The drones slaughtered the defenseless Rhesus monkeys in a hail of automatic gunfire. The sudden roar of the volley deafened Faron and silenced their terrified shrieks. Corpses still writhed, bleeding into the desert sand, as the swarm of monstrous, black hornets alighted and began to feed.
Titanium mandibles ripped off chunks of monkey, crushing and sucking them noisily into digesters. The sound of crunching bone and obscene slurping barely penetrated the ringing in Faron’s ears. Every bit as large as their prey, they made short work of it, and began excreting pellets of indigestible bits and pieces; hair, sand, and bone, stripped of its rich marrow.
Faron trembled with excitement as the swarm performed its gruesome task. As soon as he’d pressed ‘Enter’ they’d swooped down on the troupe in perfect synchrony, wasting neither time nor ammunition. Stone-faced military men, in their crisp uniforms of blue and green, stood in rapt attention. The contract specified autonomous killbots that could stay in the field indefinitely, and his team had delivered in spades.
He’d miss the monkeys’ antics in the lab, despite the horrible smell, but this was business. The demonstration had gone off without a hitch, and the future shone brighter than the desert sun.
Steve struggled to suppress his distaste at the sight of the feasting swarm. This was no end for a soldier. He'd seen every kind of death, every indignity war could inflict, on battlefields, in hospitals, in every God-forsaken corner of the world, but nothing like this.
This wasn't war. It was a feeding frenzy. The drones did exactly as promised: killed the enemy and used them as fuel. His vision of shiny automated knights reverently placing vanquished warriors into glistening, antiseptic vats shattered as the swarm tore the dead into dripping gobbets.
The damn things had to chew.
He needed to preserve the lives of his warfighters, and this project had seemed perfect, able to inflict continuous and deadly harm on the enemy--and only the enemy--while American kids stayed safe. It was vital to end collateral damage, because nothing hurt our soldiers worse than the unintended slaughter they inflicted on the innocent.
Civilians caught in the crossfire were the worst cause of American casualties, not the weapons of their enemies. Politicians and bean-counters couldn't understand. They had never liberated a village and marched in to see the children withered by white phosphorus.
Too many of his troops had. The wounds in their souls were harder to heal than any others, yet all too easy to cure with just one lead pill. Swallowing his bile, and his pride, he kept his mien of iron.
He had seen those tiny, shriveled bodies, too.
There had been honor in battle, once, in facing your enemy and defeating him in the field. But, then again, the contest had never been fair. The better armed force simply out-killed their opponents. There were exceptions, but those exceptions were instead better armed with intelligence, tactics, and strategy.
He hadn't seen any sign of honor on the battlefield, but he'd seen it in the faces of his soldiers. Especially the wounded ones, most of all those with broken souls. This weapon might prevent collateral damage, but he wasn't sure it would prevent that harm. How could men use this weapon honorably? How could he prevent those injuries to his troops that became fatal months, or anguished years later?
The drones finished their meal and began to preen, scraping all the blood and gore from their matte black, radar absorptive surfaces. Their multiple appendages, ending in assorted hooks and claws, could reach every part of them. Their swiveling cameras, like the eyestalks of slugs, or crabs, were able to see everything in reach, too. The simulation of life added insult to injury.
Turning to the curly-haired wunderkind running the demonstration, he quelled his contempt. "Dr...."
"Sanger, Faron Sanger." The scientist's gap-toothed grin brought no camaraderie to Steve. How had nerds, bean-counters, and politicians become the masters of war?
"Dr. Sanger, how long will it take the drones to process the… fuel?" Soldiers, even enemy soldiers, were betrayed when Steve stumbled over the word. These bugs fed on honor as much as meat.
"About six hours, to completion. But when there's plenty of fuel, there's no need to maximize efficiency, and by targeting the brain and similar tissues, enough fuel to maintain operations can be processed in minutes." Sanger was actually beaming.
Honor. Honor and humanity. Sanger had none, no more than the diabolical bugs he was so sanguine about feeding men.
"Protein synthesis was discovered back in the 80's, and using biomimetics to analyze the Cambrian explosion..." The cheerful demon gushed on.
Regret at accepting the promotion to Lt. General washed over him. Waging war with brain-sucking, man-eating, machine-bugs made by this fiend. No promotion was worth that. The politicians and bean-counters in charge would never understand the human toll on the warriors that was the true cost of effecting their power. They could see no difference between casualties resulting from enemy fire and emotional trauma. It was just numbers to them.
Drawing himself up, Steve earned his new star with steel discipline and resigned himself to hating life. Maybe he could help his warriors, but there was no saving himself.
