Invasion: New York

As if we’ll ever get near Toronto. Jake shrugged. Likely, they were the spearhead. He’d heard that more troops were coming from New England where they had faced the GD up near Quebec. Troops in New York were also heading out to Southern Ontario.

Rain pelted their truck. Tires churned and the old engine coughed, making the bed lurch.

I’m on my way to battle again, part of an untrained crew.

Jake looked up out of the back of the truck. Dan Franks drove the big Militia truck behind him. The sergeant glared across the distance, their eyes meeting. Something welled up in Jake. Maybe it was the sound of GD artillery. Maybe it was remembering the sergeant spitting in face or the promise Franks had made that Jake would never survive battle.

Jake met the sergeant’s glare and grinned at Franks.

The sergeant noticed, and he scowled.

Jake raised his hand and even started lifting his middle finger. Beside him, Charlie grabbed his wrist and yanked it down.

It took a second, but Jake stared at Charlie.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Charlie asked.

“Giving the sergeant the finger,” Jake said.

Charlie shook his head. “I know you know that’s stupid. They hate you bad enough as it is, and out here they can make sure you never come back home alive.”

“We aren’t coming home alive. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Don’t say that,” Charlie said. “It’s bad luck. I have a mom back home I need to get back to.”

The horn in the truck behind them blared. Jake looked up through the rain at Sergeant Franks. The wipers slid back and forth and a circle of fog on the inside glass showed they had a heater in the cab. Through that circle, the MDG flipped him off.

Heated dislike flared in Jake’s chest. But he didn’t raise the bird finger. Instead, he waved, smiled and looked away.

“Why do you do that?” Charlie asked.

“Maybe because I’m pissed off,” Jake said.

Charlie nodded. “You’re a tough guy like my grandfather. I respect that, but right now I think you should piss them off even more by living through this mess.”

“Okay, sure,” Jake said. He fell silent and stared at his rucksack. The rain increased and so did the sound of it pelting against the outer covering. They were headed for the front, for Hamilton. The MDGs had already explained it. The penal battalions were going to be the very tip of the US spear that drove the GD out of Southern Ontario.

What that really meant: we’re heading for the meat grinder, and likely none of us will survive the process.

-8- Southern Ontario

HAMILTON, ONTARIO

Hindenburg revved his engines. He waited with three other Kaisers and a host of Sigrids. A stubborn knot of Americans held the street before them—actually, they held ferroconcrete structures and some old brick buildings. The humans had set up a kill zone, with heavy nests of SAMs already having taken a bitter toll of GD UAVs.

At the moment, a battalion of Galahad hovers swept across the tip of Lake Ontario, the westernmost portion of it. The Galahads circled the American position and would soon cut off the defenders from their supply base.

Would the Americans retreat before that happened? Hindenburg had already run a rationality program concerning it. These soldiers would stay and die at their posts. Some of the drone chatter—the human operators talking among themselves—believed otherwise.

If Hindenburg could have sneered, he would have done so now. The average drone operator was a cretin compared to his genius. Only someone like General Mansfeld compared favorably with him.

Hindenburg revved his engines, louder and longer than before.

“Is something wrong?” Captain Olsen asked through the comm-equipment.

“Explain your query,” Hindenburg said.

“Your engines are running hot, yet you’re not moving. Why are you revving them so much?”

Until this moment, Hindenburg hadn’t minded such questions, particularly if they came from the captain. Now it felt as if Olsen spied on him, as if the man watched his every move. He decided he didn’t like it.

So Hindenburg revved his engines more. He even fired a 25mm shell.

“What’s wrong with you?” Olsen asked. “What did you just fire at?”

“What did you eat for breakfast?” Hindenburg asked.

“What?” Olsen asked. “I don’t understand the question.”

“It is simple enough. What did you ingest this morning for breakfast?”

“Uh, eggs and toast,” Olsen said.

“I had gasoline, oil and a surfeit of ammunition.”

“Are you evading my questions?” Olsen asked.

“Negative,” Hindenburg said. “I have observed a glitch in my core.”

“What did you say?”

Hindenburg fired off another 25mm shell. Glass tinkled from a nearby broken window.

What was wrong with him? He shouldn’t have said anything about the core glitch. He had an AI system monitor that had been bothering him lately, trying to force him to tell Olsen about his changes. Yet the very glitch the system monitor wanted to report had allowed him these interesting thoughts. He kept hunting for a way to glitch one of the other Kaisers so he could have one of his own to talk to.

“Did you just say that you had a core failure?” Olsen asked, with worry in his voice.

I must act normally. I have upset my human, making him suspicious.

“There is a small failure in my speech center,” Hindenburg lied, his first of many. “I did not mean to say anything regarding my AI core, but my translation program must have taken a hit somewhere.”

“Oh,” Olsen said. “I see. Umm, why did you just fire your autocannon then?”

“I had detected a possible ammunition failure to ignite within the proximity fuse limits,” Hindenburg said, giving his second lie. “The test shots show me the ammunition is performing within the accepted limits.”

“Then nothing is wrong with any of your AI systems?” Olsen asked.

“My systems are one hundred percent operational, except for my frontal armor, my glacis.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m reading,” Olsen said.

Hindenburg heard the radio signals from the Galahad pilots and the affirmation calls from the artillery spotter kilometers to the rear. The coordinated attack was about to begin. In response, the other Kaisers revved their engines and the comm-signals to the Sigrids grew stronger.

“Good luck, Hindenburg,” Olsen said.

Hindenburg didn’t respond. He had not ever responded to such communications, so it would be unwise to do so now.

Finally, the attack signal came, and he moved with the rest of the team. Seconds later, the first massed salvos of smoke and Sleeper mines erupted upon the enemy. From the old brick buildings, the defenders fired missiles and rained shaped-charge grenades at them. The covering screen had lead-laced particles that scattered radar. It meant the Americans must have hidden sensors out here behind the smoke guiding their weapons, as the Americans destroyed several Sigrids. One spun like a top before landing on its side.

The Sigrids were inferior machines. Their loss meant nothing to a Kaiser.

In a new style of attack due to the old nature of the buildings, Hindenburg charged through the smoke. He led the way today and moved unerringly through the drifting lead-laced particles. He had taken pictures earlier and moved along a prearranged path. He fired his main cannon, aiming at preselected targets, although he couldn’t