Swarm

-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.

Actually, I wasn’t supposed to do any of this. I was supposed to observe. They told me I was too valuable to risk engaging with the Macros myself. In truth, I think they figured I would get in the way. It was only with obvious reluctance that they’d armed me with one of my own weapons systems. I supposed they couldn’t figure a way to turn down my request, seeing as I had designed the things.

The first Macro showed up early. There was barely any warning. Something squawked in my headset, but I didn’t catch what the officer in charge of the platoon I was embedded with tried to say. There was too much noise going on, too much thunderous, pounding, rumbling…. I finally caught on. The sides of my foxhole were shivering, collapsing in little sandy avalanches. Either they had set off another bomb, or the first Macro had taken the bait and arrived.

It was a slaughter. I peeped out of my covered hole to watch, I couldn’t help it. What was the point of fighting this hard, this long, then getting turned into a grease spot on the bottom of one of these monstrous things’ feet without even knowing it was coming? The Macro was big—bigger than I’d imagined. Shaped like a crab and bristling with weaponry, it had six legs that looked like steel columns from my vantage point. Its shifting, louvered belly plates were at least fifty feet above me.

I couldn’t see it at first, but I could feel it. The feeling was like that of an approaching high-speed train. I recalled taking Jake to stand close to the railroad tracks when he was a kid. We’d put nickels on the tracks, then step back and watch a train roar up. When it ran over the nickel, it would smoosh it flat, into a long, curled shape like a tongue of silvery metal. Sometimes, you could hear it ring and tinkle as it fired from the rails, already flattened by the first dozen tones of weight that pushed down on those steel wheels.

Nearby a row of trees cracked and split to expose the white, wooden flesh inside. The palms exploded, trunks looping through the air as a churning metal tower brushed them aside with startling speed. Another tower cracked through more trees and I realized the metal towers were the Macro’s legs. Six immense legs churned toward us, each of which was several yards thick and triangular in shape. The spike-like foot shifted twice more, then swept over me and the foxholes nearby. Where it stabbed down, men died silently, hiding in their holes. The sky darkened and the monster paused over my head. I knew that sixteen belly turrets were locking on targets.

The Macro targeted and blew apart the bunkers at first, as was part of our plan. The main heavy battery and the anti-air weaponry were on top of each Macro, but underneath it were what could only be called anti-personnel turrets. These were overkill for the job, however, as they were quite capable of destroying an armored tank.

I realized we must be inside the bubble of the machine’s shielding. We couldn’t see the shield when we were this close, but it deflected bullets just the same. Around me, foxholes yawned open. The platoon had thrown back their camouflage and exposed themselves. They began firing, stabbing up at the Macro over our head with dozens of beams. Fifty feet overhead, the Macro’s belly turrets swiveled with obscene eagerness. They splattered us with laser fire. Streams of flashing beams lanced down from sixteen black, flared tubes.

The soldiers were quickly targeted and killed. More uncovered their foxholes and fired, then more still. We were hitting the turrets, I could see that, but we weren’t destroying them.

I keyed my com-link. “Everyone hit one turret, everyone fire on the same one!”

I wasn’t supposed to say or do anything. But I couldn’t help it. I threw back the dirt-covered carpet that shielded me from the monster and I joined in the firefight.

We concentrated on one or two turrets at a time, destroying them after a few seconds. But each second, fewer men were returning fire. We were losing.

A bolt hit me then, and one of my arms stopped working. I fell back into my foxhole, dazed. A dozen long, strange seconds later I saw the sky again. I wondered if I’d died.

It was only the Macro, moving on. I heaved myself up, leaning heavily against the wall of my foxhole, which had transformed into a smoking crater. I raised my beamer with one arm. I considered firing after the machine, but the beam would have just splashed over its shields.

Oddly, I thought about the shields. We’d known how to build them long ago, but we simply couldn’t generate enough power to make them useful. Back in World War Two, the Navy had experimented with electromagnetic shields to ward shells away from ships. But in those days, it would have taken all the power generated on the entire East Coast to make such a system work. One advantage of the Macro’s great size, I realized, was the ability to carry powerful fusion generators.

My state of shock faded. I came back to the here and now. I looked around for the corporal who had been my guide. He was gone. They were all gone. Every foxhole had been turned into a black crater. They’d been blasted open like cooked oysters, the human contents obliterated.

I looked after the machine. I thought I saw a fair amount of damage to its undercarriage. We’d done something to it. But not enough. Were tactical nukes the only answer? Did we have to destroy several square miles of our planet and poison another hundred every time we killed one of these things? At that rate, we would run out of bombs and trees fairly quickly.

I took that moment to look down at my arm. I hadn’t wanted to. My other arm was strong enough to hold up the laser weapon by itself. I was still functional.

My arm was a smoking slag of flesh. There was plenty of metal in there too. The Nanos were working hard, and barely any blood leaked down what was left of my forearm to my relatively normal-looking wrist and gloved hand. I thought about the radiation and the exposure, then. I hoped the nerds back at the Pentagon were right about the prevailing winds. I didn’t want fallout ash sticking to my wounds. I was particularly glad my mask and filtration system were still operating. I had no desire to smell my own cooked flesh.

I looked around, wondering what I should do. I decided to leave my foxhole. The Macros knew about them, and the cover flap had been destroyed anyway. Knowing how computers operated, they would recall the spot every soldier had been sighted. I imagined I’d been marked as dead by their targeting systems. My injury would have taken out a normal man.

I ran, faster possibly than any man in history had ever run with a hundred pound pack thumping on his back. I ran toward the bunkers, which had been marked destroyed on the Macro target list, I was sure. I crawled into the nearest bunker. I had a lot of smoke and heat to deal with, but at least it wasn’t packed with dead bodies.

A few survivors must have seen my move. Over the next few minutes, a dozen or so Recon troops gathered around me. There were no officers. There was chatter and screaming on the headsets, of course. The machine was down near the docks now, working over the guys who had buried themselves along the shore of the river. The thing must be having a good time of it.

“What do we do, sir?” asked a private.

I looked around for two long seconds before I realized he was talking to me. There was still a gold star and some bars on my good shoulder. I bore the rank of a commander, and I was all this team had. I thought about making a little speech and putting the nearest non-com in charge, but I didn’t do it. I saw the look in their eyes, through their auto-dimming portholes. They wanted an officer to tell them what to do. They needed me.

“We kill Macros,” I said.

“Sir? You’re hit, sir,” said the private.

I looked at him. “I’m okay. I can fight.”

They looked at my dangling, shattered arm. Even the one sergeant among them looked impressed.

“Okay,” I said, hunkering down. “Here’s what we are going to do when it comes back.”

I had their attention. “I’ll fire first. Everyone must concentrate on a single turret at a time. When that one is gone, we all fire at the next one. Now spread out. Don’t let it take us all out at once.”

Men scooted away in every direction, taking up firing positions in the ruins of the bunker. We didn’t have long to wait. The Macro finished with the beach group, then headed in our general direction again. But it didn’t go right over us. Instead, it waded into the river, pausing to fire at something on the far bank.

“Dammit,” I growled. We couldn’t leave the ruined bunker, we’d be exposed and cut down at range. I judged the distance. It was less than a thousand yards off. It probably couldn’t get its main top gun down far enough to level it on the bunker at that range. We’d studied these machines, and they were designed with one big gun on top to use on aircraft and larger targets. The belly turrets were for the small stuff like us.

I crawled across the steaming bunker and poked my nose and rifle out on the far side. “Take cover, everybody!”

“What are you doing, sir?” asked someone, I think it was the sergeant.

I shot the thing in the ass. Just a quick burst. It was pointless, of course, I couldn’t damage it through the shields. But the effect was electric. I saw a number of turrets swivel in my direction. The machine didn’t turn around, it simply started walking in our direction. It didn’t really have a face, or a head—a front or back. It was designed to be able to move in any direction at will, like a giant crab with legs all around.

We all ducked. Fire came in, tearing up the ground. Gouts of energy flared and my goggles dimmed themselves to prevent instant blindness. I didn’t bother to give it another encouraging shot. There was no need.

As I had hoped, it came close. This bunker had been marked dead, but now had shown signs of life. In its artificial mind, it would have to be sure this time. It would have to get in close and finish us.

In the end, it almost did. We learned, when the brilliant tropical sky turned dark again due to the vast bulk looming over us, that it had only seven operating turrets left. I had only eleven men. They were good men, and they followed my lead. No one fired until I did. It took about two seconds to light up each turret and destroy it. Unfortunately, the turrets were lighting up my men one at a time in return. When the last turret popped, I had only three men left.

I watched in horror as the last of the turrets fell off the bottom of the great machine. It crashed down, crushing another of my men.

The last man and I fired at the legs next. We took one out at the lowest joint. It tried to stomp us, but I think it was mostly blind down underneath now. Its cameras, or whatever it used for targeting, were probably attached to the turrets.

When we took out a joint, it finally decided it had had enough. It began a shambling retreat. Dragging itself, metal groaning, it lumbered back into the jungle at a fraction of its usual speed. I ran after it, cursing. I shot a second leg joint in multi-second bursts, but wasn’t able to bring it down.

I gave up and collapsed against a tree, my chest heaving for air. I was suffocating in my hazard suit. The sergeant, the last of my men, came up and fell against the same tree. We both gasped for air, unable to talk.

The sky overhead had dimmed. A lovely sunset was building up in the jungle to our west. We heard then, after our breathing had slowed, more rumbling. More cracking trees. Another machine was coming to the party.

“We’re going to die out here, aren’t we, sir?” the Sergeant asked.

“Probably,” I said. “What’s your name, Sergeant?”

“Lionel Wilson, sir.”

“Well, Wilson, you are a good fighter.”

“You too, sir.”

The sky grew dark then. I was surprised, as I hadn’t thought the Macro was that close. Beams played overhead. It was firing at something. I couldn’t see what. I aimed up with my rifle, but there weren’t any turrets to shoot at. Was this some new variant machine, then?

A huge black arm on a long cable looped down and reached for me. I knew that arm well.

The Sergeant aimed at the arm, clearly planning to blow it off.

“Halt!” I shouted. “Hold your fire, Wilson! When this arm comes back down for you, let it grab you and take you out of this hole. That’s an order.”

He didn’t answer, but he did slowly lower his rifle. The arm lifted me up like the hand of an angel and drew me up into the Nano ship’s belly.

When Sandra met me inside, I didn’t even look surprised. She did, however.

Now, pick up the man who was with me, Alamo, I thought to my ship.

Extraction in progress.