Across the bridge, the fort's gates opened.
'Here come the heavies,' said Stack. 'Sit tight.'
Three US Cav cruisers drove out, accompanied by a cyke-mounted squad. Stack took manual control of the lase, and sighted on the lead cruiser. This was one thing he was better at than any goddamn computer.
'Hold your fire' Chantal said. 'We don't know how possessed the people in those things are.'
Stack's thumb stiffened above the FIRE control.
The cruisers and the cykes advanced to the bridge. Then, suddenly, three of the motorsickles and one of the cruisers peeled off and drove at random across a rocky patch of desert towards the interstate, away from Federico.
'They're making a break for it,' Chantal said. 'There's still some resistance.'
The remaining personnel sat in or on their machines and did nothing. Federico got a hold on their frequency, and piped in their intercom charter. Several voices, human and otherwise, were raised at once.
'Repeat: Open fire. The deserters are classed as hostile, and must be removed from the field of battle..'
'…hey, those are our guys…'
'…the girlie in the car was with us yesterday, and we just shot at her…'
'…I never shot at no one…'
'Repeat, obey orders or you will be classed as deserters. And deserters are classed as hostile…'
'…freak, Jennifer, I'm gonna do it…'
'…Bradley, don't you touch that lase. We're just getting out of here. Rintoon's loco, and Lauderdale is worse. We'll send help back.'
'He's right, they're Maniak subversives. You know that.'
'You have thirty seconds to comply with orders. Then, your systems will cease to respond to your control and the remote will take over.'
'…let me outta this thing…'
'…if you can hear us, lady in the snazz car, pax pax pax, we're gettin' out. We ain't got nothin' against you…'
'…Jennifer, it's been a bad day, don't push me…'
One of the cruiser crews got out of their machine, and walked away. The deserters were nearly at the interstate.
The two Troopers shouted at each other, kicking the sand in waves across the road. One of the cyke Troopers dismounted and joined in the rap session. After a discussion, two of them put their hands in the air and waved at Federico. The other stamped back to the cruiser in disgust. He bent down to get behind the wheel and the roofgun chattered. He went down at once, and the other Troopers scattered. The lase beamed out, and the deserting cruiser exploded as it reached the interstate. One of the motorsickles skidded into the sand, partially burying itself .Criss-cross beams struck at the weaving human forms, knocking them flat in the sand. There wasn't any blood. Lases cauterise as they pierce.
One of the cykes made a dash across we bridge towards Federico, and nearly made it. The lase caught its gastank and it exploded, catapulting its rider up out of the blossom of flame. The asexual figure flailed in the air, struck the parapet of the bridge and fell like a broken doll to the Colorado bed.
The massacre was over in two minutes. Stack and Chantal were innocent bystanders, just out of range.
'The human element has been purged,' a mechanical voice said over the air. 'The action will continue.'
'Thank you,' said a whiny human voice, 'my cadre is in place. They will be deployed now. This will be ended soon.'
'Freak,' said Stack, 'that's Lieutenant Lauderdale.'
Chantal frowned. 'I know him. He was my liason. He's a bureacrat, isn't he? Not a battlefield officer?'
'He's only asslicker-general when they won't let him play with his toys. Looks like he just got the box down from his playroom.'
Stack took the wheel. Federico let him drive. He did a three-point turn and took evasive action.
'Stack, what's up?'
'Lauderdale runs the androids.'
'That's bad?'
'Let me put it this way, during the Joint Action against the Maniax, the Exalted Bullmoose, who once officially endorsed cannibalism, issued a press release complaining that their use was inhumane.'
'That's bad.'
A row of robotic figures marched out of the fort, into the desert. They moved in unison, implacable like animated chessmen. From this distance, they looked like the Academy Award statuettes. They didn't have big swords like the Oscars, but Stack knew their gleaming bodies were packed with every other kind of weapon the military could dream up. Squadron leader androids were constructed around a football-sized nuclear device that could be detonated from a distance. The UN had been trying to get the damn things on the table at the Geneva Strategic Arms Limitation Talks for years, and just now Stack was wishing that the Prezz had unilaterally junked the whole program even if it did give the CAC conventional superiority on the other side of the Rio Grande Wall.
A hidden block rose from the road in front of Federico. Stack let the car slow down.
'We're dead,' he said. 'There aren't enough rocks here. The sand is too soft. Federico would sink and gum up within ten yards of the road.'
'I concur with the Trooper,' Federico said. 'I will deploy my defenses, but it is inadvisable that you remain.'
Federico raised his doors. Stack and Chantal got out. Stack pulled his shotgun and a sackful of shells after him. Chantal had her SIG out.
The sun glinted on the advancing column of robot soldiers.
'Ciao, Federico,' she said. 'I'll be back.'
'Goodbye,
'You go left and I'll go right,' Stack said, his eye on the column, 'and we'll meet at the Fort.'
'A good plan,' she said.
'Chantal…?'
'What?'
He kissed her, awkwardly.
'That was for luck.'
She kissed him back. It was a smooth contact.
'So was that.'
Then she was gone, darting towards the bridge and the androids.
He pumped one into the chamber, and waited.
'Come and get me, you freakin' metalhead scuzzballs!'
II
'That's the Juillerat woman,' said Lauderdale, tapping the freezeframe of the action replay beamed in from the androids, 'but who's the Trooper?'
'Stack,' said Captain Finney. 'Trooper Nathan Stack.'
'He's listed as missing, isn't he?'
'Yes, he was with Tyree.'
'How did he hook up with Juillerat?'
'It doesn't matter,' snapped Colonel Rintoon, 'they're both Maniax, obviously. They'll be destroyed, defeated, terminated, wiped out, exterminated, demobilized, killed…'
'Sir, yessir,' said Lauderdale.
How had the Swiss woman and the Trooper got together? What could they have learned out in the sand?
