Colony Wars 1: War Never Ends

Chapter Seven - Death from Above

2nd March 2076 – 1st Galactic Step

Control Room – Himitsu Facility

Asia

Earth

Solar System

"Fools!" bellowed the emperor's dry oriental voice from every speaker within the facility, making the cave walls shudder slightly. "Incompetent morons could have done a better job than those old half-wit droids!"

Ichiro was secretly a little bit smug about the outcome of the battle. Early that morning, the moons rotation had placed the lunar listening post directly over Europe and a flood of data had been received and transmitted to the Himitsu Facility. First, all the telemetry had fed into the battle computer and all the green units had instantly changed to red flashing terminal blips. Then the battle reports had streamed in, listing enemy targets, positions, and calculations. Updates from the Ōsanshōuo war tank had told of a final strike ruining its tracks before an elite soldier had broken in and disassembled the crew.

Then Ichiro felt the buzzing sensation start in his skull and realised that Xu's displeasure was going to be exacted upon himself. The chip in his head sizzled and zapped at his nervous system, causing him to collapse into a shuddering ball.

"You, you did this somehow," growled Xu as his brain spluttered in its tank apoplectically. "You must have sabotaged my soldiers."

"No Emperor," Ichiro whimpered through clenched teeth, "I swear it.  I haven't done anything without your permission."

The pressure in his head stopped suddenly, Ichiro stopped convulsing and lay panting on the floor while Xu continued to rant and rave as more information filled the massive monitor. Pictures started appearing on the screen, images of giant four-legged tanks with eyeball like turrets raining shells down upon the mark XLI Kichiku automated infantry. Scenes of frightened civilians running for their lives, while white blasts of irradiated light cut them down mercilessly, eased the anger out of the emperor and even made him chuckle slightly. The cruel laughter chilled Ichiro to the bone, so he closed his eyes and tried to blot out the emperor's inhuman antics.

A sudden guttural roar suddenly filled the cavern and Ichiro had to open his eyes to see what was causing Xu so much angst. On the screen, he saw a blazing, blue eyed, half-mechanical man, pulling the head off a big red Kichiku droid. Then the image disappeared abruptly, and the statistical reports rushed up the screen in a long rolling list of text, which moved upwards faster than Ichiro could read the words.

"They're too slow," murmured the emperor. "The Kichiku's processors cannot keep up with the sudden shift, when the flow of battle changes."

"Which is why we always used to send a human controller with each unit, to optimise their battle potential," Ichiro said involuntarily. "We could program the robots to detect certain tactics and formations, but the more we fed them, the slower the response time became while they stopped fighting and began analysing instead."

"Then they are totally useless," Xu said angrily, and Ichiro began to feel the chip fizz again.

"No Emperor," Ichiro said urgently, trying to avoid being shocked again. "What they need is a new type of automated controller, one that works in a similar way to your connection to the Himitsu Facility."

"Hmmm, interesting," Xu replied and the throbbing pain in Ichiro's head stopped again, causing him to exhale deeply. "You will begin at once to make me an automated control unit, which will be responsible for organising and deploying the drones."

"Yes Emperor," Ichiro said, cursing himself for being so weak and giving in to the mad man's demands. He bowed deeply and was just turning away to go to a little workshop that he was beginning to call home, when the emperor spoke again.