CHAPTER 2
“Systems functional for Breezy. Ziggy, status?”
No answer signal from Ziti.
“EMP?”
Negative.
“Fire in the hole?” Talinn flipped through all the information Bee displayed, then groaned and slammed her hand on the corner of the console. “They’re jamming us.”
I’m not reading anything that—oh. Bee’s discordant sound of disgust lasted a fraction of a second. Fire in the hole. Shifting payload to ballistic.
Ballistic wasn’t necessarily safer than incendiary, given they didn’t know what they were shooting at and everything could go even further sideways either way. Still, they had a better chance to penetrate whatever was in the ground between them and their fellow tank than they did setting it on fire.
Ziggy still in action, their turret is tracking along with ours.
“That’s why they train us.” Talinn didn’t bother to recheck Bee’s aim, scanning for more disturbances underneath them as the thwoom vibrated through her.
Nothing registered at all before the ground bare yards in front of them erupted. The tank rolled backward without comment from Bee, and Talinn toggled controls to pull up menus of less-used commands.
“Didn’t anyone ever bury seismic sensors out here?”
You’re thinking Tivus—there are no earthquakes of measure on P-8.
“For thoroughness’s sake, you’d think they’d standard op it everywhere. But if they couldn’t be bothered to give this dust ball a real name . . .” When a third explosion blew the ground to their left, Talinn stopped grumbling and they slid into their combat habits—rusty, but drilled enough to snap into place.
Half words and inaudible signals sent them firing reactive fusillades into new holes, but without a true target or discernable pattern, the offensive was frustratingly ineffective. Caytil and Ziti remained out of contact, and the portion of processing Talinn attributed to that issue couldn’t untangle how they were being jammed.
Ballistic rounds made as little difference as incendiary—whatever was causing the explosions underground was either too deep for them to get to or too fast for even their reaction time. Five random explosions into the one-sided engagement, the tank rocked underneath her.
“Reroute left treads.” It was either her or Bee who spoke, but her fingers completed the circuit that reoriented the particles from storage to repair the treads.
Over the trough.
“Away from Ziggy.”
There was no discernible gain in getting closer to their fellow tank—without a convoy to form a line, they’d only make a more concentrated target area for whatever was attacking them.
Bee pivoted them as best the tank could pivot, a fraction of a moment before the ground to their right erupted in a shower of chunky dirt. Running out of rebuild.
“Side turret nonresponsive.”
Talinn glanced at the screen showing Ziggy’s position and barked a short laugh. “They’re making speed out of here. Let’s do the same—north-west-north.”
On it. Speed is relative.
“Always is.”
With nothing registering on sensors, they were fleeing blind, but repetitive shooting wasn’t making an impact and they’d eventually run out of material to cannibalize for repairs.
“Still no comms—we’re sure it wasn’t an EMP?”
Given all my systems read as go, it can’t be. Didn’t even feel a little bite at the edges. EMP’s off the table.
AIs were vulnerable to targeted electromagnetic pulses—another reason to have a human partner—and Bee had taken a few over their cycles together. It left Talinn’s head echoingly empty for a few minutes, and Bee feeling like an enormous set of floating jaws had chomped into her programming. This selective blindness wasn’t that.
Whatever in the wide stretch of space it was, made for a whole other question.
“Four minutes and eight seconds since the last explosion.”
Largest gap since it started.
Talinn knew better than to ask if they were clear—neither of them had any way of answering, and she’d jinxed them enough this day—so she continued scanning through the screens and changed the subject.
“I think this is only the second time we’ve strategically retreated.”
Technically we stayed in cooperative motion with our patrolling partner.
“You knew it was a good idea as soon as we registered they were doing it.”
I wouldn’t let us leave Ziggy in the lurch. My record is still flawless in terms of not calling for a strategic retreat.
“So noted.” Talinn held up a finger and marked their invisible scorecard. “Though you have called for air support at least three times.”
Point to you. Bee rumbled at the low end of Talinn’s hearing, indicating she wasn’t done talking but was still considering her words. Talinn tracked Ziggy’s progress and extrapolated their direction. Their fellows had decided on a circuitous path that would loop them around to come in from the southern side of what passed for their base. She and Bee would continue east and head for the northern entrance, though hopefully the communication block would clear before they got there.
This doesn’t make sense.
“Sure.”
Even if the attack didn’t have biological support, we should have seen heat signatures, or more regular seismic disturbances, or hit something.
“Unless they were pre-planted charges, and a remote timer. Or some craft burrowed too deep for us to hit got close enough to set off the charges.”
Who would pre-plant charges out here? We’ve been on randomly distanced patrols—Base isn’t even sure where we’ll be the next day, until we decide or new orders come in.
“Did new orders come in?”
Bee rumbled again, and Talinn spent the time fiddling with comms. Again without a single change registering on any of their equipment, everything shifted. The channel went from empty silence to full volume.
“—air support. Copy? Message repeats three.” After a five second pause, the message indeed repeated. “AITs Breezy and Ziggy to contact Base, command code alphasix. Do not engage. Base will determine if targets are compromised. Deployed air support. Copy? Message repeats two.”
“They’re going to bomb us if we don’t answer?”
Command code alphasix is an AI-embargoed frequency. Trying to punch through.
“No, I remember the codes, Bee. Honestly, you have no faith in my brain.” As she spoke, Talinn twirled the appropriate dials, aligning their output to the proper channel.
Meat brains are squishy.
“Meat brain is half your processing power.”
That’s a generous estimate.
“Breezy to Base, we are functional. Over.”
“Base to Breezy. Divert to following coordinates—do not continue approach toward base. Report.”
“Copy.” Talinn released the control transmitting her voice and muttered to Bee, “Do they think we’re an imposter tank?”
Or tagged with something suspicious by whatever was blowing up in our general direction. Bee had already shifted their course, a low thrum in the tank indicating something in the mechanics had gone slightly wrong. They could have sent air support against that, not us.
“Base, there was an unregistered communication jam on our side. We lost contact with Ziggy after the first explosion. Have you reestablished contact with them?”
“Report, Breezy.”
“Bee, I swear if jets go screaming overhead toward Ziggy, we’re going to blow them out of the sky.”
Only if it’s Jiff.
“Deal.” Talinn sighed, recomposed her voice, and tapped the controls to resume transmitting. “Base, we were on patrol as registered at beginning of watch. All clear, until a ghost approach from following coordinates. Did not register on any sensors. Sending recording as I speak. Motion ceased, satellite through infrared showed nothing.” She continued the report in as dry and inflectionless a tone as any Command could ask for, and Bee made rude noises in her head. She knew she shouldn’t, but she tacked on the pressing question at the end.
“Repeat. Has Ziggy reestablished contact?”
“Report to your assigned coordinates. You will be met for briefing.”
What in the actual entropic state of the uni—
“Has the countdown on the main channel stopped?” Talinn dug her fingers into the lightly cushioned arms of her chair and swallowed back the urge to yell.
Yes. And no sign of jets.
“That doesn’t mean much, Bee. Our sensors haven’t been doing great by us today.”
Blaming our sensors seems shortsighted.
“Please don’t pun at me. For all we know, we’re reporting so I get shot in the head and you get wiped.”
They’d just send the jets, Talinn. Bee’s words were as prim as one of their early care instructors. They wouldn’t risk your biting them.
“I would think you’d be the bigger threat, jumping through a tech cord and taking over one of the portable diagnostic machines.”
That sounds . . . greasy. Bee flicked her screens and then broadened the middle view to show Ziggy making an exaggerated turn off their previous course. Guessing they got the same orders we did.
“And you can’t get to . . . ?” Talinn trailed off—out of habit she’d subvocalized, and as far as they’d ever been able to tell the recording devices in the tank weren’t active, but all the same it was safer not to fully state anything one didn’t want Command to know.
Ziggy doesn’t exist at any level as far as our channels are concerned. Including the forbidden and theoretically nonexistent AI to AI workaround.
“Did some kind of field activate in the area between us?”
At this point . . . it makes as much sense as anything.
“So none. It makes none sense.” Talinn thudded her head against the tall back of her chair, though she kept her eyes on the screens. They didn’t provide a single bit of helpful information, but it let her pretend she was doing something.
None.
“This day sucks.”
At least it could still get worse.
“Make sure I put in our record that Series B model 617 should be flagged for top-flight optimism.”
That’s got to be in there already. Bee did her equivalent of sticking out her nonexistent tongue, but it was barely a flicker across the screens.
All the same, Talinn sat up so abruptly Bee brightened the lights inside the tank instead of asking what had happened.
“Bee.” Talinn squinted at the assorted pictures. “Flicker the screens again.”
Bee did.
“What’s that lag?”
There’s no lag.
“There is. Flicker them. Watch the lower left corner.”
Please to remember my method of observing does not match your—oh implode your intestines, what the bilious bloat is that?
Talinn focused too hard on the displays to question Bee’s latest attempt at cursing, and chewed on the corner of her lip instead of speaking.
Nothing is wrong internally. Nothing.
“Externally?”
We lost half our cameras in the various explosions, but the lag is from . . . Bee clicked as she narrowed through code to find the infinitesimally slower string. A perfectly functional cluster outside of the hatch.
“So we have a bug. Or a hitcher?”
Or something has gone so wrong with my internal programming I can’t determine what’s wrong anywhere else. I still can’t see the lag, that corner just feels . . . itchy.
“You don’t itch.”
I have you in my programming. I absolutely do itch.
“Rude.” Talinn chewed on her lip some more, then shoved up out of her chair. “I’m going out to look.”
How is that a good idea? Bee mirrored Talinn’s tone—matter of fact and determined—so perfectly it felt like an echo. Talinn smiled briefly at the display and then turned for the hatch.
“It’s a terrible one, obviously. But it’s better than going to the rendezvous, having the techies decide we’re buggy, and waiting for them to call in the big bombs or the wipe code.”
The wipe code’s a myth.
“Everything’s a myth until it’s frying your insides, partner of mine. And that’s a heck of a way to realize it’s not story time anymore.”
I don’t like when you make sense.
“You unlocking the hatch, or am I throwing the lever?” In the Eights, the AIs ran the general operating systems—it took relatively little of their processing power, and lived at the bottom level of routine-running. Nearly everything had a human-usable redundancy, however, for those times when an EMP was too thorough, or an AI was fully wiped but the human partner lingered on.
It would be a small affront for Talinn to use the physical override lever to open the latch if Bee got difficult, which was rather the point of the question.
A kerthunk—audible enough that Talinn couldn’t mistake Bee had done it on purpose—signaled the hatch unlocking. Talinn should have properly suited up, but only grabbed her helmet and goggles. She didn’t plan to climb all the way out, and at a flicker of non-wind-related movement, she’d throw herself back inside. Armor wouldn’t help. So she told herself as she released the ladder and pulled herself up. Still, for thoroughness’s sake, she paused before lifting the hatch.
“No one’s out there?”
At this point, our full graduating class could be hanging off us and I wouldn’t be entirely surprised.
“So noted.” Talinn took a breath, bared her teeth, and eased the hatch open.