hour shifts with the rest of the code-monkeys – six programming, six sleeping, around the clock, for four days straight. The final eighteen hours the crew worked straight through. After testing, the manufacturing order was put in, and the whole team crashed for twelve hours of much-needed rest.
Jacob was awoken by the sound of the walls crashing in around him. He looked up just in time to see the outline of a steel I-beam in the faint light, heading for his chest. He lifted up his arms in a futile effort to fend off the massive structural support as it smashed down upon his prone body. The pain didn’t last long as Jacob succumbed in the darkness and passed out.
The next time he awoke, a figure stood above him, his features shrouded in silhouette by the bright light above his head. The man stepped back, and the light fell upon his face, revealing his identity.
“General Shorter, Sir!” Jacob croaked, struggling to hoist himself up on a weary elbow.
“At ease, soldier. Don’t try to get up,” said Shorter. The General’s face looked just like the videos Jacob had seen on the news, only this man looked much older, and more troubled.
“Polanski, a lot has happened in the last few hours. You slept through a lot of it. Son, the enemy implemented a surprise attack on your base. Your superiors – Colonel Bart Schatzman, Shanni Downs, and most of the Robotics Division – they were all killed. The manufacturing facility was hit hard – only ten thousand of the G23s were produced before they leveled the place. And every one of the DAS crew was either killed or injured badly enough to be taken out of the game.”
At the mention of bad injuries, Jacob noticed the general’s eyes flicker to Jacob’s midsection. Jacob looked down and saw his hands – or what would’ve been his hands, had they not been wrapped up to look like giant Q-tips with white boxing gloves on the end.
“Your hands and forearms were crushed,” said Shorter somberly. “And you cracked three ribs. The doctors had to take most of both of your hands.”
As the news sunk in, Jacob’s mind went back to what Shorter had just said about the DAS crew. The DAS crew, or Drone Automation Specialists, were the ones who “drove” the drones from a remote location and actually implemented all of Command’s tactical plans. He was suddenly filled with questions, the loss of his hands too much to process right now.
“Sir, what are we going to do? Can we get more DAS personnel? Do you know if Brent Peterson survived the attack?”
“Peterson was injured. We’ll talk about him later. Right now, I need to know – you headed up the programming of the G23s – can you step into the role of DAS?”
“Um, I –” Jacob stammered.
“We could fly in a DAS team from another front, but we don’t have time and we can’t spare them. They’d need to be trained on the G23s. You already know those drones inside and out. Can you do it, son?”
He knew what was at stake. “Yes,” Jacob said, nodding nervously. “I’ll do it.”
“Good.”
Then he remembered his injuries. “But my hands are going to be a problem. It takes two hands and two feet to control the lead drone.”
“You’ll be working alongside your friend Peterson. You should know, though,” Shorter paused. “Peterson lost both his legs in the attack.”
Jacob gulped and tried to shrug off a sudden bout of nausea. He struggled to push aside the mental image of his friend with no legs. “You – you want us to split the interface and operate it together? That’ll take some serious coordination.”
“We’re counting on the two of you to pull it off,” said Shorter. “There’s no one else who can. There’ll be a mission briefing in my situation room at fourteen hundred hours. Now, get some more rest – you’re going to need it.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Jacob leaned back and closed his eyes tightly as Shorter left. There was so much to absorb, and so much to do. Before he knew it, a nurse was getting him dressed – the briefing only ten minutes away.
Still unable to walk due to the strain on his ribcage, a second nurse wheeled Jacob into Shorter’s vast, circular situation room. Jacob looked around and saw the general, three colonels, and four people he didn’t recognize. The walls were covered with computer screens, and a large crescent-shaped mahogany table filled the middle of the room. Jacob gulped as he took it all in.
Then a nurse wheeled Brent through the double doors. His face was cut up and his left eye swollen.
And half of him was missing.
“Hey buddy,” said Brent with a weak smile, “heard you got a little banged up.”
“Yeah,” said Jacob, fighting his own eyes as they kept drifting toward the empty space below Brent’s torso. “You too.”
Brent didn’t acknowledge the comment. “Do you think we can do this – you know, split the interface and control the lead drone together?”
“We’re gonna have to.”
“Alright, gentlemen,” said Shorter. “Let’s get started.” He touched a button on his computer and a large map appeared on the wall-sized screen at one side of the room.
One of the colonels, a bald man of about fifty walked up to the map and pointed to an area just to the north of their current location. “This whole region will be flooded with Caliphate Chi-drones in about twelve hours. Our targets are here, here, and here,” he said, pointing to three specific places on the map.
“Thank you, Colonel Black,” said Shorter. “Twelve hours. Three targets. And only one shot.”
“Which is the primary target?” asked Jacob.
“And what level of resistance is expected on the ground?” asked Brent.
“Both good questions,” said a white-haired colonel, rising from his seat and moving to the map. “If you could only take out one of them, this one at the north would have to be your objective,” he said, pointing at a location about two hundred kilometers south of the New Turkish border. “The latest recon shows resistance numbers in the twenty-five to thirty thousand range.”
“Colonel Glazier is being optimistic,” said Shorter. “We know there’s twenty-five to thirty-k on the ground right now. But we expect them to be sending reinforcements in the next few hours that will at least double that number.”
“Why? What’s the nature of the target?” asked Jacob.
“We plan to take out their central processing core, and both subtransmitters. They’ll have no way to control any of their drones in the central or eastern theater,” said Black.
“And then we’ll move in for the kill,” said Shorter. “In the chaos, we’ll send in a unit of A16s and take out their leadership.”
“The A16 assassin team should meet little resistance with the drones out of the way,” said Glazier.
“Sounds like a great plan,” Brent said with sincerity.
“Glad you approve,” said Shorter wryly. “Now, you two should get down to the temporary DAS facility we’ve set up downstairs. You’ll need the next few hours to split the lead drone control and look over the battle specs.”
Brent and Jacob sat in silence as the nurses wheeled them out of the room, then started speaking quickly once they were headed down the chilly hallway.
“Jacob, we’ve never even done the real thing before – we’ve only run simulations and a few field tests.”
“Which is more than can be said for those guys,” said Jacob. “They’re good leaders, brilliant strategists, but they don’t know the first thing about the hardware, the software, or the wetware. Unfortunately for the free world, we’re all they’ve got.”
“A couple of invalid geeks are their best hope? The free world really is in trouble.”
They arrived at the DAS facility and looked around the room.
“For a temporary facility, this place is not bad at all,” said Jacob. “Looks like we’ll have everything we need.”
“’Cept for a couple hands and two legs,” said Brent bitterly.
“We’ve got four hands and four legs between us,” said one of the nurses with a smile, indicating the other nurse. “And we’
re at your disposal, as long as you need us.”
“Thanks,” said Jacob, “we appreciate it.”
The next eight hours were spent splitting the interface protocols, studying the operation specs and running practice drills.
“You know,” said Brent, as they took a break to eat, “when this is all over, I think I’m gonna get together with Jim and Nancy Jones from Biotech –”
“Jim died in the attack.”
“I know, I knew that. It just hadn’t sunk in and I – I forgot. Anyway, maybe just Nancy, then, and we can build me some new legs and use some of the G23 neural interface protocols to connect them to my brain.”
“That sounds great, said Jacob, “and maybe you can hook me up with some new hands, while you’re at it.”
They sat in silence, daydreaming about their lives after this mission – doing anything to avoid thinking about what they were up against – if only for a few moments.
“You know what sucks? I can still feel my legs,” said Brent. “But they’re gone.”
“You know what else sucks?” said Jacob. “I can still feel my hands – and they’re still there, sorta. I need stronger medication.”
“Coming right up,” said one of the nurses.
“I still can’t believe all this,” Jacob continued. “I mean, Bart and Shanni may not have been the best people to work for, but they were people – with families and futures. Now they’re just – gone.”
“Well, maybe we can avenge them,” said Brent. “Avenge the millions that have been killed since this started. Put an end to the Caliphate