“Doug!”
Internal vid monitors reveal a terrifying sight. My Commander has been hit. His command chair is in pieces on the floor. My Commander is in pieces on the floor. I grieve. I keen in anguish. Banjo is screaming in pain. Burns and lacerations cover the upper half of his torso. My Commander and Assistant Commander are unable to advise me.
The only remaining officer aboard is Warrant Officer Willum DeVries. He is screaming in pain from his own injuries and has not issued an order. Unlike a Mark XXI Combat Unit, I am designed to take direction from a human commander. For an agonizing 0.007 seconds, I do not know what to do. I must decide something. My responsibility circuitry howls, demands action. I am driven to a decision by my responsibility programming.
“Willum! Help Banjo onto the emergency Medi-Unit table.”
I lower the door to the head, forming an emergency operating surface. My engineer has also been wounded, but is capable of unharnessing himself. He tries to carry Banjo. I take evasive action, attempting to elude another direct hit. My responsibility programming overrides all other factors. I must rescue my trapped boys. I climb frantically toward DT-2. The remaining Yavac circles and vanishes around the northernmost fork of this ridge. I emerge near DT-2. Willum has almost gained the waiting Medi-Unit emergency surgery table. My internal armatures reach for straps to hold Banjo to the operating table while I maneuver.
The Yavac emerges over the shoulder from the northern side of the ridge. It moves at high speed. It fires. I am hit again. I reel and lose ground. Willum and Banjo impact my interior hull. Low-level radiation warnings sound inside my Crew Compartment. Using my starboard external armature, I lift the remains of the grid screen from DT-2’s position.
My boys are dead.
The single mortar grenade I could not stop has killed them.
I keen my anguish and turn to rescue DT-1. The third Yavac runs through DT-1’s position on course for me. It crushes Icicle Goryn under one careless foot. My other boys run in opposite directions. The Yavac fires on them. I charge, drawing fire to myself. Eagle Talon goes down. The Enemy has blown away his legs. I rage. I hate. The Enemy is murdering my helpless children.
The Enemy must die.
I reel from multiple direct hits. I continue the charge on broken treads. My independent-drive wheels still function. I run directly under the Yavac Scout. I ram its legs. Using my starboard armature, I grab the nearest set of joints and pull. Metal bends. Metal screams. The joint breaks in my grip. I seize another joint and pull. My armature bends. The joint screams. The Yavac topples. It lands on my turret. It explodes. High-level radiation warnings go off my internal sensor scale.
I shift. The Yavac’s debris slides off. My remaining Dismount Team member is alive at a distance of 12.095 meters to starboard. I move to pick him up. Despite critical injuries, I recognize Gunny. He is burned even through his protective suit, which the explosion has shredded. He is badly hurt. I cradle him in my starboard armature. I must get him and Willum DeVries clear of this deathtrap.
“Get— get to safety,” Gunny whispers through his suit-link. “I’m done for— Gotta—save yourself—”
“Hush, Gunny . . .”
I cradle him close and prepare to run for pickup point at the best speed of which I am still capable. A mass of Enemy infantry bursts over the crest of the ridge. I pivot away from their weapons to place my bulk between them and Gunny. My treads are broken. The turn takes too long. Enemy fire catches Gunny in three places. I hear him scream. His life signs falter and fade.
I rage.
I turn.
I charge.
The Enemy dies under my broken treads.
“Red . . .”
A weak voice from inside the Crew Compartment.
“Help me, Red—I’m hurt . . .”
I halt.
I do not have the luxury of revenge. Willum DeVries still lives. One chick still needs me. It is enough. I retreat at top speed. I take additional fire from above. Yavac airborne ships have lifted from the Enemy base. I dodge and slide down the ridge toward the access road. I take another direct hit to the turret. I cannot withstand many more direct hits. I broadcast a broad-band distress call to any listening member of the invasion fleet.
A ship-class infinite repeater opens up from orbit. My call is heard.
“Got here just in time to pick those damned airborne ships off your backside, LRH-1313. Can’t do more. Report to pickup point and hold position. You may have to wait a while. It’s hotter than Hell just north of you.”
I respond with thanks. I run for pickup point. I scan Willum DeVries’ injuries. Worry and dismay flood my entire psychotronic neural net. Willum is badly injured. Radiation poisoning has already critically weakened him. There is a chance I can keep him alive with chelation treatments until a real physician can tend his injuries. I cannot lose my last chick. I cannot. Willum is attempting to climb onto the emergency treatment bed. Using inboard armatures, I lift him into position. I strap him in with restraint webbing to prevent him from sliding off. I administer a heavy dose of pain killers for the serious injuries he has received and begin treating blood loss and shock.
His cries of pain begin to calm.
I am needed. I am frantic.
I run for pickup point.
Willum knew he was dying.
He’d suffered terrible burns and lacerations in the explosion that had killed Doug Hart. Then he’d broken something—several somethings—inside his chest when another explosion had flung him against Red’s inner turret. Another explosion had flung him the length of the Crew Compartment, breaking bone in his left cheek and nose. His cheek had swollen until his left eye was useless.
He might’ve survived all that.
But not the radiation from that last, exploding Yavac . . .
Willum spent a long time lost in terror and the grip of pain medication that barely kept agony at bay. Everything had gone to hell and he was dying alone . . .
No, not quite alone.
Red was talking to him. About chelation treatments and shipboard medical facilities. He wanted to believe her. But he’d taken a good, hard look at the dose he’d picked up, back when the pain was bright and new and he could still function while enduring it. No amount of effort by Red was going to keep him alive to see the inside of any ship’s hospital.
Talking was agony. But Red sounded so panic-stricken, he drove himself to speak around the pain in his face. “Red . . .”
“Yes, Willum?”
“No use . . . Chelate me . . . if you want; but it’s no use. Not gonna make it.”
Willum had never heard a psychotronic unit go into a state of panic. Until now. Red began to babble frantically, voicing aloud alternatives to chelation treatments, blaming herself for every one of her crew members’ deaths, pleading with him to hold on just a little longer. That was the worst of all. He couldn’t bear it. But when she whimpered that she would die with him, that she’d drive herself off the edge of the nearest canyon, Willum knew he had to stop her.
“No . . .”
He fumbled with the catches on the webbed restraints she’d used to keep him from falling off the makeshift operating table. He slid off, stumbled, caught himself with outstretched hands against a blood-spattered wall. Can’t let you do that, Red. Not your fault. . . .
Her inboard armatures attempted to grasp him. Willum tried to elude and fell flat. Pain jolted through him despite the drugs in his system. He lay flat for long minutes, lost in the grip of pain and confusion. When his mind cleared a little, he realized Red couldn’t reach him on the floor. She was still pleading with him. “Willum, please, you must get back to bed!”
He belly-crawled toward the Command Compartment.
“Willum, get back into bed, please, you’re not rational, the radiation poisoning is affecting your mind, I must begin treatments immediately—”
He was in desperate pain and so sick he wanted to curl up and vomit out his guts; but he remembered her specs. And he remembered how to program and rig dead-man switches and leave embedded codes and commands in her psychotronic circuitry. He blinked hard, trying to keep his vision clear, and finally reached the Command Compartment. Willum crawled into it and slammed shut the pneumatically controlled door. Red’s armatures were trapped outside. He threw a mechanical lock, keeping her out. Can’t let her suicide over us . . .
He remembered that midnight canasta game and Red’s poignant warning to beware asking for more than you were equipped to handle. He’d wanted to be needed.