Young Writers Society

Future Soldier

Major Dirk Douglas of the U.S. Marines sat stiffly on a hard bench in the belly of military transport plane. He steadfastly watched a fire extinguisher on the opposite wall, refusing to glance at the fellow soldier seated next to him on the bench.

Soldier nothing, he thought, the thing is not even human. I have to go into a combat zone with a four hundred pound titanium robot. It should be in a sci-fi movie or something, not here with me.

Dirk broke his motionlessness by pounding his thigh with an angry fist. Without looking away from the fire extinguisher he knew his seatmate had turned to gaze at him. The blank, black, camera eyes with their non-reflective glass staring at him from a smooth, camouflage painted face. The thing beside him broke the silence.

“We should be coming over the drop zone in approximately three minutes.”
The voice was as inhuman as the metal body, speaking each word as it had been individually programmed in.

Dirk remained silent. If only Sam, his partner, hadn’t broken a leg during final week of training, then he wouldn’t have to stand stupid comments from a tin man.

Sucking in a deep breath, Dirk began reviewing the mission objectives: secure insertion area, recon the terrorist hideout, free the idiot diplomat who thought he could talk surrender terms to a pack of desperate fanatics, and get back to the extraction zone alive. Shouldn’t be very difficult, at least it wouldn’t be if he had Sam with him.

Suddenly a hiss came over a loudspeaker above Dirk’s head and the pilot began talking.

“Get your gear together men, ‘chutes ready and pop the door. We’ll be over the DZ in a minute.”

Dirk stood and did his pre-jump ritual check of slapping first his sidearm, then the carbine on his back, and the grenade pouches on his belt. He glanced at his metal partner.

“Crusher,” was the thing’s official mission name. When standing, Crusher stood a full four inches taller than Dirk’s own height of five eight, an impressive six-feet of ideal metal soldier dressed in custom made fatigues. Crusher was equipped with the same weapons as Dirk, except Dirk did not have a flame thrower in his right palm or a stun gun in his left or the half a dozen other exotic devices stored in the titanium torso.

Dirk hauled the jump door open and stood gripping the sides. Twenty thousand feet below he saw the dark green blur of a forest flying past. As he breathed in the cold fast rushing night air he heard the pilot yell, “Ready… Set… Jump!”

Dirk jumped. Free falling toward the ground he watched the wristwatch style altimeter as the needle steadily dropped and the shadow-shrouded ground grew more distinct. At the right altitude he pulled hard on the parachute release cord and folds of the silken rectangle spilled out slowing his descent. Gripping the control lines he glided down to a clearing in the trees glowing green in his night vision goggles. The landing was perfect.

Just try and beat that robot, he muttered to himself.

Crusher landed beside him, a little heavily but just as well. Dirk just grunted and began stripping off the chute harness and packing the silken folds of the chute into his backpack. He thumbed the off the safety on his carbine. With or without the tin man he was going to complete this mission and do it well. Crusher followed, his carbine also at the ready. Dirk glanced at him, the metal face shaded under the green and brown strings of its ghillie suit hood.

“Come on tin man. We got a job to do.”

Chapter Two

Two men guarding the gate, three watchtowers, a few tents, a rundown house, a jeep, and a truck armed and armored with a heavy caliber machine gun and scrap metal plating. Dirk lowered his binoculars but remained gazing at the terrorist camp in thought. This was not going to be an easy mission.

“The place is well guarded. I guess as many as twenty men are in the camp. What do you think?”

He turned towards the robot. Crusher crouched motionless behind a fallen tree and made no response to Dirk’s question.

“Wake up tin man, I asked you a question.” Dirk flicked a metal forearm with his finger. All he got was a sore finger and no reaction.

Maybe the batteries died or something, he thought, almost gleefully, then I can ditch him.

Then he considered the mission orders. In his briefing he had been told that it was imperative to get the diplomat out. So important, that when his partner Sam had broken a leg in training, the mission planners had thrown in the robot soldier prototype instead of spending time getting another man briefed and ready. The diplomat had to be extracted and quickly, that much was apparent. The mission was still a go even if Crusher had broken down.

I’m going to need that son of a soda can if I want to make this work.

Dirk sighed and crawled over to the robot. He began poking around in its camouflage suit, trying to remember where the batteries were located.
With a soft whir Crusher’s head turned.

“Are you Major Douglas?” the robot said.

Dirk stared at it.
“Did a circuit in your CPU bust? Of course I’m Major Douglas.”

The robot didn’t say anything for a moment then replied in an apologetic manner.
“I’m sorry but my dad, the man who was controlling Crusher, had a stroke. He told me to take over until the secondary controller can get here.”

Dirk felt his brain reel, his only backup in this hostile jungle was controlled by a kid.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“No.”

“Well, I wish it was then.”

Dirk’s hand mechanically searched his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes until his mind remembered quitting a few years ago.

“So kid when is that secondary controller going to take over?”

“My dad didn’t have time to say how to contact him. It’s all right though. Dad showed me how to run Crusher when he was working on it. I know how to run, shoot, everything. It’s just like a video game.”

The comparison did not help. Death and pain didn’t figure in as prominently in virtual worlds as they did in the real thing.
This was real. The kid controlling Crusher could not die but Dirk sure could.

“Look kid, rummage around. Surely your dad left a phone number or something on the table.”
Crusher suddenly stood up.

“I already did that. I can’t find anything. Where are you anyway? This doesn’t look like the training ground at Fort Henson.”

Dirk grabbed at the robot’s arm. “Get down! There’s a terrorist camp over there and they might spot you.”

Crusher dropped to a prone position on the ground.
“You mean you’re on a mission?”

“Yes, I’m on a mission,” Dirk hissed back. “And if you don’t get someone who knows what they’re doing, then I’m going to fail it.”

“I know what I’m doing. Hey, are you going to snipe that guard down there?” Crusher raised his carbine. Dirk lunged at it and shoved the safety on.

“Don’t be crazy. If he gets shot, the rest of those men will know we’re here.”

“They wouldn’t find us up here on the ridge,” said Crusher, but he lowered his gun anyway. Dirk kept his hold on the gun.

“Look, kid I’m in charge. You don’t do anything unless I say you can. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

Dirk put his head in his hands. This operation was turning out to be the worst Op he had ever been in.

“We can’t do anything until night comes again anyway, so why don’t you try again to find that secondary controller guy.”

“Okay, but I don’t think I will.”

Dirk began to regret ever volunteering for this mission; it was definitely not what he had signed up to do.

Chapter 3

In a darkened basement room, a row of computer monitors lit up a cluttered desk with dim blue glow. Fifteen-year old Max Dexter hunched over the desk gripping a joystick in one hand, eyes glued to the central monitor. The image of a camouflage clad soldier filled the screen. Lying prone, the soldier held a pair of binoculars aimed down a valley at the distant walls of a terrorist hideout.

A musical note sounded, startling the boy, on another screen a line of words began marching across.
Scanning the text of the message quickly, he pushed the microphone button.

“Major?”

The soldier on the screen lowered the binoculars to glare at the camera.
“What is it? Kid, I told you to keep quiet and try to contact that other controller guy.”

“I know. It’s just that I got an e-mail from some general. He says the terrorists have declared their intention of killing the diplomat tomorrow morning if their demands are not met. We have to do something.”
Major Douglas muttered something the audio equipment didn’t pick up. Then his eyebrows rose.

“Wait a minute kid.”

Max could hear a hopeful tone in his voice.

“Can you send a message back to that general? Tell him about your dad and all. I’m not going to do anything until I have a qualified guy at those controls.”

Max turned back to the other computer but after only a few minutes he ran into a problem.

“Major, the computer is asking for some password before it will send the message. Any idea what it would be?”

“A password? How would I know? I don’t work that thing. See if your dad stuck a note around.”

“My dad never wrote down any passwords. The whole project was so top secret that he couldn’t risk someone finding them.”

Major Douglas glanced back down the valley apparently thinking everything over.

“All right then,” he said heavily. “We go in tonight.”

“What? You mean both of us? Hooyah! This will be fun.” Max was jubilant. He was in on a top-secret mission.

The major quickly spun to face the camera again.
“You don’t do anything until I tell you to. Got it?”

“Yes sir.” Max answered.

“Okay, here’s what we are going to do…”

As dusk had deepened into night in a jungle halfway around the world from him, Max had become more impatient. All he could see in the view screen was waving grass, stubby bushes, and occasionally the black-soled heel of the major’s boot. Everything glowed in an eerie green from Crusher’s night vision system. Max had been maneuvering Crusher in an agonizingly slow belly crawl for hours, punctuated only by unexplained stops as they crept toward the walls of the terrorist encampment. Abruptly another hushed command to halt came. Max fumed inwardly. What was the matter now?


“You can crouch now,” came the major’s voice over the headphones.
When the robot rose, Max saw the mottled grey concrete walls of encampment beside him. Kneeling nearby, the Major motioned him over and then climbed onto the shoulders of the robot. From there he could reach the edge of the wall where coils of murderous razor wire lined the top. Max watched the screen intently as the major gingerly reached upwards with a pair of wire cutters, clipped a section of it away, and dropped the piece to the ground. Lithely, the major boosted himself up and over, dropping lightly down on the other side.

“All clear. Your turn now.”

Activating the grapple, Max aimed carefully and clicking a button sent the hook flying over the wall.

“Is it secured major?

“Secured.”

Crusher’s automatic climbing program left much to be desired, mostly in the area of stealth. At every clank of the metal limbs against the wall, Max winced, and heard a sharp intake of breath from Major Douglas. However, they somehow remained undetected, even when Crusher dropped heavily over the wall. Max lowered the robot back into a crouch and brought his carbine up into a ready position. The major leaned over and flipped off the safety, but the look in his eyes told Max that he still did not entirely trust him with a weapon. From the position in the shadows of the wall Max could see the bulk of the building where the hostage diplomat was being held.

The face of man guarding the door glowed in the light of a cigarette. The guard was not very old, mid-twenties at most, and did not look dangerous other than the battered assault rifle that hung at his side. Max rubbed his sweating hands on his jeans and then gripping the joystick again, turned to look toward the major. Major Douglas glanced at the guard then back to the robot.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Let’s go!”

This story has me confused.

In the beginning, the robot is just that, a robot. You make it clear that his responses are programmed in, and thus it's reasonable for the reader to assume that he functions autonomously. But then in the second chapter you reveal that it's controlled by a man in a computer room. That doesn't chime right. Is the robot autonomous or not?

Plus you say at one point that the robot replied in an apologetic manner, but you also made it clear earlier that it pretty much spoke without tone. You need to stay consistent.

Also, you need to decide if the robot's name throughout the story is "the robot" or "Crusher." I would opt for the latter, especially since it's controlled by somebody.

Right now, I'm still trying to digest it. The general style is fine, as is the diction and dialogue. But the plot right now needs polishing.

this wasn't the most original piece, but for the mosr part it was well written. I agree with the previous reviewer on the confusion part.
The way you posted three chapters on one thread kinda confused me as well. Any particular reason? You could just make separate topics instead of posting chapters as comments. I also noticed some punctuation errors. Anyway, this was pretty good.