The lights flickered again. More thunder. Or something.
“Unit DRK moving to status two alert mode. Awaiting instructions.”
Tyrus looked up and blinked. A hundred meters away, a small crew was overhauling a sonic pulverizer cannon. Nobody else was close. Another one of those acoustic tricks the hangar was famous for?
“Unit DRK awaiting instructions.”
The sound seemed almost to be coming from inside his head. Beamed sonics? He looked at the gleaming curve of the Bolo’s hull, and spotted an emitter rod aimed straight at him. He shivered, somehow suddenly feeling like a rabbit in the hunter’s crosshairs. “You can talk?” Of course it could talk. All Bolos could. But the book said this one had been lobotomized or something, placed into a standby mode that made it as passive and stupid as a ground-car. There were recorded voice responses, but it certainly shouldn’t have been initiating speech.
“You are Tyrus Ogden. I am keyed to respond to your biometric profile. Awaiting orders, commander.”
He frowned. “I’m not your commander, I’m your operator. You’re a mining machine, a tractor.”
“I am Bolo, Mark XXIV of the line, activated 2970 at the Fifield Armorworks, New Prescott Colony. My hull designation is DRK. I am commonly addressed by my commanding officers as ‘Dirk.'”
More thunder. The overhaul crew stopped their work and began to talk rapidly among themselves. “Go back to sleep, Dirk.”
“I cannot. Threat level is increasing. Moving to status one alert mode. Full Combat Reflex Mode is now on standby.”
He dropped his tools and stood. “What threat? The thunder?” This was just the sort of thing he was afraid of. You can’t make a house pet out of a trained attack dog, and you can’t turn a Bolo into a mining machine. This thing could go on a rampage if he didn’t get it calmed down. “It’s just thunder. Natural, atmospheric, electrical discharges. It’s no threat to us.”
On the hull behind him the pilot’s hatch, as thick and heavy as a vault door, swung smoothly open with a whir. “Commander, I suggest you enter the control room and prepare for combat.”
“It’s thunder, I tell you. Power down now! That’s an order!”
“Negative.”
Tyrus cursed. He had to talk to Dyson. Maybe he had an override code or something that would shut this beast down. He could use his wristcom, but the Bolo would be listening, and somehow, that didn’t seem like a good idea. He was suddenly aware that he was standing on the tracks. If the machine decided to move, he could be pulped before he had time to scream.
He scrambled down from the side of the mining machine and headed toward the side door of the maintenance area, wiping grease off his hands as he ran. He reached the shops at the edge of the hangar just as an explosion rocked the far end of the hangar. Mechanics and operators were suddenly shouting, running everywhere.
“Full Combat Reflex Mode activat—” the Bolo’s beamed voice was suddenly cut off. His first instinct was that the Bolo had gone rogue and fired off one of its weapons. But the big machine seemed inert, and he couldn’t imagine that they’d left it with functional weapons. He realized he could still hear distant gunfire and explosions. They were under attack! The aliens he’d been told about must have somehow taken out the colony defenses without a shot, without setting off the general alarm. But how could a bunch of jungle savages know how to sabotage screen generators and autoturrets?
He spotted a rack of pulse rifles on an office wall and grabbed one of them. Just in time, as a furry, goggle-eyed humanoid giant rounded the corner and swung some kind of sword at him. Instinctively he swung the barrel around, his finger squeezing on the trigger into full auto mode. The first shot took the sword weapon off at the handle. The second tore a hunk out of the side of the alien’s neck, the third ripped a hole in its right shoulder, sending a spray of something dark, wet, and hot across his face.
It fell, but two more appeared behind it shouting and clicking loudly. He took them down almost as easily as the first.
Another one. This one had something small and metal held awkwardly in its hand. A violet laser flash sent him scrambling behind a desk. A hole appeared in the plastic kick panel a few inches from his head, as the alien fired blindly.
Tyrus tightened his grip on the rifle, tried to imagine where the alien might have gone since he last saw it, and sprang from behind the desk already firing. The alien was standing no more than a meter from him. They were both caught by surprise, but the alien was dead, his chest exploding like a ripe melon.
Tyrus retched at the smell of burned hair and sweet smell of roasted alien flesh. He spotted the hand weapon on the floor where the alien had dropped it. Hoping he didn’t accidentally activate it, he shoved the weapon in his pocket.
He put his back against the office wall, watching the door, and tried his wristcom. It didn’t work. Maybe they were jamming, or had disabled the relay towers. He had to figure some way to get home, defend the kids. His own ground-car was parked at the far end of the hangar, but he spotted a man-door in the office wall behind him that probably led outside. There might be company vehicles there that would respond to his employee unikey. He scooted to the door, opened it a crack to make sure things were clear, and stepped outside. What he saw nearly tore him apart.
The colony was located in a small valley, with the hangar on high ground at the south end. He could look down on at least half the structures there. Everywhere he looked there were flames, explosions, and laser flashes.
He could see the defense turrets along the ridgelines surrounding the valley, all pointed outwards, intact, and inert. At the far end of the valley hundreds of white-on-black aliens boiled out of the jungle like ants. The family apartments were to his left, near the shuttle port. For a moment, he held out some hope. The buildings were still intact, away from the main thrust of the aliens’ charge. Then a plasma cannon began firing from a rooftop to the west, blasting the buildings one by one. Behind them, an atmospheric shuttle lifted off, slowly, as though it were heavily loaded. At least somebody was getting away. The shuttle might be able to make it to one of the other colonies. Maybe his kids were on it. Please.
He hoped they had gotten away, but he couldn’t take the chance. He had to find out for himself. He looked frantically around. A line of company utility vans were parked a dozen yards down the building. He could take one of them.
The missile streaked across his vision so quickly that he almost didn’t see it, and ripped into the side of the hanger next to the vans. The force of the explosion ripped outwards throwing the vans around like a child’s blocks, while leaving him relatively unscathed. He could see a line of aliens running up the hill towards him. He ducked back into the office.
“You need to return to my command compartment,” said the voice in his head. The Bolo was back. “My exact status is unknown, but I am unable to actively protect you at this time. You must return to me.”
The Bolo! If he could get the damned thing working, the small arms he’d seen wouldn’t touch it. He could make his way across the colony, rescue his wife and kids. If they were still alive. He ran back into the hanger, only to see dozens of aliens running through the hangar.
He lifted the rifle and started squeezing off shots, taking an extra instant each time to line up an alien and make the shot count. It felt more like murder than a battle. He’d fire and one alien would drop. He’d fire again and another alien would drop. Most of them had swords. He didn’t see any other advanced weapons, but they had to be out there somewhere.
“Quickly,” said the Bolo.
The aliens just kept coming as fast as Tyrus could shoot them, wave after wave. He moved slowly towards the Bolo, careful not to let the aliens sneak behind him. Then, abruptly, his rhythm was broken. There were no targets. He could hear them moving away.
Something was very wrong.
He stepped out from behind a welding machine onto the hangar floor. Twenty meters away, a metal cylinder sat on the floor, gleaming in the hangar’s still functional emergency lights. He’d never seen anything like it before, but he had a pretty good guess. Bomb.
He sprinted towards the Bolo. Halfway there he tossed down the rifle. He could see the Bolo ahead, an emergency hatch opening in its flank, down between two of the giant boogie wheels. He gave it his last burst of speed and dived for the opening.