Though he was trapped aboard the stolen Juggernaut, DD had to take action as Sirix and his robot marauders annihilated the Corribus settlement. His basic programming did not allow him to remain idle. He had to at least try. This was wrong.
From the Juggernaut’s weapons station, the Soldier compies mapped out and targeted all human or Klikiss structures. As the attack proceeded, they tracked each fleeing person who raced for shelter, and they could kill their victims one at a time with cool accuracy.
In the colony’s transmission tower, Jan Covitz continued to send anxious questions, pleas, demands. With two successive jazer blasts, one of the invading Mantas vaporized the communications tower and its support shack. The desperate radio signal went silent.
Sirix stood on the command bridge like some great general. All the robot’s articulated arms were extended. His flat head-plate swiveled as he absorbed information from the projection screens. “We will leave no structure standing, no trace that the arrogant humans ever established a foothold here.”
DD concluded that stopping this unprovoked assault had a higher priority than his own self-preservation. He lunged toward the nearest weapons console.
Though his mass was only half that of the Soldier compy’s, the little robot’s unexpected action was sufficient to thrust the military machine aside. As the surprised Soldier compy attempted to recover its balance, DD slammed his alloy-and-plastic fist into the Juggernaut’s weaponry controls. He did not have the strength of a heavy-lifting machine, but the consoles had not been designed to take such punishment. DD hammered again and again, breaking open the cover plate, obliterating the circuitry and delicate targeting systems.
In less than three seconds, the Soldier compy had righted itself and pulled DD away from the console. The little robot struggled, but could not break free. Before him, the controls smoked and sparked, and he was gratified to see that they were ruined.
The Soldier compy raised DD overhead, prepared to disassemble him; two other military robots lurched forward to add their metal muscle, but Sirix’s buzzing voice halted them. “Do not destroy him.” Scarlet eye sensors glowed balefully like orbs formed of hot embers. “This is an example of how slavery corrupts these competent computerized companions. No rational mind would have taken such useless action, but DD was forced to make this defiant, but ultimately pointless, gesture.”
Sirix scuttled over to where DD dangled in the air, caught in the grasp of the Soldier compy. “Observe, DD—you caused very little harm. This battleship is equipped with three redundant weapons consoles, and even without the Juggernaut we have five fully armed Manta cruisers to continue the destruction of an unarmed colony. Your struggle was for nothing.”
“Nevertheless, I could not fail to act.”
Sirix moved heavily back to the central bridge station to oversee the conclusion of the Corribus operation.
DD amplified his voice. “It is what I want to do. I desire to stop you.” Even without the restrictive programming the Klikiss robots scorned, he would have chosen to do the same thing. He could not stand by while so many innocent colonists were slaughtered.
“You do not understand your own actions.”
In the colony below, despite DD’s best efforts, nothing remained but smoking debris and bodies. Everything had been destroyed.
“Observe closely,” Sirix said as the hijacked battleship descended toward the rubble of the canyon floor. DD didn’t want to see firsthand the results of the massacre. “This was merely a practice run for our ultimate plan, a demonstration of our new attack force. We judge the exercise an unqualified success.”
The engines hummed, then slowed as the Juggernaut came to rest against the ground like a beached whale. The Soldier compies marched in ranks from the bridge, preparing to disembark and complete the total sterilization of Corribus. Sirix observed with apparent satisfaction.
“Therefore, we will proceed with the full-scale plan against the rest of humanity.”