Joe Haldeman - Future Weapons of War

Spots of light flared in the center of the city, defining the boundary of the Green Zone. A moment later the armored glass trembled and sang as the shock waves of the explosions reached the penthouse. The lights flickered out for a moment, then came back, dimmer and redder now, running on battery power. The power grid was down, and apart from the fires flickering under rising columns of smoke, the city had gone completely dark, lit only by secondary explosions that were detonating here and there in the Green Zone.

“You’ve started a war you can’t win,” Yan Yane said.

“The pistol plugged itself into the information grid and downloaded copies of itself. It controls power and water, the information grid and the transport systems. It controls thousands of carts and mechs. It also controls the security systems of the police armories. Right now, my militia is arming itself.”

Vance entered the room, followed by half a dozen men carrying guns. Yan Yane barely flinched when Vance took his arm. The old man straightened his back and said, “You don’t see it, but you’ve become a monster.”

“I’m the weapon used by my people to free themselves from the enemy.”

Vance began to lead the old man out of the room, the armed men falling in behind them. As he went through the door, Yan Yane turned and said, “And who will free them from you?”

Then Rocket Boy was alone with his thoughts, and the pistol. He set the weapon on the table and walked to the window. Across the darkened city, thousands of sparks were springing into life at every intersection, where the people were setting up barricades. To the east, the lights of the spaceport still glittered—it had its own fusion generator.

Rocket Boy asked the pistol for a status report.

The first stage has been successful. But overall, it is still to early to tell if we will succeed.

“My people are fighting for their lives and their homes. Everything in your database tells me that very few invading armies have prevailed against a resolute population. We will drive the enemy back to its borders. We must do to them what they did to us.”

At what cost?

“Freedom is not worthwhile if it is easily won.”

There is still time to make peace with the enemy.

Something glinted as it passed through the light of a nearby lamp. It was one of the assassin bullets. It moved straight towards Rocket Boy, stopping a yard away, the needle in its blunt tip flicking in and out as if tasting the air.

“Are you frightened of me?”

Sometimes it is necessary for me to remind you that you are merely mortal. Think carefully while there is still time. If you take the city but spare the enemy soldiers and administrators, you will not only save their lives, but the lives of many of your people.

Rocket Boy laughed. “You are frightened of me.”

Perhaps Yan Yane was right. Perhaps you have become a monster.

The bullet was close to Rocket Boy’s head now. He watched it for a long moment, then reached out and plucked it from the air.

Please. Please reconsider—

“No. We will go on and on, you and I. Look!”

A brilliant point of light flared amongst the launch pits of the spaceport. The yacht of some trillionaire fleeing the war. Rocket Boy watched as its bright star arced away into the night.

I am a power on this backward world, the pistol said. But there are powers much stronger than me in the worlds beyond.

“We’re something new,” Rocket Boy said. The assassin bullet vibrated warmly between his thumb and forefinger. “We haven’t yet found our limits. Perhaps we never will.”

The voice in his head was silent.

“Switch the information grid back on. I will make a broadcast announcing that I am taking control of the city.”

Yes, master.

Rocket Boy tried out different smiles, studying his ghostly reflection. “Which sounds better? Prime Minister Vigo, or Emperor Vigo the First?”

Xandri scanned the terrain through her retinal camera, frowning at the readouts scrolling down her peripheral field of vision. She wasn’t seeing the Chimese dragon, so either Intel had been wrong about the attack alert, or the Chimese had shifted operations.

Whatever the reason, she had no target. Just a cracked plateau, fogged by the perennial summer dust storm, that ran until it hit the white-hatted Coprates massif.

“Chill,” she said.

“What is it, Flamer?” The voice of her team leader, Captain Charles Scrill, was loud and clear.

The last few missions, her com system had taken to randomly distorting sounds, but the tiny stirp of duct jammed into the earpiece seemed to have done the trick.

“I’m bringing my eagle round. TheChimese aren’t coming.”

There was a brief pause. “Flamer? Target is four o’clock, five klicks, coming off the massif.

You should have visual.” The worry in Chill’s voice came through too clearly—she decided maybe she’d take the duct tape out.

“Incoming,” her eagle announced happily. Its cheerful tones had been programmed on Earth by some idiot of a psych with a military contract to reduce combat stress. The sound broke whatever spell Xandri was under and she saw the Chimese dragon in the distance, ejecting Mars Terrain Vehicles—baby spiders—from its belly. Once they landed, they’d sprout legs and speed across the plateau to engage the American mama spiders guarding the Kennebunk Elevator, while the dragon turned back to its base on the massif. Now that the Chinese had lost the war with America on Earth, their Martian colony was starved for replacement parts for both systems and mechs. So they were focusing their dwindling resources on USAM’s two most vulnerable points. The Chimese cannibalized the spiders they couldn’t keep running, and dropped the hulks down USAM mining, infrastructure and terraforming shafts. And they targeted USAM’s cargo elevators every time supply ships arrived from Earth.

“Move in,” Chill ordered. “Clear the little bastards out. Flamer, take the fly.”

Chill and the other two eagles in alpha strike team swooped down and across the plateau after the baby spiders, while Xandri peeled off to pursue the dragon. She almost had a lock when—this was the only way she could describe it—everything twisted inside her and out, and bounced back into shape like a flexiband. The dragon had vanished again. Only this time there was another dragon, a green one, heading towards the massif, at 10 o’clock, and herphysical position seemed to have changed she was somewhere else along the massif.

Even in her shock, her training kept her focused. “Chill!” she shouted. “Target has changed. I have visual on a second fly. Repeat, targeting another enemy craft!” She locked and fired. She missed.

Unbelievable. Could the summer dust have compromised her twitchy targeting system? The Chimese weren’t the only ones with parts problems. She was still absorbing her inexplicable failure and sequencing another lock and load, when the world twisted again, this time accompanied by a horrendous bolt of pain. When she pried her eyes open again, the second dragon was gone and she was back chasing the first dragon, which was now in range. She blinked her eyes furiously to clear them.

She was hyperventilating, and the med readouts projected by her retinal camera were spiking right off the screen.

“…girl! Respond!” Chill was shouting.