Episode 46

Unknown Unknowns

I experienced vertigo as our shuttle hurtled towards the surface of 55 Cancri-j. The planet seemed to be expanding exponentially as we rushed towards it.

The images on the video feeds appeared more vivid than on previous combat insertions, and the sounds of the ship’s structure straining from the g-forces were louder. Everything about this insertion felt more intense. It was as if the sensitivity of my sensor array had been dialed up dramatically. I wondered if this was due to the stimulant I had taken, or the MK-16’s sensor upgrades. Probably both, I imagined.

Turbulence rattled the ship as we entered the upper reaches of the planet’s atmosphere, and I instinctively tightened my safety restraints.

Leading a squad consisting mostly of AI bots meant there was no point in me providing any last minute commentary prior to combat. The bots were programmed to follow the battle plan outlined in the mission profile, and to comply with any supplemental commands I might issue. It was my job to determine what, if any, deviations from the plan were necessary to achieve the mission objectives, and to direct the squad accordingly. Pretty fucking simple.

The mission profile indicated that there were no significant anti-air defenses, so I had expected the shuttle ride to be relatively tame. But that wasn’t what was happening. Not only was the speed of our descent much faster than usual, but the evasive maneuvering could only be described as frantic.

The ship yawed and pitched wildly as we approached the LZ. My acoustic sensors picked up crashing noises as unsecured freight, or perhaps improperly restrained Marines, caromed about inside the shuttle.

Ominously, I heard the impacts of enemy anti-air rounds striking the ship. Jagged holes began appearing in the ship’s hull, as the engines screamed, and the AI piloting system struggled to get us into the LZ in one piece.

Returning my attention to the video feeds of the planet’s surface, I scanned the featureless expanse of mudflats. There were no enemy positions, structures, or soldiers visible, so where the hell was all the anti-air coming from?

As I struggled to locate the source of the enemy fire, I caught a brief glimpse of an enemy anti-air battery suddenly rising out of the brown goo. It fired a burst of high explosive shells at us, then quickly disappeared back into the muck. Shit! I now realized why Command hadn’t included any intel about enemy air defenses in the mission profile. The enemy had cunningly set up shop below the planet’s surface. We hadn’t even landed, and this mission was already beginning to look like a monumental fuckup.

Enemy rounds ripped through the ship’s interior as our shuttle landed hard at the LZ. The assault force began spilling out into the mud as soon as the doors opened. There was chaos as squads tried to assemble and move out to their objectives while under intense enemy fire. Amid the chaos, several bots took a knee and tried to return fire, but it was a deadly game of whack-a-mole. The enemy popped up in random locations, fired, then disappeared again.

Bots were falling all around me, as I extracted myself from my cradle and got on the radio to my squad. “6th squad, be advised! The enemy is entrenched below the surface. Do not wait to assemble. Get out of the LZ and to the rally point now! Go, go, go!” I watched as a group of MK-12s began splashing through the mud in the direction of 6th squad’s rally point. I hoped they were my bots.

I did my best to sprint after them, but the mud of 55 Cancri inhibited movement so much I could only manage a maddeningly slow waddle.

Finally reaching the rally point, I took a quick count. 16 muddy bots stood before me. 16 out of 17. We had miraculously lost only one bot in the confusion of the enemy ambush. After getting a security perimeter set up, I called my second in command.

”Rex, where are you?”

“On your six.” I turned around to find him 30 meters away, moving towards me. Then he added, “By the way, good call on getting the squad out of the LZ. It’s a fucking mess back there.”

I glanced back at the LZ and saw several groups of survivors fighting desperately to disengage from the enemy. Turning to Rex, I said, “Look, the enemy could pop up anywhere, at any time and nail us. We need to split the squad into 2 fire teams to maximize our firepower and make it harder to target us. Got it?”

“Roger that. So, we’re going back to help the others?”

I saw disabled and destroyed AI bots laying in the mud at the LZ. UCCs in their MK-16s were firing furiously as the battle raged on. I was torn between attempting to rescue the survivors and trying to salvage our mission. However, with the enemy defense forces focused on destroying the Marines at the LZ, we would likely be able to proceed to the mission objective without much resistance. It was even possible that we might remain undetected during our approach. It was too good of an opportunity to ignore.

“No. We’re continuing the mission. Let’s move out before the enemy realizes we’re coming for them.”

The silence that followed my order spoke volumes. Rex obviously didn’t agree with my decision. However, with Command likely listening in on our discussion, he wasn’t about to say anything that could be misconstrued as insubordination. He simply replied, “Okay. Your call.”

We split into two groups and began moving laboriously towards our objective. The mission called for us to take and hold a sector of the battlefield defined by map coordinates, which was about 2 klicks from our present position. Of course, our orders didn’t include any information about the objective itself. For all I knew, it was just a random location on the otherwise featureless mud plains of 55 Cancri.

The sounds of fighting faded as we moved away from the LZ and closer to our objective. So far, there had been no enemy contact. It made me wonder if there was some subterranean network of tunnels below the planet’s surface, that the enemy forces were using to converge on the LZ firefight, leaving this sector undefended for the moment. If that was the case, we needed to get a move on. The enemy could reappear at any time.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Come on 6th squad! We need to move faster. Speed is life.” I threw in that last bit of battlefield wisdom forgetting that it would be lost on the AI bots under my command. Their combat skills were hardcoded into them, and they were incapable of absorbing new knowledge unless it was included in a software update.

We began moving slightly faster, however, the marginal increase in speed required a battery sapping increase in effort, due to the gluelike mud. According to the map in my HUD, our objective should be in sight by now, but the ubiquitous mud flats stretched uninterrupted to the horizon. I halted the squad to organize for the final push.

“6th squad hold here. Hey Rex, the map coordinates are showing the objective just ahead of us, but I don’t have a visual. How about you?”

Rex replied, “Same here. I’ve got nothing.”

I hoped Command hadn’t put us through all this just to assault an empty patch of mud. “Listen, take your team, and prepare to approach on the right flank. I’ll take the left.” Rex began moving his tightly bunched group into position. I told him to spread his bots out, so they would be a little harder to target, then got on the radio to check in with Command.

“Overwatch, this is Ripper 2-6. We are in position to assault the … uh … the objective. Do we have a greenlight to proceed?”

“Ripper 2-6, hold your position. We’re sending 7th and 14th squads, along with a composite group, to join your assault force.”

“Roger.”, I replied.

I was glad to hear there were survivors from the LZ ambush, however, the reference to a ‘composite group’ suggested that casualties had been heavy. Composite groups were created by merging multiple badly damaged squads into one theoretically effective combat force. It’s what Command did with the survivors of its battlefield mistakes. Since 7th and 14th had been mentioned by name, I guessed that they were still largely intact.

While we waited for more Marines to join us, I decided to deploy some bots to recon the objective. Picking a couple of bots at random, I called out their ID numbers, and ordered them to advance a hundred meters. They moved out, wading through a thoroughly waterlogged section of mud, in route to the target.

To my way of thinking, the expendability of AI-bots was their greatest benefit. If I was sending UCCs to recon a suspected enemy position, I would be nervous as hell. But since I had no connection whatsoever to these ‘machines’, I was completely willing to risk them to gather some battlefield information. I wondered if Command felt the same way about us. Probably.

Keeping one optical sensor on the advancing bots, I glanced over at Rex’s position and saw that he had placed himself in front of his team of bots. If the enemy opened up on us, he would undoubtedly be the first to get hit.

“Hey Rex. Do us both a favor and take cover behind your team. I’d rather lose a whole squad of dumb bots than the only other UCC on my team.” He didn’t verbally acknowledge my order but complied regardless.

My attention returned to the advancing bots just in time to see the lead bot suddenly disappear below the muddy surface. Before I could utter even a single profanity, the second bot vanished as well. Shit. Ominously, seconds passed without either bot resurfacing. I wasn’t sure what would happen next, but I knew it wouldn’t be good.

Switching my weapons from safe to fire mode, I dropped to one knee, and ordered the squad to take cover. The total lack of any natural cover meant that all we could do was kneel, or lie half submerged in the mud, to present a smaller target to the enemy. I could sense the enemy was close, but as long as they stayed below the surface, they were undetectable.

“Listen up 6th squad! Set all sensors to maximum range and weapons to auto-targeting mode. Anything that appears between your position and the objective is to be considered a hostile target. You are ordered to destroy it.” With AI-bots, who took commands literally, it was best to keep things simple.

As I scanned for any sign of the enemy, I heard Rex yell out, “Contact!”, followed closely by a burst of gunfire. Glancing over at his position, I saw a bot’s head explode. It slowly sank to its knees, before falling backwards into the muck. A swarm of enemy bots had magically emerged before us.

“Open fire!”, I screamed.

There was instant chaos as a full blown firefight erupted. Red and green tracers crisscrossed the muddy no man’s land as we fought toe to toe with the enemy. Several of my AI-bots took hits, which produced showers of sparks, as enemy rounds chewed away at their armor. We scored hits as well, dropping several enemy bots, but this wasn’t a fair fight. We were badly outnumbered.

I got on the radio to Command. “Overwatch! Ripper 2-6, We are in contact with a large enemy force. We need artillery support, and more Marines up here now!” An unsettling silence followed.

“Roger 2-6, Overwatch copies all. Stand by.”

While I waited for Command to figure out what the fuck they were going to do, it was clear that time wasn’t on our side. The longer this fight dragged on, the more casualties we’d take and the more ammo we’d burn through. We had to break contact immediately.

I got back on the radio, “6th squad, Fallback! I repeat, fallback!” Grabbing the bot directly in front of me by its ammo feed, I began pulling it backwards, using it as a shield against enemy fire. “Rex! Fallback with your team now! Move!”

Rex didn’t reply. Looking over in his direction, I saw why. He was down, damaged or destroyed. That’s when I noticed something strange. What was left of his team continued firing at the enemy and holding their position, and with the exception of the bot I was using as a shield, my bots weren’t falling back either. Then it finally dawned on me. These AI-bots were programed to ignore orders to retreat.

“Fuckin’ Command.”, I thought. They had finally achieved their holy grail of total battlefield obedience. No more unauthorized withdrawals. This must be the reason why they began switching to dumb bots for combat operations.

I now went into survival mode. Reinforcements, if they were coming at all, wouldn’t be here soon enough to save us from annihilation. My best bet was to keep falling back with my shield-bot until I was out of range of the enemy or found some cover.

I started backpedaling, dragging my improvised shield with me. The bot kept up a steady stream of return fire from its 20mm mini-gun, as we retreated. Enemy explosive rounds intermittently slammed into the bot’s frontal armor, chipping away at its protection. It was only a matter of time before a round penetrated and destroyed my only defense. Then it would be my turn to get chewed up by enemy fire.

Consequently, I was beyond grateful to hear Command on the radio. “Ripper 2-6, artillery is inbound.”

Thank God. It seemed like I might make it out of this shitshow after all. I looked around for someplace to take cover before the artillery started landscaping the mud flats, but there was nowhere to hide. I was contemplating whether to use a grenade to blast a foxhole in the mud when my bot abruptly stopped firing. A quick check of the ammo feed looping over its shoulder confirmed its ammo had run dry.

Without the constant firing of the bot’s mini-gun, I realized the battlefield had become eerily silent. It could mean only one thing; 6th squad had been completely destroyed. Now the enemy would focus its firepower on me.

As I turned to flee both the enemy and the impending artillery barrage, I caught a blur of movement to my left. Instinctively, I raised my weapons and pivoted to face the potential threat. Although my sensors didn’t identify any targets, I was so certain I had seen something, I kept scanning the immediate area with my weapons ready.

Unfortunately, with my attention divided between multiple existential threats, I was slow to react to the enemy bot as it resurfaced. In a split second decision, which I hoped I would survive to second guess, I fired from the hip. Although not part of any official combat doctrine, the tactic is commonly referred to as, “Spray and pray.”

It was only after my sensors went offline, that I realized I had been hit. My last conscious thought consisted of a string of profanities.