Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (90 page)

SAM units were moved into the area along the approach line of the shuttles to attempt to interdict them. Shooting a few down would slow their resupply progress and hamper their efforts.

<>V<>

“So? Where the hell was the landing? I know there was one so don't bullshit me,” Fiben snarled over the radio.

“You need to keep calm. You are under military discipline.”

“This is Bollinger not Collins so don't give me that crap. I never signed on,” Fiben retorted. “Now, are you going to tell it to me straight or not? The damn A.I. know. Why the hell can't we??” He looked up as Harper came into the room. Harper had caught the last demand and crossed his arms. He looked up to the ceiling innocently as Fiben directed a scowl at the room at large. No answer was forthcoming.

“Well?”

“Wait one. Checking with higher,” the Olympus radio tech replied.

“For crying out loud,” Fiben muttered.

“This is Olympus Five, Bollinger, what is your problem?” an Aussie voice growled.

“I want information. Where the landings were. We were promised backup,” Fiben parsed out patiently.

“Where is Lieutenant Collins?”

“Busy,” Fiben said succulently. Harper opened his mouth to protest, but Fiben shook his head silently no. Harper frowned then kicked his toe into the ground a few times. “We've got several thousand refugees here. We're running low on supplies, and we're getting harassed by the robots and the damn bandits now.”

“You should have some relief from the robots at least,” the Aussie replied.

“Bullshit. We're low on ammo too. You drop food and other stuff, but no ammo. We could use some.”

“Don't tell us how low you are; we've heard it before. And this may be an unsecure line.”

“So, like I told the kid before you. The damn A.I. know where you landed. Why are you deliberately keeping your own people in the dark?” Fiben demanded, patience at an end.

“There is such a thing as need to know and also chain of command,” the Aussie replied.

“I'm not in your chain of command.”

“That can be remedied.”

“Not without my say so. And after seeing the way you treat your people, hell if I will. So, you want to just answer the damn question? I know you have shit to do just like I do.”

Harper scowled and started to come over, but Fiben waved him back with a piece of paper. He held up a finger signaling to wait.

There was a long, pregnant pause, then they could hear the Aussie snarl something softly. “Africa. Happy?”

“Thank
you,” Fiben replied. “Now was that so hard?”

“Don't push it, Bollinger.”

“Not while we're worlds apart at any rate. So, when do we expect another supply run this way?” Fiben asked lazily, sitting back and propping his feet up on the desk.

“We'll let you know,” the Aussie replied dryly before he disconnected.

Fiben looked at the radio then scowled. “He hung up!” he mocked. Harper rolled his eyes as the other chimp hung up the transmitter. “Yes, I had to push him, before you say it. I wanted to know. Now we do.”

“They weren't going to tell us the next resupply run anyway, Fiben. The signal is encrypted, but the A.I. have access to a lot of computer power even with all the damage the orbital bombardment inflicted. There is no telling if they've already broken the codes yet or not.”

“Right,” Fiben said shrugging. “But at least we know we're on our own still. But that help is eventually on the way. Just a long ways off,” he said.

Harper nodded slowly.

“Baxter get back from that hospital run?” Fiben asked.

Harper grimaced. “Not a lot there. It was pretty cleaned out, and the robots torched a lot of the rest of it. He picked up a few things and found an old ambulance from a private collection on the way back. Apparently it had some gear in it,” the medic said, hefting a blue stethoscope. The rubber had clearly seen better days. “He did his best to pick the museum over, but there wasn't much there. I'm afraid they killed the snacks from the concession stand on the way back. But hey, at least this is something.”

“Right,” Fiben sighed. “Better than nuthin at all I suppose,” he muttered darkly.

<>V<>

At dawn James got his people to move out. They'd been awake over an hour prior, packed and ready to move. His intent was to link up with the troops. His people were excited; they piled into the bush trucks and tour bus they had appropriated and took off. Four dirt bikes rode out on point; another two were the rear guard with a jeep.

They had to make camp two hours before sundown. James had been disappointed by the progress but not surprised. The war-torn landscape had a lot of places where the robots could ambush them. From past experience they'd learned to be very careful when performing a movement.

Fortunately the robots were in short supply. They didn't run into anything except a drone over flight until after dark.

During the night the guard woke him. He went out, eyes adjusting to the night to where the guards had heard noise. He dropped his gear, dropped to all fours and decided to do a bit of solo scouting. The guards nervously watched as he faded into the night.

Two hours later he returned with a couple of fresh wounds and a grin. He'd found the African version of an anti-air unit. It could be used for artillery just as well as against aircraft; the rail gun sent out a stream of unguided slugs into the air in the direction the robot pointed it. He'd gotten in close, closer than he'd expected before the electronic brain had twigged that something was wrong.

The injuries were minor, a couple bruises and a cut on his flank. But the machine had been torn apart; its electronics destroyed.

“You'll find the machine a couple klicks due northwest of here. I circled, but I didn't see anything else in the area. If we hurry we can pick it clean before the bots come for salvage,” he said as Zambo handed over his belt and holster.

“You should get the cut treated,” Zambo said with a nod to his arm and flank.

James checked them over and grunted. “Yeah. Can't lick it anyway.”

“The SAM is a good find?”

“I'll say. I think the bots are after the shuttles or shelling the camps. If we can pick a few more off before we get into the safe zone, we're golden,” the lion replied. “I don't know about you but I'd much prefer those things torn up rather than hitting us,” he said, eying the tall, dark human.

“Jamba
. We do then,” the former park ranger replied with a nod.

<>V<>

Elliot shook his head as the next wave of shuttles came in. Yesterday had been more luck than skill that they hadn't lost any to enemy fire. Two more had been dinged up on final approach and had been parked. That was putting a crimp in their resupply mission.

General Martell had modified their initial plan to push the perimeter out west to find the artillery units and take them out. He had Major Yanakov directing teams of walking wounded to help secure the perimeter and aide in the runway repair until they could be air lifted.

The general had wisely forgone the fuel plant, but not the power supply for the base. The power supply was necessary to get their own anti-artillery and anti-air units back online. By the end of day two, they'd picked up another four of the precious units to form a proper perimeter.

Elliot and the troopers had learned to catch catnaps when they could. Martell seemed to like to take a siesta just after lunch, then he was off rallying people to get things moving once more. Fortunately, the once hot African jungle was now a snowy wasteland.

During the second night, they were attacked by robotic vehicles. However, perimeter security beat the raiders off or destroyed them before the reaction force could get to their location. Then the skies had opened up with another barrage of mortar fire.

Their sensors traced the artillery fire to an area near a town west of them. The town was thought to be abandoned, but a single look by a spy satellite told them otherwise. There were thermal images consistent with human shapes in the area. Possibly droids or survivors.

“I'm tempted to counter battery in case the tin cans are taking shelter inside, but I think not. We'll do this the hard way,” Elliot said as Lieutenant Yuli came into his tent.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Yuli asked. The lieutenant was a good kid Elliot mused, a good leader. He'd spent a lot of time training in VR games for years. He seemed like an old sweat when they'd put the kids through training and had handled himself like a veteran in the war game sims on Olympus. It was one of the reasons why the chimp had personally selected him as one of his people in his chain of command.

“I don't know if the artillery is coming from there or not. But I don't want to shoot first, not without finding out what is there. It might be a trap or it might be people the tin cans are trying to get us to blow up for them.”

“That's pretty wild, sir.”

“So humor me and go find out, Lieutenant,” Elliot said, motioning to the platoon leader to get moving.

“Aye aye, sir.”

The Lieutenant took half his platoon in while riding LAVs. The light vehicles could handle a four-man fire team but had little armor. Fortunately, they could add armor since the vehicles were modular.

When they got to the area where the artillery had been fired from, they found the small town had a perimeter wall made out of mud, wreckage, and stone.

The platoon secured the perimeter then two squads went door-to-door. They found people in the dark recesses of some of the buildings, obviously hiding. The troops were surprised to see some cattle and goats were also still alive. They were scraggly and thin, but alive.

The farmer eyed Lieutenant Yuli coldly when he asked about the animals. “If we had eaten them, then what? We wouldn't have had food for later.”

“True.”

“We have nothing to trade. Please don't take our animals. We need them to survive,” the farmer said.

“No, sir. Not going to happen,” Yuli said, shaking his head vehemently no. “Now that we know you are here, we'll send in medics and supplies to help you folks out. Once we're certain the perimeter of the area is secure, we'll let you know so you can get out more often and start rebuilding.”

“Watch the robots. They can bury themselves in the dirt, mud, or in the rivers then attack when someone comes near. They also hide small robots in trees to watch an area,” the farmer warned as Yuli pulled out a pack of protein bars and handed them over. The man licked his lips, eyes wide.

“Thanks for that,” Yuli said, cursing inwardly. “I've got to let the others know,” he said, taking off to the radio truck at a trot.

<>V<>

James saw the perimeter, a set of sandbags set up in a block on either side of the road with a gun slit and nodded. He pulled up to the point and then parked his jeep. He didn't want any itchy trigger fingers so he took off his gun belt and handed it to Zambo. “Keep a watch out. I'd hate to be hit while we're this close to home plate,” the lionoid ordered.

“Walikubaliana
,” the ranger said. It took a moment for the lion's translator to translate the Swahili to English. Agreed. Not that he needed the translator. He'd been with them long enough to pick up a few words in the five languages the people in his group spoke. Just about everyone had done so out of necessity.

He held up his hands and walked forward. “Lieutenant McGillicuty with a party of seventy!” He bellowed.

“Sir? What the hell do we do? That's a lion!” the guard said, clearly anxious as he looked over to the corporal.

“He's an officer and a talking lion obviously, idiot,” he said. He stood up warily. “Come ahead!” he bellowed back, motioning with his free hand.

<>V<>

As the soldiers marched warily across the landscape, they found pods from the beanstalk crash. Also the wreckage from aircraft and vehicles. The frozen bodies, especially those of children, were heart rendering to see.

Most of the towns and cities they encountered were burned-out shells. But each was potential cover and a potential base for the enemy. Many towns had servers and utilities inside thick concrete buildings. They also had solar panels on many of the roofs, though some had collapsed under the unexpected weight of the ash and snow.

“It's like this all over,” James said. He'd gotten in, reported to General Martell, and then gotten a couple hours of shuteye and a halfway decent syntha-steak before they'd put him back to work. He didn't mind leading the troops. But the daily meetings were a pain in the ass and getting worse since the general had scared up some chairs from a local office building. The chairs weren't built for bioforms with tails, he thought, adjusting his rump for the umpteenth time.

“We're going to have to go door-to-door and use metal detectors, electrical detectors, everything will have to be sifted. And even then we can't guarantee it'll be safe,” Elliot mused. “We may have to bulldoze everything and start over. Hell of a way to win a war.”

“Talk about scorched earth,” James agreed. Lieutenant Yuli grunted in agreement.