Toy Wars (8 page)

“ATTACK!” I yelled.
Special squad Foxtrot,
s
ix
t
eddy units
,
ran to
scale
the back of the downed death machine.
The
ir specific tasks should finish the plan and the beast
.
“The best laid plans never survive the face of the enemy,” was one quote my memory dredged up.
None of them made it higher than a meter off the ground.
A flailing arm crushed
two and a kicking leg snapped the back of another of my brothers.
The
thrashing of the
beast
tossed
two others
so far that the fall disabled or deactivated them.
The final one got caught in the right hand of the giant and was crushed in its fist.
The plan had failed.

I don’t remember
making any
decision but my sump recorded it.
I live to serve. W
ith the
T
yrannosaurus rex still flailing about, attempting to right himself, I sprinted across the open space between us.
I ignored the subconscious objections of my overload circuitry as I pushed my body to even greater speeds.
I
ran so fast that I leaped from
3
meters
and
made the beast’s back even if
I
did so on my belly.
I even impressed myself.
All I had desired was enough height that I could climb up.
My task was simple and straightforward.
I operated under the same instructions I
gave
my special force
—
find the creature’s processing unit and shut it down.
If I failed, my
entire
troop
would perish
.
So
would
I.
Worse, a
single
unit
with this fauna’s firepower
could destroy Six without much difficulty, a thought I found somewhat disturbing.

T.r
ex flailed its tiny arms backward at me.
The tail lashed upward as well.
I felt that as a game this left a great deal to be desired.
The winner lived and the loser died.
He bucked wildly
against the
ground
like a bucking bronco.
I fought to maintain a grip on his tough rubbery skin.
He twisted and I scampered
to the top
.
The monster lunged and I clung tight.
All the while my internal monitoring equipment
blew one overload safety after another.

Suddenly
the monster
rolled over.
I narrowly missed being crushed.
Only a divot in the creature’s
skin made by the bombs from my
flyer
s
kept me active.
The hole didn’t go all the way through his skin, but rather it made a dent
—
affording me a small niche of safety.
I was pushed firmly into that
fissure
by the force of
the
rex’s weight.
As the roll brought me back into the light,
I scrambled farther up his back, clinging for dear life to one of his neck plates as he shook back and forth like a dog just getting out of a bath.

My search for the processing unit hadn’t ever really gotten under way. I spent all my time avoiding destruction.
At the moment it seemed to be a draw
—
I w
asn’t dead and Big-and-Scaly
kept me from doing him harm
.
B
ut I knew that as soon as he was able to stand,
my chance of remaining more than scrap metal, while calculable
,
didn’t bear thinking about.
I had to find the
fauna’s
access hatch.

My hands roamed all over the skin’s surface.
He lunged upward in an attempt to stand.
I slid down his back, clawing for a purchase and searching wildly for the opening.
Tyrannosaurus rex had managed to free his foot from its earthen imprisonment.
He stood immediately
,
I grabbing for whatever perch I could maintain.
I clung precariously to his mid-back by just the barest of fingertips in the
scale
-
crack of his skin.
I contemplated the failure of my mission.

The massive tail cast
a shadow as it whipped my way.
I saw
it
just in time to duck.
The incredibly loud smack of rubber on rubber got my attention.
I didn’t have much more time.

I climbed recklessly about on the broad
,
scaled back, first one side and then the other, trying to cover the greatest amount of area in the time I had available.
The tail missed me twice more, but only by the width of one of my hairs on the last occasion.
I was losing this battle, I thought, as I became even more careless in the speed I was trying to maintain.

Then
,
suddenly, it was over.
The tail crashed against my right hand, crushing it beyond usefulness.
Hydraulic fluid sprayed out the end of the effectively amputated limb.
My internal systems started shutting down to prevent other damage.
I had failed.
This abomination would destroy Six and all my kin.
Worse, I had failed for the Humans, too.
I regret that I have but one life to give...

It had
to be luck.
My programming didn’t admit to luck, but I will accept it any way that it is dropped in my lap.
The fluids from my arm seeped down and were minutely diverted by a regular shape on the skin at the base of the monster’s tail.
The access hatch was almost invisible by sight, but
my
umber fluids showed me my
t
arget
.
I
’
d
never
have
found it without my own vital liquids.
But finding it was only half the problem
—
the easy half
. With only one
functioning hand
I
could think of
only
one way.

The voltage
surge
I’d come to associate with the emotion
of
fear ran through me. I
knew if this didn’t work, I was quite dead
.
Hope is a strange thing. It can make us even more fearful
.
Our instinct for survival is too strong to quit when there is even the most minute flowering petal or green leaf of life within us.

I wrapped my legs on either side of T
.
rex’s dorsal fin, holding my legs together as tightly as possible
a
s I
reached
for the panel
.
My hand opened it easily enough, but just then the beast took to jumping up and down to dislodge me.
One of these jumps caused my legs to
break free of their tenuous hold
. Without any intent, I performed a perfect flip, landing with my crotch straddling the thrashing tail.
Frantically, I grabbed the panel handle as the monster’s motions caused even harsher random accelerations.

For me to let go of the door handle now would
almost certainly condemn me to fall and
be smashed to the consistency of mercury against the floor of the valley by
the beast’s
feet, tail
,
or fists.

The
r
ex
and I were once again at an impasse.
I could not use my good hand to disconnect its control circuits and it couldn’t stop hopping.
I could see the circuitry arrayed out in front of me, begging for deadly attentions.

Worse, t
he fluid from my damaged right hand
had begun
to cause a pressure imbalance in the other
areas.
My
good left arm and my legs would soon begin feeding hydraulic fluid
past my burned out safeties
to the damaged system to prevent total system failure, causing more of my circuits to shut down.
This would result in me losing my grip, a positive feedback.
I knew t
ime was limited, so I used my head, literally.

Before me, in the rex’s control panel was a great number of fiber optic wires and control boards, glittering in an array of light and a spectacle of tracing banners.
I opened my maw and reached in for a huge bite of wiring, ripping indiscriminately.
The first lurch in response nearly dislodged me right then.
The
Tyrannosaurus began to
stomp only with the left foot but that action
seemed to be
jerking me even
more
desperately than ever.
I twisted my head and sp
a
t out my mouthful of T
.
rex’s innards before plunging my snout into the unit’s main processor board, snapping it in half, causing electric arcing everywhere, including across my face, sing
e
ing
my
fur in several locations.

The r
ex stopped abruptly, mid-jump.
As it came down, it teetered backward.
I jumped for my life.
Having saved the day, being pulped beneath a multi-metric-ton monster wasn’t my idea of a reward.
I fell heavily to the ground just in time to be bounced about by the second impact of the falling Tyrannosaurus.

Silence. It overwhelmed me for a moment.

I assessed my physical condition and decided I was at least nominal for movement, assuming I didn’t try anything fancy.
My mind
raced
, however.
I narrowly avoided terminal deactivation
—
so close to nonexistence.
It called for a mental pause.
My arms shook
,
probably from a lack of hydraulic fluids.

“All units recall,” I shouted over the
S
AN
a
s soon as I got my mind back under control.
“Emergency repair team to this location.”
I crawled over and leaned up against the dead beast to keep me upright.

Fifteen minutes later a pair of
Nurse Nan
s put an emergency cap on my right arm, turning it into a stump. They shoved a liter of fluid into my system. I needed more but other seriously damaged units needed
the Nans
’
backup supply. I released them to the other wounded even though tremors still seemed in control of my left hand.

“
Defensive One
,” I called out over the
SAN
. I needed to keep us safe just in case more surprises marched up on us. Worse
,
I no longer had
flyer
cover to tell me of approaching fauna.

In spite of the quick
return of the
Nan
s
, it took another hour to round up all of the straggling units.
I had lost
over half our force, and half of that remainder
only partially functioned. The massive corpse would allow some cover but we were obvious in our defensive locations.

“Canaries, I want any movement you see at all.”

“Canary
F
our reports
Nurse Nan
—
”

“Counter order.
Report any movement not directly responsible because of Six units.”

“Canary
O
ne reports tree branch movement at
relative
grid 0
-
1
-
4.”

“Canary
T
hree reports
smoke from damaged units at
R-
grid
—
”

“Counter order,” I growled.
“Report any fauna or possible fauna movement.”

Several anxious hours crawled by with no sighting reports.
W
e were fortunate that
no third attack came
.
With our injuries, we would have been hard
-
pressed to derail a train.