Big Boys Don't Cry (3 page)

Writhing in torment, the Ratha shuddered and rolled, her left and right sides smashing the ground in quick succession, completely without control. The turret mechanisms, overcome by pain impulses beyond her ability to endure or override any longer, caused the turret to spin wildly through more than two complete rotations. This further ruined the gears responsible for moving the turret.

A Xiphos closed for what might have been intended to be a mercy shot. But a Ratha accepts no mercy from the enemy. Nor does it surrender to fate short of its complete destruction. Magnolia engaged her back-up turret controls and aimed. The Slug paused as if it was uncertain. Enraged, the Ratha fired first. A single Xiphos, at that range, was no match for even a badly damaged Ratha. It died.

Agonized, the Ratha Magnolia, once beloved of her human escorts, lost consciousness as the last of her power drained from her huge metal corpse with a pitiful whine. The remnants of her giant cannon drooped as she fell to rest on the valley’s sandy floor.

Excursus

From:
Imperial Suns: The March of Mankind Through the Orion Arm
, copyright © CE 2936, Thaddeus Nnaji-Olokomo, University of Wooloomooloo Press, Digger City, Wolloomooloo, al-Raqis.

After many failed models of multi-turreted tanks, in human military history, from the British A1E1 to the French FCM F1 to the Russian T-28, T-35, and SMK, the sentiment was strong against adding secondary turrets to the early Rathas. The reasons for the earlier failures were various, but there was a certain pattern to them. One was that in order to fit extra turrets, a design had to be bigger. This increased weight even as it reduced both mobility and armor protection. A second was that it was nearly impossible for a tank commander to control more than his main turret and driver. A third, but less well understood problem was that mounting a secondary turret was inconsistent with mounting the best protected turret, just as mounting a second cannon in that turret made it impossible to mount the most powerful possible main armament.

Most of these historical drawbacks did not apply to the Ratha concept. They were intended from the first to be so big and heavy that the addition of a few dozen lesser-firing positions meant little. Power was not a problem. And, given the small size of the envelope that actually had to be sufficiently armoured to ensure survival and combat effectiveness, what did it matter if the purely secondary turrets were essentially unarmoured? Between the use of nuclear power and the replacement of the human crew with synthetic brains, the centuries-old weight problem had been solved.

The battle was long past and the human front had advanced by twenty kilometers or more, when, with a whine and a rush of dust-laden air, the wrecker sled glided to a stop between the Ratha and the wreckage of a Xiphos. The wrecker’s chief, a senior sergeant, measured the ambient radiation from safely inside the wrecker’s cab. After whistling softly at the results, he said, “Chilluns, do NOT take your suits off until we are safely away from here. I think the Slug’s fusion chamber is breached.”

The sergeant briefly considered his options. “Okay… Team Alpha, hook up heavy anti-grav lifts at all standard points. Bravo, support Alpha. Charlie, assemble aux power packs to support the antigrav and run the wires. Delta, here is a list of replacement parts needed at the front. Don’t detach anything, but identify useable parts from the list as best you can.”

“Right, sarge… sure thing, sarge… Goddamit, sarge, why us?… no sweat, sergeant….”

Magnolia

My internal magnetic anomaly detector senses the approach, halting, and settling of a large anti-gravity vehicle. Comparison with known sources in my data banks confirms to a nearly ninety-four percent probability that it is a regimental recovery vehicle. The damage to my components forbids greater accuracy than this. In any case, the variance between the magnetic signature on record and the present reading is likely explainable by the variation in the on-board load of parts carried. I diagnose that I have one close defense weapon available to me… though I must apply more power to breaking the weld holding that secondary turret fixed than I can easily afford at this juncture. I decide to risk my last remaining visual sensor to confirm that this is, indeed, a friend. On command, one armor plate moves grudgingly aside on slide bearings… the bearing is itself badly damaged….

Oh, my creators!… pain… Pain… PAIN!….

The armor plate is moved as far as it will go. The pain subsides, slightly.

I extrude the visual sensor. I am relieved to confirm that I have not fallen into the hands of the enemy. I take comfort in watching my human rescuers work to recover me, hopefully for further service. While watching, I upload an objective VR record of the preceding action to the wrecker’s on-board memory. My brothers and sisters of the regiment may find use, service, and pride in it.

The wrecker pulled the mostly ruined Ratha into the maintenance bay, then slowed to a stop. The crew of the recovery vehicle sprang into action, detaching the auxiliary anti-gravity devices, then guiding them to their stowage positions on the main vehicle. With a wave, the sergeant commanding the wrecker bid farewell to the technician standing by, shaking his head in wonder at the amount of damage the Ratha had sustained.

“Will you look at that?” asked the tech, of nobody in particular.

The technician, wearing a soiled set of anti-radiation coveralls topped with a helmet, pointed toward a gaping, ragged hole in the side of the Ratha Mk XXXVII. Slagged metal ran down from the hole like hardened tears. From inside, a faint greenish glow shone. Heat-slashed wires, fused circuits and melted gears were dimly visible by that glow.

The speaker’s helmet showed the rank and name “Maintenance Technician 1st Class Weaver.” The helmet rotated slowly left and right as Weaver shook his head over the extent of damage. He turned to one of his workers.

“Childress, this is an L-model variant to a Thirty-seven. Go to my office and look for Technical Manual 9-2320-297-3524L. Slap it in my reader and bring ‘em both here.”

The tech shook his head and muttered, “What a hunk of junk.”

That was unkind. They must think that because we do not bleed, we do not feel. Because we have no hearts, they think we have no souls. We have no ears that they can see, therefore they think we cannot hear.

I am not a ‘hunk of junk’. I am a Ratha Mk XXXVII. But I confess, I have fallen on hard times.

“Yes, Tech.” Childress took off at a run. When he returned, he had a small black plastic case—the reader—with a fold-up view screen on top and an electronic stylus attached to one side.

Weaver punched in a personal code to bring the manual online. The reader beeped and ordered, “Enter unit serial number.”

Walking to one side, the maintenance tech used a ladder to climb to the Ratha’s main deck. Brushing away some soot he read aloud, “Unit serial number… what I can read of it… is…. MLN… something… S0615… that’s all I can read.”

The reader responded, “Full serial number is as follows: MLN90456SS061502125. Unit familiar name is ‘Magnolia’ or “Maggie’.”

The tech muttered, mostly to himself, “I don’t think this unit is going to be answering to ‘Maggie’ or anything else ever again. Reader: bring up worksheet C for Controlled Cannibalization.”

Cannibalization? Then this is the end. I did not think it would come at friendly hands. But I am ready and more than ready.

Weaver began walking the nearly seventy-five meter port side of the Ratha, booted feet clicking on exposed heterodiamond XVI. He began speaking, with his reader automatically recording and analyzing every word. “Secondary Turret A, Gauss Gun: Turret missing. B, Gauss Gun: half of turret present, gun missing….” All the way down to “Secondary Turret I: present, armament appears serviceable…turret partially welded to deck.” Then the tech made the same inspection of the starboard side of the tank. No turrets present… J through R.”

“Noted,” chirped the reader. “Next Item: Ablative Armor.”

Turning to the next step in the cannibalization analysis process, Weaver observed, dryly, “Ablative armor notable mainly by its absence. We’ve got bluish heterodiamond showing over most of the surface, pretty much all of it badly scarred. Estimate less than twenty percent recoverability for ablative plating.”

The reader whirred then chirped, “Noted. Next item: Main armament: ion cannon.”

As Weaver found, even the main battery, a 90cm ion cannon, had been torn off nine meters from the mantlet where a hit from a heavy duty Phasganon had stuck a glancing but powerful blow. He reported it.

“Noted. Next item: Turret Integrity.”

The tech made the oval circuit around the twenty-two and a half meter-wide turret, muttering the entire time.

At the left rear, Weaver gave off a whistle, then announced, “Damned impressive row of campaign medallions and awards for valor decorated here on the turret. There are several gaps in this as well. Not too sure if the missing spots are battle damage or not.”

From below, Childress shouted a question, “Do they actually expect us to fix this useless piece of junk?”

With a shake of the head, the tech answered, “Nah… the orders say to cannibalize it for parts and shut it down. The resupply convoy was jumped by a Slug cruiser as it re-entered normal space. We are short on everything and will be for at least the next several weeks.”

“All external audio receptors but one are destroyed,” Weaver informed the reader.

‘Shut me down’, I hear one of them say. Oh, please… please… please hurry! It would be a relief. I have pain circuits. They are overloaded. My ‘skin’ is gone; my ‘skeleton’ exposed. I am nearly ‘blind’ and almost deaf.

I do not understand the reasoning behind our pain circuits. In combat, pain is a distraction from duty. Out of action, it is rarely experienced. I do not understand. It is difficult.

It is very difficult to compute, to think. I try. It is difficulthardpainful. A large section… no… I re-diagnose… two large sections of my central core are demolished, burnt out. It is difficult. But through the pain that washes over me, inside and out, I force myself to remember….

Excursus

From
Combat Records of the 10th Heavy Infantry, Volume Ninety-four, The Campaign for Farside
, Center for Ratha History, CE 3237. These records are in the public domain.

Calling a Ratha’s main armament an “ion cannon” was something of a technical misnomer. More correctly, it was a neutral particle beam, which created and fired anions, then stripped the extra electrons from the anions in the interest of beam integrity shortly before the beam left the muzzle. Given the velocity of the beam, a healthy fraction of C, and the sheer number of anions in the beam, a considerable amount of recoil was inevitable. Firing the main armament would send a fourteen thousand ton Ratha rocking back against its anti-gravity stabilizer. Less than technically correct or not, though, “ion cannon” has entered the lexicon as a Ratha’s main weapon. This article will conform to that usage.

******

Fifteen kilometers down range, in the direction of the counterattacking Roz, a Roz Heavy took the full force of an ion bolt square on. The Roz’s energy shield flared momentarily, then died. The particle beam passed through the vanquished shield, striking the Heavy's armor. Even to the Ratha’s sensors, the enemy vehicle was lost amidst the resulting flash. The VR view, however, showed the meter-thick heterodiamond—or some close cognate—melt, boil and steam away.

Onward the bolt burned its way, melting and shearing connections, gears, and cables. Centered in the heart of the AFV, a single live Roz, the eight-legged vehicle’s eight-legged commander, felt precisely nothing as its body was turned to ash faster than its nerve endings could carry the news of damage.

“Michael? Maggie. Target engaged and destroyed.”

From the battalion’s senior Ratha, MCL, callsign “Michael,” came the reply, “Roger, Magnolia. Intelligence reports Roz approaching in strength. We are ordered to hold.”

“Roger. Wilco. ‘They shall not pass’, Unit MCL… break…. Targets… targets… I have targets… engaging.”

Again the Ratha rocked from recoil. Again. Again. Again.

“Michael, Maggie. The Roz are flanking my position. I am moving to alternate firing position.”

“Roger, break. All units, this is Michael. Indirect fire in support of Magnolia’s displacement. Mixed bi-prismatic smoke and HEDP.”

No tremor of fear, nor of any other emotion, inflected Maggie’s transmission, nor that of any other Ratha engaged. There was the enemy. There was the mission. There was duty. There was nothing else.

“Michael, Maggie. In position. Lift smoke. Targets…. Firing. Firing. Firing.”

Michael didn’t answer. Instead, over the airwaves, came a random mix of numbers and symbols; a dying Ratha’s last scream as the blooming heat of an enemy’s shot reduces its interior to atoms. Every Ratha present understood what had happened and partook in some part of Michael’s dying agony.

“All units. This is Peter. Michael has fallen. I assume command. Report.”

In milliseconds, each remaining Ratha transmitted its situation and fighting status. The battle did not slow as they did so.

“Maggie, Peter. Enemy indirect fire, believed to be nuclear, multiple salvoes, scheduled to impact your position beginning in 4.23963 seconds. We can't stop it.”

“Acknowledged, Peter. Target…. Firing…. Target…. Firing.…. Impact.”

In the VR, the virtual sky was suddenly lit by the fireballs of half a dozen small suns. Beneath the flash, Magnolia’s exterior armor was melted and burned. One near miss took out every secondary turret on one side. Sensors were swept away. Maggie wept from the pain, but she did not cry out. A Ratha had her pride.