“And from the rebels?”

“They would have to take their own action. But if you had declared the cease-fire, then they would respond to that, I’m sure. Within a matter of—”

“It cannot be unilateral! We cannot just declare the cease-fire ourselves. They won’t observe it. You see what dogs we deal with. They lie and cheat at every turn.”

We’re off to a great start, thought Zen.

18

Over Libya

It seemed as if all Libya was descending on the two wrecked vans. Not only were the helicopters only a few minutes away, but now trucks were heading out from the city as well. A small group of people—apparently civilians, though a few had AKs—had left a hamlet about a half mile to the east of the road and were coming up, probably to see what the commotion was about. Meanwhile, the four MiGs were flying northeast on afterburners, taking no heed of the two French Mirages coming in their direction.

The computer calculated that the Mirages had about a sixty-forty percent chance of shooting down the MiGs if they engaged within the next sixty seconds.

Turk didn’t particularly like those odds. He had a good opinion of the French pilots, but they were still pretty far north, and since they had to contact the MiGs to warn them off, no chance of surprising the enemy.

“Whiplash, what’s your ETA?” Turk asked Danny.

“We’ll be overhead in ten minutes.”

“I have people on the ground who are going to get there first.”

“Hostile?”

“Unknown. They look mostly like civilians, but a couple have rifles. Hard here to tell the difference sometimes.” Many people carried rifles for self-protection; Turk certainly would have.

“See if you can scare them off,” said Danny.

“You want me to buzz them?” asked Turk.

“Yes, but don’t use your weapons if you don’t have to. If you’re in danger, screw the ROEs. I’ll take the heat.”

“Roger that.”

It was nice to say, but Turk knew he would be court-martialed along with Danny. Still, better to go to prison than live with the death of his guys on his conscience.

“Helicopters have not responded to my hails,” Turk answered. “What about them?”

“We’ll try raising them on the radio.”

“They’re getting awful close. I’ll buzz them, too,” added Turk.

“Copy.”

Turk banked to get closer to the people. He wanted to do a loud run to show them he was there.

The problem would be judging their reaction—if they kept coming, did that mean they were on his side?

“Tanks are moving,” said the computer as he came out of the turn.

“Computer—which tanks?” asked Turk.

“Tanks in Grid A–3.” The area flashed on his sitrep map. “Additional vehicles are under way.”

“Why not,” muttered Turk. “Just one frickin’ open house picnic in beautiful suburban Libya.”

19

Libya, north of Mizdah

Rubeo walked back toward the trucks, conserving his energy. His leg muscles had tightened, but adrenaline was surging through his body, and he knew if he could just pace himself, he’d last the ten minutes or so until his people arrived.

He was sure they were close. Ten minutes, he told himself.

About fifty yards from the first truck the sky exploded above him. He threw himself down, sure that a missile was streaking at his head.

Gradually he realized it wasn’t a missile but the Tigershark, descending at high speed in the direction of the helicopters.

Rubeo got up and continued toward the van, half running, half trotting. One of his dead captors lay in the dirt about thirty feet away. He saw the rifle nearby and ran to grab it. Winded, he paused to catch his breath and examine the gun, making sure it was loaded and ready to fire.

The helicopters were directly south along the road. One was a large Chinook, the other a Russian-made Hind. The Tigershark flew across their path twice, apparently trying to warn them off, but neither helicopter changed direction.

Rubeo thought about the bots, sitting in the back of the nearby van. Diomedes wasn’t particularly exotic; it was basically a personalized version of robots Rubeo’s company sold to the government. But Arachne was at least a generation and a half beyond what anyone else in the world was using, including the U.S.

He went over to the back of the van, thinking he would put a few bullets through the bots’ sensors and intelligence sections. But as he opened the door to the vehicle, he realized he might be able to use the larger bot to get Kharon to safety. And if he was going to save that bot, he might just as well save the other, especially since Arachne was still attached to Diomedes.

He climbed up into the truck. Deciding the laptop-sized controller would be awkward to run with, he removed the smaller handheld mobility controller attached to Diomedes that worked on voice commands. This was a transmitter about the size of a television remote, intended as an aid to workers when moving the bot. Its limited command set could not control any sensors, but that wasn’t important now.

Rubeo took the controller and unwound the small headset, which looked like a slightly heavier-duty version than the stereo and microphone headsets used for many mobile phones. The machine took a few moments to boot itself up, checking subsystems and sending current to its motors and limbs. The bot then authenticated Rubeo’s voice, checking it against the patterns stored in its memory.

“Exit truck,” Rubeo told it as soon as it was ready.

The machine began backing from the vehicle. Six small video and IR cameras and a sonar suite allowed the bot to orient itself.

“External imagery unavailable,” declared the machine, telling Rubeo that there was no feed from an overhead source such as a UAV. This was actually an artifact of the combat control program, which was configured to assume that a full combat situation awareness suite was present. The machine also had a GPS locator and could download area data into its temporary memory if necessary.

“Understood. Proceed.”

As Diomedes came to the edge of the truck bed, the sonar unit detected the drop-off. It measured the terrain and decided it could handle the drop. It pushed off quickly, adjusting its arms to balance its weight; it looked almost human, if something with the profile of a sawed-off vacuum cleaner could be said to resemble a person.

It landed flat and drove itself toward Rubeo.

“Follow me,” he said, and as he did, something whizzed over his head.

“Gunfire detected,” warned the bot. The warning was another attribute of the combat program.

“Move faster,” yelled Rubeo, scrambling for the rocks.

20

Above Libya

“Ground fire detected,” the computer told Turk.

“Locate.”

“Highlighted.”

“From that group of civilians?”

“Rephrase.”

“Disregard.” Turk clicked into the Whiplash circuit. “Danny, I have gunfire on the ground. Rubeo is under attack. Somebody in that group of people is firing.”

“See if you can scatter the group and isolate the people with guns,” said Danny. “Take them down.”