ENCOUNTER
Written by Zorakk
Originally written July, 1993. This is an updated version.
Early Morning, Stardate: 6904.02 Casa Alto, 70 Ophiuchi
Danny Gulledge looked cautiously across the sixty meter expanse of Star Port Avenue, now more than half clogged with the rubble and debris of the fierce battles fought here a day or two earlier. In places, thin trails of inky smoke still rose from burnt out Armored Personnel Carriers, jet trucks and various types of civilian traffic unlucky enough to be caught in the fire fight between the defenders and the invading rebels. The proud towers of the city's hotel district were now just so much detritus, through which prowled danger and sudden death in the form of armored infantrymen from both sides of the campaign. The morning fog was cold and damp against his face ... half way to being a bone chilling drizzle.
It was about seven in the morning the 12-year-old estimated ... but with the ever present fog and the thick clouds of smoke generated by battle. it had been several days since he'd seen the sun, and to make matters worse, he'd broken his watch the day before yesterday. The fog was thick and gray; so thick in fact that now the opposite side of the wide avenue was totally obscured from sight. A Saurian patrol could pass by and he'd never know it; but with their advanced combat sensors and IR vision equipment, THEY would make short work of him, however.
There were swirls and eddies in the fog as a stiff Fimblewinter breeze pushed against the wet mist. Abruptly, a clear area in the uniform blanket of gray swept across the immediate area, and the boy's vision extended to several hundred meters. At the edge of the fog, half a klick away, a huge bipedal form moved. From around a large mound of debris from a shattered residential tower, and slowly materializing out of the fog came a shape out of the lower chambers of hell.
Advancing slowly up the center of the avenue on thick, stubby durrillium legs was a ...
"Combat droid," Danny whispered to himself and scrunched back into the rubble, hoping there would be enough ambient heat in the debris to partially mask his body heat from the droid's infrared sensors.
>>BREAK
At 07:13:21.05680, local time, I am upgraded from standby alert to full combat alert. My combat reflex center is brought on line and responds with its report that all weapons systems are at 100 percent effiency. My ego center feels pleasure at this reactivating and the anticipation of the coming battle. for 1,962,815 u-seconds I receive a combat situation update and combat briefing. It is now clear that I have spent over six hours in standby alert mode. This was brought about by a successful enemy assault on the CP, causing the stand by signal to be transmitted by Command while a new CP was established, further to the south.
After the briefing, I conduct a total maintenance check. I have suffered minor combat damage to my Ku-band imaging radar in the last action. During my enforced inaction, my maintenance sector has nearly completed repairs. In 00:06:53.10000 the repairs will be complete.
My early warning radar detects two targets at an altitude of 1,800 meters, azimuth 037 degrees 14'55".01355. My infrared sensors also detect a ground target at extremely close range, azimuth 140 degrees 04'21".99895. There is no response to my IFF interrogation of the ground target. The aircraft are tentatively identified as friendlies by the transponder codes received in answer to my IFF pulse. In the absence of a valid IFF transponder code from the round target, I lock an antipersonnel laser on to the target.
>>BREAK
As the droid came closer on its bipedal transport carriage, Danny could clearly make out the markings. He relaxed a little a stood up. It was NOT a Saurian droid, but one of Tarsus RFL-3Ns, a Rifleman class combat droid. The boy watched admiringly as the twelve and a half meter tall, sixty ton war machine came closer. For years, Danny had dreamed of someday joining the Terran Dynachrome Brigade and 'piloting' one of the droid behemoths, or perhaps even a BOLO continental siege unit. He had read everything - every scrap of declassified data available on the Dynachrome Bde and the gigantic sentient BOLO units and semi sentient combat droids.
The RFL-3N Rifleman, Danny thought, mentally reviewing everything he knew about the droid, was sixty tons of fighting mecha. Built originally i the late 22nd Century by Kallon Industries on Dariabar, it was now obsolete by Dynachrome standards, but because of the large number manufactured, and the Rifleman's legendary battlefield survivability to kill ratio, they had quietly moved from front line mecha to the various planetary defense forces on frontier worlds like Tarsus. Technically they were still reserve members of the Terran Dynachrome Brigade, but operational command has passed to the various planetary governments.
The four hundred RFL-3Ns of the 3rd Battalion, Tarsan Mechanicals composed the backbone of the planet's armored attack forces. In it's current configuration, the Rifleman was armed with two giant MK III laser cannons and a 105mm auto cannon, in addition to a backpack mounted battery of 12 SAM-27 antiaircraft missiles. At the Rifleman's 'knees' were eight 12.9mm antipersonnel lasers arranged in four duel turrets. The droid was a biped and could use his legs to good advantage, crawling over practically any kind of terrain, at speeds approaching 175 km/hr.
Suddenly the air overhead was rent by the shriek of two Saurian Viper attack craft coming in low, just over the tops of the local buildings. The Vipers quickly aligned themselves on the Rifleman and released a salvo of 76mm rocket bombs, all of which detonated harmlessly in the rubble around the droid, as its electronic warfare transmitter succeeds in interrupting the link between the rocket bombs and the Viper's onboard guidance, depriving them of guidance.
Danny dove for cover, cowering behind an especially large chunk of concrete, the boy pulled the hood of his windbreaker up and jammed his hands against his ears. The Rifleman's main batteries swung around and two bursts of killing light raced after the retreating Vipers. One of the Vipers blossomed into a hell flower of burning fuel and exploding ordnance as one of the laser beams caught the trailing Viper. Immediately a SAM-27 rose on a trail of fire from the combat droid's back pack launcher and sped after the lone remaining raider.
Two turbofan powered Jackhammer air to ground cruise missiles fired before the attack began - thundered over Danny's hand and slammed directly into the droid's blind back side. The force of the detonations literally picked up the twelve-year-old and threw him against a permaplast wall a dozen meters away.
>>BREAK
ALARM! ALARM! I am under attack, I have been the victim of electronic deception. The Air Targets are not A36C Corsairs from PDS-214 as their forged IFF transponders indicated, but are instead A19E Viper attack craft flown by enemy pilots and equipped with Jackhammer turbofan powered air to ground cruise missiles. ADF tracking indicates two have been fired.
My laser cannons fire at the hostiles. take THAT you fucking lizards. I have missed one of the raiders, but a SAM27 will eventually destroy the remaining enemy. Meanwhile my ADF system takes on the incoming Jackhammer missiles. My ballistics and time computer estimates that I have a less than one percent chance of successfully neutralizing both targets. I alert my Damage Control sector to be prepared for the missile strikes.
>>BREAK
When Danny managed to recover his balance, and the ringing in his ears had dulled to a dull but still painful rushing sound, the Rifleman had advanced to approximately ten meters away. Icy fear gripped the boy as he saw the droids antipersonnel lasers were trained on him. Although they were the smallest armament the Rifleman carried, they were designed to be used against armored infantry men, not small boys in cloth jackets. a 50 u-second burst from even one of those barrels would be sufficient to render most of his small body into an atomic mist, leaving only a pile of scorched bones behind.
Even worse was the fact that the missile attack had destroyed the Rifleman's communication array. Nothing but twisted fused metal showed through a blackened gash in the droid's upper-right quadrant. This left the droid without the benefit of command and control signals from his human counterpart, somewhere in a CP, perhaps tens of kilometers away. The RFL-3N was only simi-intellegent, possessing only those attributes of intelligence useful in combat. Like all combat droids, the Rifleman also had a modified set of Asimov's Three Laws.
The droid's multi layered positronic influx grid computer could handle the immediate tactical situation, but the majority of command decisions were made by the droid's human counterpart at the CP. If this link were severed, the RFL-3N was capable of independent operation, relying on its last situation briefing, but they were highly unpredictable. There were hundreds of stories of Riflemen bereft of command and control signals going berserk. There was simply no way to anticipate how the droid would interpret his surroundings and react to them in accordance with its battle plan.
>>BREAL My Ku-band radar is still under repair, the cruise missile strikes luckily did not set back that repair schedule because they hit 180 degrees away from the radar's emitter horn. The most serious damage has been done to my communications array. although relatively minor damage has been sustained by the communications hardware itself, the entire antennae array has been 100 percent destroyed, thus cutting me off from command and control signals. Although I have practiced the emergency response to loss of signal, it has never happened to me before and I am temporarily confused.
Since I am still at combat alert, and I am fit for duty, I have brought my invite programming block on line. My ego again feels pleasure as I am once again able to perform my primary mission, to seek out and destroy all enemy troops and vehicles. I am still capable of reporting to my combat station as ordered by the CP and as soon as the stand down order is transmitted, maintenance will be available to replace my blasted antennae array.
It is good to be performing ones primary function!
I have advanced to with ten meters of the ground target with out its firing upon me. My battle reflex screams "FIRE" but I have placed a hold on weapons release. The target does not match any of the target overlays in my warbook. I again regret the loss of my comm antennae, with it, I could turn this thorny problem over to command. Without it, I am forced to deal with the possible threat on my own. A primary tenant of my battle plan says "never by-pass an enemy who may then attack from the rear.
For 218 u-seconds my battle reflex argues with my primary logic center, urging weapon's release...pointing out that it was an error in my identification program sector that has led to the last attack upon me, and to the current crisis in command and communications.
My audio detectors, located on the outside of my durilium skin, detect the complex amplitude and frequency modulated waveforms of biological communications, I shift into long-time scan mode to accommodate the ridiculously low baud rate of biological communication.
>>BREAK "I am non-hostile, Rifleman. Do you copy?"
>>BREAK The linguistics bank of my command computer analyzes the biological communication. It proves to be System English, but the timber and pitch of the voice is too high by 50 percent to be any authorized voice at the CP. My battle reflex urges weapons release again, and again my command computer refuses. I decide to test the voice for deception.
>>BREAK "Hello Command, this is unit DNE-993. Request Combat Status Update and Command Code Verification."
The voice pauses for 529,411 u-seconds.
>>BREAK "Unit DNE-993. I am NOT command, I am a non-hostile, do you copy? NOT hostile."
>>BREAK Once again my battle reflex urges my command computer to release its hold and assures me that the antipersonnel lasers can reduce the unarmored biotarget to ashes in under a microsecond. It points out that over five hundred thousand u-seconds delay is very long, even considering the low baud rate of biologicals. Are we the victims of clever psych-war? My ego center concurs, but the command computer still refuses to authorize the strike, and instead I direct several infrasound and biological sensors at the target. The results are inconclusive, except that the target is not Saurian but human. The combat intelligence sector informs me that although the enemy fleet currently in orbit is made up of primarily Saurians, nearly fifty percent of the rebel ground forces encountered so far have been human/humanoid. I decide that more extensive testing is required.
"Not-hostile, transmit your authentication codes for IFF identification."
>>BREAK "DNE-993. I am a non-combatant. My name is Danny Gulledge, I'm twelve years old. I have no idea of what your authentication codes are. Please deflect your antipersonnel lasers."
>>BREAK I re-analyze the input from the infrasound and other sensors. The infrasound data reveals the target to be immature, both physically and sexually. Probable time elapsed since primary activation twelve years, two months, plus or minus five days. Since this agrees with the bio-target's statement and it has not tried to deceive me, nor is it in armor, I order the antipersonnel lasers raised thirty degrees and transverse ten degrees right.
"What is your mission in this theater of operations, non-combatant Danny Gulledge?"
>>BREAK Danny breathed a little easier as he watched the deadly laser guns deflected. Now here was a chance to get he droid to continued on with it's own mission.
"The entire city is a combat area, DNE, I had no choice in that."
An abrupt thunderous report caused the boy to jump. From around a corner a block away came a squad of Sau\rian infantry,
"DNE!" shrieked Danny, "SAURIANS! To your right flank. watch out, they are armed with LAWS!"
>>BREAK My Ku-band radar is still out, but my back up, an obsolete X-band imaging radar has locked on to the Saurian enemy. Unit Danny Gulledge is correct in his analysis of the danger. Although the X-band image id vastly degraded from what I am used to from the higher resolution Ku-band image, I can detect the bright flash as one of the LAW rockets begins its attack run on me. As I open fire with my antipersonnel lasers the rocket detonates against my right drive pylon, causing substantial damage.
Unit Danny Gulledge has traveled around my bulk, and into sight and the line of fire from the Saurians. It is not immediate apparent what this action will gain him. He is drawing attention to himself by throwing stones at the enemy, a tactic which I conclude will be totally ineffective as the enemy is dressed in light combat armor. But as the surprised Saurian troops turn to Unit Danny Gulledge, I see he tactic, he is buying the precious seconds I need to destroy the enemy. Six of the seven enemy fall to the bursts from my antipersonnel lasers, the seventh is partly sheltered by rubble. He is aiming a projectile weapon at Unit Danny Gulledge.
I launch an RPG at the enemy. My ballistics and time computer shows me that the running time of the RPG is too long to prevent the enemy from firing.
A blast from my air horn causes unit Danny Gulledge to jump. A line of impacts from the enemy's weapon causes spars from the permaplast rubble around unit Danny Gulledge. My tactic has however, been only partially effective, The last projectile in the series strikes Unit Danny Gulledge in the shoulder, spinning him around and throwing his body against a pile of rubble. The last enemy is neutralized as the RPG detonates within a meter of him.
>>BREAK PAIN! FEAR!
Searing P A I N !
Wincing, the boy managed to sit up, propped against the shattered wall behind him. Blood was running down his left arm from the bullet wound. Danny took only a second to examine the wound. Although it seared like a branding iron pressed against his flesh, the boy was relieved to see that the wound was just a scratch. The bullet had torn a large ragged hole in his playsuit, but there was no hole in his shoulder. Evidently, the 7.62mm slug had grazed his upper shoulder and torn the skin open - that was where the blood had come from - and now as he watched, the bleeding stopped. He grinned slyly and wondered if he were eligible for the purple heart.
The Rifleman was still standing over him.
"Are you operational, Unit Danny Gulledge?" the droid's synthesized voice asked.
"Yes, DNE, I'm okay - just a graze."
"Unit Danny Gulledge, a heavy vehicle is approaching. My imaging radar is still inoperative. Can you direct my main battery?"
"I'll try, DNE. I can hear something out there in the fog. Swing your torso 90 degrees port."
Danny crouched and listened, from much too close he could hear the rumble of a large heavy-duty deisel-electric engine coming ever closer in the fog and drizzle.
"DNE!" Danny shouted. "Crouch down, it'll be easier for me to aim your weapons if I don't have to guess with them elevenmeters over my head."
Without a sound, the Rifleman crouched down, bringing the main armament to within three meters of the ground. Wincing, because of the wound, Danny managed to crawl up on some rubble and from there out onto the blast baffle of the Rifleman's twin MK III lasers, making it possible to visually sight down the twin barrels.
Danny squinted through the fog. At the very edge of visibility, something rumbled, crashing through the rubble and debris with abandon on huge multi wheeled tracks.
"Target azimuth ..."
>>BREAK I wait an agonizingly long time for the correction to feed into my fire control computer. Unit Danny Gulledge has now twice aided me in combat against the enemy; alerting me the first time to danger, and now augmenting my ineffective X-band imaging radar. With a total disregard for tradition and protocol, I assign Unit Danny Gulledge the symbol of a Comrade-in-Arms on my combat situation plot. My primary batteries are fully charged, I will trust my comrade to aim my blow, and at his command I will unleash the furies of nuclear fire boiling deep within my reactor.
My ego center receives a reprimand from my combat reflex for being overly poetic and verbose. These are serious flaws in an RFL-3N. Perhaps I should apply for a position as an embassy guard instead of a member of the elite Tarsan Mechanicals...
>>BREAK "DNE! Abort fire mission! the vehicle is a non-hostile - a maintenance VTR, with our markings.
>>BREAK I allow Unit Danny Gulledge to dismount from my main battery before I stand up again. At 07:18:55.00000, local time VTR number six from the maintenance section of my unit, D Company, Third Battalion, Tarsan Mechanicles arrives and we exchange authentication codes. The biological who is the Maintenance VTR's counterpart rigs an optical data cable so that the VTR and I can communicate via a datalink.
"Looks like you have some pretty bad battle damage there to your comm array. That's what alerted me and sent me your way ... the CP lost contact with you."
"Yes. I'm glad to see you, Six. I've been without command and control input for far too long now."
"What was the biological doing on your main guns?"
"Unit Danny Gulledge has been acting in tandem with my command sector since I lot communication with the CP."
"Well, we'll let my counterpart take care of him ... not much I could do for him," the electronic equivalent of a chuckle reaches me from the maintenance VTR. Sometimes they are hard to fathom.
"...And let's see about YOUR battle damage. Let's see, imaging radar out, comm out, structural damage to upper right quadrant..."
The maintenance VTR shuts down my command computer and I revert to the near-death of maintenance standby. Just before I loose consciousness, I require the VTRs counterpart to see to it that Unit Danny Gulledge is also taken care of as befits a veteran of combat. The VTR and his counterpart, not being initiated into the rites of combat do not understand, but the human assures me it will be taken care of. I hope the battle isn't over by the time the VTR is finished with the repairs.
I still have work to do.
THE END