Price of Duty

THIRTY-FOUR

Major Wayne “Whack” Macomber’s Cybernetic Infantry Device crouched low among snow-covered trees and boulders. Mount Manaraga’s slopes climbed above him, rising to a jagged peak more than a mile high. A pulsing green dot on his tactical display marked the position of the Iron Wolf robot piloted by Charlie Turlock. She was about four hundred meters north of him, also concealed well in among the trees.

The pine forest they were using to cover their approach came to an end about five hundred meters dead ahead, right at the edge of a mile-wide bowl formed by two steep spurs extending out from Manaraga’s main summit. There were no trees on those white slopes, just occasional patches of bare black rock and loose scree.

Looking uphill, Macomber could see a massive tunnel set into the flank of the northernmost spur. According to their intelligence, that was the principal way into the Russian cyberwar complex. Scion and Polish analysts suspected there were probably a number of smaller, secondary entrances and exits, but he and Charlie didn’t have the time to scout for them. An overhanging ledge shielded this particular entrance from satellite or aerial observation. The tunnel was about two thousand meters from his current hiding place. Even scrambling upslope through deep snow, he could cover that distance in his CID in well under four minutes. He grinned sourly to himself. Or at least he could if it weren’t for all the enemy weapons so carefully sited to lay down a deadly hail of fire on anyone moving up that bowl.

Data from his sensors poured into his mind. The robot’s computers provided instant analysis of everything he “saw” and “heard”—whether in the form of thermal imagery, narrow-beam radar pulses, intercepted radio and cell-phone transmissions, and even sounds picked up by its incredibly sensitive microphones. A sea of targeting indicators flashed onto his display, each marking the position of a concealed Russian bunker or remote sensor.

The woods ahead of them were laced with IR-capable cameras, motion detectors, and trip-wire-triggered flares. He shook his head. A mouse might make it through there without triggering an alarm, but nothing bigger would. At least not while those sensors were operational. And beyond the woods, those seemingly empty slopes were studded with camouflaged bunkers and buried minefields. They were also covered by emplaced ground-surveillance radars to pick up the slightest movement.

Macomber whistled softly, studying the results. He radioed Charlie Turlock. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“As in ‘antitank guns, missile launchers, machine guns, and minefields under the snow, oh my!’?” Charlie said. “Yep, I sure am. Geez, you’d almost think these guys don’t want any uninvited visitors.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Macomber said. He paused, listening to the simultaneous translation of a conversation between the Russian soldiers manning one of the nearby fighting positions. They were wondering if this sudden alert was just another drill or something more serious. “And it just gets better. Because it sure as shit looks as though these bastards are wide-awake and waiting for us.”

There was a moment of silence while Charlie digested the information from her own sensors and obviously came to the same, sobering conclusion. “Well, that makes it more of a fair fight, right?” she said at last. The biometric data piggybacked onto her transmission showed that her heart rate had climbed slightly, but there was no real trace of fear in her voice.

Macomber forced a laugh. “Hell, I hate fair fights.” He sighed. “But I guess this is where we earn the big bucks they’re paying us.”

“Hold on a minute,” Charlie said, sounding surprised. “You’re getting paid big bucks? Why wasn’t I informed? Maybe I need to renegotiate my contract.”

“Maybe so,” Macomber agreed absently. His mind was busy refining the preliminary attack plan he and Charlie had developed before taking off from Poland — adapting it to the reality revealed by their sensor scans. All Martindale’s satellite intelligence analysts could give them was an estimate of probable Russian defensive positions. But now they had it all — the precise location of every gun and missile bunker, all the minefields, and every remote camera and motion detector.

While Whack really hated squeezing himself into one of these CID steel cans for any length of time, he had to admit that the neural interface between the machine and his brain made tactical planning a snap. In just seconds, he could do work that would have taken a human staff officer an hour to finish. Focusing mentally, he ordered the robot’s attack software to create a new set of target priorities. Then he divvied them up between their two Iron Wolf fighting machines. He flicked a finger, sending the revised battle plan to Charlie.

“Got it,” she confirmed. Seconds later, she said, “Looks good to me, Whack.”

“Okay, stand by,” he ordered. “On my mark, we’ll light ’em up and take ’em down.”

“Copy that, Red Leader,” Charlie replied, with a mischievous chuckle.

Smiling despite his tension, Macomber ran through one last systems and weapons check. Everything still looked good. So stop stalling, he told himself coolly. The longer he and Charlie dicked around out here, the more likely they were to be spotted by some sharp-eyed Russian sentry. The fact that the Perun’s Aerie garrison was on alert suggested they’d somehow lost operational surprise, but they could still rock the enemy back on his heels by attacking now, before they were detected. “Commence blackout in five seconds,” he ordered. “On my mark… Now.”

He flexed his CID’s right hand, activating its netrusion capabilities. Included among the sensors equipping their robots were active radars. And those radars could be configured to pump malicious code into enemy digital systems, computers, radios, telephone networks, and radars — commanding them to shut down or flooding them with false images. A wolfish grin flashed across his face. After all, there was a certain poetic justice in using the Scion variant of cyberwar against the Russians guarding this Perun’s Aerie complex.

“Three… two… one…” he counted down. “Let’s go!” He leaped to his feet and ran forward into the Russian detection grid. His radars powered up, pouring commands into the preset sequence of enemy sensors and computers. Off on his left flank, Charlie Turlock’s CID was in motion, doing the same thing.

Across the forest and on the high mountain slopes above them, ground-surveillance radars went dead, knocked off-line. Radio communications dissolved into a blur of incomprehensible static. Cameras and motion detectors froze.

Macomber hurtled over a trip wire and unslung his electromagnetic rail gun. It whined shrilly, powering up. Still moving at nearly sixty kilometers an hour, he dodged around trees. The targeting reticle on his display centered on the slit of a Russian bunker. He fired.

CCRRACK! In a blinding flash of plasma, a small superdense metal projectile streaked toward the distant bunker, moving at more than Mach 5. Tall pine trees caught in its wake bent and shook. Blankets of snow and ice layered on their branches exploded into steam. The rail-gun projectile slammed into the camouflaged antitank missile position with enormous force. Torn apart, the concrete bunker vaporized — blown into a swirling cloud of shattered concrete and molten steel.

Charlie’s 25mm autocannon stuttered, firing on full automatic. Dozens of HE rounds pounded the slopes ahead of them. Orange-and-red bursts rippled across the snow as the mines triggered by her burst detonated. A roiling curtain of smoke and dirt drifted across the bowl.

Laser targeting, Macomber’s CID warning system indicated suddenly, coupling it with a shrill BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. Threat axis ten o’clock.

He accelerated and swerved to the left, hoping to shake off the laser painting him. He swiveled on the move, bringing his rail gun on target.

Launch detection, his computer announced calmly.

Trailing a plume of fire and smoke, a Russian Kornet laser-guided antitank missile speared past Macomber’s CID. It missed by less than a meter. Still dodging and weaving, he fired back.

The Russian bunker exploded.

Caught up completely in the fierce exultation of combat, Macomber charged onward. He was fully synched with the Iron Wolf robot’s computer now. New targets appeared on his display. Each was coded by its perceived threat level and the weapon his CID evaluated as most likely to be effective. He fired again and again, using both his rail gun and 25mm autocannon as the circumstances and his battle software dictated. Charlie Turlock moved at his side, firing with equal poise and lethality.

One by one, the defensive positions guarding Perun’s Aerie were knocked out, either left burning or in smoldering piles of heaped rubble. Together, the two CIDs raced up the mountainside, dashing safely through wide gaps Charlie had blown clear through the Russian minefield.

Five minutes after the battle began, it was over.

Macomber reached the enormous tunnel entrance and spun to cover Charlie as she lunged uphill, covering the last stretch. Everywhere he looked, he saw only death and destruction. Plumes of greasy black smoke curled away from wrecked bunkers. Fires crackled, fed by burning ammunition and missile propellant.

“Reloading,” Charlie radioed. Her CID’s metal hands blurred into motion, ejecting empty autocannon ammunition clips and rail-gun magazines and replacing them from the extra packs slung across her robot’s back. “I’m back up,” she announced.

Macomber did the same thing while she covered him. “What’s your status?” he asked.

“I’ve used around sixty-five percent of my ammo stores,” Charlie told him. “But my fuel cells and batteries are in good shape.”

He nodded. That matched his own situation pretty closely. They were lower on ammunition than he would have preferred, but they should still be okay — depending on how much opposition they ran into inside the complex itself. “Any damage?”

Her robot actually shrugged its shoulders. “One of my thermal sensors is kaput. And I have some minor surface damage across my left leg. Nothing too bad.”

“How did that happen?” Macomber asked.

“I ducked a missile and ran into a heavy-machine-gun burst instead,” Charlie said, sounding irritated. She changed the subject, waving at the massive blast door that sealed the tunnel entrance. “So, what’s the plan now?”

In answer, Macomber charged his rail gun. His CID’s battle computer set a succession of aim points in a circular pattern across the blast door. Pausing only briefly between shots to let the powerful weapon cool and reset, he punched a series of holes right through the solid steel barrier. Pale fluorescent light streamed out through the new openings. Their edges glowed cherry red for a few moments, cooling fast in the below-freezing temperature.

“Oh, I like your plan,” Charlie said gleefully. “I always thought the Big Bad Wolf had all the best lines.” She pulled one of her equipment packs off her CID’s armored shoulder and moved forward to the blast door. One by one, she quickly attached shaped demolitions charges to the inside edges of the holes his rail gun had blown.

When she was finished, they turned and darted away along the base of the ridge, plunging through deep snow until they were a few hundred meters away. Both CIDs crouched low. “Detonation in three, two, one,” Charlie murmured. One of her fingers flicked, keying a precoded transmission.

With an earsplitting, ground-shaking BANG, her demolition charges went off simultaneously. In the middle of a bright orange flash that lit up the entire slope, they saw a large section of reinforced steel cartwheeling away through the air.

Before the echoes stopped bouncing around the surrounding peaks, the two Iron Wolf fighting machines jumped up and sped toward the tunnel. Bending low, they squeezed in through the ragged hole blown through the blast door.

They found themselves in a massive passage, more than large enough for their robots to stand fully upright. The first dozen meters were scorched and blackened by their demolition charges, but beyond that the corridor’s walls and overhead lighting looked completely untouched, almost pristine. More tunnels and chambers branched off this central passageway.

No sounds reached their CIDs’ audio pickups except for the low whir of a ventilation system circulating fresh air through the complex. “Knock, knock. Anyone home?” Charlie murmured.

“This sudden absence of any opposition does not make my heart grow fonder,” Macomber growled.

“Maybe our big ka-boom scared the crap out of them,” she suggested.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said doubtfully. “Let’s see if we can stir up any trouble. You take the left and I’ll go right.”

Weapons at the ready, the two CIDs moved down the tunnel — separating at the first intersection to prowl through the labyrinth of lighted corridors in search of Gryzlov’s cyberwar “information troops” and their equipment. As they moved deeper into the Perun’s Aerie complex, Macomber and Charlie dropped small radio repeaters at every turning to relay their signals so they could stay in touch.

Whack pushed deeper, moving faster through a maze of offices, briefing rooms, and living quarters as it became clear that Perun’s Aerie was completely deserted. In fact, he thought worriedly, there was no evidence that this place had ever been occupied for any real length of time. There were no stores of foodstuffs. There were no pieces of clothing or personal belongings in any of the quarters. And there were no documents or operations manuals in any of the offices or briefing rooms. Charlie reported the same thing from her side of the complex.

They met outside another large steel door. This one had a biometric lock set into the rock wall beside it. Thick power conduits fed into the chamber behind the door. Their CIDs registered measurable amounts of electromagnetic-field radiation leaking out into the passage.

Looking down at the faintly glowing palm lock, Charlie wriggled the large metal fingers of her robot’s right hand. “Methinks I’m not going to get a match here.” She glanced at Macomber. “Want to apply a little rail-gun tough love to the situation?”

“Hell, no,” he said. “The Russians have a nuclear reactor buried somewhere in this place. I’d really hate to find out the hard way that it was sitting right behind this door.”

“Good point,” Charlie agreed gravely, obviously imagining the havoc a superdense slug moving at Mach 5 could wreak on a reactor core and its cooling systems. Instead, she rummaged around in one of her packs and came up with a rectangular block of plastic explosive. “So I guess we do this the old-fashioned way. A little C-4 should do the trick.”

Working swiftly, she layered chunks of the malleable plastic explosive over places where the hinges should be. Nonelectric blasting caps and short lengths of detonator cord tied into a section of flexible shock tube connected to an igniter finished the job. Satisfied, they moved away down the corridor and into cover at the nearest intersection.

“Fire in the hole!” Charlie said. Smoothly, she yanked the igniter ring. A puff of smoke eddied away. Seconds later, her charges exploded, blowing the door off its hinges.

Using the enormous strength of his CID, Macomber levered the twisted remains of the heavy door to one side. He entered the large chamber on the other side and stopped a few meters in.

Dozens of racks of computer components filled most of the center of the room. They were connected by fiber-optic cables and power conduits. Tens of thousands of lights blinked in regular patterns across thousands of nodes. A steady hum pervaded the chamber, seeming to indicate that the giant machine was running. His CID scanned the array and flashed a message: Confirm TL-Platforms Supercomputer match. The computer is live, but configured for remote operation.

Charlie Turlock moved up beside him just as Macomber came to a grim and very unwelcome realization. “Know what you’re looking at?” he said bitterly.

For once, she didn’t have a snappy answer.

“The world’s biggest fucking piece of cheese,” Macomber continued. He was mad at himself and it showed in his voice. “This whole place is a mousetrap. And we are the goddamned mice.”

Charlie sighed. “Well, that sucks. I thought this seemed a little too easy.” She glanced at the other Iron Wolf robot. “So do we just back away nice and slow?”

“No way,” Macomber grunted. “A hundred to one, those Russian cocksuckers already know right where we are. So we might as well screw with their fricking bait.” With that, he unlimbered his 25mm autocannon and opened fire.

Rack after rack of expensive electronic hardware shattered under a stream of armor-piercing rounds. Showers of sparks erupted on all sides, streaming from floor to ceiling. Small fires sputtered in the gutted remains of computer cores and processors.

Slightly mollified, Macomber put the autocannon away and rearmed with his rail gun. He spun toward the doorway. “C’mon, Charlie! Now let’s get the hell out of here!”

Deep inside a separate tunnel complex dug into one of Mount Manaraga’s other spurs, Colonel Balakin and his staff stood staring in horror at their displays. Frantic work by some of Koshkin’s experts had finally managed to flush the netrusion-implanted viruses out of their sensor network. Most of their remote cameras were still down, either damaged or destroyed in the Iron Wolf mercenary attack. But the few that were working revealed a scene of utter destruction. Every defensive position they had so laboriously constructed to protect the main entrance to Perun’s Aerie had been obliterated in a matter of minutes. Hundreds of Russian soldiers were dead or dying. In this weather, the wounded would freeze to death long before any medical teams could possibly reach them.

And then a young Russian captain swung away from his own console in excitement. “Colonel!” he said excitedly. “The TL computer just went off-line!”

Balakin shook himself out of his funk. They still had time to retrieve something from this disaster — thanks, he was forced to admit, to President Gryzlov’s foresight and cunning. Although his conventional defenses had been designed to stop any Iron Wolf attack outside the base, the president had insisted they have a contingency plan in the event the Poles and their American mercenaries reached the costly supercomputer itself. “Activate Plan Zapadnya. My authorization code is AZ-4985,” he said crisply. “And signal Lieutenant Colonel Zykov to have his force stand ready.”

The younger officer typed in the authorization code he’d been given. The lights above a small key inserted into his console flashed green. He turned the key. “Plan Deadfall activated, sir!”