VICTIM OF TIME AND SPACE: ONE SOUL AGAINST FIVE ARMIES

In 1959, Shiro Ishii was already a respected biological scientist, as were many other surviving coworkers. Every year, veterans of Unit 731 gathered together and reminisced about World War II, already convinced of the unusual usefulness of their research - new methods of treating previously fatal diseases were now being built on the unit's findings, and the experiments they conducted went down in medical history, allowing them to prove many important scientific theories. - Hey, Ishii, how about helping the Allies again? Just like back in the '40s? - Kitano asked, turning to his former boss. - I don't know what you mean. How to do it? Kitano walked over to the world map hanging on the wall and poked at Vietnam. - Right here. Now the Americans are our friends, we can help them if we push an old unrealized project. We've got everything we need to get the Americans interested. They're stuck in Vietnam, their war is going badly. We can get a lot of grants for our research if we get something out of our old life. - And what do you suggest we get? - One corpse. Radio-controlled. Shiro Ishii immediately understood what he was talking about. Although it had been 14 years, he remembered the experiment and the operation well, and quickly agreed to Kitano's proposal. Along with the rest of the veterans, they soon contacted the American commanders, who were just as interested and asked to bring the facility to a military base in the city of Sasebo. Soon the Japanese arrived at a remote cemetery in Tokyo, with the help of modern radio equipment identified the source of the signal and found the very grave, excavating which found the preserved steel box. The body was taken to Sasebo. It turned out that over the years he had not even decomposed, although he had stiffened quite a bit. Under the cover of night, Shiro Ishii handed the body to the American servicemen, and they in turn loaded it on a tanker and the next voyage to Los Angeles, putting it at the disposal of the research center of Army No. 6, specializing in high-tech military special projects of a particularly expensive nature. The American scientists studied the body for several months, coming to the conclusion that the implant that Ishii had built into the body prevented decomposition, and the girl's radio controllability was still preserved. By coincidence, at that time the center completed testing of a new radio technology that greatly simplified the process of radio control of any object, which in the future allowed to actively develop the rocket industry and create highly advanced versions of such weapons of the Third Reich. In September 1959, everything was ready. At a military plant in the California desert assembled a unique piece of military equipment, a humanoid robot. It could fly using chemical engines modeled after space rocket engines, and was controlled by one permanent pilot who was literally implanted into the mechanism by connecting his physical body to the robot's servos and hydraulics. Revitalized by a 48-hour session of radio conversations, the girl Luna was fitted with a prosthetic arm and placed in the pilot's seat, undergoing a lengthy operation to implant wiring into her brain and body. Finally, everything was ready. The tall impact robot, dubbed Eagle Strike 0-1, was composed and prepared. An entire communications platoon was assigned to control the actions of the radio-controlled girl, practiced all the necessary commands on the range, and in 1961 everything was finally ready to be sent to the front. The prospects for the Vietnam War became even more bleak than two years earlier, so President Kennedy did not immediately authorize the use of the new weapon. The Japanese scientists who turned the body over to the U.S. received a large monetary reward, including the family of Shiro Ishii, who by this time had died of throat cancer. Eagle Strike was shipped by the same tanker to Vietnam, arriving in Saigon by April. The South Vietnamese army was preparing a major offensive to the north, and the use of a humanoid combat robot would be a good fit. Robot came under the command of an American general, part-time military advisor Paul Harkins. Together with the Vietnamese generals, he planned an escalation of the conflict and a rapid breakthrough northward with the robot and the siege of Saigon, planning to end the war in the next few months. The escalation began. *** South Vietnamese and American soldiers crossed the border and began shelling North Vietnamese forward positions and settlements. The Southerners went in bayonet attacks, taking advantage of the surprise effect and crushing the Vietcong's forward defense lines. Infantry chains filled the space, knocking out trenches with a powerful onslaught and forcing the enemy to retreat or engage in close combat. American air strikes and ship fire began, and sabotage groups infiltrated behind the front lines, heading for district centers and ammunition depots. The combat robot was left in hiding for the time being to have trump cards up his sleeve in case something went wrong. And indeed, in a few days the Viet Cong regrouped and began to rapidly shift the front line back, Soviet T-34s and aviation came into play, Soviet planes hit clusters of southerners every few minutes, forcing them to leave their positions and hide in the jungle. Many units had already been destroyed, and the activities of American saboteurs were soon exposed and alerted. When the Communists broke through the border and began their offensive into South Vietnamese territory, and trump needed to pull out urgently, they did. "Eagle Strike” was sent to the front, free of commands and given free rein. Luna had already adapted to controlling it, and it was easy enough, her physical movements were transmitted to the mechanism through numerous subcutaneous wires, and the prosthesis was controlled by muscle contractions in the rest of her arm. She was thrown onto a wide country road, to stop a Viet Cong tank division advancing in column. From the first minutes, she had engaged large-caliber machine guns and rocket launchers, scaring the Vietnamese away with the mere sight of her mecha. The tanks scattered into the area and the Vietnamese retreated inland, taking the radio-controlled girl out into the fields where she continued to fire on the vehicles. She enjoyed watching the exploding ammunition from the T-34s through the external cameras, and she didn't hesitate to go into a remote part of the settlement, trampling crops and shacks with her huge steel legs. When she heard a rumble in the air, she looked up and spotted a Soviet MiG-17 fighter, which fired several missiles at her and immediately went into overlap. The armor-piercing missiles exploded and punctured the mecha's "brain", creating gaping holes in the middle of the robot's head. Many wires broke, it became very difficult to control the weapon, and Luna tried to retreat, but the torn electronics could not cope with the sharp movement and the robot fell on its back. Because of this impact, the girl "fell off" from the control system, the wiring was roughly ripped out from under her skin, and the wobbly wires whipped her on contact and electrocuted her. All control was left on the three intravenous wires held half severed on her arm, and at their expense the girl was able to make a rocket salvo into the air, but no targets on the course of the rockets. There was another explosion, it was Vietnamese tankers firing at the mecha. Armored vehicles and soldiers gradually surrounded the strange machine, and two peasants with AKMs climbed into the cabin, already preparing to kill the girl, but suddenly there were shouts of their comrades outside and shooting, and both climbed out to look up. At the same second a machine gun line flew into them, killing both of them. A little later Luna could see the T-34 turret flying off, then she heard rocket salvos from American fighters, and finally an American soldier and some high-ranking officer climbed into the cockpit. - All right, Private, she's alive, get outta here. Our orders are only to protect the machine, that's all we have to do. With that, the soldier hurriedly left the cockpit. The officer looked at the fancy electronics, tattered wires, and heavy wounds of Luna for a moment longer, and jumped out as well, hearing the sounds of approaching helicopters. Military engineers then descended into the mecha and dismantled the surviving complex electronics and carried them out with them, greatly reducing the robot's weight. In this state, it was picked up by several CH-37 Mojave transport helicopters, which lifted the mecha and headed off in a direction unknown to the radio-controlled girl. She would have liked to know where she was being transported, but her consciousness grew weaker and weaker, and then went out altogether after the radio transmitters connected to her brain shut down. The mecha was dropped on a remote piece of land, in the snows of Antarctica, where it was soon swallowed by snow. The Eagle Strike project was shut down and classified, and U.S. combat robots remained part of the folklore of Vietnamese guerrillas who told of their encounter with the unknown humanoid machine and its destruction by Russian pilot Ly Si Tsin.