Warning, Macomber’s computer suddenly pulsed in his consciousness. Movement alert west. Two enemy machines advancing toward our position. Range six hundred meters and closing fast. Reacting instantly, he slaved several of his visual sensors to the new contacts. The Russian combat robots had just emerged from behind the sheltering mass of one of the neighboring hills and turned in his direction. They were loping along parallel to the dirt track at roughly sixty kilometers per hour.
Macomber eased his electromagnetic rail gun out from under his CID’s torso. It powered up with a shrill, high-pitched whine. “Zdravstvuyte. Hello. I do svidaniya. And, good-bye,” he murmured, sighting quickly on the lead enemy fighting machine.
Inside the cockpit of Specter Six, Major Alexei Bragin felt a sharp jolt sizzle across his brain as the KVM’s computer sent an emergency alert through his neural link. Strong electromagnetic signature detected, it reported. Unknown type. Range five hundred meters. Bearing zero-nine-two degrees. A red dot blinked rapidly, centered at the edge of a grove of trees up ahead.
Bragin blinked. What kind of enemy sensor was that? He started to raise his 30mm autocannon—
And then his view of those woods disappeared, eclipsed by a dazzling, sun-bright white flash. One-third of a second later, a small superdense tungsten-steel alloy slug smashed through his KVM’s torso at Mach 5. Bragin died instantly, vaporized by the massive impact that ripped his robot in half and sprayed molten fragments high into the air.
A hundred meters behind the blazing wreckage of Specter Six, Major Dmitry Veselovsky’s highly trained instincts kicked in. He spun Specter Five, his KVM, away from the threat, and darted north toward a rocky spur jutting out from the nearest stretch of high ground. While on the move, he triggered a burst from his autocannon — sending a hail of high-explosive, armor-piercing rounds ripping downrange toward the still-unseen enemy. “Specter Five to Lead,” he radioed, plunging into cover behind the boulder-strewn spur. “Enemy contact! Six is down. My computer evaluates the weapon used as a rail gun.”
“Engage and destroy the enemy, Five,” Baryshev snapped. “That has to be the Iron Wolf machine we were warned about. Kill it while the rest of us destroy the primary target!”
“Affirmative, Lead!” Veselovsky pushed on, digging his robot’s feet deep into the crumbling soil as he climbed fast up a wooded draw that offered him a sheltered route straight to the top of the hill.
Macomber flattened as the stumpy oak and cedar trees around him exploded in a hail of splinters and flying debris — shattered by a sudden burst of autocannon fire from the second Russian fighting machine. That son of a bitch out there sure has fast reflexes, he thought. Bits of shrapnel pinged off his back armor.
Minor damage to rear-facing visual camouflage elements, his computer told him. Wood fragments and razor-sharp pieces of shrapnel had slashed through some of the paper-thin electrochromatic plates layered across the CID’s rear torso, head, and legs.
He raised up again, just in time to see the Russian combat robot disappear behind a spur of high ground. Quickly, he pulled his rail gun to the right and squeezed off another shot. Hell, who knew, maybe he could punch a round right through that rise.
CCRRACK!
Dirt and shattered rock fountained high into the night sky — spraying away from the deep crater the rail-gun slug gouged out of the hillside. No hit, the computer reported.
“No shit,” Macomber growled out loud. With one part of his mind, he zoomed in his tactical display. What he saw made him frown. That enemy machine now had a covered route all the way up to the top of the forested hills that bordered this little valley. And from there, it could move swiftly along the high ground to any number of good vantage points overlooking Farrell’s ranch house and its outbuildings.
Which left him no choice, he knew. He needed to intercept that Russian robot before it found a clear shot. Moving fast, Macomber shut down the CID’s camouflage systems and scrambled to his feet. Broken tree branches and smoldering leaves cascaded off his back. Then he sprinted out of the thicket, thudded across the dirt trail, and started uphill himself, angling toward another draw that climbed out of the valley.
His skin crawled. Apart from a few trees and shallow limestone outcrops dotting the slope, there was no cover here. He’d be a sitting duck if the Russians attacking from the south blew past Brad’s position and put him in their cross hairs.
Macomber was about two-thirds of the way up when his computer blared a warning. Movement alert left front. Range close. One hundred meters. Swearing, he swiveled to the left, seeing the bright green thermal image of a Russian autocannon protruding from between a pair of weathered boulders perched at the top of the hill. That enemy robot hadn’t been heading for the ranch house after all. Instead, it had picked out the perfect spot to bushwhack him. He raised his rail gun, knowing it was already too late.
WHANG. WHANG. WHANG. WHANG.
Armor-piercing 30mm rounds hammered his CID with enormous force — slamming home at point-blank range. His rail gun went flying, destroyed by a direct hit. He tumbled backward, rolling over and over down the slope in a spreading cloud of dirt and gravel as the Russian kept shooting.
Macomber crashed heavily into the scarred top of a rock ledge. The impact stopped his fall. Immediately he scrambled across to the other side and dropped prone. The outcrop provided him with a small amount of cover… at least until that clever Russian bastard up there moved over to a new firing position.
Damage readouts scrolled across his displays in a dizzying sea of red and orange. Severe hydraulic systems damage. Forward thermal and visual camouflage tiles off-line. Fuel Cells Two, Five, and Seven down. All weapons packs and ammunition destroyed. Torso armor holding, but effectiveness significantly degraded.
“Translation: I am totally fucked,” Macomber said, tasting blood in his mouth. He’d been slammed around inside the CID’s cockpit pretty badly during that wild-assed tumble down the hill. He ignored the pain. Whatever injuries he’d taken would have to wait their turn. Right now, he needed to assess his tactical situation. Not that it required any deep thought. Apart from having no working weapons, no serviceable camouflage, and no way to run away, everything was just peachy-keen. Even bailing out of this shot-to-shit tin can wasn’t an option, since it would only leave him more exposed… and he had a serious hunch their enemies weren’t planning on taking any prisoners.
Which left — what, exactly?
Movement detected, his computer reported unemotionally. No visuals from this position. Assessment derived from audio sensors only. An icon blinked into existence on his flickering tactical display. It showed the CID’s estimate of that Russian robot’s position based on the sounds its highly sensitive microphones were picking up… in this case, the noises made by metal feet cautiously picking their way down the battle-torn slope.
Macomber whistled softly. That other pilot was coming straight downhill toward him, apparently determined to finish off his crippled enemy at knife range. “Jeez, what a dumb-ass,” he said with a slow, twisted grin.
He ran a quick mental calculation, weighing the speed at which that Russian robot was making its way toward him against the time he needed. Finished, he nodded sharply. What he planned was doable. Calling it “survivable,” on the other hand, might not pass the laugh test. Still, any chance was better than none at all.