Saint of War

The soldiers sat together, and the quiet click of a lighter broke the silence. Their low voices and the faint smell of smoke were very different from Delta, who stood at the back, stiff and still. The dim light bounced off of Delta’s white armor, and a strong titanium frame held it up from underneath. Delta didn’t have a head; instead, it had a cylinder neck base with a holographic screen on top. A simple face with triangle-shaped eyes and a steady, cold stare.

EVO’s design team said the screen was a compromise. Early focus groups had found a fully humanoid face ‘uncanny’ and ‘disturbing.’ Yet, a blank surface was deemed ‘soulless’ and ‘threatening.’ The hologram was inhuman enough not to fall into the uncanny but recognizable enough to make working with it more tolerable. It was a calculated decision made by people who had never been to war.

And that was obvious to the humans who had to deal with it.

All seventeen soldiers glared at Delta, their faces ranging from curious to more hostile. Though some seemed to be too exhausted to register any emotion. Delta’s facial recognition software identified all of them, instantly pulling up military records, psych evals, and combat history. It knew their names, their ranks; it even knew that Sergeant Miller had lost his last squad in the Battle of New Kizaki. It knew that Private Kovic had been dishonorably discharged from the handful of units he had been in for ‘excessive force.’

“Look at this oversized microwave,” Sergeant Miller belted. Miller stepped closer to Delta. A stocky man, five-foot-nine, with a stronger build. Delta scanned his face, as weathered and riddled with lines that made thirty-four seem to look forty-four, and his eyes, the color of ice. Miller held a cigarette butt between his two fingers before he flicked it over at Delta’s shin.

The butt bounced off the plated armor and fell to the floor, smoldering. “Two billion credits for a glorified mannequin,” he continued, speaking more to the other soldiers than the machine he faced. He tuned his voice to be more mocking, playing for the audience. “You gonna pull a trigger today, Sparky? Or just stand there looking fancy?”

Delta’s hologram flickered. “My combat protocols are on standby, Sergeant,” it stated factually. Its voice was synthesized, neither masculine nor feminine. Pitched to be calming but authoritative. “I am prepared to engage hostile targets upon proper authorization from command.”

“Protocols,” Private Kovic laughed, standing up and moving next to Sergeant Miller. He was younger than Miller; Delta scanned his records: twenty-two. Explains the rough personality. Kovic possessed the kind of face that would have been handsome if the sights of war hadn’t hollowed him out. “It doesn’t have a brain. Just a series of command lists. If a human says, ‘Jump,’ robot says, ’How high?”

Kovic raised an eyebrow and had a smug smirk on his face. He pushed the machine, though its centrifuge wouldn’t let it fall. To counterbalance, it stumbled and then stood stiff as a board once again.

“Careful, Kovic.” Corporal Chen peeked from the back of the group. He was leaning against the wall, the rest of the seats being taken. Chen had been watching the scene with slight interest; he had seen too much to be surprised by Kovic’s brash behavior. “That thing probably costs more than your life insurance payout.”

“My life insurance got cancelled after Sector 7,” Kovic replied, no worry in his tone. He struck Delta again, harder now. His eyebrows rose at the lack of reaction from the robot. “Besides, the worst it can do is file another ‘Behavioral Issue’ with the higher-ups... I have immunity; family up there. I’m basically stuck here.”

Delta processed the scenario; the abuse was clearly intentional. It had gone through this before in testing to see how Delta responded to an ally-on-ally attack. The actions reflected what one might expect in a high-pressure situation. When established hierarchies were disrupted, the individuals involved attempted to reestablish control.

The soldiers were asserting their position in the social order. Delta, as the newcomer and unknown variable, was a natural target.

A logical response would be to de-escalate and access its conflict resolution protocols. Ones that were programmed by EVO’s ‘empathy AI’ group, the same people who created droids for nursing homes and even robotic therapy animals for trauma patients.

“I understand that my presence may be causing you distress,” Delta consoled. “I want to assure you that I am here to support your mission and reduce casualties among both military personnel and civilian populations. My primary objective is the preservation of the lives here.”

“The preservation of the lives here,” Miller repeated. “You hear that, boys? The microwave is here to save us.” He barked with laughter. Delta had been able to detect Miller’s elevated alcohol content and the micro-tremors in his hands that suggested high caffeine intake. “Let me tell you something, Sparky. Hesitation and second-guessing get people killed. Worrying about the ‘sanctity of life’ while some actual soldier is lining up a shot in your position.”

Miller’s voice had started to rise in volume. His heart rate had increased and pupils dilated. All signs of emotional arousal, that making anger, or fear contenders. Delta’s empathy algorithms had already calculated an appropriate response.

Acknowledge Miller’s feelings and validate his experience in the field.

“I recognize that you have extensive combat experience, Sergeant.” Delta stated. “Your concerns are noted and will be integrated into my tactical assessments.”

“Its gonna note my concerns right up till it gets us killed while calculating the ethical implications of returning fire.”

“Sergeant Miller, Private Kovic,” a new voice commanded from the entrance of the hanger. “That’s enough.”

They turned to see Captain Hsiung; she was a tall, dark-skinned woman. “Captain... I was just- getting acquainted with the new squad member...” Miller straightened slightly, obviously intimidated.

“I can see that.” Walking between the two men, Miller and Kovic, she headed for Delta. “Unit Delta-04, I am Captain Hsiung, commanding officer of this operating base. You’ll be attached to Sergeant Miller’s squad for the foreseeable future.”

Delta’s processors cycled through its response protocols. “Yes, Captain Hsiung. I am ready to begin my first mission.”

“Good, I am pleased with your answers so far, Delta. Keep it that way.” Hsiung turned to Miller. “This unit is expensive, Sergeant. Command wants it field-tested under real combat conditions. Your squad has a patrol scheduled for 1400. Delta will accompany you; treat it like a soldier. Not equipment. Document everything; the command wants detailed reports.”“Understood, Captain.” Miller winced.

Hsiung nodded and left the two men without another word. The moment she was gone, the tension in the hangar lifted. The soldiers relaxed slightly, their postures loosening. Miller turned back to Delta. “You know, Sparky, you’re not so far from us. You’re expendable; everyone and everything dies.” He smiled a not-so-nice smile. “Welcome to War.”

The thing about that robot is that it was clean; that’s what Miller couldn’t seem to get past. Everything else in this godforsaken desert was covered in dust, grime, and blood, or some sickening combination of the three. Even the air felt dirty, thick with sand, smoke, and all things war. And yet that robot always looked pristine. Every outing it was cleaned, prepped, fixed, and updated. Repainted. Gleaming like it had just rolled off the showroom floor.

Miller hated it on sight.

He’d been fighting this war for eleven years, eleven years of watching his close friends die, pulling triggers, and trying not to think about what’s on the other end of his barrel. Waking up at 3AM drenched in sweat because his subconscious couldn’t tell what was a dream. Eleven years. He’d survived by learning to trust his instincts; don’t trust anything that claims to make war easier.

And that robot claimed to make war easier; not only that, Miller’s instincts screamed when he saw it.

That made that claim, that promise, a lie. A dirty lie.

Miller read the brief; he sat through that presentation from the EVO red, a smooth-faced corporate boy who’d never been a thousand miles from actual combat. The rep had used all kinds of words like ‘revolutionary’ and ‘gamechanging.’ He’d shown videos of the machine taking out targets with medical precision while managing to avoid civilian casualties.

It was bullshit.

Miller knew what it was like to fight for real. When the Bravo-02 units turned a school bus into a pile of scrap metal in New Kizaki. He had seen it for himself: the drones flying over the wreckage, their sensors figuring out what they had done. Their half-baked algorithms can’t tell the difference between a troop transport and a bus full of kids. After that, there were riots and cities burned because people finally understood what it meant to let machines make life-and-death choices. But Command wanted to try again. Same dumb idea, different machine.

The worst part was that Miller understood why. He understood in the exhaustion that had settled in his marrow like radiation. Suicide rates were climbing; the human soldiers were breaking, with PTSD rates as high as 85%. Just last month a Private on Sector-12 had put his sidearm in his mouth. No warning. No note. Just a sudden decision that living was harder than dying.

Of course, Miller had to be the one that found him. Write the report; had to explain to Command that there was no sign of enemy contact, no equipment failure. A twenty-one-year-old kid who just claimed his own life.

So they built a robot and programmed it to be a saint.

Miller watched the robot standing in the center of the hanger, motionless, and in that moment he felt his gut twist. It wasn’t anger, wasn’t fear. It was something that left the taste of bile in his mouth. Shame.

Shame that he knew that that robot, that machine, was better than him, but that was the point. It was faster, stronger, and more accurate. It didn’t get tired or scared; it didn’t even understand what it was doing. It didn’t have to live with it.

“Sergeant,” Kovic said, pulling Miller out of his thoughts. “You want us to prep the robot for the field?”

Miller turned to Kovic, and the kid had a strange look in his eyes. Something crazy about it. Made Miller think of when a hound dog caught a raccoon. Kovic had been on the team for about six months. He was moved in after his last unit had enough complaints against him to get him kicked out. The official record said it was because of “personality conflicts.” Kovic got away with a lot because his family was in charge. The real reason was that Kovic had almost beaten an insurgent to death during an interrogation, and his squadmates were so disturbed that they said something.

Miller knew he should have refused the transfer and should have told Command that he didn’t want a psycho on his unit, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. War had made everyone somewhat psycho, and they knew that’d be their excuse for it.

“Yeah,” Miller replied, shaking the haze from his head. “And Kovic? Try not to break it before we even get to test it.”

Kovic grinned, disturbing Miller, rightfully. “No promises, Sarge.”

Miller turned away and walked to the edge of the hangar, where he could see the vast desert. As the sun rose to the peak of the sky, the sand became a soldier’s hotplate. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag, feeling the menthol burn its way down. The doctors told him to stop, but they said a lot of things. Stop drinking. Sleep more. Talk to the therapist. Take the drugs. Everything that was supposed to help him deal with the fact that he has killed more people than he can count and how things are going, he would probably kill more before this wretched war was over.

And now he was babysitting this machine.

Behind him Miller could hear the other soldier’s commotion as they pushed it around, testing how far they could take it before it’d push back. The robot’s voice muttered over the wind and laughter, calm and measured, explaining the protocols it’s already said more than once.

Miller knew that in a couple hours, he’d have to take it out on the field. In the middle of war, real war for the first time, too, you really see it do what it was designed to do. He had a sinking feeling it’d do its job painfully well.