Extinction

pointless and terrifying, and humanity was caught up in the middle of it. We were ants at the feet of struggling giants. Pawns caught up in an argument between incomprehensible, idiot gods.

I shook my head and rubbed my face. A few last spots itched where Crow had hit me. There were times in life for introspection and pondering unknowns. This wasn’t one of them. I looked up and noticed we were breaking free of the tree line and the hovertanks were picking up speed, sliding down a gentle slope to the beach. Soon, we would be gliding over the waves and would be able to increase our speed.

I’d named my hovertank the Patton. Crow had named his the Napoleon. I had wondered about his name choice briefly. I supposed it made as much sense as any name.

I watched the screen I’d set up on the Patton’s forward wall. My tank was at the point of the formation. Once we were over the ocean, I ordered the vehicle to turn northward and head around the island, hugging the coastline.

“Riggs?” said the ship, relaying Crow’s voice. We’d dispensed with the business of opening channels. Unless we wanted a private conversation, anything we directed the tanks to transmit would be heard by all of them.

“Riggs here,” I said.

“Colonel, I’m giving you operational command of this taskforce. Napoleon out.”

Very kind of him, I thought to myself drily. We’d already decided I was running the tactical ops back at camp, if only because I’d invented these crazy things. I knew the real reason behind his announcement, of course. Crow wanted to be seen publicly as the man behind the scenes, the real seat of power. I rolled my eyes.

“Thank you, Admiral. Now tankers, set your vehicles to auto-follow one another in a diamond formation. You are to maintain auto-follow mode unless we are engaged.”

I watched the screen until I saw they’d taken on the directed formation. It took longer that it should have, but our pilots were very green. I decided not to chew out anyone.

“It’s time to reconfigure our vehicles and unlimber our primary weapons. Order your tanks to reconfigure to sea transport setup now. Report back when reconfiguration is complete.”

I turned and ordered the Patton to switch to sea-transport configuration. This would melt away the conical hump of metal on its back, revealing the big beam-unit that rode there. We would be armed, but still keep the current bloated shape. Our tanks still looked like ships, but we were armed with the equivalent of a large laser battery mounted on top. Essentially, we were now mobile versions of the laser turrets we’d set up to protect the camp. I couldn’t switch into the full combat configuration, which was smaller and sleeker with thicker armored walls. The interior would be too small for my troops in combat mode. If I gave that order while my troops were inside they would be crushed and squeezed out like rabbit pellets into the ocean.

I ordered everyone to activate their turrets and put them into auto-defense mode. The firing algorithms were the one thing I wasn’t too worried about. I’d taken the time to have the brainboxes from the stationary turrets back at the camp upload their neurological targeting algorithms to the new fire-control boxes. These turrets should be as good at targeting as the stationary turrets had been. In fact, their performance should be identical, except they still had to learn to compensate for being on a moving platform. I felt like having the guns test themselves on trees and boulders as we glided past them, but restrained the urge. It would improve their aim, but I didn’t want to advertise to anyone that we were armed. Not just yet.

For the first time, I relaxed a fraction. The plan had worked so far. The enemy could have hit us when we were bloated and weaponless. My pregnant metal balloons would have popped easily, and we could not have shot down so much as a single incoming RPG. Now, with our lasers up and tracking, we at least had a good chance of taking out projectiles and engaging any attacking ships or planes.

We had our lasers out, and were no longer helpless. But the hovertanks were not yet in battle-mode. In that configuration, I’d taught the tanks to take on sleek lines with angled sides that I hoped would take a hit from incoming fire without buckling. Their hulls would deflate dramatically too, leaving room inside only for a few men. The hulls, thus collapsed, would be denser, thicker and better able to operate as armor and deflect incoming fire.

“Patton, adjust your screen. Increase the scope out to two hundred miles. Reduce contact size accordingly, but inflate small contacts to be at least one quarter of an inch in size, regardless of scale.”

“Acknowledged,” rumbled the tank. It had a throaty, masculine voice. I smiled to myself every time I heard it. I had insisted on this detail, but I’m not sure why. Maybe I’d become punch-drunk working on them all night, with only a few catnaps taken while waiting for one element or another to be finished. Whatever the reason, all the hovertanks had the voices of gruff, old men.

The wall before me rippled. I could see the coastline now. Soon, as we reached the northern shores at the top of the Andros Island, we would swing to the right and head east. We would follow the beaches eastward, then finally turn south. If we made it down the coast as far as the main camp I’d be very happy. I wasn’t sure if we would make it that far without being blown out of the water, but if we did, I figured the other side was in for a rude surprise.

We almost made it in the end. We cruised in formation without incident, and made our planned to turn southward on the final approach to our goal. We’d been cruising at nearly one hundred knots, and the miles went by quickly. In the east, directly ahead, I knew the sun was rising. It had to be lovely, cool and bright pink outside.

The planes came in from the east. One contact separated into six, and they were moving much too quickly at that range to be ships. I questioned the Patton, and learned they were skimming less than a hundred feet above the waves. Maybe they thought they would be invisible at that low altitude, with the sunrise coming up behind them, blindingly bright.

But the artificial eyes of my hovertanks weren’t easily blinded.

— 16-

“Private channel requested by the Napoleon,” announced my tank.

“Accept it,” I said. “Mute transmissions to open channel.”

“Options set,” rumbled the Patton.

“What the hell are they doing?” asked Crow.

“Might just be a fly by. I don’t see any missile launches yet.”

“Bullocks, Riggs. Burn them out of the sky.”

I didn’t say anything for two seconds. The contacts grew a tiny bit closer. They had to be traveling at twice the speed of sound, I figured. I did some quick calculations. At Mach 2, they would be directly overhead in about ten minutes.

“We don’t have to fire yet, sir,” I said calmly. “They might be scouting us.”

“When will we have to fire to be safe?”

“If they get to within a ten-mile range, I would feel they pose a serious danger. I wouldn’t want them to get any closer.”

“They can fire an anti-ship missile from much further out that that,” Crow said.

“True, but I fear their cannons more than their missiles. We can shoot down the missiles unless they are fired very close in. A stream of 20 mm rounds would be unstoppable and would punch right through the walls of these tin puffer-fish we are riding in.”

“I repeat, in order to be safe we should take them out, now.”

“Crow, I’m in operational command, remember?” I asked.

Silence.

“If we blow our cover and fire on these planes without need,” I continued, “we will warn them that we have offensive capabilities. Let me try to talk to Kerr first.”

“All right, but if they get to within two minutes of us, I’m relieving you of command and ordering everyone to fire.”