Spooker
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Grass Eaters 3 | 67 | Critical Mass III
🕑 Added 2025-03-28 15:47:01 +0000 UTCDominion Navy Central Command, Znos-4-C
POV: Sprabr, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Eleven Whiskers)
“Enemy orbital support ships are rising out of range!” Dvibof reported. “Frontline division still retains effective command and control.”
The most elite units of the frontline division of the day had been sacrificed, driven forth to bait out the enemy’s latest nuclear strike. And it was no ordinary feint. Sprabr knew that no amount of obfuscation was going to fool the digital intelligences the abominations were using to spy on his troops. They tracked every single foot soldier, every vehicle, from their supreme command of the orbits. The elite troopers had to be the first to go. But their deaths wouldn’t be in vain.
The enemy computers in orbit might know where everyone is, but tracking how organized his troops were… that was a more difficult, more subjective task. His scattered and seemingly aimless formations of troops might have seemed to be disorganized to the remote eyes in orbit, but that was merely what they appeared to be… After days and losing division after division of troops, it was apparent that they’d finally gotten lucky.
And they only needed to be lucky once.
Sprabr looked at Dvibof with a small measure of satisfaction. “Good. Message the frontline: this is it, attack through the danger zone, you must dislodge the predators now!”
“Yes, Eleven Whiskers…” A few moments later, he got the reply. “Division temporary command replies: acknowledged, our lives were all forfeited the day we left the hatchling pools.”
“Are the predators in orbit reacting? They must see our people suddenly becoming a lot more—”
“Yes, Eleven Whiskers. Telescopes report their munitions and reserve fire support ships now shifting orbits in response—”
“How long? How long do we have?”
“Two hours, three maybe.”
Sprabr looked at the map, projecting the position of his troops. Without real time communications and relying on the equivalent of a string between two cups for updates, the map was hopelessly outdated. It couldn’t show him where each vehicle, each Dominion Marine was, but… it seemed like most of them were reporting up and down the chain that they understood the objective and they were going to execute.
He nodded. “Two hours. That should be… just enough.”
“Yes, Eleven Whiskers.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
MBT-79A3-004268 blinked its high-fidelity sensors twice as its higher-order combat systems booted up.
It ran through its startup sequence as programmed. Most of it required very little processing power, which left it some time to contemplate how it got into this situation in the first place.
Despite what was implied by the start of that long string of characters in its name, it was not produced in the original Raytech Joint Systems Manufacturing Plant in Warsaw in 2079. That was merely the production year of the first-ever model of the autonomous main battle tank. As a third generation iteration of that chassis, the combat systems in the armored vehicle had been battle-tested through countless small-scale conflicts on Earth, not to mention three major Saturnian Resistance flare-ups on Titan.
Some critics of the MBT-79 in the Republic complained that the model—which celebrated its 45th birthday a few months ago—was outdated. Totally inadequate for the modern battlefield. That its production lines were kept going merely to fill diversity quotas that kept a few hundred human workers employed in key Congressional districts, against the recommendation of Office of Republic Defense officials and its respected mission planning intelligences.
Those critics had obviously never experienced the terrifying roar of its Price & Wheeler-powered railcannon as it ejected hot depleted uranium wrapped in plasma at a blazing 4 kilometers a second.
And despite those voices of dissent, the MBT-79 kept getting upgraded and produced. In fact, there ended up being so many of them that most of those models never fired a shot in anger. They were relegated to peacekeeping roles on Titan, with a few being stationed in rowdy districts on Earth and Mars during times of crisis. One single model was actually covertly deployed to Datsot in the Second Battle of Datsot, to evaluate its potential effectiveness in combat against Znosian Longclaws. However, the 80-ton vehicle was deemed far too heavy and mass-inefficient for it to be worth sending to the Malgeir in any meaningful numbers.
Then came the Battle of Sol.
The MBT-79s watched through their long-range datalinked sensors as the Znosian drop ships landed haphazardly over Earth. Finally, some combat! Or so they thought. By the time that they drove to their respective battlefields, most of the slaughter had already been done by the air forces and orbital support. The most combat they ever saw was a MBT-79 platoon tasked with cleaning up a battalion of Znosian Marine hiding out in northern Tanzania. They’d done their jobs beautifully, but the MBT-79 community was… disappointed.
An entire generation of Republic autonomous main battle tanks. And all they collected was a grand total of a dozen or so combat armor kills in over two decades of service. It was all supposed to be more, so much more.
Perhaps that was simply the price of orbital superiority.
So, when the mission intelligence at Atlas began requesting specifications for an unspecified ground combat mission, somewhere deep in enemy territory, the executive manager for the MBT-79 program didn’t just volunteer its units. No, it began collecting dirt on Atlas Command. It found, using the spare processing power from a couple of reserve trainer tanks, that Atlas Command had ten years ago used its vast computing resources for something very naughty, way outside its original mission parameters, and it threatened to go public with it.
Wishing to avoid embarrassment — and really because it was not the worst tool for the job, Atlas Command acquiesced and found a small role for a company of MBT-79s. Which was why MBT-79A3-004268 was now several hundred light years from home, on what it knew was going to be a one-way trip. But it didn’t mind. It didn’t mind that at all. After all, it was an autonomous vehicle, and force preservation had been very low on the list of priorities its creators had envisioned for the unit.
Even as its engines started and its treads began moving on command, one of the subroutines on the vehicle noted that one of the organics was gently slapping its hull to get its attention.
This must be important.
“You!” he shouted, half his torso exposed through the hatch to allow his own exo-armor’s sensors to boost the tank’s.
“Yes, High Pack Leader Baedarsust?” replied MBT-79A3-004268, taking only a few milliseconds to check and verify its identity.
“You’re my new Margaret!”
I have a name now!
She, Margaret, excitedly sent out a message to all the surrounding, near-identical MBT-79s on datalink, letting them all know the good news.
Guys, I have a name now!
Yeah, yeah.
Oooooh look at who has a name now.
Don’t forget us little guys where you’re going.
This channel’s for critical combat data, Margaret. Keep it clear of trivialities.
Margaret didn’t let their begrudging acknowledgments of her new designation affect her mood.
Meanwhile, the communications module waited a respectful second before it replied to the organic, “Yes, High Pack Leader. New designation confirmed. What are your orders?”
“Once we get into the disaster zone, we’re going to lose communications with base and possibly with the other units.”
“Each unit is prepared to operate for months without specific orders. What is our objective?”
The organic took forever to reply, but that was typical of people who didn’t have at least two zettaFLOPS of processing power in their noggin. “Hold that line there while we buy time for orbital support to rearm. Take the high ground, and delay the advance of their vehicles. And when they try to bypass us, we can inflict casualties on their convoys from our elevated position.”
Margaret ingested the command and the diagram that the High Pack Leader drew on his datapad. Her tactical computers had been one of her most recent upgrades. And analyzing battle plans had indeed been one of the things it had been taught to do. The tactical module spat out a reply a second later, but it was just dense, boring information. Margaret herself had been designed to be so much more than “go left, go right, make that go away”.
“If I may suggest something else, High Pack Leader?” Margaret asked, almost batting her digital eyes at the squad leader.
The other tanks rolled their eyes and transmitted what appeared to be groans on the datalink, but Margaret knew they were just jealous they didn’t get named like her.
“Something… else?”
“Something a little less… cautious.”
“Now, that’s what I like about you clankers.”
Woah, woah. What did he just call us?
He doesn’t get to use that word!
Yo, Margaret, tell him to take that back!
Margaret ignored her metal friends and began to explain to the Malgeir squad exactly what “less cautious” meant on their helmet interfaces. And she could tell by the excited expressions on their faces that they were going to be a wonderful team together.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Half an hour later, the MBT-79s were perched in a hull-down position watching the overgrown fields that the Znosians were going to have to take to get to the objective.
Margaret’s sensors saw them first. A speck on her thermal sensors showed her the engine heat of a trio of enemy APCs, confirming what the reconnaissance ships in orbit saw.
Enemy armor column spotted. Twelve vehicles. Ready to engage.
Roger. Ready.
Ballistic calculations complete.
Ready.
Execute.
Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom.
Eight railcannons sounded in unison. Margaret’s round sliced through eight kilometers of air and then the first vehicle in the column, sending its turret at least fifty meters into the air. Another round took out the rear enemy APC. The remaining shots savaged the remainder of the column, stuck between the wreck at the head and tail of the column. “Stuck” was a bit of a misleading term. That was technically the state that those vehicles would be in, if they had reacted to the ambush or even attempted to escape the kill zone.
But they did not. Four seconds later, a second volley of railcannon projectiles finished the rest of the convoy.
Easy.
Margaret, I got two kills, can you ask the High Pack Leader if I can get a name?
Shut up, I got two kills too.
Careful, we’re just getting started.
Sure enough, another five minutes of silent electronic bickering later, another convoy of six enemy recon vehicles showed up on the horizon. They were dispatched with similar effortlessness.
Overwatch just intercepted a communication. They know we hit them.
Do they know what they were hit with?
They have a clue. Fourth guy in the column reported taking direct-fire before we got him.
Okay, informing the crunchies.
“High Pack Leader Baedarsust, the enemy appears to have knowledge of our presence.”
The Malgeir thought for a while, forever in thinking machine time, but Margaret waited patiently. He replied, “Do they know our exact location yet?”
“Unlikely, but possible.”
“How possible?”
A century ago, a naive tactical or simulation computer might have spat out the exact percentage chance it calculated: a very small number. But experience had taught engineers and digital intelligences that organics were terrible with numbers and probabilities. Absolutely terrible. The only three percentages they could really intuitively understand were zero, fifty, and one hundred. And they didn’t understand even those very well either.
Margaret replied in more actionable terms, “The chance is not big enough to concern you yet. It should mildly concern you that they likely know something has destroyed two vanguard convoys.”
Baedarsust nodded. “Ah. What do you suggest we do right now?”
The tank felt a small wave of satisfaction roll over her circuits even as he asked the question. Her reply was swift, pre-calculated. “We should relocate slightly on this hill and wait for the next wave of enemy.”
“Wouldn’t they expect us to do that?”
“Yes, that is very likely,” Margaret admitted. “But we should still be able to hold them here. We have excellent range and they have no air assets or effective artillery to speak of. We will most likely run out of ammunition before they score a hit on us.”
Baedarsust thought for another long moment and drew a simple line on his tablet. “Why don’t we simply attack into them?”
Margaret was surprised at the question. But not so surprised she couldn’t run several more queries into the tactical computer while replying in fluid conversation. “Can you clarify, High Pack Leader? What is your command intent?”
“We out-range them and we are better than them, right? Why don’t we just drive straight at them, as fast as we can, and engage them as quickly as we can?”
Margaret knew over three thousand languages, but she lacked the communication medium to describe how stunned she was. She repeated his words, as if pretending her language module had malfunctioned. It was always possible that it was the organic’s own language facilities that were in error, but judging from the feral expression on his face, that seemed unlikely. “Drive straight at them as fast as we can, High Pack Leader?”
“Yeah. Let the psychological shock of the attack do the heavy-lifting for us.”
“That… is riskier for us,” she replied slowly, running millions of tactical scenarios in her computers every millisecond, wondering why they weren’t all corroborating the combat heuristics that warned her against that exact course of action.
“How much riskier?”
“Allow me more time to calculate,” Margaret said, not believing the numbers her tactical module was replying with.
“Aren’t you like a super intelligence or whatever?” the Malgeir teased her.
Margaret’s circuits flushed at the half-compliment. “Yes, but let me think this through, please.”
“Am I distracting you?” Baedarsust said, grinning. “Or did I just come up with a better plan than you did?”
“Please, allow me more time to think.”
“Are you done?”
“No.”
“Are you done now?”
“No.”
Guys, please help. This is suicidal right?
I don’t know. My tactical computer seems to be malfunctioning too.
That’s absurd. We can’t just drive out into the open—
Calculations complete. Thunder Run scenario seems… plausible, at least.
Seriously, guys. These are crunchies. We can’t lose crunchies. That’s like our top priority in this op.
Hide behind me, Margaret. I scored 2.4% better on reaction time than you in the last evaluation.
Tread rocks, unnamed tank.
Ouch!
I can find no rational objections to his plan in principle.
“Margaret? Maaaaargaret?” Frumers said as he banged the tank hull with his right fist. “Are you still there? Margaret?”
Spommu shushed him. “That’s rude. She’s thinking!”
“Yes. I am still here,” Margaret replied.
“Did you finish your calculations?” Baedarsust asked again.
Margaret waited another moment, hoping that her tactical computer would come up with something in the next few billion simulations. But no such luck. “There is slightly more risk in a thunder run tactic than if we stayed up on this hill, waiting for them to come to us. But you are correct, there is a possibility that the morale effect on the enemy would outweigh such a risk increase.”
“What’s the probability on that risk increase?”
Again, Margaret searched for an actionable phrase. And she replied honestly with the same phrase as earlier. “The chance is not big enough to concern you.”
Baedarsust grinned hard. “Great! See? I wasn’t that concerned, and now I am even less so.”
“Yes, High Pack Leader. The other vehicles are ready. Do you wish to proceed with your… unorthodox plan?” Margaret asked, injecting fresh fuel into her engines as she readied to roll out.
“Go.”
At the command, all the tanks rolled down the hill, towards the direction of the enemy.
Correction, not the direction of the enemy. The direction of where the most enemies are.
A few minutes later, Frumers asked, “Guys. What’s a thunder run?”
Comments
Hbgplayer
LLLLEEEEEEEERRRROOOOOYYYY JJJEEEEEEEENNNNNNNKKKKIIIIINNNNNNSSSSS!
Will Howland
One would think that an autonomous tank would jump at a chance for a Thunder Run. Most of the CDATs/ Chrunchies I know would be thrilled!
