A mass of brightly colored infantry, each looking very much like me, marched toward us
,
a kilometer across
. Their mounted cavalry spread out across an even wider front to avoid the ravages of our mortars but kept boring in.

The rate of mortar fire slowed.
My bus
potential
ramped just a bit.

“Level four inquiry
to
E
lephant
S
quad
O
ne
concerning rate of fire,” I placed on the net.

“
Rate of fire reduced to maximum sustainable to prevent overheating.”

Sensible, I thought
, willing down my errant voltage
.

I pulled back my vision to local mode. Six’s entire f
orce stretched in a doubled line
to meet the advance of this enemy.
The arrangement didn’t seem optimal. Any fire our way was bound to hit some unit.

As the fauna’s leading edge of speeding mounted Indians reached 1800 meters
,
the tanks opened up w
ith their .50 caliber main guns. The sound threatened my aural receivers so I tuned down the amplification. Vivid blue tracer rounds marked each unit’s lane of fire. It took no time at all to reap a path of destruction through the fauna as it all but advanced directly into our fire.
I didn’t sense any threat from this attack.

The
ground
jumped beneath my feet as an explosion on the right flan
k of our troops lit up even the daytime for an instant. An elephant, as massive and heavily armored as it
wa
s, lay torn literally in half by the blast
,
with tiny fires melting its green skin. Two more explosions, each one closer to
me
,
went off in quick succession, one hitting empty ground and the other narrowly missing a
Tommy Tank
but setting it on fire.

A very loud chord of sirens announced the presence of six tiny fire engines
,
each pulling a hose behind it. They rolled up next to the burning unit
,
dousing it with streams of water.

A whistle penetrated my lowered hearing. This time I caught a glimpse of the straight downward plunge of a bomb just before two of the fire trucks evaporated in the detonation.

We forgot about the
flyer
s! Worse, our units lined up perfectly for them to fly along
,
almost guaranteeing to hit something.

“Priority one
—
all odd numbered units retreat
6
meters,” I ordered.
“All units whose unit number is divisible by four with no remainder retreat
3
meters.” Gratifyingly
,
the line divided per my order. The tank in front of me moved backward as well, forcing me to move with it. More bombs landed on empty space
.

“All units orient antiaircraft batteries overhead bearing 85 degrees magnetic. Weapons free,” Six added.

Thirty caliber m
achine guns roared
to life
all around me, licking fire up into the sky. Green tracers
hurled
up at the
flyer
s
. As they flew in parallel
formation
down our defensive line
,
they made easy targets
.
I even put my M16 up to my shoulder and fired away.

Our fire dropped six of the fragile planes inside our perimeter, one landing directly on top of
a
gopher. Unfortunately
,
the already dead animal still had its bomb attached. Only bits of
smoldering
fur and a couple of metal bones remained of our unit
in the resulting crater.

The fauna broke up, scattering. They no longer made for free kills. Many still dropped their ordinance
within
our area but none got free kills. Many of the
flyer
s fell, but many more lived to retreat, some scathed with battle damage and others completely untouched.

“All units reorient on ground attack,” Six ordered.

I realized that I had been paying attention only to the air battle. I had lost track of what had happened on the ground. Not a single mounted unit remained moving, but now the massive contingent of infantry began shooting in our direction.

“All units redeploy against
the
wall,” I yelled as some of our own fire came dange
rously close to our own units. The command echoed across the net as teams dispersed it. Unintentionally
,
my order caused all the units that took second rank to find ways up to the wall, packing our numbers even tighter across the line.

I stayed behind and snapped shots at the encroaching infantry but the impact seemed negligible compared to the m
achine guns
that
played across the rows of infantry marching closer. The fauna
fired back as they inched forward
. Once I heard the whine of a bullet near my head but our own wall of fire
drowned out all other sounds. Animal after animal of the teddy-like fauna dropped. The few times one managed to overcome its wounds and g
e
t up, it went over again in a matter of seconds.

The number of animals dwindled rapidly until a mortar round fell adjacent to the last upright fauna. The upper torso blew out its back. Against odds it remained standing for 2.3 seconds before toppling over backward.

“Ceasefire,” came Six’s command over the net. “Resume normal duty stations and missions.”

Primary mission accomplished. Six was safe. Home was safe
… for now
.

Soldier

“Teddy 1499
!
”
Six trumpeted over the net.

Every servo in my body twitched.
Until then
I just stood looking over the carnage. Spiders and Nurse Nans
walked among the deactivated
,
tagging the fauna for reclamation.

“
Yes.”

“Resume your previous orders. This attack is the third within the last
ninety
hours. You must regenerate a garrison force to the north.”

“Affirmative,” I said
,
turning back toward the train. Tommy
T
anks rolled up ramps onto the flat cars. I watched a spider straddle the train, lowering itself until
its
body touched and then wrapp
ing
its legs behind it
. Gophers, Nurse Nans, elephants
,
and multicolored fair of many, many more units loaded themselves
as part of the train’s consists
.

Strictly a military job, t
his train
’s contents included
scores
of flat cars holding a pair of tanks, a
Nurse Nan
, a Teddy
B
ear infantry, elephant “mobile” infantry,
three
rabbit
s bearing
flame thrower
s
, and on, and on
.
The train’s lengthy presence
disappeared around the curve of t
he Factory.
From Six’s comments the line needed this
large shipment
desperately
.
Literally
hundred
s of units crammed on a single mover.
I briefly doubted the wisdom of Six
,
but he
spoke
the word of the Humans.
I was only a unit.

As I myself embarked, I caught sight of the weeping
-
fly tree. Nearly a third of it lay severed on the ground like an ax
had
cleaved it vertically. A small fire crackled right at the base of the trunk.
I thought
I w
ould
miss this place
e
ven though I
had only been there a few minutes.

“I
shall
return!” I said aloud, borrowing a quote from MacArthur.
This
was a place I would fight for, and a way of life I might be called upon to give my own life for.

I wiggled my ample rear quarters down into the barely
65
-
centimeter
-
wide well
-
car I’d been assigned,
seven back from the three engines.
My hips
hung off at least
2
centimeters on either side.
I hope
d
Factory Six accounted for this when it designed the track bed.
I would not like to go through a tunnel and get wedged in.
Not a comfortable thought.

A roadrunner, 26 centimeter
s
high and wearing a conductor’s cap, flashed by me toward the front of the train.
I heard a quick “Beep!
Beep!” and the train lurched as the three engines took the slack out of the couplings.
I’ll give the trains credit.
While the start was a bit slow and jerky
,
they
mounted the
velocity
quickly
in a very short time with the countryside flickering by us
.
I
’d have to guess
they got us up to nearly
100
kilometers per hour.
An impressive feat given the engines’ diminutive size compared to the
ir
load.

The tracks kept pretty much to the same course as the
Central
River
, but jumping from side to side like a psychotic
fox hunted by English hounds
.
As some of the flora and fauna appeared and disappeared, I tried to catalog those I knew by my
grafted
memories
—
red
square shapes of box trees; inorganic porcupine bushes with crystalline “leaves” which would pierce even my tough hide; the
10
-
meter-a-year speed demon known as the rock crab; and the ubiquitous finger spider
,
just to name a few of the newly filled
-
in memory locations
in my sump
.

A light silver rain of mercury fell across the countryside, raising gentle puffs of dust and
initiating
a general scramble of life forms
for
shelter.
A moderate number of the drops fell on me and beaded off my coarse fur and down to the ground.
An intricate vein-work of silver
-
colored metal
lit up the ground as the raindrops merged together to form tiny rivulets and then in turn attempted to join the main fluid-way’s current.
Even after the short shower’s end, the tiny streams remained, taking the last few drops to the now swollen river, leaving only isolated shimmering puddles.

After all too short a time the bright flashes of standing mercury weren’t even enough to keep my interest.
The scenery blurred into sameness
—
rocks, sparse vegetation
,
and the occupants of the car in front of me.

An interrupt kept hitting my processor no matter how many times I rejected it. How could fauna have
beaten Six’s forces so thoroughly that they threatened his physical self? I needed to form myself into the weapon and shield that would keep the danger from my creator and the plans of the Humans.

I spent hours going over plans, strategies
,
and available resources to meet possible threats. Even with the optimism
generated as
I mentally defeated eight varying war games I programmed, I couldn’t not think about the multiple attacks on Six. The impact on my body had been profound. I remembered the
voltage and pressure fluctuations. They revolted me. Had I been afraid? Six programmed me without emotions but fear was the only word that described my state. I resolved to never let it impact me again.

My mental state suddenly cleared
,
with
a
strong
feeling of foreboding
.
Although m
y programming says nothing of feelings, it was an acute pain I couldn’t hide from.
This
emotion
equated to functions
that
normally would not be tolerated within my systems
—
my hydraulic pressure dropped, my main servomotor
force
fluctuated, and the voltage on my main neural pathways ramped up alarmingly.
I possessed no programmed response for t
hese stimuli
.
Additionally
,
everything in my mental user’s manual sa
id
these were impossible conditions
—
in fact the
manual only listed them as
“
not applicable.
”
Only the mandatory tie
-
downs across my waist kept me on the
train’s flat car as I bolted upright
.

The nearby volcano
,
which
my internal map dubbed as
Mauna Loa
Prime
, painted the entire valley in a dull orange glow.
I tried to ascertain what
malfunction gripped
my
body.
Nothin
g specific
showed itself
to my sensors.
I spent several seconds
trying to write off the entire
bodily unease as
a
phantom equipment failure
.
Instead,
17.4
milliseconds before a shrill warning from the automatic grid
, I saw the dark swooping shapes diving out of the sky
—
flyer
s
.
A
s they were airplane-shaped, they weren’t
units
.
Six produced only balloon
-
or dirigible
-
shaped
flyer
s.
It probably meant this was an ambush of some kind.
The terrain
was a perfect layout
for one.

On one side of the tracks rushed the mercury of the
Central
River
, now reflecting the orange hue of the distant volcano
and on th
e
other a
steeply
sloping terrain that wheeled and tracked units couldn’t traverse well.
As a team our options were limited
—
stand and fight or travel on the train bed, forward or back.
If this wasn’t a
trap
then I would replace my hands with buckets and dig ore for the next four years.
I knew it as surely as if it w
ere
a fact preprogrammed in me by Six.

I set up a
S
AN
to use me as the director of operations.
I would command in place of Six, just as I had been designed to do.
As soon as I started
acting
, my mysterious symptoms, my feeling, went away.
It was something that would merit study later
—
if I survived.

“Engines
,
stop this transport as quickly as possible.”
I received n
o verbal response
but my
internal gyros fought to maintain balance against the
sudden
deceleration
.
I
felt I might have been a bit hasty.
I reminded myself to think before I acted.
I accessed the net to pass more orders.
“All units with manipulative members, detach and move to the nearest non-manipulative member.
As soon as the train stops, un
strap
them so they can engage.”

“Affirmative,” came an echo
1403
strong across my
network.
No imagination
,
these military units.
I heard the first bombs just before they struck.
The sound, pitched almost intolerably high, whistled just before a magnificent flash of light
,
then
both
were
gone as quickly as they appeared.
Suddenly, 300
meters in front of the lead engine the first blast of the
flyer
’s bombs erupted in a fountain of dirt, which looked like the needles of a verish plant and left a hole that would swallow...well, the entire train and anything upon it
,
to be exact!
The crater was directly on the tracks ahead and the locos weren’t going to stop in time, even with the brilliant white sparks shooting
from
their
multiple wheels.
The train looked like a miniature shower of southern lights along its significant length.
The noise abus
e
d
my aural sensors
enough
that I brought their signals down by twenty decibels.
It helped me concentrate on my tasks.

More explosions rocked along the length of our snake-like chain
,
tossing us side to side, but not quite hitting any of our defenseless units nor derailing any of the bouncing cars from the tracks, though not by more than the thickness of a fiber optic connector in some cases.

The train had slowed to about 5 k
ilometers per hour
as the first
locomotive
began to fall into the largish pit made by the first bomb.
I quickly untied myself and rolled off to the side away from the river
and into a ditch
.
My body automatically tucked into a tight ball as I bounced twice and wheeled at an odd angle away from the tracks in a long arc.
My autonomic control systems would not let me out of my rolled position until I had come to a bruising halt against an old lava flow with sharp edges.
I ignored my minor malfunctions and jumped up to
once again
gauge the situation.
The train
lurched
to its final abrupt stop
,
with two of the engines, each arcing with electrical fires, in a heap at the bottom of the hole.