Mechanical (10 page)

Tom flicked open his computer armor panel and quickly clicked his short-range communication channel.

"Ramirez! Jebadiah! Set communication channel 4!" Tom yelled with the Serpent's speakers at max volume. It was a mistake, because Tom saw the Bradley begin to turn faster and its turret started swiveling in his direction.

"Lieutenant, over here," Sergeant Jebadiah's voice came through the communication channel. Tom had one second to wonder how it was that he could identify the sergeant's voice over the radio communication channel. After all, all the Serpents had identical voices.

Tom's mouth would have opened now in surprise. The Bradley had just lit him up with a red targeting laser. Tom ducked down, increased the length of his steps and threw himself down a few meters next to Sergeant Jebadiah's Serpent, behind a rock large enough to provide some cover.

"What now, Lieutenant?" the sergeant asked.

"Judging by the Hummer exercise from yesterday, when the captain says to take out the Bradley, he means just that," Tom said. He started raising his head carefully above the rock, trying to see exactly where the enemy was. His sensors could clearly hear the armored vehicle, but he needed to see exactly where it was.

"Hope our guns will do him good," the sergeant said. Tom rose carefully behind his cover, aimed his rifle and started squeezing shots at the Bradley. A moment later a continuous roar exploded five hundred yards downrange and the ground around the two Serpents erupted. Twenty-five-millimeter cannon rounds filled the air with fire and smoke, and rock fragments flew everywhere.

Tom kept his head down behind his rock. When he glanced at Sergeant Jebadiah, he saw that his Serpent was huddling behind cover as well.

Then, it sank in. For the first time in Tom’s life, he was under enemy fire. Protected by an armored personal tank, but still, they were firing at him with live ammunition—a 25-millimeter cannon. Would that be enough to penetrate his black Serpent’s armor? They said the third exercise would be dangerous, not this one! What should he do now? Keep huddling behind his cover! Just how much ammunition does a Bradley carry? It is still firing at him!

"Lieutenant Riley!" Sergeant Jebadiah called out. "We can't stay here!" The firestorm from the Bradley was coming decidedly closer, and sharp pings occasionally rocked the Serpents, while rock fragments and other shrapnel bounced from their armor.

Tom said nothing. He just tried to huddle deeper into the earth while the cannon fire scythed the air and the ground all around him. Flames and explosions shot up.

“Sir! We’ve got to move! Now!”

Tom’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw Jebadiah spring up and run away. He’s right. He must change position, but the cannon fire continued and Tom just hung on to the earth as tightly as he could.

Keyboard Warrior. Pencil pusher.

Tom sprang out from behind his rock and ran as fast as he could. He glimpsed Jebadiah's Serpent sprinting to the north, Jebadiah still aiming his rifle at the Bradley. Slowly, trying to control his shaking hands, Tom did the same, aiming his rifle at the Bradley, now four hundred yards downrange, moving at half speed towards them.

Smoke and flashes of fire erupted around the Bradley, but Tom's sudden elation was short-lived. The Bradley's cannon moved, the turret swiveling rapidly and the cannon's long barrel tracking Jebadiah's Serpent.

"Look out!" Tom called out through the radio link and started firing himself. He showered the Bradley with shots, emptied his ten-round magazine, pulled it out and replaced it with another from the ammo pack on his leg. He pulled the charging handle to the back, let it spring back and resumed firing in less than seven seconds.

That’s it. Don’t think. Just run, load, aim and fire. Repeat. Just don’t think.

Tom's bullets hit the hull, the sloped armor plates and the turret, but at that distance, even the heavy M82 bullets could not penetrate the Bradley's armor. Tom zoomed in on the turret, trying his best to look through the smoke that engulfed it, took careful aim and slowly fired, squeezing off one bullet after the other. Twenty seconds later, Tom was rewarded by the sight of one of the turret's periscopes exploding, a bright flame briefly visible before a plume of black smoke obscured it.

Tom stopped shooting for a moment. The Serpent was really a great machine, he thought. Under fire, on the run, he still managed to zoom in, aim and take out a Bradley's turret periscope, which was a very small target.
Even a pencil pusher can pilot a Serpent.

"Lieutenant!" Jebadiah's call came through the radio link. Tom realized the Bradley now had a plume of smoke constantly billowing out of its turret. However, now the heavy armored vehicle was bearing down towards Tom, its cannon tracking his every motion, the armored vehicle moving at top speed, its engine roaring angrily.

Then, a firestorm of bullets hammered Tom's Serpent, making him stumble and lurch.

I'm hit!
Tom thought dazedly, but an instant later he realized that the Serpent was still perfectly operational, though small impacts kept hammering him and hampering his movements. The shooting sound from the Bradley was at a higher pitch the before, coming in fast and furious.

It's firing its coaxial machine gun, Tom realized, a smaller-caliber 7.62-millimeter machine gun located in the turret next to the larger, twenty-five-millimeter cannon. Though the smaller bullets could not penetrate the advanced Serpent armor, the constant impacts still impaired the Serpent, forcing Tom to slow down to avoid falling. Small puffs of fire and smoke erupted all around the Serpent's long legs.

It's softening me up for its cannon,
Tom had time to think before the cannon's roar returned. Something heavy slammed into Tom and knocked him down on the ground, the Serpent rolling twice before it came to rest.

"I'm hit!" Tom muttered, then realized that it had been Jebadiah who had doubled back and knocked him down to avoid the Bradley's cannon fire. They were exposed there, without any kind of cover. The Bradley kept advancing right towards them, firing both cannon and machine gun.

An unbearable metallic scream exploded, and Jebadiah jerked away, his arms moving in all directions. Another explosion of noise came an instant later, and Jebadiah's form was completely covered by small, blossoming yellow-and-orange flames as the Bradley's 25-millimeter rounds, which had confirmed kills of Russian main battle tanks in the Gulf Wars, now tore into the prone Serpent.

Tom shouted incoherently, aimed his rifle at the charging Bradley and managed to fire two rounds before the cannon's fire moved in his direction. He screamed, feeling the Bradley's cannon’s armor-piercing rounds hitting his torso, his head, tearing off his right arm and damaging his legs. Tom writhed on the earth as the Bradley kept firing its cannon at him.

I'm going to die here, Tom thought, his vision red with pain, and his body in agony. He felt he was being torn apart by the deluge of hot metal ripping into him. Tom moved his left hand helplessly, his half-blinded and deafened sensors relaying only the sounds of the Serpent’s black armor falling apart under the unrelenting bombardment.

A moment passed and then another. To his surprise, Tom was still alive. A scream that had echoed around him and filled his world slowly died away. It was his own scream, Tom realized. Still under the barrage of the cannon, now a mere fifty yards away, , Tom realized his body did not actually suffer pain.

The Serpent does not feel pain.
It was not a thought, just a realization flashing through Tom's consciousness faster than lighting.

Stabilizing his damaged Serpent as best as he could, he extended his left hand, holding his rifle towards the charging Bradley. He aimed with badly degraded sensors and fired. He fired again, then he squeezed the trigger for the third time, but now the magazine was empty and the rifle did not fire. However, the two bullets he had fired were enough.

Tom had aimed at the left lower side of the hull, at the road wheels driving the Bradley's track. One of Tom's rifle bullets had hit a road wheel, while the other had hit the left front drive sprocket, causing havoc with the Bradley's left track and making it jam. The Bradley, its engine screaming furiously, had been moving at top speed, streaming in to finish the kill, and the results were disastrous. The heavy, armored personnel carrier turned wildly, spinning out of control, its one working track vainly pushing the earth. Then the Bradley fell to its side, its road wheels whooshing on helplessly and the engine roaring in impotent rage.

Tom slowly raised himself up, just in time to see Ramirez calmly walk up to the Bradley from its rear, aim his rifle at the back of the Bradley's turret and quickly squeeze off ten rounds. The M82 Barrett armor-piercing rounds, fired from twenty feet away, easily penetrated the thinner armor at the back of the Bradley's turret.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a small explosion came from within the Bradley, followed by another larger one. Black oily smoke started pouring out from it, quickly followed by ugly, red flames. It took the Bradley less than a minute to become a huge, red torch.

"Ammo in the turret," Ramirez whispered in scorn while he walked over to Tom and Sergeant Jebadiah. Ramirez pulled away his empty magazine, pulled back his rifle's charging handle and glanced into the firing chamber to make sure that no bullet waited there, and then he hung the rifle on the conformal ammo pack on his leg.

Tom slowly rose to his shaking feet. His right arm lay on the ground at his feet, useless. His feet were peppered with bullet holes, three that had pierced all the way through. His torso was relatively unscathed, but his head had suffered multiple hits.

He felt all the injuries his Serpent had suffered, and Tom marveled again that he could still stand. Sergeant Jebadiah sat on the ground near them. He had suffered from a trio of cannon-round hits on his torso, but apart from that, he was okay.

Captain Emerson walked over and now stood in front of them.

"The Serpents are not your bodies. They are not biological nor do they have flesh and blood. When hit, your minds feel pain only because they remember pain. For you, now, there is no pain. While you can still think, there is no reason not to follow orders and continue the mission."

Tom started to hate the captain's lifeless voice.

The two utility trucks drove up and stopped next to the Serpents.

"Return the weapons to the trucks," the captain commanded, and Tom returned his rifle and his conformal ammo pack.

"As a team, your performance was poor. You did not coordinate well, nor did you act as a squad. You must remember to use your radio links to maintain contact with your Serpent squad members."

"We coordinated perfectly," said a voice, and Tom realized it was Ramirez. With his damaged head and sensors, Tom turned and stared at Ramirez in surprise.

"Lieutenant Riley and Sergeant Jebadiah provided the distracting element, forcing the enemy to concentrate on them while I flanked it and shot it through its weak point," Lieutenant Ramirez said. It was probably the longest sentence that Tom had heard the lieutenant say.

Tom considered his own sorry state and looked at Sergeant Jebadiah, whose Serpent still reeled under the impact and damage done to its torso. Tom started worrying that, judging by the way Jebadiah’s Serpent had trouble standing straight, the containment chamber holding Jebadiah's body might have been damaged in the firefight.

"Lieutenant Ramirez, look at your teammates. They are not in any condition to continue fighting. In a real mission, you would have had to continue the mission alone, without backup. You need backup, Lieutenant Ramirez. In a few hours, we will start going over the mission and what intelligence we have about the enemy. You cannot afford to lose teammates. The third and final exercise will be tomorrow. You won’t survive it if you won’t fight as a team."

As far as Tom could tell, Ramirez did not really care what happened to his teammates, and nothing the captain said would change anything.

"Sergeant Jebadiah, though it is a laudable action, throwing yourself in harm's way for a teammate is not something that should be done without consideration of the tactical situation. Look at the result. We now have two damaged Serpents instead of one. Remember, the Serpent's torso, the pilot's chamber, can be penetrated only by something that has the penetrating power equivalent to that required to kill an M1A2 battle tank. A Bradley turret cannon has the penetrating power to destroy only other armored personnel carriers and older Soviet battle tanks. It certainly cannot penetrate a Serpent's torso compartment."

"Yes, Sir," Sergeant Jebadiah answered immediately.

"Lieutenant Riley, the Serpent's speed cannot protect it indefinitely. Remember this."

In other words, I cannot run from everything. Tom didn’t have to look at Ramirez to feel his Serpent’s scornful gaze.

The two utility trucks came and stopped next to the four Serpents.

"Stow the rifles in the trucks. Lieutenant Riley and Sergeant Jebadiah, you will be taken for repairs before we continue."

Tom put his rifle in the truck, along with his conformal ammo pack. He and Sergeant Jebadiah climbed aboard the second truck after Tom had picked up his torn right arm off the ground.

"Lieutenant Ramirez, stow your weapon." Tom was not surprised the captain had to order Ramirez twice to surrender his weapon.