Gawain, page 14
Behrooz considered it. The smaller American machines had been able to achieve frightening speeds on level ground. Approaching one hundred and fifty kph if they needed to. At the same time, they were built for maneuverability.
ibn Rustah was a command fortress designed to carry an entire force of somewhere between forty and seventy-five troopers and their gear into battle. Protected. Armed with the various weapons he had dismounted or disabled. Creature comforts because a small fusion reactor could provide clean, warm water and all the electrical power you might possibly need. In addition to moving a slab of a machine that was ninety meters long, thirty-five wide, and ten tall in addition to the four, monstrous treads that provided motive power, with a gap tall enough that Yasmin could walk underneath.
“When new, it could have sustained thirty kilometers per hour,” Behrooz replied, citing numbers from the various technical manuals he had found and learned to read. “In my various tests, five had always been a solid, safe number, because I cannot easily repair a tread if one breaks. Those are always the greatest risks on a vehicle like this.”
“It seems to be handling nine well,” Ardashir noted innocently.
“It is my hope that she has found another depot like the one where we liberated Gawain,” Behrooz replied, unwilling to offer the man the real truth. As if Ardashir didn’t know. “Maybe I can find better tools. If the place was fully automated, they might even be contain a repair facility that can handle ibn Rustah.”
“What would you have it do?” Ardashir got serious now.
“Maintenance on the treads, wheels, drivers, and the reactor would greatly improve things,” Behrooz replied. “Maybe find other equipment we could add directly to this machine to help with things. I cannot safely cross any bridge, but having equipment that might let me lay one would improve trade routes. Trenching or excavating equipment that would let us build walls and level things to make villages and roads. The possibilities are endless.”
None of which included more warfare. Gawain was enough. At least in Yasmin’s hands.
“Imagine a scraper we could deploy from one side that would let us remove the top meter or more of poisoned soil in order to get at what was underneath,” Behrooz continued after a few moments. “Cover that over with plastic like I have ibn Rustah and turn it into an enormous greenhouse.”
“Non-mobile, this time,” Ardashir offered with a grin.
They still referred to the beast as an all-terrain greenhouse. It was an appropriate designation, at the end of the day. That was what he did. Grew things.
“Non-mobile,” Behrooz agreed. “But if we could grow enough food, villages could expand. If we could make places safe from radioactive dust, travelers could move about. If there were electric vehicles at that Sa'udi base, folks might not need to burn oil or biodiesel to get around. We were so close to the sorts of futures that Twentieth Century science fiction writers envisioned, right before the Sa'udis and their poodles had to destroy the world, rather than share it. We can fix it. You might not live long enough, but I honestly believe you are too stubborn to die, Ardashir. I expect you to be spoiling my grandchildren eventually.”
“One day at a time, Behrooz,” Ardashir laughed. “Let us save the world. Then she can rebuild it. Then we can have a paradise on Earth again.”
The both lapsed into silence at that point, sipping tea and dreaming.
Around them, ibn Rustah ground away the kilometers.
Yasmin emptied the first canteen and stuffed it into her backpack. Four in the afternoon, give or take. Hottest part of a hot day. The pillbox had been a blessed relief, being only perhaps thirty degrees inside, but now she was back out where it was closer to forty-five.
Almost too much. She wondered if destroying the world would eventually cause it to cool again. Would the future bring an ice age or the heat of the dinosaur ages?
She could do her part, but would likely never know the truth.
For now, she stalked. The last turret that had tried to kill Gawain was over there. Fire hundred and thirty meters away, give or take. Possibly outside the range she would get fired upon, but apparently the dead Sa'udis hadn’t seen her as a threat.
All the more fools them. Perhaps one of these days she would take Gawain and ibn Rustah to Mecca, where she could see if the Kaaba remained intact. Who knew if the Israelis or the Americans might have turned on the Sa'udis at the end. Even the Revolutionary Guard would not have destroyed such a sacred place on their angriest day.
They would have focused on Riyadh and the endless stream of worthless princes that the Sa’ud produced.
She found a spot nearby turret number two and began to scan the distance for the sensor array she needed to blind.
There. Exactly as it had been done here. Back twenty meters and on a stone outcrop.
With luck, that meant that turret number one’s would have survived the pillbox itself dying, and she could salvage it for ibn Rustah.
Still, she felt like a vandal as she lined up her next shot. One of those Russian barbarian peoples that had frequently emerged from the endless steppes and gone on to finally knock over the tottering remains of Rome. Or whoever else.
Today, she could only destroy, much as it galled her.
Tomorrow, hopefully, they could begin to rebuild.
She fired a shot, but knew as soon as she did that it had missed. Too concerned with herself and not with her breathing.
Turret number three woke up. The line was close enough that movement as the dazzler began to traverse caused her to throw herself at the ground. The rock that was her shelter jolted from the impact of coherent light.
How much damage could it take before it disintegrated?
Yasmin grabbed her rifle and quick-crawled back into a small gully nearby where the occasional rain washed. The radiation would be worse there, but she could strip and change into something else if she had to.
Right now, she needed to be away from the place where undead machines were trying to reach back from the grave to drag her down.
The explosion as the rock failed was tremendous. Three-inch dazzler fired repeatedly into a soft stone until it superheated the material, tossing chunks into the air. She felt the stones impacting on her legs and back, even as she covered her head with her backpack. Nothing stinging like penetration, though.
She would have to strip now and inspect her skin with a mirror.
But she needed to kill something first.
The smoke of heat caused the robots to cease firing. That was good.
She counted to twenty, listening to her body for injury and finding none before she peeked up.
The rock was gone. Dazzler fire will do that.
She crept forward down her little ditch until she was sheltered by the second pillbox, then emerged, moving quickly into the cooler air and cover.
She would need to strip right now.
“What was that?” Behrooz snapped.
Ardashir was watching the feed from Gawain on the co-pilot’s screen, since the man didn’t need to do any driving.
“Dazzler fire,” Ardashir replied. “Apparently, she did something to awaken one of the dragons guarding the hoard.”
Behrooz felt his world fall out from underneath him.
“Is she okay?” he managed.
“Stand by,” Ardashir said.
The old man did something and the feed changed. Zoomed and panned.
“What are you doing?” Behrooz asked.
“I set up a secondary command circuit to Gawain,” Ardashir said with a hard smile. “In case something happened and I needed to control it remotely. Like now.”
“Can you?”
Behrooz was astounded.
“Not with any degree of delicacy,” the man replied. “But the sensors are stable. There.”
A finger traced movement. Human. Emerging from cover well away from the rock that had exploded, then reentering the nearby bunker.
“Perhaps I should drive a little faster?” Behrooz asked.
The look of dread on the old man’s face was almost worse.
“I think that would be a wise choice,” was all he said.
Yasmin allowed herself ten seconds of relief from inside the pillbox before she stripped off her robes and hijab. Pants and shirt went next, leaving her nude save for her boots in the cool air as she ran hands over her pale skin looking for blood. Then she dug the polished steel mirror out of her pack and used it to check her back.
She would be bruised tomorrow or the next day. Banged up. But no blood had been drawn. She didn’t need to get into her medkit to try to keep radioactive dust out of her system. Or anything else.
Calm. She had none now, so she paused to run though a quick form of Tai Chi that had been one of the base forms from which more complicated and sophisticated forms had been derived. It was strange, doing it nude in a forgotten Sa'udi pillbox. At the same time, it felt right, so she let her muscle memory and breathing carry her through the entire form slowly.
Complete, she decided to just go ahead and change now. The current pants and shirt had dirt and dust rubbed into them, while the new clothes would be cleaner. Less radiation and other things that might poison her.
She only had the one overrobe, but she put on a clean hijab as well.
It almost felt like being born again.
Yasmin emerged back out into the heat with the rifle in hand and a cold rage in her heart. The backpack could remain in this pillbox for now, as she was only going to lean from cover enough to fire a shot, hoping that the robot over there was not immediately paying attention. Or that it couldn’t destroy this pillbox.
As before, she found a rock for cover. The terrain was heavier here, so she had many to pick from.
She chose the closest one, but still had a spot where she could throw herself if she had to.
Rifle up to draw any fire, but nothing happened after ten seconds, so she emerged and quickly zeroed. The sensor existed as much in her mind on a mental map as a physical one. Plus, her heart rate was almost sleeping at this point. The dazzler was aimed this way, but quiet.
She blew out a breath and fired.
Bullseye. She saw smoke emerge from the sensor shield immediately, even before she could duck.
Nothing took umbrage.
Hopefully, the next cyclops was blind.
She waited for a full minute, unmoving, but only the desert swirled.
Good enough.
She returned to the pillbox, pulling the door shut again as she slung her backpack. This time, she would stay closer to the roadway, circling left. Two ditches lined it, from where earth-moving equipment had gone to work.
She could hopefully throw herself to one side or the other. If she lived long enough to detect a threat.
Yasmin knelt in the ditch, watching the notch above for any guardians remaining as she made her way finally close to the entrance itself. She spotted the two places where anti-tank missile radars had come live, as well as what looked like another pillbox, save that it was right on the roadway itself. Perhaps where humans guarding the facility could watch?
Certainly, the Sa'udis would have had menials to handle such work, lest they soil their perfectly manicured fingernails with dirt. Probably Americans, then.
Nothing reacted to her. Nothing flew overhead. No sirens sounded.
She might have been alone in the world. Reborn into utter emptiness.
Good enough.
Rifle held in both hands low, she began to walk up the ditch, rather than on the road itself. She could see tire tracks she presumed represented Dehkordi and his minions coming and going fairly recently.
What had they left behind? Certainly, they had possessed many dazzlers and autocannons for mere desert raiders. She would presume they came from here, at least for now. How many of the Sayyida’s new people would know the way here? How soon would they trust her enough to tell her about such a place?
How soon until the woman might become a threat?
Except that she had bowed. Had proclaimed allegiance to the new Persia that Yasmin intended to bring into existence.
Secrets and secrets. And Ardashir had presumably chosen not to share such information with the woman. At least not today.
Another of those tomorrows that lay stretched out in front of her until possibly eternity.
“She did it!” Behrooz whooped.
Ardashir joined him, giving in to the levity for a moment before they sobered.
Outside, ibn Rustah was grinding away at a sober twelve kilometers per hour over flat enough terrain. A hard jog for a human, but one he could keep up for months with the amount of water he had aboard.
“Now what?” Behrooz asked.
They watched Yasmin emerge from cover again and begin walking up the roadway now, but nothing seemed to react to her.
“The heavier emplacements should ignore her entirely,” Ardashir replied. “They were designed for tanks and command posts such as ibn Rustah. I’m not even certain that trucks would trigger them. Doubly so as you had three or more heavy dazzlers protecting the approaches.”
“Can she get in?” he pressed.
“She was raised in Aynalo, so she understands underground facilities,” the grandfather replied. “And the Sa'udis were no great shakes at being sneaky, so I expect it to be relatively straight forward. After all, scum like Dehkordi were able to get in.”
Behrooz nodded and watched his heart and soul stride carefully up a distant road.
Yasmin watched all directions with her head on a constant swivel, but she was utterly alone. It was almost like one of those dreams where you wake up to discover yourself the last person on Earth, all the rest having died or been taken somewhere.
Not even the cries of birds around here to break the quiet whistling of the breeze that had come up. Not enough to cool her, as it brought the blast furnace heat from the south across her, but hopefully she would be able to get inside soon.
If not, she could always retire to Gawain for more water and maybe spare clothes.
What she really wanted right now was the ability to stretch out in a bath of cool water and just float.
She couldn’t swim. Aynalo hadn’t had any sort of place like that, nor would they have let anyone swim in the cistern that was their water supply. Behrooz had learned to swim when he was young. Ardashir as well.
Today, there was no place safe.
Another thing for tomorrow. To have so much clean water that you could luxuriate in it, rather than hoard it miserly.
She was approaching the top of the rise now. Twin, angry dragons with missiles lurked above her on both sides, but none had noticed her coming. She felt like a little halfling sneaking into Smaug’s cave.
As before, she stalked the final pillbox with care. No dazzler turret, but that meant nothing, as it had spaces where squad and heavier weapons could be deployed to fire, a gap some sixty centimeters tall and nearly four meters across.
No one appeared home. The gunfire earlier hadn’t even drawn someone, so she might have indeed fallen into a different world.
It smelled the same. Tasted like the gritty soil of every other place she had stopped to spent a night with Behrooz and Ardashir.
Yasmin took a deep breath and emerged from her ditch to walk to the center of the roadway and then cross to where a man with a pistol on his hip would watch trucks coming up from the valley floor below.
Nobody emerged to greet her.
She tried the door handle, on the off chance that nobody had ever bothered locking it. Surprised herself when it worked and she was able to push the door open.
Sand had accumulated on the floor, blown here by various storms, but she had the strength to sweep it away with the door.
Empty. Desk in one corner and a rusted metal chair where a guard might sit. Otherwise a sterile, concrete box. No, that was not true. She spotted something.
Yasmin let the sense of wrongness draw her across the pillbox towards a spot in the back. Humidity had stained the rock in something like a rectangle that her mind kept calling a door, even though the stone was flush.
A secret, backdoor for guards to move in and out without going outside? They would still be exposed to the ambient heat and whatever radiation might lurk, but there had likely been none when this space had been built.
That would only come later, when the occupation had turned against them and someone had decided to destroy Persia, since they could not subdue it.
As it you could conquer these people and make them like it.
Hands found nothing on the stone that might open it, and the gaps looked too thin for her screwdriver.
Yasmin turned to the desk, wondering if the door might be controlled from there. There were no other buttons or switches around, except for the spot just beside the door where an overhead light was controlled.
The chair would not bear her weight, so she moved it to a corner and pulled a blade. The space underneath was open, so some creature might have taken residence. A snake or a poisonous spider, save that she’d seen no tracks.
Still, prepared.
She knelt and inspected the underside.
Yes, a button. Alarm, perhaps? Except that they would have relied on radios and telephone lines to communicate.
She moved closer and tried to push the desk, but it was securely fastened to the floor, so she presumed a wire went down a leg, into the concrete, and across.
Would it still work after this long?
Except that the dazzler turrets and missile batteries still did. Someone had designed a system that was still active thirty or more years later.
She pushed the button, after making sure nobody else was living in there. A click behind her said that the door had opened.
Yasmin rose, but nothing had changed. She poked with her knife then realized that the sands would hold everything. She used one boot to scrape and push until she had space in front of it. The door began to swing of its own accord, so she moved out of the way.
Sure enough, hollow steel with a concrete face like frosting over it. The inside had a handle to pull it shut, as well as a simple door handle to latch it in place.
