Toy Wars (5 page)

Commander

I woke
midday
, with the sun just poking above the jagged peaks to our east
.
My mind was still troubled by the events I had participated in, but the sharpness of the loss was abated.
The thoughts of the previous day
only surged my sump if
I
consciously remembered.
I distracted myself by admiring what little scenery there was.

T
his being summer
, direct
light
flowed
into
the low, flat valley
and
highlight
ed
the short
sanguine growth punctuated by small clusters of large black and white striped flowers
cover
ing
the valley floor.
Over several hours the flatlands gave way to a dry and wind-torn land where centuries of erosion had stripped huge gouges, sometimes kilometers wide, out of the earth.
Layers of rose-colored rock lay bare to any unit to examine their mysteri
es
—
possibly a worthy task if the more important
war of survival
didn’t demand attention.

The
locomotives
slowed
ever so slightly.
I could see the
jack-like shape of
end-of-line markers in the distance.
M
y last battle scene had been horrific
, but t
he grisly scene around me made me wish for the lesser evil
,
the sight of the damaged units I left behind in
Mauna Loa
Valley
.
Not a single thing moved on the cracked
,
desolate field of Sector Alpha-4.
From a novel by an ancient
Human
named Tolkien, it was a scene right out of the Plateau of Gorgoroth.
Only the occasional unit-sized boulder and the shattered bodies of dead units and local fauna broke
barren flat terrain
.
N
o life grew here
—
only death.

The bodies
,
burned, mangled, exploded
,
or
many
just with gaping holes
,
lay scattered like some grotesque crop waiting forever to be harvested
.
I sent a mental, net-style command for everyone to stay loaded on the train
and the locomotives to stay fired up
.
I wouldn’t have my group being ambushed here.
If this was the remainder of a true battle, then neither side had
survived
,
a
very
rare occurrence in war.

“If I’m attacked, reverse at maximum speed.
Do not wait for me to return,” I ordered the engines.
The carnage was grisly.
Some of Six’s units had
obviously
fought to the end of their power, falling over intact but as dead as if they had been shot in the head.
Unwanted feelings flooded me, interfering with my ability to do my job.
Why was I learning of pain, suffering
,
and emotion?
It wasn’t fair.
But
then
,
when were mere creations ever given the fair task
s
?

I was not designed for emotions, but I had them.
They weren’t listed anywhere in my manual, or self-care texts.
I had no gauges, no monitors, no overload or overrides for anything emotional.
How did one deaden mental anguish?

By my internal clock, I spent two hours and sixteen minutes among the bodies of my fallen brethren and those
of the local animals where at times their parts intermingled.
How did one mitigate grief?
An arm ripped off here, a
tail
severed there.
How did one control rage?
Torsos riddled with shrapnel
.
The oversized head of a Tami doll still attached to her body only by a single flap of skin.
Why did we suffer like this?
Bodies at the bottom of piles of deactivated units soaked in sump and hydraulic fluid.
The carnage so overshadowed the minor skirmish
I won earlier as to
be
laughable.

It took looking at a
t
eddy unit with a missing face
to bring me back to my duties.
I’d spent enough time wallowing in emotions
.
As I saw no movement and my walking about drew no fire
, my command was safe.
How long it remained safe depended on me.
My new post needed me.
A garrison needed
to be
established.

I threw together a hasty
SAN
and ordered, “Dismount!
I want the five canaries doing over-watch.”
The quintet of
1-
meter
-
tall yellow birds shuffled off in different directions on their huge orange feet.
T
heir paw
-
sized eyes could see for
kilometer
s in this terrain even if their tiny wings couldn’t fly them nor hold a weapon of any size.

Looking around at the blank slate that was my post I scratched behind my right ear.
Now why is it that
Six packed
my memories with pithy phrases
like “I shall return.” or “Nuts!” or even “
Veni
,
vidi
,
vici
,
”
but nothing about building a garrison
,
and v
ery little about the actual campaigns of each of those famous commanders.
I would have to figure it out by myself.

The nearly flat tundra still concerned me.
Any of the
local fauna could see us from a great distance
and with that would know
exactly what units
I had under my command and where
.
I decided that as long as we had the time to set it up, I would make sure we had the best defensive position possible.

“I want four fire teams of a Jeff
re
y Giraffe, four
Tommy Tank
s, and a
t
eddy.
Each of these fire teams I want out
100
meters
at cardinal compass points off by
32
deg
rees.
Save this as
D
efensive
O
ne
.
”
The four teams joined up and trundled out.
“Nans
,
begin
a
reprocessing center here along
the
railroad tracks.
We may need the spare parts.”

After I had decided my best option
for the time and no immediate risks
, I gave the train my leave.
I watched it roll away with some trepidation.
Even though
the net’s warmth and reassurance still embraced me, I knew we were on our own.
More specifically, I was alone
.
Win or lose
,
my furry shoulders carried the weight and responsibility of command
.
The train blew a long
,
deep
whistle as it pulled away.
It sounded like
some damned and sick soul begging for release from its tortures.
The sound haunted me.

But once again my devotion to duty was my savior.
Work salved my
own
soul
—
if souls were not reserved only for Humans.

“Teddy 1499 to Six.”

“Six.”

“Arrived at Alpha-4 to find garrison destroyed by animal attack.
Request the following additional units: two
hundred
Tommy Tank
s and one
hundred balloons.”

“Request in process.
Will advise.”

“
All other unordered units limber trenching tools.
Tommy Tank
s mount dozer blades.
I
want
1
-
meter
trenches dug following these coordinates.
Heap the excavated
materials on the inner edge.”

As I watched the cloud rising from the industry
,
“landscape architect” came to mind.
The
Humans’
term
didn’t quite fit what I was doing.
My sump cycled through to a better one
—
combat ecology.
In short t
he best defense for this barren expanse of worthless flatland was to make it less flat.

Three hours later, as I helped
two
Tommy Tank
s leverage a boulder out of the way, my Factory’s booming voice came over the net
:
“Six to Teddy 1499
.
”

I replied
,
“1499 here
,”
as I wiped the accum
ulated dust
off my eyes
.

“Partial shipment of
40
percent
of requested reinforcements
en route.
Remainder of shipment denied.”

“Affirmative.”
I would have to make this work with a short garrison.
Six obviously had other requirements.
Assuming standard travel time and no surprises, I would receive another eighty tanks within four days
and the balloons much sooner because they flew at moderately high speeds
.

Balloons were silent and deadly.
They could float over a target and
hit every time
if the opponent didn’t know they were there
.
At the same time, they w
ere also remarkably easy to disable
.
One bullet and down they came, usually with their munitions armed
.
More gray outlines in my memory were being colored in
from past experiences of the d
isabled balloon
units falling among their own comrades and creating mass friendly
-
fire casualties.
Six’s
new
order required that the balloon units lift from outside your own
encampment
.
I could understand why
.

The
arrival of the balloon
reinforcement
s
the next morning didn’t surprise me.
Even through the great cloud of dust we still
generated
, e
very unit under my command identified the gaudy, floating parade of colors bobbing along in the air long before they could be queried as friend or foe over the net.

Deadly if not seen, very vulnerable if spotted.
These units
were manufactured in
all
the incredible gaudy color
s
of
the rainbow
.
Nothing is
yellow or blue, much less green
,
on this world.
They were about as sneaky and subtle as a high-speed train with a damaged wheel.
I ordered the group to
a landing zone
a few dozen meters short of our location.

How could our
flyer
s hope
to sneak up on anything in those
garish color
s
?
The thought
continued to
trouble me as we worked hard through the next full day, with only mandatory oil cool
-
down periods.
During one of these breaks I received a level four objection from a
Nurse Nan
as she replaced the thirty
-
fourth clogged filter of the day.
I ambled over to check on the unit she worked on.

It was a gopher, covered in the red dust that clung and covered all of us.
His hands caught my attention.
I
nstead of the uniform brown and gray as
they
had been manufactured
, mottled carmine streaks covered them
.