Читать книгу Armageddon - Dale Brown - Страница 14

After the botched demonstration of the robot warrior system, Danny’s day became an unrelieved series of frowns and down-turned glances. He avoided breakfast with the congressmen, claiming that he had to work with the technical team recovering the devices, and managed to skip lunch by tending to his normal duties as security chief on the base. But couldn’t avoid the afternoon debriefing sessions, which culminated in a show-and-tell session for the VIPs in one of the Dreamland auditoriums. Danny walked down the hallway to the room feeling like the proverbial Dead Man Walking.

The ACR robots had actually worked exactly according to spec. Unfortunately, they had been foxed by Boston, who exploited a weakness in the system to torpedo the mission. The inexpensive, off-the-shelf sensors in the units could not see very well through smoke. While the grenade that Boston’s team member had launched at the unit might not have blinded it for very long, once it started firing off its canisters the entire area was for all intents and purposes shrouded in an impenetrable fog. Boston had timed his intrusion just right, racing as fast as he could eight hundred and fifty meters to the downed airman, who by the exercise rules was unarmed and couldn’t hear him anyway because of the approaching Osprey. Armed with only his pistol – a rifle would have slowed him down – Boston incapacitated the airman, then waited for the rescuers.

It wouldn’t have worked in real life – the grenades would have been shrapnel rather than smoke, and presumably incapacitated or killed the intruders. But that distinction seemed lost on the congressmen who were watching the video feeds in the Dreamland conference center. And the army people present for the demonstration weren’t very happy about it either. The Army had supplied 90 percent of the development funding so far, and its contribution was up for review.

Danny stood gamely with the project officers and the science types as they opened the floor up to questioning. One of the congressmen started things off by asking where the man who had shown the way around the robots was.

‘Sergeant Rockland is probably enjoying a well-earned rest right now,’ said Danny, trying to force a smile. ‘One of my best men. We try to train them to think outside of the box.’

‘Or the robot,’ said the congressman.

Danny did his best to laugh along with them, ignoring the dagger eyes from the army people.

Boston was waiting for him in his office when he finally made it over there two hours later.

‘You were looking for me, Cap?’ asked the sergeant.

Something about his sophomoric smile burned right through Danny.

‘You blew the parameters of the test,’ Danny told him. ‘You screwed the whole stinking thing up.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Those were supposed to be shrapnel grenades. Your team would have been dead.’

‘No, we were far enough away. I made sure of that.’

‘You ran right through the smoke,’ said Danny. ‘That wouldn’t have happened in real life. You would never have made it in time.’

Boston shrugged.

‘I don’t like your attitude, Sergeant,’ said Freah.

‘Captain – don’t you preach that we ought to use our heads?’

‘Go on. Dismissed. Go.’

‘But – ’

‘Out!’

Danny pretended not to see him shake his head.