William Dietz - A fighting chance

That wasn’t going to stop the Ramanthian bombardment, of course, since the bugs had a clear infrared image to fire at, but it did give one of the Legion’s quads an opportunity to disengage from the hull and head downslope without drawing as much fire attention as it would otherwise. The four-legged cyborg was twenty-five feet tall and weighed fifty tons. It was armed with self-loading missile launchers, a minigun that could be raised well above the massive hull, and a variety of antipersonnel weapons.

The cyborg’s cargo compartment was large enough to accommodate tons of supplies, a mobile surgical suite, or a fully armed squad of bio bods and T-2s. But what made the quad a truly fearsome weapon was the fact that it was controlled by a biological rather than an electronic brain. Because human brains can improvise, break rules when necessary, and imagine things that machines can’t. Even if Private Edwin Durkee was a convicted murderer.

That was what Earth’s criminal justice system had said. And it was true. Eighteen standard months earlier, Durkee had been lying in wait when his stepfather entered the little frame house located just outside of Chico and shouted his wife’s name. Or his version of her name, which was “bitch.” As in, “Hey, bitch, where’s my fucking dinner?”

It was a significant phrase because it inevitably signaled the beginning of a nightmarish evening. First came dinner, followed by half a bottle of vodka, and beatings for both his wife and her teenage son.

But not that night. Because Durkee was waiting. And one second after his stepfather said the word “dinner,” a three-foot-long section of rusty pipe slammed into the older man’s yellowed teeth and broke his jaw. Then, fueled by months of pent-up frustration and rage, Durkee beat his stepfather to death. Once the killing was over, Durkee made himself a peanut butter and jam sandwich and called the police. He was still in the process of eating it when they arrived. And that was how he earned the prison nickname “PJ.”

The trial lasted four minutes and thirteen seconds. It was carried out by an artificial intelligence known as JMS 50.3, which received the facts gathered by the police and agreed to by Durkee in a carefully monitored confession, and came to the conclusion that the accused was guilty of premeditated murder. “Yes,” JMS 50.3 agreed in response to a request for leniency from Durkee’s court-appointed attorney. “There were extenuating circumstances. But since neither the accused nor his mother was under attack at the time of the killing, there is no way that citizen Durkee can claim self-defense.”

So Durkee was sentenced to death. And in keeping with the letter of the law, the execution consisted of a carefully staged reenactment of the murder. Only with Durkee playing the role of victim this time. It was televised live for the purpose of preventing homicides. Except everyone knew that most of the people who watched the judicial channel did so because they enjoyed watching executions.

Durkee was strapped to a special X-shaped stand and his head was clamped in place as the piece of pipe smashed through his teeth. That was when he screamed, or tried to, but a second blow put an end to that. Moments later, Durkee was dead. Well, mostly dead. Because Durkee had been offered a reprieve of sorts. The agreement was simple. He couldn’t have his biological body back. That wouldn’t be fair to his victim. But he could enlist in the Legion, become a cyborg, and continue to exist. So his brain had been salvaged, installed in a high-tech life-support box, and trained to “wear” a quad.

As Durkee guided his huge body down a boat ramp and into the water, his onboard computer opened a series of valves that allowed water to rush into the saddle tanks located on both sides of his hull. That was sufficient to compensate for the air trapped in the tightly sealed cargo compartment so that the cyborg could walk on the seabed.

As Durkee prepared to enter combat for the first time, he was conscious of all sorts of things, including the data that scrolled down one side of his electronic “vision,” the way the six-inch-deep muck pulled at his foot pods, and the fear in his nonexistent belly. Here he was, a kid from the projects, about to tackle an enemy submarine all by himself.

The mission was simple, or that was what Captain Rona-Sa had said. “All you have to do is stroll out there, put a missile in that thing, and walk back. They’ll never know what hit them.”

The plan sounded good. Real good. And it seemed to be working as Durkee’s lights crept across the bottom, and a fish with an enormous jaw burst up out of the mud, gave a powerful flick of its eel-like tail, and disappeared into the surrounding gloom. What looked like a dimly lit wall appeared up ahead. Except it wasn’t a wall. The barge, which was covered with a thick layer of marine growth, had clearly been there for a long time and was stretched lengthwise across Durkee’s path.

That forced the cyborg to turn right to bypass the obstruction, a detour that would consume valuable time. Meanwhile, Durkee’s sensors were feeding him information on the water temperature, a current that was running left to right, and the target’s position relative to his. All he had to do was think about the targeting grid in order to summon it up. The submarine was a sausage-shaped blob of orange light located at the center of the crisscrossing amber lines. A tone sounded as Durkee rounded the north end of the barge and came into range.

The multipurpose missiles loaded onto Durkee’s racks could be used in a wide variety of environments, including the one he was in. But the cyborg knew that the surrounding liquid would slow the missiles down. And once the bugs became aware of the attack, they would use the lengthy “flight” time to employ countermeasures. So Durkee wanted to close the distance between himself and the sub. It was something Rona-Sa had been emphatic about. “You will have the advantage of surprise the first time you fire. But not the second.”

Of course, if Durkee waited too long and the sub got under way, the opportunity to destroy it would disappear. So a compromise was in order. And, because the target was currently broadside to him, Durkee decided to go for it.

He paused, brought his missile launchers online, and “felt” them deploy from recesses located along the top surface of his hull. Then, as the ready lights appeared, he fired. There was an explosion of bubbles as the missiles sped away. Durkee “heard” a tone and felt a momentary sense of jubilation as the weapons locked onto their target. But that emotion was snatched away as the sub began to turn toward him. The chits knew! They had been a little slow on the uptake, just as Rona-Sa predicted they would be, but they were reacting now.

The cyborg swore as the sub fired a salvo of minitorps from side-mounted tubes. The underwater flares exploded, forcing the guidance systems in Durkee’s missiles to choose between the original heat source and new ones. One of his weapons fell for the ruse and veered away. The other hit the sub and exploded. But it was still in the process of turning. So even though some damage had been done, the Ramanthian ship remained operational.

That was too bad. So was the fact that the sub was equipped with torpedo tubes in addition to deck guns. Durkee’s onboard computer had a tendency to belabor the obvious. “Two enemy torpedoes have been fired and are running. Estimated time to impact is thirty-two seconds. Thirty-one… Thirty… Twenty-nine…”

Despite the fact that Durkee’s war form could operate underwater, it hadn’t been designed to battle submarines and had no defense against incoming torpedoes other than the thickness of its hull. So all Durkee could do was fire another salvo of missiles in hopes of scoring a lucky hit. Meanwhile, he was backing around the sunken barge in an attempt to take shelter behind it. The strategy worked to some extent as one of the Ramanthian torpedoes hit the wreck and exploded.