in and pan a little over her rifle sights.

Then, I saw it. Something tall, slim, shiny. It was either wearing metal armor, or it was metal.

All of a sudden, I felt a chill run through me. I recognized this thing. It was a practice drone. A robot, like the ones I’d seen back at the Mustering Hall. Usually, they were used for sparring practice, or as shooting targets.

But this one… it was much more intelligent in its movements. It acted like a soldier, a thinking human. It crouched, carried a rifle, and swiveled its head constantly, looking for targets.

Then it spotted us, and it pointed our way with a long metal arm. It was spooky just watching the thing.

A moment later, however, things went from freaky to terrifying. A dozen more robots came out from the trees. Had they been hiding behind every trunk? It was my impression that they had.

“Open fire!” I shouted, marking the enemy robots with my HUD. As a commander, I could put red triangles on certain targets, making sure our fire was concentrated and effective. I didn’t know how hard these robots were to kill, so I did a little over-kill. Each squad got only a single target to shoot at.

And shoot we did. The air ripped with snap-rifle fire. The leaves on the trees jumped. The rocks sparked and popped white dust in the air.

A few of the robots were knocked flat. They danced and sparked more than the fake rocks did.

“Whoa! Whoa!” A big voice boomed. It was Graves, and he didn’t sound happy—but then, he never did. “Who’s firing without orders? Is that…? Yes, Unit 3. McGill, ceasefire.”

Reluctantly, I ordered my troops to stop tearing up the landscape. I didn’t stop deploying them, however. The heavies marched inside the doors, and behind them Leeson’s gang of chicken-littles brought up the rear.

“Everyone is to hold your fire. Didn’t you notice the robots weren’t fighting back?”

“Who cares?” Harris muttered beside me.

I nodded in agreement. When it came to these “exercises” I took a dim view of rules drawn up in secret.

“As every officer should know by now, these war games never begin outside Green Deck itself. No one is to fire until they’re inside these walls, and the games have officially been announced.”

I opened my helmet, spat a big one, then settled behind my rock again. I rested my morph-rifle on top of it, and used the projected 4X reticle to examine the enemy. They were moving just like us, all on their bellies—if they’d had bellies, I mean. A few of them seemed damaged, they were moving slowly, with limbs tangled up.

“We can hurt them at least,” I told Harris.

He grinned back.

The floating reticle on my morph rifle was new. It didn’t use an optical sighting system with glass and such-like. Instead, it warped a region of air above the sights, which formed a lens of compressed air—I didn’t really understand it, to be honest. When the nerds started talking about applied field theory and all, my brain was late for the door.

But I couldn’t argue with the results. It was useful to have what amounted to a virtual scope on your weapon. All you had to do was click a selector to shift the magnification power, and you were in business.

Graves was still talking, of course, but I was barely listening. I figured all these robots crawling around with snap-rifles weren’t escaped sex-dolls. They were killers, that much was obvious.

My mind churned while Graves droned on about the rules of engagement. Mostly, I was trying to figure out how to cheat these metal bastards.

“…not all our units have taken the field yet, so in about five minutes we’re going to start the live-fire part of the exercise. When you…”

“Five minutes?” Harris complained, flipping open his visor and shaking sweat out onto the ground. He always sweated a lot when the guns came out unexpectedly. “It’s got to be frigging Manfred. He’s always slow off the mark. He—”

“Shut up,” I said. He gave me an evil frown, but he did stop talking. “I think… yeah, I’ve got an idea.”

“What? Oh no…”

I stood up. Quickly, I gestured to all the other commanders.

“We’re moving out,” I said. “Everyone, up and out. Move to the center lagoon, right now, on the double!”

Without explaining anything else—because there wasn’t time—I raced toward the line of robots. They perked up, but they didn’t shoot me down. If there was one thing robots were good at, it was following orders.

“McGill!” Barton called out. She was sprinting up next to me. “Where the hell are we going? We’re running right through them, sir!”

“That’s exactly right. If they don’t get out of the way, try to stomp on some of their wires if you can when you run them over.”

My pack was a little slow to get up and chase after me, but they did it. Not every unit full of soldiers would have done something so crazy. I was proud of my troops. They’d follow me into the jaws of Hell if I went first, and I loved them for it.

Puffing to keep up, my ragged line of troops raced through the brush, sometimes kicking robots and stumbling over fallen trees. I picked up a trooper now and then, set them on their feet, and kept running.

“If you don’t keep up, you’re toast!” I shouted.

That got them lifting their feet a little higher. Ahead, I saw the beach. It was less than a hundred meters off, and I dared to let my heart soar. “We’re gonna make it!” I called out.

But then, like the voice of doom that it was, Graves spoke again. His words were fateful.

“Ah, there we go. Manfred’s Unit Seven is finally in position. You can open fire in three… two…”

“Everyone,

Вы читаете Green World
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату