Nebula (22 page)

“What if we don’t destroy all the other sentries?” Doug asked. “Can’t Yuri and Harry just temporarily disable one of them and then reactivate it once the aliens are out of the way? Then we could use that sentry.”

Ludmila shook her head. “No, that wouldn’t work. We can’t trust any robot that we haven’t already modified. Those others need to be put out of action permanently.”

“Here’s an idea that may work,” Harry offered. “We’ll have one of our workers left here, and it has the same communication capabilities as the sentries. All the robots are on the same network. Yuri and I can create a separate channel that allows us to act as a relay between Igor and the worker, and we can force all of Igor’s transmissions to go through that channel rather than directly out to the rest of the aliens and robots. When the approach request comes from the battle group, Igor’s reply would go through us to the worker and from the worker to the battle group. That way it will look to the aliens like they still have sentries on Mars, like they expected. It should work.”

“We’ll go with that,” Brad agreed. “We really don’t have another choice, unless someone else has an idea.” No one offered any other opinion, so it was decided.

“OK,” Brad said. “Nigel, Gladys, and Doug need to get suited up and in position now. Our friends may come out to play at any time. Take your weapons of choice and position yourselves behind some of those boulders alongside the entrance to their bunker. I’ll leave it to you to work the arrangements on how to coordinate fire.”

The three of them left to get into their suits and take their weapons. Brad continued with his orders. “Yuri and Harry need to get the instructions to paralyze the robots into a form that can be sent as soon as Nigel’s team opens fire. Can you do that?”

“No problem,” Yuri replied. “We already have most of it composed. It’s a data set that sends them into a chaotic state like an epileptic seizure. I call it a cyber-epileptic seizure. It’s a failure mode that occurs in many types of self-adaptive systems, and if you know how their programming works, you can send just the right data to set one off. Fortunately, we know enough about the robots to know how to do it. My only concern is being able to react quickly enough when you send the cue to transmit. When we’re connected so completely with the robots, we suffer some sensory deprivation and we’ll probably be slow to react when you give us the signal.”

Ludmila had the solution. “I can keep in close contact with you through the computer interface. I’ll write a small program that cues you through the robot network once the fire starts. I could even send the message for you if you want, but it’s probably better to do it as a brain-to-robot transmission so that you get all the right feedback once it’s sent.”

“Right,” Harry agreed. “Just give us the cue, and Yuri and I will do the rest.”

“So, is everyone clear on the assignments?” Brad asked. Everyone nodded. “Mikio, send a message to Ops telling them what we are going to do.”

*

Nigel, Gladys, and Doug positioned themselves behind boulders to the side of the entrance to the aliens’ bunker. They spread out with about ten meters between each of them, in locations where they would have clear fields of fire. After about fifteen minutes, the first alien came out, followed by four others.

Inside the ops center, the other AFO team watched the video sensor feeds.

“Where’s the sixth one?” Mikio asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“Patience,” Brad said. “The other one will come out too.” Then he spoke to the three snipers through the radio link into their headsets. “Try to hold fire until the last one comes out. If it doesn’t come out before the others start to go to the fighter, you’ll have to take them out, and one of you will have to go into the bunker to get number six. You’ll need to do it fast. We don’t want it to have time to send a message to the fleet.”

Nigel replied, “We already had that figured in before we got into position. I took a breech gun with me, loaded with two bunker busters, the types with the shaped charge penetrator and delayed demolition charge. If I have to go in, I’ll fire that into the airlock. The first shot should blow through both airlock doors and probably kill anything inside the first couple rooms in the bunker. I’ll fire a second shot to make sure and then go in with my machine gun. But let’s hope that we don’t need to do that.”

The five aliens outside their bunker split off, causing the team to start to be concerned that their ambush might run into problems. Two of them went to the storage unit and opened the doors. They then went in, probably to inspect the pathogen containers. The other three went to the robot ship. It looked like they were preparing to load the pathogens for the trip back to the fleet, as they had been ordered to do.

Harry then sensed direction being given to the workers to fetch the pathogens and load them into the ship. He followed the interactions between the workers and the sentries and saw that they were dividing up the work. One of the workers that had been modified by Ludmila was part of the three-worker group that would do the loading. That gave Harry and Yuri an opportunity to disrupt things if it became necessary, but for now they would just follow along and hope that all six aliens would be exposed to the snipers.

After only a minute or so, the two aliens emerged from the storage facility, and the five regrouped near the entrance to their bunker.

“Now what,” Gladys said. She could be heard on the radio net by all the team.

“Patience,” Brad said again. “Let’s wait for the sixth one to come out. It’s probably doing some last minute housekeeping or just turning systems off. It should join the others soon. Hold your fire until it comes out or until we have no other options. Just make sure that none of them get into the fighter.”

They waited another minute or so, as the five aliens continued to discuss something. Finally, the outer door to the bunker’s airlock opened. For once, luck seemed to go in the right direction, and alien number six emerged and hurried to join the other five. They then started to move toward the fighter, but before the sixth could reach them, it veered off toward the storage facility.

“Oh shit,” Gladys said. “That bastard is running away from the others. I’ll get him. You two get the rest of them.”

“Fire!” Nigel’s command was clearly heard over the radio net, and he and Doug opened fire with their automatic weapons. It was a turkey shoot. The five aliens were grouped so closely that they were mowed down almost instantly by the heavy fire.

Gladys had a bigger challenge. The sixth alien was obviously a trained soldier. It sensed movement of the three shooters from behind their boulders as they rose and prepared to fire. It threw itself to the ground and rolled toward cover behind another boulder, near the side of the storage facility, drawing an x-ray machine pistol from a holster on the side of its space suit.

It all happened so fast that Gladys couldn’t get a shot at the alien before it was partially covered by the boulder. She leaped forward to get into position behind another boulder where she could take a shot, and she fired a quick burst as she ran toward it. Her aim wasn’t perfect since both she and the target were moving fast, but she hit the alien in the leg while it was still partially exposed. The shot only wounded it and it managed to roll out of sight and was still alive and able to fight back.

Gladys was now exposed herself and needed to move quickly to duck behind the boulder. She got there just as the alien was able to get off a shot. The x-ray burst hit the boulder, penetrating deep inside it and causing the back end of it to explode into a shower of rock fragments, like shrapnel. Most of the fragments flew over Gladys’ head as she dropped flat on the ground, but a couple of them hit her shoulder and upper arm, tearing holes in her suit and cutting into her flesh. Blood and air poured through the holes in the suit before the automatic sealants could do their job, and she lost consciousness.

Nigel and Doug watched in horror at the action only a few meters away and immediately ran to Gladys’ aid. They had no idea of the alien’s condition and disregarded any thought that they themselves could be targets as they ran to what was left of the boulder that had partly shielded Gladys. They could see that they needed to stop the bleeding and make sure that the suit was sealed well enough so that she wouldn’t suffocate in the thin Martian atmosphere. Doug began to work on her, and Nigel called for help. Fortunately, the space suits had emergency kits in the utility pockets, and the internal sealant had already done a reasonably good job of slowing the leak. Doug found some suit repair material that he was able to wrap around the area where the shrapnel had penetrated. It was able to stop the leak almost completely, and it could serve as a makeshift tourniquet to slow the bleeding until they could get something better. But they needed help fast.

“Brad, we need help out here,” Nigel shouted. “Gladys was hit, and the alien is still alive and hiding behind a rock near the storage building. Doug is trying to take care of Gladys, and I’m going after the bastard. Send someone out with a medical kit and bring a stretcher. We need to get Gladys inside fast, and we need to get her back to Nebula. We can probably patch her up, but she’ll need a surgeon. Her shoulder and arm look pretty bad.”

“Roger,” Brad replied. “Judith is already suited up. She’ll get there as fast as possible. I’ll tell Milo to get here with another ship to bring her back. And I’ll tell him to bring a medical team. Meanwhile, be careful. If there’s a live alien there, it’s probably a trained soldier, and well-armed.”

“Right. I’m well-armed too. Remember that breech gun? That should take care of the rock that the bastard is hiding behind.”

“OK, but be careful with that gun. Whatever you do, don’t fire it at the storage building. We can’t risk damaging the pathogen containers or showing the alien battle group that there’s been a fight down here. You have to keep the alien from getting into that building. We don’t want to fire into it, and if it gets in, there are some heavy weapons that they stored there.”

“Understood. I think that it’s too badly hit already to be able to get very far from the rock that it’s behind. Otherwise it probably would have picked me and Doug off when we were in the open. Its suit must have a pretty bad leak too, even if it has sealants like ours. If it does try to move out, I’ll use my machine gun. I’ll be careful.”

The action against the robots went much more smoothly. Ludmila’s cue to Yuri and Harry went as soon as she heard Nigel’s command, and Yuri issued the commands to send the alien robots into states of chaos. Everything happened almost immediately, and the results amazed everyone except Yuri. He knew what to expect. The chaotic state in the robotic brains caused unstable feedback and produced effects like epileptic seizures, just as Yuri had said. Harry and Yuri could sense the seizure states, and the others could see the effect on the robots as they watched the video sensor outputs. A few of the robots tipped over and fell to the ground, trembling uncontrollably. Others just stood with their arms waving in the air, and a few just froze.

“Amazing,” Harry exclaimed, patting Yuri on the shoulder. “It’s like what you said. We can even see a variation of conditions, like grand mal seizures and petit mal seizures. Absolutely amazing.”

Meanwhile, Nigel engaged the wounded alien that stayed in hiding. His estimate that it was too badly wounded to run was right, and he was able to move into a position where he had some cover and could fire the breech gun at the boulder without endangering the storage building. The penetrating explosive did a good job on the boulder, pulverizing it and creating a shower of small fragments. But it didn’t immediately kill the alien. Its leg wound had been bad, and the rock fragments from the disintegrating boulder tore into its chest and arm. It was mortally wounded and its suit was leaking like a sieve. But it was still alive, and it fired back at Nigel, fortunately missing him by a wide margin since it had trouble aiming the gun or even holding it steady.

Nigel ran quickly, zigzagging to avoid fire from the alien, but that was not necessary. The alien was no longer able to even lift the gun. It was dying and very quickly. Nigel still took no chances. He approached cautiously, and when he had good line of sight, he fired a long burst from his machine gun and cut the dying alien almost in two. “These bastards are tough,” he reported. “They may be small, but I’d hate to have to take them on in an even fight.”

Yuri reported that his interaction with the robots produced the desired effects, which everyone could already see. Then he and Harry directed Igor and Robby to dispatch the alien robots, starting with the sentries. They used their x-ray guns and quickly finished with the sentries and then the workers.

Nigel went over to the dead alien and fired another burst into it, even though that was clearly not necessary. He was just pissed off at what it had done to Gladys. Then he joined Doug to see if he could help with Gladys. Judith was already there with the medical kit, and the two of them were getting Gladys stable and ready for movement back into ops base, and they obviously had things under control without Nigel’s help. Gladys had regained consciousness and gave the three of them a thumbs-up with her good arm, and that made everyone feel a lot better.

So Nigel left them and made a final check on the dead aliens and robots to make sure that all of them were permanently out of the picture. He even fired more rounds into each of the sentries as insurance that they wouldn’t spring back to life. No chances, no surprises, not anymore if he could help it.