Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (87 page)

Ares was uncertain as to what the human plan was. Did they plan two landings on two continents? Were they that bold? It would invite defeat in detail. A quick analysis of General Murtough's personality proved otherwise, which then led to a conclusion that one of the landings was a fake.

That realization led to another, that the decoy landing had an alternative purpose, to draw out Are's mobile space defenses. When they struck at the decoys, the spacers planned to strike back with smart KEW strikes the A.I. reasoned. Ares immediately stopped firing and sent orders to withdraw his forces to conserve them.

The mobile planetary defenses had been spread thinner to cover Central America as well as the northern part of South America. The A.I.'s intent had been to hit the incoming shuttles when they were the most vulnerable, to trip them up, scatter the forces, and to make the spacers back off. To make them retreat. But the false landing exposed its mobile assets to fire from above. The air assets dove when the A.I. recognized the threat. The sea crafts were not as swift to move. A third was taken out from space before they got away. All of the land units that had moved south into Mexico were also hammered. Only one in Baja managed to hide and escape destruction.

Ares realized it had allowed its precious mobile defenses to be attritioned. It had made a mistake. Time would tell if it would be a costly one or not.

It also realized that there had been a landing somewhere, just not where it had expected. By eliminating South America and polling the Skynet network, it determined the landing to be in central Africa. Ares allocated resources in the area to help Skynet but for the most part the virus was on its own.

<>V<>

Skynet's hive mind recognized the incoming threat and attempted to deal with it by firing its heavy weapons at the incoming pods. But the A.I. lacked sufficient weapons to destroy many of the pods. Also, each time it fired its heavy weapons, pods in the first wave fired thrusters to turn into kamikaze strikes onto them.

It was a losing proposition so Skynet stopped the attack to reassess its priorities. It mistook retro fire for explosions initially. By the time the pods were on the ground, it was too late to engage them easily from a distance. The A.I. directed forces to strike at the isolated pods while it attempted to infiltrate their electronic hardware.

The virus soon found that there was no hardware for it to suborn remotely. The radios were all audio only.

<>V<>

James grinned savagely when he heard the sonic explosions. He looked up and then shielded his eyes with one bandaged hand paw. Most of his squad was dead, but he'd picked up a platoon of native replacements months ago. Attrition kept their numbers small, but they were giving as good as they got.

“Either help's finally on the way or we're not going to care,” the lionoid growled. “Get the radioman to check in about five minutes.”

<>V<>

Ten thousand pods landed in central Africa, led by a wave of decoys and wild weasel pods. Another one thousand quickly followed them in, homing in on their brief beacons. The landings were scattered over thousands of kilometers despite the gaggle simulations that Gia had performed. She hadn't been able to factor in winds at various altitudes nor storm systems in the area.

Wild weasel and decoy pods that were not used self-destructed above the ground, raining centimeter sized debris downward.

As each manned pod landed, a two-man team came out loaded for bear. They had a large amount of equipment, life support, MREs, water treatment, weapons, and plenty of ammunition to support themselves and a half a dozen other people that they encountered until they could hook up with the main body.

Each was dressed in arctic and woodland camouflage. Once an initial sweep of the perimeter was performed, they went about adjusting their outfits to better blend into their environment while also linking up with their command chain.

The second wave of pods were unmanned. These held additional equipment and in some cases small vehicles, supplies, or heavy weapon packages. Those pods that were within line of sight of each other or a supply pod linked up to form a wider perimeter.

<>V<>

Skynet's attempts to pick off the drop pods that had landed in isolated areas met with mixed results. The humans who exited the craft were heavily armed and trained. They fought fiercely, sometimes taking as much as a 20 to 1 ratio in kills before they went down.

Also, some of the pods were traps. They blew panels to expose the automated weapon platforms within them. These targeted and fired on any metallic object within their line of sight.

Pods that crashed were quickly searched. The electronics were useless, they self-destructed after landing. The weapons and some equipment might prove useful, if the A.I. could acquire them.

Five percent of all forces in the area had been destroyed in less than ten minutes. Such loss numbers could not be sustained. The virus withdrew its forces; it needed to find an alternative method of destroying the threat.

<>V<>

Distributing the initial landing served several purposes. It allowed a majority of the landing forces to get down relatively unscathed. A few of the pods failed but only a small percentage. Two pods landed near an automated platform; their IFFs didn't trip quick enough to keep the turret from wiping them out.

The second purpose of the drop swarm was to keep the force from being easily wiped out by a WMD. Skynet wouldn't waste a nuke or other device in order to take out only a handful of soldiers it was reasoned.

As the one hundred giant cargo shuttles in the third wave came in they set off rally point beacons for the drop commandos to get a fix on. The beacons lasted less than two minutes before they were shut down. The shuttles taxied clear of the beacon area, then began to disgorge additional troops, supplies, equipment, and vehicles before they were turned around.

Those shuttles that had landed without incident and were cleared for flight were allowed to take off once more once they were unloaded. Ten shuttles had crashed on landing. Fourteen others had difficult landings and could not return to space. They were immediately designated as temporary headquarters until better facilities were set up.

Allowing the shuttles that could fly to return to orbit was a calculated risk and a ruthless ploy. Crews in space, on the ground, and most especially in the shuttles themselves warily watched for incoming fire. When none came they sighed a collective sigh of relief.

“Perimeter secure, sir. All clear,” a soldier said, nodding to the officers.

“Then let's get out of this coffin before it becomes too rich a target,” the human general said. He brushed past his staff in order to take the lead.

As General Martell exited the shuttle, he walk with a stick, a glorified riding crop tucked under one arm instead of a rifle. He had a small amount of gear on him, his sidearm, but he was rather lightly outfitted.

Elliot followed warily in his wake. He looked up to the cloudy sky, then to the contrails of their reentry still being torn apart by the winds. “If they didn't know we were here, they do now,” he said softly.

“Sir, our forces are scattered in an oval two thousand kilometers long by a five hundred kilometers wide. They are trying to get together, but those who are the most isolated are getting overwhelmed and picked off,” Major Yanakov reported, coming out of the shuttle behind Elliot.

“They'll have to hunker down and endure until relieved,” the general said.

“Most are going down fighting, sir,” the Israeli officer stated.

“Well, there is that then. A bother being so scattered,” the general mused, looking about. “Casualties?” he asked.

Elliot pulled the Velcro on his thigh pocket to pull his tablet out. He checked.

“Well? Come, come!” the general persisted.

“According to Olympus we've sustained 5 percent casualties in the lead wave so far. Another … call it four hundred dead or out of action from the shuttle crashes,” the chimp reported.

“Tut tut. They seem to have run into a spot of bother in the landing. Should have stuck it good and proper,” the general said, pacing. “We'll save those we can of course, but they'll have to wait.”

“Some of the shuttles had equipment on them. One had a mobile medic unit, sir,” Elliot reminded him, checking his notes.

“Then they best get themselves patched up and sorted out,” the general tisked. “I knew we should have done a more orderly landing.”

“We're down, sir, that's what counts.”

“Yes, yes,” the British general said, waving his crop about then tucking it back under his arm. He turned abruptly at the sound of weapon's fire. “Report!”

“Robots scouting the perimeter. They are destroyed,” a lieutenant stated.

“Very good. Carry on,” the general said. He looked about him. “Well? Isn't someone going to get on setting up the base and my headquarters?” he turned to Elliot. “See to it will you, my good man?”

“The engineers are waiting for a location, sir,” Elliot said. “We weren't certain if we wanted to remain so close to the birds in case of an artillery or drone strike,” the chimp reminded him.

The British general grunted, then waved his crop. The more he strutted the more it reminded the chimp of old historical films of that British general from World War II. Monty? Montgomery? He should his head mentally. They had all studied World War II, especially the Normandy landings. He was fairly certain now that things were going to go very differently.

“This is too bloody cute. Quite easy really, we should have done this much sooner,” General Martell said, wiggling his mustache. “Now, once we've consolidated the perimeter, I dare say we need to probe outward, picking up any survivors and gear we can find. We'll have to be careful to move during the day.”

“Sir, I prefer we move by day until we get a better assessment of the enemy forces in the area,” Major Yanakov insisted. “The first day was set aside to consolidate. Some of our forces are quite scattered, sir. Movement to consolidate could take longer if they get bogged down. They'll have to move while being wary of traps,” she stated.

“They'll get on just fine,” the general insisted, waving his crop.

“Gas! Gas, gas gas!!” a guard called out, relaying the warning as he fumbled to put his mask on.

“Frack,” Elliot snarled, pulling his own mask out. “What was that about it being too easy General?” he demanded as the older human put his mask on.

<>V<>

Skynet had access to the chemical plants worldwide. Many had been destroyed by the orbital bombardment, but shipments of chemicals had been moving via pipelines and trucks for some time to continue the A.I.'s manufacturing needs. A tendril of the hive mind hit on the idea of using poison gas to slow the spacer army and potentially cripple it.

The trucks that had been upwind of forces were directed to open up their containers. Androids sometimes helped the dispersal by cutting holes in the sides of the containers and setting up fans or fire truck pumps to get the chemicals into the air.

Some of the chemicals exploded into fireballs when they intermixed or hit a spark. While all that happened, artillery and mortar units moved in to target the shuttles. If the organics took shelter in them, they would be obliterated. If they didn't, the shuttles would be destroyed regardless.

A tendril of the hive mind put forth the idea of capturing some of the shuttles for Trojan horses. The hive ran a brief simulation but then set the idea aside in a memory buffer to be drawn on at a later date.

<>V<>

General Murtough scowled as he read the SITREP. According to the report every shuttle that had been left on the ground had been destroyed. Anyone who had taken shelter in or under them were dead.

Fourteen percent casualties due to the chemical warfare attack. Everyone had gone down with masks and gear to handle that contingency, but no one had expected it within an hour of the landing.

There had been a follow-on resupply mission scheduled before sunset. Now that was on hold as the staff scrambled to find the artillery and deal with it.

Good luck there. If Skynet had access to military doctrine, then it knew and was using the axiom shoot and scoot to good effect, the general mused darkly.

Fighting the A.I. was like fighting a very fast whirlwind. Something that reacted with blistering speed that had a very short download time between making a decision and sending the order to its soldiers to execute it. Very little hesitation. He shook his head. The chemical attack had the earmarks of being improvised, which made it even scarier. What else was the A.I. up to?

He was almost afraid to find out.

<>V<>

Elliot heard the coughing and wheezing and did his best to put it out of his mind. He scratched, then tried to force himself to stop. His skin was blistering under the fur on his hands; it seriously sucked. The medic had wrapped his hands, but she had quickly ran out of topical analgesics. Too many people had exposed skin to the chemical stew that had been unleashed on them. They'd gotten covered but the damage had been done.

“Where are we?” General Martell asked, then coughed. He turned and spat, “… with the landings? And finding that blasted artillery?”