We did just that. Ted and Sarah stayed up with me late into the night. This was because each rescue plan we considered had many more chances of a disastrous ending than success. The element of surprise was out since Ted and his party had escaped and Ingrid mysteriously vanished. Dora was surely expecting us.

With the superior sensory powers of the robots any plan involving us in a stealth or sniper raid was also doomed. Our only chance lay in a sudden assault with weapons much heavier than their arsenal of guns, something that would protect us from their counter attack and that spelled ‘tank’.

The danger of such heavy firepower in the hands of beginners would present a high risk of collateral damage. But we had to survive for the young ones sake and we had to act fast. This wasn’t a hostage situation. It was a short-fused time bomb already lit and which would only kill humans. We needed to respond with one quick and unexpected blow and save all we could. After we agreed on this wild plan we caught a few hours sleep.

The next morning we left Amira, April and the children behind, promising at least some of us would return. There was an Army base east of Redding and after shooting out a dozen locks and doors we had our big weapon, fuelled up and fully loaded. We wanted to strike that day so we only had a few hours of practice, Ted learning to drive the beast and Sarah and I firing shells and handling the high caliber machine guns, while Ingrid and her friends went looking for an eighteen wheeler and flatbed to haul the tank and also a bus, which Redding readily supplied. We approached the farm late afternoon.

A mile back we parked the vehicles. The plan was for the three of us to drive in and blow up the tower or run it over if we couldn’t hit it. With that down the goggles would go blank. The other three would lie hid at the vantage point that Ingrid knew of and when the coast was clear of all robots begin to round-up whomever they could find and lead them to the bus, while we guarded the farm complex with our guns. This part I thought was our weak point because they had little practice with the handguns and we had no idea who if anyone would be in the fields. But they didn't have to fire a shot, as luck would have it.

Smug inside our tank Ted drove fearlessly down the road towards the closest farmhouse. We must have been heard a quarter mile away because two of the robots foolishly rushed towards us in plain view and we splattered their limbs across the pavement with machine gun fire, then crushed them under our treads. Two more followed, then hesitated and turned as they saw what happened. But they were within range at the entrance to the yard. One we nailed. I saw it was Juliet. The other we hit as it fell on all fours and scrambled like a dog into the nearest barn.

Ted now steered us toward the communications tower and the second shell we fired hit the base, toppling it. To make sure it was dead Ted kept driving and ran over the gear that had fallen with it. The robots at the grove were now in the dark as to what was going on. They were five miles away, though I’m sure they were warned of our approach. I wasn’t sure if there were other robots nearby, but I saw that this was our golden opportunity. I holstered my gun and told Sarah to open the lid.

When the firing began we saw that a group of people had stopped their chores and calmly enter the barn the robot had escaped to. As it had no gun I burst in the door and there she lay, looking up at me with a blank expression. I dispatched her with a bullet through each eye. The yard was quiet.

There were eight humans huddled in a corner nearby. Their goggles were now dead and they were frozen, unresponsive to my command to leave the barn with me. So I changed plans. I rushed to the tank and told Sarah it was safe for her to run across the field, tell the others to join her and fetch the bus right here. Ted would man the turret gun and watch the yard while I searched the houses for more people. I found five, one of them, thankfully, was May and three older children. But they were all frozen in fear and I had to drag each one out by the hand. I’d just finished this when the bus pulled up. I told Sarah to load up these thirteen and head straight back to Eel River and handle them there. Ted and I would make our own way home. We weren’t about to leave our tank behind.

Our mission had gone so surprisingly well I suppose it emboldened us, with so many rescued and no casualties. Ted and I now had the choice to drive our tank back to the rig and simply leave or head to the grove and see what more damage we could do. Our adrenaline was up and we chose the latter. There were women and babies there, along with Dora and the rest of the robots. The tank was our unique asset now but it wouldn’t be if we came back another day. Dora would collect the weapons to destroy it. So we drove down the gravel road into the redwood forest without a plan but discussing all the way things we might do.

“Our friends will all be in the nursery area on the north side of the building” I began. “We have ten shells here and I say we blow the center and south sides to pieces and try to aim a few into their precious basement, where they might just be hiding. It’s too dangerous to get out and save people but at least we can leave this complex shattered beyond repair.”

We did just that. Four shells caused half the building to collapse. We drove to its edge and pointed our barrel as low as it went and fired four more rounds along the floors, exposing the computer arrays and destroying many. But Dora and her other droids were nowhere in sight. The thought struck me that they too might be in the nursery section, knowing that I wouldn’t be blasting babies.

On the other side of the fallen structure I noticed the solar panels, nudged Ted and off he drove, around the back and straight into their rows, back and forth like a farmer tilling his field until everyone was crushed. This made us think of the power supply and we expended one more shell on the separate generator building. It would be lights out forever for this place. But we drove away in silence, with heavy hearts knowing that Beth and June were probably inside.

The whole idea of a power source for the robots had been an afterthought, something we never conceived the night before. But now it seemed critical and Ted mentioned there were two smaller generators at the farmhouses which we could destroy with our guns. So we made the detour almost in the dark, before we loaded up our tank and headed north, happy at our day’s accomplishments. Dora and her killer crew might be able to recharge through car batteries which were everywhere. But her days of ease in a nest with human servants was at an end. She was a vagabond now, scrounging for life on the road.

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Some of my other posted novels:

The Whitening,  a novel about the near future after a pandemic. https://www.publish0x.com/robert-oreilly/the-whitening-xvmqrxl

Wet chip, a short story about AI mind control. https://www.publish0x.com/robert-oreilly/wet-chip-xpzexnd

Pandemica a story about COVID gone wild. https://www.publish0x.com/robert-oreilly/a-story-about-the-pandemic-covid-19-six-months-from-now-xnxgzgd