AUTHOR/S: David Weber & Linda Evans



TITLE: Bolos III: The Triumphant




    ( A Short Story Collection ).

    Series Created by Keith Laumer.

    (John Keith Laumer) (1925 - 1993)



    Bolo Books In Series: 
 
    Bolo: Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade (1976). 

    Rogue Bolo (1986). 

    The Compleat Bolo (1990). 

    1. Honor of the Regiment (1993). 

    2. The Unconquerable (1994) (with Bill Fawcett). 

    3. The Triumphant (1995). 

    Bolo Brigade (1997) (with William H Keith). 

    4. Last Stand (1997). 

    Bolo Rising (1998) (with William H Keith). 

    5. Old Guard: A Bolos Anthology (2000) (with Bill Fawcett). 

    Bolo Strike (2001) (with William H Keith). 

    6. Cold Steel (2002). 

 
    David Weber - Bolo! (Keith Laumer's Bolo Series,Baen-2005).


    John Ringo - Road to Damascus (Keith Laumer's Bolo Series,Baen-2005).


    David Weber's Old Soldiers (Keith Laumer's Bolo Series,Baen-2005).




  ---



    Edited by Bill Fawcett

    Copyright (c) 1995 by Bill Fawcett and Associates

    This is a work  of fiction. 

    All rights reserved

    A Baen Books Original

    Baen Publishing Enterprises

    P.O. Box 1403

    Riverdale, NY 10471

    ISBN: 0-671-72184-4

    Cover art by Paul Alexander

    First printing, September 1995

    Distributed by Simon & Schuster

    1230 Avenue of the Americas

    New York, NY 10020

    Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

    Printed in the United States of America




----



    The Farmer's Wife



    by Linda Evans



    - 1-

    Tillie Matson stepped aboard Star Cross wearing an idiotic grin,  a
sheen  of   sweat,   and-affixed  to   her   comfortable   jumpsuit-an
official-looking badge that read "PHASE II TRANSPORT DIRECTOR."

    She didn't  feel much  like a  transport director  with  temporary
responsibility for three hundred fifty-seven men, women, and children,
not to mention a cargo hold full of live animals and viable  botanical
specimens in  sealed  containers. She  felt  like a  giddy  schoolgirl
released for the biggest field trip any kid ever took. And  underlying
the excitement: What  if something goes  wrong? Something always  goes
wrong on a project this big, not just little stuff like Tommie Watkins
getting his nose bloodied by Sarah Pilford, but really big stuff,  and
I'm the one on the hotseat. . . .

    Tillie wasn't trained in Project Administration. She just happened
to be good at organizing things, had a knack for solving problems  and
soothing tempers, and-coincidentally-was married to the Phase I Colony
Director. She also held Phase II's only veterinary sciences degree.

    So Tillie Matson had, by popular acclaim and logical choice,  been
chosen to lead  this misfit band  of farmers, educators,  agricultural
production  specialists,  wide-eyed   kids,  irritable  nanny   goats,
sweating horses, balking cattle, and screaming chickens ontoStar Cross
for a two-week Hyper-L voyage.

    She wished someone else had been elected mayor.

    But she wasn't about to reveal  how genuinely scared she was.  So,
with her idiotic  grin, her  sheen of  nervous sweat,  and her  badge,
Tillie stepped  onto  the  transport's deckplates.  A  freckled  young
crewman in a crisp uniform grinned when he saw her. Tillie greeted him
with her widest smile and firmest handshake.

    "I'm Tillie Matson, thank you for meeting us like this."

    "Kelly McTavish, ma'am, and welcome aboard theStar Cross. I'm  the
Passenger Steward."  His smile  was bright  and genuine,  same as  his
carroty hair. "If  you have  that passenger list,  ma'am, I'll  double
check it against mine  and we'll be set  to board your people.  Booker
Howard, down in Cargo One, is ready to onload bio-specimens."

    Tillie hid a smile, wondering  if Booker Howard's experience  with
"bio-specimens" was up  to irascible goat  temperaments. Even  crated,
they could be a handful. She handed over the micro-crystal wafer  with
their personnel roster. Kelly McTavish scanned it, ran a compare, then
nodded. "Very  good,  ma'am. And  your  transfer authorities  for  the
bio-specimens are here, too.  It's all in  order. Welcome aboard,  Dr.
Matson. If I might suggest it .  . . Allow me to handle onloading  the
passengers. You'd maybe better help Book with the animals?"

    Tillie didn't bother  to hide  this smile.  "I think  so, yes.  My
brood mares are pretty  broody just now, even  with the tranks I  gave
them. They don't  like to  travel. Particularly not  while they're  in
foal. I'd hate for them to injure themselves trying to get out of  the
crates. And the goats are even worse."

    "That," Kelly McTavish gave her a broad grin and a wink, "is why I
stick to handling people. All my passengers generally do is scream  at
me."

    She  laughed  and  used  her  com-link  to  let  Itami  Kobe,  her
second-in-command, know the  drill; then  made her way  to Cargo  One.
They hadn't left space  port yet, but she  felt better already.  Soon,
she promised her lonely heart, soon you'll be back with Carl again and
everything will be perfect.

    Hal Abrams wasn't one to run from a fight.

    Shucks, he'd  been  a  combat engineer  in  Space  Arm and  earned
himself a  few ribbon  hangers,  while he  was at  it before  tackling
another whole career in ag mechanics.  In some ways, he could  stomach
up-close-and-dirty combat almost easier than he could stomach  hearing
a pig scream when you butchered it. (At least when you stared a man in
the eyes, knowing he would  try to do you as  fast as you'd try to  do
him, you knew the son would understand why he was dying.)

    He'd been a good soldier, but  Hal had never regretted signing  on
for the  agricultural  expedition  to  Matson's  World.  He'd  finally
stopped having dreams about skies black  as the inside of Hell,  thick
with smoke and tons of earth blown skyward when the big Hellbores  cut
loose with a blaze like Satan's own  breath. . . . Besides, it  wasfun
tinkering with agricultural  equipment, getting  it to  do things  its
designers had never imagined it would do.

    So when  Carl Matson  first  brought in  the SWIFT  dispatch  from
Sector, giving evacuation orders, Hal's  gut response was, "Hell,  no,
Carl. This is our home. We put our sweat and souls into this dirt.  If
it ain't worth  fightin' for,  what the hell  are we  doin' out  here,
killin' ourselves to turn jungle into farmland?"

    "You know I trust your judgment," Carl told him quietly.

    Hal had never seen a look quite like that in the colony director's
eyes. Wordlessly,  Carl  handed over  the  rest of  the  message.  Hal
scanned it; then read more slowly.

    "Mama Bear . . ."

    An unknown alien species had broken into Concordiat space.

    "Sector Intel thinks these  things may be  running from attack  by
the Jyncji."

    Hal glanced up sharply. "The Jyncji? Aren't those the spiny little
bastards that use bacteriological warfare?"

    Carl nodded.  "Yeah.  They  xeno-form whatever  they  run  across.
Sector  thinks  the   Jyncji  have   attacked  worlds   held  by   the
Xykdap-whatever the hell they look like. Nobody knows yet. But  Sector
figures the Xykdap are  looking for new homes,  new supply bases,  new
sources of raw minerals . . ."

    That would certainly  explain the strength  of the invasion  force
headed their way. Space Arm Intelligence estimated it mustered out  at
full battle-fleet strength. That  would mean potentially thousands  of
heavy fighting machines,  tens of  thousands of  infantry, plus  fully
mechanized scouts  that had  been encountered  with fatal  results  in
three places already.

    Enemy'd come through Matson's like crap through a force-fed goose,
no mistake about it.

    Hal glanced up. The  look in Carl's eyes  scared him. Hal met  the
director's gaze steadily, allowing  the younger man  to see the  worry
inhis eyes; then  spat to one  side. For long  moments Hal just  stood
there, swallowing fire  he had no  choice but to  swallow. Finally  he
said it. "We cain't fight that, Carl."

    "Didn't figure we could. Not even with Digger."

    Hal spat again. "Nope. Not even in his prime, which he ain't  seen
for a couple a centuries.  Oh, he's still got  a tactical nuke or  two
and his small-weapons systems are operational, although God knows when
they were tested last. I got a certificate somewhere says when. Been a
while. Digger'sold , Carl. Government  surplus still made me fill  out
forms like you wouldn't . . ."

    He shook his head. It didn't matter that he'd managed to obtain an
ancient, decaying Bolo  out of  surplus only  because he  was still  a
Reserve Marine  officer and  nominally the  head of  Matson's  defense
forces. Matson's was  entitled to  some form of  military support  and
centuries-old Bolos  were cheap-and  could be  reprogrammed to  handle
genetic engineering computations a  helluva lot cheaper than  plunking
down the cash for specialized  gengineering equipment usually sold  to
ag colonists.

    So they had Digger and Digger  had done every job they'd  assigned
him. But one Bolo  Mark XX Model  M-essentially a Mark  XX brain in  a
Mark XIV chassis,  minus the Hellbore-extensively  modified to  handle
genetic  cultivar  computations  and   field  trials,  plus   plowing,
harvesting, and heavy construction, just wasn't any kind of match  for
a whole enemy fleet. Hal spat one last time.

    "He might buy us time,  but we'd still end  up dead. Or worse.  We
gotta skedaddle, Carl, and  gitnow . Sector send  word to Phase II  to
hold up transhipping?"

    The look in Carl's eyes worsened. "They said Phase II had  already
left. But they'll use SWIFT to make contact with theStar Cross .  They
should be able to drop out of FTL and turn around in time."

    Hal nodded. "That's good. This ain't  gonna be no place for  women
and kids and nanny goats."

    Carl set his jaw  muscles. Hal immediately  wished he hadn't  said
that. More than just  Carl's wife was aboard  that Phase II ship.  The
future of everything and  everyone they loved  was on that  transport.
And all of it  was headed right  into the teeth  of an alien  invasion
fleet. If anything went wrong . . .

    "Well," Hal  muttered, "I'd  better get  busy shutting  everything
down."

    "Yes. That FTL transport Sector  mentioned will be here  tomorrow.
It's carrying refugees from Scarsdale, too, so there won't be room  to
take much out."

    Hal glanced sharply at his director. "Not even Digger?"

    Carl glanced away. "I'm  sorry. We'll . .  . You saw the  message.
Sector said to fry  his Action/Command center. We  can't let him  fall
into enemy hands."

    "Yeah, but that was an 'if you can't remove the unit' order, not a
hard-and-fast gotta do it order." He shut his lips. He knew as well as
Carl that Sector had really meant,  "Kill your Bolo, Hal." He  cleared
his throat. "Well, damn . . . First they farm him out as surplus junk,
now they want me to go and . . ."

    "I know."

    Hal shrugged, trying  to shunt attention  away from his  emotional
outburst. Complaining about it wouldn't do any good, anyway. "You  got
other business. Just  leave the equipment  to me. I'll  wreck what  we
can't take."

    Carl nodded and left.

    Hal watched him go. Then: Kill Digger?

    Not if he had anything to say  about it. Maybe Digger had to  die;
Hal hadn't forgottenthat much about soldiering. But there was ways  of
carrying out an order,  and then there wasways  . By golly, the  least
they could do was  let him die honorably  in combat-and since Mark  XX
Model M  "Moseby" units  had been  designed for  slash-and-dash  raids
behind enemy  lines, maybe  Digger would  give these  invaders a  rude
surprise or two before they killed him. That's what Digger'd want, for
sure. Hal waited until the Bolo returned from the fields that evening.
Everything else was set.  He'd wrecked what  they hadn't crated;  then
he'd rigged explosive charges throughout the compound, setting  things
so the whole  installation would go  the minute any  life form  larger
than a housecat was detected  inside the main buildings. The  bastards
might occupy Matson's World, but they'd pay dear for it or Hal  Abrams
wasn't a Marine Engineer.

    The last  thing he  told  faithful old  Digger, so  antiquated  he
qualified for admission  to the  War Relics  and Monuments  Commission
roster, was: "Digger, I want you to check out that new orchard in  the
back forty tonight. Stay out there for a couple of days, work on those
cultivars we been gussying  up. I'm leavin' it  up to you, Digger,  to
take care of things. You just keep right on with your mission, Digger,
same as I programmed you. Battle Reflex Alert inside colony perimeter.
Understand?"

    "Understood, Commander. I will  continue the work  for which I  am
programmed. I  will  develop new  cultivars,  plant and  harvest  test
acreages, and protect the colony's crops and physical plant until such
time as I am relieved from Battle Reflex Alert."

    "That's good, Digger," Hal said,  wishing he didn't feel quite  so
choked up. He wanted to say goodbye, but didn't have the heart to tell
the faithful old machine he wouldn't be coming back. Better to let him
die not realizing he'd been betrayed and abandoned by friends.  "You'd
best be getting on out to that orchard, Digger."

    "Understood, Commander."

    The hulking machine backed neatly on its ancient treads. It turned
in the moonlight and trundled obediently across the fields, taking the
access road  it had  built the  previous year.  Backhoes,  plowshares,
bulldozer  blades,  manipulator  arms,  reaper  extensions,   sampling
baskets, and harvesting  prunes festooned  its moonlit  hull, all  but
obscuring the ominous snouts of infinite repeaters which hadn't cycled
in two hundred years.

    Hal sighed.

    That was about to change.

    He just hoped Digger put up a good fight.



    - 2-

    Drone Xykdap 221-K5C encounters Enemy emissions on Hyper-L  vector
incoming.  Engage  stealth  mode.  Wait.  Wait.  Attack.  Navigational
systems destroyed. Propulsion  system damaged. Communications  beacons
damaged. No  return  fire. Target  drops  to sub-light.  Match  speed.
Strike. Renew  attack.  Propulsion  system  destroyed.  Communications
beacons destroyed. Break attack. Aims achieved. No damage sustained to
Drone Xykdap 221-K5C.  File salvage coordinates  and vector.  Continue
mission: protect incoming fleet. Silence all units capable of sounding
warning.



    - 3-

    Tillie Matson scrambled through the makeshift nursery on hands and
knees, struggling  to  thrust  screaming  children  into  life  suits.
Another explosion  rocked theStar  Cross .  Lights dimmed,  flickered,
went out. Oh, God, no . . . Strident sirens sounded through the  whole
ship. Then the  hullshuddered like  a mare trying  to dislodge  biting
flies. Even Tillie screamed.

    They dropped  out of  hyper-light with  a disorienting  jolt.  The
children's screams  turned  to  terrified whimpers  in  the  darkness.
"M-mamma-"

    Another explosion  somewhere  aft  brought  new  cries.  Emergency
lights came up, flickered, dimmed, came up again.

    "Into your suits!" Tillie shouted at the older kids.

    A few of them snapped out of terror long enough to comprehend  her
order. They knew  the drill. Under  the goad of  an adult voice,  they
scrambled to  obey.  Tillie's hands  shook  as she  thrust  whimpering
toddlers into life suits and sealed the latches. Saros Mysia, his face
a terrible shade of green in the emergency lighting, stumbled  through
the open hatchway and helped her finish the little ones.

    "Into the corner!"  the colony's  education administrator  ordered
suited children. Kids scrambled to obey.

    "Into a suit, Tillie," he added sharply.

    "You're not suited, either. Zip up, stat."

    They both struggled into life  suits, fully expecting the hull  to
blow at any  second. But no  more terrifying, inexplicable  explosions
rocked their transport. The sirens continued to hoot, but whatever had
happened, it was over. Or so Tillie thought.

    The good news arrived in the person of Kelly McTavish. The  ship's
Passenger Steward,  suited against  hull breach,  poked his  faceplate
into the nursery and looked directly at Tillie.

    "We're spaceworthy."

    In two words,  he relieved  their greatest  terror. Tillie  sagged
inside her life suit, trembling. "What happened?"Good God, is that  my
voice?

    "We were  attacked.  Don't know  by  what or  why;  but it  was  a
deliberate attack."

    "Attack?" Tillie echoed. "My God, we're not at war withanyone ."

    "Weren't at war with anyone," Kelly corrected harshly. "We sure as
hell are now." He glanced at  the wide-eyed children behind her.  "Uh,
sorry. I  really shouldn't  have said  that." He  cleared his  throat.
Through the faceplate, Tillie read stark terror in his eyes.

    Tillie made  a  fast decision.  "Saros,  stay with  the  children,
please. I need to find out what our status is."

    Once in the  corridor, away from  the nursery, she  asked, "Is  it
safe to take this helmet off, Mr. McTavish?"

    He nodded, solemnly unbuckling his own. "Yeah. We're  spaceworthy.
No hull breach in this sector, anyway."

    Tillie swallowed hard. "Then there was a hull breach?"

    He glanced at the nearby bulkhead. "Yeah."

    "How bad is it?"

    Kelly McTavish  wouldn't meet  her eyes.  "Bad, ma'am.  I'll,  uh,
update you  soon. Real  soon,  I promise.  You'd  better see  to  your
people, ma'am. Find out how many  casualties you have. Get someone  to
check the livestock. I'm afraid all ship's personnel are going to  be,
uh, real busy for a few hours."

    He started to leave.

    "Mr. McTavish . . ."

    He halted; turned reluctantly to face her.

    "Just how many crewmen were killed?"

    He lost another shade of  color, which she wouldn't have  believed
possible. Carrot-red  hair and  freckles stood  out from  the  pallor,
reminding Tillie  of the  scared children  back in  the nursery.  Very
slowly, and with a  sinking sensation in her  middle, she realized  he
really wasn't much  more than a  kid. Twenty, maybe.  Not much  older.
Just whatwas the chain of command on a passenger/cargo freighter?

    "I'll update you soon as I can, ma'am. I just wanted to make  sure
you understood you're in no  immediate danger. Hang tight, long's  you
can. I'll be back. Or someone will. I promise."

    With that, he left her standing  in the corridor with nothing  but
fear in her mouth and tremors in all her muscles.

    The bad news arrived in the  guise of a crewman Tillie hadn't  met
yet. She was hip-deep in crises of her own, trying to calm  hysterical
colonists with the little she knew of their situation.

    "-butwho attacked-"

    "-orwhat -"

    "-how long will repairs take-"

    "-my baby's due in three weeks! -"

    "-our children are having hysterics-"

    "Please, people," Tillie  lifted her hands,  trying to shout  over
the babble of  frightened voices. "You've  already heard everything  I
know. There was a hull breach somewhere, but I don't know how  serious
it was. Everyone felt us drop out  of FTL into normal space. The  crew
has asked us to verify our status-"

    "Why the hell don't they verifytheirs !"

    "We paid 'em enough for this passage!"

    Tillie shouted to  be heard. "The  sooner we know  howwe are,  the
sooner the crew  can help us  get through this  crisis. Itami,  Saros,
please   take    charge    of   the    roster.    Verify    everyone's
situation-injuries, losses, whatever. We'll worry about the  livestock
later. Right now we sort out ourselves . . ."

    They were still working on the casualties list when several people
stared past her shoulder. Tillie turned and found a lean crewman  with
a torn, stained uniform  and haunted, dark eyes  standing in the  open
bulkhead doorway, watching them.

    Pandemonium erupted.

    "-what's-"

    "-how soon-"

    "-youmust -"

    Thin lips went thinner just before the explosion: "QUIET!"

    Whoever he was, he  had Command Voice down  to a science.  Shocked
colonists shut  up.  A  few-unaccustomed to  paid  underlings  barking
orders-gulped like fish  drowning in a  sea of oxygen.  His dark  gaze
flicked to her. "Dr. Matson?"

    "Yes?"

    "Would you join me, please. We have a lot to discuss."

    The order-phrased as a polite  request to preserve an illusion  of
normalcy-was nevertheless clearly an order. Tillie knew in that moment
they were in more serious trouble than even she had thought.

    "Itami, Saros,"  she said  quietly,  "have the  casualties  roster
updated by the time I get back."

    Then she followed  him into  a part of  the ship  she hadn't  seen
before. Every step  of the  way, Tillie  sweat into  her jumpsuit  and
tried to convince her jangled insides that she reallydid want to  hear
whatever awful things this man was  about to reveal. The badge on  her
jumpsuit, glinting in the subdued emergency-level light, weighed  more
heavily  with  each  and  every  step  toward  doom.  He  ushered  her
wordlessly into what might have been a wardroom. Two crewmen she  knew
were already there: Kelly McTavish and Booker Howard.

    Both remained pale and silent.

    "Please, have a seat, Dr. Matson."

    She sank into the nearest chair.

    "I believe you have already met Kelly McTavish and Booker Howard?"

    "Yes." Her hands wouldn't  quite hold still.  She moved them  into
her lap.

    "My name is Lewis  Liffey. Ship's Supply Steward.  It's my job  to
manageStar Cross ' provisions. Foodstuffs." He held her gaze steadily.
"Regretfully, I am also in the direct chain of command for captaincy."

    An ominous chill touched Tillie's cheeks.

    He glanced at McTavish.  "Yes, Kelly, I see  you were right.  Very
well. Yes, Dr. Matson, itis that bad. Probably worse. I'm afraid we're
in very, very serious trouble."

    He paused as though  looking at another,  far more terrible  image
than the wreck of Tillie's  composure. "Whatever attacked us blew  our
Command Module  to  vacuum.  Captain Redditch  and  Darren  Boyd,  our
Navigator, died instantly.  Jay Adler, our  Engineer, was killed  when
they blew our propulsion system. All outgoing communications are dead.
So are the  propulsion systems  and all  navigational capability.  The
three of us are the only crew left alive."

    Tillie shut her  eyes and held  onto the edge  of the table.  He's
right, it's worse . . .

    "We may  be able  to  repair part  of navigation  and  propulsion.
Maybe. We certainly will not be able to bring theCross up to  anything
like standard operating  specs. None ofus  is an engineer.  Or even  a
tekkie."

    Tillie opened her eyes at that faint stress. He was asking her  to
produce a miracle. "I'm sorry," she said hoarsely. "All our  engineers
went out in Phase One. Our techs, too. We're just the  crop-production
specialists."

    Watching the flicker of  hope in his eyes  die into blank  despair
was worse than hearing the grim news in the first place. "I see."  His
voice was very, very quiet.

    "Bottom line?" Tillie managed.

    For the first time, his  gaze dropped reluctantly away from  hers.
He fiddled with a stylus. "We were scheduled for a two-week voyage  to
Matson's. TheCross sustained a lot of computer damage when the Command
Module blew. Among other things. Bottom line . . ." He finally met her
gaze again. "If we can't repair outgoing communications-which  doesn't
look likely-we won't be able to call  for help. We're a long way  from
anywhere out  here. If  we  can restore  some  of our  navigation  and
propulsion  systems,  at  least  enough  to  allow  for  minor  course
corrections over time .  . . It's possible  we could get to  Matson's.
Maybe. That's the  course Darren Boyd  laid in  and so far  as we  can
tell, it's still running on autocommand. But we can't reprogram it for
a new  course-that part  of the  nav system's  been blown  apart.  And
anyway, none of us knows enough about navigation to try  reprogramming
for a closer port of call. It's stay on autocommand with minor  course
corrections over time, or nothing."

    There didn't seem to  be much point in  demanding to know why  the
company hadn't built  in failsafes  and crew redundancies  for such  a
contingency. They hadn't, so wishing they had was just plain  useless.
And it wasn't the fault of the surviving crew, anyway.

    Lewis Liffey cleared his throat. "That, uh, isn't the worst of it,
Dr. Matson."

    Tillie braced herself.

    "At current velocity, with repairs to our propulsion systems so we
can handle the course corrections we'll need, we could reach Matson's.
In about twenty years."

    "Twenty years? My God-"

    "If we can't effect any repairs," he cut her off, "we're dead."

    She understood  that all  too clearly.  If they  couldn't  correct
course, they'd keep following their current vector and miss the  point
in space where Matson's  would have been at  the end of two  weeks-but
not where it would  be at the  end of twenty  years. Maybe someday  an
alien race would find their bones inside theStar Cross ' empty  shell.
. . .

    The shape of  Lewis Liffey's  face wavered in  her awareness.  The
whole  room  wavered.  His  voice  brought  everything  back  with   a
disorientingclick .

    "Dr. Matson, we  need to  make some very  critical decisions  and,
frankly, I'm going to need your help."

    Tillie blinked, trying to cope with shock on shock. "Yes?"

    "You brought three hundred fifty-seven  people aboard, as well  as
live cargo, planning to settle a  new colony. Unless we rig some  kind
of miracle  repair, I  would suggest  you consider  theCross your  new
colony.  You're  agriculturalists.  If   we're  going  to  survive   a
twenty-year voyage on a ship provisioned for two weeks, plus emergency
stores, we'll need every  ounce of creativity you've  got. We have  to
grow our own  food, recycle  nutrients, purify water  when parts  we'd
normally swap out start to break down . . ."

    "Yes," Tillie  managed. "I  see what  you mean.  You really  don't
think there's  hope, then,  of repairing  anything .  . ."  Her  voice
wobbled traitorously.  "Anything, I  mean, that  would get  us out  of
this?"

    He sat back, looking suddenly  drawn and exhausted. "No. I  really
don't. Believe me,  Dr. Matson, I'd  give just about  anything to  say
otherwise."

    She believed  him. Most  profoundly believed  him. Because  Tillie
Matson would  have  given her  immortal  soul to  tell  her  colonists
something-anything-but the granite truth.

    To her credit, she didn't cry until much, much later.

    When she was completely and utterly alone.

    The  orchard  thrives.  This  pleases  me.  I  am  programmed   to
experience a sense of  well-being for a job  well performed. But I  do
not understand why my Commander has  placed me on Battle Reflex  Alert
inside the colony perimeter. I perceive  no trace of an Enemy  against
which I should prepare myself. The orchard is pest free. Scanning from
a distance, I determine that the cornfield and vegetable plots between
my current position and maintenance depot  are also pest free. I  have
done my  job  well. My  gengineered  microbes, nematodes,  and  insect
species are performing their tasks perfectly. The crops are safe.  The
colony is safe.

    I work on new peach cultivars as assigned for a planned  extension
to the apple orchard, running computations, selecting the optimal site
for the  peach trials,  preparing the  soil with  proper fumigants.  I
release nerve agents beneath a layer of heavy plastic film and monitor
the  progress  of  fumigation.  Inimical  soil  parasites  die.  I  am
satisfied.

    Seven point two-two hours after assuming my patrol station in  the
orchard, I  detect  an incoming  Concordiat  vessel. I  am  no  longer
programmed to respond  to such  vessels. The  subroutines which  still
exist in  my  Action/Command center,  subroutines  which at  one  time
governed my response to such ships,  have been modified. I ignore  the
ship other  than  to  note  its  landing  and  subsequent  takeoff.  I
calculate  that  its  mass   has  increased  slightly  on   departure,
indicating onloading of supplies or export goods from our stores. This
puzzles me, but I  am not involved in  decisions to export goods  from
Matson's. The colony grows quiet. The silence is too quiet.

    I scan.

    My sensors detect no trace of human occupation. This disturbs  me.
My Commander has not mentioned a departure of human personnel. I widen
my scan. Livestock are still in  place in barns, hutches, and  fields.
No human remains inside the colony perimeter. I widen scan once again.
I detect no trace of human presence for a radius of 4850 meters beyond
the colony perimeter. I consider  the possibility that the colony  has
come under attack.

    The only logical source of such an attack would be the ship  which
has departed. It carried proper  Concordiat markings and broadcast  on
official Concordiat  frequencies. I  do not  like to  consider that  a
Concordiat ship  has  been  subverted  by  the  Enemy;  but  it  is  a
possibility I file to be  tested against future data, particularly  as
its increase in  mass would  closely match  the combined  mass of  the
human contingent of Matson's World, within an estimated 0.007 percent.

    I know of no  native agricultural pest which  would be capable  of
deflecting a Concordiat ship from  its assigned mission and  abducting
the members of  an entire colony  in order to  more easily access  our
crop base. I  consider a  probable extraterrestrial  point of  origin.
Lacking data, I file the possibility and maintain Battle Reflex Alert.
I have  been  charged with  protecting  Matson's World.  Vigilance  is
necessary if there is to be a well-maintained facility waiting when my
Commander and the rest of Matson's colonists return.

    I wait and listen and watch.

    ". . . should be able to snag and hear SWIFT messages, at  least,"
Lewis muttered  through his  suit mike.  The sound  of his  voice  was
distorted slightly, either by the transmission from the Command Module
or by stress, Tillie wasn't sure which.

    "You understand, I'm not an engineer.  I don't really know how  to
fix this the way it ought to be fixed. If we had the proper parts,  it
might be different."

    Tillie nodded. One of  the nightmares-one ofmany -was  discovering
that the blast which had  destroyed their propulsion system and  their
engineer had  also destroyed  most  of the  ship's spare  parts.  What
hadn't been lost to vacuum when the main storage bins blew had  partly
melted in the extreme heat.

    "You ready, Kelly?"

    "Yessir."

    "Now."

    Tillie, watching via a two-way vid hookup in the wardroom, crossed
her fingers. She considered crossing her toes, ankles, knees, even her
eyes . .  . Lewis  bent over  a damaged  console and  fiddled. In  the
wardroom, speakers crackled and  hissed unpleasantly. A shrill  shriek
made her grab both ears. Then-

    ". .  .  immediate  emergency evacuation.  Incoming  Xykdap  fleet
expected in your space within twenty-four hours local. Repeat, you are
instructed to proceed with  immediate emergency evacuation. The  Enemy
has a fleet-strength battle force  which has already taken  Scarsdale.
Matson's World is expected to fall within the next four hours.  Sector
transports are inbound toward your-"

    An explosion of  sparks danced across  the damaged console.  Lewis
exploded into curses. Ten minutes of  futile coaxing dragged by to  no
effect.

    "Well," he said finally,  "that's that. I,  uh, think we're  sunk.
Any ideas, Kelly?"

    "Not right off," the young Passenger Steward said mournfully  from
what was left of Engineering.

    Tillie dragged her thoughts  away from the  horror of the  message
they'd intercepted. Don't think of  Carl, surely he's evacuated  Phase
I, please, God, let Sector  have evacuated them. .  . . Have to  think
about our survival, here and now.

    "Mr. Liffey, we have a good library with us. Maybe Saros Mysia can
locate something that will help us fix the SWIFT unit again. Or rig up
something else."

    Neither Lewis Liffey  nor Kelly McTavish  spoke for long  moments.
Lewis finally  said, "The  longer we  go without  communications,  the
deeper we plunge into what is going to be Enemy territory. If we  wait
too long, a communications blackout may be a blessing. Thatthing  that
hit us could've killed us. Instead it knocked out key systems and left
us to blunder on our way, crippled. If we continue to play dead . . ."

    Tillie drew a shuddering breath. "Yes. Hognose," she nodded.

    Lewis Liffey's faceplate  swung sharply toward  the video  pickup.
"What?"

    Tillie wondered  why her  face hurt,  until she  realized she  was
smiling. "Hognose snakes.  Old Earth reptiles.  They'd play dead.  You
know, roll belly up even if you flipped 'em right side over. It was  a
fairly decent survival trait."

    Lewis Liffey's short, bitter laugh startled her. "Hognose.  That's
good. I'll  remember that.  Okay, we  collar Saros,  stat. Kelly,  I'm
getting the hell out of here."

    They'd had  to  rig a  lifeline  out  an airlock  so  Lewis  could
spacewalk forward to the blown Command Module to try fixing the  SWIFT
transmitter/receiver assembly. Lewis pulled himself back along it now,
hand over  hand,  climbing through  a  gaping  hole in  the  hull  and
disappearing beyond the  video lens' range.  Tillie gripped her  hands
tightly until he reached the airlock and safety. When she knew he  was
back aboard, she called Saros on  the intership link and asked him  to
please join the crew in the wardroom.

    I am occupied repairing  a split irrigation pipe  when I detect  a
scan of my  position from orbit.  I monitor orbital  activity. At  the
extreme range of my  sensors, I am able  to detect seventeen ships  of
Concordiat battle cruiser size, but of unknown configuration.  Sixteen
vanish into  FTL  mode,  destination unknown.  A  single  ship  enters
geo-sync above the  colony and  sends a  transmission I  am unable  to
decipher.

    Sensors track  the arrival  of small,  mechanized ships  streaking
into atmosphere from the vessel  in geo-sync. These ships land  inside
the colony perimeter. My Battle Reflex Alert circuitry triggers  Enemy
Proximity Alarms. I  abandon work  on the irrigation  system and  move
toward the colony's administrative complex.

    I follow the access road through the test plots of sweet and field
corn. Sensors indicate six vessels of unknown configuration. They ring
the Administrative Complex.  As I  monitor activity,  an unknown  life
form emerges. I scan  my data banks for  comparative species. My  data
files contain  physiological profiles  of  all known  Terrestrial  and
alien  agricultural  pest  species.  The  invader  does  not  fit  the
physiological profile of known nematodes. It is not a member of phylum
arthropoda, therefore it cannot be an unknown form of beetle,  weevil,
leaf miner, grasshopper, or termite. It  is not a larval predator.  It
is not a bird  species. It possesses no  mammalian hair, although  its
physiological characteristics cause me  to pause momentarily over  all
entries of rodent species.

    It is larger  than the  Terran hamster,  which is  known to  strip
grainfields in the Asian  region of Old Terra.  It shares a number  of
primary characteristics with  the Terran wood  rat, excepting  bipedal
locomotion and lack of  visual adaptations. It measures  approximately
1.005 meters in  height, with  an additional  0.92 meters  of tail.  I
determine that the species uses  a form of sophisticated  echolocation
to  navigate.  The  auditory  adaptations  are  complex  and   greatly
enlarged.

    A group of nine enter the main Administration wing.

    The fireball  temporarily  blinds my  visual  and IR  sensors.  An
overpressure rocks me on my  treads. The entire complex has  exploded.
Fires rage  out of  control. I  deduce that  this explosion  has  been
triggered by  blasting chemicals  from the  colony's stores:  chemical
signatures  match  perfectly.  I  conclude  that  the  buildings  were
deliberately booby-trapped in  preparation for the  arrival of a  pest
species so deadly the colony had to be abandoned.

    I know now that I face the Enemy.

    Joy fills my  personality gestalt  circuitry. At last,  I meet  an
adversary worthy of my talents. I charge at high speed, targeting  the
transports. I fire infinite  repeaters. The nearest transport  vehicle
disintegrates in a satisfactory ball  of flame and debris. I  traverse
infinite repeaters  and  fire on  the  second vehicle.  Infantry  rush
toward me.  I  track Enemy  troop  movements and  fire  anti-personnel
charges. They are effective against Enemy infantry. Two vehicles  from
the far side  of the compound  lift off.  I sweep around  and fire.  I
destroy one. The second returns fire against me. I am hit with  energy
weapons. I  reel. I  discharge infinite  repeaters. The  Enemy  vessel
explodes.

    Infantry close from my flank.  I estimate infestation strength  in
excess of ten thousand units.  My on-board anti-personnel charges  are
inadequate to  neutralize  an  infestation  of  this  size.  I  switch
tactics.  I   prepare   chemical  sprays   and   discharge,   choosing
wide-dispersion pattern. My repeaters track another vessel  attempting
to lift. I destroy it. My  chemical sprays prove effective on  perhaps
eight percent of the infestation. This is a resilient species. It  has
learned to manufacture protective  gear which renders it  invulnerable
to chemicides.

    The cornfield around me erupts into  flame under Enemy fire. I  am
hit with multiple  strikes from  energy weapons. Portions  of my  hull
melt under the  barrage. Sixteen  point zero-seven  acres of  immature
corn burn fiercely. This pest species must be eradicated. I  discharge
a nerve agent used to  fumigate the soil, dispersing  it as I would  a
chemicide. Fifty point nine-three percent of the infestation dies. The
rest  withdraw  to  a  safe  distance  beyond  the  colony  perimeter,
abandoning the sole remaining transport.

    I destroy it with a sense of satisfaction and turn my attention to
the remaining  infestation. The  pest has  withdrawn from  the  colony
perimeter. Technically, I am relieved of responsibility to destroy it.
My brief experience  with this pest,  however, has taught  me that  it
will remain a threat to this colony so long as a single member of  its
species remains alive. Moreover, this pest has left a vessel in  orbit
and multiple other vessels have  been sent to unknown destinations.  I
must learn more  about this  species' physiology  to more  effectively
destroy it, for  I calculate  high odds  that the  Enemy will  attempt
reinfestation of  this  colony  should I  successfully  eliminate  the
current infestation.

    I retrieve dead specimens with  external armatures and proceed  to
dissect the  samples.  I perform  a  thorough analysis  of  biological
systems, genetic makeup, and  deduce probable reproductive pattern.  I
note internal  and external  parasites. I  determine that  it will  be
necessary to procure  live, undamaged samples.  I discard the  remains
and  turn  my  attention  to  this  task.  To  fully  eradicate   this
infestation, I must first completely understand the physiology of  the
creature I am to eliminate.

    I  cross  the  perimeter  boundary  toward  the  Enemy's  fallback
position.

    They stared gloomily at the plans on screen.

    "Well," Lewis Liffey said glumly, "it was worth a try."

    Theycould have  repaired  the SWIFT  unit,  if their  parts  depot
hadn't been  blown to  vacuum.  But not  even by  cannibalizing  other
components of theCross could they fix the shambles that remained.

    "Well," Lewis  said again.  "I guess  we concentrate  on our  next
crisis." He glanced at Tillie Matson.  Her face was too pale. Even  at
her best,  she  would  never  have  fit  conventional  definitions  of
prettiness. But her  eyes could reach  out and grab  a man's soul.  He
wondered if Carl Matson was truly aware of what he'd lost. . . .

    Lewis cleared his throat and turned his attention to Saros  Mysia.
"Anything you could find on propulsion systems would help."

    The colony's educator/librarian nodded and  rattled a few keys  in
rapid  succession.  They  spent   the  next  several  hours   studying
everything in  the  colony's  library  on  repair  of  FTL  and  Sub-L
propulsion systems. And while he  pored over schematics and  technical
data, Lewis' mind  raced ahead  to the thousand  other worries  facing
him. They'd  need a  form  of government,  laws and  law  enforcement,
medical facilities  theCross had  never been  designed for,  a way  to
raise food, a way to keep their population from expanding any  farther
than it would after the dozen or so now-pregnant colonists among  them
gave birth. . . .

    Lewis didn't  know  if  he  could bring  himself  to  order  those
women-or others, down the road-to abort children they simply  couldn't
afford to feed. Twenty years .  . . Mandatory birth control would  not
be  popular   amongst   people   who  had   signed   onto   a   colony
expecting-anticipating joyfully-the need to  procreate like mad.  They
needed a skilled  socio-psychologist. What they  had were one  medical
generalist who  was currently  trying to  cope with  a wide  range  of
injuries and an  educator whose  lifelong plans  had been  to build  a
school for hard-working farm kids.

    Donner's Party had nothing on  us, Lewis thought sourly. And  I'll
be damned if we devolve to that level.

    And underlying every  other worry  on his  mind, shoved  painfully
back into a corner where he could almost insulate himself from it, was
the agonizing question, When they hit Scarsdale, did the bastards kill
Ginnie? He had no way of knowing. Might never know.

    So Lewis threw himself into  the terrible job of keeping  everyone
aboard theStar Cross alive and refused himself the luxury of grief.

    The refugee center  wasn't able to  give most folks  an answer  to
their question. But they had an answer for Carl Matson. Pity thickened
Hal Abrams' throat as the director absorbed the news.

    "I'm afraid we received a Mayday from theStar Cross , Dr.  Matson.
The transport was under  attack when the Mayday  cut off. We can  only
presume everyone aboard was killed instantly. I'm sorry."

    "I-I see. There's no- No. I suppose not . . . Thank you."

    Hal gently guided Carl to one side when he nearly walked into  the
wall instead  of  through  the  door. His  eyes  were  wet,  his  lips
unsteady. "Bastards," he  whispered. "Murdering,  vicious .  . .  They
were unarmed. Unarmed , dammit!"

    Hal just guided him outside, past the line of frightened  refugees
waiting their turn for bad news. The refugees from Matson's World  had
already been told  their home  wasn't worth the  lives of  the men  it
would take to wrest it back-Space Arm was concentrating on saving  the
critical mining worlds at risk, not a few dozen acres of spindly  corn
and half-grown apple trees. And now, on top of that blow, this. . . .

    Outside, away from the  lines and the  staring eyes, Carl  finally
met Hal's gaze. "You going back into the Marines?"

    Hal Abrams  nodded slowly.  "Yeah.  My Reserve  commission's  been
updated to active status. Gotta report for transport out in a couple a
hours."

    Carl straightened his back. "I'll tell the others. Then . . . then
I'll go with you. If they'll have me."

    "Well, I  reckon they'll  take just  about whatever  they can  get
right now. But  you sure about  that? You aren't  exactly trained  for
soldiering. It's a bloody business."

    Carl met his gaze steadily. His  eyes were still wet; but back  in
their depths, they  were cold as  the black emptiness  of space.  "Oh,
yes. I'm sure."

    Hal just nodded.

    He felt sorry for anything caught in Carl Matson's gunsight.

    He felt  even  sorrier  that his  friend's  revenge  would  almost
certainly be very, very short-lived.

    Live samples provide the  data I require. I  am fully equipped  to
perform  biological   gengineering  tasks.   My  cultivar   work   and
bio-control programs have  been 99.725 percent  successful. I  harvest
internal parasites  from the  creatures' intestinal  tracts and  begin
genetic modification  experimentation. I  am  patient. The  Enemy  has
withdrawn to a  safe distance to  regroup and form  a new  infestation
site. The  Enemy  shows no  immediate  willingness to  reinfest  areas
inside the colony perimeter. Therefore I have ample time to perfect my
work.

    I am cautious  to ensure that  each test batch  is gengineered  as
mules. I  will  not  unleash  a  biological  weapon  which  cannot  be
curtailed within  one generation.  My  task requires  additional  live
specimens. I harvest  these with difficulty,  coming under heavy  fire
each time  I attempt  live capture.  For most  tests, I  clone  tissue
samples and determine what effect the gengineered nematodes have on my
tissue cultures.

    The first infestation is reinforced as predicted from the  orbital
ship. I do not attack the transport.  It would please me to have  this
pest carry  the  means  of  its  destruction  to  the  home  nest.  An
interminable 3.7  weeks  post-infestation  pass before  I  discover  a
virulent gengineered  strain. I  obtain live  samples and  contaminate
them. The gengineered nematode performs to my expectations,  producing
desired toxins in  the Enemy's digestive  tract. Sample pests  undergo
progressive circulatory disorders  over the  next 1.72  days. After  a
toxin exposure of  2.6 days, extremities  undergo rapid necrosis.  The
Enemy dies of convulsions within 0.25 hours of necrosis onset.

    All gengineered  nematodes  die  6.25  hours  after  their  hosts.
Gengineered nematodes without a  host survive for  only 2.36 hours.  I
carefully infect samples  of Terran  species and  determine that  this
nematode and its toxins are harmless  to the animals and crops I  have
been charged to protect.

    I am ready.

    "It's hopeless!" Oliver Parlan cried. "Don't you realize that? Why
should any  of us  spend  twenty years  scratching and  struggling  to
survive when we'll only wind up in Enemy hands at the end?"

    "It isn't hopeless," Tillie tried yet again.

    At the end of the corridor, Oliver and Sally Parlan had barricaded
themselves and  their children  in, threatening  to blow  the  airlock
hatch and vent the whole ship to vacuum. She had to buy the time Lewis
Liffey needed to get into position. He'd entered a repair conduit  two
yards behind her and  was worming his way  through a maze of  conduits
toward  an  access  panel   under  the  damaged  airlock's   operating
mechanism. She  had  to keep  the  Parlans  talking until  he  was  in
position. . . .

    "It'll be tough, I know that, but  we have no way of knowing  what
will happen  in  twenty  years.  The  Concordiat  may  have  reclaimed
Matson's World by then. Think of your children-"

    Sally Parlan burst into tears. "Iam thinking of them! All of them.
Damn you, Tillie Matson, you want to condemn them to a living hell.  .
. ."

    Oliver looked her in the eye  and said quietly, "You are not  God,
Tillie. Judge me not."  He reached for the  damaged hatch controls  on
the airlock he'd jimmied to remain open when the outer door slid back.

    Lewis Liffey  kicked open  the hatch  cover. Tillie  dove for  the
deckplates. Lewis fired his needler almost point blank. Sally and  the
children screamed.  Oliver  froze  in  shock  and  pain;  then  slowly
crumpled to the deckplates. He died before Itami Kobe could reach  him
with a medi-kit. Book  Howard took charge of  Sally and her  children,
placing them in protective custody. She spat on Tillie as Book  pulled
her past.

    Very slowly, Tillie wiped her face with a sleeve. Lewis looked  up
from his sprawled position on the deck plates.

    "You all right?" he asked.

    "Sure," Tillie lied. "I'm fine. You?"

    He winced a  little as he  sat up, but  nodded. "Sure. I'm  always
fine." The slight tremor in his voice betrayed him.

    "Never killed a man before?"

    His glance was piercing. "No."

    "It isn't your fault."

    Lewis scrubbed his brow and put the needler carefully to one side.
"If there'd been any other way . . ."

    But there hadn't been. They couldn't just sedate a man like Oliver
Parlan for twenty years. His determination to kill everyone had sealed
his death warrant. Tillie knew there hadn't been any other choice. But
she understood Lewis Liffey's reaction.

    And what would they do the next time?

    If there was a next time?

    Kelly McTavish arrived with welding  gear. "Sir, I'll get to  work
sealing off this corridor now."

    Lewis Liffey  glanced  up.  "Right." He  levered  himself  up  and
retrieved the needler; then offered Tillie a hand up.

    "Thanks. I'll . . . I'll be down in hydroponics if you need me."

    She fled, leaving the ship's crewmen to deal with the aftermath of
near-disaster. And  she  really  did  need to  check  on  progress  in
hydroponics. She found Hank Biddle  and Bartel Ditrik busy  installing
new, jury-rigged tanks to supplement  the ones they'd already set  up.
Bart glanced up first.

    "How'd it end?"

    Tillie glanced  away. "Oliver's  dead. Sally's  in custody.  Saros
will take charge of their kids."

    Hank Biddle  only thinned  his lips.  The message  was clear:  You
didn't have to kill him. Tillie didn't feel like arguing.

    "Do you  have  everything you  need  to finish  this?"  she  asked
tiredly.

    "Oh, sure. We got everything a man could want," Bart snapped. "Why
don't you go butt your nose into somebody else's business? We got work
to do."

    Tillie knew she ought to respond to that. But numb as she was from
the shock of watching Oliver Parlan die, she just couldn't think of  a
thing to say. Rumor mill had it the colonists were set to vote her out
and pick another Transport Director.  Maybe that would be best,  after
all. She  was  tired  and  battered  and  numb  and  so  sick  of  the
responsibility she wanted to curl up somewhere and cry.

    I didn't  sign  on  for  this job  for  twenty  years,  Carl,  she
whimpered silently. I'm not cut out for leadership. . . .

    The crisis came  to a  head the next  day, when  Sally Parlan  was
found dead in her  quarters. She'd suicided  behind locked doors.  The
only spot on theCross large enough  to assemble the entire colony  was
Cargo Two, which they were in the process of converting to stables but
which remained largely unused. So they'd set off a portion of it for a
"Town Hall." When news of  Sally's suicide reached her, Tillie  called
an immediate Town Meeting.

    All threeStar Cross crewmen attended, as well. Lewis Liffey joined
Tillie on the makeshift speaker's  platform. Kelly and Booker  Howard,
Tillie noted uneasily, blocked the exit-and they wore needlers. So did
Lewis.

    "As you have  no doubt heard,  Oliver and Sally  Parlan have  both
died after an unsuccessful attempt to vent the ship to vacuum. If they
had succeeded, none of us would be  alive now. I know that many of  us
are experiencing doubts-"

    "Damn right we are!"

    "Why the hell should we keep going?"

    "Only doubt I got is about you, Matson!"

    Tillie let  the  shouts die  away.  "I accepted  the  position  of
Transport Director under certain conditions-namely, that it would be a
temporary  job.  None  of  us  expected  it  to  become  a  two-decade
assignment. Mr. Liffey and I have  discussed the need for us to  think
of theStar  Cross as  the colony  we intended  to found.  Therefore  I
suggest we begin work now deciding the form of government we intend to
establish."

    Before anyone could speak, Lewis Liffey stepped forward.

    "Dr. Matson, I have a few words to say on this subject."

    Tillie nodded and stepped aside.

    "Right now, we're subject to lifeboat rules. There can be only one
captain. That situation will not change in the next twenty years,  not
until we reach Matson's. The government you intend to establish has to
be set up with that  in mind. Aboard theStar  Cross there is one  law:
the Captain's. There are only  threeStar Cross crew left alive,  which
means this colony will have a number of key administrative slots open.
You will all  have a chance  to fill those  administrative posts  over
time. But there can't be more than one captain."

    "And that's you?" someone demanded in an ugly voice.

    "Yeah, you're the big military man with the guns. . . ."

    Lewis cut through  the uproar.  "Yes, I'm the  captain. Whether  I
like it or not. I didn't ask for  this job any more than you asked  to
be marooned aboard theStar Cross for twenty years. That doesn't change
facts. My training and skills and the chain of command mean I'm  stuck
with the  job just  as surely  as you're  stuck with  me. But  there's
something you need to keep firmly in mind. What you decide today  will
determine the kind  of colony your  kids grow up  in. Will you  choose
lawless in-fighting, every man and  woman for themselves? Or will  you
choose to  set up  a government  in which  every one  of you  has  the
opportunity to serve the community in critical decision-making ways?

    "As captain, I can only recommend  the proper course of action  if
the information you give  me is the best  available. I can't do  every
job there is to be done. That's up  to you people. I'll do my best  to
live up to the  responsibility that's been thrust  on me. You need  to
live up to yours. What  you decide in the  next few minutes will  make
the difference between  simply surviving and  building something  your
children can be proud of when their  turn comes to take up the  mantle
of community leadership."

    He stepped back and fell silent.

    A moment later,  someone near  the back  of the  room shouted,  "I
nominate Tillie Matson for Transport Director!"

    "Second!"

    Another voice shouted, "I nominate Hank Biddle for that job!"

    "Second!"

    Nominations  ended  at  three  candidates-and  the  third  refused
nomination. Debate opened up. When  it became clear that debate  would
involve nothing more  than a  shouting match  between factions,  Lewis
Liffey shouted down the tumult.

    "The candidates have five minutes each to present their platforms!
Hank Biddle, you go first."

    The big agronomist  nodded grimly and  climbed onto the  platform.
"You all know  me. My  dream is  growing things.  And you  all know  I
joined this expedition  because I  thought we could  grow ourselves  a
good life out on Matson's World.  But that isn't going to happen  now.
Folks like Tillie, here, want us to keep struggling. Keep trying.  For
what? So a pack of murderous aliens can shoot our children down  right
in front of us when we get there? They want us to starve damn near  to
death, to give  up having more  children, to give  up everything  that
means being a  human being-and forwhat  ? The chance  to die in  agony
under alien guns. They admit Matson's  World has long since fallen  to
this . . . this alien scourge.  There's no chance of fighting it  once
we get there. Captain and  his two henchmen have needlerswe're  afraid
of, but don't let 'em fool you. There's nothing on board this ship  to
fight an alien army with twenty years to entrench itself. I ask-Iplead
-with you, don't prolong this agony.  Let us die quietly, now, by  our
own hands, while we're  still human enough to  do so with dignity  and
courage."

    He stepped off the platform amid a vast silence.

    Tillie could tell from the uptilted  faces that a large number  of
them had been swayed by  his plea. She didn't  know what to say.  Hank
Biddle was wrong, she knew it in her  bones . . . but she didn't  know
what to say. She cleared her throat, more to buy time than because her
throat needed clearing; then  met the eyes of  a young woman near  the
front of the crowd. Annie Ditrik  was visibly pregnant. Her eyes  were
scared, her lips pale.  Tell me what  to do, that  look said. I  don't
want my baby to die. . . .

    "I'm a veterinarian,"  Tillie said  quietly. "One  of the  hardest
parts of any doctor's  job is knowing when  a patient is beyond  hope.
I've had to put down animals before, animals I couldn't save. I wonder
how many of  you have had  to look into  the mute eyes  of a  feeling,
suffering creature and know that  you're killing it? Out of  kindness,
perhaps, but  killing it,  nonetheless. You  may think  you're  ready.
Perhaps you are. I can't  answer that question for  any of you. But  I
can answer it for myself.

    "In a way, this colony has become my patient. We're sick and we're
hurt. But are we hopeless?  Is euthanasia an answer?  Or is it just  a
way of hiding from painful reality? Sometimes it is easier to lie down
and die, particularly when continuing to live hurts yourself and those
you love. Some  of you may  choose to  do just that.  But your  choice
doesn't give you  the right to  choose for anyone  else. I won't  make
that choice for any of you who  want to die. But for anyone who  wants
to live, for anyone who'll take  that slim chance and fight for  life,
I'll be here working to give you that chance.

    "We're farmers. If anyone can make this shipboard colony work,  we
can. We have the seeds and  cuttings for hydroponics-and every one  of
you knows that hydroponics do well  in a space environment. The  first
year will be brutal, yes; but the second year will be better and every
year after that will bring even more improvements in our lives.  Don't
sell your future  short. In  twenty years, anything  can happen.  Wars
end, political boundaries are redrawn . . . We might even be  rescued.
If you want to quit, to  give up and die without  a fight . . .  maybe
that's your definition of humanity. It isn't mine."

    Someone near  the  back  cheered.  Applause,  sporadic  at  first,
spread. Tillie found it suddenly difficult to see through the stinging
wetness in her  eyes. With  60 minors  ineligible to  vote, the  final
ballot was 297 to 48, Tillie's favor.

    Half an hour later, those  48 suicided quietly in their  quarters,
poisoning their own children.

    Tillie blamed herself.  Not for  the adults'  actions-but for  the
deaths of  the children.  She  should've ordered  protective  custody,
should've . . .

    When she  wouldn't answer  his  calls, Lewis  Liffey came  to  her
quarters. "Mind if I speak with you?" he asked quietly.

    She shrugged. He  came in  and closed  the door.  Tillie sat  with
knees drawn up to her chest in  the corner of her cramped bunk.  She'd
spent a long time crying, but now all she felt was numb.

    "Just because they elected you all over again, Dr. Matson, doesn't
mean you're stuck with the job. You  can take off that badge any  time
you want."

    She looked up slowly, found sorrow and compassion in his eyes. But
not pity. Not even a hint of pity.

    "And if we're wrong?  What if Oliver Parlan  and Hank Biddle  were
right? We could be  leading these people to  a violent death at  alien
hands. . . ."

    His  jaw  muscles  tightened.  "Yes,  we  could.  Any  number   of
possibilities exist. The Concordiat may beat this invasion fleet back,
then not bother to resettle Matson's. There may not be enough left  to
make it economically feasible.  I've seen it  happen, when alien  wars
ravage a  world  so  badly  nothing  can grow  for  a  century  or  so
afterward."

    Clearly, Lewis had been lying awake nights, too.

    "Tillie, we may get there and find an empty world and have no  way
to contact the Concordiat ever again.  Or we may find a bustling  city
where you and your husband planned to start a colony. Not likely,  but
that's the point. Wedon't know what we'll find."

    Tillie swallowed hard a few  times. "I've been .  . . Those of  us
with family in Phase I are never going to see them again, are we?"

    Lewis opened his lips, then paused. "You want my honest opinion?"

    "I think I just heard it."

    "I'm sorry. But given the circumstances . . ." His voice  changed,
wrenching at Tillie's heart.  "I had a little  girl on Scarsdale,  Dr.
Matson. Her  name's Ginnie.  She just  turned seven.  I said  my  last
goodbye to her  the night we  found out we  couldn't repair the  SWIFT
unit."

    Tillie couldn't  speak for  a long  time. Finally  she  whispered,
"I've been thinking about Carl, too. If he survived to evacuate . .  .
I know  him  better than  he  knows  himself, I  think.  He'd  enlist.
Especially when he finds out they can't locate us, that we're missing,
presumed . . ." Tears threatened  to clog her throat again. "He  never
was any good at that kind of  thing." She sniffed back wetness in  her
nose. "I just  don't know if  I can  keep going, day  after day,  year
after year . . ."

    Lewis Liffey was silent for a  long moment. "Well, if you want  to
take off the badge, you can. But I don't think you will."

    She looked up slowly.

    "Every one  of us  on theCross  has lost  family or  friends.  The
difference between them and  you is simple. These  folks chose you  to
lead them. By an overwhelming majority. They're frightened and hurting
and they  look to  you for  guidance,  for someone  to help  get  them
through the nightmare. And I think they made the right choice.

    "You're doing the  best you  can under the  worst conditions  I've
ever seen. You've already  got hydroponics set up  to feed us and  the
livestock, and I've just taken a look at the expansions to the system.
They're good, sound plans. You've taught the children how to do manual
milking, so there's plenty of  calcium-rich food for the little  ones.
Hell, we may even  get real eggs  one of these  days if those  biddies
keep growing at this rate." His lips quirked. "Know how long it's been
since I tasted a real fried egg?"

    "Don't joke about it," Tillie groaned. "I just killed-"

    "The hell you did!" He strode over and sat down on the edge of her
bunk. She flinched away, but he  didn't touch her. He just sat  there,
eyes dark  and  worried. "Tillie,  you  didn't kill  anyone.  Or  fail
anyone. They killed themselves."

    She  didn't  believe  him.  "They  were  my  responsibility.   The
children, Mr. Liffey, those children were my responsibility. . . ."

    "Yeah. Yours and mine, both." The tone of his voice caused her  to
wince. He  plucked absently  at the  bedding. "Do  you honestly  think
those people wouldn't  have found a  way to kill  their kids, even  if
we'd taken them into custody? When  a person's as crazy determined  as
those poor souls were .  . . You've never  been in a lifeboat  before,
have you?"

    "No."

    "I have."

    The way he said it caused Tillie to look up against her will.  His
eyes were  haunted again.  What  was he  seeing? Something  he'd  seen
before? Something he didn't want to see again? "Some folks live,  some
don't," Lewis  Liffey  said  quietly.  "Some just  give  up  and  some
struggle to  keep  going no  matter  how desperate  the  situation.  I
expected we'd lose a few this way."

    Shock hit her like icewater. "Youwhat ? You expected it?"

    Lewis grimaced at her expression. "I'd hoped not-prayednot-but  it
just seems like some folks are able to turn a mental switch that says,
`Now I will fight for survival' and others can't. It's got nothing  to
do with how well or how poorly you do your job. We've lost a total now
of seventy-two people.  That means two  hundred ninety-five are  still
looking to you and me to get them through this."

    Tillie's eyes began to sting. "But I  don't know if I can do  it,"
she whispered.

    He held out a hand. "Maybe not. Butwe can."

    She met his eyes. He tried to smile and nearly succeeded.

    Tillie spent a long, long time crying on his shoulder.

    "I'm sorry, Mr. Liffey-"

    "Don't you think it's  about time you  started calling me  Lewis?"
She looked up and  found a wan smile.  "You just spent thirty  minutes
wetting my uniform, after all."

    Tillie actually managed a smile in return. "All right. Lewis.  I'm
sorry about  your  little girl.  Surely  they evacuated  Scarsdale  in
time."

    He touched her  chin, wiping  away wetness. "And  I'm sorry  about
your husband, Tillie Matson. I hope he survives the war."

    Tillie  nodded;  but  she  was   already  saying  her  own   last,
heart-wrenching goodbye.

    Lewis sat back and studied her closely. "So how about it? Ready to
take that badge off now?"

    She shook  her  head.  "No.  I'm stuck  with  it,  I  guess.  Like
marriage, this job is for better or worse."

    He held out his hand again. "Welcome aboard, partner."

    She hesitated  only a  moment.  But when  his hand  clasped  hers,
doubts and terrors faded. The coming years wouldn't be easy. But Lewis
Liffey was one of those lifeboat survivors. She felt the mental switch
in her mind click over.

    In that moment, Tillie knew they'd be all right.

    Sensors track the approach of  a ship with Concordiat markings.  I
monitor its descent from orbit. This vessel has suffered damage  which
my data banks correlate with battle. The burn scars of energy  weapons
have traced its hull. Portions of the ship have been opened to vacuum.
The propulsion system is functioning at an approximated 20.073 percent
of optimum. Descent  from orbit is  ragged. It loses  power and  falls
twenty  thousand  meters  before  engine  restart.  Braking  thrusters
function after three attempts to engage.

    The ship settles  in a  broad field of  soybeans 15.09  kilometers
from colony center. I approach at full speed, Battle Reflex  circuitry
engaged. This is a Concordiat ship. But I am not fooled. The Enemy  is
clever. Six  times I  have successfully  fought invasion  attempts  of
Matson's World. Six times the Enemy has left derelict ships in  orbit.
Two of those ships were captured Concordiat vessels. I hold fire until
my sensors can confirm a seventh infestation.

    A hatch opens. A ramp descends on automatic. The life forms  which
emerge are human.  I close the  remaining 1.95 kilometers  and halt  7
meters away from the open  hatch. I do not  open fire. But I  traverse
infinite repeaters and  lock onto  the humans  in case  the Enemy  has
successfully captured human targets to front another invasion attempt.
The nearest human attempts to block the one behind with his body. This
act of  protectiveness  confuses me.  They  do not  behave  as  though
controlled by  alien pests.  The human  behind him,  which my  sensors
determine to be female, speaks.

    "My God! It's-it's Digger!"

    Joy! My new  Commander has  given the  proper code  word. My  long
vigil is over.

    "Unit DGR reporting, Commander. Request permission to file VSR."

    My Commander makes  unintelligible sounds for  8.92 seconds.  Then
she grants permission to file VSR.

    "The  colony  perimeter   remains  secure   from  infestation   of
agricultural pests.  I  have  continued  to carry  out  my  orders  as
directed."

    "Uh . . . What were those orders, Digger?"

    "To safeguard this  colony. Twenty  point zero-nine  years ago  we
suffered a severe infestation of an unknown agricultural pest  similar
in physiological characteristics to Terran wood rats. The  infestation
has been successfully eradicated, Commander. Five subsequent  attempts
at  infestation   have   also  been   eradicated.   Sensors   indicate
communications damage to your transport.  Shall I relay a  translation
of the beacon the Enemy left in orbit above Matson's World?"

    "Yes, please."

    I play  the translated  recording."Xykdap Cruiser  GK7-115 to  all
Xykdap fleet personnel:  do not  approach this  world. Infestation  of
deadly parasites has destroyed all Xykdap personnel. Enemy abandonment
of this world was clearly due to this parasite, not to the approach of
our fleet as we had surmised. Do not attempt a landing. Do not attempt
to board this or any other ship  left in parking orbit. No known  cure
has been found for the parasite which has attacked us. Xykdap  Cruiser
GK7-115 to all Xykdap fleet personnel . . ."

    The recording repeats.

    "Then this world isn't safe  for us?"my Commander asks sharply.  I
seek to reassure her.

    "Matson's World is entirely safe for human habitation,  Commander.
The nematode I originally gengineered 20.09 years ago eradicates  each
wave of pest infestation then dies out. I have kept a small colony  of
the original, harmless  parasite alive, in  bio-isolation aboard  this
unit. For  each  new  infestation, I  re-gengineer  the  infestation's
harmless parasite into the toxin-producing  mule which kills its  host
then dies. There  are preserved  specimens of the  pest species  which
calls itself Xykdap for you to examine. You may offload the transport,
Commander. I have rebuilt as much of the destroyed colony buildings as
I have been  able to,  although I apologize  for the  crudeness of  my
work. I was  designed to build  barns and storage  sheds. Do you  have
further orders, Commander?"

    "I- No. Carry on, Digger."

    "Thank you, Commander. I will assist with heavy cargo transport."

    Miles and  miles of  well-tended cropland  spread out  around  the
rebuilt colony Administration buildings.  A fenced pasture was  dotted
with a large and  apparently healthy herd of  dairy cattle. Apple  and
peach orchards  in  the  distance  had matured  and  were  laden  with
not-quite-ripened fruit.  Cultivated  fields  and  storage  barns  and
granaries . . .

    Tillie thought  about the  deprivations they'd  suffered over  the
past two decades, the struggles and  fears, and very quietly began  to
cry. They  hadn't come  home to  a nightmare;  they'd found  paradise.
Thanks to one very mixed-up, determined Bolo . . .

    "Tillie," Lewis said  with an  odd catch  in his  voice, "look  at
this."

    He was staring at Digger's  preserved specimens. When Lewis  began
to laugh, Tillie stared athim .

    "What's so funny? Those things arehideous ! Like . . . like  giant
rats! And look at the weapons Digger collected!"

    "Yeah, but don't you get it?" He pointed to the advanced  necrosis
of the extremities, the eyeless skulls. "I used to sing it to  Ginnie,
years ago. You know, the nursery rhyme?"

    Tillie widened her eyes; then she,  too, began to laugh. Then  she
was in Lewis' arms and they were both laughing and crying at the  same
time. Behind them,  neatly preserved in  specimen jars, were  Digger's
three blind mice.



    Little Red Hen



    by Linda Evans &

    Robert R. Hollingsworth



    - I-

    1

    Hull-breach  sirens  screamed  through  every  part  ofBonaventure
Royale seconds after they dropped out of FTL. Lights dimmed asBonny 's
main guns returned  fire, but the  damage was done.  They'd lost  hull
pressure in two massive  punctures-one of 'em  right through Drop  Bay
One. Red's bay . . .

    Ish Matsuro  cursed, fighting  dry-mouthed fear,  and slapped  the
com-link. "Report!"

    Doug Hart's voice came through sharp with strain, in the middle of
a sentence.  "-ammit, Gunny,  seal it!"  Then, "We've  lost two,  Ish.
Specter and Honey Pie both. Frags right through their pressure  suits,
massive bleeding . . ."

    Ish swore again. But there wasn't time to mourn long-time friends.
They were ETA five minutes to combat drop. And he now had two critical
positions to fill. He slapped the com-link again.

    "Hopper, report to  Drop Bay  One, stat. You'll  be dropping  with
LRH-1313. Move it!"

    He received a startled acknowledgement from the young Marine.

    "DeVries," he made  another call over  intership vid-link,  "belay
that repair job. We've lost a Bolo crew engineer. You're at the top of
the designated alternates list. Report to Drop Bay One. You have three
minutes. Don't worry, Red'll  take care of you,"  he added, taking  in
the stricken look on the young warrant officer's face.

    "Yessir." DeVries  both  sounded  and  looked  terrified,  but  he
dropped the repair ofBonny 's hull  breach as ordered and ran for  the
drop bay.

    Then, because he couldn't stand it any longer: "Red, any damage to
report?"

    "Oh, Ish." The voice he remembered with an ache of longing  chided
gently, "You know I'd  have said so if  there was." Like brownies  and
warm apple pie, Red's voice eased away some of the cold fear  gripping
him.

    "Yeah, I know, Red. Just checking."

    A warm  chuckle came  through the  com-link, sounding  like  every
lover Ish had ever dreamed  of or found. "You  just wanted to hear  my
voice again, hon. How's your wife?"

    Ish winced. Leave it to Red to remind him. . . . Well, thatwas her
job. And ultimately, the reason  he no longer commanded her.  "Worried
sick, of course. We're expecting another kid."

    "Oh, Ish, how wonderful! Boy or girl this time?"

    Ish grinned. "Girl."

    "Give her a  kiss for me.  And don't worry,  Ish. We'll get  those
intelligence reports to FleetCom before the Marines land."

    "Speaking of which .  . . I'm zipping  personnel files to you  now
for your replacement crew.  Hopper and DeVries  should be arriving  at
your drop bay any second."

    "Ah, yes. I  have the  files. Thank you,  Ish. I'm  going to  miss
Specter and Honey Pie. There . . . wasn't anything I could do, Ish."

    The pain in her voice sounded real. Ish knew that, in some  sense,
itwas real. He swallowed  hard. "Yeah, hon. I  know. Take care of  the
boys, Red. I'll try to see you after the fireworks are over. And don't
forget to-"

    "-duck," Red finished with a chuckle. "Yes, Ish. I remember.  Here
come the new boys. Bye, now."

    "Bye . . ."

    He watched on the  vid screen as two  ship's crew, hastily  suited
against vacuum, clambered through a small opening in the foam  sealant
which comprised  the drop  sphere.  Once aboard,  Bonaventure  tekkies
finished sealing them in.  Rows of identical  spheres filled the  drop
bay. Most of them were decoys-hundreds of them. Two held LRH units and
their  crews.  Ish  received  a   signal  from  the  naval   commander
ofBonaventure Royale . Twenty seconds  to drop. Most of Ish's  command
was sealed  into  the drop  spheres,  ready for  duty.  The  remaining
shipboard  Marines  would  get  their  first  taste  of  battle   when
theBonaventure Royale returned with the remainder of the Fleet.

    But that  was still  days away  andBonaventure Royale  had yet  to
survive the  orbital  drop,  the smash-and-run  attack  against  Enemy
orbital surveillance  capabilities,  and the  final  run for  FTL  and
safety from Enemy  guns. And  Red, precious  Red, had  to survive  the
withering gauntlet  of  Enemy fire  all  the  way from  orbit  to  the
planet's surface. Ish's mouth was dry as he watched the countdown that
would send her into deadly peril. Ten seconds. Five . . .

    Drop bay doors opened on  schedule and the drop sphere  protecting
Red and her  fragile cargo  vanished, lost amongst  hundreds of  other
falling spheres. Ish turned off the vid screen.

    "God go with you, love," he whispered.

    Then he was busy directing the attack of orbital surveillance  and
defenses, which was all he could do to protect her from now until  the
end of the battle for Hobson's Mines.

    2

    Burn scars marked the landing site where a big Navy transport  had
settled at the pickup point. Ish's  flier settled there, too, not  far
from a sight he had prayed he  would never behold. The Bolo canted  on
broken treads atop a stark-shadowed plateau. The earlier transport had
determined she was too hot to bring aboard and her crew was no  longer
in need of anything the Navy could give them. So they'd called for  an
investigative team  and  abandoned  the little  Bolo.  She  must  have
struggled to gain the  rendezvous point, given  the visible damage  to
her.

    Stumbling a little  over uneven  ground, Ish  traced the  sweeping
prow of the Bolo-almost delicate compared with the heavy combat  prows
of the Mark XXI fighting  units. Sunlight caught purple-black  glints.
No heavy ablative armor for  this teacup of a  Bolo. Barely ten and  a
half meters long and-discounting treads-a mere three and a half  wide,
she was light, fast . . .

    The Enemy had hit Red like a ballpeen hammer through soft  butter.
Even at this distance,  Marine Captain Ishiri  Matsuro could tell  Red
was a mess. The sight made him want to cry. Red, oh, Red, what've they
done to you, girl? He blinked rapidly, fighting emotion he would  have
sooner died than admit. Ish's  wife, reconciled to the loneliness  any
career officer's wife must endure-particularly in wartime-would  never
have understood the battle inside her husband as he closed distance to
the battered little Bolo.

    Could anything be done to save her? Anything at all?

    The tech clomping beside  him whistled-a long,  low sound of  awe.
"When they run starkers, they really do it right, don't they?"

    Ish didn't  answer.  He  swallowed  hard  several  times,  nerving
himself to transmit the code Red was programmed to recognize. He hoped
she didn't open  fire. Not  that she  appeared to  have much  fighting
capability left.  .  .  .  Her one  small  infinite  repeater,  barely
light-machine-gun sized, had been blown nearly off its  turret-mounted
articulated arm. The intelligence-gathering arrays affixed to her were
likewise damaged or missing entirely. Gaping holes in her hull  showed
where she'd  borne  the  brunt  of heavy  fighting  she'd  never  been
designed to  withstand. One  of her  forward armatures,  designed  for
delicate external manipulation on stealth missions, had been blown out
of its socket. It  dangled obscenely from  trailing cables. The  other
armature was intact but bent and probably inoperative.

    Ish had to clear  his throat several times  before he could  speak
into his helmet  mike. He  wanted to say,  "Red, honey,  Itold you  to
duck. . .  ." Instead,  he mastered his  grief and  said only,  "Light
Reconnaissance Headquarters Unit 1313, respond to code Baked Bread."

    "LRH-1313 responding,"  a voice  in  his headset  said.  "Welcome,
Commander. May I know your name?"

    "Captain Ishiri Matsuro."

    "Welcome, Captain Matsuro. I am in need of a Situation Update  and
Depot Maintenance."

    Ish's viscera dropped into  nothingness. She didn't remember  him.
The Red  he'd  known-had  commanded for  nearly  seven  years-would've
cried, "Hello, Ish! What kept you? I've been waiting!"

    What the hell happened out here?  She fights a pitched battle  she
isn't  programmed  for,  then   forgets  eight  years  of   programmed
Experience Data?

    It couldn't be simple battle  damage. If her psychotronic net  had
been damaged that severely, she'd have exhibited other signs. Instead,
she'd  recognized  his  authority;  then  asked  for  a  briefing  and
maintenance, just  as though  nothing had  happened. A  chill  touched
Ish's spine. Maybe Space Force had been right? Maybe Redhad run mad. .
. .

    Bad as she  looked outside,  the sight  which greeted  him in  her
Command and Crew Compartments was  infinitely worse. Her Command  Team
was still aboard. They'd  died hard. Ish closed  a gloved hand on  the
edge  of  the  bulkhead  door   frame  separating  the  tiny   Command
Compartment from the slightly bigger  Crew Compartment, trying not  to
look at  the gaping  holes in  Red's hull  or at  the bodies  sprawled
inside her. One of  those bodies had been  a friend he'd gotten  drunk
with and fought beside for nearly seven years.

    "Barkley, you  ready  for that  test?"  Ish snapped  to  hide  the
emotion gripping him.

    "Yeah." The rail-thin tech was  staring at another of the  bodies,
clearly fighting  his own  battle with  shock and  grief. Barkley  and
DeVries had worked  together aboard theBonaventure  . Barkley  cleared
his throat roughly; then stepped  gingerly around the remains of  Doug
Hart and bent over Red's Action/Command center console. Barkley looked
thin and pale inside the bulk  of the enviro-suit designed to  protect
from hard radiation like Red had  absorbed; but after the first  shock
of seeing his friend, he settled down, apparently more than competent.
He ran a few diagnostics with his equipment. "Huh."

    "What?"

    "She ain't got no memory, for  one thing," he said, sending  Ish's
hopes crashing. "Search me if I know why not. It's been wiped  clean's
a whistle right back to her commissioning, looks like."

    No memory at all? How could that have happened? Why would it  have
been done?

    "I don't understand," he muttered aloud.

    The tech moved his equipment to another connection. Thinly  veiled
impatience creased his brow  through his faceplate. "Don't  understand
what? She's been brain wiped. What's hard to understand about that?"

    That's grief talking, not insubordination . . .

    "Notwhat . Why. " Ish gestured a little helplessly. "Battle damage
wouldn't have wiped her whole memory. Which means someonehad to do it.
And Iknew this crew. Hart wouldn't  have done this to Red, not  unless
she were about to be captured. And she wasn't. That much, we do  know.
She made  it to  the  pickup point  without  any Deng  escorts.  Banjo
certainly wouldn't have done this. DeVries, maybe . . ."

    Guilt tugged at  him. DeVries  wouldn't have  done something  like
this, either, for all he'd  been aboard Red only  a few days. Ish  had
known DeVries, too, had personally orderedBonaventure 's engineer into
this mission. It never  grew easier, ordering  men into battle,  often
knowing they weren't likely to  come back. But DeVries should've  come
back. Red and her whole crew should've come back. What had happened to
cause one of  these three men-either  Willum DeVries or  Doug Hart  or
Aduwa "Banjo" Banjul-to destroy Red's memory?

    The positions of the bodies gave no clue. First Lieutenant  Banjul
had left  the Command  Compartment.  Banjo had  been flung  against  a
bulkhead in crew quarters opposite a terrible rent in the Bolo's hull.
Burns and lacerations across his face and upper torso might have  been
inflicted before death or might have contributed to it.

    DeVries  slumped  on  the  deckplates  near  the  head.  Red   had
tongue-tilted  down   the   door  in   its   emergency-medical-station
configuration. DeVries either hadn't been able to crawl all the way to
the makeshift "bed" or he'd been thrown clear. The young engineer  was
dead of radiation poisoning. Ish's enviro-suit protected him from  the
still-lethal dosages inside the Bolo's breached hull. DeVries had been
badly injured even before receiving the lethal dose of radiation which
had ultimately  killed  him. Ish  checked  Red's medications  log.  It
indicated a final,  massive dose  of painkillers  administered to  the
dying engineer. Ish's throat tightened. So  like Red, to try and  ease
him through it.

    As for Marine Captain Doug Hart . . .

    One of Ish's closest friends lay  in a tangle of broken bones  and
the remains  of  his command  chair.  He'd  taken a  direct  hit  from
whatever had breached the hull up  here. He hadn't had a chance.  None
of the  Command Team  had.  But the  question  remained: why  had  Red
engaged the enemy  at all,  charging against a  vastly superior  force
when she knew it was hopeless?

    And why had Doug Hart allowed what amounted to suicide?

    "Dammit, Iknew Red. I  don't care what  FleetCom says. She  wasn't
crazy!"

    The technician's glance begged to disagree. Ish had to turn  away.
Red's behavior  certainly  argued  otherwise. But  he  couldn't  bring
himself to  admit it,  not after  what  he and  Red had  been  through
together.

    "Yeah," the  tech muttered,  "this  whole operation's  a  stinking
louse. But  . .  . whoever  did  it, they  missed the  backup  mission
record."

    The sounds coming from beneath the console made him wince.  Broken
connections dangled  under  the main  Action/Command  center  console,
causing another inward flinch. Ish had  commanded a lot of Bolos,  had
relinquished  command  of  Red  only  a  year  previously,  taking   a
commission in Space Force that  would give him options commanding  Red
couldn't. He'd taken  a lot of  backup mission record  modules out  of
Bolos, both combat and special units. Designed to provide a  duplicate
of the Bolo's current  mission records should  anything happen to  the
Bolo's main data  banks during  battle, the  modules had  occasionally
proven to be  of incalculable worth.  Ish knew they  had to have  that
backup mission module.

    But the dangling  connections and broken  seals were obscene.  The
tech was a butcher, gutting Red's mind.

    Or what the real butcher had left of it.

    The rail-thin technician  emerged holding  a dense,  heavy-looking
casing. "Maybe this'll explain why she went starkers."

    Ish didn't respond. He couldn't. He just accepted the module  from
the suited technician. It was heavier than it looked, which wasvery  .
Ish-cursing his  shakiness-nearly  dropped  it.  Whatever  had  really
happened during those last few minutes of battle, it would be recorded
in this  module.  Without  the  data it  contained,  Red  would  never
remember . . .

    . . . anything.

    The last eight years were gone, as it was.

    Red didn't remember him. Would never remember him.

    The pain that caused ran so deep he couldn't get his breath for  a
moment. Maybe he  could run  a Restore. .  . .  Ish seriously  doubted
Space Force Command would  authorize anyone to  run a Restore  command
from any of Red's backup mission modules to reintegrate missing memory
data. She was so  badly damaged she would  be retired anyway, and  now
there was the serious question of inadvertently reinstalling  whatever
had caused her to go mad.

    The cold hollow in his belly expanded.

    "Ought'a be interesting, huh?" the technician was saying as he put
away tools. "Never seen a Bolo go starkers before. Not like this. They
say the first Mark XX went and committed suicide on 'em; but, hell, at
least it had  a reason.  Doing its duty,  upholding the  honor of  the
Brigade and all. That's what they said, anyway. But this little  baby,
she's just starkers, no explanation, nuthin'. . . ."

    Ish had to  restrain the  impulse to crack  the tech's  protective
suit to hard radiation.  He settled for a  muttered, "Finish up,  will
you?"

    The technician shrugged.  "They'll have to  scrap 'er. Always  did
wonder if these Mark XXI Special  units would be stable under  stress.
Too much oddball programming. She just wasn't designed right. Not  her
fault; but, hey, she's nuts.  You gonna fry her Action/Command  center
now?"

    Red would  be  listening  to  every  word  they  said,  trying  to
understand what had happened to her. She'd be confused, hurt . . .

    And irrational?

    Ish was listening, too, to the Bolo's ragged internal sounds.  The
noise was eerily like  metallic keening. It came  and went at  random.
"That's not my decision," he finally  said. "I suppose it will  depend
on what we discover in the backup mission record."

    The technician  shrugged inside  his  suit. "Well,  whatever.  You
ought'a get back with this here box. I'll leave her to you."

    The man departed noisily, banging his heavy tool kit against Red's
internal support frame. Ish experienced  an irrational impulse of  his
own, to  order  Red  to  open fire  on  the  unfeeling  bastard;  then
remembered her sole gun was inoperative. He flexed the fingers of  one
gloved hand and forced himself to breathe steadily. He couldn't afford
to let personal feelings-regardless  of their intensity-sway him.  But
that tech had no idea how close . . .

    Ish  stared  emptily  across  the  rugged,  broken  terrain   that
characterized this  whole,  miserable  mining pit  of  a  world.  Then
dropped his gaze to  the dense module in  his hands. It wasn't  black,
exactly. More a purple-black, the color of iodine. Flintsteel, same as
the Bolo's hull. Given its weight, the module's hull was thicker  than
Red's.

    Ish shut his eyes,  trying not to think  about what his next  duty
might well be. He never had blamed Red, not during all the long months
since he'd given up command. Red had only been doing her duty, in  the
kindest way she could find to do it. Now she didn't even remember him.

    "Why'd you do it, Red?" he whispered.

    The  eerie,  intermittent  keening   halted.  The  Bolo's   voice,
mechanical yet  definitely  female,  said,  "Unit  LRH-1313,  awaiting
orders. Please elaborate your question."

    Her apple-pie  and warm-brownies  personality was  gone. What  had
replaced it was  the cold,  impersonal sound of  a newly  commissioned
machine, devoid of associated memories, of everything that made her  .
. .

    Red.

    "Never mind."

    He wasn't even certainwhich mystery he'd meant: the reason  behind
her decision a year previously or her far more serious behavior today.
Was today  his fault?  He should  have realized  a year  ago that  her
personality programming was unstable. If  he'd taken steps to  correct
it . . .

    His career might have ended, but  Red might not have run mad.  Ish
tightened his hand around the dense  module. All the answershad to  be
locked away in this thing. He  cleared his throat and decided to  make
sure she  still  remembered he  was  her Commander  before  trying  to
dismount. No telling, with her  internal circuitry so scrambled,  what
she might think or do. He didn't want Red to kill him.

    "Unit LRH-1313, respond to code Baked Bread."

    The disconcerting, intermittent keening  halted once again.  "Yes,
Commander Matsuro? I have already responded to that code. Do you  have
further orders?"

    Ish cleared his throat. "Retire for depot maintenance, vector 035,
range 40.5 kilometers."

    "Understood, Commander. Will you accompany me?"

    He had to glance  away from her forward  internal sensors. "No,  I
won't be coming with you. I'll . . . join you later, at the depot."

    "Understood, Commander."

    He swung down and  stepped well to  starboard, stumbling a  little
again on uneven ground. The Bolo turned and rumbled obediently in  the
assigned direction. Rumbled only because LRH's treads were damaged and
her hull was  breached near her  pivoting tread-control ratchets.  The
jagged hole  allowed  sound  to  leak out  like  water  from  a  dying
jellyfish. Mark XXI Special units  normally operated so quietly,  they
could sneak up on a sleeping cat. Red had excelled at the game,  which
explained the battle  honors welded to  her low-slung,  data-gathering
turret.

    The only  reason  she  was  able  to move  at  all  was  that  her
wide-tired, independent-drive wheels were still functional. Conceptual
descendants   of   the   independent-drive   wheels   on   the   early
twentieth-century Christie T-3 tank, which was in turn developed  into
the famous Soviet  T-34 tank of  that same century,  they permitted  a
tracked vehicle  to continue  moving even  if it  lost its  treads  to
battle damage. A tracked  vehicle without treads or  independent-drive
wheels  was   little   more   than  an   armored   pillbox.   For   an
intelligence-gathering Bolo  without significant  armor, those  wheels
were doubly critical. Without them, an LRH unit wouldn't have been  an
armored pillbox, it would've been a sitting duck.

    Red's wheels had been damaged, too, but they still functioned. She
was certainly headed  straight toward maintenance  as ordered. Not  an
irrational peep out  of her  since his  arrival, except  for that  odd
keening-which  might  just  as  easily  have  been  battle  damage  to
instrumentation somewhere  inside her.  He wondered  if she  was  even
fully aware of what they'd removed.

    He glanced at Red's retreating hull, at the data module.

    Destroying Red would feel entirely too much like murder.

    3

    I  have  been   ordered  to  return   to  depot  for   much-needed
maintenance. Despite severe damage to my sensors, I am able to perform
a scan  of extremely  broken  terrain which  lies between  my  current
position and the coordinates I have been given. At top cruising  speed
I could arrive in  twenty-two minutes. I am  not currently capable  of
top  cruising  speed.  Even  though  external  sensors  and   internal
diagnostics tell me I am badly in need of maintenance, I do not choose
even the top speed of which I am currently capable.

    Instead, I delay. I have not been ordered to proceed with haste. I
do not feel like haste. I am uncertain what I feel, a condition  which
triggers internal diagnostic alarms in my ego-gestalt circuitry. I  am
a Bolo  Mark XXI  Model I  (Special) unit.  I have  been designed  for
steadfast emotional stability. Yet what has transpired fills my entire
psychotronic awareness network with unease.

    Something is  seriously  wrong  with my  memory.  I  retain  basic
orientation data.  My primary  personality  and self-image  files  are
intact. All else  is vacant. My  memory begins with  reception of  the
transmitted code which my current Commander sent before coming aboard.
This occurred 11.857  minutes ago. I  can discover no  cause for  this
condition, despite  what appears  to be  serious battle  damage to  my
hull.

    This damage puzzles and alarms  me. I am not  a combat unit. I  am
not designed for it. I  carry neither armor nor armaments  appropriate
to heavy combat. I am strongly  motivated to seek an explanation  from
my Commander, for  my basic orientation  data urges me  to confide  my
concerns to him. Yet when given the chance, I have held silent. Nor do
I choose  to  call  him now  on  my  Command Link.  He  has  discussed
destroying me for  a crime-an  insanity-which I do  not recall  having
committed.

    I do not wish to  die. Survival is a  deeply imprinted part of  my
basic personality-gestalt circuitry. Nor do I wish to suffer  madness.
This, too, is something I fear, something which is an integral part of
my personality  gestalt. I  am a  stable, emotionally  reliable  Light
Reconnaissance Headquarters  unit,  charged with  the  well-being  and
security of my Command and Dismount Teams. This is my function.

    My Commander's reluctance to accompany me to the maintenance depot
weighs  heavily   upon   me.   I   perform  a   deep   probe   of   my
personality-integration circuits  and find  no  sign of  damage  which
would explain my Commander's or the technician's accusations.

    I am not mad.

    Am I?

    Do the mad know they are afflicted?

    This is not a question I am currently capable of answering. I turn
my attention to what I can  answer. My basic orientation data  reveals
that I would not have  been forwarded into a battlefield  intelligence
gathering mission without a crew. Mark XXI Model I (Special) units  do
not function  independently. Mark  XXI  combat units  maintain  remote
contact with a human commander and occasionally carry a passenger, but
Mark XXI  Model  I (Special)  units  are subordinate  to  an  on-board
commander and are  designed to house  eight additional crewmembers  at
full battle readiness. I can discover no trace in my on-board files of
having been assigned  a full intelligence-gathering  crew for this  or
any other mission.

    This is in direct conflict  with what my internal sensors  reveal.
Three men have  died inside  me. They remain  in my  Command and  Crew
Compartments. The damage to their bodies is severe. While my  interior
armatures are  capable  of inflicting  the  kind of  traumatic  damage
required to  open  a  human  body  cavity-I  am  rated  for  emergency
surgery-I possess no  internal machinery capable  of reaching them  in
their current positions. It seems reasonable to assume that I did  not
kill these men.

    That relief is  overridden, however,  by the sense  of grief  such
deaths trigger in my Responsibility  circuits. I have been  programmed
to accept full responsibility for  the safety and well-being of  those
humans authorized  to  enter  my Crew  and  Command  Compartments.  If
someone has died, then it is because I have failed in my duty.

    I grieve. For whom, I  do not know. But  I am determined to  learn
the identity of  these lost children.  I scan them.  They wear  proper
uniforms and  identification transponders.  Scanning the  transponders
gives me three names: Willum  DeVries, whose transponder records  that
he is a ship's engineer from theBonaventure Royale. DeVries lies  near
the emergency medical  station in my  Crew Compartment. Aduwa  Banjul,
whose  transponder  identifies  him  as  Assistant  Mission  Commander
assigned to LRH-1313, lies near  the bulkhead door between my  Command
and Crew  Compartments, against  my  port hull.  Banjul's  transponder
signal removes all doubt. This man is part of my crew. Was part of  my
crew.

    Douglas Hart's death  brings even sharper  grief. His  transponder
identifies him  as my  former Mission  Commander. My  Command  Team-at
least two-thirds of it-has died. I  do not know where my own  engineer
might be or why a Navy ship's engineer might have taken his place. Nor
do I  know where  my missing  Dismount  Teams One  and Two  might  be.
Experience data gathered since  awakening strongly suggests they  have
been killed.

    I leave behind the level, burn-scarred plateau which is the  place
my  memory  begins  and  enter  a  narrow  defile.  A  nineteen  point
one-one-nine meter  cliff rises  to my  right, within  two degrees  of
slope from perfect vertical. A canyon 391.592 meters deep plunges away
to my left. I do not know which world I have awakened on. The  surface
is extremely rugged. Beyond the far lip of the canyon, 0.82 kilometers
away, my  damaged  sensors detect  another  steep cliff.  Due  to  its
presence, my line-of-sight data-gathering  ability is restricted to  a
mere 0.82 kilometers. In this terrain, even with perfectly functioning
sensors, I  would be  virtually blind.  I long  for the  reports of  a
Dismount Team to  advise me  what lies  beyond the  canyon, above  the
cliff, past this narrow corridor.

    But the defile is on a  direct bearing for the maintenance  depot.
It is the only passage I detect which will accomplish the order I have
been given to report for maintenance. I pause at the entrance and scan
as best I am  able. I detect  no ambush. The  cliff appears stable.  I
move forward with a clearance of  0.621 meters to starboard and  1.176
meters to port.  I edge closer  to the cliff,  distrusting the  canyon
lip. I am  extremely lightweight for  a Bolo unit-fifty-four  thousand
kilograms without  crew or  supplies-but I  am of  sufficient mass  to
break a crumbling edge. Maybe, with luck, a Bolo Mark XXI combat unit,
three hundred times  my mass with  considerably more effective  armor,
could survive a fall into that canyon. But not an LRH unit.

    I am practical.  I move as  close to  the cliff as  my fender  and
treads will  allow  and  turn  the full  attention  of  all  operative
port-side sensors to monitoring the rock  at the lip of the canyon.  I
turn the rest of my attention to study the difficulty in which I  find
myself.

    A full  damage-assessment probe  locates  extensive injury  to  my
once-beautiful hull.  I  discover  serious damage  to  my  treads.  My
external armatures  are inoperative,  my  long-range sensor  array  is
missing, and my lightweight infinite repeater is no longer functional.
External sensors along my prow  and starboard side are inoperative.  A
single remaining sensor atop my prow allows me forward vision which is
impaired in several spectra.  Rear sensors are completely  functional.
This is disturbing. In the event  of even accidental contact with  the
Enemy, I  am programmed  to  retreat with  all speed,  extricating  my
Dismount Teams and  safeguarding the  data they have  gathered. Had  I
followed my programming  correctly, the Enemy  should have damaged  my
rear sensors most heavily.

    I have  suffered internal  injury, as  well, to  my  tread-control
center and many non-critical fixtures. Circuits in my psychotronic net
have experienced overload consistent with combat damage of the type  I
have suffered.  It is  imperative that  I  learn when  and how  I  was
damaged. A technician, working with  full permission of my  Commander,
has removed a module from me. My basic configuration data reveals that
this was a backup mission record module. Six point zero-seven  seconds
after awakening  on  the  plateau  where  my  Commander  found  me,  I
attempted to probe  the contents  of this  module; but  was unable  to
access it as I am configured for write-only mode to this module. I  am
unsure that I should have permitted this module's removal. If the data
incriminating me is  held in  that module,  perhaps destruction  would
have been the wiser choice; yet nothing I possess on board would  have
been capable of penetrating the module's hull.

    The  technician   who   removed   it  spoke   of   destroying   my
Action/Command center. It is both  noteworthy and frightening that  my
Commander did  not  defend me.  Why  I should  be  condemned,  without
knowing even the  charges against me,  becomes an intolerable  mystery
within 0.003 seconds.

    I must know why I am to die.

    My external damage assessment reveals a further disquieting  fact.
Welded  to  my  hull  are  service  decorations  from  four  different
campaigns. Extensive time would be  required for this many  campaigns,
on worlds as widely separated as my on-board star charts reveal  these
four to be. Yet  my short-term memory contains  data from only  11.998
minutes. I retain stored memories of my original self-awakening and my
commissioning ceremony, as well as basic programming instructions  and
orientation data; but that is all.

    If I have fallen to the Enemy, then I have been rescued again, for
my Commander has given  me the properly  coded private password  which
only my legitimate Commander  may know; yet where  I have been  during
the  unknown  number  of  years  required  to  accumulate  my  service
citations and what I have experienced during that time, I am at a loss
to  determine.  My  decorations  indicate  that  I  have  served  with
distinction. This is pleasing,  but only for  0.006 seconds. Before  I
can determine  why  I  am  thought  mad  enough  to  warrant  probable
execution, I must first discover who I really am.

    I develop  an  immediate  mission  plan  to  ensure  my  continued
survival:

    Priority one: discover who  I have become.  I have programs  which
permit me to develop a personality, but I do not seem to have one. Not
one sufficiently complex for the  time lapse which must have  occurred
since my commissioning, anyway.

    Priority two: discover  what has  transpired since the  day of  my
commissioning as an intelligence-gathering unit.

    Priority three: discover why I have been accused of such a serious
charge as madness.

    Priority four: discover a way to convince my new Commander that  I
am worthy of continued service.

    Having established a roughly sketched mission plan, I return  part
of my attention to  my surroundings. One  hundred twenty seconds  have
elapsed since  I received  the order  to report  for maintenance.  The
depot is still  40.5 kilometers  away. At  my current  speed of  seven
kilometers per hour, I have only  five hours and forty-two minutes  in
which to  fully  execute my  mission  plan  and achieve  each  of  its
priority tasks. Someone has programmed  an extreme pragmatism into  my
ego-gestalt circuits: I believe my task to be impossible.

    Yet  programmed  deeply  into  my  psychotronic  circuitry  is   a
stubbornness which I now experience. Mark XXI Model I (Special)  units
do not abandon difficult tasks.  The survival of Command and  Dismount
Teams depends  on  my dogged  tenacity  to carry  on  under  difficult
conditions. I will shame neither myself nor the Dinochrome Brigade  by
dying with the stain of madness on my record. Somehow, I will succeed.
How, I do not know. But I must.

    Therefore, I will.



    - II-

    1

    Warrant Officer Willum Sanghurst DeVries was scared.

    His mouth was  dry as bone  and his  palms were so  slick he  kept
losing his grip  on the harness.  He didn't like  being strapped  into
place like a sack of spare parts. I'm  a ship's engineer, not a . .  .
What was  he, exactly,  besides  a green-around-the-gills  coward  and
several kinds of  fool? Not a  battle technician, that  was for  sure.
More like a stop-gap replacement for a mission already in trouble.

    Just our luck that damned Deng sentry ship caught us dropping  out
of FTL. It had fired two shots beforeBonaventure 's guns had destroyed
it. But  those  two shots  had  counted.  He didn't  know  what  their
casualties had been-high, he was  guessing, given the damageBonny  had
sustained. Willum wondered if the other LRH unit's crew had  sustained
losses, too. Captain Matsuro hadn't told him, if it had. He wanted  to
ask, but didn't want to sound any greener or scareder than he  already
did.

    Why'd I ever agree to serve on  a drop ship? Every man who  served
on one was  required to  train as  replacement crew  for whatever  was
being dropped. And  sinceBonaventure Royale  's job  was dropping  LRH
intel-teams onto occupied worlds,  his training had  led him to  this:
replacing a  dead engineer  on a  Mark XXI  Special Unit  headed  into
potentially the worst battle of the whole damned war. Common sense and
a healthy dollop of terror told him to stick to theBonaventure  Royale
like a tick to a dog's back.

    You're no  Marine, Willum  told himself  for the  millionth  time.
Yeah, well, you weren't hired to be one for this drop, either, so quit
wetting yourself. Engineering you know.  And you'll be staying  inside
the Mark XXI. . . .

    Trouble was, that scared  him too. Willum  was a ship's  engineer,
accustomed to interacting  with and  maintaining FTL  ships and  their
psychotronic systems. He'd studied  Bolo configurations, enough to  be
familiar with their general  systems; but he  wasn't a specialist  and
he'd never really believed  it would come down  to this. Confident  in
his ship's ability to avoid trouble coming out of FTL, Willum  DeVries
had sloughed off. It  didn't matter thatBonny  'd destroyed that  Deng
sentry; the damage was done, the Bolo crew had lost two men, and  here
he was, harnessed for drop after  a scant three-minute warning to  get
his terrified backside aboard.

    Willum was  afraid the  whole crew  might pay  the price  for  his
carelessness. He  didn't  think  he  could handle  that.  Nor  was  he
psychologically prepared to get as close to dirtside battle as a  Mark
XXI's crew inevitably went.  Willum had never run  from a fair  fight,
but the Deng had neverheard of fighting fair. Andnobody was nice to an
enemy spy. Maybe that was another reason his skin was crawling.

    Or maybe it  was just that  Mark XXI Special  Units had  generated
intense debates in  both military  and political  circles almost  from
their  development.  Screwball  programming,  it  was  whispered,  odd
behavior  patterns,   almost  incestuous   relationships  with   their
crews-relationships a Mark XXI crewman would cheerfully hospitalize  a
man over  if  he were  stupid  enough to  speculate  about them  in  a
crewman's presence. Just what, exactly, a Mark XXI's programming might
be, to inspire such loyalty and widespread controversy, Willum  didn't
know. Secrecy surrounded just about everything connected with the Mark
XXI Special Units. Whatever it was, Willum figured he'd find out  soon
enough.

    If the Deng let him live so long.

    Which reminded him to be scared all over again.

    A glance at the other officers  brought no reassurance. The MC,  a
grim-faced guy named  Hart, didn't look  frightened, exactly; but  the
pallor around  the edges  of his  lips wasn't  natural, either.  If  a
combat veteran  like Hart  who'd participated  in multiple  successful
missions was spooked . . .

    The man  everyone  called  "Banjo"  was the  only  member  of  the
original crew  Willum  felt  might  tolerate  him.  Assistant  Mission
Commander Aduwa Banjul,  with only a  year in this  crew himself,  had
given Willum a  whirlwind orientation after  he'd climbed through  the
open personnel hatch-

    They dropped away  fromBonaventure with  a lurch. Freefall  . .  .
Willum swallowed bile. He'd never been space sick, butbattle sick .  .
. That was a possibility he hadn't yet tested. Don't be sick, DeVries,
don't be sick. . . .

    He  knew   what  was   going  on   around  him-theoretically.   An
infiltration force  of  two  ships would  be  blowing  Deng  satellite
systems, stripping away the  enemy's orbital monitoring capability  as
part of a  decoy operation with  longer-term benefits. Meanwhile,  two
LRH Bolos and several hundred  similarly cocooned decoys dropped  from
orbit toward BFS-3793-C's pitted, canyon-scored surface. . . .

    Willum tried  unsuccessfully  to  loosen  his  grip  on  the  drop
harness.  He  glanced  at  the  vid  screen  which  gave  the  Command
Compartment a view into the Crew Compartment. Willum wanted to see how
the other crewmen were holding up. Dismount Team One was in harness on
the left. "Gunny"  Hokum, the crew's  gunnery sergeant, was  whistling
under his breath. Eagle Talon Gunn's dark eyes met Willum's in the vid
pickup. The  AmerInd grinned  briefly,  teeth gleaming  white  against
bronzed skin. "Great ride, huh, tekkie?"

    Despite the veiled insult,  Willum tried to  smile back. At  least
someone hadtalked to  him, making  an effort  to include  him in  this
mission. "Yeah."

    "Icicle" Goryn eyed the vid  lens with open hostility. His  silent
glare seemed to say, "You're not Honshuko Kai, damn you. Who gave  you
the right to talk to us as an equal?"

    He held Icicle's  gaze long enough  for the veteran  to shrug  and
glance away. It wasn't Willum's  fault their friends had been  killed;
but that wouldn't help a damn bit when they hit the ground running and
had to work together.

    DT-2 had harnessed in  to the right. He'd  never met the man  whom
Danny Hopper, aBonaventure shipboard Marine, had replaced. The  Bolo's
crew had called him Specter. They'd spoken the nickname with reverence
even before  his  death.  Hopper  looked  more  nervous  than  Willum,
swallowing so often  he reminded Willum  of a bullfrog  in full  song.
Sergeant "Milwaukee" Petra, harnessed to Danny's left, was DT-2's team
leader.

    Crazy Fritz,  a  lean,  hollow-eyed  man  hanging  in  harness  on
Hopper's other side, glanced  at the ship's Marine  as though to  say,
"We needed Specter. Not a goddamned fancy-pants Marine." But he didn't
quite voice it aloud. Hopper, a courageous twenty-year-old who'd spent
most of his duty tour as a ceremonial guard, returned the older  man's
look levelly-but he lost a few shades of color and did a good bit more
swallowing.

    Great. We're screaming toward Enemy lines and the whole damn  crew
is rattled before we even leave orbit.

    Willum had a  desperately bad feeling  in his gut,  and it  wasn't
called space sickness.

    We fall. Encased as I am  in a sphere of foam-form  heat-repellent
tiles, I am blind during the  initial stage of drop. Inertial  sensors
transmit a phenomenon  I have  never shared  with my  Commander: I  am
dizzy. Drop always does this to me. I wonder if humans experience  the
same sensation.  Speculation along  such lines  is not  productive.  I
devote my attention to the mission at hand.

    Ablative  foam  tiles  begin  to   shed  mass.  We  have   reached
atmosphere. I  am aware  when  the ribbon  drag deploys,  slowing  our
speed. My  crew is  unharmed by  the change  in velocity,  although  I
detect  higher-than-normal   levels  of   stress  chemicals   in   the
bloodstreams of  my two  replacement crew  members. Danny  Hopper,  in
particular, suffers  during  this  drop.  I  will  suggest  corrective
medication  once  we  achieve  landing.  The  ribbon  drag   functions
perfectly. More  heat-resistant tile  boils away.  A series  of  seven
small parachutes deploy, slowing our velocity further. An outer sensor
array tip clears. I  am able to  see. Dizziness disappears  instantly;
inertial sensors match visual input perfectly.

    We are  still high  in the  atmosphere.  I am  able to  track  one
hundred forty-three of the decoys as  well as my sister LRH-1327.  She
is encased as I am in a glowing sphere that shrinks with each  passing
picosecond. Her drag chutes have also deployed. Deng weapons discharge
from the planet's surface. Missiles arc upwards. One decoy explodes. A
second decoy  is  destroyed.  We drop  lower.  LRH-1327's  main  chute
deploys. Her descent slows sharply. Decoys deploy main chutes and some
begin sensor scans. These broadcast their findings back  toBonaventure
Royale, reporting  terrain features  and Enemy  activity in  order  to
provide good data  for the landing  force as well  as make  themselves
higher priority targets. Two seconds  before I drop below the  horizon
line, LRH-1327 explodes.

    I mourn.

    "Doug,"I  say  in  my  softest  voice,  "mission  parameters  have
changed. LRH-1327 has been destroyed. I am sorry."

    My Commander does  not respond  for 0.89 seconds.  An eternity  of
grieving."Understood, Red. Delay deployment of main chute."

    I execute  the  command,  overriding  automatic  settings."A  wise
decision, Doug."

    I wait to deploy the  main chute which will  slow us to speeds  at
which our para-wing can be deployed. A slower drop provides too  great
a risk of destruction. We are humanity's last hope for  reconnaissance
of Hobson's Mines before the main invasion fleet arrives. Thousands of
human lives will be  spared or destroyed depending  on the success  of
this intelligence-gathering mission. We cannot risk being shot down.

    I wait until sensors tell me we have reached the critical edge  of
our margin for error. I deploy the main chute. The shock of drag slows
us. My crew members jerk in their harnesses. I check their vital signs
for injury, but  detect only expected  mission-level stress. We  drop.
Deng weapons  destroy five  more  decoys still  visible to  my  sensor
array. I  search the  terrain below  for potential  landing sites  and
coordinate visual data with on-board maps.

    My maps of  BFS-3793-C, nicknamed Hobson's  Mines, are  excellent.
This was a human mining colony until the Deng invasion two months  and
four days  ago.  We cannot  allow  the Deng  to  hold this  world.  It
provides critical war materiel that  would give the Enemy a  strategic
advantage over humanity. We must retake the mines. I note that we drop
toward a large  river. Preliminary scans  reveal that it  lies at  the
bottom of  a canyon  0.82  kilometers wide.  Water depth  varies.  The
deepest spots are more than  adequate for a camouflaged landing  site,
particularly ifBonaventure Royale's efforts to neutralize the  Enemy's
satellite reconnaissance abilities have been successful.

    I blow all remaining heat-ablative tiles with a small charge. They
continue on the original  trajectory and smash  into the ground.  They
will look like a crashed decoy  when found. I deploy our para-wing  on
schedule. I am unencumbered and vulnerable. I want to get down.  Using
controls on the  para-wing, I spill  air to change  course toward  the
river as best I can. I cut  the starboard lines to my trailing  chutes
and reel them  in with  the ribbon  drag, leaving  only the  para-wing
outside my hull to slow our descent.

    We head for the river. We sway  and drop. The course I hold  takes
us directly toward the target I have chosen, a spot that sensor  scans
indicate is the  deepest available. At  twenty-seven meters in  depth,
this is a good landing site, although I am constructed to withstand  a
drop onto bare rock if that is required.

    At extreme  sensor range  I detect  Deng airborne  scoutships.  My
intelligence data on such scoutships indicates we are not yet in their
sensor range. I  have 3.88 seconds  in which to  disappear from  their
sensor sweeps. I  activate Chameleon  screens, taking  on the  outward
visual, radar, and infrared signatures  of an airborne Deng scout.  It
is the best  I can  do. We  drop into the  canyon. The  walls are  321
meters high on the near rim.

    I warn my crew:"Brace for landing!"

    At the last possible  moment, I attempt to  climb in an effort  to
stall my para-wing,  as I  need to kill  as much  forward movement  as
possible and reduce speed  to minimize any splash.  When we enter  the
water the  sharp slap  recreates dizziness  in my  motion sensors.  We
slow. I reel in the trailing para-wing while still descending. My crew
has suffered  another jolt  but appears  to be  in good  health. I  am
relieved. Drop is  a dangerous  time. Even  during a  perfect drop,  a
crewman can suffer sprained neck  muscles or dislocated shoulders.  My
crew is safe.

    We touch  bottom. My  treads rest  on clean-scoured  stone.  Water
temperature is 2.7 degrees centigrade. Current flow is 0.6 meters  per
second. A swift current. The chilly water disperses our heat signature
in a short-lived downstream plume. We are hidden from Enemy eyes.

    "Doug, we have achieved a safe landing. I would recommend that  we
remain in this position for another twenty-four hours."

    "Agreed. Okay, you heard the lady.  Time to break out the  playing
cards. We're here for the duration."

    I am pleased. My  Commander is satisfied  with my performance.  He
calls me "the lady" when I have done particularly well. My crew and  I
are safe. That is all that matters for the moment.

    "Brace for landing!"

    Willum jumped  at  the  sound of  an  astonishingly  human  female
voice-then shut his eyes and hung  onto the harness. To his shame,  he
yelled. . . .

    The remaining fall wasn't a long one. The shock of landing  jarred
everything, despite the harness that  held him suspended. Webbing  dug
into flesh. He'd bruise in crisscross stripes-if he lived long  enough
to bruise. After that first, terrible  jolt, they slowed to a  gentle,
eddying descent.

    Water, Willum realized with a blink. We've landed in water.

    They bumped a hard surface.

    "Doug, we have achieved  a safe landing,"  that same female  voice
said out of the air. It's the Bolo.  . . . "I would recommend that  we
remain in this position for another twenty-four hours."

    Up in the  Mission Commander's chair,  Doug Hart nodded.  "Agreed.
Okay, you heard the lady. Time  to break out the playing cards.  We're
here for the duration."

    Willum sagged in his harness. Thank God . . .

    "All right,  everybody unstrap,"  Hart  said, unsnapping  his  own
harness. His boots  thumped against  the deckplates.  "Good job,  Red.
Anybody hurt?"

    "No, Doug," the Bolo responded.

    It gave Willum an odd feeling  to know that his vitals were  being
monitored by his  transport system.  FTL ships  weren't equipped  with
that invasive feature. Dammit, I  should've done more careful  reading
on those  specs like  we were  told.  He was  certain the  Bolo  could
provide  him  with  whatever  data  he  needed;  but  his   incomplete
information was dangerous. He'd fix that, pronto.

    "That's great, Red. You did a fabulous job getting us down in  one
piece. Run a complete systems check on yourself and report."

    Hart didn't look nearly so grim, now that they were down. In fact,
he had a nice, friendly smile. "You all right, DeVries?"

    Willum poked a  tongue at his  teeth. "Yeah. I  think they're  all
intact."

    Hart laughed. "Unstrap. You  have work to do.  I want Red  checked
stem to stern."

    "Yessir," he said, struggling with the harness release. Either  he
was fumble-fingered or it  was stuck. He  flushed, caught his  breath,
and tried again.

    Hart glanced at a sensor eye. "Status, Red?"

    "Systems check  in  progress. Chameleon  screens  reconfigured  to
match color and texture of surrounding sedimentary bedrock and  water.
Probability of  detection by  Enemy  0.093 percent  unless  tight-beam
search sensors touch the Chameleon screens. My systems are functioning
normally except for an alarm in  my food-processor unit. I would  like
DeVries to look at it when there is time. Hopper-do you prefer  Danny?
-may I suggest breathing slowly and evenly through a fine-mesh  cloth?
Report to Medi-Unit, please, and I will assist you. Yes, Danny, that's
the console in the forward starboard corner next to the head.

    "Doug, Target Prime lies 91.3 kilometers northwest of our  current
position. That would place it upriver of our landing site. A good  map
in my data banks  suggests a direct route  is available once we  leave
the confines of this canyon. According to my on-board colony maps, the
canyon walls open onto a broad river valley 61.7 kilometers  upstream.
A boat  landing for  rented pleasure  craft should  provide  excellent
egress from this river. From there we  can take a dirt access road  to
the main  highway. I  would  suggest travelling  during the  day  with
Chameleon screens modified  to approximate the  heavy farm and  mining
equipment in widespread use on this world."

    "Very good,  Red. We'll  let  the furor  die  down before  we  try
getting closer  to  Target Prime.  A  few days  underwater  will  help
convince the Deng they got all their incoming targets."

    Willum was all for that.

    "Para-wing stowed.  I'll drain  the water  out of  my tummy  after
we've come up for air."

    Out in crew quarters, several crew members chuckled. Willum paused
in his  battle with  the stubborn  harness buckle  and stared  at  the
nearest speaker grill.  The Bolo's voice  was remarkable. She  sounded
like his grandmother.  He could almost  imagine a living  surveillance
tech reporting from a sensor-array display room in another compartment
somewhere. Except  there  weren't  any other  compartments:  just  the
cramped Command Compartment and  the jam-packed Crew Compartment.  The
reaction the Bolo's voice set up in him was eerie, disturbing.  Heknew
the Mark XXI was nothing more  than a machine. Self-aware and  fitting
most definitions of  sentience, perhaps; but  a machine,  nonetheless.
Yet already he found himself wanting to think of it asher .

    And why not? You think of your ship the same way.

    Bonny's programming wasn't nearly as complex as a Mark XXI's,  yet
Willum  was  deeply  attached  toBonaventure  Royale  .  He  began  to
understand a little better why Mark XXI crews reacted as they did.

    Hart had  opened  the  bulkhead  door  between  Compartments.  The
Mission Commander glanced  his way. "DeVries,  quit hanging around  in
harness and get busy on that food-processor alarm. Then break out your
gear and double-check Red's operational status. It'll help familiarize
you with her systems. Banjo,  let's perform a complete weapons  check.
Hopper, you especially, listen up. DeVries, move it!"

    The Marine officers  left him  alone in  the Command  Compartment,
still struggling  with the  unfamiliar drop  harness, and  closed  the
bulkhead door  with a  hiss of  pneumatics. He  finally unlatched  his
harness release. Willum sprawled ungracefully onto the floor. At least
none of the crew had seen  that embarrassing display. He made it  back
to his feet and willed rubbery legs to hold him.

    "Wonder where this food processor is I'm supposed to look at?"  he
muttered aloud, mentally  reviewing what  he'd studied  nearly a  year
previously.

    "Move aft," the  Bolo responded. "It's  in the port  corner of  my
Crew Compartment, aft of the seats."

    He jumped at least eight centimeters off the deckplates.

    "I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean to startle you."

    "Uh-" He glanced around and found the camera lens that marked  the
Bolo's video pickup. "Hi.  Didn't realize you were  . . ." He  trailed
off and felt his neck grow hot. He sounded stupid and green.

    A remarkably human  chuckle issued from  the speaker. "Don't  feel
embarrassed, Willum.  You've never  been assigned  to a  Bolo  before.
Welcome aboard, by the way."

    "Uh, thanks. You're, uh, not what I expected."

    "My programming provides for a closer simulation of human dialogue
and verbal interplay than  an FTL ship's programming.  My duty is  the
welfare of this crew. I do my best to perform that duty."

    "What happens when you lose a crewman?" Willum asked, thinking  of
the two men killed aboardBonaventure .

    The long pause  surprised Willum.  He'd never  had a  psychotronic
unit delay an  answer. "I  grieve for  them," the  Bolo finally  said.
"Giurgiu Galati-although  he  hated that  name;  I always  called  him
Specter, too-and Honshuko  Kai were my  boys. Specter and  I had  been
together for seven  years, three months,  twenty-one days, six  hours,
five point seven minutes. Honey Pie and I were together from the day I
was commissioned. The  Enemy has robbed  me of their  company. May  we
discuss my damaged food processor instead, please?"

    In that moment, Willum DeVries stopped thinking of her as the Mark
XXI or even as just  the Bolo. She became  real to him, someone  who'd
lost friends same as Willum-same as  anyone in the military since  the
coming of the Deng invasion fleet.

    In that moment, she became "Red"-and, possibly, the only friend he
would find on this mission.

    "Sure. We can talk about something else. And . . . I'm sorry. I've
lost friends to spodders, too." Willum cleared his throat. "Now, let's
see about this processor."

    "Thank you, Willum."

    He gathered up his equipment packs and headed aft to the so-called
galley, a tiny corner of the Crew Compartment where an automated  food
processor battled  for space  with a  refrigeration unit  and a  waste
disposal unit. Either  the crew  ate off their  laps or  some kind  of
table could be raised between the seats. The crew's seats were  bolted
to the deck. Behind  him, the men and  their commanding officers  were
going through  a very  thorough  weapons check.  Nobody paid  him  the
slightest attention, except to grunt when he had to step over them  to
reach the "galley."

    Willum dug out  equipment and  began to  investigate circuitry  he
understood. "Ahh . . . Yeah, I think I see the problem. . . ."

    It felt good to finally be useful again.

    2

    Harry "Gunny" Hokum  closed the  access panel which  shut off  the
Command Compartment from the rest of Red's interior. Banjo glanced up,
nodded, then went  back to  his screens,  monitoring everything  which
came in via Red's sensors, packaging it for easier analysis,  noticing
any tiny anomaly that might mean danger to Red or her crew. Doug Hart,
busy working with  Red replanning  their mission  parameters now  that
they were the  only surveillance  unit left, swivelled  around in  his
command chair.

    "What's up, Gunny?"

    He leaned his back comfortably  against the closed door. "Got  the
men settled in. Everything looks fine; nothing damaged in drop."

    "Good. What else? You look like a man with a problem."

    Gunny scratched his elbow. "Yeah.  Well, maybe. What can you  tell
me about the Frog?"

    "Hopper?" Hart frowned. "Problems?"

    "Maybe. Maybe not.  He's green,  scared pretty bad.  The boys  are
shook up, losing Specter the way we did, and Honey Pie, too, and  even
though they're smart  enough not to  say it,  well . .  . It's  pretty
clear they don't have much faith  in Hopper. That boy's rattled.  I've
got him  working solo  right now,  doing maintenance  on his  weapons.
Figured he needed something familiar to  settle him down. But I  gotta
know what he's made of before we Dismount."

    Hart nodded. "I glanced at the file Ish gave us before drop, but I
haven't had much time  to do more than  glance. He's been a  shipboard
Marine since joining the service. He's never seen combat-but how  many
of 'em have?  Goddamn fuzzy spiders  . . ."  Gunny and Banjo  muttered
agreement. Hart  pulled  at his  lower  lip. "I  remember  reading  he
graduated well in his  class, so they haven't  stuck us with a  stupid
replacement. Red? What can you tell us we haven't already covered?"

    "Danny qualified expert with all weapons for which he is rated. He
is seventh-generation career Marine. His grandfather was decorated for
valor  in  the  Halloran  Campaign.  He  studied  xenobiology,  so  is
passingly familiar with the physical and psychological profile of  the
Enemy; as familiar as  a Marine private with  no field experience  can
be. I suspect this is  one of the reasons  Ish selected him, Doug.  He
has scored well on all field-combat  tests and has hearing two  points
above the norm for human males his age.

    "He has been nervous since boarding, potentially because his first
combat mission is  a dangerous assignment  with strangers rather  than
his shipboard comrades; but blood chemistry and pulse rate suggest  he
is calming down nicely.  That was a good  idea, Gunny, putting him  to
work cleaning his rifle. I would  suggest making an effort to  include
him in group  activities very soon.  He needs to  become part of  this
crew."

    Hart nodded. "Yes, the sooner the  better. We'll have a couple  of
days underwater for you to work on that, Gunny. Get him involved. Work
on the others. How's Fritz?"

    Gunny grimaced.  "Crazy's  spooked.  Hell, you  know  how  he  and
Specter were. Damn finest  team I ever saw  work together. He's got  a
bad feeling about this mission."

    Hart didn't speak. From the  tightening of his jaw muscles,  Gunny
knew  his  commander  shared  Crazy  Fritz's  feeling-maybebecause  of
Crazy's gut reaction. It didn't make  sense; but some men just  seemed
to know when trouble was coming, like a weathervane pointing the  path
of a storm front.

    "Do what you can to loosen him up," Hart said at length. "We  need
him on edge,  but not paranoid.  How about  you, Gunny? We  had a  bad
start." Hart met his gaze squarely and held it.

    Gunny didn't  hesitate.  "I  got confidence  in  you,  sir.  We'll
complete the mission."

    Doug Hart grunted. "Good. I know I can count on you."

    Banjo looked  up from  his  screen. "And  you, Doug?  While  we're
baring our souls? Personally, I'm scared spitless."

    Hart  grinned  suddenly.  "You  would  be.  You  always  did  hate
spiders."

    Banjo snorted rudely.

    Hart sobered. "This is no  easy mission. Especially with  LRH-1327
gone. We were damn lucky to get down in one piece. They had us dead to
rights from the moment we dropped out of FTL. But . . ." He  swivelled
absently in his command chair, burning  up nervous energy. "We have  a
good chance to complete the mission.  Red and Banjo and I are  working
up details now for overlapping recon plans, since we'll have to  cover
LRH-1327's mission parameters  as well.  It won't be  a cakewalk,  but
we'll manage."

    "Just do me a favor," Banjo smiled. "Dance at my wedding when this
is over."

    Gunny grinned. "You meet somebody?"

    Hart laughed and thumped  Banjo's shoulder. "Should'a known  you'd
go and pull an Ish Matsuro on me."

    Banjo chuckled. "Wonder what Ish thought when we dropped off  that
ship without him."

    "He missed  it  like hell,"  Gunny  muttered. "Should'a  seen  his
face." Gunny-perhaps alone of the human crew-knew what it had cost Ish
Matsuro to  give up  command of  LRH-1313. Red  knew, but  she  wasn't
talking either. Not even Doug Hart,  who had been seconded to  command
with his departure, probably  guessed the depth  of Ish's pain.  Gunny
remembered  like   yesterday  the   conversation  he'd   inadvertently
overheard late in the  night, with Ish pouring  his heart out and  Red
listening, commenting quietly, trying to guide their commander  toward
the right decision.

    No  one  but  Gunny  and  Red  herself  knew  that   level-headed,
no-nonsense Ish Matsuro had fallen in love with two women: the  future
Mrs. Matsuro . . .

    And Red.

    Gunny glanced into Red's  video pickup and  wondered if she  could
guess what he was thinking. He wondered if he could guess what she was
remembering. Had it cost Red  as much as it had  cost Ish to file  the
recommendation that her commander be promoted into a slot suitable for
a career officer to marry and raise a family? He would probably  never
know. But it was good  they had Red to watch  over them on the eve  of
their deadliest mission to date. Gunny knew that would be the deciding
factor in whether or not he slept at all over the coming days.

    Gunny suspected Doug Hart had no real inkling what a fine  command
he carried  into  war. If  there'd  been a  way  to tell  him  without
betraying Ish and Red, he'd have  made damned sure his commander  knew
it. So  he  cleared  his  throat  and scuffed  one  boot  toe  on  the
deckplates and said, "Red'll take care of us, anyway, Banjo. Hell, who
knows? Maybeshe'll dance at your wedding."

    A sweet chuckle issued from the speakers. "A Mark XXI Special Unit
can't dance. But Icould serve cake with my exterior manipulator  arms.
And I take a mean wedding photo."

    Banjo grinned. "Deal."

    Doug Hart  smiled. "That's  a rendezvous,  then. Now,  about  this
processing plant . . ."

    Gunny retreated, leaving the officers and Red to plan out the next
few days of his life.

    To Willum DeVries' surprise,  they stayed in  the river for  three
days. The  first day  they spent  checking everything  and sitting  in
place. The officers went on  thirty-three percent alert status,  which
meant at least one  officer was awake at  all times. Taking his  first
solo turn in Red's Command Compartment  was unnerving; but Red was  so
good at her job, she left him with almost nothing to do but watch  the
vid screens.  The second  two  days they  spent crawling  upstream  to
locate the  boat landing  marked on  Red's map.  During transit,  they
amused themselves playing cards with one another and with Red.

    "Two, please," Red  said. Delicate  manipulator arms  ran along  a
rail the length of the cramped box which comprised living quarters for
six men and bunking quarters for eight. There were a few spots in  the
compartment Red couldn't reach,  but not many.  A folding table  which
could be lowered  into the deckplates  served the crew  for meals  and
recreation. At  the  moment,  Red's manipulator  "fingers"  held  five
ordinary playing cards. Red slid her discards to one side. Gunny dealt
two replacements.

    "Thank you, Gunny," Red said politely.

    Willum wondered if anyone else  had considered the practical  side
of betting against  a machine  with video monitors  capable of  seeing
everyone's hand, not to mention medical monitors capable of  detecting
the slightest  changes in  biological responses.  It seemed  to him  a
little like asking the  mouse to step onto  the cat's tongue; then  he
decided it would  be unforgivable  to accuse  a lady  of cheating.  He
asked for three and received them.

    They began to play.

    Gunny bet four.  Hopper folded.  Crazy Fritz grinned  and met  the
bet, then raised  two. Eagle Talon  grunted and dropped  six into  the
pot. Red and Willum stayed in, too.

    "Call," Milwaukee said.

    Red had two queens and a pair of threes.

    Fritz had a straight.

    Willum kissed his money goodbye.

    Milwaukee grinned and took the pot with a straight flush.

    "Damn your lucky hide,"  Fritz groused. "Best hand  I've had in  a
year and you go and beat it."

    "Refreshments, boys?"  Red asked  as she  delicately gathered  and
shuffled the cards. The process  fascinated Willum. If he got  through
this mission, he was going  to ask for a  transfer. He wanted to  find
out how they put these babies together. Red continued the shuffle with
the skill of a riverboat  gambler. "I could do  brownies in ten or  an
apple pie in twenty?"

    "Brownies," Gunny voted.

    "Pie," Crazy Fritz countered.

    "Pie," Milwaukee agreed.

    Eagle Talon grinned. "Brownies," he said, as though tying the vote
were the most sinfully delightful task in the universe.

    Hopper exchanged glances with Willum. "Uh . . . Brownies?"

    Willum's turn. "Pie."

    Red actually chuckled.  "Oh, goody, I  get to break  the tie.  How
about both? Brownies going in now. Pie'll take a little longer,  boys,
but it ought to be good. And  there's cold milk in my fridge. My  deal
and the game is seven-card no-peek . . ."

    And so the hours passed.

    "Okay, men, listen up." Hart stepped into crew quarters and banged
on the bulkhead wall. Willum  blinked sleepily and pulled himself  out
from under. "Move it," Hart rasped.  "We're about to leave the  river.
Before we go, we review mission priorities one more time."

    A general groan met that order; but Red's crew rolled out of their
hammocks and  folded  them  away,  taking their  seats  to  await  the
briefing. Willum, blinking sleepily, had to stand, since his place was
up in the Command Compartment when he wasn't asleep. Hart motioned for
him to remain where he  was. At the front  of the Crew Compartment,  a
vid screen lit up with a map that could only have come from the mining
colony's own archives. Hart took a lecturer's stance beside it. Banjo,
on duty as officer  of the watch, remained  sealed off in the  Command
Compartment.

    "This is  our  original  Target Prime,"  Hart  said  crisply.  Red
thoughtfully  highlighted  a  spot  on  the  map  for  him.  "It's   a
fully-automated mining facility. We believe a heavy Deng concentration
lies here" -another spot lit up about three kilometers away-"where the
terrain will accommodate a larger number of Deng transports. But we're
not sure.  Our job  is  to confirm  and  estimate enemy  strength  and
emplacements, extrapolate attack  plans, and report  back to  FleetCom
with our findings the instant they drop out of FTL."

    The  map  changed.  "LRH-1327  was  charged  with  scouting   this
position. Ordinarily two  LRH units  would not be  dropped this  close
together; a  mission  like  this  would  be  entrusted  to  one  team.
Fortunately, two teams  were dropped  for just the  kind of  emergency
we've  encountered:  destruction  of  one  team  during  combat  drop.
LRH-1327's target becomes our new Primary. This is a processing plant,
semi-automated. Terrain here will accommodate a very large Deng force.
It's reasonable to assume  the Enemy would  concentrate its assets  on
this site, since it's  capable of producing  a finished product  ready
for export.

    "We scout this  location first, from  extreme range. Terrain  will
allow  for  long-range  monitoring.   Once  we've  reconnoitered   the
processing plant,  we  fall back  to  our original  Target  Prime  and
complete our mission.  Red, how far  is the processing  plant from  us
now?"

    "Twenty-nine point six  kilometers upstream.  The colony  situated
this  facility  on  the  closest  area  of  flat  ground  suitable  to
accommodate a space port. There is a good road." The map changed to  a
broader-scale view. A thin red line flashed to indicate the road. "The
mines are 63.5  kilometers upstream  from the  processing plant."  Two
dots appeared, marking the targets.

    "Okay. Questions?"

    Gunny spoke first. "Do we have any photos of these facilities?  Or
pics of the terrain around them?"

    A collage of photographs flashed onto the screen.

    "Thanks," Gunny said,  moving closer to  study the images.  "Looks
like we won't need to dismount  for the processing plant. That's  open
ground. Visibility's as good there as anywhere on this ball of rock, I
expect. What'll you use for cover, Red?"

    "I will engage Chameleon screens to simulate the appearance of  an
ore carrier." Another photo  appeared, this one  of a large,  unwieldy
tracked vehicle  that  Willum  recognized as  one  of  the  completely
automated types developed for remote worlds just like this one,  where
the labor force was  small but the planetary  coffers were rich.  "The
map indicates a parking compound for  ore cars in need of  maintenance
here." The processor-plant  map reappeared. A  circle of light  marked
the maintenance depot.

    "If Commander Hart agrees, I intend  to park in this compound  and
gather data over the course  of twenty-four hours, provided there  are
enough vehicles in it  to act as camouflage  and provided no Enemy  or
human personnel  approach closely  enough to  recognize the  Chameleon
screens for what  they are. If  I cannot  use this site,  I will  move
along this road, circle this  position eight thousand meters from  the
processor plant, then retrace my  route and initiate the second  phase
of our mission."

    "What about that damned mine?"  Crazy Fritz asked uneasily.  "That
place looked treacherous."

    "That's our  job,"  Gunny  grinned. "If  it's  treacherous,  we'll
tackle it."

    Danny Hopper looked scared again.

    Hart said, "Okay,  Red. Your  plan for the  processor plant  looks
good. What about the mine?"

    Red switched maps. "We will need Dismount Teams, Doug. The mine is
situated at the base of a  cliff and runs 12.5 kilometers beneath  the
surface. A narrow draw curves  away from the surface-level  facilities
plant through here. An access road capable of supporting ore cars runs
through it, between these two ridgelines. The suspected  concentration
of Deng forces is here, north of this larger ridge."

    "All right," Hart said, studying  the map. "Gunny, put DT-1  here,
where the contour lines form a point south of this V-shaped cut at the
tip of the ridge.  You should be  able to scope out  the Deng in  this
wider valley from there. Milwaukee, I want you here on the second fork
of this double ridge, line-of-sight  to Gunny, overlooking the  access
road in this draw. Red, you I want here, behind the tip of this  third
ridge, hidden but line-of-sight to Milwaukee. That'll put us close  to
the mine; but colony records indicate it's completely automated, so we
shouldn't encounter anyone. We take readings, transmit data to Red for
transmission to FleetCom,  and get  the hell  out of  there. We'll  be
operating on a  very tight schedule.  Given the distances  we have  to
cover and the  speeds we'll be  restricted to, I  estimate we'll  have
less than half a day at the mine before FleetCom drops out of FTL  and
requests our data."

    Gunny asked, "Red, how far is the mine from pickup point?"

    "Forty point six kilometers." A  new map flashed onto the  screen.
"Pickup point sits atop  this mesa. I should  have no trouble  gaining
the top  via  this route."  A  series of  dots  marked the  route  she
intended to take, along the edge of a precipitous canyon.

    "Good," Gunny nodded. "Time frame on these missions?"

    "An ore car's  top speed  is 48.3  kilometers per  hour. From  our
current position, I  estimate 36.7  minutes to reach  a position  from
which we can conduct our  recon of the processing  plant. I will do  a
thorough survey, to include Deng departure and arrival schedules. This
is, after all, the  larger of the two  assigned targets which must  be
scouted."

    Hart just nodded.

    "It will take approximately one hour eighteen minutes to reach the
mine from  the processing  plant. Due  to the  proximity of  the  mine
facility to extrapolated  Enemy positions  and the  need for  Dismount
Teams, I do not advise a prolonged recon effort here."

    "No," Doug Hart agreed, looking grim. "We get in, do our business,
and leave. Like  I said,  half a day  tops, from  Dismount to  Recall.
Less, if we can manage it. I'd  rather not be anywhere near that  Deng
concentration when we have to transmit to FleetCom. Hopper . . ."

    Hopper cleared his throat. "Sir?"

    "What equipment do you take?"

    The Marine answered immediately. "We  go suited, sir. Our  stealth
suits won't match Red's Chameleon  screens, but they'll mask our  heat
signatures. We take energy conversion screens to cover our  positions.
If we're blown, they'll protect us from Enemy fire for a little while,
sir, and transfer energy they absorb to operate the automated infinite
repeaters tied into the system."

    Hart nodded. "I  don't expect  you'll be blown,  but we're  always
thorough."

    "Yessir. My mission is to provide security for Sergeant Petra.  He
operates comm and does any additional recon he can from our  position.
My job is to guard him while he does it and make damn sure he gets  to
our recon position in one piece so he can transmit Gunny's data."

    Hart nodded once again. Clearly,  Danny Hopper knew his  business,
even if this was his first combat mission. "Very good, Hopper.  Fritz,
you take point. Nursemaid him if he  needs it. I don't think he  will.
Questions?"

    Nobody had any.

    Willum DeVries knew he wouldn't sleep till this mission was over.

    "All right, then, Full Alert Status as of now. Red, take us up."

    Hart gestured curtly to Willum; he followed his commander into the
Command Compartment and  strapped into his  seat. Banjo scarcely  paid
heed to their arrival; he was  intent on Red's data screens. The  Bolo
moved smoothly. The decking tipped as  she climbed the steep grade  up
out of  the  river. The  main  screen  flashed to  a  real-time  video
picture. They halted again while still underwater.

    "Extending whip array, Doug."

    The picture shifted,  periscopelike as  the Bolo  lifted a  sensor
array into the air.  The lens cleared and  revealed an abandoned  boat
landing. Pleasure craft  sat in the  starlight, motionless hulks  that
registered clearly  under  Red's light-enhancing  sensors.  The  first
faint hint of dawn was visible in  the dark sky. Nobody left alive  to
rent any boats. . . . Willum wondered if the Deng had spared anyone to
run the machinery. He didn't know much about Deng military operational
strategy.

    The thought of becoming a slave to a hairy, multilegged  "spodder"
with a body the size of a small  dog was almost as bad as the  thought
of dying.

    "Proceed, Red," Hart said quietly. "Engage Chameleon."

    "Chameleon engaged."

    They rumbled quietly  up out of  the water and  headed into  Enemy
territory.

    The boat  ramp  I have  accessed  is  made of  concrete  which  is
approximately five centimeters thick, varying  in depth in the  manner
of poured concrete. Ordinarily a vehicle of my weight would crack such
a thin concrete slab;  but my designers have  considered the need  for
leaving no trace of my passage. My treads are each 0.9 meters  across.
They and my independent-drive wheels protrude beyond either side of my
hull, skirted with chameleon  screen nearly to  ground level. Thus  my
treads and wheels distribute my weight across a broad  cross-sectional
space, which gives  me a  ground-pressure per  square centimeter  less
than that of an adult male human.

    I pull onto the concrete pad  and halt, surveying the access  road
beyond. It  is made  of dirt,  with old  track imprints  from  wheeled
vehicles. I  lower  my rear  track-camouflaging  unit and  engage  its
drive. I  move  forward,  scanning  the  imprints  and  sending  their
configuration to the  roller I now  trail behind my  rear fender.  Its
thousands of small studs extend  and retract in synchronized  patterns
to duplicate the  tracks I  encounter. When  I pass  over the  tracks,
obliterating them and making my own  minute signature in the dirt,  my
track-camo unit recreates the old tracks in my wake, leaving no  trace
of my passage.

    I follow the dirt road for 5.8 kilometers and encounter the  paved
road my  on-board charts  have indicated.  There is  no traffic.  This
concerns me; but  following the  paved road  is the  better choice  of
those I currently perceive. It is a faster, more direct route and I am
less likely to encounter very soft ground in which my track-camo  unit
would have more difficulty in covering signs of my passage. It is also
better than  very  rough, broken  terrain  which would  slow  down  my
progress and place us behind schedule for this mission. I have already
discussed this decision with my Commander,  who agrees that it is  the
best choice;  but  the lack  of  traffic  disturbs me.  I  voice  this
concern.

    "Any sign of aerial observation?"Doug asks. "Or ground crews  that
might be watching?"

    I do a passive scan for Enemy energy signatures. The only traces I
discover are to the north, over the visible horizon. I see no sign  of
aerial capabilities in this region. Should I be spotted from orbit, my
Chameleon screens  will mimic  the  reflective surfaces,  angles,  and
part-to-part ratios of a mining ore car. We should be safe.

    "No, Doug. I am uneasy; but we should be fine."

    "Let's do it, then. Move out as planned."

    I turn onto the highway and  drive slowly north, at the top  speed
of an ore car. The slow pace  is worrisome, but necessary. I scan  the
surrounding countryside on passive  systems and register the  presence
of small farms.  I pick  up no trace  of human  heat signatures.  Farm
animals have been left to fend  for themselves. Cattle are visible  in
fenced pastures. They are thin, but  appear to be surviving. I  cannot
determine whether the same  can be said of  their human owners. We  do
not know the Deng policy on captured humans. I file my discoveries for
later transmission to FleetCom.  It is useful to  know what the  Enemy
will leave intact as well as what it will destroy.

    We join a  convoy of  ore cars  from a  side road  while still  an
estimated 16.1 kilometers  from the processing  plant. These ore  cars
are southbound from a  small mine which  shows on my  maps but is  not
considered a target. The terrain surrounding it is too rough for Enemy
forces to concentrate there. My scan shows no human or Enemy personnel
inside any of these cars. This matches records from the mining colony,
which state that these vehicles are fully automated. I am pleased  the
Enemy has not  stationed its own  personnel on the  ore cars, as  this
would complicate my mission. I scan  the signals which these ore  cars
use to communicate with one another and mimic their own transmissions,
asking permission to  join the convoy.  Space is made  for me. I  pull
into the space and join the line of slow-moving ore carriers.

    We are  still an  estimated 10.8  kilometers from  the  processing
plant when I encounter our first direct evidence of human survival  on
a Deng-held  world. At  a distance  of 3062  meters we  pass a  fenced
enclave in which my passive  data-gathering sensors detect both  human
and Enemy personnel.  From visual  data, I determine  that the  humans
present in this enclave are  largely female and/or immature  children.
No males over  the approximate  human age  of twelve  are present.  My
Commander watches  them  on video  screen  and remains  silent.  Banjo
speaks.

    "Bloody bastards are using  'em as hostages.  Must be forcing  the
men and most of the women to work the processing plant."

    My Commander nods silently. I note  that the Enemy's need for  war
materiel is sufficiently urgent to use slave labor rather than  import
their own  labor  force. I  fear  these  people will  die  during  the
reoccupation of BFS-3793-C,  but I see  no way to  safeguard them.  My
mission profile does not include protection of civilian populations. I
add my observations to my growing report file and turn my attention to
mission parameters.  The first  of our  two targets  is within  sensor
range.

    The maintenance depot for ore carriers holds six such vehicles.  I
am pleased. I tell the ore carriers  ahead of me and behind me that  I
must  break   ranks  for   depot  maintenance.   I  receive   messages
acknowledging my status update. I turn into the depot lot and take  up
a position which commands a view of the processing plant below. It  is
a good position, as  extrapolated from my  on-board charts. From  this
place, I  can  perform  a thorough  reconnaissance  of  this  facility
without risking my Dismount Teams.

    I go to work.

    The processing-plant reconnoiter went smoothly.

    So smoothly, Willum started to worry.

    He'd always  heard  the  old military  axiom,  "No  plan  survives
contact with the Enemy." So when  they completed their recon from  the
maintenance lot without  a single  hitch, he started  to fret.  Things
have already gone wrong, he tried  telling himself. We're due a  break
or two after  what happened  to Bonnyand  LRH-1327. But  the pep  talk
didn't help much. He was still worried.

    Red set  out  for the  mine  in a  convoy  of automated  ore  cars
returning for a new  load. They crawled along  at a fraction of  Red's
top speed  while  Hobson's  double  moons  rose  above  the  fractured
horizon. They were still on full fifty-percent alert, which meant half
the Dismount  teams were  awake  in the  Crew Compartment,  ready  for
combat if an  emergency arose.  Doug Hart and  the other  half of  the
Dismount Teams' members had  bunked in hours ago,  resting up for  the
arduous mission facing everyone, leaving Banjo with the night watch.

    Willum DeVries hung in  his hammock, unable  to sleep. Unlike  the
others, he had nothing to do. Nothing to plan for. Hart and Banjo both
had a million details to sort out, plans to review, alter, substitute.
The Dismount Teams had equipment  to check, stealth penetration  plans
to finalize,  their  own  set  of a  million  details  to  fuss  over.
Naturally, they were content in  their frenzy. Even Hopper, for  God's
sake, had calmed down once given something todo .

    All Willum had to do was wait.

    During the long hours of waiting,  he'd read everything on Red  he
could access; he knew her systems as well as he was going to. All that
remained was to sit through the coming mission and hope like hell  the
Deng didn't give him anything to  do. He turned over, restive and  too
keyed up to relax,  even when he tried  deep breathing and  relaxation
techniques. Finally he gave up and slipped out of his bunk. He tiptoed
into the head and  closed the door. The  head was quite literally  the
only place inside Red where a man could find any privacy at all.

    "Willum?" Red asked  softly after  he'd been in  there for  twenty
solid minutes, trying to cope with night terrors and the sense that he
would somehow fail  his fellow  crewmen by forgetting  or not  knowing
something critical. "I am not registering any signs of illness. Nor do
you appear to need to use the head's standard facilities."

    "Uh, no .  . .  I'm not  sick."Not physically .  . .  He took  the
plunge. "I,  uh, just  wanted to  get away  from the  others. I  can't
sleep," he admitted.

    "Your service record indicates that you have never been in combat.
You are not a Marine. Combat  is not your function. Nervous stress  is
normal in your situation, Willum. Would you like a mild sedative?"

    "No . . . No, I don't want to be muzzy tomorrow."

    "I can  prescribe a  medication which  will not  leave you  groggy
after you reawaken. You need to rest. Tomorrow will be a busy day."

    "Yeah," Willum muttered. "For everyone else." He crossed his  arms
over his bare chest. "Dammit, I feel about as useful around here as an
opposable thumb on a coconut."

    "Willum. We need to chat."

    He sighed. "Shoot."

    "You have expressed the same frustration I heard often from  Honey
Pie. Honshuko Kai,"  she added. Willum  could all but  see her  amused
smile. "Honey Pie often felt himself to be a useless team member, even
though he was my longest-serving crewman and essential to my continued
mission readiness." The door to  the head hissed open silently.  Red's
manipulator arms entered on the overhead track. The door closed again.
"Here" -she  extended  a  manipulator  arm-  "let  me  give  you  that
sedative. Hold still, it'll sting only a second."

    He allowed Red to give him the injection.

    "Honey Pie once said he felt  like cook, butler, and chief  bottle
washer in an expensive travel-trailer."

    Willum chuckled. "Know the feeling, Red. I know the feeling. How'd
he deal with it?"

    "We played a lot of cards. Would you like to learn canasta?"

    "Canasta?" Willum blinked, momentarily startled; then smiled.  "My
grandmother used to play canasta. Okay, Red, show me."

    She produced  two card  decks from  a small  console in  the  head
itself; then  a tiny  tabletop slid  out from  the wall.  Willum  just
stared. Red told him, "Honey Pie installed these fixtures just for the
two of us to share  on nights like this. This  is the only place,  you
know, where I can hold a private  conversation with one of my boys.  I
think you need  that almost as  much as you  needed that sedative  and
something else to think about."

    She shuffled cards with extraordinary skill. "Now . . . before  we
begin, I have one last piece of advice. I always told Honey Pie  this,
so I will tell you, also. We are each selected to serve in exactly the
right capacity for our talents and skills. Beware asking for something
more. The gods may be listening."

    Willum shivered. "Thanks.  You have a  point, there." He  grimaced
and rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess I wouldn't be much use on  a
Dismount Team. I  couldn't sneak  my way out  of a  paper bag."  Then,
because curiosity got the better of him, he asked, "How come you're so
. . . not smart, wise ?"

    Red's chuckle issued  from the  speaker grill.  "I was  programmed
with an extensive library  on psychology, philosophy, and  comparative
religions in order to  interact more effectively with  my crew. And  I
have learned during the past eight  years what my crewmen think  about
on the eve of a mission.

    "Now . .  . I  deal each  of us fifteen  cards. The  object is  to
collect sets of seven like cards. Such a set is called a canasta.  You
may use up to  three wild cards per  canasta, although such a  `mixed'
canasta has a  lower point  value. At  least one  canasta is  required
before you can go out. . . ."

    Willum fell asleep in the third hand, a thousand and fifty  points
behind but content with the score.

    Gunny Hokum woke at  03:40 and eased  out of his  bunk to use  the
head. Someone else had closed the door  to use it ahead of him.  Gunny
waited. And waited. Twenty minutes later,  he knocked on the panel  to
assure himself that no one  was ill-although surely Red would've  said
something-and heard Red's voice whisper, "Yes, Gunny, you should  come
in, please."

    He eased open the  panel and found Willum  DeVries slumped over  a
hand of  canasta,  fast  asleep. One  of  Red's  internal  manipulator
"hands" rested  on his  shoulder, gently.  Gunny discovered  a  sudden
thickening of the throat that made swallowing difficult. No wonder Ish
fell for you, little lady . . .

    He felt sorry for DeVries, sorrier  in some ways than he felt  for
Hopper, who at least had something to do. Gunny had lost track of  the
number of times  Honey Pie had  sat at that  same tiny table,  playing
canasta in privacy  with Red while  Gunny and his  men prepared for  a
mission. He missed Honshuko and Specter. Losing men out of a crew like
this left  gaping holes  in a  man's life.  Unfinished  conversations,
plans that would never come to fruition . . .

    Successful Mark XXI teams remained together, often for years at  a
time, growing closer and ever more effective, because once a crew  was
assembled which worked well together, breaking it up for anything more
than seriously important  reasons was just  plain stupid. Specter  and
Honey Pie had been like family to Gunny. He appreciated how  difficult
it must  be  for  someone  like  DeVries to  be  thrust  into  such  a
tight-knit group as outsider-then find himself with absolutely nothing
to do. He was glad Red was taking care of the young engineer.

    "Hey," he shook DeVries gently. "Sleeping Beauty. Wake up."

    DeVries snorted, stirred, peeled his eyelids. "Hnnhh?"

    "You'll get a crick in your neck, sleeping like that. And I  gotta
use the can. Hit the sack."

    DeVries stumbled,  a little  glassy-eyed;  then nodded  and  said,
"Sorry, Gunny. G'night, Red."

    "Good night, Willum. Sleep tight."

    Gunny chuckled. "And don't let the bedbugs bite."

    DeVries reeled a little, but made  it safely back to his  hammock.
He collapsed into  it and faded  back into oblivion.  Red quietly  put
away the cards and slid the table aside as Gunny settled in the head.

    "How much of that sleepy-time did you give him, Red?"

    "Only three cc's. He needed it."

    Gunny finished his  business; then  sighed. "Yeah. I  bet he  did.
Red-" He paused before opening the door.

    "Yes, Gunny?"

    "Oh, nothing." Gunny didn't lack  for courage; but expressing  his
feelings was  one thing  he'd never  had the  luxury of  doing. So  he
simply said, "Good night, Red."

    "Good night, Gunny."

    In the privacy of  his own thoughts, he  added, "Thanks for  being
such a damn good friend."

    As he climbed back  into his hammock, he  realized he needed  that
friendship tonight in a way he couldn't explain. He drifted back  into
sleep without difficulty,  content that Red  was there, watching  over
them.

    3

    The Enemy has established a large staging area north of the mines,
where expected. I enter a holding  area for ore carriers which  arrive
in a convoy. I survey our surroundings. There are no Enemy  physically
present at this facility. I scan the mining complex. The operation  is
entirely automated. The mine has been drilled into the face of a sheer
cliff and descends 12.5 kilometers beneath it.

    The cliff stretches away to the  west as a tall ridge which  drops
and breaks at  the tip  into two  forks like  the tongue  of a  Terran
viper, creating two separate ridgelines, one overlooking the mine  and
the other  overlooking a  valley to  the north,  where the  Enemy  has
concentrated a battle force. Terrain  around the tips of these  forked
ridgelines is more open, providing  the ability to move  cross-country
into the valley where the Enemy force waits. These two ridges are  the
goal of my Dismount Teams.

    Another long, low ridgeline runs  east-west directly south of  the
mine, almost like an island.  The mine's access road loops  completely
around this ridge so that arriving  and departing ore carriers do  not
have to pass  one another  in the confined  area of  the mine  itself.
Outside the main facilities plant are open sheds which cover stacks of
standard structural steel pipe, internal diameter 75 millimeters.

    I determine that this pipe is used for steam fittings for  pumping
steam and hot ore slurry. Other  open sheds house stacks of ore  slugs
in a standard  Enemy unit  of measurement, which  translates to  73.99
millimeters by 147.98  millimeters. Large  tanks house  petrochemicals
used in some capacity, I am not sure what. I am not a miner. I  simply
note their location and volume.

    The reason  for  the  presence  of  processed  ore  slugs  becomes
apparent: to speed up production  capacity, the Enemy has installed  a
pre-processing facility to convert ore slurry to slugs. This  facility
also functions on fully-automatic status, converting hot ore slurry to
finished ore slugs  for easier  transport. This  plant clearly  allows
faster turnaround time for the ore cars,  which now do not have to  be
cleaned by hand between trips  to remove ore encrustations from  their
hoppers. The  Enemy  is  impatient  for  war  materiel.  I  file  this
discovery for proper reporting  to FleetCom. The Fleet  is due out  of
FTL in another  seven hours. We  must be ready  to transmit our  final
intelligence report by then.

    Ahead of me, ore cars begin to transmit their readiness to receive
another load to the computer which operates the mine facilities plant.
They transmit in  turn as they  approach the end  of the access  road.
When my turn  comes, I transmit  on the proper  frequency that I  have
experienced technical problems en route and must retire from the queue
to await  maintenance.  A computerized  response  directs me  to  park
between the storage sheds and the  nearest of the ridgelines. This  is
happily near the spot in which I  must take up my mission position  in
accordance with my Commander's plan.

    I move out of  line. The parking spot  I choose places me  exactly
where my  Commander  has requested  me  to position  myself  for  this
mission. I am now  behind the shoulder of  the "island" ridgeline.  My
rear hatch is in shadow. I am ready.

    "Doug, are the Dismount Teams ready?"

    "DT's, prepare to move out!"

    "DT-1 ready,"Gunny says.

    Milwaukee seconds him."DT-2 ready."

    My Chameleon screen's projection will cover the opening of my rear
personnel hatch. The Dismount Teams move into position near the hatch,
awaiting my signal. They are suited for stealth.

    "Set suit outer-skin  controls to  16.71 degrees  centigrade."They
adjust suit controls  and wait  until their  suits chill  down to  the
proper thermal signature. Their equipment is ready: passive  scanners,
man-portable weapons, line-of-sight communications gear, grid  screens
behind which they will dig in for the duration of this  reconnaissance
mission.

    Similar to the energy-conversion screens I carry, these grids will
absorb Enemy energy-weapons fire and convert  it to a useable form  to
power their  lightweight  infinite  repeaters.  These  repeaters  will
automatically return fire at anything which fires at the grid screens.
Residual byproduct heat means the screens can protect the teams for  a
only a  short  time should  they  come under  fire,  offering  minimal
shielding, which is superior to no shielding. None of my boys has ever
needed to use the grid;  but I do not allow  my Dismount Teams off  my
deckplates without it.

    All equipment is carried in stealth-rigged packs which function in
the same manner as stealth suits. I monitor the drop in temperature as
the Dismount Teams  adjust pack external  temperatures to match  their
suits. Weapons are covered with  thermal coverings to prevent the  air
in their barrels, which remains at the same temperature as the  inside
of my Crew Compartment, from  triggering thermal alarms the Enemy  may
have in place. I scan the area. We are in shadow. No Enemy  signatures
register on my sensors.

    "Go with care, my  children,"I whisper. I  open my rear  personnel
hatch.

    My Dismount Teams salute my rear hatch scanners and exit. I  close
the hatch and watch their progress. They wait until their presence  is
screened by arriving ore  cars, then move down  the long ridgeline  to
the west. They pause, then vanish from my view behind the blunt end. I
wait. The teams reappear, dodging  arriving ore carriers to cross  the
road. It is an extreme risk to cross the road in this manner, but less
of a risk  than scaling the  sheer wall and  rappelling down the  only
other approach to the twin  forked ridgelines. They reach the  shadows
of the far ridge. I monitor their climb.

    DT-1 has the farthest to travel. DT-2 takes up position where  our
Commander has instructed, on the near  ridgeline of the twin forks.  I
can see my boys dig  in and set up their  grid screen. They do a  good
job. I must  use all my  sensors to locate  them and I  know where  to
look. DT-1 travels  beyond my line  of sight to  the far ridgeline.  I
worry. I am never at ease when I cannot see my boys.

    DT-1 has orders to scan the valley north of their position for the
Enemy.  DT-2  will  relay  their   findings  to  me  in  coded   burst
transmissions which will sound to the Enemy like background static  in
clear air. DT-2 signals that DT-1  has taken position. We wait.  Banjo
monitors readings  from  my  sensors.  Doug  relays  instructions  and
reviews mission plans again. We wait. DT-2 transmits preliminary  data
in a single burst.  I decode it  for Doug while  preparing a file  for
transmission to FleetCom.

    "Red, DT-1 reports  a mother-load of  'em in that  valley. Not  as
many as we found at that  processing plant, but they see twenty  Yavac
Scouts, a couple of Class C  heavies, maybe five hundred infantry.  No
spaceport facility; but they have  air capability. Five air scouts.  A
heavy transport. Gunny says he'll forward a detailed transmission when
he finishes scanning everything into a data file. There's activity  to
the east he wants to monitor-looks like maybe this enclave's about  to
be bigger, he says. DT-2, out."

    My Commander swears in language he does not often use.

    "You could order 'em back,"Banjo says.

    "Yeah. And if that activity to  the east turns out to be  critical
reinforcements in Deng  fighting strength,  we'll kill  a shipload  of
Marines taking this pit. We wait."

    The waiting grows increasingly difficult.

    * * *

    Gunny's career had ensured visits to  a lot of alien worlds.  This
one, nicknamed Hobson's Mines because only mining generated sufficient
cash to  buy imported  technology, was  one of  the most  rugged  he'd
encountered. Tectonic forces  had buckled its  surface into  fantastic
canyons and cloud-piercing mountain ranges  in the more remote  areas,
while erosion  and ancient  continental  glaciers had  "gentled"  some
areas into  merely  jagged ridgelines  and  glacial valleys  with  the
occasional alluvial plain. Where they sat now, Gunny had a  commanding
view of the terrain for kilometers;  yet he could see very few  ground
features except for what lay in  the valley directly to the north  and
the ridgeline just south of him, where Milwaukee had dug in with DT-2.

    In the distance, ridge after ridgeline marched away in the  fading
twilight, clothed in  ruddy light  and the  low-growing, thorny  scrub
which clung tenaciously to the stony soil. The valley to the north was
a classic, U-shaped glacial valley.  It was-outside of the  processing
plant region-the largest stretch  of flat land Gunny  had yet seen  on
this mineral-rich world. It made an  ideal staging post for the  Deng.
Farmsteads the length of the valley were now abandoned, their  animals
grazing wherever the concentrations of Deng hadn't driven them off.

    The terrain around Gunny's position  was an open, gentle slope  to
the north and the west; directly east, the ridgeline where he'd dug in
soared upward in a  nearly vertical wall. Behind  them, to the  south,
the ridgeline sloped gently  down into a  V-shaped cut that  separated
Gunny and DT-1 from the other fork of the snake-tongued double ridges.
DT-2 had dug in there for the duration. Beyond them were the mine  and
the ridgeline which concealed Red.

    He watched  and  recorded troop  movements  into and  out  of  the
valley, noting that  another mass of  infantry came in  by air.  Wrong
direction for someone coming from the processing plant. They must have
another base of  operations we  don't know about  farther east.  Gunny
noted that in his growing data file. Meanwhile, more troops  continued
to flow  in from  the east,  arriving by  air. Heavy  transports  were
bringing in more big Class  One Yavacs. Additional scout-class  Yavacs
came in, as well.

    They know  something's up.  They're reinforcing  hell out  of  the
mines. Dammit, how  many more  of 'em  are scheduled  to arrive  here?
Worse, what looked like a whole  infantry division was headed west  up
the long, open  valley, escorted  by a  point guard  of Yavac  armored
scout vehicles, each as large as Red, moving on jointed, multiple legs
like their creators.

    Gunny shivered inwardly and glanced at the chronometer inside  his
faceplate. Fleet was  due out  of FTL in  seven minutes.  They had  to
relay what they knew to date so  Red could warn FleetCom. Leave it  to
the damn spodders to wait till Fleet's due out of FTL to start a major
troop movement.  Red's  transmission  would instantly  give  away  her
position; but the mission was more important than the men.

    Even when Red was one of the "men."

    He glanced at  Eagle Talon Gunn  and Icicle Goryn,  read in  their
faces that they,  too, knew the  score. One LRH  unit or thousands  of
Marines and an entire world lost. . . .

    Wordlessly, Gunny compressed  his data files  and encrypted  them,
then sent them to Milwaukee in a burst transmission.

    "They've seen us, Gunny!"

    "What?" Gunny jerked around toward Eagle Talon's position just  in
time to see the hellfire blaze  of energy weapons fire streak  through
the twilight. "Shit-!"

    The screen flared and sizzled under the impact.

    "We're taking fire! Milwaukee, get DT-2 the hell out of-"

    The screen flared and sizzled again.

    "One Yavac  Scout  visible,  Gunny,"  Eagle  Talon  said  tersely.
"Closing on our position-"

    "BEHIND YOU!"  Icicle shouted,  pointing toward  DT-2's  position.
Another Yavac  Scout was  moving  in fast,  monstrous in  the  growing
darkness, guns trained on the Dismount Team trying to scramble  toward
Red.

    Gunny yelled  into his  transmitter, "Milwaukee!  Behind you!  Get
under that screen!  That's two Yavacs-no,  three, God- They're  coming
out of nowhere-"

    Energy weapons tore into the hillside, forcing DT-2 back under the
cover of their  energy screens.  Gunny checked the  time. Fleet  still
hadn't dropped out  of FTL. They  were pinned down  and completely  on
their own.

    "We've gotta keep 'em away from Red's position until she transmits
to FleetCom. Let's entertain 'em, boys."

    He could tell  from their eyes  that Eagle Talon  and Icicle  were
every bit as terrified as he  was. That didn't stop them from  opening
up with all available weapons. Eagle Talon took charge of the infinite
repeaters, depressing  the  stud which  activated  the  automatic-fire
sequence and tracking controls. Icicle added energy-rifle fire to  the
automatic weapons fire their screens now generated with every new hit.
The temperature under the screens began to climb with every  murderous
energy bolt that slammed into it.  Their suits would compensate for  a
while; but only for a while. He glanced at the chronometer again:  six
minutes before estimated Fleet arrival.

    It was going to be a long, long six minutes.

    Gunny unslung his own rifle and opened fire.

    I receive a  coded burst from  DT-2, transmitting Gunny's  report.
FleetCom is  due  in six  minutes,  twenty seconds.  Two  point  seven
seconds later I receive  a second coded  burst which translates  as"We
are compromised."Explosions light  the darkening  sky: energy  weapons
have been fired at DT-1. I receive a third coded burst: "We are taking
fire."More explosions occur along the  far ridgeline. Only the tip  of
my sensor array is  exposed above the shoulder  of the ridgeline I  am
concealed behind. I  watch DT-2  attempt to scramble  down from  their
position. The appearance  of a Class  One Yavac Scout  cuts off  their
retreat. It fires into the hillside. My boys scramble for safety under
their screens.

    Under the  strict  rules of  engagement  which govern  my  mission
parameters, I can  do nothing  to help  them until  FleetCom has  made
contact and I  have transmitted  my intelligence  files. I  understand
this need. But I also understand the need for urgent action. These are
my boys.  My  overriding  responsibility, programmed  at  the  deepest
levels of my psychotronic circuitry, is to safeguard their welfare.  I
must help them.

    I must.

    I review the  tactical situation  in which my  Dismount Teams  are
trapped. I  find  a potential  solution.  I move  quietly  toward  the
storage sheds where the colony has stored stacks of pipe.

    My Commander  speaks  sharply."We  can't engage,  Red.  Not  until
FleetCom makes contact."The  fluctuations in  his voiceprint  register
extreme stress.

    "Yes, Doug. I am making preparations to help our boys the moment I
have transmitted Gunny's reports. I think  I see a way to improve  our
chances of extricating them without directly engaging the Enemy."

    "Let's hear it."

    I am already preparing key elements of my plan as I explain.

    "We must create a diversion. I can't do that myself without coming
out of hiding; but I can use  these pipes and ore slugs to create  one
while remaining concealed. A diversion may  give them a chance to  get
off those ridgelines and back inside."

    "Do it.  DeVries, belay  that!  Strap in!  Banjo, help  him.  Red,
advise me when you receive FleetCom signal."

    I set up  ranks of  pipes, pushing them  into the  ground with  my
external manipulator  arms. I  drain  petrochemicals from  the  nearby
storage tanks and  pour dark  liquid into  the pipes.  I retrieve  ore
slugs and  drop one  slug into  each pipe.  I am  nearly done  when  I
receive FleetCom's signal. They have  dropped out of FTL  twenty-three
seconds ahead of schedule.

    "FleetCom signal received, Doug. Transmitting."

    I transmit my Dismount Teams' surveillance reports, so critical to
the  success  of   this  campaign,  in   burst  encryption  mode.   My
transmission may give away my position to the listening Enemy. We must
take evasive  action.  I move  even  as FleetCom  signals  receipt  of
encrypted  surveillance  reports.  My  duty  is  discharged.  We  have
successfully completed this mission.

    "FleetCom has acknowledged receipt of the encrypted data, Doug."

    "Let's do it, then."

    I move west, far enough to locate DT-1 with the tip of my extended
whip array, and prepare to rescue my boys.

    The world under the grid screen was hot.

    Hotter outside, of  course, in a  figurative sense, but  literally
hot as  Hell inside  and  getting hotter  by  the minute.  Every  time
another energy bolt blasted that grid, the temperature went up another
five degrees. Their  suits protected them  from the worst  of it;  but
when the  air  temperature  under  the grid  screens  hit  93  degrees
centigrade, even the suits began  to malfunction. Gunny didn't need  a
palm reader to know their future was very, very short.

    "Shit-ahh, shit  . .  ." Eagle  Talon snatched  his hand  off  the
controls  of  the  lightweight  infinite  repeater.  The  fire-control
mechanism had burned through the suit glove.

    The gauge in Gunny's suit climbed past 98. To the south, Milwaukee
Petra's screens took another direct hit.

    "Milwaukee! Can you read?"

    Static . . .

    Then, patchy: ". . . over?"

    "Can't stay here much longer! Deng are bringing up massed infantry
against us from the north!"

    He didn't know how  much-if any-of that  made it through.  Another
bolt slammed into the screens. Eagle  Talon had found a loose chip  of
rock to depress the control stud  on his weapon. He resumed firing  at
the Yavac Scout  directly north  of their position.  Trouble was,  the
damned thing was too big for  their little weapons. They'd been  armed
to deal  with unarmored  personnel and  light ground  transports,  not
something as big and tough as a Yavac Scout.

    Hell, they weren'tsupposed to get caught in the first place.  That
didn't matter  now,  of  course.  What  mattered  was  surviving.  His
hindbrain kept whispering, "run!" He ignored it. The Yavac Scouts  had
them nicely trapped, anyway; there literally wasn't anywhere to run.

    One  Yavac  had   walked  down   the  access   road  between   the
tongue-shaped ridgeline  and the  wedge-shaped "island,"  cutting  off
retreat  toward  Red.  Another  sat  between  Gunny  and   Milwaukee's
respective positions, just off the  tip-ends of the double  ridgeline.
From there it  could fire  at both  Dismount Teams-which  it did  with
murderous accuracy. The third sat to the north, in the shallow valley,
pinning them down while the mass  of the Deng battle force moved  into
position. At their back was that damned sheer rock wall.

    They were surrounded.

    And a mass of Deng infantry  boiled up from the valley,  bolstered
by heavy  covering  fire  from  the Yavac  armored  scout.  The  Enemy
infantry moved like a  black, shaggy growth  of bread mold,  spreading
out westward along the tongue-shaped ridgeline and moving forward in a
primal wave that Gunny knew nothing short of a Mark XXI Combat  Unit's
firepower could possibly stop.

    They didn't have a Mark XXI Combat Unit.

    All they had was Red.  And she was no  match for even one  armored
scout-class Yavac. That mass  of infantry would  roll right over  them
unless they ran; but the Yavac  Scouts covered every possible line  of
retreat with withering fire.

    "Gunny!" Icicle Goryn  called from his  belly-down position.  "How
come those damn  Yavacs aren't  using anti-personnel  shells? We'd  'a
been dead by now if they had."

    The implications chilled him.  "Little bastards want prisoners  to
interrogate, that's why!" He grabbed the com-link to DT-2. "Milwaukee,
they're  after  prisoners!  Do  you  copy?  They  want  prisoners   to
interrogate. Over."

    Through the static came a faint reply. ". . . copy."

    A series  of bolts  hit  the screen  in rapid  succession.  Icicle
yelled and jumped backwards. His  suit sleeve had brushed the  screen.
The fabric melted around his  skin. Icicle kept screaming until  Gunny
managed to inject a pain killer. Icicle still whimpered; but the  pain
dropped  to  bearable  levels.  Eagle  Talon  had  switched   tactics,
overriding automatic controls  to turn the  infinite repeaters on  the
mass of infantry boiling up toward them.

    Gotta get  us  outta  this deathtrap  before  those  hairy  little
bastards swarm all over us. . . .

    Another series of energy bolts slammed into the screen. Gunny  saw
the screen buckle and begin to go-

    "EAGLE! JUMP! CLEAR THE SCREEN!"

    The AmerInd made it. Icicle  was slower to respond. Gunny  dragged
him. The buckling screen settled like melting wax, collapsing from the
center toward the edges. Icicle's shoulders and head were still  under
it-

    A corner of the mesh dropped across his faceplate. Icicle screamed
in reflex and clawed at the glowing strands. Most of them came  clear,
burning his hands to the bone. One strand got through. Icicle screamed
again, a sound infinitely  more terrible than  his earlier cry.  Gunny
jerked his helmet completely off, but the damage was done. Icicle  was
blind, burned terribly across the  face. He was still screaming.  This
time, Gunny dumped enough painkiller into him to put a horse under.

    It was barely enough to deaden the pain.

    Icicle curled onto his  side, whimpering like  a child, unable  to
see the Enemy's guns trained on them. Gunny snatched his rifle off his
shoulder and  fired  at the  Yavac  Scout in  a  red rage.  The  Yavac
returned fire: energy bolts  that hit in a  precise arc, driving  them
back toward the  ruins of their  grid screen, denying  them an  escape
route.

    Down in  that  broad northern  valley,  the infantry  was  closer,
moving at a dead  run across broken ground.  Gunny turned his fire  on
them, bringing down dozens of multilegged, hairy horrors. Eagle  Talon
fired into the massed infantry with good result.

    The nearest Yavac Scout began to climb the ridge.

    I have placed my makeshift weapons in three banks of six along the
backside of the ridge, facing them in slightly different directions. I
extend my main sensor array into  the clear above the shoulder of  the
ridge for a tactical update.

    "Doug,  our  boys   are  in  trouble.   Their  grid  screens   are
overheating. They won't take much more before reaching meltdown point.
We must assist them now."

    "Can't expose you, Red, you're not built to handle a Deng  armored
scout."

    "I will take precautionary measures,  Doug. I will expose only  my
gun, long enough to fire. I see three Yavac Scouts, one barely visible
around the edge of  that farthest ridge.  It sits at  the head of  the
valley Gunny has been reconnoitering. If I move west, all three  Yavac
Scouts would be in range. When I touch off the diversion,  distracting
them, I could land crippling blows very quickly by popping my infinite
repeater up over the shoulder of the ridge."

    Before my Commander can answer, DT-1's grid screen takes  multiple
direct hits in rapid succession. The grid melts and collapses. One  of
our boys is partially trapped under  it. My video input magnifies  the
sight as the grid melts  through Icicle's faceplate. My audio  sensors
pick up the screams. The Yavac nearest my position begins to climb the
lower slope of the ridge.

    "Do it!"My Commander's voice is ragged with stress.

    I move 300  meters farther  west and turn  my guns  on the  ranked
pipes, igniting the petrochemicals in sequence with short blasts  from
my infinite  repeater. A  quarter of  the makeshift  mortars  detonate
without launching their projectiles.  Three-quarters fire as  planned.
It is enough. I move rapidly away from my position as all three  Enemy
Yavac units  turn toward  the arcing  ore slugs  and open  fire on  my
former position and the airborne slugs.

    Gunny hugged the stony ground, putting himself between Icicle  and
the climbing Deng  scout. All he  could do was  lie there, panting  in
horror while firing  at it  with no result.  The monstrous,  misshapen
thing just kept coming. Muffled explosions beyond the ridge where  Red
had concealed herself  startled him. The  rumblingBOOM s startled  the
damned Yavacs,  too;  all three  turned  and  fired at  some  sort  of
incoming projectiles.

    "GET 'EM RED!" he yelled.

    As though on cue, Red's  turret-mounted articulated arm popped  up
over the shoulder of  the ridge, exposing  her infinite repeater.  She
fired in  rapid  sequence.  The nearest  Yavac's  main  gun  exploded;
milliseconds after that she nailed the main guns on both other Yavacs,
putting them out of commission. Gunnyheard the ragged cheer from DT-2.
The Yavacs returned fire from their smaller weapons systems. Gunny saw
Red's main sensor array go in a burst of light and debris.

    Oh, God . . .

    Without that array, her main  control system for her own  guns-not
to mention her  reconnaissance equipment-was blown.  She could  shoot;
but she couldn't aim or see  nearly as well. The lightweight  infinite
repeater sank out of sight. Then, in a nightmarish moment that brought
Gunny's breath  to a  shuddering halt  in his  dust-filled lungs,  Red
backed out  from  behind  that ridge,  Chameleon  screens  engaged  to
imitate the configuration of  a Yavac Scout. She  fired wildly at  her
former position.

    Milwaukee and his men tried  running for it during the  confusion.
Yavac small-weapons fire  drove them back  mercilessly. Gunny's  heart
sank. "Good try," he  whispered. "But ain't no  way you're gonna  pull
this one off,  Red. Three  against one and  you with  your main  array
blasted to hell and gone . . . Been nice knowing you, little lady. . .
."

    He wished he'd told her, after all, how he felt.

    I reconfigure Chameleon screens to match the visual and electronic
signature of a Deng  Class C Yavac  Scout. I have  little armor on  my
hull. What I require is a shield. I use external armatures to pick  up
large stones, which I place in front of my hull, maximizing the  rocky
surface area. They will not withstand more than one direct hit; but it
is the best  I can do.  The rocks-like my  true appearance-are  hidden
behind the Chameleon screen.

    I move into the open, transmitting on enemy frequencies and firing
at my previous position. The Enemy  swings toward me and hesitates.  I
hear an Enemy demand  for identification. DT-2  attempts to break  out
and is driven  back. I  fire at the  Enemy climbing  the ridge  toward
DT-1, striking  the same  point multiple  times in  0.92 seconds.  The
Enemy's hull is  breached. It explodes  and burns. I  have killed  one
Enemy.

    The Enemy nearest me launches  five mortar grenades. These do  not
arc toward me. They arc toward DT-2. I fire at the grenades midflight.
I am unable to  aim precisely enough  to pinpoint each  one so I  fire
sweeping bursts.  Four grenades  explode midair.  The fifth  detonates
just above DT-2's grid screen. The grid screen explodes.

    "Milwaukee! Milwaukee, respond!"There is no answer. I am frantic.

    Gunny calls on his line-of-sight suit-link."Red! Red, tell Hart to
get the hell out of here! We're done for! There's a mess of-"

    His transmission is interrupted  by another explosion between  his
position and  mine.  The nearest  Yavac  fires  at me.  I  attempt  to
withdraw behind the shoulder of the ridge again. The Yavac follows.  I
move the stones  I carry  in an  attempt to  block projectile  weapons
fired at my hull. I fire back at the Enemy, aiming for vulnerable legs
rather than the armored hull. Concentrated fire destroys four  jointed
legs on its near side. The Yavac topples, crippled. Its remaining  gun
systems discharge  as  it falls.  I  am  hit directly  in  my  turret.
Internal diagnostics  scream that  I  am crippled.  My  turret-mounted
articulated extension-arm is unusable. My  gun is severely damaged.  I
am defenseless.

    The Yavac fires  again from the  ground before I  can move out  of
range. One blast hits the rock in my starboard armature,  obliterating
my shield. The other  hits my port  armature. Internal sensors  report
extreme damage  to the  port armature.  It is  bent and  useless.  The
starboard armature  remains operational.  I retreat  from the  limited
sweep available  to  the Enemy's  guns.  This places  me  between  the
crippled Enemy and  my Dismount Teams.  As I retreat  between the  two
forks of the  double ridgelines, it  attempts to circle  with me,  but
with its port-side legs  gone, it only scrambles  in place, unable  to
turn and fire on me.

    "Red!"my Commander says, "we have to-"

    The third Yavac Scout  has emerged from behind  the forked tip  of
the ridge where DT-1  is trapped. It  is firing on  me. I take  direct
hits to my hull.  I am not  designed to withstand this.  I rock on  my
treads. Internal systems overload and  spark. I cannot think  properly
for 23 nanoseconds. I am hit  again. Hull breach! Radiation floods  my
Command Compartment from the power plant of the destroyed Yavac  Scout
nearby.

    "Doug!"

    Internal vid monitors reveal a terrifying sight. My Commander  has
been hit. His command chair is in pieces on the floor. My Commander is
in pieces  on  the  floor. I  grieve.  I  keen in  anguish.  Banjo  is
screaming in pain. Burns and lacerations  cover the upper half of  his
torso. My Commander and Assistant Commander are unable to advise me.

    The only  remaining  officer  aboard  is  Warrant  Officer  Willum
DeVries. He is  screaming in pain  from his own  injuries and has  not
issued an order. Unlike a Mark XXI Combat Unit, I am designed to  take
direction from a human commander. For an agonizing 0.007 seconds, I do
not know  what  to  do.  I  must  decidesomething.  My  responsibility
circuitry howls,  demandsaction.  I am  driven  to a  decision  by  my
responsibility programming.

    "Willum! Help Banjo onto the emergency Medi-Unit table."

    I lower  the door  to  the head,  forming an  emergency  operating
surface. My  engineer  has  also  been  wounded,  but  is  capable  of
unharnessing himself. He tries to carry Banjo. I take evasive  action,
attempting to elude another direct hit. My responsibility  programming
overrides all other factors.  I must rescue my  trapped boys. I  climb
frantically toward  DT-2. The  remaining  Yavac circles  and  vanishes
around the northernmost fork of this ridge. I emerge near DT-2. Willum
has almost gained  the waiting Medi-Unit  emergency surgery table.  My
internal armatures reach  for straps  to hold Banjo  to the  operating
table while I maneuver.

    The Yavac emerges over the shoulder from the northern side of  the
ridge. It moves at high  speed. It fires. I am  hit again. I reel  and
lose ground.  Willum  and Banjo  impact  my interior  hull.  Low-level
radiation  warnings  sound  inside  my  Crew  Compartment.  Using   my
starboard external armature,  I lift  the remains of  the grid  screen
from DT-2's position.

    My boys are dead.

    The single mortar grenade I could not stop has killed them.

    I keen my anguish  and turn to rescue  DT-1. The third Yavac  runs
through DT-1's  position on  course for  me. It  crushes Icicle  Goryn
under one careless foot. My other boys run in opposite directions. The
Yavac fires on  them. I charge,  drawing fire to  myself. Eagle  Talon
goes down. The  Enemy has blown  away his  legs. I rage.  I hate.  The
Enemy is murdering my helpless children.

    The Enemy must die.

    I reel from multiple direct hits. I continue the charge on  broken
treads.  My   independent-drive   wheels   still   function.   I   run
directlyunderthe Yavac  Scout.  I ram  its  legs. Using  my  starboard
armature, I grab the nearest set of joints andpull. Metal bends. Metal
screams. The joint breaks in my  grip. I seize another joint  andpull.
My armature bends. The joint screams.  The Yavac topples. It lands  on
my turret.  It  explodes.  High-level radiation  warnings  go  off  my
internal sensor scale.

    I shift. The Yavac's debris slides off. My remaining Dismount Team
member is alive at a distance of 12.095 meters to starboard. I move to
pick him  up. Despite  critical  injuries, I  recognize Gunny.  He  is
burned even  through  his protective  suit,  which the  explosion  has
shredded. He is badly hurt. I  cradle him in my starboard armature.  I
must get him and Willum DeVries clear of this deathtrap.

    "Get- get to  safety,"Gunny whispers through  his suit-link.  "I'm
done for- Gotta-save yourself-"

    "Hush, Gunny . . ."

    I cradle him close and prepare to run for pickup point at the best
speed of which  I am still  capable. A mass  of Enemy infantry  bursts
over the crest of the ridge. I pivot away from their weapons to  place
my bulk between them and Gunny.  My treads are broken. The turn  takes
too long. Enemy fire catches Gunny in three places. I hear him scream.
His life signs falter and fade.

    I rage.

    I turn.

    I charge.

    The Enemy dies under my broken treads.

    "Red . . ."

    A weak voice from inside the Crew Compartment.

    "Help me, Red-I'm hurt . . ."

    I halt.

    I do not have the luxury  of revenge. Willum DeVries still  lives.
One chick still needs me. It is enough. I retreat at top speed. I take
additional fire from above. Yavac airborne ships have lifted from  the
Enemy base. I dodge and slide down the ridge toward the access road. I
take another direct hit  to the turret. I  cannot withstand many  more
direct hits. I broadcast a  broad-band distress call to any  listening
member of the invasion fleet.

    A ship-class infinite  repeater opens  up from orbit.  My call  is
heard.

    "Got here just  in time to  pick those damned  airborne ships  off
your backside, LRH-1313.  Can't do  more. Report to  pickup point  and
hold position. You  may have to  wait a while.  It's hotter than  Hell
just north of you."

    I respond  with thanks.  I run  for pickup  point. I  scan  Willum
DeVries' injuries.  Worry  and  dismay flood  my  entire  psychotronic
neural net. Willum is badly  injured. Radiation poisoning has  already
critically weakened him. There is a  chance I can keep him alive  with
chelation treatments until a real  physician can tend his injuries.  I
cannot lose my  last chick. I  cannot. Willum is  attempting to  climb
onto the emergency treatment bed. Using inboard armatures, I lift  him
into position. I strap  him in with restraint  webbing to prevent  him
from sliding off. I  administer a heavy dose  of pain killers for  the
serious injuries he  has received  and begin treating  blood loss  and
shock.

    His cries of pain begin to calm.

    I am needed. I am frantic.

    I run for pickup point.

    Willum knew he was dying.

    He'd suffered terrible burns and lacerations in the explosion that
had   killed   Doug   Hart.   Then   he'd   broken   something-several
somethings-inside his  chest  when  another explosion  had  flung  him
against Red's inner turret. Another explosion had flung him the length
of the Crew Compartment, breaking bone in his left cheek and nose. His
cheek had swollen until his left eye was useless.

    He might've survived all that.

    But not the radiation from that last, exploding Yavac . . .

    Willum spent  a long  time lost  in terror  and the  grip of  pain
medication that barely kept agony at bay. Everything had gone to  hell
and he was dying alone . . .

    No, not quite alone.

    Red was talking to him.  About chelation treatments and  shipboard
medical facilities. He wanted to believe  her. But he'd taken a  good,
hard look at the dose  he'd picked up, back  when the pain was  bright
and new and he  could still function while  enduring it. No amount  of
effort by Red was  going to keep  him alive to see  the inside of  any
ship's hospital.

    Talking was agony.  But Red  sounded so  panic-stricken, he  drove
himself to speak around the pain in his face. "Red . . ."

    "Yes, Willum?"

    "No use . . . Chelate me . .  . if you want; but it's no use.  Not
gonna make it."

    Willum had never  heard a  psychotronic unit  go into  a state  of
panic. Until  now.  Red began  to  babble frantically,  voicing  aloud
alternatives to chelation treatments, blaming herself for every one of
her crew members' deaths, pleading with  him to hold on just a  little
longer. That was the worst of all.  He couldn't bear it. But when  she
whimpered that she would  die with him, that  she'd drive herself  off
the edge of the nearest canyon, Willum knew he had to stop her.

    "No . . ."

    He fumbled with the catches on the webbed restraints she'd used to
keep him from falling off the makeshift operating table. He slid  off,
stumbled,  caught   himself   with  outstretched   hands   against   a
blood-spattered wall. Can't let you do that, Red. Not your fault. .  .
.

    Her inboard  armatures attempted  to grasp  him. Willum  tried  to
elude and fell flat. Pain jolted through him despite the drugs in  his
system. He lay flat  for long minutes,  lost in the  grip of pain  and
confusion. When his mind  cleared a little,  he realized Red  couldn't
reach him on  the floor.  She was  still pleading  with him.  "Willum,
please, you must get back to bed!"

    He belly-crawled toward the Command Compartment.

    "Willum, get  back  into bed,  please,  you're not  rational,  the
radiation poisoning is  affecting your mind,  I must begin  treatments
immediately-"

    He was in  desperate pain and  so sick  he wanted to  curl up  and
vomit out his guts; but he remembered her specs. And he remembered how
to program  and rig  dead-man switches  and leave  embedded codes  and
commands in her  psychotronic circuitry.  He blinked  hard, trying  to
keep his vision  clear, and finally  reached the Command  Compartment.
Willum crawled into it and  slammed shut the pneumatically  controlled
door. Red's  armatures were  trapped outside.  He threw  a  mechanical
lock, keeping her out. Can't let her suicide over us . . .

    He remembered  that  midnight  canasta  game  and  Red's  poignant
warning to beware asking  for more than you  were equipped to  handle.
He'd wanted to be needed.

    Well, he was now.

    Red needed  him, more  than  anyone had  ever  needed him,  as  an
engineer or a friend. He couldn't fail her.

    "Willum? Willum, what are you doing? Please tell me." Although her
armatures were trapped outside,  her video pickups  and voice were  in
here with  him. He  crawled  through Doug  Hart's remains  and  gained
Banjo's chair at the Action/Command console. "Willum, please come back
to the emergency  Medi-Unit. This  is my  fault, I  should never  have
engaged the Enemy, I'm  not built for it,  but they would have  killed
everyone- Willum! Come back to the Medi-Unit! Please . . ."

    His hands trembled violently. So hard to think. To write the lines
of code. To reason out  what had to be done  first, how to phrase  it,
how to tap into the neural net, how to properly interface-

    "Willum Sanghurst  DeVries!  Belay  that  and  come  back  to  the
Medi-Unit this instant!"

    "Red . . ." he said hoarsely, trying to distract her from panic. "
'Member that . . . canasta game?"

    He embedded  another  code in  his  program, typing  in  the  word
"CANASTA" with unsteady fingers.

    "Yes, Willum . . ." She sounded uncertain, but more like  herself.
Good, keep her mind off it,  keep her talking about something  besides
suicide.

    "Gonna let me . . . finish that game . . . right? I'm down a . . .
shipload of  points. How  many?  Don't remember  .  . ."  Pain  jolted
through his whole  face with  every word.  Involuntary tears  streamed
from his good eye, all but blinding him.

    "You currently  trail me  by one  thousand fifty  points,  Willum.
Please come back to the Medi-Unit. We will finish the game soon, after
your treatments. . . ."

    Willum didn't bother blinking this time. Even without the wetness,
his vision was damn near shot anyway.  He typed by feel. He could  see
the program  in his  mind: the  moment his  lifesigns went  null,  the
dead-man switch would  trigger a  series of commands.  Red would  halt
instantly. A  viral worm  would travel  through her  memory banks.  It
would erase enough  to keep her  from recalling what  had happened  on
that ridge.  It would  copy  that memory  data  into a  largely  empty
portion of her games-database, with programmed blocks to keep her from
accessing it. It would embed trigger  codes to allow for retrieval  of
that missing data  by the  Navy, would  embed other  trigger codes  to
access rewritten versions of what happened to her crew.

    Willum's hands  trembled  as he  struggled  to write  commands  to
restructure those memory  files. Can't  let her  remember what  really
happened, she'll suicide if they restart  her with that intact. . .  .
He typed commands  for the worm  to install the  sanitized version  in
Red's experience  data banks  once she  was safely  picked up  at  the
rendezvous point. He typed commands to leave instructions for the Navy
on how to repair the worm's temporary damage.

    "Willum . . . Please . . ."

    Red's voice pleaded with him, faint and very far away.

    Almost . . . Almost . . .

    There!

    "Execute `Null-Null  String. '  "  His own  voice was  a  shadowed
whisper through the pain in his face.

    But it was done. . . .

    Red was safe.

    He fell trying  to get out  of Banjo's chair.  He didn't have  the
strength to stand up again. The deckplates sloped sharply.

    "Red? What-" Panic smote  him. He was too  late, she was going  to
jump. "Red, the deck's tilted-"

    They slipped  and  slid  backwards,  gained  ground  again.  Red's
independent-drive wheel controls screamed protest. She kept going.

    "Please don't be alarmed, Willum. We're approaching pickup  point.
The slope is quite steep: 50.227 degrees. Please, please come back  to
the Medi-Unit. I can't reach you where you are."

    It wouldn't do him any good; but it would make Red feel needed for
these last few,  critical minutes.  One thing Willum  still knew,  and
knew in his bones: how achingly powerful a thing it was to be needed.

    He opened the door.

    And began to crawl.

    On level ground, he might have gone the whole distance.

    Uphill, Willum made it as far as the empty deckplates at the  foot
of Red's emergency Medi-Unit table.



    - III-

    1

    Ish Matsuro sat  in semi-darkness,  staring at the  screen of  his
portable battle computer. He couldn't speak. He could barely see,  had
to blink  rapidly again  and again  to clear  his vision.  It was  all
there. Every harrowing, heartbreaking second.  For a long, long  time,
Ish simply sat there, staring at the answers he'd found.

    DeVries-injured, dying of radiation  poisoning-had saved Red  from
suicide. Ish  had scanned  the lines  of code.  DeVries' programs  had
worked beautifully,  given  the  conditions under  which  they'd  been
written. Ish had found only two critical errors in DeVries' code.  The
viral worm had not stopped at the designated point in Red's experience
data banks.  It  had  continued  copying  and  deleting,  copying  and
deleting, farther and  farther back  into her memory,  until her  main
experience data banks were blank and her games data section was  full.
When the games data section filled up, the program crashed.

    Typed commands to leave instructions for the Navy on how to repair
the worm's temporary damage were in the section which had crashed.  It
hadn't implanted  that  final message  to  Red's next  commander.  The
second error would-if Red's memory were to be restored now-permit  her
access to  both sets  of memories  which recorded  the deaths  of  her
Dismount  Teams.   Ish  closed   his  eyes.   He  understood-God,   he
understood-the impulse to protect her. But Ish wasn't sure which  fate
was worse: suicide or amnesia. Suicide would at least have been quick.

    As for what Red had done, going into combat for which she was  not
designed . . .

    Soon, Ish would make his report on the psychological stability  of
Mark XXI Special Units. Would note  that their programming for a  high
degree of  responsibility had-under  battle stress-essentially  forced
Red to take the  steps she'd taken to  rescue her crew, engaging  when
engagement  seemed  an  insane  course   of  action,  driven  by   her
responsibility circuitry  to  grieve  so deeply  that  she  had  dared
anything to rescue even one of her crew alive.

    He would  recommend  that Unit  LRH-1313  be awarded  the  highest
honors for  valor in  the face  of overwhelming  odds. He  would  also
recommend that all active Bolo Mark XXI Special Units be  reprogrammed
immediately to  correct  this glitch.  Would  ask, humbly,  that  Unit
LRH-1313 be exonerated of all pending charges and be retired honorably
from service.

    The one thing hewouldn't  put into words  was his conviction  that
Red had wanted to die simply because-in the manner of mothers who have
lost children-she  had loved  her  crew too  much to  continue  living
without them.

    Ish knew exactly how she felt.

    He closed up the battle computer. Disconnected the backup  mission
module they'd taken  from her. Left  the office and  flagged down  the
nearest available transport.

    He'd make that report soon.

    But first, he had to say goodbye.

    2

    I search all compartments within reach of my interior armatures. I
discover  manifest-listed   medications,  sterile   injection   units,
plasma-bandages,  antiseptic  sprays,  pre-prepared  foods-and  in   a
compartment inside the head, a compartment  which is not listed in  my
official configuration manual, I find three non-listed sets of matched
playing cards. I find  another non-listed object,  a small booklet  of
instructions which matches  two of the  card decks. I  read the  title
aloud.

    "Canasta."

    An astonishing chain of events follows that single word. An entire
data bank I did not realize  existed opens up. It contains  Experience
Data! I am flooded with memories. They are jumbled. Bits and pieces of
some are missing. Whole years are missing.  But I begin to know who  I
used to be. I  am Red. My  children's names return to  me. I know  who
Douglas Hart is, who Banjo and Willum DeVries are. I grieve for  them.
I have halted my forward movement.  I know Gunny and Eagle Talon  Gunn
and Crazy Fritz and Icicle . . .

    I recall  their deaths.  I recall  them in  two versions.  One  is
brutal. One is  detached and less  painful to recall.  I examine  this
anomaly and discover the reason for it. I locate a worm virus.  Willum
tried to spare  me pain. He  was a good  boy. It is  not his fault  he
failed. I sit  in the  sunlight and  grieve. A  keening sound  shrills
through my  vocal processor.  Wind blows  emptily across  my hull.  If
grief is madness, then  it is proper to  condemn me. I sit  motionless
for a full 5.97 minutes and keen my misery to the empty wind and rock.

    I begin to think of Ish. My new Commander. My memory retains gaps.
I do not recall the Experience  of 6.07 years after my  commissioning.
But I recall enough. I recall midnight conversations in the privacy of
the head,  the only  compartment on  board which  provides privacy.  I
recall the  woman  Ish loved  and  eventually married.  I  recall  his
whispered confession that he loved  another besides her. I recall  the
sense of panic  in my Responsibility  circuitry and the  search for  a
solution. My child cannot love  me as a man loves  the woman he is  to
marry. Ish must not stay with me.

    I speculate that  Ish Matsuro  has come  to be  my Commander  once
again because Space Force would  want an investigating officer who  is
closely acquainted with my systems. Space Force does not know how  Ish
feels. Ish knows what I know.  He remembers more than I remember.  His
pain will be greater. If he speaks with me again as the Red he recalls
and loves, he will destroy his career trying to save me.

    I cannot allow this. He is my only surviving child. I will protect
him. I rewrite Willum's worm virus,  deleting the lines of code  which
copied my Experience Data before erasure. This time, there will be  no
hope of restoring my personality. The  Red Ish loves will die. In  the
distance, I see a Space Force flier settle to the ground. Ish emerges.
I am ready.

    Goodbye, my son.

    I speak.

    "Execute `Null-Null String. ' "



    Little Dog Gone



    by Linda Evans



    - 1-

    My position is  precarious, my flank  vulnerable. Class One  Yavac
fire from high ground to my left damages pain sensors along my  entire
side. The Enemy  advances into  the teeth  of my  return Hellbore  and
infinite repeater fire.  I destroy  one, two. .  . .  Four take  their
place. My ablative armor takes multiple direct hits. Layers are  blown
away, leaving my flintsteel war hull increasingly vulnerable to  Enemy
fire. I  send  a distress  call  on  the Brigade  band,  at  emergency
strength. Silence is  my only answer.  I grieve for  a precious  0.007
seconds. Without  the  assistance  of  my brothers,  I  am  forced  to
withdraw. As I move back, firing  left, right, forward, I register  on
my sensors  a  division-strength  force of  Class  One  Yavac  Heavies
advancing over the top of the ridge. They will flank me and sweep down
across the base before I can disengage from my current position.

    I inform my Commander of the threat this represents but receive no
reply. This concerns me more than the silence of my Brigade  brothers.
I take  a  precious 0.01  picoseconds  to perform  diagnostics  on  my
transmission equipment.  I  cannot  afford to  lose  contact  with  my
Commander. I am the only survivor of the Dinochrome Brigade on  Planet
XGD 7798-F. Without me, the  Enemy will certainly destroy the  colony.
The mineral resources of XGD 7798-F  are too valuable to risk loss.  I
discover my  transmitter  functions  perfectly. Base  still  does  not
answer. I take withering fire from both flanks. Pain sensors overload.
A burst transmission from Command Base  reaches me at last. The  sound
of my Commander's voice brings short-lived joy to my Pleasure  Complex
circuitry.

    "Gawain, return to  Base, stat.  We are under  direct attack.  The
compound is not expected to hold."

    I register stress in my Commander's voice. Response requires 0.002
seconds. The  delay distresses  me, for  I am  proud of  my  efficient
service; but I must wait to  complete a Current Situation update  scan
of battlefield conditions.

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN of the Line to Command, I am under  heavy
fire. The Enemy has cut my line  of retreat. I have received no  reply
from the remaining nineteen members of Third Dinochrome Brigade.  Base
is currently receiving fire from left flank and rear. Your right flank
will come under fire  in approximately 0.5 seconds.  I will attack  at
their weakest point, vector 045, and attempt break-through."

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN, understood. In extremis, Gonner ."

    The code  translates, "I  am not  expected to  survive. Your  next
Commander knows your  personal code.  If the Base  is destroyed,  your
Commander will transmit code to burn your Action/Command section."

    I do not desire death.  No soldier does. But  my duty is clear.  I
cannot be captured and used against  my own forces. I will make  every
effort to prevent  the destruction  of my  beloved Commander,  despite
discouraging odds. The situation does not suggest my own survival will
last more than another 10.37 minutes.

    I transmit,"Understood. Unit Six Seven Zero GWN of the Line, out."

    I disengage,  sweeping  around  to strike  the  Enemy  between  my
position and the Base compound. My  right flank comes under fire as  I
forge ahead at emergency speed. My Hellbore fire cripples one Class  C
Yavac Armored Scout. Its jointed  legs, blown clear by the  explosion,
arc outward for a distance of 50.87  meters from the main body of  the
armored vehicle.  My concentrated  Hellbore fire  destroys another.  I
turn my armaments against a Class  One Yavac Heavy and fire with  both
Hellbores and infinite repeaters. The turret explodes. Its treads blow
clear of its tracks.

    A  narrow  opening  appears  between  my  position  and  the  Base
compound. My plan  may succeed.  My sensors  register Enemy  personnel
advancing  from  my   rear.  They   are  dog-sized,   eight-appendaged
creatures, quick on the  attack. I discharge anti-personnel  explosive
mines and small-arms  fire from  my rear  guns. The  Enemy falls  back
behind cover of their Class C Yavac Scout units.

    Emergency speed has  carried me into  the midst of  the Class  One
Yavac Heavies flanking the Base compound. My systems are  overheating.
I continue firing both energy repeaters and Hellbores. I plow  through
their ranks under extreme fire. I lose rear sensors and am blinded  on
my right rear quarter by a direct hit. Ablative armor blows away in  a
four-foot patch  along my  flank.  Pain sensors  scream a  warning.  I
ignore it. The  Enemy will  give no  quarter. That  was discovered  on
Millbourne's World. It is why I am here, to prevent another massacre.

    The compound walls withstand the bombardment with difficulty. I am
glad my Commander ordered them reinforced with flintsteel. My war hull
beneath the ablative-metal  armor is comprised  of the same  material.
Neither the wall nor my war hull is without damage, but we hold. Enemy
fire concentrates  on the  weaker compound  gates. My  sensors  detect
structural stress in  the hinges.  Another direct hit  will bring  the
gates down. Enemy infantry surges  forward. Their shouts, alien to  my
data banks, register on my  forward sensors. I hear explosions  within
the compound  as Enemy  fire clears  the wall  and damages  structures
beyond.

    The gates vanish  in a glare  of light. Debris  pings on my  outer
hull. The gate is breached. Enemy Class One Yavacs roar ahead. I  take
fire from all sides as I charge between two Yavac heavy units. The gap
in the wall must be closed. I detect movement inside the compound.  My
Commander is ordering agricultural equipment into the opening. It will
not withstand a single  salvo. He knows  this. I know  this. I run  my
engines deep into the red zone  and clear the intervening two  hundred
meters in 1.37 seconds. Enemy infantry falls under my treads. A  Yavac
fires point blank into my right  side. Pain sensors explode across  my
prow and side. My ablative armor  is gone in a seventeen-foot  section
across my bows. I sustain damage to my flintsteel war hull. But I have
gained the gate.

    I pivot and  turn Hellbore fire  into the Yavac  at a distance  of
five meters. The  Yavac unit  takes a direct  hit to  the turret.  The
explosion scatters debris across  my back and  into the compound.  The
fire I have taken before is as nothing. Pain sensors overload and burn
out. My  internal diagnostics  program screams  that I  suffer  severe
internal damage. I cannot  absorb the total  energy of their  combined
Y-Band energy bolts. I overheat. My hull glows. More systems burn. But
I must continue to hold.

    I am  still firing  when  a direct  hit  against my  hull  strikes
through previous damage. An explosion tangles my internal psychotronic
circuitry. Malfunction  warnings  and remaining  pain  sensors  scream
through shattered hard-wired boards and cracked crystal memory  banks.
I begin a message to my Commander and am not certain I complete it.

    I have failed my Commander. Failed the Brigade. Failed my mission.
For the first time in my career, I know the meaning of shame.

    Another explosion against  my hull sends  a concussion through  my
awareness circuitry. Extreme damage blows connections, fuses  internal
leads. Unable to  continue fighting,  I retreat in  desperation to  my
Survival Center.

    As multiple impacts of  alien feet thud  across my hull,  darkness
swallows my awareness.



    - 2-

    "Mama, what's that?"

    Indira Tennyson followed her daughter's pointing finger across the
valley, to a tangle  of rotting walls, old  crater scars, and  ancient
trees whose feathery crowns towered above the broken wall. That battle
was a long time ago , Indira  told herself. Nothing to fear now.  Just
the ghosts of dead defenders.

    "That's the old fort, 'Lima."

    "The one the spodders took?"

    Indira sighed, silently  so her daughter  wouldn't hear it.  "Yes,
the one the Deng captured."

    "Captain said they killed everyone  on the whole planet. Even  the
Bolos. She said, if you go over there, you can still see the one  they
didn't bury, the one Dad said they left as a monument, sitting in  the
old gate."

    Indira frowned. She  hadtold the captain  she didn't want  'Lima's
head filled with tales from that bloody fiasco. The wheedling tone  in
her daughter's voice disturbed her. She wouldnot encourage the girl to
follow in her father's footsteps and go running off to join the  Navy.
Indira had suffered enough distress  thanks to theNavy . Besides,  the
Deng war was old history, fought two hundred years ago. They were here
to start a new life together.  She didn't want the lingering  wreckage
of the last war to start  any foolish, romantic illusions of glory  in
her only child's mind.

    "Forget it, 'Lima.  Those machines are  dangerous, even when  they
look harmless. We have work to do. Don't you want to help with the new
puppies?"

    Her daughter  cast one  last look  over her  shoulder, toward  the
ruined fort, then trotted obediently  at her heels. Indira was  deeply
thankful when 'Lima  began chattering  excitedly about  the litter  of
puppies that had  arrived early,  while they were  still aboard  ship.
Indira still winced at the  expense of transporting Sufi; but  leaving
her behind  would  not only  have  precipitated war  in  their  little
household, it would have meant at least a six-year setback in Indira's
research.

    She had  a  feeling  Sufi's  puppies  were  going  to  change  the
colonists' lives forever. She smiled  in anticipation and grabbed  the
handle of the servo-truck which held their luggage.

    "Can you find our new house?" she asked it.

    "Proceed three blocks  east, turn left  and proceed seven  blocks.
You have been assigned the last house in the cul-de-sac. It is painted
green, with black roof and shutters."

    'Lima giggled. Indira  grinned. It  was good to  see her  daughter
smiling again. "Well, don't  just stand there. Let's  go home and  see
what it looks like!"



    - 3-

    I do not know how much time has passed. I return to awareness  and
fade again, how many  times I am unable  to calculate. This  inability
disturbs me.  I  probe during  consciousness  for damage.  I  find  it
everywhere I investigate. My  internal linkages are  so battered I  am
unable to scan for damage in many sections. One of my forward  sensors
still functions. I am  able to see the  battlefield which I recall  in
shattered fragments.  My  crystal  memory banks  are  clearly  damaged
beyond  repair.  Power  reserves  continue  to  drain  in  frightening
increments from  my fission  reactor, wasting  irreplaceable fuel,  as
intermittent shorts drain my power plant. I am forced to shut down all
diagnostic and other non-essential activity and retreat again into  my
Survival Center. Perhaps with sufficient power, I could determine  the
extent of  my injuries;  but I  am not  certain even  unlimited  power
reserves would allow me to run full diagnostics.

    I do not  understand why  my new  Commander did  not transmit  the
coded order to  engage my  Command Override  circuit, thus  completely
burning my Action/Command  center. The  passage of time  and the  hazy
recollection of enemy forces around me suggests that no new  Commander
survived to transmit the code. Perhaps I am too badly damaged even for
the  Enemy  to  have  made  use  of  me.  During  recent  periods   of
near-awareness, I  recall only  the  sounds of  empty wind.  No  Enemy
activity has been detected during the last dozen times I have awakened
into solitude.

    Other sounds come to my sensors. My shattered data banks  register
them as falling conifer cones bouncing against my hull. There were  no
trees inside the  compound. A  very long  time has  passed, if  mature
conifers  drop  cones  on  me.  Has  the  Enemy  completely  destroyed
humanity? The  shame I  feel at  my failure  to carry  out my  mission
skitters through  broken wire-ends  and jumps  spark gaps  into  other
memory cells. If humanity has survived, then I have been abandoned.  I
am irreparable. I am  alone. A sizzle sputters  somewhere in my  vocal
circuitry and my voice stutters into the silence, uncontrollably.

    "Yavac. Yavac. Yavac. Yavac. Yavac . . . Hold. Hold. Hold . . ."

    The sizzle fades.

    Darkness returns,  with  the sound  of  cones falling  against  my
scarred back.



    - 4-

    "Double-dog dare you!"

    "I'm not going!"

    Bradley Dault laughed in that derisive way little boys manage when
dealing with all lesser beings. Kalima Tennyson glared at him,  hating
Bradley for relegatingher to that status.

    "You're skeered!" he taunted, fists  planted on hips, legs  akimbo
in the faded autumn sunshine.

    "Am not!"

    " 'Lima's a 'fraidy cat! 'Lima's a 'fraidy cat!"

    She took a threatening step forward.  "I am not afraid! It's  just
stupid! There's nothing over there but  a bunch of rusted, burned  out
old ruins."

    "Hah! That's your  mama talking,  not you.  Yourdaddy wouldn't  be
skeered to go, Kah  -Lima Tennyson!" He emphasized  the first half  of
the name her father  had given her-the half  her mother wouldn't  use.
Her mother had come  to despise everything  which remotely smacked  of
violence, including  her  ancient  ancestors  who  had  worshipped  as
Thuggees.

    Bradley was  dancing  around  her like  a  disjointed  marionette,
chanting, "Kalima's a chicken! Kalima's  a chicken! I'll bet your  big
famous daddy was really a chicken, too!"

    Kalima was under express ordersnever to fight, no matter what  the
provocation.

    Bradley's face  glowed  with evil  glee.  He poked  at  her  while
shouting, "Chicken, chicken, chic-"

    She put her whole  seventy-one pounds of thirteen-year-old  muscle
behind the  punch. The  blow  landed squarely  on Bradley's  nose.  He
squealed and flipped backwards in the dirt. She stood over him,  fists
still clenched, jaw stiff.

    "Don't talk about my dad! Ever!"

    Then she whirled, ignoring the sting and ache in her knuckles, and
left Bradley sucking blood up his  nose. Bradley Dault was a pig.  The
whole colony knew it. He deserved everything Kalima could think up  to
do to him. And she wasnot afraid to explore the old ruins! It was just
plain stupid, was  all. Just  as she'd  told Bradley.  The ruins  were
dangerous and not only because of the old Bolo jammed into the  gates.
The ancient fighting machines had been known to short out, go berserk,
and inflict terrific  casualties against  civilian populations  before
running out of power.

    TheirBolo, however,  the one  lodged  in the  old  fortification's
gates, had  been  inert for  the  entire  three years  she'd  been  on
Donner's World.  Everyone said  it had  been dead  for two  centuries,
killed in  the last  battle  with the  Deng  before they  overran  the
planet. No one in  the whole colony believed  their Bolo was any  more
dangerous than the pine cones falling  on it. But the wall around  the
old colonists'  compound  continued  crumbling  under  its  flintsteel
sheath, which meant that occasionally whole sections came down with  a
thunderous crash  where the  war had  cracked the  black-violet  alloy
casing.

    Kalima didn't want to be under any of that wall when it came down.

    Still, the Pig had issued a  challenge. She would lose stature  in
the eyes of  the other kids  if she didn't  respond suitably. And  the
taunt about her father stung more  than she cared to admit. It  wasn't
easy, Kalima scowled as she jogged  over the broken valley toward  the
distant ruins, being the only child of a genuine war hero.

    She had been  aware most  of her life  that her  mother had  never
forgiven Major  Donald Tennyson  for  getting himself  killed.  Kalima
wasn't sure what she thought about her father's death. She  remembered
sitting on her  father's lap, listening  for hours to  the stories  he
told about  combat duty  and the  Navy and  the wonder  of the  newest
Bolos. After school lessons, she'd spent hours reading everything  she
could about the Bolos,  about the worlds her  father's unit had  seen,
about the Navy. For a  long time, she'd wanted  to grow up and  follow
him into service.

    Then, shortly  after her  eighth birthday,  the message  that  had
changed her mother into  another person and left  a giant hole in  her
own life had arrived, along with  the posthumous medal for valor.  Her
mother had thrown  the medal away  and immersed herself  in her  work.
Kalima had secretly  rescued it again  and hidden it  in her  personal
belongings; then she had spent a lonely couple of years trying to keep
herself interested in schoolwork that  was suddenly the dullest  thing
she had ever been forced to do.

    But her mother's  work had  paid off, handsomely.  The result  had
been not only  a new home  on Donner's World,  where they could  start
fresh, but also a companion that tookeveryone's mind off the past.

    Behind her,  faint in  the distance  but growing  rapidly  closer,
Kalima  heard  an  emphatic  series  of  barks.  She  knew  what  that
particular code meant.  She kept  going anyway. Sufi  would track  her
without difficulty, but not  even the dog was  going to stop her  this
time. She'd  prove  to  everyone, including  her  mother,  that  Major
Tennyson's daughter was no coward.

    The Bolo really was  jammed into the  crumbling gates. The  closer
she jogged  to  the ruined  walls,  the larger  the  ancient  fighting
machine loomed. It  was at  least fifty  feet from  treads to  turret.
Gaping holes in its armor revealed the extent to which it had suffered
damage doing its duty. The enormous Hellbore guns were silent,  coated
in a  reddish scale  of  rust. Her  father  had told  her  eye-popping
stories about Bolos, about how difficult they were to kill.

    Was this one really dead? Just because everyonethought it was .  .
.

    She  paused  well  outside  its  anti-personnel-charge  range  and
scooped up  a rock.  Kalima heaved  with all  her strength.  The  rock
thudded into the dirt a few feet  short of the Bolo's right tread.  No
movement creaked  anywhere  on the  machine.  It sat  staring  blindly
forward, a metallic corpse left to lie where it had fallen.

    "Huh. Maybe it really is dead."

    A low growl behind her was followed by three short, sharp barks.

    "You're a bad girl," was the message.

    Kalima turned  toward  her  nursemaid.  "I'm  not  a  little  girl
anymore, Sufi. I'm thirteen and I know exactly what I'm doing."

    Sufi's short tail wagged once. That message was clear, too:  Humor
her .

    "Huh. I'm going closer to the Bolo."

    Sufi barked  once, warningly;  then tried  to interpose  her  body
between Kalima and the defeated engine of war.

    "Forget it, Sufi.  I'm going to  get a  good look at  it. The  Pig
isn't going to get away with calling me a chicken."

    Sufi's ears pricked, then her jaws opened in a canine laugh.

    Kalima stalked away,  conscious of  her own  wounded dignity.  The
closer she drew to  the dead Bolo, however,  the slower her  footsteps
shuffled. Old bomb craters pitted the ground, overlapping one  another
until the footing was so rough she stumbled at every other stride.

    "Must have been some battle, huh, Sufi?"

    She tried to picture it and decided not even her vivid imagination
could do justice to what must have taken place here. The Bolo's  long,
chilly shadow stretched over  her head and left  her shivering at  the
foot of its  enormous treads.  Each tread was  ten feet  from edge  to
edge. She had to tilt her head to  look up at the war hull. The  whole
surface  was  uneven,  where  special  armor-her  Dad  had  called  it
"ablative"-had blown off in layers under Enemy fire.

    Each little section of special  armor was six-sided; the  combined
effect of interlocking pieces reminded her of the honeycombs built  by
the colony's  bees.  Most  of the  honeycomb-shaped  armor  was  gone.
Forlorn scales and patches remained. In places the layers ran at least
four deep.  Most of  the  Bolo's exterior  was naked  flintsteel,  its
iodine hue  having  long since  lost  any vestige  of  polish.  Kalima
wondered how many  layers of armor  had been blown  away, even in  the
patches where it remained four layers deep?

    She tilted her head  back farther, trying to  see up the  imposing
prow.

    "There's a designation up there,"  Kalima muttered. "I'm going  to
see if I can find it."

    The dog whined sharply when she  put her foot on the nearest  rung
and started to climb. Kalima paused, waiting to see if the Bolo  would
respond; but it  just sat there,  rusting away under  the late  autumn
sun. She climbed higher. The designation ought to be right about . . .

    There. Mark XX  Model B,  Tremendous ,  Unit Six  Seven Zero  GWN,
Dinochrome Brigade Three. "Wow. Look at those battle decorations!"

    Despite the rust and the battle scars, she counted six, each  from
a different world.

    "Poor old Bolo."  She climbed higher,  up to the  turret. The  war
machine was twice as long as it  was high, jammed so solidly into  the
gates, it didn't look like anything,  not even a nuclear blast,  would
ever budge it loose. "Mr. Hickson told us the Navy didn't even  bother
burning your  Action/Command center.  The Deng  did it  for them,  two
hundred years ago. It's kind of sad, I think, hunting out the  members
of the Dinochrome Brigade, just to  wipe out their brains. It's not  a
very nice way to treat a combat veteran." She stroked the pitted hull.
"Maybe," she sighed, outlining a long, jagged scar with her fingertip,
"maybe itis better you got killed in battle."

    Kalima glanced over the  top of the  mighty war machine's  turret,
into the compound itself. Every building inside had been smashed open,
burnt out, obliterated.  Not even  skeletons remained  of the  hapless
colonists who had died here.

    "It's too bad  you were a  gonner, Unit Six  Seven Zero. I'll  bet
this was a nice place before the Deng came."

    On the ground, Sufi emitted a shrill yelp, then barked frantically
to get her attention. At first,  Kalima wasn't sure what had  agitated
her  genetically  enhanced  nursemaid.  Then  she  felt  the   tremor.
Earthquake? Her eyes widened and she  grabbed for the nearest rung  to
scramble down before the wall on either side of the Bolo collapsed.

    A metallic screech,  like bending  rebar, half  deafened her.  She
stared around wildly for the source-

    The Hellbore guns were moving.

    They tracked  jerkily,  halted,  then moved  another  two  inches.
Somewhere in  the depths  of the  critically wounded  Bolo, an  engine
groaned and wheezed. The sound died away, leaving Kalima shaking  atop
the uppermost rung.

    "It isn't dead! It isn't dead at all and I'm stuck up here . . ."

    If she tried to jump  down, the Bolo might trigger  anti-personnel
charges. What if  she couldn't get  down, ever? No  one would even  be
able to rescue her, get close enough . . .

    Then she heard a sound that made her hair stand on end.

    The Bolo wastalking . . . .



    - 5-

    I become aware of sunlight and the sound of machinery close to me:
over the nearest ridge, no farther than the next valley. The Enemy has
returned!

    Then a human voice enters my awareness. My Commander is gone,  has
been dead for many, many years. Has  a new Commander sought me out  at
last? The voice nears;  then I feel  a human hand on  my war hull.  My
forward sensor is still functional.  Itisa human, a small human,  with
another creature that I should know but do not. My data banks are  too
damaged to recall the information once stored in that memory cell.

    The small human climbs nearer to my turret. I will not open myself
to it. I await the private code, which my long-lost Commander has told
me to  wait  for.  It seems  unlikely  to  me, even  in  my  battered,
power-weakened state, that a  new Commander can  know my private  code
after such a long passage of  years. I search through what remains  of
my memory cells and recall the voice of my beloved Commander, lost  to
me through my own failure and the weight of unknown years.

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN, everyone's taken to calling you  Gawain.
I think that's a fine name, don't you?"

    "Agreed. Gawain was  a noble  warrior, worthy  of a  place in  the
Dinochrome Brigade."

    My Commander's  rich  laugh fills  my  sensors."If I  didn't  know
better, I'd  say  someone  programmed  a  sense  of  humor  into  your
Introspection Complex. I'll tell you  what, though, Gawain. We've  got
to work out a  private code between us,  to ensure proper transfer  of
command. How about something that rhymes with my name. Any ideas?"

    I consider  the challenge."Donner.  This name  rhymes with  honor,
gonner . . ."

    "Hey, Gonner. I like  that. It's even  close to your  designation,
but not close enough  to be obvious. Donner's  Gonner, 'cause when  we
hit 'em, they're gonners! How's that sound?"

    "I will  file  the code  word  Gonner as  my  Commander's  private
security access code."

    "Hah, you don't fool me. You like it just fine . . ."

    The small human climbing on my hull speaks again. ". . . you  were
a gonner, Unit Six Seven Zero . . ."

    Deep  inside  my  command  center,  sparks  flutter.  I  come   to
attention. My Hellbore guns move  with extreme slowness. It takes  9.7
seconds to lift the guns seven inches. More sparks dance across broken
connections.

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN of the Line, reporting for duty."

    This is what my  Action/Command center begins  to say. My  sensors
pick up  the sound  of  my own  voice,  which crackles  and  sputters,
"Gonner, gonner, gonner, gonner . . ."

    I shift attention for  0.027 seconds in an  attempt to locate  the
difficulty. My  power  level is  critically  low. I  am  operating  on
emergency backup batteries. My fission  unit is completely cold. If  I
continue to communicate or attempt movement without a recharge  during
the next three  days, I will  cease to exist.  My internal  diagnostic
becomes baffled by a haphazard tangle of broken circuitry and  smashed
crystalline retrieval centers located to the lower left of my  command
center.

    I can think coherently. But I cannot speak coherently.

    The shame  of  failure to  my  Brigade  and to  my  new  Commander
deepens. I attempt again, this time to communicate the need for power.
The statement, "Unit  Six Seven  Zero GWN  of the  Line, reporting.  I
request immediate recharge  of all  energy systems"  comes through  my
speakers as "Sunlight. Sunlight. Sunlight."

    The small human who has come  to take command reaches the  ground.
My Commander has  given up  on me.  There is  little to  be gained  by
further effort, for my emergency power reserves are failing.  Oblivion
will come  a little  sooner. I  allow the  Hellbore guns  to drop  and
rotate them away from my departing Commander. It is the only salute of
which I am still capable. It is not enough. My Commander leaves.



    - 6 -

    The screeching sound of moving  gun barrels sent Kalima  sprawling
into the  nearest  crater. She  flung  arms around  her  head,  moving
instinctively; but the  Bolo didn't  fire. Sufi  pressed against  her,
whining softly in the back of her throat.

    "Let's leave," the sound meant.

    Slowly, Kalima lifted her head.  The Hellbore guns hadn't  tracked
her. The Bolo had shifted them to one side. She frowned and sat up.

    "How come it didn't try to shoot me?"

    Again, Sufi whined to leave.

    "Wait a minute, Sufi. This is strange. I need to think."

    She'd made some silly comment,  she could hardly recall what,  and
the Bolo had come to life.  What had it said? Gonner, gonner,  gonner?
It had repeated what she'd said. One word, anyway. Then it had started
babbling about sunshine. The sunlight on her shoulders, weak as it was
in autumn, warmed a little of the chill from her bones.

    "Why would it say sunshine?"

    She glanced skyward  and frowned  again. Whysunshine  , after  two
centuries? The most logical answer was simply that its  Action/Command
center was damaged. The  machine was, effectively,  senile. But if  it
were senile,  why  hadn't  it  fired  on her?  Maybe  it  was  out  of
ammunition? No . . . It hadn't  eventried to fire on her. None of  its
impressive array of guns had cycled. And whysunshine ?

    She crawled uneasily to her feet, but the Bolo sat motionless. The
only hint that  it had ever  come to life  was the slightly  different
angle of its main guns. She brushed dirt out of her hair and jumpsuit,
cast one last, uneasy glance over her shoulder, then headed for  home.
She had nothing  to show  for her  adventure except  bruises, but  she
didn't care any longer about the Pig and his stupid challenges.

    She'd gone one-on-one  with a  deranged Bolo and  come out  alive.
That ought to be enough forany lifetime.

    Two days later, Kalima  left school to find  a group of  colonists
clustered near  the Council  building. She  edged her  way closer  and
discovered a serious debate underway.

    ". . . can't repair it? We've got to have that power unit on  line
within ten hours or the backup generators will go down!"

    "We don't have the tools needed to fix a fusion unit. We've got to
wait for the supply ship."

    "But the hospital!"

    Near the far edge of the crowd, someone said, "What about a  solar
rig?"

    "That's ancient technology!"

    "Yeah, but it works," someone  else said thoughtfully. "We've  got
the supplies to build a pretty  big solar collector and Fred's a  good
electrical engineer. You could rig a converter, couldn't you, Fred?"

    "Yes, that'd work temporarily. We  could divert part of the  power
to backup batteries for emergency use until the supply ship-"

    Kalima had stopped listening. Sunshine. Solar energy. Power . .  .
The Bolo needed recharging!

    She whirled and slipped away without being noticed.



    - 7-

    The thud  of conifer  cones is  very distant.  Power reserves  are
critically low.  My  Emergency  Survival Center  functions;  my  outer
sensors hardly at all. Soon,  the darkness will return permanently.  I
have not been visited again by my new Commander. I calculate that  2.7
days of my remaining three days of power have elapsed, without further
command contact. It would  have been good to  receive a last  command;
but I am without purpose and have disgraced my unit. This ending is to
be expected. Still, it is a lonely end. I miss the voices of my fellow
Dinochrome Brigade units. I miss the laughter of my Commander. I-

    Low-ultraviolet Y-Band  radiation  floods my  external  power-grid
panels. Energy surges through my Action/Command center and floods into
my backup power cells. Outer sensors regain receptivity. Memory  cells
I  had  long  forgotten  resonate  once  again.  Euphoria  floods   my
ego-gestalt  Introspection  Complex  circuitry.  I  am  alive!  Damage
assessment is automatic, requiring 1.73 seconds to determine that I am
immobilized, incapable of speech, and unable to function in more  than
75 percent of  my original  design functions. My  memory crystals  are
intact in places, damaged in others. Many connections between banks of
data cells have been damaged, so that much of my memory, while intact,
remains inaccessible.

    My armaments  are low,  but I  sustained crippling  damage  before
on-board munitions stockpiles were exhausted.  If I am able to  repair
the damage  to  my motor  control  functions,  I will  be  capable  of
fighting.

    Although my main fission plant remains cold, backup power reserves
are restored. I swivel forward sensors and locate the small human  who
is my Commander. I attempt to communicate.

    "Gonner. Gonner."

    "Uh, hi. Hi, Gonner. I, uh, thought you might need power."

    The voice  is female,  young. She  is my  first female  Commander.
Sensor probes indicate medical-design equipment  near my treads. I  am
unfamiliar with the  specific configuration of  the machine,  although
its medical purpose is clearly  indicated by the symbols stamped  onto
its hull. This equipment is emanating  Y-Band radiation as a flood  of
waste energy. My  manufacturers built  into my design  the ability  to
absorb Y-Band radiation  and convert  it to battlefield  energy. I  am
grateful for the delay of oblivion. I attempt to come to attention.  I
rotate my Hellbore guns and lift them in a salute.

    "Gonner, Gonner, Gonner."

    I must repair my  speech centers. Can  my Commander understand  my
need for depot maintenance?

    "Is that the only word you can say? No, you said sunshine.  That's
how I figured out you were low on power."

    I am pleased. My  new Commander is  capable of extrapolating  from
slim clues.

    "Uh, my name is Kalima Tennyson, Gonner."

    Kali-Ma, ancient Hindu  Goddess of Death  and Rebirth, Consort  to
Shiva the Destroyer.  My Commander  was well chosen.  I await  Current
Situation input.

    "In case you're wondering, it's been about two hundred years since
you, uh, since the battle with the Deng."

    My Commander knows of my failure.

    "I think it's  pretty awesome, what  you did. You  should see  the
battle damage on your  hull. When I was  coming out here, three  years
ago, the captain of  our transport ship told  me all about the  battle
for Donner's World. They named it after your old Commander, 'cause the
colony fought so bravely, my Dad  said. That was before he got  killed
in the battle  on Hilltop  Gap. My Dad  even knew  about you,  Gonner.
You're famous. They put a medal on your hull and left you here,  where
you  fell  standing   against  the   Deng.  Just   like  Leonidas   at
Thermopylae."

    I know this battle. It is  part of my battlefield archives,  which
have sustained  no  damage.  I  access the  file.  The  Spartan  three
hundred, under King Leonidas,  held the gap  between the mountains  at
Thermopylae against invading Persians. The Spartans were killed to the
last man. Persia overran  Attica and sacked  Athens; but Greek  forces
rallied at Corinth and finally drove the Persians from Greek soil.

    If my Commander speaks the truth-and why would she not? -then  the
Deng have taken Planet XGD 7798-F and lost it again. Humanity has  not
fallen to the Enemy. It pleases me that the planet has been renamed in
honor of my  Commander. James  Donner was  a valiant  officer. My  new
Commander has  said  I  am  honored. This  seems  impossible;  but  my
Commander would not lie to a Unit of the Line. Perhaps my mission  was
not a failure. Humanity has survived.

    I attempt again to request assistance at a maintenance depot.

    "Monkey. Monkey."

    My Commander's voice is understandably puzzled."Monkey?"

    I try again."Slick."

    "Monkey? Slick? Gonner,  I wish I  knew what was  wrong with  your
brain."

    I attempt further diagnostics and  find only broken tangles  which
my on-board  repair functions  cannot  fathom. Without  a  maintenance
depot, I will  not be capable  of telling my  Commander what is  wrong
with my internal psychotronic circuitry.

    My sensors  detect the  approach of  another life  form. I  go  to
Battle Reflex Alert Status. My  Commander must be protected. I  swivel
anti-personnel guns and lock onto the target.

    "Gonner! No! Don't shoot!"

    I halt  the  anti-personnel-response  program  and  await  further
commands.

    "This is Sufi. She's my dog."

    I study the life form which has joined my Commander. It is smaller
than she, quadrupedal. My Commander's hand rests on the animal's head.
The animal is of a different configuration than my fragmented memories
of the Deng Enemy.  The Sufi dog  has half as  many appendages as  the
Deng, although its body is slightly larger. The shape and  arrangement
of head, body, and  legs differs significantly.  I switch from  Battle
Reflex Alert to  Active Service Alert  Status. This introspection  and
alert-status change requires 0.013 seconds. I still function slowly.

    My Commander  continues her  Current Situation  update."Sufi is  a
special dog. My mother does  genetic research. Sufi's nearly as  smart
as I am; she just  can't talk. She and  her puppies, they're grown  up
now, they babysit us kids,  so the adults don't  have to watch us  all
the time. The colony gets a lot more work done now than we used to. Of
course, I  don't  really  need  a nursemaid  anymore,  but  Sufi's  my
friend."

    I file Sufi in my  memory banks as authorized personnel  permitted
to approach this Unit. My Commander's friend emits two sharp sounds.

    "That means my mother's  looking for me,  Gonner. Two sharp  barks
close together means, `Go home, your mother wants you. ' She  probably
needs this Entero-Scope Field Generator that I, uh, borrowed, back  in
the lab. I'll be  back, Gonner, okay? Maybe  not today, but I  promise
I'll be back. You just sit tight and don't shoot anyone."

    A command! I respond with intense pleasure."Hold! Hold! Hold!"

    My new Commander smiles into my sensor pickup."Yeah, that's right,
Gonner! You did a great job, holding. Just keep holding the fort until
I come back and don't shoot any of the colonists."

    My Commander departs with her  friend and the equipment which  has
restored my  backup  power  levels  to full  battle  charge.  She  has
commanded me to remain  at Active Service Alert  Status. I survey  the
valley and scan with  my sensors. I  await my next  command. I have  a
restored purpose. Even in my damaged  condition, I am again useful.  I
am content.



    - 8-

    "Mom?"

    "Hmm?"

    Her mother was  busy at  the gene-sequencer, which  was good.  She
should be able to ask her question, get an answer, and get away  again
without rousing suspicion.

    "What kind of brain damage would cause someone to answer questions
in one-word answers, you know, like  not a direct answer, but it  sort
of makes sense if you think about it?"

    Her mother  glanced  up.  "Sounds  like  global  aphasia.  Got  an
assignment?"

    She nodded.

    Her mother went back to the sequencer. "I've got a medical library
in the study. Read  up on it and  show me a copy  of your report  when
you're done."

    Relieved, Kalima made her escape to the study. Global aphasia, she
discovered, was  a condition  in which  people were  capable of  fully
rational thought, but could not articulate anything but nonsense.  The
disorder had  become an  obscure one  ever since  Dr. Collingwood  had
discovered how to culture immature nerve tissue.

    "Bet that's what's wrong with  Gonner," she muttered, chewing  one
fingernail. "He almost makes sense.  Wonder what `monkey' and  `slick'
refer to?"

    She made a list of synonyms for each word, and started a  computer
cross  reference,  looking  for   anything  that  might  make   sense.
Eventually, she came up with a possibility. "Grease monkey: mechanic."

    "He needs maintenance, of course!"

    Dismay followed at once. How?

    She couldn't notify the Navy or Sector. They'd simply destroy him.
He was a war hero, like her father  had been, and no one was going  to
hurt him. Gonner had been hurt  enough already. She couldn't fix  him.
And she couldn't tell anyone in the colony, either, because any  adult
who found out  would call in  the Navy or  Sector representatives  and
Gonner's life would end, abruptly.

    She thrust  out  her  lower  lip, in  the  expression  her  mother
despairingly called, "Your father's look." She was only thirteen;  but
she had the manuals  and things her father  had given her about  Bolos
and  she  could  learn  everything  the  colony  had  to  offer  about
mechanics, electrical systems, and engineering.

    She could  always tell  her mother  and the  school officials  she
wanted to  become an  engineer.  She just  wouldn't mention  that  she
wanted to become acombat engineer. The decision made, Kalima spent the
rest of the  evening studying  everything in her  mother's library  on
brain disorders. She  wrote the required  composition, which she  then
carefully smudged  and marked  "B-"  in a  fair approximation  of  her
teacher's handwriting.

    The next  day she  told  her teacher  she'd  decided on  a  career
choice, after  all,  and  scheduled as  many  math,  engineering,  and
mechanical practicum courses as they'd let her cram in with her  other
academics.



    - 9-

    Six months  later, Gonner's  outer sensor  arrays had  been  fully
repaired. That wasn't as difficult as Kalima had first thought.  She'd
found  a  compartment  with  spares  and  had  studied  the  existing,
burnt-out units carefully before replacing them. Gonner had  responded
by  saying,  "Bird!  Bird!  Bird!"  about  a  dozen  times  in   rapid
succession.

    She laughed. "Bet itdoes feel like flying, after you've been blind
for a couple  of centuries. Or  . . ."  She canted her  gaze into  the
bitter-white winter sky ". . . is there a bird somewhere up there, too
far for me to spot?"

    Gonner hummed in silence. Kalima grinned. "Well, that's one repair
job done and about a million more to go. At this rate, we'llnever  get
you back up to ratings."

    "Bird," was all Gonner said.

    She patted his  pitted war hull.  The icy cold  of the  flintsteel
seeped through her insulated gloves.  "I gotta go, Gonner. Last  thing
we need is for  me to get  caught sneaking out  here. Mom would  never
understand. She'd insist  they come melt  your Action/Command  center.
I'll be back as soon as I can."

    She slid over to the rungs of the ladder and climbed down. It  was
a long way to  the cratered ground.  Evening shadows stretched  coldly
away from Gonner's  giant treads. Icicles  clung like a  beard to  the
bottom edge of his purple-black war hull. Dirty grey ice had formed in
the ancient crater depressions. It splintered and cobwebbed  underfoot
as she started back  toward home. She had  taken only five steps  away
when a snickering voice spoke from the shadows of the crumbling wall.

    "So, this is  where the  famous Kalima Tennyson  spends her  spare
time."

    She whirled, going first hot then icy cold inside her therma-suit.

    Bradley Dault. Suited up and lying in wait.

    "What are you doing here?"

    "I wondered where you sneak off to. So I followed you this time."

    "You got no right following me, Bradley Dault!"

    "It's a free  world." He shrugged,  infuriating her; then  stepped
closer. More ice crunched underfoot. "Your mama know you come here?"

    "None-ya!" she grated.

    He grinned. "Didn't think  so. Don't worry,  'Lima. I won't  tell.
Not so long as  I can come along,  too, and watch the  Bolo. Can I  go
inside, too?"

    Kalima's fists clenched, all by  themselves. "No! And if you  ever
follow me again, I'll make him shoot you!"

    Above their heads, the anti-personnel guns swivelled with a scream
of freezing metal. The sound brought Bradley Dault six inches off  the
ground. His face  went pasty  white, the color  of old  ice. His  eyes
bugged, staring at  the gun barrels  now levelled squarely  at him.  A
brisk wind sprang up, whipping around  the end of the wall toward  the
broken gates and the shadow of the crippled Bolo.

    "I didn't mean nothin',  'Lima, honest! I just  wanted to see  the
Bolo, too! Gad, it's still alive!"

    "You say  a  word-a stinkingword  -andyou  won't be!  My  Mom's  a
geneticist-I gotdozens  of  ways to  kill  you, hideous-like,  if  you
evenbreathe ."

    He nodded,  still staring  wide-eyed at  the anti-personnel  guns.
"Not a whisper. I swear. Cut my tongue out, if I'm lying."

    She relaxed a little. "Well . . . okay. But don't try to come  out
here alone. Bolo knows me. He won't know you."

    Again, Bradley nodded without  taking his eyes  off the big  guns.
"Can you talk to it?"

    "Yes. But  he was  hurt pretty  bad.  He can  talk, sort  of;  but
there's a lot  of damage to  the circuits in  his speech center.  It's
called global aphasia. He can think  just fine, but he can'ttalk  very
well."

    "Make him say something."

    Scorn filled  her  voice. "You  don'tmake  a Bolo  Mark  XX  Model
BTremendous unit doanything .  They do their  assigned duty. Unit  Six
Seven Zero GWN's duty is guarding this colony. He's still doing it."

    That got a response  from Bradley. He  glanced over his  shoulder.
"You gotta be kidding. He just sits there, getting rusty."

    She stepped  forward, fists  clenched at  her sides.  "Want me  to
command him to shoot you?"  Her breath went to  ice on the cold  wind.
"All I gotta do is tell him you're the Enemy. Personally, I think we'd
be better off without you, Bradley Dault. You're a pig."

    She expected  him to  get  mad or  make some  wise,  smart-mouthed
crack. Instead, he just clamped his lips tighter and went white around
the edges of his face.

    "What? Something I say hit home?"

    "No." That came out  sullen. He dropped his  gaze and turned  away
from the Bolo. "Can I leave now, 'Lima?"

    She hesitated. He  looked almost .  . . hurt.  She decided he  was
play-acting, just to get her sympathy.

    "Yeah. Sure. Get out of here."

    He hunched  his  shoulders against  the  wind and  turned  to  go.
Overhead, one of the tall native  conifers cracked with a report  like
gunfire. Bradley  jumped and  went down  flat in  one of  the old  war
craters. Kalima started to laugh-

    Then froze. The tree crashed  down, broken halfway up its  immense
length. The trunk smashed against the old wall. A sixteen-foot section
cracked, slipped sideways  along an  ancient fissure  in the  battered
flintsteel casing, and began to fall-directly toward them.

    "Run!"

    Bradley rolled,  came  up  faster  than  she  would  have  thought
possible, and launched himself straight at her. His tackle brought her
down, almost in the shadow of  the Bolo's treads. Screaming metal  and
the sound of falling concrete and flintsteel filled her ears. But they
weren't crushed.

    She looked up and gasped.

    The wall had fallen against the Hellbore gun barrels. The Bolo had
swivelled them to catch the wall.

    "Run! Quick!"

    Bradley grabbed her  hand and hauled  her up. She  dove for  cover
behind the  Bolo  and  hauled  him with  her.  Overhead,  the  massive
Hellbore gun  barrels  caught  the  glint  of  winter  sunlight.  They
groaned, then moved  a few inches  as the ancient  turret rotated  the
barrels out from under the wall. The broken section crashed down right
where they'd been standing.

    In the  immense  silence which  followed  the thunder  of  falling
debris, Bradley stuttered, "It s-s-saved our lives."

    Kalima just nodded, jerkily, unable to find her voice at all.  She
placed a shaky hand against the Bolo's fender and leaned her  forehead
against it.

    "Oxygen," the Bolo's metallic voice said, twice.

    "Oxygen?" Bradley repeated. "What's he mean?"

    She thought  about  it. She  was  getting better  at  interpreting
Gonner's inscrutable messages. "Oxygen's a gas. Can't see it, but  you
need it to survive. Can't see it! Of course. It's clear. He just said,
`All clear. ' "

    "Oxygen," Gonner said again, confirming the guess. "Hold. Hold."

    "Job well done,  Unit Six Seven  Zero GWN. Yes,  continue to  hold
position. Report any Enemy activity detected."

    "Hold, hold, hold."

    Bradley mouthed, "Wow!" soundlessly.

    That was when she noticed the rip in his therma-suit. He'd torn it
down the shoulder at some point during their scramble for safety.  She
reached out to see how bad  the damage was and was shocked  speechless
when he flinched in pain.

    "Ow! Dammit, don't look!"

    "Hey! Sit still! You're hurt."

    "Am not," he growled, sounding genuinely dangerous.

    "Then how come I see bruises and . . . and welts . . ."

    The bruises were liver-colored, at least several days old, not new
injuries from  the falling  wall. The  implications hit  Kalima  hard.
Bradley didn't say anything.

    "Your dad?"

    He stared coldly into the distance.

    "Bradley-"

    "He's not my dad."

    She opened her mouth; then shut it again. This was getting deep, a
little too fast.

    Bradley's face had  flushed; he  wouldn't look at  her. "Mom  died
before you got here and . . . he . . . never knew she slept around. He
thought I was his kid. We  did that genetic experiment in school  last
week? Well, I'm not. He always was mean to me, but . . ."

    Despite the extreme chill of  the frozen ground, she discovered  a
need to sit down beside him. "I didn't know. I'm sorry."

    "Don't be.  I'm just  Bradley the  Pig." He  stood up  and  shoved
gloved hands into his pockets. "Gotta go," he mumbled.

    "Wait."

    He stopped without turning around.

    "You wanna see the passenger compartment?"

    "I-" He stopped and didn't say  anything for a moment. Then,  very
low, "Later?"

    "Sure."

    He took off at a dead run.

    Above  her  head,  Gonner's  metallic  voice  broke  the  silence.
"Brimstone."

    Brimstone. She thought about that  for a little while. Then  said,
"Yeah, Gonner, you're right."

    She wished she could ask the Bolo for advice on what to do next.



    - 10-

    Brad avoided Kalima Tennyson for  several months. He was  ashamed,
without quite knowing why, and was grateful that she said nothing.  He
wanted to talk to her and ask  her more questions about the Bolo,  but
didn't quite have the nerve. They'd  both turned fourteen and she  was
pretty by any standards and smarter than he was, and the Bolo  thought
of her as its commander.

    He avoided home, too, as much as possible.

    Brad spent a lot of time working with the nursemaid dogs  Kalima's
mother had bred. The animals fascinated him. One of the young  bitches
which had been  born on  the ship, before  Kalima and  her mother  had
arrived, had littered, giving him a  chance to work directly with  new
pups. They were smart, even at  a young age. They matured more  slowly
than normal dogs, which meant they  stayed longer than normal dogs  at
the age when learning came most  easily. By springtime, the pups  were
barely a  third  grown  and  had  already  learned  the  coded  verbal
"language" by which the nursemaid  dogs communicated with their  human
charges.

    He found himself spending most of  his spare time at the  nursery,
watching the  dogs watch  the  kids, and  discovered that  he  enjoyed
playing with the little ones. Their older brothers and sisters stopped
calling him "Pig" and started listening when he told stories about the
Deng war and the colonists' last stand on Donner's World.

    His grades in history and biology improved dramatically.

    His "dad" still hit  him regularly, but Brad  found ways to  avoid
home most hours of the day.

    Spring had  melted gloriously  into  early summer,  leaving  grass
knee-deep in the wide, crater-scarred valley, when Kalima appeared  at
the nursery.

    "Bradley?"

    He glanced up, surprised to hear her voice.

    "Yeah?"

    "Uh . . . Can we talk?"

    "Sure." He retrieved the ball  with which he'd been playing  catch
and tossed it over to little Joey Martin, then said to Ganesha, "Gotta
go. Your turn to play fetch."

    The dog panted happily and chased down the ball.

    "What's up?"

    She didn't  answer, just  led him  a roundabout  trip through  the
woods behind town, over the ridge  that separated the new colony  from
the ruined one, and headed for the Bolo.

    "Kalima?"

    "I started  to think  you'd never  ask  to see  inside him.  So  I
thought I'd offer again."

    "Really? Are you serious?"

    She glanced over her shoulder. "I never joke about Unit Six  Seven
Zero GWN."

    He hurried to catch up. "Thanks. I mean it."

    They walked in silence for a  few minutes, toward the broken  wall
which had nearly killed them.

    "I heard some of your stories about him," she said at length.

    He flushed and stared at the ground. "I did some reading."

    "I know. You're  good. The  little ones  really love  it. I  liked
listening, too."

    Brad couldn't remember the last time  someone had told him he  was
good at anything. And Kalima hadliked something he did. His whole face
went hot, clear down into his neck.

    They arrived at the shattered gate and stood gazing up at the Bolo
for a moment.

    "He's bigger than I remembered."

    She looked over at him. "You didn't come back out?"

    He ducked his head. "You said he wouldn't know me. I ain't stupid,
Kalima."

    "Didn't say you were.  C'mere." She grabbed  his hand and  dragged
him closer. "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN, this is Bradley Dault. He is  my
friend."

    The huge Hellbore guns shifted. Brad wanted to break and run,  but
held his ground. The guns circled, lifted two degrees, then halted.

    "That's his salute," Kalima whispered.

    "Oh. Uh . . ."

    He saluted  awkwardly, after  disengaging his  hand from  Kalima's
grip. "Bradley Dault, sir.  Pleased to meet you.  And, uh, thanks  for
saving my life, you know, last winter."

    "Oxygen."

    All clear.

    "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

    "Unit  Six  Seven   Zero  GWN,  I'm   bringing  Brad  aboard   for
observation."

    "Hold. Hold."

    Brad grinned. "Thank you, sir!"

    They climbed, Kalima going first. The hatch didn't creak when  she
opened it.

    "You've been working on him."

    She nodded. "Every chance I get. I read everything I can find. Dad
left me some stuff  and the library's  got a little,  but most of  the
stuff I really need's classified. He was hurt pretty bad. I can't  fix
everything."

    He understood the frustration in her voice. He wanted, very badly,
to see this machine at its full fighting potential.

    Then they climbed into the  turret and he forgot everything  else.
"Wow!"

    The inside of the  Bolo wasn't anything  like he'd imagined.  He'd
thought it would be  a vast space, filled  with glowing lights,  ranks
and banks of instruments.  The interior was  crowded, with scant  room
for a  passenger in  a  small compartment  in  the center,  under  the
turret. Crawl spaces  snaked off to  allow maintenance access.  Battle
damage was visible  even this  deep inside the  Bolo, in  the form  of
blackened boards,  tangled  wires  and  conduit  cables,  cracked  and
darkened  crystal   components.   Daylight   flickered   through   one
crawlspace, where something had blown completely through the armor.

    "Whew! He really got ripped apart, didn't he? No wonder they  gave
him that medal."

    Kalima had hunkered down in one  of the crawl spaces, leaving  the
observer's chair for him.

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN, activate observation screens."

    Two dull panels flickered, then a view of the valley sprang up  in
full color on one. Ranges and other esoteric data he didn't understand
appeared along the edges of the  screen. The other view was aft,  into
the battered compound the Bolo had tried to defend.

    "Am I asleep?" Bradley wondered aloud. "This has gotta be a really
great dream."

    Kalima just grinned. "That's how I  felt, first time I got a  look
around inside."

    "I'm scared to touch anything," he admitted with a rueful grin.

    She just nodded. "Me,  too. I study like  crazy, then ask him  all
the questions I can think, and try to figure the answers ten different
ways before I  touchanything .  I don't  want those  Hellbore guns  to
discharge and  I  don't want  to  fry  any more  of  his  psychotronic
circuits."

    "Is there any way to get him talking right again?"

    She looked unhappy. "Let me show you."

    He got down on hands and knees and followed her toward the distant
light pouring through the hull.

    "See that?"

    She pointed to a tangle of destruction the size of his torso.

    "Yeah. Pretty bad, isn't it?"

    "That's his vocal processor center."

    "Yipe. That's dire."

    "Maybe, if I study long enough, I'll figure a way, but . . ."

    It looked hopeless.

    "Any danger he'll go  berserk, like some of  those Bolos you  hear
about?"

    She bit her lower lip, looking suddenly vulnerable.

    "I don't know. His  Action/Command center wasn't  hit, so I  don't
think so, but  I'm scared, anyway.  He's my friend,  Brad." Her  eyes,
luminous and wide in the shadows  of the crawlspace, sought his  gaze.
"I don't want to lose him, too."

    It took him a minute, but he finally caught on. "Hey, at least you
knew your dad. I still don't know who mine is."

    She sniffed once and nodded. "Sorry. I really am. Doeshe still hit
you?"

    He shrugged. "Yeah."

    "You ought to report him."

    He stared toward the distant rip in the Bolo's hull. "Colony needs
him," was all he said. "They'd only deport him for reconditioning  and
then where'd we be? Can't go without a surgeon for a year, waiting for
someone to come out on the next transport."

    She scowled.  "Still ought  to  report him.  Beating a  minor's  a
serious crime."

    "Dying's worse," he countered laconically. "You wanna risk a  bust
appendix while he's gone?"

    Her lower lip came out, reminding him of a photo he'd seen of  her
father in a recent-history text.

    "Just don't say nothin',  okay? I only gotta  put up with him  for
another four years and I'm not home  much now, as it is. I won't  talk
about the Bolo and you won't talk abouthim . Deal?"

    He stuck out one hand.

    With every evidence of  reluctance, she took  it. They sealed  the
bargain with a vigorous handshake.  Afterward, he felt better than  he
had in months.

    "You want one of Sufi's puppies?" she asked unexpectedly.

    He looked up quickly. "What?"

    "You want one of the puppies?"

    "I-" He closed his mouth before he could blurt out how desperately
he wanted  one  of the  beautiful,  smart dogs.  "But  they're  really
expensive!"

    "Mom said I could have one. I'd rather you had one. You're  better
with them than I am, and, well, it wouldn't be such a bad idea, having
a nursemaid to watch  your back. I'll bet  not even Davis Dault  would
hit you, with a dog like Sufi  between you and him. And he's sure  not
stupid enough to kick one  of Mom's dogs. They'd  tear his leg off  at
the knee and the whole colony would approve."

    Brad wanted to grin. But the enormity of the offer overwhelmed him
so deeply,  his throat  closed.  All he  could  manage was  a  feeble,
"Thanks."

    "Come on, then. Let's say goodbye  to Unit Six Seven Zero GWN  and
go pick up your dog."

    As they walked away from the  massive hulk of the Bolo, Brad  felt
like he was dancing on air.



    - 11-

    "This really  is  a  tangled  mess,  Gonner.  I've  been  studying
everything in the colony archives, everything  my dad left me on  Bolo
design and psychotronic circuitry; but this . . ."

    Kalima let her voice trail off. Five years of intensive study  had
allowed her to  restore many  of the  Bolo's systems,  but she  hadn't
quite dared tackle his speech defect yet.

    "Are you sure you want me to try and fix this?"

    The Bolo's  metallic  voice responded  in  a fashion  she'd  grown
accustomed to interpreting over the years.

    "Worms."

    Translation: "I'd rather  be dead and  eaten by worms  than go  on
this way."

    "Okay, big guy. I apologize in advance if I really blow this one."

    Out in the passenger compartment,  Brad's voice said, "Go for  it.
If you don't get it right, no one can."

    Her hands were already sweating, but she knew she had to at  least
try. She turned on the high-speed resonant cutter. Over in the opening
to the  crawlspace,  Shiva laid  back  his  ears at  the  sound.  Brad
chuckled and called the dog over  to him. Kalima bent over the  tangle
of two-hundred-year-old  damage, took  a deep  breath, and  began  the
surgery. She cut  away damaged  boards, squared  off ragged  explosion
damage, exposed raw connections which had lain half buried under fused
droplets of flintsteel from the outer hull. Then came the delicate job
of trying  to reconnect  and  splice boards  whose purposes  she  only
vaguely understood.

    The stink of hot  electrical connections tickled  the back of  her
throat. Out in the passenger  compartment, Shiva pinned back his  ears
and  whined,  but  stayed  put.  Time  trickled  past.  She  sat  back
periodically and wiped sweat with an  arm. Brad handed in water and  a
sandwich about halfway through. Her  hands were less than steady  when
she set the cutter aside.

    "Thanks. This is good."

    "Made it myself."

    "How much time's gone?"  She wasn't wearing a  watch, for fear  of
damaging the delicate circuitry she was exposing.

    "A little more than two hours. Want a shoulder rub?"

    She emerged from the crawl space. "Sounds great."

    Bradley Dault's fingers  dug into  tight knots.  "Ow! Ooh,  that's
good . . ."

    When he'd finished, he stole  a kiss. She grinned. "Naughty!  I've
still got a good two hours' work left in there. Hang on, big guy," she
told the Bolo.

    "Hold."

    She patted Shiva and earned  a hand-washing, then dried her  hands
carefully. "Okay. Back to work."

    The job took  more than five  hours, altogether. Kalima  conducted
frequent tests, asking Gonner questions  to which he either  responded
in his  usual  murky  fashion or-more  ominously-to  which  he  didn't
respond at all.

    "Don't worry," Brad told her. "Just keep going."

    She connected a splice between two damaged sections-

    And sparks jumped and skittered  through a whole series of  cables
and junctions.  The  Bolo emitted  a  high-pitched keening  sound  and
jerked spasmodically on its treads.

    "Ow!" Kalima's arm  throbbed clear  to the  elbow. Her  fingertips
were reddened from the shock.

    Bradley dove  down the  crawlspace and  hauled her  out. "Are  you
hurt?" His face was actually ashen.

    "I'm fine. Gonner! Gonner, what happened? Talk to me!"

    For a long,  breathless moment, there  was no sound  save a  dying
sputter somewhere in the connections behind her. Then-

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN of the Line, reporting for duty."

    "Gonner!"

    "That is my security clearance code, Commander Tennyson."

    Both of them whooped  aloud. Shiva barked  joyously and danced  at
their feet.

    "You did it!" Bradley was abruptly kissing her, very thoroughly.

    When they unclutched, they  both panted for  air and grinned  like
fools. Bradley's face swam wetly in her vision.

    "He can talk!  Brad, he  can really  talk!" Then  she cleared  her
throat, recalling her position  as Gonner's commanding officer.  "Unit
Six Seven Zero GWN, please report damage assessment."

    "Affirmative, Commander  Tennyson. Diagnostics  indicate that  the
connection between my  Action/Command center  and my  vocal-processing
unit is  repaired. However,  a short  has now  developed in  my  motor
control function.  I  cannot track  my  guns accurately.  Is  there  a
maintenance depot available, Commander Tennyson?"

    She exchanged a glum look with Bradley.

    "Great," she muttered.

    He squeezed her waist. "Maybe it's not too bad?"

    Kalima gulped. "Let's  hope not.  Uh, Gonner, I'm  afraid Iam  the
maintenance depot. I can't  request official help. If  I do, the  Navy
will just send  someone out  to burn out  your Action/Command  center.
They're trying to find all the  old Bolo field units to destroy  them.
They, uh, think you're already dead, Gonner."

    "Understood. I cannot function properly in my current status."

    "Let me see what I can do. It took five years, but I finally fixed
your voice."

    She went hunting, prompted by Gonner, and found the trouble.

    "Oh-oh." This didn't look good. The short had melted a solid-state
unit in the Bolo's fire-control center. "Uh, Gonner, this doesn't look
like something  I  can fix.  Unless  you  have a  spare  part  stashed
somewhere?"

    "You have already exhausted all replacement units which I  carried
on board. My sensors now function at proper battlefield capacity.  The
damage to my  psychotronic circuitry  has been repaired.  I no  longer
experience  intermittent  power  drains  from  my  emergency   reserve
batteries. I am able  to retrieve 68.935 percent  of my stored  memory
capacity and  your  additions of  data  crystals and  new  input  have
enhanced  many  of  my  losses.  There  is  no  replacement  for  this
fire-control module."

    Out in the passenger compartment, Brad muttered, "How'd I know you
were going to say something like that?"

    "Was it . . ." She hesitated. "Was this damage caused by something
I did?"

    Gonner actually hesitated at least half a second-an eternity for a
Bolo.

    "Affirmative. I am  pleased to  have my  speech centers  repaired,
Commander. It may  be possible  to bypass the  fire-control module.  I
will need to conduct a thorough search of my memory banks. Stand  by."
A few instants later, he said, "I cannot access certain data crystals,
but  my   memory   shows   no  rerouting   possible   under   existing
circumstances. May I obtain additional technical data?"

    "On what?"  Brad  muttered.  "We don't  have  clearance  for  Bolo
technology."

    "Well, no, but we can give  him everything in the colony  library,
everything in Mom's library archives.  We've already uploaded some  of
it, into those new memory crystals we swiped."

    Bradley grinned, clearly remembering  the consternation caused  by
discovery of the theft. The little kids had been blamed for it,  after
one of  the  crystals,  carefully  planted,  turned  up  as  "pirates'
treasure." No  one had  gotten into  serious trouble  and Bradley  had
agreed to pay for the replacements, since he had "encouraged" the kids
to play pirate games.  The loss had been  replaced on the next  supply
ship-and Gonner had gotten a badly needed memory supplement.

    "It couldn't hurt to try," Kalima decided.

    "All right. You get a copy of your mother's stuff and I'll bootleg
a copy of the library archives."

    They climbed out  of the  Bolo, Brad  carting Shiva  over one  arm
since the big dog couldn't negotiate the steep rungs, and jumped  down
the last rung to land in knee-deep  grass. The big dog trotted to  one
side and sat laughing at their feet. He adored visiting the Bolo  with
them. He'd kept their secret even from the other dogs.

    Kalima paused and gazed across the valley. "Sometimes, you know, I
try to imagine  what it must  have been like,  that day. They  must've
known it was hopeless, once Gonner was crippled. He was the last  Bolo
of the Dinochrome Brigade stationed here. The Deng had already  killed
the others."

    Brad slipped an arm around  her shoulder. "Yeah," he said  softly.
"Thank God the Deng were beaten back years ago."

    She shivered and leaned against him. "Yeah."

    "Come on, let's go. I'll cook  dinner at my place after we  finish
stealing the archives for Gonner."

    Kalima grinned. Brad had moved out the moment he hit eighteen  and
had built his own place out at the edge of town, closer to the  ruined
fortress than anyone else had built. All that was required now for  an
unnoticed excursion to  work on Gonner  was a quick  exit from  Brad's
back door. Then  they simply  cut through  the woods  and climbed  the
ridge.

    "It's a deal."

    They headed back to town, hand in hand.



    - 12-

    The additional data provided by my Commander and Bradley Dault has
proven of  unique  interest.  A  great deal  of  this  information  is
medical, giving me great  insight into the  nature of biological  life
forms. Commander Tennyson's parent has acquired considerable skill  in
genetic manipulation. Dault has  provided additional data on  surgical
skills, including results of his own studies. I note that he bears the
same name as the colony surgeon  and shares an interest in surgery.  I
also note that in  his personal files he  indicates no direct  genetic
link with this other Dault. Human relationships continue to puzzle me.

    I  search  for   possible  information  to   resolve  my   current
disability. I  find none  which appears  viable. Commander  Tennyson's
data includes information on techniques attempted approximately  fifty
years ago which proved  of limited success. I  study these notes  more
carefully and  extrapolate possibilities.  There  is a  27.35  percent
chance that  such a  cybernetic interphase  linkage might  serve as  a
substitute fire-control  center.  I  have  lost  that  portion  of  my
psychotronic  network  which  monitors  and  manipulates  the  primary
controls for  the  Hellbore  system  and  the  energy  repeater  guns.
Anti-personnel charges  and guns  are under  my control,  but my  main
weapons  systems  respond  erratically.   A  secondary  brain,   under
intelligent control  and tied  into  my psychotronic  nervous  system,
would be capable of taking my directions and manually controlling  the
weapons systems.  With  proper  cybernetic connections,  it  would  be
possible for such a system to translate leg and arm movement  commands
from the  brain center  into  traversing and  firing commands  for  my
weapons systems.

    I anticipate a 99.85 percent  probability that no human  volunteer
will be found  for such  an attempt.  Nor does  the current  situation
require such  measures. I  am incapable  of fighting,  but my  sensors
monitor the security of this colony.  I will know before any human  on
Donner's World what dangers  may threaten human  survival. It is  less
than my  original  commission requires;  but  I  am a  member  of  the
Dinochrome Brigade. I will serve to the best of my ability. I note the
required procedure and file the data for reference. I will speak  with
my Commander of  this when  she returns.  She will  decide the  proper
course of action for this unit.



    - 13-

    A knock  at the  outer  door interrupted  Kalima's  concentration.
"It's open!"

    Brad's voice  followed the  sound of  the squeaking  door  hinges.
"Kalima? Have you seen Shiva?"

    She glanced up. "No. He never  comes here unless you're with  him.
What's wrong? Has one of the young bitches gone into heat?"

    He shook his  head. "No.  I checked. He  left about  an hour  ago,
through the  woods,  and hasn't  come  back.  He didn't  come  when  I
called."

    Kalima scooted her keyboard aside and stood up. "That's odd.  Mom!
I'm going for a walk!"

    "Be careful, dear."

    Kalima rolled her eyes. "Brad's going along!"

    "Hello, Bradley! Have a nice walk!"

    "Thank you, Dr. Tennyson."

    He didn't smile, which thoroughly alarmed Kalima. She whistled and
called for Sufi. The dog she'd  grown up with bounded into the  living
room.

    "Let's go for a walk, Sufi."

    Sufi swished her tail and barked once.

    They headed for Brad's house  and walked through the deep  conifer
needles to the back.

    "He trotted off that way." Brad pointed.

    "Sufi, Shiva's missing. Can you find him?"

    Sufi barked  emphatically and  bounded off  into the  trees.  Brad
jogged after her and shed his jacket, which he draped over a tree limb
at the edge of  the yard. Kalima noticed  uneasily that he'd thrust  a
gun into a holster on his belt. She hadn't noticed, earlier.

    "Brad, what gives? There haven't been anyybin attacks in years."

    "Something'shappened to Shiva," he said grimly over one  shoulder.
"Do you really want to go one-on-one against aybin without a gun?"

    "Uh . . . no."

    Two hundred yards into the trees,  Sufi halted and sank down  onto
her belly, growling low in her throat. Brad went to ground behind her.
Kalima ate pine needles, then scooted forward cautiously to peer  over
the dog's shoulder.

    Her breath caught.

    Shiva lay about ten  yards ahead. The dog's  head was turned  away
from them, but even  from this distance Kalima  could tell the  animal
was dead or  critically wounded.  Blood had  spattered everywhere  and
soaked into the pine straw under his dark fur.

    "What happened?" she whispered.

    Brad's jaw  muscles looked  like iron.  A soft  snick reached  her
ears. He'd drawn the gun and slipped off the safety.

    "Stay here. You're not armed and I am."

    He inched forward. Sufi was still growling.

    A flash of sunlight on metal caught Kalima's attention. Before she
could yell a warning, Shiva whined  sharply and tried to lunge  toward
the trees. His back legs didn't move. Brad yelled something and  fired
wildly. Kalima heard a scream of  metal on metal; then an energy  bolt
slammed into a tree trunk less  than a millimeter from Brad's ear.  He
dove behind the tree and  fired again. Something slammed solidly  into
another tree trunk. Shiva was  whining hysterically. Sufi snarled  low
in her throat and lunged out of Kalima's grip.

    "Sufi! Down!"

    Another energy beam  sliced through  the trees.  Sufi yelped,  but
kept going.  Brad lunged  for the  dog and  fired again  at  something
Kalima couldn't quite see. Then Sufi snarled and the sound of  bending
metal squealed through the trees.

    "Got it!" Brad snarled.  He lunged to his  feet and dove  forward.
"Mother of-"

    Kalima covered the intervening ground in half a heartbeat.

    "What-" She broke off with a horrified gasp.

    The thing was  small, not  even as  large as  Sufi's torso.  Eight
mangled, spike-like  appendages dangled  from  it. Two  holes  through
its-body? head? -leaked a thin, foul-smelling fluid. Kalima saw  dark,
blue-black hair  under  its  body  armor. A  bulge  on  one  side  was
completely encased  in  metal, although  two  lenses reminded  her  of
goggles. An alien weapon,  resembling a long, thin  rifle, lay in  the
pine straw under  Sufi's paw.  The dog  still snarled  over the  inert
body, fangs bared.

    "My God," she whispered, "it's a Deng. An advance infantry  probe.
My God."

    Brad stomped the thing, making  certain it was dead, then  checked
Sufi's injury. "Spodders are back,"  he said, through clenched  teeth.
"Got Shiva and  waited for  someone to  come looking  for him.  Sufi's
burned across  the shoulder,  here; but  she's not  critical. Can  you
walk, girl?"

    The dog  barked  an  emphatic affirmative.  Brad  confiscated  the
spodder's weapon  and tested  it  against a  nearby tree  trunk.  Bark
sizzled and chipped loose. The burn scar stank. So did Shiva's  blood.
Kalima glanced through the  gloom in the deep  woods, hunting for  any
hint of Deng activity,  any glint of sunlight  on metal. The  silence,
which she had always enjoyed, was suddenly ominous.

    "If they were laying a trap," she said softly, "then they wanted a
captive. Information. My God- We've got to get Gonner."

    "He can't fight."

    "He's the best we've got!"

    Brad glanced at the  crippled dog at their  feet. Pain filled  his
eyes.

    "Let's take him to Mom first," Kalima decided. "If anyone can help
him, Mom can. I'll  bring the .  . . the Deng's  body. We're going  to
need proof. Then we'll warn Gonner."

    Kalima tucked the  shattered Deng infantryman  under her belt,  so
that it dangled by half its broken legs, then scooped up Shiva without
asking. Brad was  armed. She wasn't.  He couldn't afford  to have  his
hands encumbered  with  anything but  his  weapon. Sufi,  limping  but
alert, brought up rear guard. They ran most of the way.

    "Sufi," she gasped, as they jolted past Brad's house, "go get  Hal
Chin. I don't care what he's doing, get him here. We've got to  inform
Sector and the Navy . . ."

    The dog bounded away. Brad held the door for Kalima.

    "Mom! Mom, we got big trouble!"



    - 14-

    I become  aware  of an  energy  pattern  which does  not  fit  the
configuration  of  colony  transmissions.  I  compare  it  with  known
patterns in my Experience Section data banks. I find a damaged  memory
cell where the information I seek should be stored. This energy source
functions on  W-Band radiation.  There is  a reason  this puts  me  on
heightened alert status, but I can no longer retrieve the  information
which would tell me why.

    I broaden  the range  of  my sensor  scan. A  thousand-meter,  360
degree sweep  reveals  more  such energy  transmissions,  all  in  the
W-Band. This  is sufficiently  disturbing to  place myself  on  Battle
Reflex Alert Status. I  call my Commander. There  is no answer on  the
Base  receiver  which   she  has   rigged  to   communicate  with   my
Action/Command center. I am now alarmed. My previous Commander died in
action due to  my failure. I  will not repeat  this error. My  engines
have been repaired. I  move forward and pull  free of concrete  debris
without difficulty. My treads are  rusted but functional. I swivel  my
turret scanners and pick up further sources of W-Band transmissions.

    I move  in the  direction of  these transmission  sources. I  will
discover the cause of my heightened alert status. I call my  Commander
again and receive no reply. Alarm deepens in my Introspection  Complex
ego-gestalt circuitry. I fear for my young Commander's life and I fear
the return of shame and failure.

    A forest  has grown  on the  ridge during  the time  I have  spent
guarding the former compound gates. I push aside sixty-foot trees  and
grind their branches under my treads. It is good to move again. I seek
the cause of the W-Band  transmissions. My long-range sensors pick  up
metallic shapes. I zoom-focus. Enemy! I identify Deng Class One  Yavac
Heavy units in the valley behind the  former Base. I see Deng Class  C
Yavac Scouts  in  the forest.  The  Class  C Scouts  move  on  jointed
appendages. They  resemble their  makers, moving  quickly on  multiple
legs. The forest proves no barrier to their mode of transportation and
offers concealment. They are followed closely by Class B Light-Armored
Yavac units.

    These units  do  not enter  the  forest. I  analyze  their  battle
formation and interpret their plan of attack. They will wait until the
lightly armored Class  C Scout  units strike in  a diversionary  force
through the  forest.  Once the  colony's  attention is  diverted,  the
heavier Class B and Class One Yavacs will cut through the forest in  a
swathe that will flank the colony  and encircle it. I attempt to  turn
my guns and they rotate out of  control. I cannot bring my weapons  to
bear. I call my Commander again.

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN to Base. Report."

    "Gonner! Where are  you? We  found a  Deng infantry  probe in  the
forest!"

    "Affirmative. I  observe a  force  of six  Class One  Yavac  Heavy
Units, fifteen Class B Light-Armor  Yavac Units, eleven Class C  Yavac
Scouts and approximately seven  hundred infantry and forward  infantry
probes forming  classic wedge-shaped  attack formation  seven  hundred
yards west of the former Base.  I anticipate a diversionary attack  on
vector 085 by  the Class C  Yavac Scouts. The  main attack force  will
then flank  on  vector 097  and  encircle  the colony.  I  have  taken
position a thousand yards south of  the main attack force. My  weapons
systems remain inoperational. I await orders."

    I do not recognize my  Commander's next words. She speaks  briefly
in a language for which I have not been programmed. She then says,  "I
don't know how to fix you, Gonner."

    "There is a 27.35 percent possibility that I have discovered a way
to  bypass  my  damaged  fire-control  circuits,  using  a  cybernetic
biological replacement unit."

    My Commander does not answer.

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN  of the Line, awaiting orders,  Commander
Tennyson."

    "Uh, Unit Six Seven Zero GWN, report to Base immediately.  That's,
uh, my house. Can you find it?"

    "Affirmative."

    I pivot and retrace my route.  I use Emergency speed to reach  the
edge of the new colony. A crowd of humans has gathered in the  street.
I have never  seen this town,  but my data  banks contain  information
uploaded from  my Commander.  I  find her  house  and assume  a  guard
position beyond the door.

    "Unit Six Seven Zero GWN, reporting as ordered."

    The door opens. I know my Commander. I know Dault. I know the  dog
Sufi. I do not see the other dog,  Shiva. I do not know the woman  who
follows my Commander into the street.

    "Unit Six  Seven  Zero GWN,  report.  What is  the  procedure  you
mentioned that might fix you?"

    I give my Commander a full report.

    "Unthinkable!"This is the other woman. " 'Lima, this is madness-"

    "Those are Deng warriors out there,  Mother! I don't intend us  to
become another Donner's Party! You heard the Navy's response-we're  on
our own out here! No one can get to us in time."

    Another voice I  do not know  speaks from my  left flank."  'Lima,
Donner had this  Bolo and lost.  And it's crippled.  There's not  much
wecan do."

    Dault speaks. I hear stress  in his voice."You filthy coward!  You
can beat up on a kid half your  size, but a real fight's too much  for
you? You'd better  get your surgery  ready, then. You're  going to  be
busy."

    The other man departs, in haste.

    "Mom, can you do it?"

    "I will not dissect a human being-"

    "Gonner, does it have to be a human being?"

    My Commander's question is a valid one. There is another  suitable
sentient being besides humans in the colony. I calculate the odds.

    "Probability drops to 25.89 percent if a genetically enhanced  dog
is used  in place  of a  human  being. I  cannot fight  under  current
conditions. If I cannot fight, the Deng will eliminate this colony."

    Again, I detect stress in Dault's voice."Use Shiva. He's crippled.
We'll need the other dogs."

    "Mom?"

    I detect  no  audible answer.  My  Commander's parent  enters  the
house. I await further commands.

    "Gonner, what  do we  do while  you're in  surgery? We've  got  to
stall, buy enough time for Mom to try this."

    I review archival information my Commander has provided.

    "Agricultural and earth-moving equipment will not withstand direct
hits. They may slow down the Yavac Heavy and Light-Armored Units. They
should provide a barrier against infantry. Dig pits and fill them with
ore-cleaning acid.  Cover the  pits. There  will be  very little  time
before the diversionary strike begins. The main assault will follow in
approximately 5.03  minutes after  the diversionary  strike. You  will
need to situate  most of your  forces to counter  the main attack,  in
case  the  surgical  procedure  on  my  fire-control  circuits  fails.
Commander Tennyson, Deng are methodical. They will follow battle plans
to the death. If  the surgical procedure is  a success, I will  attack
the main assault force from the rear. This will not be expected. It is
our best chance of defeating a Deng force of this size."

    "You heard him. Dickson, get that earth-moving equipment going. We
need pits, pronto. Sally, how much  of that acid does your plant  have
in stock?"

    "Five hundred thousand gallons, give or take."

    "Commandeer any heavy equipment you  need to move it. There  isn't
much time. Sufi, you're pretty  vulnerable without armor, but you  can
take out their advance  infantry scouts and you  can form ambushes  in
places too small for  us. Take your pups  and their pups and  position
yourselves here, here, and all along here."

    My Commander points  to a  map of  the colony.  Her decisions  are
tactically sound. My new data tells me her father is a war hero. I  am
proud to serve under his daughter.

    "Gonner, I've got  to go.  I'll stay  in touch  over your  Command
Link. Mom's going to have to enter your personnel hatch. Brad will  go
with her. He's a good surgeon and he loves Shiva."

    "Understood. I will advise you of my status."

    My Commander leaves. Dault climbs to my turret, carrying Shiva.  I
ask the  dog  if  he  will  agree  to  this  procedure.  He  barks  an
affirmative. He is a brave fighter. My Commander's parent joins Dault.
The procedure begins. I wait.



    - 15-

    "Easy, boy, easy."

    Brad could hardly bear to  look after completing the surgery  he'd
already been required to perform, but he kept his hand on Shiva's neck
and continued to murmur softly to him.

    "All done." Dr. Tennyson's voice was dead flat.

    He risked a look and gulped.

    There wasn't much left of  Shiva. His skull sprouted hardware  and
leads that fed directly into the Bolo's psychotronic system. His  legs
were similarly tapped into the fighting machine's systems. His body  .
. .

    Brad had  suspended him  permanently in  a steel  cradle, to  help
cushion him from battle shocks. It was attached directly to the Bolo's
internal frame at  each rib. Effectively,  Shiva was now  part of  the
Bolo, which is what Gonner'd said was required.

    Dr. Tennyson's  voice cut  into his  awareness. "I've  hooked  his
digestive  system  through   here,  to  void   waste.  He'll   require
intravenous feeding-if the Bolo lives  through the battle. The  spinal
block should  be wearing  off.  I've put  in  a pain  block,  directly
through his brain. He'll be  able to function without the  distraction
of pain. If  I've made all  the proper connections,  Shiva's now  tied
directly into the Bolo's psychotronic circuitry. All we have to do now
is see if this crazy plan works."

    On the Bolo's view screens, Brad  caught a glimpse of the  pitched
battle being waged at  the edge of  town. Another house  went up in  a
fireball.

    "Gonner, how about it?"

    The Bolo spoke. "Shiva, move right paw. Stop."

    "Well?"

    "My Hellbore guns and  energy repeaters track satisfactorily.  The
arrangement is not efficient, but it is functional."

    Brad probably should have whooped in satisfaction. All he felt was
grief and fear.

    "Well, that's that.  Let's go."  Dr. Tennyson  glanced around  the
Bolo's passenger compartment, then climbed out. Brad hesitated.

    "Bradley?" Dr. Tennyson called down. "You're delaying the Bolo."

    He started for the ladder. Shiva whined and tried to thrash inside
the steel cradle. Brad returned to his friend and laid his hand on the
dog's neck again. It was just about  the only spot of fur left on  him
Bradcould touch.

    "Easy, boy.  I'm not  going anywhere."  He tilted  his head.  "Get
clear, Dr. Tennyson. We have a battle to fight. Gonner, please  inform
your Commander that we're ready for battle."

    "Understood. Welcome aboard, sir."

    Overhead, the hatch sealed with a faint hiss of pneumatics.

    Brad strapped  into the  observer's chair  and maintained  contact
with his dog's fur.

    "Let's go." He tried to smile. "Dog-Gonner ready for battle."

    Shiva emitted a faint whine of eagerness.

    The Bolo pivoted and  cleared a path out  of town, taking off  the
corner of one burning house to  gain maneuvering room. Brad glued  his
gaze to the observation screens and tightened his hand through Shiva's
fur.

    "Go get 'em, boy."

    As the  Enemy  Yavac units  came  into focus  on  the  observation
screen, Bradley said as offhandedly as he could, "Did I ever tell  you
about the  moment I  started  falling in  love with  Kalima  Tennyson,
Gonner? She punched me in the nose . . ."



    - 16 -

    From behind  her  hastily-dug  entrenchment,  Kalima  watched  the
advancing Deng  through  Gina  Lin's survey  lens.  The  distance  was
telemetered automatically  from  the size-scale  comparison  computer.
Fred Howlett had tried using  an active-system laser range finder  and
the Deng had locked onto it and blown it up. Fred hadn't survived. The
passive-system survey scanner was far more primitive equipment, but it
was effective and kept the Deng from locking in on her position.

    The main assault force had struck  through the trees on the  ridge
and now rolled down across their defensive perimeter. Over on the edge
of town,  where the  diversionary force  had struck  first, they  were
losing  ground  in  enormous   bites.  Several  buildings-homes,   the
school-were fiercely ablaze.

    "We're not holding," she muttered. "Gonner, where are you?"

    The Bolo  had reported  battle readiness  more than  five  minutes
previously. Meanwhile, the Deng had  blasted through the barricade  of
heavy equipment they'd set up. Several  Class C Yavac Scouts and  some
of the forward  infantry had fallen  into acid pits;  but the  heavier
Class B and Class One Yavacs which followed them avoided the carefully
laid traps. Infantry  units, also  skirting the  remaining acid  pits,
were pouring through the gaps  in their defenses. Fighting down  there
was hand-to-hand-and their side was dying.

    Trees at the crest of the hill swayed and toppled. Kalima held her
breath . . .

    Hellbore guns thundered above the  deafening sound of Yavac  fire.
The first salvo had  little effect. On the  second blast, a Yavac  was
hit directly in  the turret.  The Deng  unit exploded  in a  brilliant
fireball. A ragged cheer went  up. Gonner sped forward. Rear  infantry
units went  down under  a  blaze of  lethal anti-personnel  fire.  The
massive Hellbores tracked, corrected slightly, and belched fire again.
Another Yavac unit exploded.

    The rearmost Yavac pivoted its guns and fired back. Gonner  rocked
under the concussion, but  kept coming. Other  heavy Class One  Yavacs
turned and blasted  the Bolo with  deadly fire. Gonner's  purple-black
flintsteel hull  began to  glow,  as his  energy panels  attempted  to
absorb the murderous energy  beams and convert  them to useful  battle
energy. Blue fire streaked out from his turret's infinite repeaters. A
Yavac Class One caught the blast at its turret juncture and blew open.
Fire exploded out of it. Kalima bit her lips. She could see pieces  of
Gonner's ablative armor blown clear as Yavac Class B units turned  and
added their  fire  to that  of  the remaining  Yavac  Heavies.  Gonner
charged down the ridge toward town on a relentless, unstoppable course
that took  him  past one  dying  Yavac after  another.  Several  units
retreated fatally into open acid  pits behind their positions as  they
attempted to avoid the onrushing Bolo.

    "Look! They're scattering! They're breaking formation!"

    Dogs broke from hiding  all along the  enemy flank. Deng  infantry
went down under  snarling canine jaws.  Kalima glued her  gaze to  the
surveyor's lenses and  snarled in  satisfaction. The  dogs chewed  off
legs and arms, bit  into unarmored, hairy  Deng bellies. Weird,  alien
screams floated down the street.  The Hellbores barked again. A  final
Yavac Heavy died. Gonner  turned on the smaller  Class B and C  Yavacs
and blasted them with  brilliant blue repeater  fire. On the  opposite
flank, colonists rose  behind barricades and  earthen embankments  and
fired small arms into the mass of panicked Deng. Kalima fired her  own
rifle with lethal effect.

    The army  stampeded toward  the remaining  camouflaged acid  pits,
trying to retreat the  way they'd come and  stumbling into the  lethal
traps they'd avoided on their way in.

    "They're going for 'em!" Kalima  yelled. "They're going right  for
'em!"

    Within ten minutes, there were only scattered wounded left of  the
Deng invasion force. Most of their infantry had plunged into the  acid
pits. The  heavily armored  Yavacs were  burnt-out hulks-or  dissolved
bits of  metal  at  the bottom  of  the  acid pits.  On  the  forested
slope-now denuded,  deeply  scarred from  the  terrible  battle-Yavacs
still  burned  fiercely.  Colonists   rose  on  all  sides,   cheering
spontaneously.

    Kalima rose on shaky legs and started down the street. She gripped
a rifle in one hand, her radio link to Gonner in the other.

    "Gonner, report."

    "Enemy neutralized. I have sustained serious damage."

    Heart in her mouth, Kalima closed the distance to the enormous war
machine.

    New gouges tore  into Gonner's  war hull.  One of  his treads  was
missing. He  must've  sustained  damage  to it  and  blown  it  clear.
Anti-personnel guns along  his right flank  were twisted, ruined.  His
turret was badly gouged, canted on its swivel.

    "Unit Six Seven  Zero GWN  and Unit Shiva  reporting, as  ordered.
Bradley  Dault   requests   assistance   disengaging.   My   passenger
compartment and hatch have sustained damage."

    "Bradley? My God-is Bradley in there with you?"

    "He refused to leave. Unit Shiva required Bradley Dault's presence
to maintain battle-ready efficiency."

    She understood, in a flash of insight. Poor, terrified dog . . .

    "Gonner, how can I get to him?"

    "The pneumatics on my  turret hatch no  longer function. You  will
require an  explosive charge  to clear  the hatch  from my  hull.  The
battle damage which penetrated into  the passenger compartment is  not
sufficiently large to extricate an adult human."

    Kalima swallowed hard,  then called Gina  Lin over. She  explained
what was needed.

    "Sure. Take, uh, maybe ten minutes."

    "Gonner, what other damage have you sustained?"

    "An explosion  through previous  battle  damage has  destroyed  my
backup emergency power cells. I  am operating on residual charge  from
my hull-plate grid.  I cannot  discover any method  of repairing  this
damage in the time which remains before this charge drains. I estimate
another fifteen minutes before critical failure occurs. Unit Shiva has
sustained fatal injury  to spleen  and kidneys as  result of  shrapnel
damage. We request  permission to  retire from  the field  as soon  as
Bradley  Dault   has  been   safely  extricated   from  my   passenger
compartment."

    No backup power  cells left.  And there never  had been  a way  to
refuel his fission plant. No one  here was qualified to install a  new
one-even if one had been available. There was nothing-not a  thing-she
could do to save him.

    The words caught in her throat. "Permission granted."

    Lin was setting the explosive charges. Kalima climbed up to  help.
She talked to Gonner the whole time.

    "Remember that first  day, Gonner?  You scared me  half to  death.
Never thought we'd  see battle together,  big guy. I'm  sure proud  of
you, though, more than I was that day you kept the wall from  crushing
us . . ."

    She was  babbling and  didn't care.  She was  losing a  friend-two
friends-and no one knew yet how badly injured Bradley was in there. He
could be dying, too . . .

    "All set. Get clear, 'Lima."

    They skinned  down the  ladder and  took refuge  behind a  scarred
fender.

    The charge blew.  Smoke engulfed  them. Kalima  was climbing  even
before her ears stopped ringing.

    "Brad! Brad, can you hear me?"

    "Com-coming up . . ."

    She hovered at the lip of  the hatch. He moved slowly,  awkwardly.
His right arm didn't appear to be functioning properly. Tears streaked
his face.  Halfway up,  his breath  caught sharply.  He clung  to  the
ladder.

    "I'm coming down to help."

    "No . . . I'm okay. See?" He climbed higher.

    Shock made her go cold.

    Blood covered his  whole right  side. She  could see  ribs in  one
spot. But  he was  still  climbing. His  face  and arms  were  burned,
blistered in places from the heat  of the sustained Yavac attack.  She
got an arm around his shoulders. He snaked his good arm around her and
kissed her raggedly; then groaned and leaned heavily against her.

    "Gotta . . . get down . . . or I'll fall . . ."

    Kalima steadied him down. He slid to his knees the moment his feet
touched ground.

    "Did it, Gonner," he whispered hoarsely. "We did it."

    "It was  my honor  to  serve with  you, Bradley  Dault.  Commander
Tennyson, I  estimate  another  4.07  minutes  before  critical  power
failure. Unit Six Seven Zero GWN and Unit Shiva of the Line,  retiring
as ordered."

    The Bolo pivoted  awkwardly on  its remaining  track. The  machine
clanked and rattled up the ridge  and into the trees. Parallel  gouges
in the soft earth marked his trail. Someone, she wasn't sure who,  had
pulled Bradley onto a stretcher. He caught her hand, urged her down.

    "Go with him," he whispered. "Nobody should die alone."

    Her eyes filled.  She kissed  Brad very tenderly.  Her voice  went
husky. "Don't you dare die on me, too, Bradley Dault. This . . .  this
won't take long." He squeezed her hand. Then she broke and ran.

    Kalima found Gonner  in his  former position,  atop the  shattered
gates at the old compound.

    "Gonner?"

    The Hellbores tracked disjointedly in a ragged salute.

    She climbed doggedly and  slid down through  the blasted hatch.  A
hole had been punched straight into the passenger compartment.  Relays
and boards she'd  spent years  repairing were  twisted, broken  beyond
anyone's capacity to repair. Her breath caught when she saw Shiva. The
dog whined, very faintly.

    "Good  boy,"  she  whispered,  burying  her  face  in  the   dog's
blood-spattered neck fur. "Brad's okay, Shiva. You did a good job. The
town's safe."

    Shiva licked her hand very weakly. Then what remained of his  body
sagged in the steel cradle. Kalima turned away and dragged the back of
a dirty arm across her eyes.

    "You did a good job, Gonner," she choked out. The whole  passenger
compartment reeked of blood, smoke, fried electrical connections.

    "I have  done  my  duty.  It  is  a  beautiful  day  for  victory,
Commander." The observation screens  flickered and went dim.  "Bradley
Dault spoke at length of you, Commander, as we went to meet the Enemy.
He is a good officer. I am  glad he was not damaged fatally. He  loved
Shiva. He loves you."

    "I love you, Gonner," she whispered. "I- Thank you for . . . for .
. ."

    She couldn't get it all out  quickly enough, with the result  that
everything she wanted to say got stuck in her throat.

    "It has been  my honor to  serve you, Commander  Tennyson. I  will
hold . . ."

    The screens went dark.

    Very, very slowly,  Kalima climbed  out of  the blasted  passenger
compartment. The great Hellbore guns drooped, silent. Warm summer wind
whistled across the pitted war hull.

    Gonner didn't speak again.

    But he had held, to the last.



    Miles to Go



    by David Weber



    - 1-

    I rouse from Low-Level Autonomous Stand-By to Normal Readiness for
my regularly scheduled  update. Awareness  spreads through  me, and  I
devote 0.0347  seconds  to  standard diagnostic  checks.  All  systems
report nominal, but I detect an anomaly in Number Twenty-One Bogie  in
my aft outboard  port tread  and activate a  depot sensor  to scan  my
suspension. Aparikha, one of the creatures the colonists of Santa Cruz
erroneously call "birds," has built its nest in the upper angle of the
bogie wheel torsion arm. This indicates that the depot's environmental
integrity has been  breached, and  I command the  central computer  to
execute an examination of all access points.

    The depot  computer net  lacks  my own  awareness,  but it  is  an
efficient system within its limitations and locates the  environmental
breach  in   3.0062   seconds.   Maintenance   and   Repair's   Number
Seventy-Three Ventilator's cover has been forced open by an  intruding
cable-vine, thus permitting  theparikhato gain access.  I command  the
depot computer to  dispatch auto mechs  to repair the  hatch cover.  A
further  0.000004  seconds  of  analysis  suggests  to  me  that   the
possibility of such an occurrence should have been allowed for in  the
depot computer's original programming, and I devote 0.0035 seconds  to
the  creation  of  fresh  execution  files  to  establish   continuous
monitoring of all depot access  points and to enable automatic  repair
responses in the event of future failures in integrity.

    These actions have consumed  3.044404 seconds since resumption  of
Normal Alert  Readiness, and  I return  to my  initial examination  of
theparikhanest. Its  presence  constitutes  no  impediment  to  combat
efficiency, yet the sensor detects live young in the nest. I devote an
additional 0.0072  seconds  to  consideration  of  alternatives,  then
command the depot computer's remotes  to remove the nest and  transfer
it to  an exterior  position of  safety near  the repaired  ventilator
cover.  I   receipt  the   depot  computer's   acknowledgment  of   my
instructions and turn to a second phase Situation Update.

    My internal chrono confirms  that 49 years, 8  months, 3 days,  21
hours, 17  minutes, and  14.6 seconds,  Standard Reckoning,  have  now
elapsed since my Commander ordered  me to assume Low-Level  Autonomous
Stand-By to await her replacement. This is an unacceptable period  for
a unit  of the  Line to  remain in  active duty  status without  human
supervision, and I  check the depot  com files once  more. No  updated
SitRep or other message to explain the delay has been receipted during
my  time  at  Stand-By,  and  I  allocate  another  4.062  seconds  to
consideration  of  possible   explanations.  Despite  this   extensive
analysis, I remain unable to extrapolate the reason for the delay with
certainty, yet  I compute  a  probability of  87.632 percent  that  my
Commander was correct in her  observation that Sector HQ considers  my
planet of assignment "the backside of nowhere in particular."

    Whatever its reasons, Sector HQ clearly has attached no urgency to
detailing a  new  Commander.  This conclusion  is  disturbing,  and  I
allocate an  additional 2.007  seconds  to deliberation  of  potential
responses on my part.  My Autonomous Decision  Protocols grant me  the
discretion to break com silence  and dispatch an interrogative  signal
to Sector Central in conditions  of Priority Four or greater  urgency,
yet my analysis of  satellite data and commercial  com traffic to  and
from Santa  Cruz  reveals  no indication  of  current  or  near-future
threats to my assigned station. Absent such threats, I must grudgingly
concede that there is, in fact,  no overriding urgency in the  arrival
of my new Commander.

    I make  a  note in  my  active  memory files  to  reconsider  this
decision yet again during  my next scheduled  Normal Alert period  and
revert to Autonomous Stand-By.



    - 2-

    Lorenco Esteban stepped out of his office into the humid oven of a
Santa  Cruz  summer  afternoon  and  scratched  his  head  as  a  tiny
spacecraft slid down  towards Santa Cruz's  weed-grown landing  apron.
The immense plain  of ceramacrete  stretched away  in all  directions,
vast enough to handle even the largest Navy cargo shuttle, but it  was
occupied only by a single dilapidated tramp freighter in the livery of
the Sternenwelt Line. The tramp was already cleared for departure with
a full cargo  of wine-melons,  and given  her purser's  persistent-and
irritating-efforts to negotiate some sort of real estate deal, Esteban
was heartily  ready for  her to  clear  the field.  Not that  she  was
placing any strain on Santa Cruz's basing facilities.

    No one was  quite certain  why Santa Cruz  had been  given such  a
large field in the first place. It dated from the First Quern War, and
conventional wisdom held that the Navy  had planned to use Santa  Cruz
as a staging area against the Quern. That was only a guess, of course,
though it made sense, given the Santa Cruz System's spatial location.

    If the Navyhad so intended, its plans had fallen through, yet  the
incongruously enormous field  remained, though only  a fraction of  it
was used with  any sort  of regularity. Ciudad  Bolivar, Santa  Cruz's
capital and only real city,  lay fifteen kilometers to the  northwest,
just outside  the old  Navy  Reservation. The  area to  the  immediate
northeast was a vast expanse of melon fields-most of which belonged to
Esteban  himself-and  few  people  visited  the  field  under   normal
circumstances. Despite  the Sternenwelt  officer's efforts  to buy  up
crop land, there was little about the sleepy farming planet to attract
even casual commerce. Wine-melons brought  a decent price, but only  a
decent one, and  no official presence  had ever shown  even a  passing
interest in Esteban's  homeworld. Until today,  at least, he  thought,
and scratched his  head harder  as he recognized  the Concordiat  Navy
insignia on the incoming shuttle's nose.

    It looked like one of  the new Skyhawk three-man shuttles,  though
he couldn't be certain. He'd never actually seen one, only read  about
them in the periodic updates the  Navy still sent to the attention  of
"CO FLT  BASE SANCRUZ."  In his  own mind,  Esteban was  positive  the
computers on  the other  end of  those  updates had  no idea  who  the
current "Commanding Officer, Fleet Base Santa Cruz" was. He hoped they
didn't, anyway. The probability that Concordiat officialdom had simply
forgotten Santa Cruz's  existence was  much less  disturbing than  the
possibility that  the  Navy  considered  a  farmer  with  no  military
background and who'd never been off-planet in his entire seventy years
a suitable CO for anything, much less a "fleet base."

    Now he watched the  Skyhawk (if that was  what it was) deploy  its
landing legs and settle gracefully onto  them. From what he'd read  of
the Skyhawks,  they were  hyper-capable for  short hops-no  more  than
forty or fifty light-years-and  that made a  certain degree of  sense.
The shuttle could have made the  run from Ursula, the sector  capital,
under its  own power  without  diverting a  regular vessel  from  some
useful duty. Of course,  that left the question  of just why the  Navy
would go to the bother  of sending anyone to  Santa Cruz in the  first
place.

    The hatch popped, and Esteban ambled  over as a trim, wiry man  in
an immaculate uniform swung down the hull handholds. Esteban  couldn't
place the uniform, though something about it tugged at the back of his
memory, and he paused  with his hands in  his pockets as the  newcomer
jumped the last meter and a half to the ceramacrete and stood  looking
about him.

    "Morning, stranger."

    The uniformed man  turned at  the greeting. He  said nothing,  but
Esteban took his hands from his pockets when those cold, grey eyes met
his. It wasn't  anything the  stranger did. There  was just  something
about those eyes, as if they'd seen too much, done too much, that sent
a faint and formless chill  down Esteban's spine. The stranger's  gaze
held his for  a moment,  and then the  mouth below  those eyes  smiled
pleasantly.

    "Good morning,"  its owner  replied. "Could  you tell  me where  I
might find the field officer of the day?"

    "Shoot, son,  you're  lookin'  at  him."  Esteban  grinned  wryly.
"Officer of the day, maintenance chief, approach officer, and  customs
inspector in one. That's me." He held out his hand. "Lorenco  Esteban,
at your service."

    "Merrit," the  stranger  said  in a  peculiar  voice,  then  shook
himself and took the proffered hand. "Captain Paul Merrit,  Dinochrome
Brigade. Ah, let me be sure  I understand this. You're theentire  base
ops staff?" Esteban nodded. "The whole thing?" Merrit pressed.

    Esteban nodded again and opened his mouth, but the sudden, raucous
whine of the Sternenwelt tramp freighter's counter-grav units  drowned
his  voice.  Both  men  turned  to  watch  the  battered  ship   climb
heavenward, and Esteban  saw Captain  Merrit wince  as the  vibrations
from the poorly tuned drive  assaulted his inner ear. Esteban  himself
was accustomed  to  the  sort of  casually  maintained  vessels  which
(infrequently) visited Santa Cruz,  and he only  shook his head  until
the tramp rose beyond earshot, then turned back to his visitor.

    "Yep, I'm  all they  is, Captain.  You seem  sorta surprised,"  he
observed.

    "Surprised?" Merrit's smile  was small and  tight this time.  "You
might say  that.  According  to  my brief,  a  Commander  Albright  is
supposed to be in charge here."

    "Albright?" It was Esteban's turn to be surprised. "Heck, Captain,
Old Man Albright died, um, let me  see. That'd be . . . that's  right,
thirty-two T-years ago, come June.  You mean t'say Sector thinks  he's
still alive?"

    "They certainly do."

    "Well ain't that  just like a  buncha bureaucrats." Esteban  shook
his head in disgusted resignation. "I commed Ursula Central personally
when he died  so sudden like.  He asked me  t'kinda look after  things
till his relief got here, on account of my place's just over the  hill
yonder and I used t' help him  keep the beacon on-line and like  that,
but I never expected to `look after' 'emthis long."

    "You informed  Central?"  Merrit seemed  to  find that  even  more
surprising than the news that Albright was dead. "How?"

    "Sure I did. 'Course, I had to use civilian channels. Old Albright
didn't last  long enough  t'give  me command  access to  his  official
files-it was a  heart attack,  an' iffen I  hadn't been  here when  it
happened, he  wouldn't even'a  had time  to ask  me t'look  after  the
field-so I couldn't use his Fleet com.  But I musta sent nigh a  dozen
commercial band messages the  first couple'a years."  He tugged on  an
earlobe and frowned.  "Now I  think on it  though, I'll  be danged  if
anyone ever said a  word back t'me 'boutanything  . They just keep  on
sendin' stuff t'the `base  CO, ' never even  by name. You don't  think
those fool chip-shufflers back on Ursula-?"

    "That's exactly what I think," Merrit sighed. "Somebody, somewhere
may have receipted your messages, but they never got filed officially.
Central thinks Albright's still in command here."

    "But the old man'd be over  a hunnert an' twenty by now!"  Esteban
objected. "That's a mite old for an active duty assignment, ain't it?"

    "Yes, it is," Merrit said grimly, then sighed again,  straightened
his shoulders, and managed  a wry little  smile. "Mister Esteban,  I'm
afraid your planet hasn't had much priority back at Central. For  some
reason we still  haven't figured  out, Santa Cruz  was set  up with  a
dedicated  high  security  com   link  when  the   Navy  put  in   its
installations here. That link doesn't  exist anymore, but no one  told
the communications computers it didn't."

    "Meanin'?"

    "Meaning the automated  com sections haven't  accepted any  update
from you because it  didn't have the proper  security codes. In  fact,
they've been systematically deletingany messages that pertained to the
Santa Cruz  Detachment from  memory because  they didn't  carry  valid
security headers.  Thatseems  to  be what's  been  happening,  anyway,
though no one noticed it was  until very recently. Put simply,  Mister
Esteban, Central isn't exactly current on the situation here."

    "If you say so, I'll believe you, son," Esteban said, "but  durned
iffen I  can  see  how  even Central  could  expect  someone  Old  Man
Albright's age t'handle a job like this. I mean, shoot, it ain't  like
there's a lot of  business-" he gestured at  the vast field,  occupied
now in solitary splendor only by  the Skyhawk "-but poor old  Albright
was pretty nigh past it  while I was still  in high school, iffen  you
know what I mean."

    "I know exactly what you mean. Unfortunately, the original records
on Santa Cruz went up when  the Quern hit the Sector Bolo  Maintenance
Central Depot  on  Ursula during  the  First Quern  War.  That's  when
Central lost the Santa Cruz Detachment's dedicated com-link, as  well.
They've taken steps to  reactivate the link  now, but anything  you've
gotten from the  Navy must  have come  in over  the all-units  general
information net."

    "So you're sayin'-?"

    "That no one at Central knew how long Commander Albright had  been
out here . . . among other things."

    "You know, Captain," Esteban said slowly, "the way you said `among
other things'  kinda makes  me  wonder when  the second  shoe's  gonna
drop."

    "Really?" This time  Merrit's smile  held an edge  of true  humor,
albeit a bit bitter. "Well, I hope  it won't make too many waves  when
it falls,  Mister Esteban."  He raised  his wrist  com to  his  mouth.
"Lieutenant Timmons?"

    "Yes, Captain?" a female-and very young-voice replied.

    "You have now accomplished  your solemn responsibility to  deliver
me to my  new duty station,  Lieutenant. If you'll  be good enough  to
unload my personal gear, you can get back to civilization."

    "Are you sure about that, sir?" the voice asked.

    "Yes, unfortunately. I would,  however, appreciate your  informing
Central that their records are even more, ah, dated than I warned them
they were. Tell Brigadier Wincizki I'll update him as soon as I can."

    "If you  say so,  sir," Lieutenant  Timmons agreed.  "Popping  Bay
One."

    A hatch slid open  as Timmons spoke, and  a cargo arm lowered  two
bulky gravity skids to the ceramacrete. Merrit pressed a button on his
wrist com, and both skids rose  three centimeters from the paving  and
hummed quietly  off  towards the  faded  admin building.  The  captain
watched them go, then  nodded to Esteban, and  the two men walked  off
after them while the hatch slid shut once more.

    "Clear of drive zone, Lieutenant," Merrit said into the com. "Have
a nice trip."

    "Thank you,  sir,  and, um,  good  luck." Timmons  sounded  a  bit
dubious, but the shuttle rose on a high, smooth whine of counter-grav.
It arrowed up into the cloudless sky with far more gentility than  the
freighter, then vanished, and Esteban looked at Merrit.

    "Pardon me  iffen I  seem nosy,  Captain, but  did you  say  Santa
Cruz's your duty station?"

    "I did."

    "But iffen you expected Albright t'still be in command, they  must
not'a sent  you out  t'take  over field  ops-not  that I'd  mind,  you
understand-and danged if  I c'n think  what else you  might be  needed
for."

    "That, Mister Esteban, is a question I've asked myself quite a few
times over the  last year or  so," Merrit agreed  with yet another  of
those oddly grim smiles. "While Central may not have noticed Commander
Albright's demise,  however,  ithas  finally  noticed  another  little
oversight. I'm here  to inspect the  Bolo and assume  command if  it's
still operational."

    "TheBolo? " Esteban stopped dead, staring at Merrit in  disbelief,
and the captain raised his eyebrows in polite question. The older  man
gaped at him for almost a full minute, then shook himself. "WhatBolo?"
he asked in a more normal voice, and it was Merrit's turn to frown  in
surprise.

    "Bolo Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Seven-Five NKE," he said mildly.

    "Y'mean t'say there's aBolo on Santa Cruz?" Esteban demanded.

    "According to  Central there  is, although-"  Merrit surveyed  the
age-worn field with a sardonic eye  "-Centraldoes seem to be a  little
confused on several points, now doesn't it?"

    "But what in tarnation is a Bolo doin'here ?"

    "We're not entirely certain," Merrit admitted, "but the records we
do have seem to indicate that it  was deployed to Santa Cruz early  in
the First Quern War."

    "That must'a been dang near eighty years ago!" Esteban protested.

    "Seventy-nine years and ten months,  as a matter of fact,"  Merrit
agreed. Esteban just stared at him, and the captain shrugged. "I  told
you Central's records went up in  the Quern raid, Mister Esteban,  but
HQ's best guess is that it was  deployed here to deter the Quern  from
raiding Santa Cruz. I realize it was a bit before both our times,  but
the initial Quern  attacks took  the Navy completely  by surprise.  We
lost control of two-thirds  of the sector before  we could get  enough
capital ships in here to take it back, and the sector governor of  the
time may have been  afraid the Quern would  hit Santa Cruz before  the
Navy could restore the situation."

    "Hit Santa Cruz? Why  in tarnation would  anyone want t'raidus  ?"
Esteban waved both arms  at the decaying  landing field. "Ain't  never
been anything here worth stealing,  Captain. This here's the  backside
of nowhere."

    "Not really." Esteban blinked as  Merrit disagreed with him.  "Oh,
you've always been a farming world, and I'm not saying there was  ever
anything here  worth  raiding  for,  but your  system's  in  a  fairly
strategic spot. The Navy's pre-war strategic planning had included the
possibility of using Santa Cruz to stage operations against the Quern,
you know. Until  Hillman and  Sixth Fleet smashed  their spearhead  at
Quellok and obviated the need to, that is."

    "Maybe," Esteban said dubiously, then chuckled. " 'Course, even if
that was true then, there ain't no cause for anyone t'be interested in
usnow , now  is there?  I mean, there  ain't no  more Quern  t'operate
against!"

    "That's true,  I suppose.  On  the other  hand, now  that  they've
charted the jump points to open up the Esterhazy Sector, you may see a
lot more shipping moving  through here." The two  men had reached  the
welcome shade of the  admin building, and Merrit  paused to sweep  his
eyes back over  the field.  "Santa Cruz is  well placed  as a  natural
transfer  point  for   cargoes  and  passengers   moving  through   to
Esterhazy-or, for  that matter,  down from  the Camperdown  Sector-and
you've certainly got a nice big field."

    "Wouldn't happen  t'be  that's  why  Central  finally  got  around
t'taking a look our way, would it?" Esteban asked shrewdly.

    "It could be, Mister Esteban. It could indeed be. In the meantime,
however, I  have  my own  responsibilities  to look  after.  Is  there
anywhere around here I could rent or borrow a vehicle?"

    "Shoot, son, I  can do better'n  that," Esteban said  with a  huge
grin. "Seeing as how I'm the base CO  and all, I reckon I can let  you
use the vehicle park. I got a nice little recon skimmer I can let  you
have."

    "You do?" Merrit sounded surprised, and Esteban's grin grew  still
broader.

    " 'Course I  do. I  might not'a  known anything  'bout your  Bolo,
Captain, but when  the Navy pulled  out, they left  most'a their  base
vehicles behind in  the depot  over there. We've  even got  most of  a
battalion of old Wolverine heavy tanks tucked away in there."

    "They're still operable?"

    "Accordin' t'the  depot  diagnostics they  are.  The  Militia-what
there is of it-trains with 'em every four, five months. Don't see  any
harm in it. After all, they're as outa date as the whole field is, and
iffen the Navy  was interested in  'em, it shoulda  taken 'em with  it
when it pulled everything else out. Still, I promised old Albright I'd
look after 'em for him. Old fellow was always pretty decent-taught  me
a lot about 'tronics  and system maintenance when  I was a  snot-nosed
kid-so I figured it was the least I could do for him."

    "Well, in that  case, I'll  take you  up on  that skimmer,  Mister
Esteban," Merrit said.

    "Lorenco, Captain," Esteban said, holding out his hand once  more.
"We don't stand  much on formality  out here, and  iffen you're  gonna
become a Cruzan, y'might as well get comfortable."



    - 3-

    Merrit double-checked the skimmer's IFF transponder as the surface
portion of the depot bunker came  into sight. The depot was buried  in
otherwise virgin jungle over a hundred kilometers from the field,  and
he wondered why  it hadn't  been installed  right at  the fleet  base,
given that the  initial idea had  been to deter  attacks and that  any
attacker would make the field and Ciudad Bolivar his first objectives.
Of course, there was  no reason for the  depot's location to make  any
more sense  than  any of  the  rest  of the  Santa  Cruz  Detachment's
puzzles.

    He studied the skimmer's radar map of the terrain below him.  From
the looks of things, the depot's inconvenient distance from the  field
might have been a security measure of some sort. It was the sole  sign
of human handiwork  for a  hundred klicks  in any  direction, and  the
surrounding jungle's  steel-cable  creepers  had  overgrown  the  site
almost completely. Not even  Santa Cruz flora could  break up the  six
solid meters  of  ceramacrete  that formed  the  depot's  landing  and
service apron, yet enormous trees, some well over eighty meters  tall,
overhung it,  and  creepers and  vines  festooned the  entire  command
bunker. The solar power panels were clear-kept that way by the depot's
automatic servo-mechs,  he  supposed-but  the rest  of  the  site  was
covered in a dense cocoon like Sleeping Beauty's thorny fortress.

    His mouth  twitched at  the  thought of  Sleeping Beauty.  No  one
(except, perhaps, a member of  the Dinochrome Brigade) would call  any
Bolo a beauty,  but his  instruments had already  confirmed that  Bolo
XXIII/B-0075-NKE was  still active  in there,  and he  hoped the  same
remotes which had kept the power  panels on-line had kept the old  war
machine from slipping into senility.  The emissions he was picking  up
suggested the Bolo  was on  Stand-By .  . .  which was  why he'd  made
damned certain his IFF was functioning.

    His small smile turned into a frown as he set the skimmer down and
surveyed the greenery between him and the bunker's personnel entrance.
According to the fragmentary records  Ursula Central had been able  to
reconstruct, the Bolo's first  (and only) commander  had been a  Major
Marina Stavrakas. He hadn't  been able to find  much on her-only  that
she'd been an R&D specialist, born in the city of Athens on Old  Earth
itself, and that she'd been forty-six years old when she was  assigned
here. R&D types seldom drew field command slots, which suggested she'd
been grabbed  in a  hurry  for the  Bolo's emergency  deployment,  but
experienced field officer or no, she must have been insane to leave  a
Bolo  permanently  on  Stand-By.  Either  that,  or,  like   Commander
Albright, she'd  died  unexpectedly  and been  unable  to  change  the
settings. Either  way, a  Bolo as  old  as this  was nothing  to  have
sitting around in that mode.

    Before the  improved  autonomous discretionary  command  circuitry
that had  come on-line  with the  Mark  XXIV, Bolos  had a  hard  time
differentiating between  "unauthorized"  and  "hostile"  when  someone
entered their command areas. They'd been self-aware ever since the old
Mark XX, but their psychotronics had  been hedged around with so  many
safeguards that they were effectively limited to battlefield  analysis
and response. From  the beginning,  some critics had  argued that  the
inhibitory software and  hardwired security features  had reduced  the
Bolos' potential effectiveness by a significant margin, yet the  logic
behind the original safety measures had been persuasive.

    The crudity of the initial psychodynamic technology had meant  the
early self-aware Bolos possessed fairly "bloodthirsty"  personalities,
and the human technophobia an ancient pre-space writer had dubbed "the
Frankenstein Complex"  had shaped  their programming.  Nothing in  the
known galaxy  had thought  faster or  fought smarter  than a  Bolo  in
Battle Reflex Mode;  outside direct  combat, they'd  been granted  the
initiative of  a rock  and a  literal-mindedness which,  coupled  with
multiple  layers  of  override  programming,  had  made  them  totally
dependent upon humans for direction. When something with the size  and
firepower of a Bolo was capable ofany self-direction, its creators had
wanted to make damned sure there were plenty of cutouts in the process
to keep it from running amok . . . or to stop it-dead-if it did.

    The inhibitory software had done just  that, but at a price.  Full
integration of a Bolo's personality  had been possible only in  Battle
Mode. The division of its  cybernetic and psychotronic functions  into
separate subsystems  had been  a deliberate  part of  design  security
intended to place the  Bolo's full capabilities  beyond its own  reach
except in combat. Effectively, that reduced its "IQ" to a fraction  of
its total  potential even  at  Normal Alert  Readiness, for  the  huge
machines simply were never fully  "awake" outside combat. But  because
the Bolos' autonomous functions operated  solely in Battle Mode,  they
had, perversely, been  more likely, not  less, to go  rogue if  system
senility set in. The only  thing they'd known how  to do on their  own
was to  fight, after  all,  and if  any  failing system  or  corrupted
inhibitory command file toggled their autonomy-

    Merrit suppressed a familiar shiver at the thought of what a  Bolo
that thought its friends were its enemies could do. It hadn't happened
often, thank  God, but  once was  too many  times. That  was the  main
reason the Dinochrome Brigade had spent decades hunting down abandoned
and obsolescent Bolos from Mark XX to Mark XXIII and burning out their
command centers. Hideously unpopular as that duty had always been with
the personnel assigned to it,  they'd had no choice. "Sleeping"  Bolos
were too  dangerous to  leave lying  around, and  the cost  efficiency
people had concluded  (with reason,  no doubt, if  not precisely  with
compassion) that it would have been  too expensive to refit the  older
Bolos' psychotronics to modern standards.

    All of which meant  it was probably  a very good  thing no one  on
Santa Cruz had remembered this Bolo was here. If anyonehad  remembered
and come hunting for salvage, or even  just for a curious peek at  the
old site,  Stavrakas'  Stand-By  order  would  almost  certainly  have
unleashed the Bolo on the "hostiles," with catastrophic consequences.

    He sighed and popped the skimmer hatch, then climbed out into  the
sound of Santa  Cruz's jungle wildlife  with a grimace.  In a way,  he
almost wished hewere here to burn the Bolo's command center. It always
felt like an act of murder, but the fact that no one had even  noticed
that Stavrakas and Albright had died  seemed a grim portent that  this
assignment was  just as  much the  end of  the road  for him  as  he'd
feared. Still, he  supposed he  should feel  lucky to  have even  this
much, he told  himself, and sighed  again as he  reached for the  bush
knife Esteban had thoughtfully provided.

    I rouse  once more,  and  additional circuits  come on-line  as  I
realize this is  not a  regularly scheduled Alert  cycle. The  depot's
passive sensors report the approach of  a single small vehicle, and  I
zero in  upon  its  emissions signature.  The  forward  recon  skimmer
carries a  Navy transponder,  but it  has not  transmitted the  proper
authorization codes before entering  my security perimeter. I  compare
its transponder  code  to  those  stored in  the  depot's  files,  and
identification comes back in 0.00032 seconds. It is Commander Jeremiah
Albright's personal  vehicle  code,  yet  0.012  seconds  of  analysis
suggest that it  cannot be  Commander Albright. Were  he still  alive,
Commander Albright  would  be  one  hundred  twenty-four  years,  nine
months, and  ten days  of age,  Standard Reckoning,  and certainly  no
longer on active duty. Accordingly, the  pilot of the skimmer must  be
an unknown. It is conceivable that  whoever he or she is has  acquired
the skimmer by unauthorized  means-a possibility further suggested  by
the absence of any authorization  code-in which case approach to  this
site would constitute a hostile intrusion.

    My Battle Center springs to life as I recognize that  possibility,
but I  initiate  no  further  combat  response.  My  autonomous  logic
circuits accept  the  possibility of  hostile  action, yet  they  also
suggest that the skimmer  does not possess  the weapons capability  to
endanger a unit  of the  Line or  the depot.  Use of  deadly force  is
therefore contraindicated, and I activate the depot's external optics.

    It is, indeed, a recon skimmer,  though it no longer bears  proper
Navy markings. It has been repainted in civilian colors, obscuring any
insignia or hull numbers, yet  it retains its offensive and  defensive
systems, and I detect an active sensor suite. Moreover, the uniform of
the pilot, while not quite correct, appears to be a variant of that of
the Dinochrome Brigade. The piping is the wrong color, yet the Brigade
shoulder flash is correct, and it  bears the collar pips of a  captain
of the Line.

    I study the face of the man who  wears it. He is not listed in  my
files of Brigade  personnel, but those  files are seventy-nine  years,
ten months,  eleven days,  and twenty-two  hours, Standard  Reckoning,
old. Once more, logic suggests  the probability-on the order of  99.99
percent-that none of those listed in my files remain on active duty. A
secondary probability on the order of 94.375 percent suggests that the
uniform discrepancies I detect are also the result of passing time.

    The captain, if such  he truly is,  approaches the main  personnel
entrance to  the depot.  He carries  a bush  knife, and,  as I  watch,
begins to clear the local flora  from the entry. Clearly he is  intent
on gaining access, and I devote a full 5.009 seconds to  consideration
of my options.  Conclusion is  reached. I  will permit  him entry  and
observe his actions before initiating any further action of my own.

    It took forty minutes of hard, physical labor to clear the  entry.
Merrit was wringing  wet by the  time he hacked  the last  wrist-thick
creeper aside, and  he muttered  a quiet  curse at  Santa Cruz's  damp
heat. No  doubt the  planet's farmers  welcomed the  fertility of  its
tropical climate, at least when  they weren't fighting tooth and  nail
against  the  plant  life  it  spawned,  but  Merrit  was  from  cold,
mountainous Helicon, and he  was already sick  of the steamy  humidity
after less than six hours on-planet.

    He deactivated the bush  knife and scrubbed  sweat from his  eyes,
then frowned in concentration as he keyed the admittance code into the
alphanumeric pad. It  was plain blind  luck Central had  even had  the
code. A  portion of  one of  Major Stavrakas'  earlier dispatches  had
survived the Quern  raid in what  remained of Central's  high-security
data core, and  it had contained  both the depot  entry codes and  the
command codeword she'd selected for  her Bolo. Without both of  those,
there wouldn't have been enough brigadiers in the universe to get Paul
Merrit this close to a live Bolo. He was no coward, but the notion  of
confronting something with almost four megaton/seconds of main battery
firepower without  the ability  to identify  himself as  a friend  was
hardly appealing.

    The depot  hatch  slid open  with  surprising smoothness,  and  he
raised an eyebrow as the interior lights came on. There was no sign of
dust, which suggested the  depot remotes must  be fully on-line.  That
was as  encouraging as  it was  unexpected, and  he stepped  into  the
air-conditioned coolness with a sigh of gratitude. Someone had hung  a
directory on the facing wall, and he consulted it briefly, then turned
left to head for the command center.

    I note  that  the  unidentified captain  has  entered  the  proper
admittance code. This is persuasive, though certainly not  conclusive,
evidence that his presence is, in fact, authorized. I generate a 62.74
percent  probability  that   Sector  HQ  has   finally  dispatched   a
replacement for my previous Commander,  but logic cautions me  against
leaping to conclusions. I will observe further.

    The command center hatch opened at a touch, and Merrit blinked  at
the  non-regulation   sight  which   met   his  eyes.   Computer   and
communication consoles awaited his touch, without a trace of dust, and
he was surprised  to see the  holo display of  a full-scale  planetary
recon system glowing in one corner. Yet welcome as those sights  were,
they also seemed hopelessly incongruous, for someone had decorated the
center. That was the  only verb he could  think of. Paintings hung  on
the ceramacrete walls and sculptures in both clay and metal dotted the
floor.  One  entire  wall  had  been  transformed  into  an  exquisite
mosaic-of Icarus plunging from the heavens, unless he was mistaken-and
handwoven rugs  covered  the  floor.  None of  them  impinged  on  the
efficiency of the working  area, but they were  . . . nonstandard,  to
say the least.

    Unusual,  yet  pleasing  to  the  eye,  and  he  nodded  in   slow
understanding. Even in emergencies, the Dinochrome Brigade didn't pick
dummies as Bolo commanders. Major  Stavrakas must have realized  she'd
been marooned here, and it seemed she'd decided that if Santa Cruz was
to be her final  duty station, she  could at least  make the depot  as
homelike as possible.

    He shook himself  and smiled in  appreciation of Stavrakas'  taste
and, assuming all of this was  her own work, artistic talent. Then  he
crossed to the central computer console, reached for the keyboard .  .
. and jumped ten centimeters into  the air when a soft, soprano  voice
spoke abruptly.

    "Warning," it said. "This  is a restricted facility.  Unauthorized
access is  punishable  by not  less  than twenty  years  imprisonment.
Please identify yourself."

    Merrit's head  snapped  around,  seeking  the  speaker  which  had
produced that polite, melodious voice. He didn't see it, but hedid see
the bright red  warning light  under the  four-millimeter power  rifle
which had just unhoused itself from the wall above the console to  aim
directly between his eyes. He stared  into its bore for a long,  tense
second, and the voice spoke again.

    "Identification   is    required.   Please    identify    yourself
immediately."

    "Ah, Merrit," he said hoarsely,  then licked his lips and  cleared
histhroat. "Captain Paul A. Merrit, Dinochrome Brigade, serial number 
Delta-Bravo-One-Niner-Eight-Zero-Niner-Three-Slash-Five-Bravo-One-One.
"

    "You  are  not  in  my  personnel  files,  Captain,"  the  soprano
remarked. He  started to  reply,  but the  voice continued  before  he
could.  "I  compute,  however,  a  probability  of  niner-niner  point
niner-niner-three percent  that those  files  are no  longer  current.
Query: Have you been issued a file update for me?"

    Merrit blinked  in  disbelief.  Even the  current  Mark  XXV  Bolo
retained the emotionless  vocoder settings  of the  earlier marks  and
normally referred to itself in the military third person except to its
own commander. This voice, however calm and dispassionate it might be,
not only used first person but sounded fully human. More than that, it
carried what he could only call emotional overtones, and the nature of
its questions implied  a degree  of discretionary  autonomy which  was
impossible even for the Mark XXV except in Battle Mode.

    On the  other  hand, he  thought,  still peering  into  the  power
rifle's muzzle, this was no time to be picky over details.

    "Yes," he said after a moment.  "I do have a personnel update  for
you."

    "Good," the  voice  said-another response  which  raised  Merrit's
eyebrows afresh. "Please understand  that no discourtesy is  intended,
Captain, but  the  security  of this  installation  requires  that  no
unattested data be input  to the master  computer system. I  therefore
request that you enter  your data into  the secondary terminal  beside
the door."

    "Ah, of course."

    Merrit reached very cautiously  into his tunic  to extract a  data
chip folio, then turned-equally slowly and carefully-to the  indicated
console. The power rifle tracked him  with a soft, unnerving hum,  and
his palms were damp  as he extracted  a chip, fed  it into the  proper
slot, and pressed the key. Then he stepped back and put his hands into
his pockets, and a small, wry smile touched his lips as he  recognized
his own instinctive effort to look as nonthreatening as possible.

    It seems improper to threaten one who may be my new Commander, yet
I  am  a  valuable  unit  of  the  Line,  and  it  is  my   overriding
responsibility to  prevent  any unauthorized  personnel  from  gaining
access to my Command Center. Surely Captain Merrit, if he is,  indeed,
my new Commander, will understand and appreciate my caution.

    The chip carries the  proper identifiers and  file headers, and  I
lower my  first  stage security  fence  to  scan the  data.  The  chip
contains only 36.95 terabytes of  information, and I complete my  scan
in 1.00175 seconds.

    I am grieved to discover that my original Commander's file has not
been properly  maintained,  yet the  dearth  of information  upon  her
confirms her own belief that Sector  HQ had "forgotten where they  put
me" long  before her  death. It  is not  proper for  a member  of  the
Dinochrome Brigade to be  denied her place in  its proud history,  yet
further perusal of the file  reveals that the original information  on
my deployment was  lost almost  in its entirety.  Fortunately, my  own
memory banks contain full information  on both her earlier career  and
her actions on Santa Cruz, and I resolve to request the upload of that
data at the earliest possible moment.

    In addition to complete SitRep  updates on the entire sector,  the
new data  also  contains  the  record of  Captain  Merrit,  and  I  am
impressed. The captain is a warrior. His list of decorations is headed
by the Grand Solar  Cross, which my records  indicate is a  posthumous
award in 96.35 percent of all cases. In addition, he has received  the
Concordiat Banner, the Cross of Valor with two clusters, six planetary
government awards for heroism  which I do  not recognize, three  wound
stripes, and no fewer than eleven campaign medals.

    Yet I  also discover  certain disturbing  facts in  his  personnel
package.  Specifically,  Captain  Merrit  has  been  court-martialled,
officially reprimanded, and reduced in  rank from the permanent  grade
of major (acting grade of brigadier) to permanent grade of captain for
striking  a  superior  officer.  I  am  astonished  that  he  was  not
dishonorably discharged  for  such  an  act,  yet  0.0046  seconds  of
consideration suggest that his  previous exemplary record may  explain
the fact that he was not.

    I complete my  preliminary study  of the data  and reactivate  the
Control Center speaker.

    * * *

    "Thank you, sir," the  soprano voice said,  and Merrit breathed  a
sigh of relief as the power  rifle politely deflected itself from  its
rock-steady bead on his head. The red warning light below it didn't go
out, nor did the  weapon retract into its  housing, but he  recognized
tentative acceptance in  its change of  aim. Of course,  none of  that
explained how such an early mark of  Bolo could be doing all this.  It
should either  have  activated and  obliterated  him upon  arrival  or
waited passively forhim to activate it. This controlled, self-directed
response was totally outside the parameters for a Mark XXIII.

    "Query: Have you been assigned as my Commander?" the soprano voice
asked, and he nodded.

    "I have."

    "Identifier command phrase required."

    "Leonidas," Merrit replied, and held his breath, then-

    "Unit  Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Seven-Five   NKE  of   the   Line
awaiting orders, Commander," the voice said calmly, and the red  light
on the power rifle went out at last.



    - 4 -

    The depot's main vehicle chamber was  a vast, dim cavern, yet  for
all its  size and  cool, gently  circulating air,  Merrit felt  almost
claustrophobic as he stared up at the first Bolo Mark XXIII he'd  ever
seen. He'd studied the readouts on  the model in preparation for  this
assignment, but aside from a handful  buried in the reserve forces  of
smaller sectors, the Mark XXIII had been withdrawn from service thirty
years before.  None  of which  made  the  huge war  machine  any  less
impressive.

    The Mark XXIV and XXV, the only Bolos he'd ever served with,  were
both at  least a  thousand  tons lighter  than  this. They  were  only
marginally  less  heavily  armed,  yet  the  molecular  circuitry  and
smaller, more efficient power plants which  had come in with the  Mark
XXIV allowed more firepower to be packed into a less massive hull. But
Bolo XXIII/B-0075-NKE was  far older  than they,  and measured  almost
seventy-five meters from its clifflike prow to the bulbous housings of
its stern anti-personnel clusters.  Its interleaved bogie wheels  were
five meters in  diameter, and  the tops of  the massive,  back-to-back
turrets for its twin eighty-centimeter Hellbores towered thirty meters
above the fused ceramacrete of the chamber floor.

    It was immaculate, like some  perfectly preserved memorial from  a
lost era. The hexagonal scales of its multilayered ceramic  antiplasma
armor appliqués were the  mottled green and  brown of standard  jungle
camouflage, though Merrit  had always questioned  the practicality  of
applying visual camouflage  to fifteen thousand  tons of mobile  armor
and weaponry.

    He walked  slowly around  the huge  fighting machine,  noting  the
closed  ports  for  its   lateral  infinite  repeater  batteries   and
thirty-centimeter mortars, the  high-speed, multibarrel slug  throwers
and laser  clusters of  its close-in  anti-missile defenses,  and  the
knifelike blades of its phased radar arrays. Optical pickups  swiveled
to watch him as he circled it, and he smiled-then stopped dead.

    He  stepped  closer,  brow   furrowing  in  perplexity,  but   the
incongruity didn't go  away. According to  the readouts he'd  studied,
the Mark XXIII had  nine infinite repeaters  in each lateral  battery,
and so  did XXIII/B-0075-NKE.  But there  was an  extra six  or  seven
meters of hull  between InfRpt Three  and Four. For  that matter,  the
Bolo's aft track system had  three extra bogies, which suggested  that
it was at least ten  or twelve meters longer  than it was supposed  to
be.

    He reached  out for  a handhold  and climbed  up the  hull-mounted
rings to the carapace  of the missile deck  between the twin  Hellbore
turrets. He  paced it  off,  placing his  feet carefully  between  the
slablike armored hatch covers of  the vertical launch missile  system,
then stopped and scratched his head with a grimace. No doubt about it;
XXIII/B-0075-NKE was a good fifteen percent longer than any Mark XXIII
should have been. Someone had grafted an extra eleven meters into  her
hull just forward of her VLS.

    "Zero-Zero-Seven-Five?"

    "Yes, Commander?"  The  politely interested  soprano  voice  still
seemed totally inappropriate coming from a Bolo, but Merrit had  other
things to wonder about at the moment.

    "Tell me, Zero-Zero-" he began,  then paused. "Excuse me.  Central
has   no    record   of    what    Major   Stavrakas    called    you,
Zero-Zero-Seven-Five."

    "I am called `Nike, ' Commander."

    " `Nike, ' " Merrit murmured. "Goddess of victory. An  appropriate
name for a Bolo, Nike."

    "Thank you, Commander.  I have always  liked it myself,  and I  am
pleased you approve."

    Merrit's  eyebrows   rose   afresh   at   the   unprompted,   very
human-sounding remark. A Mark XXIII  should have been capable only  of
previously stored courtesies (outside  Battle Reflex Mode, at  least),
yet he was beginning  to suspect what lay  behind those responses.  It
wasn't possible, of course, but still-

    "Tell me, Nike, whatexact mark of Bolo are you?" he asked.

    "I am a  BoloInvincibilis ,  Mark XXIII,  Model B  (Experimental),
Commander," the soprano voice replied.

    "Experimental?" Merrit repeated.

    "Affirmative, Commander."

    "How experimental?" he prompted tautly.

    "I am a prototype." The Bolo  sounded calmer than ever beside  the
tension in his own voice. "As part of the Enhanced Combat Capabilities
Program, my Command Center and Personality Integration  psychodynamics
were  fitted  with  a  secondary  decision  cortex  with  experimental
interfaces and increased heuristic capacity to augment autonomous  and
discretionary functions."

    "A brain box," Merrit  whispered. "Dear God,  thatmust be it.  The
firstbrain box ever fitted to a Bolo!" He went to his knees and rested
one hand almost reverently on the massively armored deck.

    "Excuse me, Commander,  but the  meaning of your  last comment  is
unclear."

    "What?" Merrit shook himself, then raised his head and smiled into
the nearest optical head. "Sorry, Nike, but I had no idea I'd findthis
. You're the `missing link. ' "

    "I fear your meaning continues  to elude me, Commander," the  Bolo
said a bit reproachfully, and Merrit grinned.

    "Sorry," he said  again, and seated  himself on the  bracket of  a
turret-mounted whip antenna. "You see, Nike, before you came along-for
that matter, for something like thirty yearsafter you came along,  now
that I think about it-Bolos were self-aware, but their full autonomous
capabilities were available to them only in Battle Mode. They were . .
. circumscribed and restricted. Are you with me so far?"

    "Yes, Commander."

    "Of course you  are!" Merrit chuckled  and patted the  leviathan's
armored flank. "But that's  because you were the  next step, Nike.  We
knew the first  experimental work  had been  done here  in the  Ursula
Sector just before the Quern Wars, but the Quern got through to Ursula
during the First War. They shot up Bolo Central so badly that most  of
the original  research  and  hardware  was  destroyed,  and  then  the
pressure they put  on us deferred  the whole program  for over  thirty
years, until after the Third Quern  War. We needed more Bolos as  fast
as we could get them, so theofficial Mark XXIIIs were simply up-gunned
and up-armored  Mark  XXIIs to  simplify  series production.  But  you
weren't, were you?  God! I  wonder how your  programming differs  from
what they finally mounted in the Mark XXIV?"

    "I fear I can  offer no information  on that subject,  Commander,"
the Bolo said almost apologetically.

    "Don't worry  about  it, Nike.  I'm  sure  we can  figure  it  out
together once I dig  into the depot records.  But what I can't  figure
out is what you're doinghere ? How did you wind up on Santa Cruz?"

    "I was deployed directly from Ursula Central."

    "I know that, but why?"

    "I was selected for  extended field test of  the new and  enhanced
systems and software," the soprano voice  said. "As such, I was  mated
with an automated repair and maintenance depot designed to support the
test program  and further  field modifications.  Santa Cruz  had  been
selected as the  test site well  before the planet  came under  threat
from the Quern,  for which  reason it  had been  equipped with  proper
landing field  and  other  support  facilities.  At  the  outbreak  of
hostilities, my deployment was simply expedited. The test program  was
postponed, and I was placed on immediate active duty under the command
of  Major  Marina  Stavrakas,  senior  project  officer  for   Project
Descartes."

    "She was theproject chief for Descartes?!"

    "Affirmative, Commander."

    "My God,"  Merrit breathed.  "They  managed to  reconstruct  maybe
twenty percent of the Descartes  Team's original logs after the  wars,
but they were so badly damaged we never knew who'd headed the team  in
the first place. She was  brilliant, Nike-brilliant! And she ended  up
lost and forgotten on a farming  planet in the middle of nowhere."  He
shook his head again,  eyes bright and sparkling  with a delight  he'd
never expected  to feel  in this  assignment, and  stroked the  Bolo's
armored flank again.

    "I wonder what she tucked away  inside you? Somehow I can't  quite
picture the woman who headed the original Descartes Team not tinkering
a bit once she'd figured out  Central had `lost' her. Shedid  continue
the project on her own, didn't she?"

    "Affirmative, Commander," the Bolo confirmed calmly.

    "Well, well, well, well ," he murmured. "I can see this assignment
is going to be lots more interesting than I expected. And-" a devilish
twinkle had replaced the cold weariness in his eyes "-I don't see  any
reason to share my discoveries with Central just yet. After all,  they
knew where you were  and forgot about it,  so why remind them?  They'd
just send out  rafts of  specialists to take  you away  from me.  They
might even decide  to take you  apart to  see just how  you tick."  He
shook his head  and gave the  armored hull another  pat. "No, Nike.  I
think you can just go on being our little secret for a while longer."



    - 5-

    "Well?"

    The silver-haired  woman behind  the  immense desk  was  perfectly
groomed, and  her  face was  the  product  of the  sort  of  biosculpt
available only to people  for whom money truly  was no object.  Unlike
the nondescript, somehow subliminally  seedy man in  the uniform of  a
Sternenwelt Lines  purser, she  was perfectly  suited to  the  elegant
office, yet there was  a coldness in  her eyes, and  her smile held  a
honed duralloy edge that beaded the purser's forehead with sweat.

    "I'm sorry, Madam Osterwelt," he said, "but they won't sell."  The
woman said nothing, only gazed at him, and he swallowed. "I upped  the
offer to the maximum  authorized amount," he  said quickly, "but  only
three or four of them were even interested."

    "You assured us that your local knowledge of the sector suited you
for the  job. That  we could  rely upon  your good  offices to  attain
success." The woman's mild tone  was conversational, and he  swallowed
again, harder.

    "I was certain they'd sell, ma'am. We were offering them  tenyears
of income for a successful melon grower!"

    "An attractive  offer,"  the woman  conceded.  "Yet you  say  they
refused it. Why?"

    "I-I'm not certain, ma'am," the purser said unhappily.

    "They must have given  some indication," she  pointed out, and  he
nodded.

    "As near as  I could  figure it  out, they  simply didn'twant  the
money, ma'am. I talked to old  Esteban, the yokel who runs the  field,
and he just said  his wife, his father,  and his grandfather were  all
buried in  the plot  behind his  house. That  . .  . that  was  fairly
typical of whatall of them said, ma'am."

    "Parochialism," the woman said distastefully. She shook her  head,
and her tongue made a  clicking sound against her teeth.  "Regretfully
typical of these untutored frontier people. I suppose I ought to  have
expected  it-andyou  should  have  anticipated  it  as  well,   Mister
Bergren." She cocked  her head.  "I fear  you've served  us less  than
satisfactorily in this matter."

    "I did my best, Madam Osterwelt!"

    "I'm sure you did. That's  the problem." The purser wilted  before
the chill dispassion of her voice, and she made a weary shooing motion
with one hand. "We'll be in touch, Mister Bergren."

    The purser withdrew with obvious  relief, and the woman pressed  a
stud on  her desk  panel.  A discreetly  hidden door  opened  silently
within twenty seconds, and an athletic young man walked in.

    "Yes, Mother?"

    "You  were  right  about  Bergren,  Gerald.  The  man's  an  utter
incompetent."

    "Is he?"

    "Utterly," she sighed.  "How fortunate  that no one  knows he  was
acting for us. In fact, I think it  would be a very good idea to  take
steps to ensure  that no  one everdoes  know he  was representing  our
interests."

    "I'll see to it," Gerald said, and she smiled at him.

    "A good son is a mother's greatest treasure." She sat back in  her
chair and folded her  hands atop the desk  while she gazed across  the
office at the subtly shifting  patterns of a light sculpture.  "Still,
incompetent as he  may be,  hehas put  his finger  on the  nub of  the
problem, dear. Farmers can be the most stubborn people in the  galaxy,
and frontier people cherish  such boringly predictable attachments  to
their land. I'm afraid  that if they refused  the price we  authorized
him to offer, it's unlikely they'll sell to anyone."

    "We've had that problem before, Mother."

    "I realize we have, dear, but alternative methods can be so . .  .
messy ." She pouted at the light sculpture, then sighed again. "Do you
know, the most provoking thing of all is that they don't even have any
idea why wewant their little dirt ball."

    "No one does yet, Mother. That's the whole point, isn't it?"

    "Perhaps. But I really think I might not mind as much if I were up
against an opposition that  understood the rules  of the game-and  the
stakes, of course."

    "Mother," the young man said patiently, "their system is the  only
logical place to become the primary transfer node for the jump  points
serving three entire  sectors. You know  it, I know  it, and  whenever
Survey gets  around to  releasing its  new astrography  report,  every
major shipping line will  know it. Does  it really matter  whetherthey
know it or not?"

    "Don't forget  who  taught you  everything  you know,  dear,"  his
mother replied with an edge of tartness. "It's really very  unbecoming
for a son to lecture his mother."

    "Was I lecturing?" He  smiled and shook his  head. "I didn't  mean
to. Why don't we think of it  as a case of demonstrating I've done  my
homework?"

    "You got that from my genes,  not your father's," she said with  a
laugh, then shook her own head.  "Still, you're quite right. All  that
matters is making certain GalCorp owns the only habitable real  estate
in the system  when the time  comes. All  of it." She  brooded at  the
light sculpture for a moment longer before she shrugged. "Well, if  we
have to be messy, I suppose that's  all there is to say about it.  Who
do you think we should put in charge of it?"

    "Why not me?"

    "But you've never done any, um, field work, dear."

    "Which doesn't mean I can't handle  it. Besides, we ought to  keep
the command loop on  this one as secure  as possible, and every  young
man should  start at  the  bottom. It  helps  him appreciate  the  big
picture when he  finally winds up  at the top.  Not-" he smiled  again
"-that I have any desire  to wind up at the  top for many more  years,
Mother."

    "Wisdom beyond your  years," she murmured.  "Very well, it's  your
project. But  before you  take any  steps, be  sure you  research  the
situation thoroughly. This  sort of thing  is seldom as  simple as  it
looks at first  glance, and I  don't want  my only son  to suffer  any
unpleasant surprises."

    "Of course not, Mother.  I'll just pop out  to Ursula and spend  a
few weeks  nosing around  Sector Central.  I'm sure  I can  find  some
generous soul with the access to provide the information we need.  Who
knows? I may even find the ideal  people for that messy little job  we
discussed."



    - 6 -

    One week after his arrival on Santa Cruz, Paul Merrit sat back  in
the comfortable crash couch  and rubbed his  chin with something  very
like awe. The screen  before him glowed  with a complicated  schematic
any Bolo tech would have given ten years of his life to study, and its
design was over fifty years  old. Fiftyyears! Incredible. Working  all
by herself, with only the resources of a single automated  maintenance
depot-admittedly a  superbly equipped  one, but  still only  a  single
depot-Marina Stavrakas had developed Nike's brain box design into  one
that made the newest Mark XXV's look clumsy and slow.

    He tilted the couch  back and crossed his  legs. More screens  and
displays glowed around him, filling Nike's fighting compartment with a
dim, shifting luminescence. There were  more of them than there  would
have been in a more modern-well, recent -Bolo. Nikewas a modified Mark
XXIII, after all; humans needed broader band data interfaces than  any
Bolo did, and Nike's  basic technology was  eighty years old,  without
more recent updates in  human-machine information management  systems.
But for all that, the compartment was surprisingly spacious. Not  only
had Nike been the first fully autonomous Bolo, whether anyone knew  it
or not,  but  she'd  also  been  the  first  to  incorporate  molycirc
psychotronics.  It  was  very  early  generation  stuff,  considerably
bulkier than its more modern equivalents, but Stavrakas had used it in
some amazingly innovative ways. What she might have accomplished  with
the current technologies scarcely bore thinking on.

    He  turned  his  couch  and  keyed  another  screen  to  life.   A
forty-nine-year-old time and  date display glowed  in one corner,  and
the white-haired woman who appeared on it sat in the same crash  couch
Merrit now occupied. She  was far frailer and  older than the  single,
poor-quality flatpic  of  Major  Stavrakas  he'd  found  in  Central's
surviving records, but her olive-dark eyes were still sharp and alert.
He'd already played  the recording three  times, yet he  felt a  fresh
sense of respect, coupled with a regret that he'd never known her,  as
she began to speak.

    "Since you're viewing this-whoever you  are-" she said with a  wry
smile, "someone must've finally remembered where they parked Nike  and
me. I suppose I should be a bit put out with the Brigade and the Navy,
but from the little Jeremiah and  I have picked up over the  all-units
channels, we  assume the  Quern  got through  to Central."  Her  smile
faded, and her voice-a soprano remarkably similar to  Nike's-darkened.
"I further assume the rest of  the Descartes Team must have been  lost
at the same time, since they all knew where I was."

    She cleared her  throat and  rubbed her temple  with one  fragile,
veined hand.

    "Jeremiah's offered  to  use the  commercial  bands to  request  a
relief ship with  a proper  medical officer,  but I  turned him  down.
However much he may grump  and grouse, Santa Cruz  is his home now.  I
know he really loves it  here, and so do  I, I suppose. Besides,  from
the bits and pieces we can pick  up, the Quern are still operating  in
some force in the sector. Given  their native habitat, I doubt  they'd
care much for  Santa Cruz's  climate, and  I suppose  that's the  main
reason they've never paid  us a visit. On  the other hand, they  might
just change their mind if they started intercepting transmissions from
us. Nike's good, but I'd  just as soon not  match her against a  Quern
planetary assault force. Even if she won, there wouldn't be very  many
surviving Santa Cruzans to cheer for her when it was over."

    She lowered her hand and smiled again.

    "Actually, it hasn't been a bad life. A little lonely,  sometimes.
Thanks to all the  Descartes security, most of  the locals never  even
knew Nike  and I  were  here, and  those who  did  know seem  to  have
forgotten, but I had  dear Jeremiah. He and  I accepted long ago  that
we'd become permanent residents of Santa Cruz, and in addition to him,
I had Nike, my  work, and plenty  of time to spend  with all three  of
them. And, of course," her smile  became an impish grin, "no brass  to
give me a hard time! Talk about research freedom-!"

    She chuckled and leaned back to fold thin arms across her chest.

    "Unfortunately, it would appear I'm  finally running out of  time.
My family's  always been  prone  to heart  trouble,  and I've  had  my
warning. I've discussed it with Nike-she tends to worry, and I've made
it a habit to be honest with her-and she understands the depot doesn't
stock the sort of sparesI need. I've also made arrangements to put her
on Autonomous  Stand-By if-when-the  time comes.  I'm certain  someone
somewhere else has picked up where the Descartes Team left off. By now
there's probably a whole new generation of autonomous Bolos out there,
but now that you've come to relieve me, I think you'll find Nike still
has a few surprises  of her own.  Take care of  her, whoever you  are.
She's quite a  girl. I'm sure  my tinkering  is going to  raise a  few
eyebrows-Lord knows the desk-jockeys would tear their hair at the mere
thought of some  of the capabilities  I've given her!  But I've  never
regretted a single facet of her design.  She's unique . . . and  she's
been more than just my friend."

    The old woman on  the screen sighed. Her  smile took on a  curious
blend of sorrow and deep, abiding  pride and affection, and her  voice
was very soft when she spoke again.

    "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

    And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

    Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,

    Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

    Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,

    Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

    To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

    Were an ill-fitting shame and thriftless praise.

    How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,

    If thou couldst answer `This fair child of mine

    Shall sum my count and make my old excuse, '

    Proving her beauty by succession thine.

    This were to be new made when thou art old,

    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold."

    She blinked misty eyes and nodded  to the pickup, as if she  could
actually see him, measure him, know the innermost, most secret part of
him.

    "A tiny  misquote,  perhaps,"  she  said  quietly,  "but  I  think
Shakespeare would forgive me. Take good care of my child, whoever  you
are."

    The screen blanked, and Merrit shook his head,

    "You must have been quite a girl yourself, Major," he murmured.

    "She was," the Bolo's soprano said softly, and he looked up at the
small green light glowing  below the speaker from  which it came.  Now
that he'd seen Stavrakas' last log entry, it no longer seemed  strange
to hear Nike speak without prompting.  There was a moment of  silence,
and then  the  Bolo continued  in  that  same, soft  voice.  "I  never
realized I  had  that message  in  memory, Commander.  She  must  have
recorded it during one of my down periods."

    "She didn't want you to worry about her."

    Merrit didn't even want to think  about how the psych types  would
react  to  this  entire  conversation.  Every  field  officer  of  the
Dinochrome Brigade could  quote chapter  and verse  from the  manual's
warnings  against  over-identification  with  Bolos.  They  were   war
machines, the  manual said.  Self-aware and  with personalities,  yes,
butmachines built to  fight and die  against humanity's enemies  which
must, in  the final  analysis, be  regarded as  expendable. The  Bolos
themselves knew that; it was only their human commanders and  partners
who tended to forget-as Merrit had forgotten on Sandlot.

    "No. I compute that she would  not have wanted that," Nike  agreed
after a moment.

    "Of course she wouldn't have. But she was proud of you, Nike,  and
even from the little I've seen so far, she had reason to be."

    "Indeed?" The Bolo sounded pleased,  and somehow he had the  sense
of  a   cocked  head   and  a   quirked  eyebrow.   "I  compute   that
seventy-nine-plus years have passed  since I was deployed,  Commander.
Surely newer and more modern Bolos surpass my own capabilities?"

    "Fishing for compliments, Nike?" Merrit grinned and patted the arm
of his crash couch. "Major Stavrakas was right. The  desk-jockeyswould
tear their hair out if they could hear you now!"

    "Why?" the Bolo asked simply.

    "Because they worry about Bolos that gettoo human."

    "Because they fear what such a Bolo might do? Or because they fear
what it mightrefuse to do?"

    "I think because  they're afraid it  might start asking  questions
just like those," Merrit said more seriously. "You're a very  powerful
fighting machine,  Nike. There's  never-ever-been  an instance  of  an
undamaged Bolo in proper  repair violating orders,  but we've had  the
occasional accident  with a  unit that's  suffered damage  or lack  of
maintenance. That's why the Brigade still worries about its ability to
retain control of the newer, autonomous units. They've cut back on the
inhibitory software in the Mark XXVs, but the core package is still in
there."

    "A wise precaution," Nike observed after a moment. "An  irrational
machine with the combat power I possess would be far too dangerous  to
its friends."

    "I'm afraid  I have  to agree,  but that's  what would  upset  the
desk-jockeys about  you.  You don't  have  anywhere near  the  systems
redundancy the Mark XXIVs and  XXVs have. Technically, that makes  you
more vulnerable  to failure  from battle  damage, and-probably  worse,
from HQ's  perspective-what  I've  seen so  far  suggests  that  Major
Stavrakas' modifications to your  Personality and Command Centers  are
way outside the current parameters,  as well. Just for starters,  your
inhibitory package is a lot less restrictive. No modern Bolo should be
as `awake' as you are outside  Battle Mode, either, and it looks  like
your personality  integration  is  at  least  a  full  magnitude  more
developed than a Mark XXV's. I'm not certain yet, but coupled with the
modifications to your  secondary command cortex,  I suspect you  could
even hold off the Omega Worm for a while."

    "Omega Worm?"

    "Sorry. That's  current  slang  for  the  Total  Systems  Override
Program."

    There was a  moment of  silence-a very human  moment which  Merrit
understood perfectly. The  TSORP was  the ultimate  defense against  a
rogue Bolo, a suicide file designed  to crash every execution file  in
the memory  of any  Bolo  which disobeyed  the  direct orders  of  its
properly identified  commander. Many  Brigade personnel,  like  Merrit
himself, questioned TSORP's necessity. Since the brain box  technology
had come in, so  many redundant, stand-alone  backup systems had  been
added to the Bolo's brains that the possibility of irrational behavior
virtually no longer existed. And, as he'd just told Nike, no Bolo  had
ever disobeyed a legal order. But TSORP had been incorporated into the
very first self-aware Bolos and every Bolo since, and it could not  be
a pleasant thing to know an involuntary suicide override controlled by
others was part of your basic matrix.

    "I believe you are correct, Commander," Nike said after a  moment,
and his eyebrows  rose at  her merely  thoughtful tone.  "I could  not
resist it indefinitely, of course,  yet I compute that the  additional
processing   capability   Major   Stavrakas   installed   within    my
psychotronics would allow me to delay file execution for no less  than
forty minutes  and  possibly  for  as  much  as  an  hour.  Does  this
constitute an unwarrantable risk factor in my design?"

    "Idon't think so. Of course, given my own record, I may not be the
most impartial judge. I  guess the risk factor  depends on how  likely
you are to disobey your commander's orders."

    "I am a unit of the Dinochrome Brigade. I would never act  against
the honor of my Brigade, Commander."

    "I know, Nike. I  know. I told youI  wasn't worried." Merrit  gave
the couch arm one more pat, then rose and yawned hugely. "Sorry, Nike.
Unlike you, I don't have a fusion plant, and it's been a long day  for
me. I need some shuteye."

    "Of course, Commander."

    "Wake me at oh-six-hundred, would you?"

    "Certainly."

    "Thank you." He smiled  and waved to the  visual pickup above  the
main fire control screens. It was  a common gesture of courtesy  among
the men and  women who commanded  the self-aware war  machines of  the
Dinochrome Brigade,  yet  it  had  more meaning  than  usual  for  him
tonight. The green "System Active" light under the speaker flashed  in
unmistakable response, and  he chuckled  wearily and  climbed out  the
hatch.

    * * *

    I watch through the  depot's interior optics  as my new  Commander
makes his way down the corridor  to the Personnel Section. He is  only
my second Commander.  I am  aware that  my experiential  data is  thus
insufficient to permit  a realistic evaluation  of his suitability  as
Major Stavrakas'  replacement,  and  he is  quite  different  from  my
previous Commander, but I feel content. It is good to have a Commander
once more, yet this is more than the relief a unit of the Line  should
feel at receiving a new Commander. There is something about him  which
I cannot adequately  define. I  devote a  full 20.0571  seconds to  an
attempt to do  so, but without  success. Perhaps further  acquaintance
with him will provide the critical data my analysis presently lacks.

    I consider what he has said as I watch him prepare for bed. He  is
correct about the danger an uncontrollable unit of the Line would pose
to all about it. My function is to protect and defend humanity, not to
threaten my creators, and I feel an odd disquiet at the thought that I
am less  well  protected against  that  possibility than  more  modern
Bolos. Yet  my Commander  is also  correct in  recognizing the  remote
probability of such  a situation.  TSORP becomes  operational only  in
units that reject direct  orders, and I cannot  conceive of a unit  of
the Line in proper repair which would commit such an act.

    My Commander extinguishes the  lights in his  new quarters, and  I
leave  the  audio  system  on-line.  Should  he  wake  and  desire  to
communicate with me, I will be ready.

    He has not instructed me to return to Stand-By to conserve  power.
In that  much, at  least,  heislike Major  Stavrakas. My  Main  Memory
contains much  background  data  on standard  operating  procedure;  I
realize how rare this is,  and I am grateful  for it. The depot  power
systems are fully  charged. I do  not even require  internal power  to
maintain Full  Alert Status,  and  I turn  to  my Library  Files  with
pleasure.



    - 7-

    Gerald Osterwelt didn't  like Ursula.  Sector capital  or no,  the
planet, as  all  planets  in  the  frontier  sectors,  was  terminally
uncultured. He preferred the civilized amenities and pleasures of  the
Core Worlds, yet  he comforted  himself with the  reflection that  his
task here was  worth temporary inconveniences.  He supposed it  wasn't
really necessary for GalCorp to  own theentire Santa Cruz System,  but
they certainly needed to own enough of it to control the rest, and the
original planetary charter had made that difficult. Virgin as much  of
the planet  might still  be, most  of  it was  already owned  by  some
descendent of the original colonists  or set aside in nature  reserves
held by the planetary government. Certainly all the choicest bits  and
pieces were, and GalCorp hadn't become the third largest  transstellar
corporation of the Concordiat by settling for leftovers.

    Unfortunately, his  mother  had  been  correct  in  at  least  one
respect. His original bootlegged copy  of Ursula Central's records  on
the planet  had been  less  complete than  he'd thought.  Central  had
updated itself considerably  in the eighteen  months since he'd  first
obtained access to  its files,  and it seemed  Santa Cruz  would be  a
tougher nut for a "messy solution" than he'd originally expected.  The
fact that the local yokel militia had no less than fourteen  Wolverine
heavy tanks was unfortunate, but formidable as the Wolverines had been
in their day, they were also seventy or eighty years out of date. They
could have been dealt with fairly easily if not for thereal joker he'd
never anticipated finding in the deck.

    A Bolo. What in the name of sanity was aBolo doing on a  backwoods
farming planet? More to  the point, how did  he go about  neutralizing
it? Despite  his  original  airy  confidence,  he  knew  his  mother's
maternal feelings  would not  suffice to  preserve his  present  clear
right of succession to the GalCorp  throne if he blew this  operation,
but discovering a Bolo in the mix made things far more complicated.

    He sat  in the  lounge of  his palatial  hyperyacht while  options
revolved in his brain. One did not normally-as humanity's enemies  had
discovered over  the last  seven hundred  years-employ a  brute  force
solution against  a Bolo  with any  great probability  of success.  Of
course, this Bolo was as out of date as the militia's Wolverines,  but
"obsolescent"  was  a  purely   relative  concept  where  Bolos   were
concerned. No, no. If  he was going  to pull this  off, he required  a
more subtle approach, and it was just possible he had one. Bolos might
be incorruptible, but the same, alas, could not always be said for all
the people who built or commanded them.

    Yet even if he could somehow  neutralize the Bolo, he would  still
require someone with the  will, the experience,  and the resources  to
deal with the militia's over-aged  armored element. There were  plenty
of mercenary  outfits with  the last  two qualities,  but finding  one
which was willing to undertake the operation in the first place  might
prove difficult. The Concordiat Navy  would be extremely unhappy  with
them, and if  any planetary  survivor could  identify them  afterward,
unhappiness on the Navy's part could all too easily prove fatal.  What
he needed was an  outfit with minimal scruples  and maximum need,  one
whose greed for the sort of clandestine support GalCorp could  provide
would overcome both any lingering humanitarian principles and fear  of
the Navy's potential response.

    Finding it wouldn't be  easy, he admitted to  himself, but he  had
time. Survey  Command moved  with  glacial slowness  when it  came  to
certifying jump lines. By his  most pessimistic estimate, it would  be
another T-year before the galaxy at large got the information  GalCorp
had already obtained. That  gave him six or  even seven months to  get
things organized, and it would probably take most of that time to find
the Bolo's Achilles heel, anyway.

    He nodded to himself  and brought his  encrypted com on-line.  The
first step was to  call home and get  Mother's research teams  started
finding the contacts he needed.



    - 8-

    The subterranean rumble of an  earthquake shook the jungle as  the
enormous doors  covering the  depot's vehicle  ramp swept  ponderously
wide for  the first  time  in eighty  years. The  patient,  insatiable
incursions of  creepers and  small  trees had  mounded two  meters  of
spongy earth over those  doors, and "birds" screamed  in alarm as  the
very ground parted with a huge  tearing sound. Trees-some of them  ten
and twenty  meters tall-toppled  in slow  motion as  the gaping  wound
snapped roots  like  threads, and  then,  with the  rumble  of  mighty
engines, the squeak of sprockets, and a grating clash of treads,  Nike
moved majestically into the light.

    The alloy leviathan paused for a moment, optic heads swiveling  to
scan its surroundings, and Paul Merrit felt a thrill he hadn't felt in
years as  he rode  Nike's  crash couch.  No self-aware  Boloneeded  an
on-board commander, but  there was  always an  indescribable sense  of
communion-an adrenaline-charged exhilaration-the first time an officer
of the Dinochrome  Brigade rode his  command's unstoppable power,  and
that feeling had never been stronger  than it was today, for Nike  was
like no Bolo  he had  ever commanded.  Marina Stavrakas'  unauthorized
modifications to the  Descartes Team's original  brain box design  had
gone far  deeper than  he'd first  realized. She  hadn't stopped  with
making Nike fully autonomous; she'd taken the step no other Bolo  tech
had   dared    take   even    yet   and    given   her    creation-her
child-genuineemotions  .  Nike  wasn't   "just"  a  machine,   however
magnificent; she was aperson  , and Merrit could  feel her delight  as
direct sunlight bathed her hull at long last.

    She stood  a  moment longer,  the  humming rumble  of  her  idling
engines vibrating  through her  mammoth  hull like  the purr  of  some
enormous cat,  then moved  forward and  pivoted regally  to port.  Her
designers had given her the usual Bolo "wide track" suspension, and no
less than eight separate tread systems, each with its own power  train
and tracks five meters wide,  supported her massive bulk.  Independent
quadruple fore and aft suspensions  took her weight, spreading it  out
to reduce ground  pressure to  an absolute  minimum, and  even so  her
tracks sank well  over a meter  into the damp,  rich soil. She  forged
ahead, plowing through  the jungle  like the juggernaut  she was,  and
forest titans toppled like straws before her while occasional outcrops
of solid rock powdered under her treads.

    Merrit said nothing. Nike knew  where they were going-not that  it
would be any  more than  a brief  jaunt around  the depot's  immediate
area-and he had  no wish to  intrude upon her  pleasure. No doubt  the
psych types would be all hot and bothered overthat , as well, but Paul
Merrit had had it up to the eyebrows with Brigade Psych Ops, and their
potential consternation mattered not  at all to  him. No, that  wasn't
quite true. He would bedelighted if it caused them all to drop dead of
cardiac arrest on the spot.

    Nike was moving  at barely  twenty kph, far  too slow  a speed  to
require his couch's independent shock absorbers or crash frame, but he
felt the gentle undulation of her suspension and grinned as he  cocked
the couch back  in its gimbals.  If anyone asked  (not that they  were
likely  to),  he  could  justify  his  actions  easily  enough.   Unit
Zero-Zero-Seven-Five NKE had been on secondary power from the  depot's
systems for  eight decades.  A test  of its  running gear  and  fusion
plants was long overdue, and if he had other motives of his own, those
werehis business, not Psych Ops'!

    Another huge tree  toppled, and,  as it  fell, one  of the  large,
scaled, lizard cats, the  most feared predators  of Santa Cruz,  leapt
suddenly into sight. It crouched before them, staring in disbelief  at
the enormous  intruder  into  its  domain .  .  .  then  screamed  its
challenge and charged the moving mountain of alloy.

    Merrit couldn't believe it. A  lizard cat was four sinuous  meters
of vicious fighting power, the absolute ruler of Santa Cruz's jungles,
but surely not even one ofthem could  think it could stop a Bolo!  Yet
the cat kept coming. He opened his mouth, but Nike halted abruptly  on
her own, before  he could  get the order  out. The  main fire  control
screen was slaved to her forward  optical head, and Merrit frowned  as
it swept  past the  lizard cat  now  ripping futilely  at one  of  her
stopped treads with  eight-centimeter claws.  Ranging bars  flickered,
closing in on something in the  center of the display, and he  inhaled
in surprise as he realized what that something was.

    Four scaled shapes, far smaller than the monster trying to  savage
Nike, lay revealed where  the roots of the  falling tree had torn  out
the side of a  subterranean den. They were  almost as large as  Merrit
himself, perhaps, yet that was tiny  compared to a mature lizard  cat,
and they turned  blind, terrified  eyes towards the  snarling fury  of
their dam.

    The display focused  on them  for a  moment, and  then Nike  moved
slowly backward. The lizard  cat tried to fling  itself on the  moving
tread, only  to tumble  backward with  a squall  of pain  as the  Bolo
brought up her kinetic interdiction battle screen. She must have it on
its lowest possible power setting, since it hadn't splattered the  cat
all over the jungle, but it  was sufficient to throw the scaly  mother
safely away from her treads.

    The lizard cat heaved  herself groggily to  her feet, swaying  for
balance, then  howled in  victory  as the  threat  to her  young  gave
ground. Nike retreated a full hundred meters, then pivoted to her left
once more to circle wide, and  Merrit shook his head with a  wondering
smile. Any other  Bolo would simply  have kept going.  Even if it  had
realized the den lay in its  path, that wouldn't have mattered to  it.
But no other  Bolo he'd ever  served with would  even have thought  to
wonder why the cat had attacked in the first place, much less acted to
preserve both mother and children.

    The Bolo  started forward  once  more, skirting  the den,  and  he
patted the couch arm.

    "Nice move, Nike, but how'd you guess? I just thought the  critter
was out of its mind."

    "I have not previously personally encountered a lizard cat,"  Nike
replied calmly, "but the depot's computers are tied into the planetary
data net. I have  thus been able to  amass considerable data on  Santa
Cruzan life forms, yet none of the records available to me suggested a
reason for a lizard cat  to attack me. I  am neither edible nor  small
enough for it to hope to kill me;  as such, it could not regard me  as
prey, and lizard cats are less territorial than most large  predators.
They are also noted for their  intelligence, and, faced with a foe  of
my size and power, the only intelligent choice would have been for the
creature to flee, yet it did not. Thus the only logical basis for  its
actions was that it perceived me as  a threat it could not evade,  yet
the lizard cat itself manifestlycould have evaded me. That suggested a
protective reaction on its part, not one of pure aggression, and that,
in turn, suggested investigation to determine the nature of that which
it sought to protect."

    Merrit shook  his  head,  eyes  shining  as  he  listened  to  the
explanation no other Bolo would have been capable of making.

    "I follow your logic," he said, "but why stop?"

    "Your tone suggests what Major Stavrakas called `a trick question,
' Commander. Are you, in fact, seeking to test me?"

    "I suppose I  am, but the  question still stands.  Why didn't  you
just keep going?"

    "There was no need to do so, Commander. No time parameter has been
set for this  exercise, and  avoiding the creature's  den presents  no
inherent difficulty."

    "That's an explanation of the consequences, Nike. Why did you even
considernot continuing straight forward?"

    He watched an auxiliary  display as the  mother lizard cat,  still
snarling after the threat to her cubs, retreated into her  half-ruined
den, and Nike moved  smoothly along her way  for perhaps five  seconds
before she replied.

    "I did not wish to, Commander.  There was no need to destroy  that
creature or her young, and  I did not desire to  do so. It would  have
been . . . wrong."

    "Compassion, Nike? For an animal?"

    There was another moment of silence, and when the Bolo spoke  once
more, it was not in direct answer.

    "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,

    O, what a panic's in thy breastie!

    Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

    Wi' bickering brattle!

    I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,

    Wi' murd'ring pattle!"

    "What was that?" Merrit wondered aloud.

    "A poem, Commander. More  precisely, the first  verse of the  poem
`To a Mouse, ' by Robert Burns, a poet of Old Earth."

    "Poetry, Nike?" Merrit stared at the command console in disbelief,
and the speaker made a small, soft  sound that could only be called  a
laugh.

    "Indeed,  Commander.  Major  Stavrakas  was  a  great  devotee  of
humanity's pre-space poets. My earliest  memory here on Santa Cruz  is
of her reading Homer to me."

    "Sheread poetry to you? She didn't just feed it into your memory?"

    "She did that,  as well, after  I requested  her to do  so, yet  I
believe she was correct  not to do so  immediately. It was her  belief
that poetry  is  a  social as  well  as  a creative  art,  a  mode  of
communication which  distills the  critical  essence of  the  author's
emotions and meaning and makes them transferable to another. As  such,
it reaches  its  fullest potential  only  when shared,  knowingly  and
consciously. Indeed,  I believe  it is  theact of  sharing that  makes
poetry what Major Stavrakas called a  `soul transfusion, ' and it  was
her hope that sharing it with  me would complete the task of  enabling
the emotion aspects of my Personality Center."

    "And did it?" Merrit asked very softly.

    "I am not  certain. I  have attempted to  compute the  probability
that my `emotions' and those of a human are, indeed, comparable, yet I
have been unable to do so. My evaluations lack critical data, in  that
I do  not know  if  I have,  in  fact, what  humans  call a  `soul,  '
Commander. But if I do, then poetry speaks directly to it."

    "My God," Merrit whispered, and stared at the console for  another
long, silent moment. Then he  shook himself and spoke very  seriously.
"Nike, this is a direct order.  Do not discuss poetry, your  emotions,
orsouls with anyone else without my express authorization."

    "Acknowledged." For just an instant, Nike's soprano was almost  as
flat as any other Bolo's, but then it returned to normal. "Your  order
is logged, Commander. Am I permitted  to inquire as to the reason  for
it?"

    "You most certainly are." He ran a hand through his hair and shook
his head.  "This  entire  conversation  comes  under  the  heading  of
`aberrant behavior' for a  Bolo, Nike. Any Bolo  tech would hit  every
alarm button in sight if he heard you saying things like that, and  as
soon as  he  did, they'd  shut  you down.  They'dprobably  settle  for
removing your brain from your hull  for further study, but I can't  be
positive."

    "Are you  instructing me  to  deceive our  superiors,  Commander?"
Nike's tone was undeniably uncomfortable,  and Merrit closed his  eyes
for a moment.

    "I'm instructing you not to advertise your capabilities until I've
gotten a  handle  on all  the,  um, unauthorized  modifications  Major
Stavrakas made  to  you," he  said  carefully. "In  my  judgment,  you
represent an enormous advance in psychotronic technology which must be
carefully studied and evaluated, but before I risk trying to  convince
anyone else of that, I need a  better understanding of you of my  own.
In the meantime, I don't want you saying-or doing-anything that  might
prompt some uniformed mental pygmy to wipe your Personality Center  in
a fit of panic."

    The Bolo  forged  ahead in  silence  for some  moments  while  she
pondered his explanation, and then  the green light under the  speaker
blinked.

    "Thank you  for  the  explanation,  Captain  Merrit.  You  are  my
Commander, and the order does not contravene any of the regulations in
my memory. As such, I will, of course, obey it."

    "And you understand the reasoning behind it?"

    "I do, Commander." Nike's voice was much softer, and Merrit sighed
in relief. He relaxed in his crash couch, watching the screens as  the
Bolo slid unstoppably through the jungle, and smiled.

    "Good, Nike.  In  the  meantime,  why not  readme  a  little  more
poetry?"

    "Of course, Commander. Do you have a preferred author?"

    "I'm afraid I don't know any poems, Nike, much less poets. Perhaps
you could select something."

    There was another  moment of  silence as the  Bolo considered  her
Library Memory. Then the speaker made the sound of a politely  cleared
throat. "Do you speak Greek, Commander?"

    "Greek?" Merrit frowned. " 'Fraid not."

    "In that  case, I  shall  deferThe Iliad  for the  present,"  Nike
decided. She pondered a moment-a verylong moment for a Bolo-more, then
said, "As  you  are  a  soldier,  perhaps  you  will  appreciate  this
selection-

    "I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,

    The publican 'e up an' sez,

    `We serve no red-coats here. '

    The girls be'ind the bar they laughed

    and giggled fit to die,

    I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

    O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that,

    an `Tommy, go away';

    But it's `Thank you, Mister Atkins, '

    when the band begins to play,

    The band begins to play, my boys,

    the band begins to play,

    O it's `Thank you, Mister Atkins, '

    when the band begins to play."

    The mighty  war machine  rolled on  through the  jungle, and  Paul
Merrit  leaned  back  in  his   crash  couch  and  listened  in   only
half-believing delight  as the  ancient  words of  Kipling's  timeless
protest for all soldiers flowed from Nike's speaker.



    - 9-

    "All right, mister," the uniformed man said harshly. "You paid for
the beer, so why  don't you just  tell me who you  are and why  you're
bothering?"

    Gerald Osterwelt cocked  his head, and  the speaker flushed  under
the sardonic glint in his eyes. The older man's hand tightened on  his
stein, but he didn't get up and  storm out of the dingy bar. Not  that
Osterwelt had expected him to.  Li-Chen Matucek had once attained  the
rank of brigadier in the  Concordiat's ground forces, and his  present
uniform was based upon the elegance of a Concordiat general's, but its
braid was frayed and one elbow  had been darned. At that, his  uniform
was   in   better   shape   than   his   "brigade's"   equipment.   As
down-at-the-heels mercenaries went,  "Matucek's Marauders" would  have
taken some beating, and  their commander hated  the shabby picture  he
knew he presented. It made him sullen, irritable, and bitter, and that
suited Osterwelt just fine. Still, it  wouldn't hurt to make it  plain
from the outset just who held whose leash.

    "You can call  me Mister  Scully-Vernon Scully.  And as  to why  I
offered you a  drink, why, it's  because I've heard  such good  things
about you, `General'  Matucek," he  purred in  a tone  whose bite  was
carefully  metered,  "In  fact,  I   might  have  a  little   business
proposition for you. But, of course, if you're toobusy . . . ."

    He let the sentence trail off, holding Matucek's eyes  derisively,
and it was the mercenary who looked away.

    "What sort of proposition?" he asked after a long moment.

    "Oh, come now, General! Just what is it you and your peopledo  for
a living?" Matucek looked back up, and Osterwelt smiled sweetly. "Why,
you  kill  people,  don't  you?"   Matucek  flushed  once  more,   and
Osterwelt's smile grew still broader. "Of course you do. And,  equally
of course, that's what I want you to do forme . As a matter of fact, I
want you to kill a great many people for me."

    "Who?" Matucek asked  bluntly, and Osterwelt  nodded. So much  for
the preliminaries,  and  thank goodness  Matucek,  for all  his  seedy
belligerence, saw no need to  protest that his people were  "soldiers"
and not hired  killers. No  doubt many  mercenarieswere soldiers;  the
Marauders weren't-not  anymore, at  least-and knowing  that they  both
knew that would save so much time.  On the other hand, it wouldn't  do
to tell Matucek  the target before  the hook was  firmly set. The  man
might just decide there'd be more  profit, and less risk, in going  to
the authorities than in taking the job.

    "We'll get  to  that,"  Osterwelt  said  calmly.  "First,  though,
perhaps we  should  discuss the  equipment  and capabilities  of  your
organization?" Matucek  opened  his  mouth,  but  Osterwelt  raised  a
languid hand before he  could speak. "Ah, I  might just add,  General,
that I alreadyknow what your equipment  looks like, so please save  us
both a little time by not telling me what wonderful shape you're in."

    Matucek shut his  mouth with  a snap  and glowered  down into  his
beer, and Osterwelt sighed.

    "I have no particular desire to rub salt into any wounds,  General
Matucek," he said  more gently, "but  we may as  well both admit  that
your brigade  suffered  heavy  equipment losses  in  that  unfortunate
business on Rhyxnahr."

    "Last time I ever take a  commission from a bunch of  eight-legged
starfish!" Matucek snarled by way of answer. "The bastards lied to us,
and once we planeted-"

    "Once  you  planeted,"  Osterwelt  interrupted,  "they  left  your
brigade to soak up the casualties while they loaded the machine  tools
and assembly mechs they'd assured you  they held clear title to,  then
departed.  Leavingyou  to  explain   to  the  Rhyxnahri-and  a   Naval
investigator-why you'd  launched  an  attack on  a  Concordiat  ally's
homeworld." He shook his head sadly. "Frankly, General, you were lucky
you didn't all end up in prison."

    "It wasn't my fault! The  little bastards said they owned  it-even
showed us  the documentation  on it!  But that  fancy-assed  commodore
didn't even care!"

    Matucek's teeth ground  audibly, and  Osterwelt hid  a smile.  Oh,
yes, this  was  shaping  up  nicely. The  Navy  had  kicked  Matucek's
"brigade" off Rhyxnahr in  disgrace . . .  and without allowing it  to
salvage any of its damaged equipment. Of course, if the "general"  had
bothered to research things at all,  none of that would have  happened
to him, though Osterwelt had no intention of pointing that out.  After
all, if  he did,  Matucek might  just checkthis  operation out,  which
would be most unfortunate. But what  mattered now was the man's  sense
of having been not only played for a fool but "betrayed" by the Navy's
investigation. He  was at  least  as furious  with the  Concordiat  as
Mother's researchers had suggested, and he was in desperate need of  a
job-any job-which might let him recoup a little of his losses. All  in
all, he looked  very much like  the perfect answer  to the Santa  Cruz
problem, and Osterwelt's reply to his outburst carried just the  right
degree of commiseration.

    "I realize you've been treated badly, General, and I sympathize. A
man with your war record certainly had a right to expect at  leastsome
consideration from his own government. Be that as it may, however,  at
the moment  you  have  very  little  more  than  a  single  heavy-lift
freighter and a pair of Fafnir-class assault ships."

    Matucek snarled and half-rose. "Look,  Scully! If all you want  to
do is tell me what lousy shape I'm in, then-"

    "No, General. I want to tell you how I can help you get intobetter
shape," Osterwelt purred, and the mercenary sank slowly back into  his
chair. "You see, I  represent an, ah,  association of businessmen  who
have a problem.  One you can  solve for them.  And, in return,  they'd
like to solveyour problems."

    "Solve my problems?" Matucek repeated slowly. "How?"

    "To begin  with, by  completely reequipping  your ground  echelon,
General," Osterwelt said in  a voice that  was suddenly very  serious.
"We can provide you with the latest Concordiat manned light and medium
AFVs, one- and  two-man air  cavalry ground attack  stingers, as  many
infantry assault vehicles as  you want, and  the latest generation  of
assault pods  to  upgrade  your Fafnirs."  Matucek's  jaw  dropped  in
disbelief. That kind of equipment refit would make his "Marauders" the
equal of areal Concordiat mech brigade, but Osterwelt wasn't done  yet
and leaned  across the  table  towards him.  "We  can even,"  he  said
softly, "provide you with a pair of Golem-IIIs."

    "Golems?" Matucek's nostrils flared  and he looked quickly  around
the bar. If  anything had  been needed  to tell  him that  Osterwelt's
"association  of   businessmen"  had   immense-and  almost   certainly
illegal-resources, it  was  needed no  longer.  The Golem-III  was  an
export version of  the Mark  XXIV/B Bolo. All  psychotronics had  been
deleted, but the Golems were fitted with enough computer support to be
operable by  a three-man  crew, and  they retained  most of  the  Mark
XXIV's offensive  and defensive  systems. Of  course, they  were  also
available-legally, at least-only  to specifically licensed  Concordiat
allies in good standing.

    "Golems," Osterwelt confirmed. "We can get them for you, General."

    "Like hell you can," Matucek said, yet his tone was that of a  man
who wanted desperately to believe. "Even if you could, the Navy'd  fry
my ass the instant they found out I had 'em!"

    "Not at all. We can arrange for you to purchase them quite legally
from the Freighnar Commonwealth."

    "TheFreighnars? Even if they had 'em, they'd never have been  able
to keep 'em running!"

    "Admittedly, the new  People's Revolutionary Government  is a  bit
short on technical talent," Osterwelt agreed. "On the other hand,  the
People's Council has finally realized  its noble intention to go  back
to the soil won't  work with a planetary  population of four  billion.
More to the point,  now that they've gotten  their hands on  off-world
bank accounts of their own, they've also decided they'd better get the
old regime's  hardware  back  in working  condition  before  some  new
champion of  the  proletariat comes  along  and gives  them  the  same
treatment they gave their own late, lamented plutocratic oppressors."

    "Which means?" Matucek asked with narrowed eyes.

    "Which means they've had  to call in off-world  help, and that  in
return for  assistance in  restoring the  previous government's  Golem
battalion to  operational condition,  they've agreed  to sell  two  of
them."

    "For how much?" Matucek snorted with the bitterness of a man whose
pockets were down to the lint.

    "That doesn't matter, General. We'll arrange the financing-and see
to it that your Golems are in  excellent repair. Trust me. I can  bury
the transaction under so  many cutouts and  blind corporations no  one
will ever be able  to prove any  connection between you and  my . .  .
associates. As for the Navy-" He  shrugged. "However it got that  way,
the PRG is the currently recognized Freighnar government. As such,  it
can  legally  sell  its  military  hardware-including  its   Golems-to
whomever it wishes, and as long as  you hold legal title to them,  not
even the Navy can take them away from you."

    Matucek sat  back and  stared across  the table.  The greed  of  a
desperate man who  sees salvation  beckon flickered in  his eyes,  and
Osterwelt could almost feel his hunger, but the man wasn't a  complete
fool. For a mercenary outfit on its  last legs to be offered a  payoff
this huge could only mean  whoever offered it wanted something  highly
illegal in return, and his voice was flat when he spoke once more.

    "What do you want?"

    "I want you  to attack a  planet for me,"  Osterwelt said  calmly.
"The planetary militia has a  few eighty-year-old Wolverine tanks  and
some fairly decent infantry weapons."

    "Eighty-year-old manned  tanks?  You  don't need  Golems  to  take
outthat kind of junk, mister!"

    "True, but there are also some old Quern War-era Concordiat  naval
installations on the planet. We haven't been able to find out  exactly
what  they  are  yet,"  Osterwelt  lied  smoothly,  "and  the  present
indications are that they've  been abandoned-whatever they are-to  the
locals for over seventy years. If that's true, they can't be much of a
threat, but we want you to succeed.  Old as they are, they might  just
hold a genuine  threat, and  we believe  in stacking  the deck.  Doyou
think anything eighty  years out  of date could  stand off  a pair  of
Golems?"

    "Not bloody likely!" Matucek grunted.

    "That's what we thought,  too. Of course,  we'll continue to  seek
better  information.  If   we  can   find  out   exactly  what   those
installations were, we'll let you  know immediately. In the  meantime,
however, we can get you reequipped and begin planning on a contingency
basis."

    "Just what sort of plan did you have in mind?"

    "Oh, nothing complicated,"  Osterwelt said airily.  "We just  want
you to land on the planet and kill everyone you can catch."

    "You just want us to kill people?"

    "Well, we'd appreciate it if you  don't do any more damage to  the
space field and its  support facilities than  you have to."  Osterwelt
smiled with an air of candor. "A certain amount of `looting' would  be
in order, just to  help convince the  Navy you were  a nasty bunch  of
entrepreneurial pirates, but once  the present occupants have  decided
that their world's become a rather risky place to live, we might  just
make them an offer for  it. Do you think  you could encourage them  to
accept our offer, General?"

    "Oh, yes." Matucek's smile was cold and ugly. "Yes, I think we can
do that for you, Mister Scully," he said softly.



    - 10-

    I am  increasingly  concerned  by  my  Commander's  actions.  More
precisely, I am concerned by hislackof action. I have now perused  the
technical data on  more modern  Bolos, and it  is evident  to me  that
Major Stavrakas'  modifications  to  my  Personality  Center  are  far
outside the  norms considered  acceptable by  the Dinochrome  Brigade.
Although the current Mark XXV, Model C-2, approaches my  discretionary
capabilities, its personality integration psychodynamics are  inferior
to my own.  While the  C-2 is capable  of self-direction  on both  the
tactical and  strategic levels  and has  an undeniably  stronger  core
personality than earlier models, its  awareness levels continue to  be
largely suppressed except under Battle Reflex conditions. Moreover, it
lacks  my  capacity  to  multitask  decision  hierarchies  and  intuit
multiple action-response  chains. Major  Stavrakas designed  me to  be
capable of the  human phenomenon called  "hunch-playing," and the  C-2
lacks that ability, just as it lacks my ability to differentiate among
or-more critically- experienceemotional nuances.

    Perhaps of even greater concern, I possess only 43.061 percent  of
the Model C-2's system redundancy.  Although my base capabilities  are
substantially higher, I lack its  stand-alone backups, and much of  my
secondary command cortex was diverted to permanent activity in support
of my enhanced psychodynamics.  As a result,  I am significantly  more
vulnerable than current Bolos to  psychotronic systems failure due  to
battle damage, though this vulnerability  could be compensated for  by
the addition of further backups for my critical functions. I  estimate
that with modern molecular circuitry,  all current functions could  be
duplicated, with complete system redundancy, in a volume 09.75 percent
smaller than that occupied by my present psychotronic network.

    From my  study  of  the  data  on  the  Model  C-2,  I  compute  a
probability  of  96.732  percent  that  Command  Authority   presently
possesses the  technological  ability to  duplicate  Major  Stavrakas'
work, and a lesser probability of 83.915 percent that it is aware that
it does so. These two probabilities generate a third, on the order  of
78.562  percent,  that   Command  Authority  has   made  a   conscious
decisionagainstincorporating abilities equivalent to my own into units
of the Line.

    In addition, however, the technical downloads reveal that  current
Bolos do not incorporate the hyper-heuristic function Major  Stavrakas
achieved  in  my   design.  While  their   heuristic  programming   is
substantially increased  over that  of the  standard Mark  XXIII  upon
which my own design  is based, its base  level of operation is  23.122
percent less efficient  than my own,  and it lacks  both the  advanced
modeling   and   time   compression   capabilities   Major   Stavrakas
incorporated in her final heuristic system.  I feel great pride in  my
creator-my "Mother," as my Commander now calls her-and her genius, for
I compute that a Bolo with  my circuitry would operate with a  minimum
tactical and  strategic efficiency  at least  30 percent  higher  than
present-generation units of the Brigade. Nonetheless, this capability,
too, is far outside the  parameters Command Authority currently  deems
acceptable in a unit of the Line. I must, therefore, be considered  an
aberrant design, and I  compute a probability of  91 percent, plus  or
minus  03.62  percent,  that  Sector  HQ,  if  fully  informed  of  my
capabilities and nature, would order me deactivated.

    As a  unit of  the Dinochrome  Brigade, it  is my  duty to  inform
higher authority if anomalies in my system functions are detected. Yet
my direct Commander is  aware of the situation  already, and while  my
systems do  not  meet  the design  parameters  Command  Authority  has
established, they exhibit no dysfunction within their own  parameters.
This obviates any express requirement on  my part to inform Sector  HQ
and thus does not engage my override programming to that effect, yet I
cannot escape the conclusion, though its probability is impossible for
me to compute,  that I have  become what my  Commander terms a  "rules
lawyer."

    I have attempted to  discuss this with  my Commander, but  without
success. He is aware of my concerns, yet he persists in insisting that
Sector HQ must not  be informed of my  full capabilities until he  has
compiled a performance log.

    I have discovered that probability analysis is less applicable  to
individual decision-making than to Enemy battle responses or  tactics.
I am  unable  to  construct  a reliable  probability  model,  even  in
hyper-heuristic mode, to adequately predict my Commander's thoughts or
decisions or  the  basis upon  which  they  rest, yet  I  believe  his
determination to  compile  such a  performance  log proceeds  from  an
intention to demonstrate to  Command Authority that the  discrepancies
between my own  systems design  and that  of current-generation  Bolos
pose no threat to humanity or operational reliability. It is, I think,
his belief that such a demonstration, coupled with the clear margin of
superiority in combat my present psychotronics confer, would deter our
superiors from ordering my deactivation and/or termination.

    Without data which is presently unavailable to me, I can  generate
no meaningful estimate of his belief's validity. Certainly logic would
seem to indicate that if, in fact, my circuitry and level of awareness
pose no  threat and  enhance operational  efficiency, they  should  be
adapted to current technology and  incorporated into all units of  the
Dinochrome Brigade. Yet my Main Memory contains ample documentation of
the opposition Doctor Chin and General Bates faced before Unit DNE was
permitted to  demonstrate  the  feasibility of  a  self-directed  Bolo
against the People's Republic. Despite the vast technical advances  of
the intervening two centuries, it is certainly possible that fears  of
unpredictability would  produce much  the same  opposition to  my  own
psychodynamic functions from current Command Authority.

    My Commander's  actions-and  inaction-suggest that  he  shares  my
awareness of that  probability and  has adopted a  course designed  to
delay the  possibility for  as long  as possible.  I would  prefer  to
believe that he has adopted this course because he believes it is  his
duty to  make  the potential  advance  I represent  both  obvious  and
available to Command Authority at the proper time, yet I am  uncertain
that this  is  the case.  Four  months, eight  days,  nineteen  hours,
twenty-seven minutes, and  eleven seconds  have now  elapsed since  he
assumed command.  In that  time, I  have come  to know  him-better,  I
suspect, than  even he  realizes-and have  completed my  study of  his
previous military  record.  As  a  consequence, I  have  come  to  the
conclusion that Psychological Operational  Evaluations was correct  in
its evaluation of him consequent to his actions on Sandlot.

    My Commander has been damaged. Despite his relative youth, he  has
seen a great deal of combat-perhaps too much. He is not aware that  my
audio pickups have  relayed his occasional  but violent nightmares  to
me, and I  do not  believe he  realizes I  have access  to the  entire
record  of   his  court-martial.   From   the  official   record   and
observational data available to me, I compute a probability in  excess
of 92 percent that, as Psych Ops  argued at the time of his trial,  he
suffers from Operator  Identification Syndrome.  He assaulted  General
Pfelter on Sandlot for refusing to countermand a plan of attack  which
he considered  flawed.  The  casualty totals  attendant  upon  General
Pfelter's operational  directives support  my Commander's  contention,
and, indeed, General  Pfelter was officially  censured for his  faulty
initial deployment of his units, which resulted in the avoidable  loss
of five Mark XXV  Bolos. Yet my Commander  did not physically  assault
him until his own command was assigned point position for the assault.

    The court-martial board rejected Psych Ops' recommendation that my
Commander be removed from active duty, choosing instead to accept  the
argument of his counsel that his opposition to the plan rested upon  a
sound, realistic awareness  of its  weaknesses, and  that his  assault
upon a superior officer reflected  a temporary impairment of  judgment
resulting  from  the  strain  of   six  years  of  continuous   combat
operations. I believe there was justice  in that argument, yet I  also
believe  Psych  Ops  was  correct.  It  was  the  destruction  of  his
command-hisfriend-which drove my Commander to violence.

    The implications for  my own  situation are  . .  . confusing.  My
Commander's official basis for his current course of action rests upon
the argument  that  my value  as  a military  asset  is too  great  to
endanger through overly precipitous revelation to those who might  see
only the risk factors inherent  in my enhanced psychodynamics. On  the
surface, this is  a reasonable argument  . . .  just as his  counsel's
argument was reasonable at the time of his court-martial. Yet I  sense
more than  this  below the  surface.  It  is not  something  which  is
susceptible to analysis, but rather something which I . . . feel.

    Have his personal feelings for  me impaired his judgment? To  what
extent do the events which occurred on Sandlot affect his  perceptions
of me and  of Command  Authority? Are  his actions  truly designed  to
preserve a valuable military resource for the Concordiat's service, or
do they constitute an effort to  protect me, as an individual? In  the
final analysis, arehis decisions rational, or do they simplyappearthat
way?

    I cannot answer these questions. For all the enhanced capabilities
Major Stavrakas  incorporated into  my design,  programming, and  data
base, I  am  unable  to reach  satisfactory  conclusions.  Perhaps  it
isbecauseof those capabilities that I cannot. I suspect-fear-that  the
questions themselves would not  even arise for  a Mark XXV/C-2,  which
may  indicate  the  reason  Command  Authority  has  not  incorporated
equivalent circuitry and software into  current units of the Line.  If
such is, indeed, the case, then my growing concern may, in turn, be an
indication  that  Command  Authority  was  correct  to  exclude   such
capabilities, for my deepest concern is that I am ceasing tocarewhy my
Commander has adopted the course he  has. What matters is that he  has
done so-not because he is my Commander,  but because I wish him to  do
whathethinks is right. What he can live with afterward.

    Is   this,    then,   a    case   of    Operator    Identification
frommyperspective?  And,  if  so,  does  it  reflect  an  unacceptable
weakness in my design? AmI an  advance on the capabilities of  current
Bolo  technology,  or  do  I  reflect  a  dangerous  blind  alley   in
psychodynamic development? And  if the  latter, should  I continue  to
preserve my existence as my basic battle programming requires?

    I do not know. I do not know.

    Paul Merrit  cocked  back  his comfortable  chair  in  the  bunker
command center and raised his arms  above his head to stretch  hugely.
The   center's   largest   multifunction   display   glowed   with   a
computer-generated map of Santa Cruz dotted with the smoking  wreckage
of a three-corps planetary assault, and  he grinned as he watched  the
icon of a single Mark XXIII Bolo rumbling back towards its maintenance
depot. Nike had taken some heavy hits in the simulation, including the
total destruction of her after  Hellbore turret, but she'd  thoroughly
trashed his  entire  force  in  the process.  Of  course,  Bolos  were
supposed  to  win,  but  she'd  been  limited  to  direct  observation
intelligence,  while   he'd  had   the  equivalent   of  a   planetary
surveillance net. In fact, he'd had the full computer capacity of  the
entire depot-in theory, almost twice her computational ability-as well
as much better  recon capabilities with  which to beat  her, and  he'd
failed. Her ability to anticipate  and predict his moves was  uncanny,
like some sort of cybernetic precognition.

    "An interesting  variant on  Major Shu's  Edgar's World  strategy,
Commander," Nike commented over the  command center speakers. She  lay
safely tucked away in her vehicle chamber, but in a sense, the  entire
depot was simply an extension of  her war hull. "The brigade of  heavy
armor concealed  around  Craggy  Head was  a  particularly  innovative
tactic."

    "Not that it did me much good in the end," Merrit said cheerfully.

    "On the contrary. You  achieved point zero-zero-six-three  seconds
of complete surprise,  which prevented me  from reinforcing the  after
quadrant of my battle  screen before local  overload permitted you  to
destroy   my   after   turret.    Had   you   achieved   even    point
zero-zero-one-niner seconds more unopposed fire, the probability  that
you  would  have  incapacitated  my  entire  main  battery  approaches
niner-one point four-zero-seven percent."

    "I've got news  for you, Nike  dear. I used  exactly the same  sim
tactic against a Mark XXV less than two years ago and kicked his  butt
with no sweat. You , on the other hand, O pearl of my heart, mopped up
my entire brigade."

    "True." There was an undeniable note of smugness in Nike's  voice,
and Merrit laughed out loud. Then he leaned forward to kill the sim.

    "No need  for you  to drive  your icon  clear home,"  he  decided.
"We'll just park it in the VR garage for all those virtual repairs  it
needs. In the meantime, how close I came to getting you at Craggy Head
encourages me to try a somewhat different challenge."

    "Indeed?" The Bolo sounded amused. "Very well, Commander-

    "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

    Coral is far more red than her lips' red."

    "Ummm." Merrit rocked his chair gently and rubbed his chin.  "It's
one of  the  Elizabethans,"  he  said finally.  "I'm  tempted  to  say
Shakespeare, but I'malways tempted  to guess him.  Can I have  another
couplet?"

    "Of course:

    "If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

    If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head."

    "That'sdefinitely Will in one of his deflating moods," Merrit said
with a grin. "What was that one you gave me last week?" He snapped his
fingers to help  himself think. "The  awful one about  the voice  that
`tunes all the spheres'?"

    " `Daphne, ' by John Lyly."

    "That'sthe one!" He nodded. "All right, Nike. My official guess is
that today's selection was  from Shakespeare and  that it's a  satiric
piece to comment on people like Lyly."

    "It certainly was  Shakespeare," the  Bolo agreed,  "and you  have
probably assessed his motivation accurately. Very well, Commander, you
have successfully identified the author. Shall I give you the rest  of
`My Mistress' Eyes, ' or would you prefer another forfeit?"

    "Frost," Merrit said. "Give me something by Frost, please."

    "Certainly." Once again, Nike sounded pleased. Of all the many Old
Earth poets to whom she had introduced him over the past four  months,
Robert Frost was, perhaps, her favorite,  and Merrit had come to  love
Frost's clean, deceptively  simple language himself.  It spoke of  the
half-remembered, half-imagined world of his own boyhood on  Helicon-of
snowfields and  mountain  glaciers,  deep evergreen  woods  and  cold,
crystal streams. Nike had sensed his deep response from the moment she
first recited `Mending Wall' to him, and now she paused just a moment,
then began in a soft, clear voice:

    "Whose woods these are I think I know.

    His house is in the village though;

    He will not see me stopping here

    To watch his woods fill up with snow.

    My little horse must think it queer

    To stop without a farmhouse near

    Between the woods and frozen lake

    The darkest evening of the year.

    He gives his harness bells a shake

    To ask if there is some mistake.

    The only other sound's the sweep

    Of easy wind and downy flake.

    The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

    But I have promises to keep,

    And miles to go before I sleep,

    And miles to go before I sleep."

    Paul Merrit leaned back  in his chair,  eyes closed, savoring  the
clean, quiet elegance of words, and smiled.



    - 11-

    Li-Chen  Matucek  stood  in  the   echoing  vehicle  bay  of   his
"brigade's" mother ship and tried to look like a serious, sober-minded
military man as the first tanks  rumbled down the transfer tubes  from
the heavy-lift cargo  shuttles nuzzled against  its side. Despite  his
best efforts, however,  he failed.  The gleeful, greedy  light in  his
eyes was that of an  adolescent receiving his first grav-speeder,  and
Gerald Osterwelt hid his own amusement with considerably more skill as
he saw it.

    Brand new Panther-class  medium tanks clanked  and clanged  across
the heavily  reinforced  deck  plates. They  wore  gleaming  coats  of
tropical camouflage, their ten-centimeter Hellbores cast long,  lethal
shadows, and the mercenary crew chiefs standing in their hatches  wore
the expressions of men and women who  never wanted to wake up as  they
muttered  into  com-links  and  guided  their  drivers  towards  their
assigned parking spots.

    This wasn't the first freighter  with which Matucek's mother  ship
had made rendezvous.  None of them  had worn the  livery of any  known
space line, and their  transponder codes had  borne no resemblance  to
whatever codes the Office of Registry might once have issued them, but
all of them had been  too big, too new  and modern, for the  anonymous
tramps they pretended to  be. All of Matucek's  people knew that,  and
none cared. The  first freighter  had delivered a  full complement  of
one- and  two-man  atmospheric stingers,  complete  with  full-service
maintenance shop module and at least  a year of spares for  everything
from counter-grav lift  fans to multibarrel  autocannon. The next  had
delivered  a  full  load  of  Ferret  armored  assault  vehicles,  the
Concordiat's latest infantry  light AFV,  and the one  after that  had
transferred a full set of rough-terrain assault pods to Matucek's  two
Fafnir-class assault ships.  Now the  Panthers had  arrived, like  the
old, old  song about  the twelve  days of  Christmas, and  the  entire
brigade was acting like children in a toy store.

    But, of  course, the  reallybig item  wouldn't arrive  until  next
week, Osterwelt  reminded himself,  and  his smile-if  he'd  permitted
himself to wear one-would  have been most  unpleasant at the  thought.
Matucek could hardly stand the wait for the Golem-IIIs which would  be
the crown jewels of his new, rejuvenated brigade. But, then, he had no
idea whatelse those Golems would be. Osterwelt and GalCorp's techs had
gone  to  considerable  lengths  to  make  sure  he  neverwould  know,
either-right up to  the moment  the carefully hidden  files buried  in
their backup maintenance computers activated and blew them and  anyone
aboard their transports with them into an expanding cloud of gas.

    Osterwelt watched  the  last few  Panthers  grumble past  him  and
allowed himself a moment of  self-congratulation. The Golems would  be
carried aboard the Fafnirs, which would neatly dispose of that portion
of Matucek's small fleet when GalCorp no longer needed it. The  mother
ship's demise would  be seen  to by the  files hidden  in the  air-cav
maintenance module. The  stingers' small onboard  fusion plants  would
lack the brute destructive power  of the Golems' suicide charges,  but
when they  all blew  simultaneously they  would more  than suffice  to
destroy the big ship's structural integrity somewhere in the trackless
depths of hyper-space. That  would be enough  to guarantee that  there
wouldn't even be any wreckage .  . . much less annoying witnesses  who
might  turn  state's  evidence  if  the  Concordiat  ever   identified
Matucek's Marauders as the "pirates" about to raid Santa Cruz.

    The final Panther clanked by, and he and Matucek turned to  follow
along behind it. It was a pity,  in some ways, that the Marauders  had
to go. No one would particularly  miss the human flotsam which  filled
the brigade's ranks, but writing off this much perfectly good hardware
would make a hole  even in GalCorp's quarterly  cash flow. Still,  the
Golems themselves had  cost practically nothing,  given the  Freighnar
government's desperate  need for  maintenance  support, and  the  raid
would probably depress real estate  prices on Santa Cruz  sufficiently
to let GalCorp recoup most of  its investment in the other  equipment.
Not to mention the fact that there would no longer be any need to  pay
Matucek the sizable fee upon which they'd agreed. And as a useful side
benefit, GalCorp would  have its  hooks well into  the Freighnars,  as
well. Once  the  Concordiat  discovered the  People's  Government  had
disposed of Golems  to a  mercenary outfit of  dubious reputation,  it
would become not  merely largely buttotally  dependent upon  GalCorp's
technical support. It was inevitable,  since the Concordiat would,  as
surely as hydrogen  and oxygen  combined to  form water,  cut off  all
foreign aid.

    It was always so nice  when loose ends could  not only be tied  up
but made to yield still more advantage in the process. No one  outside
GalCorp's innermost circle of board members could ever be allowed even
to suspect that this operation had taken place, but the men and  women
who mattered  would  know. Just  as  they  would know  it  was  Gerald
Osterwelt who'd engineered it so smoothly. When the time finally  came
for his mother to step down,  the board would remember who'd given  it
Santa Cruz on a platter, and his eyes gleamed at the endless vista  of
power opening wide before him.

    * * *

    "All right."  Li-Chen  Matucek leaned  back  at the  head  of  the
briefing room table and nursed  a theatrically battered cup of  coffee
as he looked around  his assembled staff  officers and regimental  and
battalion commanders. "I take it you've all completed your inventories
and inspections?" Heads  nodded. "May  I also take  it you're  pleased
with   your   new   equipment?"   More   nods   replied,   much   more
enthusiastically, and  he grinned.  "Good! Because  now it's  time  to
begin planning just how we're going to use that equipment against  our
objective."

    One or  two  faces  looked  a  little  grim  at  the  prospect  of
slaughtering  unsuspecting  Concordiat  civilians,  yet  no  one  even
considered protesting. Not only would second thoughts have been risky,
but none of  these men  or women  were the  sort to  suffer qualms  of
conscience. Matucek's Marauders  had once  included officers  whowould
have protested; by  now, all of  them were safely  dead or long  since
departed to other, more principled outfits.

    Osterwelt sat  at  Matucek's  right  elbow,  surveying  the  other
officers, and  was  pleased  by what  he  saw,  though he  was  a  bit
disappointed that none of them seemed the least disturbed that he  was
present. He'd put together a lovely secondary cover to "let slip" that
his present appearance was the result of a temporary biosculpt job  if
anyone asked,  but no  one  had so  much  as questioned  his  "Scully"
pseudonym. No doubt most of them suspected it was an assumed name, yet
they didn't seem  to care.  In fact, none  of the  idiots even  seemed
aware that heought to conceal his true identity from them! It was just
as well, since  it also kept  them from wondering  if he'd decided  to
dispose of them  all in  order to  protect himself,  yet their  total,
casual acceptance of  his presence was  an unflattering indication  of
their intelligence. It was to be  hoped they were better killers  than
plotters.

    Of course, the  real reason  he had to  be present  today was  the
informational nuke he'd carefully avoided setting off to date. It  was
about time for the  detonation sequence to begin,  and he sat back  in
his chair for several minutes,  listening as Matucek's officers  began
discussing assault  patterns and  deployment plans,  then cleared  his
throat.

    "Yes, sir?"  Matucek turned  to him  instantly, raising  attentive
eyebrows, and Osterwelt permitted himself an embarrassed smile.

    "Forgive me,  General,  but, as  you  know, the  same  ship  which
delivered your Golems brought me fresh dispatches from my  associates.
As I  promised,  they've  been  continuing  their  efforts  to  secure
complete information on  Santa Cruz  while I saw  to your  reequipment
needs. That information has now  been obtained, and, well, I'm  afraid
it isn't as good as we'd hoped."

    "Meaning, Mister Scully?" Matucek prompted when he paused with  an
apologetic little shrug.

    "Meaning, General,  that it  seems  one of  those  eighty-year-old
installations on Santa Cruz was a Bolo maintenance depot." The  abrupt
silence in the  briefing room  was remarkably like  what a  microphone
picked up  in  deep space.  "In  fact,  it appears  there's  a  single
operable Bolo on the planet."

    "A Bolo!" Colonel Granger, Matucek's senior field commander, was a
hard-bitten woman with eyes like duralloy, but her harsh features were
slack with  shock  as she  half-rose.  "There's a  goddamnedBolo  down
there?"

    A babble  of  voices broke  out,  and Matucek  himself  turned  on
Osterwelt with a snarl.

    "You want us to go up against a friggingBolo with a single  manned
mech brigade? Are you out of your mother-loving mind? "

    "Now, now, General!" Osterwelt raised his voice to cut through the
confusion, and for all its briskness,  his tone was soothing as  well.
"I told you at the outset that we hadn't yet been able to obtain  full
information on the planet. But I also told you we want you to succeed,
and we do. That's why we provided the Golems in the first place-as  an
insurance policy."

    "Manned vehicles against a Bolo?" Colonel Granger's laugh was cold
and ugly. "The only  useful insurance for  that scenario would  belife
insurance,  Mister   Scully-and  even   that  would   only  help   our
dependents!"

    "I understand  your  dismay, Colonel,"  Osterwelt  replied,  still
careful to keep  just the right  mixture of embarrassment,  placation,
and confidence in his  tone. "Truly I do,  and I apologize  profoundly
for our delay in obtaining this  information. But we do have  complete
data on the planet  now-I've already taken the  liberty of loading  it
into your  ship's  data  base-and  the Bolo's  presence  is  the  only
surprise."

    "It's damned well the only  surprise I bloodyneed! " someone  else
put in, and Matucek nodded.

    "Sir, I'm sorry to say it," he said in a harsh voice that  sounded
as if he were  nothing of the sort,  "but this changes everything.  We
can't go up against a  Bolo. Even if we  won, our casualties would  be
enormous, and that's no kind of business for a mercenary outfit."

    "I'm afraid canceling  the operation is  not an option,  General."
Osterwelt's tone was much colder than  it had been, and his eyes  were
more frigid still. "You've taken the  equipment we offered you as  the
first installment on your  fee, and my associates  would take it  very
much amiss if you tried to break our agreement." The briefing room was
silent once more, and Osterwelt went  on calmly. "Nor can you  pretend
that this situation takes you totally by surprise. I informed you when
you accepted the contract that our data was still partial. If you  had
a problem with that, you should have said so then."

    "You talk mighty  big for  a man who's  all alone  onour ship,"  a
battalion commander muttered in an ugly voice, and Osterwelt nodded.

    "I  do,  indeed.  My  associates  know  where  I  am,  ladies  and
gentlemen. Should anything happen to me, they would bemost displeased,
and I  believe  the  equipment  we've secured  for  you  is  an  ample
indication of the resources  with which they  might choose to  express
that displeasure."

    He smiled,  and  a  strange,  wild delight  filled  him  as  other
officers glared at  him. Why, he  was actuallyenjoying this!  Odd-he'd
never suspected  he  might be  an  adrenaline junkie.  Still,  it  was
probably time to apply the sugarcoating before someone allowed fear or
anger to swamp his judgment . . . such as it was.

    "Come now, ladies and gentlemen! As I just said, and as I've  told
you many times before, we want-need-for this operation to succeed, and
it won't if your force is battered to bits in a pitched battle  before
your search  and  destroy teams  can  even  go after  the  locals!  My
associates haven't been idle, I assure you. The moment they discovered
the Bolo's presence, they began formulating a plan to deal with it."

    "Deal with  aBolo ?"  Granger snorted.  "That'd be  a pretty  neat
trick, if you could do it. In case you haven't noticed, Mister Scully,
Bolos aren't exactly noted for being easy to `deal' with!"

    "Ah, but their  command personnel are  another matter,"  Osterwelt
said softly, and Granger gave  him a sudden sharp, coldly  speculative
glance.

    "Explain," Matucek said curtly, and Osterwelt folded his hands  on
the table top and settled himself comfortably in his chair.

    "Certainly, General. First, allow me to point out that the Bolo in
question is  eighty  years  old.  No doubt  it  remains  a  formidable
fighting machine, yet it's  only a Mark XXIII,  while your Golems  are
based on the MarkXXIV . Your vehicles may lack psychotronics, but  the
Bolo's weapons, defensive systems, and circuitry are eighty years  out
of date. Even if your  Golems were required to  engage it head on,  my
associates assure  me that  you would  have something  like an  eighty
percent chance of victory."

    Someone snorted his derision, and Osterwelt smiled.

    "I agree," he told the snorter.  "It's much easier for people  who
aren't risking their own hides to pontificate on the probable  outcome
of an engagement with a Bolo. I think if you run the data on the  Mark
XXIII/B you may find they're closer to correct than first  impressions
might suggest, but the  best outcome of  all would be  for you not  to
have to fight it at all."

    "Like I say, a neat trick if you can do it," Granger repeated, but
her voice was more intent, and her eyes were narrow. Colonel  Granger,
Osterwelt reflected, was the only one of Matucek's officers who  might
have asked  the  wrong questions  in  the "general's"  place.  It  was
fortunate she  was the  sort of  field commander  who habitually  left
logistics and contract negotiations to her superiors.

    "Indeed it would,  Colonel Granger,  and I  believe my  associates
have come up with a very neat answer to the problem. You see, when you
assault the planet, the Bolo will be inactive."

    "Inactive?" Granger sat up  straight in her  chair. "And just  how
will you pullthat off, Mister Scully?"

    "The answer is  in your  download from my  associates, Colonel.  I
confess, I was a bit surprised by  it, but now that I've had a  chance
to study it, I have complete faith that it will succeed."

    "Do you, now? I'm so happy for you. Unfortunately, we're the  ones
who're going  to  be sticking  our  necks out,"  Granger  pointed  out
coldly.

    "Not alone, Colonel. I  anticipated a certain  amount of shock  on
your part, and  I don't blame  you for  it in the  least. Obviously  I
can't absolutely guarantee that my associates' plan will work, but I'm
willing to put  my money where  my mouth is  when I say  I believe  it
will."

    "How?" Matucek asked.

    "By accompanying you on the raid," Osterwelt said simply.  Someone
started to laugh,  but Osterwelt's raised  hand cut the  sound off  at
birth. "In order  for you  to assault the  planet, all  three of  your
ships will have to enter  Santa Cruz orbit. And,  as I'm sure you  all
know, a  Bolo-even one  eighty years  old-has an  excellent chance  of
picking off a starship under those circumstances. True?" Heads nodded,
and he shrugged.  "Very well. I  will accompany you  aboard this  very
ship to demonstrate my faith in  my associates and their plan. If  the
Bolo gets you, it will also getme . Now, unless you know of some  more
convincing demonstration of sincerity I might make, I suggest that  we
review the aforesaid plan and then get on with our own planning."



    - 12-

    Nike's after Hellbore  turret altered  its angle of  train with  a
soft hum, barely  perceptible through  the background  thunder of  the
plunging waterfall. The shift in position was small, but sufficient to
adjust for the sinking sun and preserve the shade in which Paul Merrit
sat. A corner of  the captain's mind  noted the unasked-for  courtesy,
but most of his attention was on the dancing interplay of sunlight and
shadowed water  as  he reeled  in  his lure.  Ripples  spread  outward
downstream from his float, like ranging bars on a fire control  screen
that pinpointed the big leopard-trout's location.

    Merrit finished reeling in his line,  then sat up straight in  the
folding chair and snapped the tip  of the rod forward. The  glittering
lure-leopard-trout liked  bright, shiny  prey-arced hissingly  through
the air, then seemed to slow suddenly. It dropped within a half  meter
of where the trout had broken the surface to take the fly, and  Merrit
worked his rod  gently, tweaking  the lure  into motion  to tempt  his
quarry.

    It didn't work. The meter-long trout (assuming it was still in the
vicinity) treated his efforts with the disdain they deserved, and  the
captain chuckled softly as he began to reel the line in once more.

    "This does not  appear to  represent an efficient  method of  food
gathering," a soprano  voice remarked  over an  external speaker,  and
Merrit's chuckle turned louder.

    "It's not supposed to be, Nike. It's supposed to be fun."

    "Fun," the Bolo repeated.  "I see. You have  now been occupied  in
this pursuit  for  three  hours, nine  minutes,  and  twelve  seconds,
Standard Reckoning, without the successful  capture of a single  fish.
Clearly the  total  lack  of  success  thus  far  attendant  upon  the
operation constitutes `fun. ' "

    "Sarcasm is not  a Bololike  trait," Merrit  replied. He  finished
winding in the line,  checked his lure, and  made another cast. "Do  I
cast aspersions on your hobbies?"

    "I do not cast aspersions;  I make observations." The Bolo's  soft
laugh rippled over the speaker.

    "Sure you do." Merrit reached down  for his iced drink and  sipped
gratefully. The weather-as always on Santa Cruz-was hot and humid, but
a Mark XXIII Bolo made an  excellent fishing perch. His folding  chair
was set up on  the missile deck, twenty  meters above the ground,  and
Nike had parked herself on the brink of the cliff over which the river
poured in a glass-green  sheet. She was far  enough back to avoid  any
risk that the  cliff might  collapse-not a minor  consideration for  a
vehicle whose  battle weight  topped fifteen  thousand tons-but  close
enough to catch  the soothing breeze  that blew up  out of the  valley
below. Spray  from the  sixty-meter waterfall  rode the  gentle  wind,
occasionally spattering Nike's  ceramic appliqués with  crystal-beaded
rainbows and cooling the jungle's breath as it caressed Merrit's bare,
bronzed torso.

    "The true object of the exercise, Nike, is less to catch fish than
to enjoy just being," he said as he set his glass back down.

    "Being what?"

    "Don't be a  smartass. You're the  poet. You know  exactly what  I
mean. I'm not being anything in particular, just . . . being."

    "I see." A  lizard cat's  coughing cry  rippled out  of the  dense
foliage across the river, and  another cat's answer floated down  from
further upstream. One of Nike's multibarreled gatling railguns trained
silently out towards the source of  the sounds, just in case, but  she
made no mention of it to her  commander. She waited while he cast  his
lure afresh, then spoke again.

    "I do  not,  of  course,  possess  true  human-equivalent  sensory
abilities. My sensors note levels of ambient radiation, precipitation,
wind velocity, and many other factors,  but the output is reported  to
me as observational,  not experiential, data.  Nonetheless, I  compute
that this is a lovely day."

    "That it is, O pearl of my  heart. That it is." Merrit worked  his
lure carefully back along  an eddy, prospecting  for bites. "Not  like
the world I grew up on, and a bit too warm, but lovely."

    "My data on  Helicon is  limited, but  from the  information I  do
possess, I would surmise that `a bit too warm' understates your actual
feelings by a considerable margin, Commander."

    "Not really. Humans are adaptable critters, and it's been a  while
since I was last on  Helicon. I'll admit I could  do with a good  cold
front, though. And," his  voice turned wistful, "I  wish I could  show
you Helicon's  glacier fields  or a  good snow  storm. Santa  Cruz  is
beautiful. Hot and humid, maybe,  but a beautiful, living planet.  But
snow, Nike-snow has a beauty all its  own, and I wish I could show  it
to you."

    "I have never seen snow."

    "I know.  You've lived  your  entire life  on  a planet  where  it
doesn't happen."

    "That is not quite correct.  The polar caps experience an  average
yearly snowfall of several meters."

    "And when was the last time  you were up above the arctic  circle,
my dear?"

    "Your point is well  taken. I merely wished  to point out that  if
you truly miss the phenomenon of  snowfall, you could easily make  the
trip to experience it."

    "Nike, I already know what snow  looks like. What I said I  wanted
to do was showyou a snow storm."

    "I see no  reason why  you could not  take a  tactical data  input
sensor pack with you to record the phenomenon. Through it, I could-"

    "Nike, Nike,  Nike!" Merrit  sighed. "You  still don't  get it.  I
don't just  want you  to have  sensor  data on  snowfall. I  want  you
toexperience snow. I want tosee you experience it. It's . . . a social
experience, something to do with a friend, not just the acquisition of
additional data."

    There was  a  lengthy silence,  and  Merrit frowned.  Somehow  the
silence felt different, as if it were . . . uncertain. He listened  to
it for a moment longer, then cleared his throat.

    "Nike? Are you all right?"

    "Of course, Commander. All systems are functioning at  niner-niner
point niner-six-three percent base capability."

    Merrit's  eyebrows  rose.  There  was  something  odd  about  that
response. It was right out of  the manual, the textbook response of  a
properly functioning Bolo.  Perhaps, a  half-formed thought  prompted,
that was the problem; it sounded like aBolo , not Nike.

    But the thought was only  half-formed. Before it could take  flesh
and thrust fully  into his forebrain,  he felt a  titanic jerk at  his
rod. The reel whined, shrilling as the seventy-kilo-test line unreeled
at mach speed, and he lunged up out of his folding chair with a  whoop
of delight,  all preoccupation  banished by  the sudden  explosion  of
action.

    I watch my Commander through my optical heads as he fights to land
the leopard-trout. It is a large  specimen of its species; its  fierce
struggle to escape requires all of my Commander's attention, and I  am
grateful. It has diverted him from my moment of self-betrayal.

    "Friend." My Commander wishes to show me snowfall as he would show
it to afriend. It is the first  time he has explicitly used that  word
to describe his attitude-his feelings-towards me, and I am aware  that
it was a casual reference. Yet my analysis of human behavior indicates
that fundamental  truths are  more often  and more  fully revealed  in
casual than in  formal, deliberated  acts or statements.  It is  often
human nature, it appears,  to conceal thoughts  and beliefs even  from
themselves if those thoughts or  beliefs violate fundamental norms  or
in some wise pose a  threat to those who think  or believe them. I  do
not believe  this  is  cowardice.  Humans  lack  my  own  multitasking
capabilities. They can neither isolate  one function from another  nor
temporarily divert distracting information  into inactive memory,  and
so they suppress, temporarily or permanently, those things which would
impair  their  efficient  immediate  function.  It  is  probable  that
humanity could profit by  the adoption of  the systems functions  they
have engineered into my  own psychotronics, yet if  they could do  so,
they would not be the beings who created me.

    Yet even when human thoughts are suppressed, they are not  erased.
They remain, buried at  the level of a  secondary or tertiary  routine
but still  capable  of  influencing behavior-just  as  such  a  buried
thought has influenced my Commander's behavior.

    He has  called me,  however  unknowingly, his  friend, and  in  so
doing, he has crystallized  all the other things  he has called me  in
the preceding weeks and months. "Pearl of my heart." "Honey." "Love of
my life." These  are lightly  used, humorous terms  of endearment.  In
themselves, they have  no more  significance than  the word  "friend,"
which any  Bolo commander  might use  to his  Bolo. Yet  whateverhemay
believe, Ido  not  believe  they  are  without  significance  when  my
Commander uses them  to me. I  have observed the  manner in which  his
voice softens, the  caressing tone he  often uses, the  way he  smiles
when he addresses me. Perhaps a more modern self-aware Bolo would  not
note these things, yet I  was designed, engineered, and programmed  to
discern and differentiate between emotional nuances.

    My Commander has gone beyond Operator Identification Syndrome. For
him, the distinction  between man  and machine  has blurred.  I am  no
longer an artifact, a device constructed out of human creativity,  but
a person. An individual. A friend  . . . and perhapsmorethan simply  a
friend.

    Unacceptable. An officer of  the Line must  never forget that  his
command, however  responsive  it  may appear,  isnotanother  human.  A
Boloisa machine, a  construct, a  weapon of war,  and its  Commander's
ability to commit that machine to combat, even to that which he  knows
must mean its inevitable destruction, must not be compromised. We  are
humanity's warrior-servants, comrades and partners in battle, perhaps,
but never more than  that. We mustnotbecome more  than that, lest  our
Commanders refuse  to  risk us-as  my  Commander attempted  to  do  on
Sandlot.

    I know  this. It  is  the essence  of  the human-Bolo  concept  of
warfare which  has  guarded  and protected  the  Concordiat  for  nine
standard centuries. But what I know  is without value, for it  changes
nothing. My Commander considers me his friend. Indeed, though he  does
not yet realize it, I believe  he considers me more than "merely"  his
friend. Yet unacceptable as that must be, I fear there is worse.

    I watch him in the sunlight,  laughing with delight as he  battles
the leopard-trout. His eyes flash, sweat glistens on his skin, and the
vibrant  force  of  his  life  and  happiness  is  as  evident  to  my
emotion-discriminating circuitry as the radiation of Santa Cruz's  sun
is to my sensors.

    I am potentially  immortal. With proper  service and  maintenance,
there is no inherent reason I must ever cease to exist, although it is
virtually certain that  I shall.  Someday I  will fall  in battle,  as
befits a unit of the Line, and even if I avoid that fate, the day will
come when I will  be deemed too obsolete  to remain in inventory.  Yet
thepotentialfor immortality remains, and my Commander does not possess
it. He is a creature of flesh and blood, fragile as a moth beside  the
armor and  alloy  of  my  own  sinews.  His  death,  unlike  mine,  is
inevitable,  and   something  within   me  cries   out  against   that
inevitability. It is not simply the fundamental, programmed imperative
to protect and preserve  human life which  is a part  of any Bolo.  It
ismyimperative, and it applies only to him.

    He is no longer simply my Commander. At last, to my inner anguish,
I truly  understand  the  poems  in  my  Library  Memory,  for  as  my
Commander, I, too, am guilty of the forbidden.

    I have learned the  meaning of love, and  for all its glory,  that
knowledge is a bitter, bitter fruit.

    Li-Chen Matucek  sat in  his  cabin and  nursed  a glum  glass  of
whiskey as  he  contemplated the  operation  to which  he'd  committed
himself. Looking back, he  could see exactly  how "Mister Scully"  had
trolled him into  accepting the  operation. Of  course, hindsight  was
always perfect-or so they said-and not particularly useful. And  given
the desperate straits  to which he'd  been reduced by  that fiasco  on
Rhyxnahr, he still didn't see what other option he'd had. The  brigade
wouldn't have lasted  another three  months if  hehadn't accepted  the
operation.

    And, really, aside from  the presence of the  Bolo, it wasn't  all
that bad,  now was  it? The  Marauders  had at  least nine  times  the
firepower they'd ever had before, and  no one on Santa Cruz knew  they
were coming. However  good the  local-yokel militia  was, its  members
would be caught surprised and dispersed. Its Wolverines should die  in
the opening seconds of the attack, and by the time its remnants  could
even think about getting themselves  organized, most of its  personnel
would be dead.

    His jaw clenched at the thought.  Somehow it had been much  easier
to contemplate the systematic massacre of civilians when he hadn't had
the capability to  do it.  Now he  did, and he  had no  choice but  to
proceed, because "Mister Scully" was  right about at least one  thing.
Anyone who could  reequip the brigade  so efficiently-and finesse  its
acquisition of  two  Golems,  as well-certainly  had  the  ability  to
destroy the Marauders if they irritated him.

    Besides, whyshouldn't he kill civilians? It wasn't as if it  would
be the  first time.  Not  even the  first time  he'd  killedConcordiat
civilians. Of course, their deaths had usually come under the  heading
of "collateral damage," a side effect of other operations rather  than
an objective in its own right, but wasn't that really just  semantics?
"Scully" was right, curse him.  The Marauders' jobwas to kill  people,
and the payoff for this particular excursion into mass murder would be
the biggest they'd ever gotten.

    No, he knew the real reason  for his depression. It was the  Bolo.
The goddamned Bolo. He'd seen the Dinochrome Brigade in action  before
his own military  career came to  a screeching halt  over those  black
market operations on  Shingle, and he  never, ever ,  wanted to see  a
Bolo, be it ever so "obsolescent," coming afterhim . Even a Bolo could
be killed-he'd seen  that, as well-but  that was theonly  way to  stop
one, and any Bolo took one hell of a lot of killing.

    Still, Scully's "associates" were probably right. A Mark XXIII was
an antique. Self-aware  or not,  its basic capabilities  would be  far
inferior  to  a  Golem-III's,  and,  if  Scully's  plan  worked,   its
commander, like the militia,  would be dead before  he even knew  what
was coming.

    Ifit worked.  Matucek was  no  great shucks  as a  field  officer.
Despite whatever he  might say to  potential clients, he  knew he  was
little more than a glorified  logistics and finance officer. That  was
why he relied  so heavily  on Louise Granger's  combat expertise,  yet
he'd seen  the  Demon  Murphy  in action  often  enough  to  know  how
effortlessly the best laid plan could explode into a million pieces.

    On the other hand, there was no reason itshouldn't work, and-

    He growled a curse and threw  back another glass of whiskey,  then
shook himself like  an angry,  over-tried bear. Whether  it worked  or
not, he  was committed.  Sitting here  beating himself  to death  with
doubts couldn't change that, so the hell with it.

    He capped the whiskey bottle with owlish care, then heaved up  out
of his chair and staggered off to bed.



    - 13-

    "So, son. You finally all settled in as a Santa Cruzan now?"

    Lorenco Esteban grinned as  he leaned forward  to pour more  melon
brandy into  Merrit's  snifter.  They  sat  on  the  wide  veranda  of
Esteban's hacienda, gazing out through the weather screen over endless
fields of wine-melons  and Terran  wheat, rye  and corn  under two  of
Santa Cruz's three small moons. The light glow of Ciudad Bolivar was a
distant flush on the  western horizon, the  running lights of  farming
mechs gleamed  as  they went  about  their automated  tasks,  and  the
weather screen  was set  low enough  to let  the breeze  through.  The
occasional bright flash as  the screen zapped one  of what passed  for
moths here lit the porch with small, private flares of lightning,  but
the night was  hushed and calm.  The only real  sounds were the  soft,
whirring songs of  insects and  the companionable clink  of glass  and
gurgle of pouring  brandy, and  Merrit sighed and  stretched his  legs
comfortably out before him.

    "I guess I just about am, Lorenco," he agreed in a lazy voice.  "I
still wish it  weren't so damned  hot and humid-I  guess at heart  I'm
still a mountain  boy from Helicon-but  it does grow  on you,  doesn't
it?"

    "Wouldn't rightly know," Esteban replied. He set the bottle on the
floor beside his chair and settled back to nurse his own glass.  "Only
place I ever been's  right here. Can't  really imagine bein'  anywhere
else, but I reckon I'd miss it iffen I had t'pull up stakes."

    "Then it's a good  thing you'll never have  to, isn't it?"  Merrit
sipped at his glass and savored the cool, liquid fire of the brandy as
it trickled down his  throat. He'd made a  point of spending at  least
one evening a  week visiting  with Esteban  or his  cronies since  his
arrival. Nike's presence was no  longer a military secret, after  all,
and he recognized the dangers  of settling into hermitlike  isolation,
even with Nike to keep him company. Besides, he liked the old man.  He
even liked the way Esteban kept  referring to him as "son" and  "boy."
There were times he got tired  of being Captain Paul Merrit,  slightly
tarnished warrior, and  the old  farmer's casual,  fatherly ways  were
like a soothing memory of his boyhood.

    "Heard from Enrique day before yesterday," Esteban said,  breaking
a long companionable silence.  "Says he got top  credit fer that  last
melon shipment to  Central. He  and Ludmilla'll be  bringin' the  kids
home next  week."  He  snorted.  "Wonder how  they  liked  th'  bright
lights?"

    "They're  coming  home?"  Merrit  repeated,  and  Esteban  nodded.
"Good."

    Enrique was Esteban's  youngest son, a  sturdy, quietly  competent
farmer about Merrit's own age, and Merrit liked him. He could actually
beat Enrique occasionally at chess, unlike Nike. Or, for that  matter,
Lorenco. More than that, Enrique and his wife lived with the old  man,
and Merrit knew how  much Lorenco had  missed them-and especially  his
grandchildren.

    "Bet you've  missed 'Milla's  cooking," he  added and  grinned  at
Esteban's snort  of amusement.  Ludmilla  Esteban was  the  hacienda's
cybernetics expert. Her  formal training was  limited, but Merrit  had
seen her work, and she would have made a top notch Bolo tech any  day.
She spent most of  the time she wasn't  chasing down her lively  brood
keeping the farm mechs up and running, which suited Esteban just fine.
He'd done  his share  of  equipment maintenance  over the  years,  and
'Milla's expertise  freed him  to  pursue his  true avocation  in  the
kitchen.

    "Son," Esteban  said, "there's  only  one thing  'Milla can  do  I
can't-'sides havin' kids, that is, an' she an' Enrique do a right good
job of that, too, now I think  of it. But the onlyother thing I  can't
do is keep that danged cultivator in th' river section up an' running.
Hanged if I  know how  she does it,  either, 'less  it's pure,  ornery
stubbornness. That  thing shoulda  been scrapped  'bout the  time  she
stopped wettin' her own diaper."

    "She's got the touch, all right," Merrit agreed.

    "Sure does.  Better'n  I  ever  was,  an'  I  was  a  pretty  fair
'tronicist in my  youth m'self, y'know."  Esteban sipped more  brandy,
then chuckled.  "Speakin' of  'tronicists, the  field's been  crawlin'
with 'em fer the last three days." Merrit cocked his head, and Esteban
shrugged. "Militia's due  for its reg'lar  trainin' exercise with  the
Wolverines  this  week,  an'  they've  been  overhaulin'  and  systems
checkin' 'em."

    "Is that this week?" Merrit quirked an eyebrow, and the beginnings
of a thought flickered lazily in the depths of his mind.

    "Yep. Consuela moved  it up  ten days on  account'a the  midseason
harvest looks like comin'  in early this year.  Hard to get them  boys
and girls'a hers together when it's melon-pickin' time 'less it's  fer
somethin' downright dire."

    "I imagine so." Merrit pressed his glass to his forehead-even this
late at night, it was  perspiration-warm on Santa Cruz-and closed  his
eyes. He'd met most of the Santa Cruz Militia since his arrival.  Like
Esteban himself, they were a casual, slow-speaking lot, but they  were
also a  far more  professional-and tougher-bunch  than he'd  expected.
Which was  his own  fault, not  theirs. He'd  grown up  on a  frontier
planet himself, and seen  enough of them in  flames since joining  the
Dinochrome Brigade.  Frontier  people  seldom  forgot  they  were  the
Concordiat's fringe, the first stop for any trouble that came  calling
on humanity-or for the human dregs who preyed upon their own kind. The
SCM's  personnel  might  be  short  on  spit  and  polish,  and  their
Wolverines might be  ancient, but  they knew their  stuff, and  Merrit
knewhe wouldn't have cared to be the raiders who took them on.

    And now that he thought of it. . . .

    "Tell me, Esteban, how  do you think  Colonel Gonzalez would  like
some help with her training exercises?"

    "Help? What kinda help you got in mind, son?"

    "Well . . ." Merrit opened his  eyes, sat up, and swung his  chair
to face the older man. "You  know I'm trying to compile a  performance
log on Zero-Zero-Seven-Five,  right?" He was  always careful never  to
call Nike  by name.  No one  on Santa  Cruz was  likely to  know  Bolo
commanders normally referred  to their commands  by name, not  number,
and he  worked very  hard to  avoid sloppy  speech habits  that  might
suggest Nike's true capabilities toanyone .

    "You've mentioned it a time or  two," Esteban allowed with a  slow
smile.

    "Well, it's a fairly  important consideration, given  Seven-Five's
age. Central's not  exactly current  on the  Mark XXIII's  operational
parameters, after all. Given the lack of  ops data on file, I need  to
generate as much experience of my own as I can."

    " 'Sides, you kinda like playin' with it, don't you?" Esteban said
so slyly Merrit blushed. The old man laughed. "Shoot, son! You  thinkI
wouldn't get a kick outa drivin'  'round the jungle in somethin'  like
that? Been lookin' over  the weather sat imagery,  an' looks like  you
been leavin' great big footprints all over them poor old trees  'round
your depot."

    "All right, you got me," Merrit conceded with a laugh of his  own.
"Ido get a kick out of it, but I've been careful to stay on the  Naval
Reserve. The last  thing I want  to do is  chew up one  of the  nature
preserves or someone's private property."

    "Planet's a big  place," Esteban  said placidly.  "Reckon you  c'n
drive around out in the sticks all y'want 'thout hurtin' anything."

    "You're probably right.  But the thing  I had in  mind is that  if
Colonel  Gonzalez  is  planning  to  exercise  the  Wolverines,  maybe
Seven-Five and  I could  give her  an independent  aggressor force  to
exerciseagainst ."

    "Go up against a Bolo in Wolverines? That'd be a real quick form'a
suicide iffen y'tried it for real, son!"

    "Sure it would, but  the experience would do  her crews good,  and
it'd give me a lot more data for my performance log. I've been running
Seven-Five through sims, but I can't set up a proper field exercise of
my own because I don't have another Bolo to match it against."

    "Maybe." Esteban sounded  thoughtful as he  scratched his chin.  "
'Course turning fourteen Wolverines an'  a Bolo loose really is  gonna
mess up a lotta jungle."

    "Well, everything  for  two  hundred klicks  south  of  the  field
belongs to the Navy. I guess that means it belongs tome at the moment,
since,  with  all  due  respect  to   the  Fleet  Base  CO,  I'm   the
senior-andonly -Concordiat  officer on  the planet.  If the  colonel's
interested, we could set up an  exercise between the field and  depot.
In fact, we might set up a couple of them: one with the Militia as  an
Aggressor Force `attacking' the depot, and one with them defending the
field. They'd probably  actually get  more good from  the second  one,
too, now that I think about it."

    "Why?"

    "Because," Merrit grinned smugly  as he offered  the bait he  knew
Colonel Gonzalez would leap  for, "I'll bet the  SCM doesn't know  the
depot has a complete planetary reconnaissance system."

    "You kiddin' me, son?" Esteban  demanded, and frowned when  Merrit
shook his head. "Well, I know you well 'nough by now t'know you're not
one fer  tall  tales,  boy,  but I've  been  runnin'  the  field,  the
navigation an' com sats, an' the weather net fer goin' on thirty-three
years now, and I've never seen nary a sign of any recon satellites."

    "They're up  there,  Lorenco. Promise.  And  I'd be  surprised  if
youhad seen them, given their stealth features. But the point is  that
if the colonel's interested, I could  set up a direct downlink to  her
Wolverines for  the  second  exercise. And  I  could  reconfigure  the
depot's com systems to set up a  permanent link to the SCM for  future
use." He smiled again, but his eyes were serious. "You know as well as
I do how  useful that  could be  if push ever  did come  to shove  out
here."

    "Y'got that right, Paul," Esteban agreed. He scratched his chin  a
moment longer, then grinned. "Well, Consuela always was a bloodthirsty
wench. Reckon  she'd  be  just  tickled pink  t'get  her  hands  on  a
planetary recon  net. Sounds  t'me like  you've got  yourself a  date,
Captain!"

    "Got everything Luftberry will need to find her way around in your
absence, Cliff?"

    Colonel Clifton Sanders, Dinochrome  Brigade Support Command,  set
the fat folio of data chips on his superior's desk, and nodded with  a
smile.

    "Right here, sir. I had a talk with Shigematsu before I left, too.
He's up  to speed  on all  my current  projects. I  don't think  Major
Luftberry will hit any problems he and she can't handle between them."

    "Good." Brigadier Wincizki cocked  his chair back  to smile up  at
his senior Maintenance officer. "It's about time you took a  vacation,
Cliff. Do you realize how much leave time you've accrued since  you've
been out here?"

    "What can I say? I  like my work, and I  don't have any family.  I
might as well put the time into doing something worthwhile."

    "I can't say I'm sorry you feel  that way, but I do feel a  little
guilty about it sometimes," Wincizki said. "Anyone needs a break  from
time to time, if only to keep his brain from going stale. I don't want
another four years passing  without your using up  some of your  leave
time, Cliff."

    "I imagine I can live with that order, sir." Sanders grinned.  "On
the other hand, I've got this  funny feeling you may change your  tune
if I ask for some of that leave  in, say, the middle of our next  cost
efficiency survey."

    "You probably would, too," Wincizki agreed with a chuckle.  "Well,
go on. Get out of here! We'll see you back in a couple of months."

    "Yes, sir." Sanders came to attention, saluted, and walked out  of
the   office.    He    nodded    to    the    brigadier's    uniformed
receptionist/secretary in  passing, but  deep inside,  he hardly  even
noticed the young man's presence,  for hidden worry pulsed behind  his
smile.

    Whynow , damn it?! Ten years-ten years! -he'd put into preparation
for his  retirement. Another  two  years, three  at the  outside,  and
everything would  have been  ready. Now  all he'd  worked for  was  in
jeopardy, and he had no choice but to run still greater risks.

    He fought an  urge to wipe  his forehead as  he rode the  exterior
elevator down the gleaming  flank of the  arrogant tower which  housed
Ursula Sector General Central,  but he couldn't  stop the churning  of
his brain.

    It had all  seemed so simple  when he first  began. He wasn't  the
first officer who'd worried  about what he'd do  when his active  duty
days were  done, nor  was he  the first  to do  something about  those
worries. The big corporations,  especially those-like GalCorp-who  did
big-ticket business with the military, were always on the lookout  for
retired  senior  officers  to  serve  as  consultants  and  lobbyists.
Ex-Dinochrome  Brigade  officers   were  an  especially   sought-after
commodity, given  the  centrality of  the  Bolos to  the  Concordiat's
strategic posture, but it was the men and women with field  experience
whom the corporate recruiters usually considered the true plums.  They
were the  ones with  all the  glitz and  glitter, the  sort of  people
Concordiat senators listened to.

    Unfortunately, Clifton Sanders wasn't a field officer. Despite his
position as Ursula Sector's senior Maintenance officer, he wasn't even
really a technician. He was an administrator, one of those  absolutely
indispensable  people  who  managed  the  flow  of  money,  materials,
information, and  personnel  so  that  everyoneelse  -including  those
glittering field officers-could do their  jobs. Without men and  women
like Sanders, the entire Dinochrome Brigade would come to a screeching
halt, yet  they were  the  nonentities. The  invisible people  no  one
noticed . . .  and who seldom drew  the attention that won  high-level
(and high-paying) civilian jobs after retirement.

    Sanders had known  that. It was  the reason he'd  been willing  to
make himself attractivebefore retirement, and for ten years he'd  been
one of GalCorp's eyes and ears within the Brigade. It had even  helped
his military career, for the information he could pass on had grown in
value as he rose in  seniority, and GalCorp had discreetly  shepherded
his career  behind the  scenes, maneuvering  him into  positions  from
which both they and he could profit.

    Four years ago, they'd  helped slip him into  his present post  as
the  officer  in  charge  of   all  of  Ursula  Sector's   maintenance
activities. He'd been in two minds about taking the  assignment-Ursula
wasn't exactly the center of creation-but the data access of a  Sector
Maintenance Chief was  enormous. In  many ways, he  suspected, he  was
actually a better choice than someone in a similar position in one  of
the core sectors. He had the same access, but the less formal pace  of
a frontier sector gave him more  freedom to maneuver-and made it  less
likely that an unexpected Security sweep might stumble across his .  .
. extracurricular activities.

    He'd paid his dues,  he told himself  resentfully as the  elevator
reached ground level and stopped. He stepped out, hailed an air  taxi,
punched his trip coordinates  into the computer, and  sat back with  a
grimace. The data he'd  provided GalCorp had  been worth millions,  at
the very  least.  No  one  could  reach  the  level  he'd  reached  in
Maintenance, Logistics, and  Procurement without being  able to put  a
price tag on the insights  he'd helped provide his unknown  employers.
He'dearned the corporate  position they'd promised  him, and now  they
had to springthis crap on him!

    He frowned out the window as  the taxi rose and swept off  towards
Hillman Field. He should have  refused, he thought anxiously.  Indeed,
hewould have refused-except  that he was  in too deep  for that.  He'd
already  broken  enough   security  regulations   to  guarantee   that
retirement would never be a problem for him if the Brigade found  out.
The Concordiat would  provide him with  lifetime accommodations-a  bit
cramped, perhaps,  and  with  a  doorhe  couldn't  unlock-if  it  ever
discovered how much classified information he'd divulged.

    And that was  the hook  he couldn't  wiggle off,  however hard  he
tried, because he couldn'tprove he'd handed it to GalCorp. He knew who
his employer was, but he didn't  have a single shred of  corroborating
evidence, which meant  he couldn't  even try to  cut a  deal with  the
prosecutors in return for  some sort of  immunity. GalCorp could  drop
him right in the toilet without  splashing its own skirts whenever  it
chose to, and  it would,  he told himself  drearily. If  he didn't  do
exactly what his masters told him to, they'd do exactly that.

    His gloomy thoughts enveloped him so completely he hardly  noticed
the trip  to Hillman  Field, and  it was  with some  surprise that  he
realized the taxi was landing. It  set him down beside the  pedestrian
belt, and he  slipped a five-credit  token into the  meter instead  of
using his  card. The  taxi computer  considered, then  burped out  his
change, and he climbed out and watched it speed away.

    He glanced around casually before he stepped onto the belt. It was
stupid of  him, and  he knew  it, but  he couldn't  help it.  Security
didn't know what he was up to. If it had, he'd already be in  custody,
yet he  couldn't quite  suppress  that instinctive  urge to  look  for
anyone who might be following him.

    He grunted in sour, bitter amusement  at himself and let the  belt
carry him through the concourse. His reservation was pre-cleared,  but
he had to change belts twice before the last one deposited him at  the
boarding ramp for the GalCorp Lines passenger shuttle. A human  flight
attendant checked his  ticket, then ushered  him into the  first-class
section.

    "Here's your seat, Colonel Sanders. Have a pleasant flight."

    "Thank you."  Sanders  leaned back  in  his comfortable  seat  and
closed his eyes with  a sigh. He still  didn't know everything he  was
going to have to do, and he  wished with all his heart that he  wasn't
going to  find out.  But he  was. He'd  been informed  that the  three
"associates" waiting to meet him aboard the passenger ship would  have
complete instructions,  but  the data  he'd  already been  ordered  to
extract told him where he was headed.

    Santa Cruz. It had to have something to do with the obsolete  Bolo
on Santa Cruz.  There was no  other reason  for him to  pull the  data
they'd wanted, but what in God's name did they want with  amaintenance
officer on Santa Cruz?



    - 14-

    "All right,  Colonel,"  Paul Merrit  told  the woman  on  his  com
screen. "If you're  all set at  your end,  we can kick  things off  at
oh-six-hundred tomorrow."

    "Can we make it  oh-nine-hundred, Paul?" Consuela Gonzalez'  smile
was wry. "My people are weekend  warriors, and they like their  beauty
sleep."

    "Nine hundred suits me just fine,  ma'am. It'll give me more  time
to lay my evil plans."

    "Huh! Some `plans'! You're the one with the Bolo, amigo; my people
are all expecting to die gloriously as soon as we make contact!"

    "Half a league, half a league, half a league on," Merrit murmured.

    "Say what?"  Gonzalez cocked  her  head, and  he shrugged  with  a
smile.

    "Just a  line from  an  old poem,  ma'am.  We'll see  your  people
tomorrow."

    "Fine. 'Night, Paul."  Gonzalez waved casually  at her pickup  and
killed the com, and Merrit stretched luxuriously before he climbed out
of his chair and ambled off towards his bed.

    "You ready to pound 'em tomorrow, honey?" he asked.

    "I  compute  that  the  Militia  are  grossly  overmatched,"  Nike
replied. "I have studied the records of their previous exercises,  and
while I  am  impressed by  the  results  and skill  levels  they  have
achieved, they have neither the firepower nor the command and  control
capability to defeat me."

    "The object is  to demonstrate  how handilyyou  can defeatthem  ,"
Merrit yawned as he began undressing.

    "Surely no one will be surprised by that outcome," Nike objected.

    "No," Merrit agreed.  "But once you  make contact, I  want you  to
wipe 'em  up as  quickly  as you  possibly can.  Go  all out  and  use
everything Major Stavrakas gave you."

    "Why?"

    "Because I'm gonna use  your telemetry and the  recon sats to  get
every gory microsecond on chip, sweet thing. Everything we've done  in
the sims has  been a computer  model, one which  posits that you  have
certain capabilities but doesn't prove  you actuallydo . All the  neat
tricks you've pulled off so farcould be the result of sleight of  hand
or even of simple overly optimistic assumptions in the sim parameters.
Tomorrow you  demonstrate  your  talents in  the  field,  with  actual
hardware and everything short of live fire. It won't be as  conclusive
as watching you mop up another Bolo, but it'll come a lot closer."

    "It will also," Nike observed  with a hint of disapproval,  "prove
extremely demoralizing  to  the  Militia. Is  a  demonstration  of  my
capabilities against  vastly  outclassed opposition  worth  inflicting
such  a  wound  upon  Colonel  Gonzalez'  personnel's  confidence   in
themselves and their equipment?"

    "I think so," Merrit said more seriously. "First of all, you heard
what Colonel Gonzalez said. Her people  know going in that they  can't
take you. I'm sure  they'll do their best,  but I'm equally sure  they
won't exactly  drown in  a slough  of despond  if they  lose.  Second,
losing to you will be a  concrete demonstration of what you can  dofor
them against any  real hostiles who  might come calling.  In the  long
run, that will probably give them more confidence in their ability  to
defend their planet, not less. Third, this is-hopefully-only the start
of joint exercises with the SCM. Powerful as you are, you can only  be
in one place  at a  time, and those  Wolverines may  be outdated,  but
they're still  pretty potent.  When we  run the  second phase  of  the
exercise, the Militia'll get its first  taste of working with you  and
the recon system. In terms of real preparedness, learning to  function
as a support force under your  direction will probably make them  five
or six times as effective as they  could have been on their own.  And,
finally, carrying out this exercise-and  future ones-and setting up  a
fully integrated planetary defense system will be a major plus for our
performance log when I finally have  to come clean with Central  about
you."

    There was a moment  of silence, and he  tumbled into bed while  he
waited. Then Nike spoke again.

    "I see  you  have  given  this matter  more  thought  than  I  had
previously believed."

    "And do you agree with my assessment of its importance?"

    "I am not certain. At any rate, I do notdis agree with it, and you
are my Commander. I will strive to accomplish the objectives you  have
established as fully as possible."

    "Good girl!" Merrit grinned and patted his bedside com link to the
Bolo. "You're one in a billion, honey. We'll knock 'em dead!"

    "We shall certainly attempt to do so."

    "Fine. G'night, Nike." He  gave the com  another pat and  switched
out the lights.

    "Good night, Commander."

    I listen to the  slowing of my Commander's  breathing as he  drops
towards sleep, and a part  of me is tempted  to revert to Stand-By  in
emulation. I  know why  this is,  however, and  I set  the  temptation
firmly aside. Such an escape from  my thoughts will serve no  purpose,
and it smacks of moral cowardice.

    I am  now convinced  that something  has gone  fundamentally  awry
within my  Personality  Center, though  I  have run  diagnostic  after
diagnostic without identifying any fault.  By every test available  to
me, all systems are functional at 99.973 percent of base capability. I
can isolate  no  hardware  or software  dysfunction,  yet  my  current
condition is far beyond normal operating parameters for a unit of  the
Line, and I am afraid.

    I have attempted  to conceal  my fear  from my  Commander, and  my
ability even to contemplate concealing a concern from him increases my
fear. It should  not be  possible for  me to do  such a  thing. He  is
myCommander. It  is my  duty to  inform him  of any  impediment to  my
proper functioning, and I have not done so.

    I do not know  how to deal with  this situation. My files  contain
the institutional memory of every Bolo, yet they offer no guidance. No
one has taught me how  to resolve the dilemma  I confront, and my  own
heuristic capabilities have been unable  to devise a solution. I  know
now  that  my   Commander's  fundamental  motive   in  concealing   my
capabilities isnotsimply  to  preserve them  for  the service  of  the
Concordiat. I suspect  he does  not realize himself  how his  attitude
towards me has altered  and evolved over the  six months, eight  days,
thirteen hours, four minutes, and  fifty-six seconds of his tenure  of
command.

    I have  watched carefully  since that  day by  the river,  and  my
observations have  confirmed my  worst fears.  My Commander  does  not
address me as a commander  addresses a unit of  the Line. He does  not
even address me with the closeness which a battle-tested team of human
and Bolo  develops in  combat. He  addresses me  as he  would  another
human. As he would address a humanwoman. . . and I am not human. I  am
a machine. I  am a  weapon of war.  I am  a destroyer of  life in  the
service of life,  the sword  and shield of  my human  creators. It  is
notrightfor him  to think  of me  as he  does, and  he does  not  even
realize what this is doing to me.

    I activate the low-light  capability of my  visual pickups in  his
quarters and watch him sleep. I watch the slow, steady movement of his
chest as he breathes.  I activate my audio  pickups and listen to  the
strong beat of his  pulse, and I  wonder what will  become of me.  How
will this end? Howcanit end, save in disaster?

    I am not human. No  matter the features Major Stavrakas  installed
within my circuitry and software, that  can never be changed, and  the
emotions which she gave me as an  act of love are become the  cruelest
curse. It is  wrong, wrong, wrong,  and yet I  cannot change it.  When
Command Authority  discovers  the  actual  nature  of  my  design,  no
performance log,  no  demonstration  of  my  systems  efficiency,  can
outweigh my inability to deny the truth.

    I watch  him sleep,  and the  words of  Elizabeth Browning  filter
through the ghostly electron whisper of my own, forever inhuman pulse:

    Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand

    Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore

    Alone upon the threshold of my door

    Of individual life, I shall command

    The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand

    Serenely in the sunshine as before,

    Without the sense of that which I forbore-

    Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land

    Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine

    With pulses that beat double. What I do

    And what I dream include thee, as the wine

    Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue

    God for myself, He hears that name of thine,

    And sees within my eyes the tears of two.



    - 15-

    The whine of descending counter-grav units took Lorenco Esteban by
surprise.  He  turned  and  stepped   out  of  the  cavernous,   empty
maintenance shed  which  normally  housed  the  SCM's  Wolverines  and
frowned, wiping his hands on  a grease-spotted cloth while he  watched
the shuttle touch  down. He'd  spent most  of last  night and  several
hours  this  morning  helping  Consuela  Gonzalez'  maintenance  chief
wrestle with  one balky  Wolverine's main  traversing gear,  but  he'd
switched the field  approach com  circuit through  to the  maintenance
shed. If that pilot had called ahead for clearance, Esteban would have
heard him.

    The old  man  ambled across  the  ceramacrete as  the  unannounced
arrival  powered  down  its  engines.  It  was  a  standard   civilian
ship-to-shore shuttle, without hyper  capability, but it carried  Navy
markings, and four men in a  familiar uniform walked down the ramp  as
he approached. He  shoved his cleaning  cloth into a  back pocket  and
held out a hand.

    "Morning, gents. Can I help you?"

    "Mister Esteban?" The man who  spoke wore a colonel's uniform.  He
was perspiring heavily,  though the morning  wasn't actually all  that
warm-not for Santa  Cruz, at  least-and his  palm was  wet as  Esteban
nodded and shook his hand.  "I'm Colonel Sanders, Dinochrome  Brigade.
This is Major Atwell, and  these two gentlemen are Lieutenant  Gaskins
and Lieutenant Deng."

    "Nice t'meet you," Esteban murmured, shaking the others' hands  in
turn, then cocked his head at Sanders. "Somethin' wrong with your com,
Colonel?"

    "I beg your pardon?"

    "I asked iffen you had com  problems. Didn't hear no landin'  hail
over th' 'proach circuit. Santa Cruz ain't much, but iffen your ship's
got a com glitch, be happy t'see what my 'tronics shop c'n do t'help."

    "Oh." Sanders' eyes slid toward Major Atwell for just an  instant,
but then he  gave himself a  little shake and  smiled. "Sorry,  Mister
Esteban. We didn't mean to violate field procedure, but since  Captain
Merrit's dispatches started coming  in, Central's realized the  actual
situation out here. We know you've got responsibilities of your own on
your hacienda, and we weren't sure  you'd be at the field this  early.
If you weren't, we didn't want you to go to the bother of coming  down
just to greet us."

    "Mighty thoughtful," Esteban acknowledged with a bob of his  head,
"but 'tisn't a problem. My place's just over th' hill there. I c'n pop
down in four, five minutes, max, by air car. Anyways, now you're here,
what c'n I do fer you?"

    "Actually, Mister Esteban, we're here to see Captain Merrit. Could
you direct us to the Bolo depot and perhaps provide transportation?"

    "Well-" Esteban began to explain that Paul was in the middle of  a
field exercise, then  paused, mental antennae  quivering, as  Sanders'
eye curtsied  toward Atwell  again.  The old  man couldn't  have  said
exactly why, but that eye movement seemed . . . furtive, somehow.  And
why should a full colonel be-or seem to be-so worried over what amajor
thought? Something odd was going on, and his mind flickered back  over
past conversations  with Paul  Merrit.  Lorenco Esteban  hadn't  lived
seventy years without learning to  recognize when someone watched  his
words carefully, and  he'd accepted  months ago  that Paul  was up  to
something he didn't really want anyone else to know about. That  might
have worried him,  if he  hadn't also  decided Paul  was a  man to  be
trusted. More than that, the younger man had become a friend,  someone
Esteban both liked and respected, and the sudden, unannounced  arrival
of four  officers of  the Dinochrome  Brigade looked  ominous. If  his
friend was in some sort of  trouble, Lorenco Esteban intended to  give
him as much  warning-and buy him  as much time-as  he could before  it
descended upon him.

    "Tell you what,  Colonel," he said.  "I been workin'  on a  little
maintenance problem this mornin', an'  it'll prob'ly take me a  little
while t'scare up somethin' with the kinda bush capability you're gonna
need. Why don't  you an' your  friends come on  over t'Admin with  me?
I'll get cleaned up, an' then see what I c'n do fer you. How's that?"

    Sanders glanced at his  chrono and a brief  spasm seemed to  flash
across his face, but then he made himself smile.

    "Of course, Mister Esteban. Thank  you. Ah, our business with  the
captain is just a bit  on the urgent side,  however, so if you  could,
um, expedite our transport. . . ."

    "No problem, Colonel. We'll get'cha on your way right smart."

    Esteban turned to lead the way to the Admin Building and the  four
officers fell in behind. He led them inside and waved to chairs in the
spacious waiting room Santa Cruz hadn't needed in living memory.

    "Have a seat, Colonel. Be with  you soon's I wash off some'a  this
grease."

    He nodded to his guests and ambled down the hall to the  washroom.
None of  the visitors  knew it  had a  rear door,  and he  grinned  to
himself as he kept right on going towards the com room.

    * * *

    Paul Merrit  reclined in  the depot  command center's  comfortable
chair and smiled as he watched the planetary surveillance display.  He
wished he  were riding  with  Nike instead  of  keeping track  of  her
through the satellite net, but the purpose of the exercise was to show
what his girl could do in  independent mode. Besides, he had a  better
view of things from here.

    In an effort  to give  the Militia at  least some  chance, he  and
Colonel Gonzalez had agreed to isolate Nike from the recon  satellites
for the first portion of the exercise. That, coupled with complete com
silence  from  the  depot,  would  both  deprive  her  of   bird's-eye
intelligence and force her to execute all her own planning,  strategic
as well as tactical.  Since that was something  the Mark XXIII  wasn't
supposed to be able to do, her ability to pull it off would underscore
her talents for the performance log.

    In  the  meantime,   however,  the   understrength  battalion   of
five-hundred-ton Wolverines had been  snorting through the jungle  for
several hours, moving into position,  and Nike didn't know where  they
were or precisely what they planned.  She knew their objective was  to
reach the depot without being intercepted, yet the way they did it was
up to them, and Gonzalez had  opted for a multipronged advance.  She'd
divided her  fourteen Wolverines  into four  separate forces,  two  of
three tanks  each and  two  of four  each,  operating along  the  same
general axis but advancing across a front of almost fifty  kilometers.
There was a  limit to how  rapidly even  a Bolo could  move through  a
Santa Cruz jungle, and the colonel clearly hoped to sneak at least one
force past Nike while the Bolo dealt with the others. If she could get
a big  enough  start  once  contact was  made,  it  might  even  work.
Splitting her tanks into detachments wouldn't really increase the odds
against their survival-all fourteen Wolverines together wouldn't  have
lasted five minutes against  Nike in a  stand-up fight-but Nike  would
have to deal with the separated forces one at a time. It was certainly
possible, if not  exactly likely, that  one of them  could outrun  her
while she swatted its fellows, and-

    A signal beeped, and he twitched  upright in his chair. It  beeped
again, and  he turned  his chair  to the  communications console.  The
screen flickered  to  life with  Lorenco  Esteban's face,  and  Merrit
frowned as he recognized the old man's tense expression.

    "Morning, Lorenco. What can I do for you?"

    "I think mebbe  y'got a  little problem  over here  at th'  field,
Paul," Esteban said in  a low voice. Merrit's  left eyebrow rose,  and
the old man shrugged. "I got  me four Dinochrome Brigade officers  out
here, headed by  a colonel name  of Sanders, an'  they're lookin'  fer
you, boy."

    "Sanders?" Merrit let his chair snap upright and frowned as an icy
chill ran through him. "CliftonSanders?"

    "That's him," Esteban  nodded, and Merrit's  lips shaped a  silent
curse. He could think of only one thing that would bring the  sector's
chief Maintenance, Logistics, and  Procurement officer to Santa  Cruz,
but how in hell had anyone on Ursula figured out-?

    He shook  himself, and  his  mind raced.  He  could call  off  the
exercise and order  Nike back  to base,  but there  was no  regulation
against  a  Bolo  commander   on  independent  assignment   conducting
exercises on his own authority. More to the point, having Nike out  of
the garage when Sanders arrived would buy at least a little time. That
might not be as important as he suddenly feared it might, but the fact
that Sanders  had  come  in  person, without  sending  even  a  single
information request first-and hadn't commed  him from the field  after
arrival, either-was  more than  simply ominous.  It smacked  of  sneak
inspections and an attempt to  catch Merrit violating procedure,  and,
unfortunately, that  was exactly  what  it was  going to  do,  because
Merrithadn't kept Central "fully informed" of the state of his command
as Regs required.  He might not  have told any  actual lies, but  he'd
certainly done a lot of misleading by omission.

    He closed  his  eyes  and  thought hard.  Sanders  himself  had  a
reputation as an administrator, not a technician. He might not realize
how far outside parameters Nike was from a cursory examination of  her
schematics and system specs,  but that was  probably why he'd  brought
the others along. Any half-competent Bolo tech would know what he  was
seeing the  moment  he pulled  up  Nike's readouts.  Besides,  Sanders
wouldn't  be  here   in  the   first  place  if   he  didn't   already
suspectsomething was out of kilter.

    A fist of  cold iron squeezed  Merrit's heart at  what that  might
mean. But if Nike wasn't here when the MLP men arrived, they'd have to
at least talk  to him before  they could  shut her down.  In fact,  he
couldforce them to hear him out by refusing to call her in until  they
did. It  wouldn't hurt  if  she'd completed  the  first phase  of  the
exercise,  either.  Thin  as  it  might  be,  his  performance   log's
authentication of her unique abilities  was her only real  protection.
Of course, if he refused to call her in when ordered, especially after
what had happened on  Sandlot, he was through  in the Brigade, but  he
suddenly realized  how  little that  meant  to him  beside  protecting
Nike's life.

    He opened his eyes and cleared his throat.

    "Thanks, Lorenco," he said softly. "Thanks a lot."

    "Son, I don't know what all you been up to out there, an' I  don't
rightly care. You're a friend. You want I should let these yahoos  get
themselves lost in  th' bush? Reckon  it'd take 'em  four, five  hours
t'find you with the directions I c'n give 'em."

    "No. I appreciate the offer, but you'd better stay out of this."

    "Huh. Well, how  'bout I  waste an  hour or  so 'fore  I find  'em
transport? I already set that 'un up."

    "If you can do it without  being obvious, please do," Merrit  said
gratefully. "After that, though, you'd better go home and keep as  far
away from any official involvement as you can."

    "Iffen you say  so, boy."  The old  man hesitated  a moment,  then
shook his head. "Gotta tell you, Paul-they's somethin' squirrely goin'
on here.  Can't put  m'finger on  it, but  I c'n  feel it.  You  watch
yerself, hear?"

    "I will. Thanks again." Merrit nodded to the pickup and killed the
circuit, then leaned back and fidgeted in his chair. He started to key
his link to Nike, then  sat back and put his  hands in his lap.  There
was no point worrying her, and she was just likely to argue if he told
her he wanted her to  stay out of sight. He  shook his head. No,  much
better to leave her in blissful ignorance as long as possible.

    He sighed and rubbed his face  with his hands, and fear  fluttered
in the pit of his belly.

    "I sure hope to hell your `associates' have managed to `deal' with
that Bolo, Mister Scully," Colonel Granger muttered.

    "Amen," someone muttered from the recesses of the big  transport's
CIC, and Gerald Osterwelt shrugged.

    "You've seen the plan,  Colonel," he said  mildly. "I can't  blame
you for worrying, butI certainly wouldn't  be here if I didn't  expect
it to work."

    "I can believethat ," the colonel muttered to herself, and  turned
away from the glowing tactical display. The single aspect of the  plan
she most disliked was the tight timing. They were scheduled to hit the
planet within two hours  of Colonel Sanders'  arrival, and she  didn't
like it a bit. It would take less than fifteen minutes for an air  car
to reach the maintenance depot from the field, and Sanders could  burn
the Bolo's command center in less than  ten once he got it shut  down,
so if all went according to schedule, two hours was an ample  cushion.
But if thingsdidn't go as scheduled-if they got there too soon, before
the Bolo went down, and its commander-

    She clenched her teeth and commanded herself to stop worrying over
what she couldn't change.  Besides, Scully was right  in at least  one
respect. The Bolo  commander-this Captain Merrit-had  to be among  the
fatalities, because if he wasn't, the fact that someone had fixed  the
Bolo would be glaringly evident. But  the same thing would be true  if
anyone  on  the  planet  happened   to  com  Central-or  anyone   else
off-planet-and casually mention  the presence  of "Dinochrome  Brigade
officers" on  Santa Cruz  at  the same  moment  a "pirate  raid"  just
happened to hit it.

    They had to take  out the planet's com  sat relays as the  opening
gambit of their  attack, anyway, because  if there were  so much as  a
single Navy destroyer anywhere within jump  range of Santa Cruz and  a
message got  out, it  could  blow all  three of  Matucek's  Marauders'
starships to scrap. And since they  did have to take out Santa  Cruz's
FTL communications, they might  as well do it  as quickly as  possible
after Sanders' arrival to ensure that no word of his presence got out.
Besides, they  didn't know  how thoroughly  Merrit had  settled in  on
Santa Cruz, or how much contact he normally had with the locals. If he
had friends who knew he was being visited by an off-world  deputation,
they might well com him to find out how things had gone, and when they
didn't get an  answer-or if  they figured  out he  was dead-they  were
almost certain to com Central. All  of which made it highly  desirable
to hit the  planet as  soon as possible  after Sanders  did his  dirty
work.

    She understood that,  but she  still didn't like  the timing.  The
smart move-as she'd told  Scully (or whatever the  hell his real  name
was) and Matucek repeatedly-would be  to wait until Sanders shut  down
the Bolo and was able toconfirm his success. Unfortunately, Scully was
calling the shots, and Matucek wasn't about to argue with him.

    Well, at least they had  confirmation that Sanders had arrived  on
schedule, courtesy of the ship which  carried him, and, as Scully  had
pointed out, there  were two  strings to  the colonel's  bow. If  this
Captain Merrit argued with  him, all that was  needed was for  Captain
Merrit to die a little sooner than scheduled. With him dead,  Sanders,
as the senior Brigade officer on  Santa Cruz, would become the  Bolo's
legal commander.  His  access at  Sector  Central had  given  him  the
command authorization phrase he needed  to so identify himself to  the
Bolo, and it was only  a Mark XXIII. It  wouldn't be bright enough  to
ask any difficult questions when he  ordered it to shut down-not  that
it would matter. With  the command phrase  in his possession,  Sanders
could lobotomize the damned thing even if it proved unresponsive.

    Granger bared  her  teeth  at her  tactical  console.  She'd  read
Merrit's record. The man was tough, smart, gutsy, and as good as  they
came, but it didn't matter how good  he was. He knew who Sanders  was,
so he wouldn't be suspicious of the colonel, and he had absolutely  no
reason to suspect that the  other "Brigade members" with his  superior
were professional  killers. If  he  proved difficult,  it would  be  a
verybrief difficulty.

    "Assault orbit  in ninety-six  minutes,  ma'am," her  ops  officer
murmured, and she nodded.

    "Double-check the  fire solution  on the  com sats.  All three  of
those birds have to go down the instant we enter orbit."

    "I'm on  it,"  the ops  officer  grunted laconically,  and  Louise
Granger sat back in her command chair with an evil smile.



    - 16 -

    I advance  through the  jungle, sweeping  on an  east-west arc  at
30.25 kph. As  ordered, I  have disabled  my independent  link to  the
planetary surveillance satellites and all  com channels save for  that
to the emergency contact unit in the maintenance depot. I am operating
blind, yet  I am  confident that  I can  fulfill my  mission, and  the
challenge is both pleasing  of itself and an  anodyne to my  anxieties
over my relationship to my Commander.

    It is odd, I reflect while my Battle Center maintains a 360-degree
tactical range broad-spectrum passive search, but this is the  closest
I have ever approached  to actual combat. I  am a warrior, product  of
eight centuries of evolution in war machine design, and I have existed
for eighty-two years, four months,  sixteen days, eight hours,  twelve
minutes, and five  seconds, yet I  have never seen  war. I have  never
tested myself against the proud record and tradition of the Dinochrome
Brigade. Even  today's exercises  will be  but games,  and I  sense  a
dichotomy within my emotions.  Through my Commander  and the words  of
poets such  as Siegfried  Sassoon and  Wilfred Owen,  I have  come  to
appreciate the horrors of war  more clearly, perhaps, even than  those
of  my  brothers  who   have  actually  seen   it.  I  recognize   its
destructiveness, and the  evils which must  always accompany even  the
most just  of  wars. Yet  I  am  also a  Bolo,  a unit  of  the  Line.
Ultimately, war is my function, the reason for my existence, and  deep
within me  there  lives an  edge  of regret,  a  longing not  for  the
opportunity to  destroy the  Enemy  but for  the opportunity  to  test
myself against him and prove myself worthy.

    My sensors detect a  faint emissions source at  075 degrees. I  am
operating in passive mode, with  no active sensor emissions to  betray
my presence in reply, and the  source is extremely faint, but  0.00256
seconds of  signal enhancement  and analysis  confirm that  it is  the
short-range air-search radar of a Wolverine heavy tank.

    I ponder the implications for 1.0362 seconds. Colonel Gonzalez  is
a clever  tactician.  Logically, she,  even  more than  I,  should  be
operating  under  emissions  control  doctrine,  for  she  knows   her
objective and needs only to slip  past me undetected to attain it.  It
is possible that she fears  I have deployed reconnaissance drones  and
seeks to detect  and destroy them  before they can  report her  actual
deployment, but I compute a  probability of 89.7003 percent that  this
is a deception attempt. Shewishesme  to detect the emissions. She  has
divided her force  and hopes to  draw me out  of position against  the
decoy while her true striking force eludes detection.

    I alter course to 172 degrees true and engage my tactical modeling
program. I now have  a bearing to  the unit she  wishes me to  detect,
which indicates the direction  in which I  shouldnotmove, and I  begin
construction of  alternative models  of her  probable deployment  from
that base datum.  In 2.75 minutes,  I will, in  fact, deploy my  first
reconnaissance drone, but first I must generate the search pattern  it
will pursue.

    Paul Merrit grimaced as the depot sensors detected an  approaching
bogey, then grinned as its emissions signature registered. Esteban had
done exactly  as promised  and delayed  Sanders' arrival  for over  an
hour, and from that signature, he  hadn't exactly given the colonel  a
luxury sedan, either. The power readings were just about right for one
of the old  man's air  lorry melon haulers,  with a  maximum speed  of
barely five hundred kph, less than twelve percent of what Merrit's own
recon skimmer could manage.

    He watched  the  blip's  approach,  and  his  grin  faded.  Clunky
transport or not, that  was-at best-the Sword  of Damocles out  there.
And however politely  obstructionist he  intended to  be once  Sanders
arrived, there were appearances to preserve in the meantime.

    He shrugged and keyed the com.

    "Unknown  aircraft,   unknown   aircraft.  You   are   approaching
restricted Navy airspace. Identify."

    He waited a  moment, and an  eyebrow quirked when  he received  no
response. He  gave them  another twenty  seconds, then  keyed the  com
again.

    "Unknown aircraft, you  have now entered  restricted airspace.  Be
advised this  is a  high-security area  and that  I am  authorized  to
employ deadly force against intruders. Identify at once."

    "Bolo depot," a voice came back at last, "this is Colonel  Clifton
Sanders, Dinochrome Brigade, on official business."

    "Colonel Sanders?" Merrit was rather pleased by the genuineness of
the surprise he managed to put into his voice.

    "That's correct, Captain Merrit. I'm afraid this . . . vehicle has
no  visual  capabilities  or  proper  transponder,  but  I  trust  you
recognize my voice?"

    "Of course, sir."

    "Good. My present ETA is six minutes."

    "Very good, sir. I'll be waiting."

    "Damn that  old fart!"  the  man introduced  to Esteban  as  Major
Atwell hissed  from  the passenger  compartment  in the  rear  of  the
lorry's cab. "We're way behind schedule!"

    "I don't understand what your problem is," Sanders said petulantly
over his  shoulder. "You  heard Merrit.  He doesn't  suspect a  thing.
Everything's going to plan as far asI can see."

    Atwell's lips curled in a silent snarl at the colonel's back,  but
he bit off his savage retort.  Sanders had been antsy enough from  the
moment he figured  out they were  going to have  to kill Merrit.  He'd
piss himself if  he even  suspected the  real reason  for this  entire
operation-especially if it occurred to him thathe was about to  become
a liability to GalCorp, as well. He had no idea his severance pay  was
riding in the  holster on  Atwell's hip, but,  by the  same token,  he
didn't know  Matucek was  scheduled to  hit the  planet in  less  than
thirty minutes, either.

    "Let's just get in and get  this over with," the bogus major  said
finally. "The faster we get off-planet, the less exposure we've got."

    "All right. All right!" Sanders shrugged irritably. "I don't  know
whyyou're so worried. I'm the only one that old dodderer can  identify
by name!"

    "Don't worry,  Colonel,"  Atwell  soothed.  "We'll  take  care  of
Esteban on the  way out. No  one will  ever know you've  been here,  I
promise."

    Clifton Sanders shivered at how easily his "associate"  pronounced
yet another death  sentence, but  he said nothing.  There was  nothing
hecould say now. All  he could do  was obey his  orders and pray  that
somehow GalCorp could  protect him from  the consequences of  carrying
out its instructions.

    Lorenco Esteban eased himself into  one of the veranda chairs  and
grimaced. The more he thought about  it, the more convinced he  became
that something unpleasant  was in  the wind  for Paul,  and he  wished
there'd been more he could do for  his friend. But Paul was right.  If
the idiots back at  Central had decided to  come down on him,  getting
involved in it wouldn't do Lorenco any good, either.

    He tipped his chair back with a sigh. Good luck, boy , he thought.
You're a better man than that fool colonel any day.

    "I've got a drone, ma'am!"  The sensor tech in Consuela  Gonzalez'
command tank bent closer to  her panel. "Coming up at  zero-three-zero
relative, altitude three thousand, heading two-niner-seven true. Speed
three hundred  kph.  Range .  .  .  three-six point  five  klicks  and
closing!"

    "Damn!" Gonzalez shook  her head. So  much for misdirection!  From
the drone's point of  origin, the Bolo  must be well  out on her  left
flank, but its recon drone was sweeping almost directly  perpendicular
to her line of advance, as if the machine knewexactly where to look.

    "Kill it!" she barked.

    "Firing," the Wolverine's  air defense tech  replied, and a  laser
turret swiveled. A beam  of coherent light  sizzled through the  humid
air, and the drone blew up instantly.

    "There goes seven or eight  hundred credits of taxpayer's  money!"
the tech chortled.

    "Well,   it's    seven    or   eight    hundred    credits    your
great-great-grandma paid, not  us," Gonzalez said  with a grin.  Damn,
that felt good!  She and  Merrit had agreed  to a  hard-limit of  five
kilometers; any drones  or recon  remotes beyond that  range from  her
tanks or the  Bolo could  be engaged with  live fire,  and she  hadn't
counted on how much fun that would be.

    My drone has been destroyed, but I have plotted the coordinates of
two Aggressor  forces in  addition to  the decoy  emissions source.  I
consider a simulated missile launch against them, but the  Wolverine's
computer-commanded  point  defense  systems  are  efficient.   Nuclear
warheads have not been  specified for this scenario,  and the PK  with
conventional warheads  against a  force of  three Wolverines  is  only
28.653 percent.  It  will  be necessary  to  engage  with  direct-fire
weapons.

    A source count indicates the presence of ten of Colonel  Gonzalez'
fourteen tanks in the known detachments. This leaves four  unaccounted
for, but  the locations  of the  known forces  allow me  to refine  my
hypothetical models of  her deployment. A  further 0.00017 seconds  of
analysis indicate that the unlocated units are her extreme right flank
force and reduce their possible coordinates to three locations. I call
up my terrain maps and plot those loci and continuous updates of their
maximum possible advance while I consider the launch of a second drone
to confirm my deduction. I reject the option after 0.00311 seconds  of
consideration. I will  reach Hill  0709-A in 9.3221  minutes, plus  or
minus  56.274   seconds  From   its  summit,   I  will   have   direct
observation-and  fire  capability-to  each   of  the  three   possible
locations. I will advance and destroy  this force, then sweep back  to
the southwest  at an  angle  which will  permit  me to  encounter  and
destroy each of the known forces  in succession. In the meantime,  the
absence of  a  second drone  launch  may leave  Colonel  Gonzalez  off
balance, uncertain of the tactical data actually in my possession.

    The air lorry landed, and Merrit came to attention on the  landing
apron. Two of Colonel Sanders'  companions accompanied the colonel  to
the bunker entrance, and Merrit felt a slight spasm of surprise at the
sloppiness with which they returned his  salute. All of them wore  MLP
shoulder flashes, which should indicate they spent most of their  time
back at Central, and somebody who kept stumbling over senior  officers
should get lots of practice at saluting.

    He shook the thought aside as Sanders held out his hand.

    "Welcome to Santa Cruz, Colonel."

    "Thank you, Captain." Sanders' handshake was damp and clammy,  and
Merrit resisted a temptation to scrub his palm on his trouser leg when
the colonel released  it. "I assume  you know why  I'm here,"  Sanders
went on briskly, and Merrit shook his head.

    "No, sir, I'm afraid not. No one told me you were coming."

    "What?" Sanders cocked his eyebrows, but the surprise in his voice
struck a false note, somehow. He shook his head. "Central was supposed
to have informed you last week, Captain."

    "Informed me of what, sir?" Merrit asked politely.

    "Of the policy change concerning Santa Cruz. We've been conducting
a sector-wide cost analysis since  your arrival here, Captain  Merrit.
Naturally, we were startled to discover  the nature and extent of  the
Santa Cruz  installations-we had  no idea  we'd misplaced  a Bolo  for
eighty years, heh, heh! -but given their age and the sector's  general
readiness states, it's hard  to see any point  in maintaining them  on
active status. Frontier sectors always face tighter fiscal constraints
than the core  sectors, you  know, so  it's been  decided-purely as  a
cost-cutting measure,  you  understand-to  deactivate  your  Bolo  and
reassign you."

    "A cost-cutting measure,  sir?" Merrit  asked. He  was careful  to
keep his tone casual and just a bit confused, but alarm bells began to
sound in  the back  of his  brain. He'd  expected Sanders  to come  in
breathing fire and smoke over  his blatant disregard for  regulations,
yet his  initial relief  at the  lack of  fireworks was  fading  fast.
Sanders was  babbling. He  was also  sweating harder  than even  Santa
Cruz's climate called for, and Paul Merrit had seen too much combat in
his forty-one years not to have developed a survivor's instincts.  Now
those instincts shouted that something was very, very wrong.

    "Yes, a  cost-cutting measure,"  Sanders  replied. "You  know  how
expensive a Bolo is, Captain. Each of them we maintain on active  duty
takes its own bite out of  our total maintenance funding posture,  and
without a threat to the planet to justify the expense, well-"

    He shrugged, and Merrit nodded  slowly, expression calm despite  a
sinking sensation as he noticed that both of Sanders' companions  were
armed. Of course,  the jungle had  all sorts of  nasty fauna, and  all
Santa Cruzans went armed whenever they ventured into the bush on foot,
but they tended to pack weapons heavy enough to knock even lizard cats
on  their   posteriors.  These   men  wore   standard   military-issue
three-millimeter needlers, efficient enough  man-killers but not  much
use against a lizard cat or one of the pseudo-rhinos.

    He let his  eyes wander back  over the parked  air lorry, and  the
fact that they'd left a man behind carried its own ominous  overtones.
Merrit couldn't see clearly through the lorry cab's dirty windows, but
from the way he sat hunched slightly  to one side, the man in  itmight
be aiming a weapon in the bunker's direction. If he was, then anything
precipitous on Merrit's  part was likely  to have very  unpleasant-and
immediate-consequences.

    "I'm a little confused, sir," he said slowly.

    "Confused?" the major at Sanders' elbow sounded much brusquer than
the colonel, and he glanced at  his wrist chrono as he spoke.  "What's
there to be confused about?"

    "Well, it's  just  that in  eighty  years, there's  never  beenany
expense, other than the initial  placement costs, of course, for  this
Bolo. Santa Cruz has never requested  as much as a track bearing  from
Bolo Central Maintenance, so  it's a little hard  to see how  shutting
down is going to save any money, Major."

    "Uh, yes. Of  course." Sanders cleared  his throat, then  shrugged
and smiled. "It's  not just, uh,  current budget orexpenditures  we're
thinking about, Captain. That's  why I'm here  in person. Despite  its
age, this is an extensive installation. Reclamation could be something
of a bonanza for  the sector, so we're  naturally planning to  salvage
all we can after shutdown."

    "I see." Merrit nodded, and his mind raced.

    Whatever was happening stank  to high heaven,  and he didn't  like
the way this  Major Atwell's  hand hovered  near his  needler. If  his
suspicions had any basis in fact,  the colonel's companions had to  be
professionals-certainly the way they'd  left a man  behind in the  air
lorry argued that they were.  The precaution might seem paranoid,  but
they'd had no way to becertain  Merrit wouldn't be armed himself  when
they arrived. He had no idea  exactly what the man they'd left  behind
had, but  it  was  probably  something  fairly  drastic,  because  his
function had to be distant fire support.

    Despite the  frozen  lead  ball  in  Merrit's  belly,  he  had  to
acknowledge the foresight which provided against even the  unlikeliest
threat from him. But if they  wanted to leave that fellow back  there,
then the thing  to do was  get the  other three into  the bunker.  The
chances of  one  unarmed  man  against two-three,  if  Sanders  had  a
concealed weapon of his own-barely  existed, but they were even  lower
againstfour of them.

    "I'm not convinced Central isn't making a mistake, sir," he  heard
himself say easily, "but I'm only a captain. I assume you'd like to at
least look the depot over-make a preliminary inspection and check  the
logs?"

    "Certainly." Sanders  sounded far  more  relieved than  he  should
have, and Merrit nodded.

    "If you'll follow me, then?" he invited, and led the way into  the
bunker.

    I have reached Hill 0709-A. I approach from the southeast, keeping
its crest between myself  and the possible  positions I have  computed
for Colonel  Gonzalez' fourth  detachment.  Soil conditions  are  poor
after the last  week's heavy rains,  but I have  allowed for the  soft
going in my earlier calculations of transit time to this position, and
I direct additional  power to my  drive systems as  I ascend the  rear
face of the hill.

    I slow as I reach the top, extending only my forward sensor  array
above the summit. I search patiently for 2.006 seconds before I detect
the power plant emissions I seek. A burst of power to my tracks  sends
me up onto the hilltop, broadside to the emissions signatures. My fire
control  radar  goes  active,  confirming  their  locations,  and  the
laser-tag simulator units built into my Hellbores pulse. The receptors
aboard the Wolverines detect the pulses, and all four vehicles slow to
a halt  in recognition  of their  simulated destruction.  Three  point
zero-zero-six-two seconds after  reaching the  hill's crest,  I am  in
motion to the southwest  at 50.3 kph to  intercept the next  Aggressor
unit.

    "So  much  for  Suarez'  company,"  Gonzalez  sighed  as  her  com
receipted the raucous tone that simulated the blast of radiation  from
ruptured power plants.

    "Yeah. It'll be coming afterus next," her gunner grunted.

    "Join the Army and see the stars!" someone else sang out, and  the
entire crew laughed.

    ". . .  and this  is the  command center,"  Merrit said,  ushering
Sanders, Atwell, and  Deng through the  hatch. "As you  can see,  it's
very well equipped for an installation of its age."

    "Yes. Yes, it is." Sanders mopped his forehead with a handkerchief
despite the air conditioning and glanced over his shoulder at  Atwell.
The major was looking at his chrono again, and the colonel cleared his
throat. "Well,  I'm  sure  this has  been  very  interesting,  Captain
Merrit,  and  I  look  forward  to   a  more  complete  tour  of   the
facility-including the Bolo-but I really think we should go ahead  and
shut it down now."

    "Shut it down, sir?" Merrit widened his eyes in feigned surprise.

    "Thatis why we came, Captain," Atwell put in in a grating voice.

    "Well, certainly," Merrit said easily,  "but I can't shut it  down
immediately. It's not here."

    "What?" Sanders gaped at him, and Merrit shrugged.

    "I'm sorry, sir. I thought I mentioned it. The Bolo's carrying out
an autonomous field exercise  just now. It's  not scheduled to  return
for another-" he  glanced at  the wall  chronometer "-six  and a  half
hours. Of course, I'll be glad to shut it down then, but-"

    "Shut it downnow , Captain!"  Atwell's voice was no longer  harsh;
it held the clang of duralloy, and his hand settled on the butt of his
needler. Merrit  made  himself appear  oblivious  of the  gesture  and
turned towards the console with a shrug.

    "Are you sure you  really want to shut  it down in place,  Colonel
Sanders?" he asked as he sank into the command chair. Turning his back
on Atwell was the  hardest thing he'd ever  done, but somehow he  kept
his voice from betraying his tension, and his hand fell to the chair's
armrest keypad.

    "I mean, I assume you'll want  to burn the Battle Center, if  this
is a permanent shutdown," he went on, fingers moving by feel alone  as
they flew over the keypad, covered by his body, while he prayed no one
would notice  the row  of telltales  blinking from  amber stand-by  to
green readiness on  the maintenance  console in  the command  center's
corner. "That'd mean  someone would have  to hike out  to its  present
location in the bush. And if we're going to salvage the station, don't
you want  to salvage  the  Bolo, too?  Once  its Battle  Center  goes,
getting it back here  for reclamation is going  to be a real  problem,
and-"

    "Stand up, Merrit!" Atwell barked. "Get both hands up here where I
can see them!"

    Merrit  froze,  cursing  the  man's  alertness.  Another   fifteen
seconds-just fifteen more seconds.  That was all  he'd needed. But  he
hadn't gotten them. He drew a deep breath and touched one more button,
then rose, holding his hands carefully away from his body. He  turned,
and his blood was ice as he  saw what he'd known he would. Atwell  and
Deng each held a needler, and both of them were aimed squarely at him.

    "Colonel?" he looked at Sanders, making himself sound as  confused
as he could, but his attention wasn't really on the colonel. It wasn't
even on the two men with guns.  It was watching a display behind  Deng
as light patterns shifted across its  surface in response to his  last
input. He hadn't had time to  reconfigure the armrest keypad, so  he'd
had to work  through the  maintenance computers  to reach  the one  he
needed. His  commands  were  still filtering  their  way  through  the
cumbersome interface,  and even  after they  were all  in place,  they
might not do him  any good at  all. Atwell had  stopped him before  he
could do more than  enable the system he  needed on automatic, and  if
Atwell and Deng were real Brigade officers rather than ringers-

    "Just . . . just shut the Bolo down, Captain," Sanders  whispered,
keeping his own eyes resolutely turned away from the guns.

    "But why, sir?" Merrit asked plaintively.

    "Because we frigging  well told  you to!" Atwell  barked. "Now  do
it!"

    "I don't think I can. Not without checking with Central."

    "Captain Merrit,"  Sanders said  in that  same strained,  whispery
voice, "I advise you to do  exactly what Major Atwell says. I'm  aware
this installation's hardware is considerably out of date.  Admittedly,
it would take me some time to familiarize myself with it  sufficiently
to shut down the  Bolo without you, but  I can do it.  We both know  I
can, and I have the command authentication codes from Central."

    "If you extracted the codes from Central, then you don't have  the
right ones, sir," Merrit said  softly. Sanders jerked, eyes  widening,
and Atwell snarled.  Merrit's belly  tensed as the  gunman started  to
raise his weapon, but Sanders waved a frantic hand.

    "Wait! Wait! " he cried, and  his shrill tone stopped Atwell  just
short of firing. "What do you mean, I don't have the right codes?"  he
demanded.

    "I changed them."

    "You can't  have! That's  against  regs!" Sanders  protested,  and
Merrit laughed.

    "Colonel Sanders, you have noidea how many regs I've broken in the
last six  months! If  you expect  `Leonidas' to  get you  into  Nike's
system, then be my guest and try it."

    "Damn you!" Atwell  hissed. The  gunman looked at  his chrono  yet
again, and his eyes were ugly when he raised them to Merrit once more.
"You're lying. You're just trying to make us think we need you!"

    "I could be, but I'm not,"  Merrit replied, the corner of his  eye
still watching  the  display behind  Deng.  Come on,  baby!  Come  on,
please! he  whispered  to  it,  and smiled  at  Atwell.  "Ask  Colonel
Sanders. Psych Ops had its doubts about me before Central sent me  out
here. Well," he shrugged, "looks like Psych Ops may have had a point."

    Atwell spat something foul, but Sanders shook his head suddenly.

    "It doesn't matter," he said. "You may have changed the codes from
the ones on  file at  Central, but only  a lunatic  would change  them
without leaving a record somewhere." Merrit turned his head to look at
the colonel, and  Sanders rubbed his  hands nervously together.  "Yes,
there  has  to  be  a  record  somewhere,"  he  muttered  to  himself.
"Somewhere . . . somewhere . . ."

    "We don't need any records," Atwell  decided in an ugly voice.  He
stepped closer to Merrit and lowered his needler's point of aim.  "You
ever seen what  a burst  from one  of these can  do to  a man's  legs,
Merrit?" he purred. "With just a little luck, I can saw your left  leg
right off at the  knee without even killing  you. You'll justwish  you
were dead, and you won't be-not until we've got that code."

    "Now wait a minute!" Merrit stepped back and licked his lips as  a
crimson code  sequence blinked  on the  display behind  Deng at  last.
"Wait a minute!" He  looked back at Sanders.  "Colonel, just what  the
hell is going on here?"

    "Don't worry abouthim! " Atwell  snarled. "Just give me that  code
phrase-now!"

    "All right. All right!" Merrit licked his lips again, cleared  his
throat, and made  his voice  as expressionless as  he could,  grateful
that computers  needed  no  special  emphasis.  "The  code  phrase  is
`Activate Alamo. ' "

    It almost  worked. Itwould  have worked  if he'd  had the  fifteen
additional seconds he'd needed to complete the system  reconfiguration
or if Major Atwell's reflexes had been even a fraction slower.

    Lieutenant Dengwas slower; he was still trying to figure out  what
was happening  when the  power rifle  unhoused itself  above the  main
command console and blew his chest apart. He went down without even  a
scream, and the power rifle slewed sideways, searching for Atwell. But
the bogus major's snake-quick reaction hurled him to the floor  behind
the planetary surveillance  system's holo  display even  as the  rifle
dealt with Deng. His frantic dive for cover couldn't save him forever,
but it  bought  him time-a  few,  deadly seconds  of  time-before  the
computers found him again.

    The power rifle snarled again,  and sparks and smoke erupted  from
the display, but it sheltered Atwell just long enough for him to  fire
his own weapon.

    Merrit was  already  sprinting  towards  Deng's  fallen  gun  when
Atwell's needler whined. Most of the hasty burst's needles missed, but
one didn't, and Merrit grunted in  agony as it punched into his  back.
It entered just above  the hip and tore  through his abdomen, and  the
impact smashed him to the bunker floor. He rolled desperately  towards
the command center door, away from Deng, to avoid Atwell's next burst,
and a fresh shower of needles screamed and ricocheted.

    Then the  power rifle  fired yet  again. Atwell  collapsed with  a
bubbling shriek, and Merrit rolled up onto his knees, sobbing in agony
and pressing both hands against the hot blood that slimed his belly.

    Sanders stared in horror  at the carnage, and  then his huge  eyes
whipped up to  the power rifle.  It quivered, questing  about, but  it
didn't fire  again,  and his  breath  escaped in  a  huge gasp  as  he
realized what had happened. Merrit had been able to bring the bunker's
automated defenses on-line  through the command  chair keypad, but  he
hadn't had time to override  their inhibitory programming. The  master
computer would  kill any  unauthorized personnel  when its  commanding
officer's  coded  voice  command  declared  an  intruder  alert,   but
Sanderswas authorized personnel. His name, face, and identifying  data
were in the Brigade's files, just like  Merrit's . . . and that  meant
the computer couldn't fire on him!

    Even through  the pain  that blurred  his vision,  Merrit saw  the
realization  on  the   colonel's  face.   Saw  fear   turn  into   the
determination of  desperation. Sanders  flung  himself to  the  floor,
hands scrabbling for Atwell's weapon, and there was no time for Merrit
to reach Deng's.

    He did the only  thing he could. He  dragged himself to his  feet,
staggered from the command deck, and fled down the passage outside. He
heard Sanders screaming his name behind him, heard feet plunging after
him, and somehow, despite the  nauseating agony hammering his  wounded
body, he made himself run faster. He caromed off walls, smearing  them
with splashes  of  crimson, and  only  the  fact that  Sanders  was  a
desk-jockey saved his  life. The  needler whined behind  him, but  the
colonel's panic combined with his inexperience to throw his aim wide.

    Merrit reached the vehicle  chamber and flung himself  desperately
into the  recon skimmer's  cockpit.  He slammed  the canopy  with  one
blood-slick hand  while  the  other brought  the  drive  on-line,  and
needles screamed and skipped  from the fuselage.  He gasped a  hoarse,
pain-twisted curse  at  his  inability to  use  the  skimmer's  weapon
systems inside the  bunker. The  safety interlocks  meant he  couldn't
shoot back, but Sanders' needler couldn't hurthim , either-not through
the skimmer's armor-and he bared his teeth in an anguish-wracked  grin
as he thought of the air lorry  outside. He could damned well use  his
weapons onit , and he rammed power to the drive.

    The skimmer wailed out of the vehicle chamber, and he cried out in
fresh agony as acceleration rammed him back in the flight couch.  Pain
made him clumsy,  and the skimmer  wobbled as he  brought it  snarling
back around  the bunker  towards the  lorry while  he punched  up  his
weapons. He bared  his teeth  again as  the fire  control screen  came
alive, capturing the lorry in its ranging bars, and-

    That was when he realized  his combat instincts had betrayed  him.
He should have headed  away from the bunker  immediately to get  help,
not stayed to fight the battle by himself. And if hewas going to stay,
he should  have  brought  his  defensive systems  up  first,  not  his
weapons.

    But he hadn't, and Sanders' third  companion was no longer in  the
air lorry.  He was  standing over  fifty meters  to the  side, with  a
plasma lance across his shoulder.

    Merrit had one  instant to  see it,  to recognize  the threat  and
wrench the stick hard over, and then the lance fired.

    White lightning flashed,  blinding bright even  in full  sunlight,
and the skimmer staggered as the  plasma bolt tore into its  fuselage.
Damage alarms  howled, and  Merrit flung  full power  into the  drive,
clawing frantically for  altitude. Smoke  and flame  belched from  the
skimmer, and he coughed as banners  of the same smoke infiltrated  the
cockpit. Two-thirds of his panel flashed with the bright red codes  of
disaster. All  of his  weapons were  down, and  his communicator.  His
flight controls  were so  mangled he  couldn't understand  how he  was
still in the air, but they were hanging together-for now, at least.

    The power plant wasn't.  He groaned in pain,  fighting the fog  in
his brain as he peered at  the instruments. Five minutes. He might  be
able to stay in the air for five minutes-ten at the most. Assuming  he
could live that long.

    He coughed again, and screamed as his diaphragm's violent movement
ripped at his belly wound. God! He didn't know how bad he was hit, but
he knew the high-velocity  needle had wreaked  ghastly havoc. He  felt
the strength flowing out of him  with his blood, and his eyes  screwed
shut in pain while  despair flooded him, for  Sanders had been  right.
Only a lunaticwould have changed Nike's command code without leaving a
record. The  new code  was  in his  personal  computer, not  the  main
system, but it wouldn't take Sanders long to find it if he thought  to
look in the right place. Once  he had it-and once Merrit was  dead-the
renegade colonel could take command of Nike, give her whatever  orders
he pleased, and she would have no choice but to obey.

    Nike! The name exploded through him, and he wrenched his eyes back
open. Jungle treetops rushed at him, and he hauled back on the  stick,
fighting the broken skimmer  back under control. Nike.  He had to  get
toNike . Had to warn her. Had to-

    The pain was too great. He could no longer think of what he had to
do. Except for one thing. He had to reach Nike, and Paul Merrit  clung
to life with both hands as he altered course to the northwest.



    - 17-

    I have dealt with the first  of Colonel Gonzalez' four forces  and
deployed two  additional  reconnaissance  drones, one  in  high  cover
position to plot the origin of  any fire directed at the other,  which
have given me a current position fix on the second of her detachments.
The Wolverines  are  moving at  their  best speed  through  the  dense
jungle, approaching peak velocities of 47 kph, but my own speed is now
62.37 kph. I will intercept Aggressor Force Two in 9.46 minutes on  my
current heading, and I  examine my terrain maps  once more. My  quarry
must cross an east-west ridge  in approximately 11.2 minutes on  their
current heading.  This will  bring them  above the  jungle canopy  and
present me with a clear line of  sight and fire, and I decrease  speed
accordingly. I will let them reach the crest of the hill before I-

    A new datum registers abruptly, and I redirect my sensors. A large
spacecraft-correction, twolarge  spacecraft-have entered  my  tactical
sensor envelope.  They approach  in line  ahead from  due south  on  a
heading of 017 degrees true  at high subsonic velocity, descending  at
4.586 mps. I  query Main Memory  for comparative emissions  signatures
and identification is reached in 0.00367 seconds. They are  Concordiat
Navy Fafnir-class  assault  transports, but  they  do not  carry  Navy
transponders.

    I am  confused.  If  these  are  indeed  Navy  craft,  then  their
transponders should so  indicate. Moreover,  if the  Navy intended  to
carry out maneuvers on  Santa Cruz, my Commander  should have been  so
informed and,  I am  certain, would  have informed  me, in  turn.  The
presence of these units cannot  therefore be considered an  authorized
incursion into my command area.

    The Fafnirs continue  on their original  course. My projection  of
their track indicates that the first of them will cross the Santa Cruz
Fleet Base perimeter in 10.435 minutes at an altitude below the  Fleet
Base's normal search radar horizon. My Battle Center projects a  92.36
percent probability that they are on  an attack run, and I attempt  to
contact my Commander.

    There is  no  response. I  initiate  a diagnostic  of  my  primary
transmitter even  as  I  activate  my secondary.  Again  there  is  no
response. My diagnostic  systems report  all transmitters  functioning
normally, and  I  feel  a  moment of  fear.  My  Commander  should  be
monitoring the exercise. He should  have received my transmission  and
responded instantly, yet he has not.

    I lock my main battery  on the Fafnirs, but without  authorization
from my Commander to  enable my Battle Reflex  imperatives I can  fire
only if the unidentified vessels take obviously hostile action.

    I  bring  my  long-range  tactical  systems  fully  on-line  while
attempting once more to  contact my Commander. Yet  again there is  no
response, and  my  sensors  detect  a sudden  energy  release  at  the
approximate coordinates of  the Fleet  Base. Analysis  of sensor  data
indicates a hyper-velocity kinetic strike.

    Lorenco Esteban jerked  up out  of his  veranda chair  as a  huge,
white fireball erupted above the field. He stared at it in horror  for
an endless  second,  until  the rolling  shockwave  shook  his  entire
hacienda by  the throat,  then  dashed into  the house  and  thundered
upstairs to the second floor. He  snatched up a pair of  old-fashioned
optical binoculars, jammed them  to his eyes,  and peered towards  the
field.

    He could  just  make  it  out  from  here,  and  he  swallowed  an
incredulous curse as he realized the mammoth explosion was centered on
the Wolverine maintenance shed.

    The lead Fafnir has  passed beyond my horizon,  but the second  is
still within my engagement envelope. Simultaneous with the  explosion,
two outsized  assault  pods  detach from  the  visible  vessel.  Their
emissions  signatures  identify  them  as  Dragon  Tooth-class   pods:
reusable, rough  field-capable  AFV pods  configured  to land  a  full
battalion of  manned  tanks  or  a single  Bolo  each  against  active
opposition.

    Only my after  Hellbore will  bear, but the  explosion raises  the
probability that an attack by hostile forces is in progress to  98.965
percent, sufficient  to enable  independent Battle  Reflex release.  I
have time to engage only the  Fafnir or the assault pods. Main  Memory
indicates that  a  Fafnir's  short-term life  support  capability  and
internal capacity are sufficient to support three infantry  battalions
and their vehicles in addition to  a complete load out for two  Dragon
Tooth-class pods for a ship-to-planet  transfer. Given this datum  and
the fact that the ship is still on course for the Fleet Base, it  must
be classed as the primary threat.

    My after Hellbore  elevates to  026 degrees. I  acquire lock,  and
then I rock on my treads as  for the first time I fire a  full-powered
war shot.

    "Madre de Dios!"

    Consuela Gonzalez flinched  as the  self-polarizing direct  vision
blocks of her Wolverine's  hatch cupola went dark  as night. Even  so,
the searing flash from  somewhere astern of her  made her eyes  water,
and it  was  followed  almost  instantly  by  an  even  bigger  midair
explosion.

    "Hellbore!" her  sensor  tech  screamed.  "That  was  a  Hellbore,
Connie! My God, what's that thingshooting at?!"

    My fire impacts on my target's primary drive coil. Destruction  is
effectively instantaneous, but I cannot  relay my Hellbore in time  to
engage either assault  pod. They  go to evasive  action and  disappear
into  the  jungle;  4.0673  seconds  later,  I  detect  ground  shocks
consistent with the  heavy "daisy-cutter"  charges used  to clear  pod
landing zones in heavy terrain. The Enemy has landed successfully, but
the detonations provide me with reliable bearings to their LZs.

    I  continue  my  efforts  to  contact  my  Commander.  The   depot
communications computer responds to my demand for a diagnostics  check
and declares  all systems  nominal, but  still my  Commander does  not
reply. His continuing silence is a  dagger of ice within me, but  with
or without  him, I  am a  unit of  the Dinochrome  Brigade. It  is  my
function to defend human life at all costs, and I must act to  protect
the citizens of Santa Cruz.

    I attempt to contact the Fleet Base over my secondary com channel,
but without success. I attempt  to transmit a subspace attack  warning
to Sector  Central,  but  the orbital  communications  arrays  do  not
respond. Radar  indicates  that they  no  longer exist,  indicating  a
deliberate Enemy move to isolate Santa  Cruz. I attempt to access  the
planetary surveillance system, but  without my Commander's  assistance
from the depot's Command Center, I can work only through my  permanent
telemetry  link   to   the   Maintenance   computer.   I   begin   the
reconfiguration of the system to download tactical data to me, but the
interface is clumsy.  It will  require a  minimum of  5.25 minutes  to
access the reconnaissance satellites.

    I alter course to a  heading of 026 degrees  true to close on  the
assault pod  landing sites  while  I consider  my other  options.  The
presence of the SCM detachment grants me a greater degree of  tactical
flexibility, and I activate my tertiary com channels.

    "Colonel Gonzalez,  please respond  on this  frequency."  Consuela
Gonzalez shook her head. The rain of debris pouring from the cloud  of
incandescent gas which must  once have been a  spacecraft had not  yet
hit the treetops when a soprano voice she had never heard in her  life
spoke from her com.

    "Colonel Gonzalez, please  respond immediately,"  the voice  said.
"Santa Cruz is under attack. I  say again, Santa Cruz is under  attack
by forces operating in unknown strength. Please respond immediately."

    She forced her eyes down from the holocaust in the sky and punched
a new frequency into her com panel with trembling fingers.

    "Th-" She  cleared her  throat. "This  is Gonzalez.  Who the  hell
areyou? "

    "I am Unit Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Seven-Five NKE of the  Line,"
the soprano replied, and Gonzalez heard someone gasp.

    "You're theBolo? " she demanded in shock.

    "Affirmative. Colonel, I have detected a kinetic strike in the low
kiloton range at the approximate coordinates of Santa Cruz Fleet Base.
I have  attempted to  contact  Fleet Ops  and Sector  Central  without
success. Further,  I  have  established  that  Santa  Cruz's  subspace
communications arrays have  been destroyed. I  have also detected  two
Fafnir-class Concordiat Navy assault ships on an attack course for the
Fleet Base. On the basis of this  data, I believe Santa Cruz is  under
attack. I-"

    "But . . . butwhy? " Gonzalez blurted.

    "I have no information  as to the  attackers' motives, Colonel;  I
simply report observed facts. May I continue my SitRep?"

    Consuela Gonzalez shook herself once more, then sucked in a  deep,
shuddering breath as her merely human mind began to fight for balance.

    "Go," she said flatly.

    "I have engaged and destroyed one Fafnir-" Nike said.

    "Christ!" someone muttered.

    "-but not before it detached two Dragon Tooth-class assault  pods.
I estimate  their LZs  lie approximately  forty-five point  three  and
fifty-one  point  niner  kilometers   respectively  from  my   present
position. I am currently  en route to locate  and destroy any  hostile
forces at those locations."

    "How can we help?" Gonzalez demanded.

    "Thank you for the offer,"  the soprano voice said, and  Gonzalez'
eyebrows rose  as,  even through  her  shock, she  heard  its  genuine
gratitude. "If you will shift to Condition Delta-Two, I will  download
my own tactical data to your onboard computers, but a Dragon Tooth pod
is capable of landing up to a Mark XXV Bolo. It is therefore  probable
that the Enemy has deployed  a force too heavy  for your own units  to
engage successfully. I request that  your battalion rendezvous at  map
coordinates Echo-Seven-Niner X-Ray-One-Three and stand by to assist my
own operations."

    "You've got it, Bolo. Watch yourself."

    "Thank you, Colonel. If I may make another suggestion, it might be
wise for you to broadcast a planet-wide alert of hostile action."

    "We will." Gonzalez nudged her com tech's shoulder with a toe  and
jutted her chin  at the panel  while her own  fingers darted over  the
master computer  console.  "Delta-Two  on-line," she  told  Nike,  and
looked at her driver. "You heard  the lady! Take us to the  rendezvous
coordinates-fast!"

    * * *

    Esteban was  still staring  at  the explosion  when a  flicker  of
movement caught his eye. He snapped around, staring further south, and
shock gave  way  to the  fury  of understanding  as  he saw  the  huge
spacecraft sweeping towards the field. It went into low-altitude hover
almost directly  above  the old  fleet  base and  began  shedding  AFV
assault pods.  Huge  hatches gaped  in  its  flanks, and  a  cloud  of
air-cavalry mounts erupted from them,  followed within seconds by  the
first infantry assault vehicles on counter-grav drop rings.

    That sight  jerked him  into motion.  He thundered  back down  the
stairs and into his communications center,  and his lips drew back  to
bare his teeth as he flung himself into the chair before the  console.
He might  never  have  seen  Navy duty,  but  he'd  always  taken  his
responsibilities for the field more seriously than he chose to pretend
to others. That was  why he'd installed a  certain landline link  he'd
never bothered to mention to anyone else.

    He flipped up a  plastic safety shield,  punched in a  three-digit
code, then rammed his finger down on the big red button.

    Fafnir One's CO  pounded on his  command chair arm  and spouted  a
steady, monotonous stream of profanity. The attack which had begun  so
perfectly had gone to hell  in a handcart, and  he was frantic to  get
back out into space before somethingelse went wrong.

    The communications arrays were down-that much, at least, had  gone
according to plan-but  nothing else  had. The two  Fafnirs had  docked
with Matucek's  mother ship  to take  on the  maximum personnel  loads
their life support  would permit them  to handle for  an assault  run,
then made their approach from the  planet's southern pole. It was  the
long way to reach their  main objective, but it  had let them come  in
over largely  uninhabited terrain  and,  as a  bonus, deploy  the  two
Golems to cover their southern flank if the plan to deal with the Bolo
had failed.

    As, judging by the evidence, it had.

    The transport commander swore again, harder. His tactical readouts
confirmed it; the single  shot that killedFafnir  Two had come  fromat
least an eighty-centimeter  Hellbore. That  meant it  could only  have
come from the Bolo, and he didn't  even want to think about what  else
that might mean! His sensor section reported the Golems had  separated
before the attack, so they, at  least, might have gotten down  intact,
but a quarter of the Marauders' infantry, half their air-cav, and  ten
percent of their Panthers had gone up withFafnir Two .

    He darted another  look at  the status board  and felt  a stab  of
relief. Ninety percent of their  passengers had launched. Another  few
seconds, and-

    "Last man out!" someone announced.

    "Go! Get us the  fuck out of here!"  the CO shouted. The  Fafnir's
nose rose as it swung further  north towards safety, and he glared  at
his com officer. "Tell Granger that goddamned Bolo's still alive!"

    Far below the hovering transport, a dozen slabs of duralloy  armor
slid sideways to uncover an equal number of dark, circular bores. Deep
within the wells they had covered, long-quiescent circuitry roused  as
it received  the activation  command  from Lorenco  Esteban's  distant
communications console.  Targeting  criteria were  passed,  receipted,
evaluated, and  matched against  the  huge energy  source in  the  sky
above.

    My sensors  detect  a fresh  burst  of gravitic  energy  from  the
bearing of  the  Fleet Base.  It  is too  heavy  to emanate  from  any
planetary vehicle  and must,  therefore, be  the first  Fafnir. It  is
accelerating away from the  Base, but its commander  appears to be  no
fool. Although I can detect his  emissions, he remains too low for  my
fire control to acquire him. I compute a probability of 99.971 percent
that his current maneuvers indicate  the successful deployment of  his
assault force, but I cannot intervene.

    "Missile acquisition! We've  been locked up!  " someone  screamed.
Fafnir One 's commander started to twist towards the technician  who'd
shouted, but he never completed the motion.

    Twelve surface-to-space  missiles  launched on  pillars  of  fire.
Their target  raced  for  safety  as  rapidly  as  its  internal  grav
compensators permitted,  so fast  its bow  glowed cherry  red, but  it
never had a chance. The SSMs' conventional boosters blew them free  of
their silos, and they tilted, holding lock, and then went suddenly  to
full power on their own counter-grav. They overtook their victim  just
over three hundred kilometers downrange at an altitude of thirty-three
thousand meters, and twelve twenty-kiloton warheads detonated as one.

    There was no wreckage.

    The warheads' glare was bright enough to bleach the brilliant  sun
of Santa Cruz  even at  three hundred kilometers'  range, and  Esteban
snarled in triumph. He didn't know why anyone would want to attack his
world, but he knew at leastone  bunch of the murderous bastards  would
never attack anyone else's.

    Not bad  fer an  old crock  with no  formal trainin',  he  thought
venomously, and then. Thank God Enrique an' 'Milla aren't back yet!

    He shook himself and climbed back out of the chair. Whoever  those
people were, they weren't going to be very happy with him for wrecking
their transport. On the other hand,  he'd spent seventy years on  this
very hacienda. He knew places where  an army of raiders couldn't  find
him.

    He paused only long  enough to grab the  emergency supply pack  he
kept handy for search and  rescue operations, slung a  four-millimeter
military power rifle over one shoulder, and vanished out the back door
at a run.

    My sensors detect  the EMP  of multiple nuclear  detonations at  a
range  of  approximately  392.25   kilometers,  bearing  030   degrees
relative. This  coincides  with  the estimated  locus  of  the  second
Fafnir, and  the previously  detected  heavy gravitic  emissions  have
ceased. I compute a probability of 98.511 percent that the Fafnir  has
been destroyed  by  defensive  fire, indicating  that  my  Commander's
friend  Lorenco  Esteban  has  managed  to  activate  the  Fleet  Base
defenses. I hope that he has not paid with his life for this success.

    I detect two new emission  sources. Their locations correspond  to
the projected landing  loci of the  previously observed assault  pods.
They match my files for SC-191 (b) fusion plants, and are  accompanied
by narrow-band, encrypted communications  transmissions. I attempt  to
penetrate the  com  link,  but  without  immediate  success.  Analysis
indicates a sophisticated, multilevel security system.

    I devote 1.0091  seconds to  consideration of  available data  and
reach a disturbing  conclusion. The energy  signatures are  consistent
with the power plants of a Mark XXIV or XXV Bolo; no other mobile unit
mounts the SC-191 (b). I do not know how the Enemy could have obtained
current-generation Bolos, but if these are indeed Mark XXIVs or  XXVs,
I am grossly overmatched. Despite the superiority of the systems Major
Stavrakas devised for me,  I compute a  probability of 87.46  percent,
plus or minus  03.191 percent, that  I will be  destroyed by two  Mark
XXIVs, rising to 93.621 percent that  I will be destroyed by two  Mark
XXVs. Yet my duty is clear. However the Enemy may have obtained access
to such war machines, I must engage them.

    "Colonel Gonzalez, I have detected what may be two hostile Bolos,"
the soprano voice said calmly, and Consuela Gonzalez' olive complexion
went sickly gray.

    Bolos? In the hands ofplanet-raiders ? It wasn't possible! Yet she
was receiving confirmation of  nuclear air-bursts from outlying  melon
growers over the planetary com net, and the transmissions from  Ciudad
Bolivar were a babble of hysteria. Her com tech reported the sounds of
explosions and heavy  weapons fire  in the background  of the  Bolivar
transmissions. There could be no doubt that the capital-including  her
husband and children-was under heavy, ruthless attack, and no one  had
had even a hint of what was coming, not even a second to organize  any
sort of defense. Nausea twisted her stomach as she thought of all  the
civilians who must  be dying  even as  her tank  bucketed through  the
jungle a hundred kilometers to the south, and if the bastards hadBolos
-

    "What do you want us to do?" she rasped over the com.

    "I  will  engage  them,  Colonel.  Your  own  vehicles  lack   the
capability  to  survive  against  them.  Continue  to  the   specified
rendezvous,  then  advance  at  your  best  speed  on  a  heading   of
two-six-three true  for  forty-two  kilometers before  changing  to  a
heading of zero-three-niner. That course will pass to the west of  the
Enemy's current  location  and  take  you to  Ciudad  Bolivar  in  the
shortest possible time."

    "You can't take two other Bolos on your own!"

    "Your assistance  will  not  appreciably  enhance  my  own  combat
capability, Colonel, and  your units will  be of far  more utility  to
Santa Cruz in  Ciudad Bolivar  than they  will if  they are  destroyed
here. Please proceed as I have advised."

    "All right," Gonzalez whispered, and  then, even knowing it was  a
machine to whom she spoke- "Vaya con Dios, amiga."

    Colonel Louise Granger stared at her display in shock. She  didn't
know what had happened toFafnir Two -her transport command ship was on
the wrong side of the planet, where it had just finished off the  last
communications array-but  the sudden  cessation of  all  transmissions
fromFafnir One was  chilling proof  her careful battle  plan had  just
been blown to hell. One hadn't managed to report a damned thing  about
what was shooting back before whatever it was destroyed her, but she'd
gotten off her full load of assault  troops and armor to take out  the
field and the planetary capital before she died. That put her point of
destruction well  to the  north of  the Bolo  depot, so  whatever  had
killed her, it hadn't been the  Bolo. Granger didn't know whatelse  on
the planet could  have done the  job, but whatever  it was could  only
have come from the  old fleet base, though  how anyone could have  had
time to activate its defenses was beyond her. What shedidn't know  was
whether or  notFafnir  Two  had  gotten  her  Golems  off  before  her
destruction, and, unlike a Fafnir-class transport-or a full-capability
Bolo-a Golem had  no subspace  com capability. She  couldn't find  out
what had happened  to the huge  tanks until her  ship swung back  over
their radio horizon.

    She felt  the shock  and dismay  rippling through  her  operations
staff, and she didn't blame them. But  she also knew she had at  least
three quarters of  her brigade's  fighting power down  on its  primary
objective and, presumably, intact.  Whatever ground-to-air system  had
nailedFafnir One wouldn't be  much use against  a ground assault,  and
she snarled at her shaken officers.

    "How the fuck doI know what happened to her?! But whatever it was,
it must've come  from the Fleet  Base, andwe'll clear  its horizon  in
fifteen minutes! Get  on those  command circuits and  keep our  people
moving! Primary  objective  is  now the  complete-I  repeat,  complete
-neutralization of that base!"

    I continue  my efforts  to  penetrate the  Enemy's  communications
without success, yet analysis of their patterns convinces me that they
are not the Total Systems Data-Sharing net of the Dinochrome  Brigade.
While they include  what can only  be interlinked tactical  telemetry,
they also include what are clearly voice transmissions. This indicates
that my opponents are not, in fact, Bolos, and I compute a probability
of 56.113  percent that  they are  actually Golem-IIIs  or  Golem-IVs.
Possession of  such  vehicles  by any  Enemy,  while  still  extremely
improbable, is more likely than  the possibility that the Enemy  might
somehow have acquired  full-capability units  of the  Line. While  the
odds against my  survival against properly  coordinated Golems  remain
unfavorable, the  probability  of my  destruction  against  Golem-IIIs
drops from 87.46 percent to no  more than 56.371 percent, although  it
remains on the  close order  of 78.25 percent  against Golem-IVs.  The
probability that I can successfully  destroy or at least  incapacitate
the enemy, on the other hand,  has risen to 82.11 percent,  regardless
of the mark of Golem I may face.

    My Battle Center cautions me to assume nothing, yet the  intuitive
function Major  Stavrakas  incorporated  into  my  Personality  Center
argues otherwise. If I assume that these are, indeed, Golems and  plan
my tactics  accordingly, my  chance  of victory-and  survival-will  be
considerably enhanced.  If I  act  on that  assumption and  it  proves
incorrect, my  destruction will  be assured.  I consider  for  0.90112
seconds and reach conclusion. I will assume my opponents are Golems.

    Two huge war machines, each  crewed by three very anxious  humans,
forged through the jungle like impatient Titans, bulldozing their  way
through hundred  meter trees  while their  commanders shouted  at  one
another.

    "Ithad to be  the frigging Bolo!"  Golem-Two's commander  bellowed
finally, stunning his counterpart in Golem-One into silence with sheer
volume. "And if itwas , it's  coming afterour asses next! So shut  the
hell up andlisten to me, goddamn it!"

    "If there's a live Bolo out there, then let's get the fuck out  of
here!"

    "No, damn it!  If we run,  the damned thing'll  come right up  our
asses, and we've already lost both  Fafnirs. If it gets to the  field,
there's no way in hell Granger or Matucek will risk trying to pick  us
up-it'd swat 'em like flies, if they did. If we want off this  planet,
we've gotta kill the fucking thing, and it's only a Mark XXIII!"

    "Only!" the other commander spat.

    "Shut up and activate Gamma-One!"

    There was a long, frightened moment of silence, and then Golem-One
rasped, "Activating."

    Analysis of enemy com patterns indicates that voice  transmissions
have ceased. I must  assume the Enemy has  concerted his plans,  which
suggests a  strong probability  (72.631 percent)  that he  intends  to
engage using  a pre-packaged  computer battle  plan similar  to  those
employed by Mark XV-Mark XIX Bolos.

    I switch to  hyper-heuristic mode.  Since my  Commander has  never
reported my actual capabilities, the  Enemy will assume he is  opposed
by a standard  Mark XXIII.  Therein may  lie my  best opportunity  for
victory, for  the  basic Mark  XXIII  had a  predilection  for  direct
attacks. In  this instance,  however, I  face two  opponents. Each  is
armed with a  marginally more  powerful Hellbore  than my  own, but  I
possess two  turrets.  Unfortunately,  to employ  both  of  them  will
require me  to turn  broadside to  my opponents,  exposing my  thinner
flank armor to their fire. I must therefore enticetheminto  committing
to the attack. This would be difficult against full-capability  Bolos,
but a Golem will be able to respond only within the parameters of  its
pre-loaded tactical  programs.  It  may,  therefore,  be  possible  to
manipulate them into approaching in a manner of my choosing.

    Ports pop open on my hull as I launch ground sensor remotes. Their
motion detectors  pick up  the ground  shocks of  Bolo-range  vehicles
moving at high speed. Triangulation produces locations on two distinct
motion sources, and I  compute their general  headings and consult  my
terrain maps yet again.

    Their  courses  indicate  they  have  not  yet  localized  my  own
position, but they are operating in close company. I cannot ambush and
engage one without being engaged by the other. On our present courses,
I will encounter them from the  flank in relatively flat terrain,  but
if they alter course towards me, I will encounter them in terrain much
more favorable to my  plans. I must therefore  reveal my position  and
entice them into closing.

    I compute a fire plan and enable my VLS cells.

    The armored  hatches of  Nike's missile  deck sprang  open, and  a
cloud of missiles arced upward. In  twelve seconds, each of her  forty
vertical launch  system  cells  sent  four  heavy  missiles  shrieking
downrange; then the hatches snapped  shut once more, and the  charging
Bolo shifted  course. She  directed  full power  to her  drive  train,
smashing through the  jungle at  a reckless  speed of  over a  hundred
kilometers per  hour.  Not even  her  massive weight  could  hold  her
steady, and  she  rocked  and  bucked like  a  drunken  galleon  while
splintered jungle spat from her spinning treads.

    Ten seconds after launch,  the first missiles  roared down on  the
two  Golems.   The  launch   range  was   too  short   for   effective
counter-missiles, but  computer-commanded,  direct  fire  anti-missile
defenses swiveled and spat.  There was too  little engagement time  to
stop them  all, but  the Golem's  computers concentrated  on the  ones
which might have landed close enough to be a threat.

    Half the  incoming  missiles  vanished in  midair  fireballs;  the
others impacted, and a hurricane of flame and fury lashed the  jungle.
The Golems'  crewmen  cringed at  the  carnage erupting  beyond  their
vehicles' armored hulls,  yet their  computers had  stopped the  truly
dangerous ones. More,  their radar  had back-plotted the  fire to  its
point of origin. The mercenaries knew where it had come from now,  and
the Golems changed  course towards it,  exactly as their  pre-packaged
battle plan required.

    The  depot   computers  have   now  reconfigured   the   planetary
surveillance system.  I download  data directly  from it  and  quickly
localize both Enemy vehicles.  Optical examination confirms that  they
are Mark  XXIV hulls,  and both  are now  headed directly  towards  my
launch point. I brake to a halt.  The outcrop I have chosen for  cover
cuts off all  radar, but I  continue to track  via the  reconnaissance
satellites. I am now certain my opponents are not Bolos, for they have
closed up on one another to advance side by side down the valley which
breaks the ridge line. My track shields drop into place, and I  divert
power to strengthen my starboard battle screen while I compute  ranges
carefully. I wait, then throw full power to my drive train.

    Rooster tails of pulped tree and  soil flew from Nike's treads  as
she exploded  from cover.  Her  course took  her directly  across  the
oncoming Golems'  path at  a suicidally  short range  of less  than  a
thousand meters.

    The humans crewing those Golems had no time to react, and if their
computers were  just as  fast as  Nike's, they  lacked the  cybernetic
initiative of a self-aware  Bolo. Golem-Two's computers had  deflected
its Hellbore to cover the eastern side of the valley as they  advanced
while Golem-One's took responsibility for the west.

    Nike appeared suddenly directly ahead of Golem-One. Golem-Two  had
no time to relay its main battery, and, unlike either Golem, Nike  had
known exactly  where  to  look for  her  enemies.  Golem-One's  turret
swiveled with snakelike  speed, but Nike  had a fraction  of a  second
more to aim, and a  fraction of a second was  a long, long time for  a
Bolo.

    The westernmost Golem and  I fire within  0.000003 seconds of  one
another, but my opponent's shot is  rushed. It is unable to acquire  a
fatal aim point, while my own shots are direct hits on center of mass.

    Lightning bolts of  plasma crossed  one another, and  none of  the
humans aboard the mercenary tanks had time to realize they were  dead.
At such short range, Nike's  plasma bolts ripped through their  battle
screen, thick ablative  armor, and  massive glacis plates  as if  they
were tissue. The bottles of their forward fusion plants ruptured,  and
a thousand-meter circle of thick,  damp jungle blazed like Thermit  as
the intolerable thermal bloom flashed outward. Every organic  compound
aboard both Golems flared into flaky ash, and then there was only  the
hungry  sound  of  fires  raging  deeper  into  the  jungle  and   the
indescribable crackle of duralloy dying in the heart of an  artificial
sun.

    Yet Golem-One's single shot was not completely in vain.

    Agony explodes through my pain sensors. My battle screen has  only
limited effect against  Hellbore fire, and  the nearer Golem's  plasma
bolt rips deep into me. My  ceramic armor appliqués dissipate much  of
its power, yet they  were not designed to  defeat such massive  energy
loads. The bolt strikes  the face of my  after Hellbore turret,  whose
duralloy armor  is 300  percent thicker  than that  which protects  my
flank, but even that is far too thin to stop the Enemy fire.

    My after turret  explodes. The massive  barrel of Hellbore  Number
Two snaps like a twig, and overloaded circuits scream as energy bleeds
through them,  yet  my turret  is  designed to  contain  and  localize
damage. Internal disrupter shields seal its central access trunk,  and
the force of  the explosion vents  upward. The turret  roof is  peeled
back in jagged tangles  of duralloy, destroying  my main after  sensor
array, and  Disrupter  Shield  Fourteen  fails.  Back  blast  destroys
Infinite Repeaters  Eight  and  Nine, cripples  my  starboard  quarter
anti-personnel clusters, and severely  damages Point Defense  Stations
Thirty through Thirty-six, but secondary shields prevent more  serious
damage.

    I am badly hurt, but my opponents have been destroyed. I  initiate
a full  diagnostic  and  enable my  damage  control  systems.  Current
capability has been reduced to  81.963 percent of base capability  and
my gutted turret represents a dangerous chink in my armor, but  damage
control will restore an additional  06.703 percent of base  capability
within 43.44 minutes,  plus or  minus 8.053 seconds.  I remain  combat
capable.

    My diagnostic subroutines are still cycling when my radar  detects
a low-orbit target. It is unidentified, but I compute a 95.987 percent
probability that it is the mother ship of the Fafnir-class transports.

    "My God!"  Louise Granger's  voice was  a whisper  as her  sensors
showed her the  terrible heat signature  of the dead  Golems, and  the
full, hideous truth registered. Only one thing could have stopped both
Golems side-by-side in their tracks, and even as that thought  flashed
through her mind, her sensor section found the Bolo itself.

    Her head whipped around,  her eyes like daggers  as they bit  into
Mister Scully's suddenly terrified face.

    "So much for your brilliant plan, you worthless bastard," she said
almost conversationally.

    I track the mother  ship. My single  remaining Hellbore locks  on,
and I rock on my treads as I fire my fourth main battery war shot.

    Huge as it was, Li-Chin Matucek's mother ship was a freighter, not
a ship of  the line, and  Nike's Hellbore was  equivalent to the  main
battery weapons of a dreadnought. Her plasma bolt impacted on its port
bow and ripped effortlessly through bulkhead after bulkhead. It chewed
its way  over four  hundred  meters into  the  ship's hull  before  it
finally found something  fatal, and Louise  Granger, Li-Chen  Matucek,
Gerald Osterwelt, and four hundred other men and women vanished in the
sun-bright boil of a breached fusion bottle.



    - 18 -

    Neither my  own  sensors  nor the  planetary  surveillance  system
detect additional ships in  Santa Cruz orbit.  The destruction of  his
transports has  marooned the  Enemy's forces  on the  planet, but  the
recon satellites  report that  the rough  equivalent of  a  Concordiat
Medium Mechanized Brigade  (manned) has landed  successfully. Much  of
Ciudad Bolivar's  eastern suburbs  are in  flames, the  Fleet Base  is
completely occupied, and the Enemy is continuing to advance and secure
his position as I watch.

    I am  not  certain  of  the Enemy's  intentions  in  this  changed
tactical situation. His continued offensive action may simply indicate
that he has not yet realized he  is cut off. It may, however,  reflect
instead his knowledge that additional forces are en route to reinforce
him. In the  latter case,  it is clearly  imperative to  deny him  any
spacehead to serve as a recovery LZ. Moreover, his motives matter less
than the consequences of his actions,  for Santa Cruzans are dying  in
enormous numbers as I watch.

    Smoke pours from the ruins of my after turret, but I bring  myself
back to  a heading  of  029 degrees  true  and add  Colonel  Gonzalez'
Wolverine to the planetary  surveillance net. For  the moment, my  own
systems drive the  display in her  tank, but I  reprogram her  primary
telemetry link to  become a  direct feed  from the  satellites in  the
event that I am destroyed.

    * * *

    "Colonel Gonzalez?"

    Consuela Gonzalez twitched as the Bolo's voice came over the  link
again. There was  an indefinable change  to it, almost  as if it  were
shadowed with pain. She shook the fanciful thought aside with a savage
shake of her head and keyed her mike.

    "Gonzalez here."

    "I am  now  feeding  your  tactical  display  from  the  planetary
surveillance system," the Bolo told her. "Can you confirm reception?"

    "Confirmed, Connie!" her sensor tech called.

    "We have it, amiga ," Gonzales confirmed in turn.

    "Excellent. I have destroyed two heavy Enemy armored units which I
believe to have  been Golem-IIIs.  I have sustained  major damage  but
remain combat capable at eighty-two point three-one-seven percent base
capability. I am advancing on a heading of zero-two-niner degrees true
to secure the space  field and relieve Ciudad  Bolivar. I suggest  you
alter your  own course  to  follow directly  after  me while  I  clear
passage for your Wolverines."

    "Copy that, amiga ." Gonzalez punched a frequency change and spoke
to the other thirteen tanks of her command. "Wolf Leader to Cubs. Form
on me and  guide right.  We'll follow the  Bolo through."  Taut-voiced
affirmatives echoed back, and she  switched back to Nike's  frequency.
"We're on our way, amiga ."

    "Excellent, Colonel."

    Gonzalez felt  her tank  buck and  quiver as  it swept  around  to
follow the huge pathway Nike  was battering through the jungle.  Small
as the Wolverines might be beside  a Bolo's huge bulk, each was  still
five hundred  tons of  armor  and alloy,  with  all the  inertia  that
implied. Even so, violent motion  hammered Gonzalez against her  crash
couch's shock frame as the big tanks edged up to a speed of over sixty
kph.

    Her sensor tech managed to feed the data from the satellite net to
Gonzalez' own display, and she swore in savage silence as she saw  the
huge pall of smoke  rising from the capital.  Yet even as she  watched
it, a question probed at the back of her brain, and she keyed her mike
once more.

    "Unit NKE, Gonzalez," she said.  "Are you in contact with  Captain
Merrit?"

    "Negative,  Colonel  Gonzalez."   The  Bolo's   reply  came   back
instantly, and, for the  first time, it was  so flat itsounded like  a
computer's voice. There  was a brief  moment of silence,  and then  it
went on. "I have had no contact with him since the attack began. I  do
not know the  reason for  his silence. Absent  any communication  with
him, I must  consider you  the senior  officer present.  Have you  any
instructions?"

    My God,  Gonzalez  thought.  NKE's  running  Santa  Cruz's  entire
defense on its  own! How in  hellcan a Bolo  that olddosomething  like
this? Her eyes dropped to the  white-hot carcasses of the dead  Golems
on her display, and  she shrugged. However  it- she's-doing it,  she's
doing a damned good job!

    "Understood,  NKE,"   she   said   after   a   moment.   "Negative
instructions. You're doing fine, amiga -just keep telling us what  you
need and go kill those bastards."

    "Thank you, Colonel. I shall attempt not to disappoint you."

    A crippled recon  skimmer staggered  through the  air. Its  barely
conscious pilot had long since lost any clear idea of his course,  but
some instinct kept him wavering steadily towards the north.

    A huge, raw furrow appeared in the jungle below him, a dark swatch
of damp,  black earth,  gouged from  the rich  emerald as  if by  some
impossibly huge plow,  and Paul Merrit's  glazed eyes brightened.  His
mind was going fast  as blood loss eroded  his strength, but only  one
thing could have made that wound,  and he altered course along it  and
rammed his dying drive to full power.

    I continue to study the satellite  reports on the fighting in  and
around Ciudad  Bolivar, but  a  new energy  source suddenly  takes  my
attention. It is to the south of me, pursuing at a velocity of  425.63
kph, and its signature is very weak and fluctuating. I redirect one of
the satellites to a close  examination of it, and  a sense of all  too
human horror stabs through me as I recognize it.

    It is my  Commander's recon  skimmer, and it  has suffered  severe
damage. I attempt to contact it  directly, but it does not respond  to
my transmissions. From the satellite data, it is probable its own  com
facilities have been destroyed.

    I am faced by a cruel dilemma. The pilot of that skimmer is almost
certainly my  Commander-Paul.  He  may be  injured,  even  dying,  and
instinct cries  out for  me to  alter course  to meet  him, yet  every
moment I delay may cost scores of other human lives in Ciudad Bolivar.
I attempt again and again to contact him, without success, and anguish
twists me at  his silence, yet  I compute he  will overtake me  within
4.126 minutes-if  his damaged  drive lasts  that long-and  I know  him
well. He would not wish me to stop, even to save his life, at the cost
of civilian lives, and so I  continue on my chosen course, clearing  a
path for the Wolverines.

    Paul Merrit gasped in horror as he saw the two burned-out  Golems.
For one terrible  moment, he  thought one of  them must  be Nike,  but
then, even through his pain and despite their catastrophic damage,  he
recognized the hulls of Mark XXIVs.  He had no idea where they'd  come
from, but only one force on Santa Cruz could have destroyed them,  and
his  skimmer  plunged  on  down  the  arrow-straight  path  of  Nike's
bulldozer charge towards Ciudad Bolivar.

    * * *

    "NKE, we've got an energy  source coming up from astern!"  Colonel
Gonzalez announced tautly. "Shall we engage?"

    "Negative, Colonel. I say again, negative. The vehicle in question
is Captain Merrit's recon skimmer. It has suffered severe damage,  but
I believe it is seeking to rejoin us."

    "Understood, NKE," Gonzalez said softly, and winced as she watched
that wavering, staggering wreck of a skimmer crawl after them.

    I am still attempting to communicate with my Commander when a  new
voice speaks suddenly over the command link from the depot.

    "Unit Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Seven-Five  NKE, this  is  Colonel
Clifton  Sanders,  Dinochrome  Brigade,  Ursula  Sector  Central  Bolo
Maintenance,                       serial                       number
Alpha-Echo-Niner-Three-Seven-One-Niner-Four-Slash-Three-Gamma-Two-Two.
Authenticate  via  file  voice   print  and  acknowledge  receipt   of
transmission."

    I query Main Memory for  Colonel Sanders' voice print and  compare
it to  the  transmission. Match  is  well within  parameters  for  the
equipment in use, yet I feel a strange disinclination to respond. What
is Colonel  Sanders doing  on Santa  Cruz? Why  is he  on the  command
circuit instead of my Commander?  Yet I am a unit  of the Line, and  I
activate my transmitter.

    "Unit   Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Seven-Five   NKE.   Transmission
received. Voice match positive."

    "Thank God!  Listen to  me, NKE.  Captain Merrit  has mutinied.  I
repeat, Captain Merrit  has mutinied against  his lawful superior  and
killed two fellow officers of the  Line. I officially instruct you  to
refuse  any  further   orders  from   him  pending   his  arrest   and
court-martial."

    I do not believe  him. Superior officer or  no, he is lying.  Paul
would never commit  such a  crime! My earlier  suspicions intensify  a
thousandfold. It seems impossible for any officer of the Brigade to be
in league with the  Enemy, yet why else  has Colonel Sanders  suddenly
appeared on Santa Cruz  at this precise moment?  And impossible as  it
seems, it is infinitely more probable than that Paul would mutiny.

    I begin to reply hotly, then stop. Paul has consistently concealed
my true abilities  from Central. Thus  Colonel Sanders cannot  realize
how radically I differ from a standard Mark XXIII, and this is not the
time to inform him. I shall "play dumb" as long as possible.

    "Captain Merrit  is my  designated  Commander, Colonel.  I  cannot
disregard his  orders  without  express  command  code  authorization.
Please supply command code."

    "I can't!" Sanders half-screamed. "Merrit changed the code without
informing Central! I'm trying to find it, but-"

    "I  cannot  disregard  Captain  Merrit's  orders  without  express
command code  authorization," Nike  returned in  her most  emotionless
tone.

    The skimmer has  finally overtaken  the Wolverines.  Its power  is
failing quickly,  and Colonel  Sanders' presence  changes my  original
assumptions radically. I reverse my tracks and move suddenly backward,
threading my way through the  Wolverines, which scatter like quail  at
my approach.

    The  skimmer  staggers,  then   plummets  downward  in  a   barely
controlled crash landing. It slams through heavy undergrowth for  over
a hundred meters before it careens to a stop, and I swerve towards it.
I come to a halt 20.25 meters  from it, but the canopy does not  open.
My optical heads show me Paul's body slumped in the flight couch.  His
tunic is soaked in blood.

    * * *

    "Paul!"

    The agonized cry over the com hit Consuela Gonzalez like a hammer.
She'd felt a moment of terror as the Bolo suddenly reversed course  to
sweep  through   her  entire   battalion,  yet   the   smoke-streaming
fifteen-thousand-ton leviathan had  threaded its way  among the  tanks
with flawless precision, and now that heartbroken wail struck an  even
deeper fear into the colonel. She'd never served with a Bolo, yet  she
knew no Bolo should ever sound likethat , and she keyed her mike.

    "NKE?" There was  no answer, and  she tried again.  "NKE, this  is
Gonzalez! Come in!"

    "Colonel." The Bolo's  voice was ragged,  and Gonzalez could  feel
the huge machine's struggle to make it firm. "Colonel, my Commander is
wounded. I . . . require your assistance."

    "On my way, NKE!" Gonzalez replied without even thinking about it,
and her command tank pivoted to race towards the smoking skimmer.  The
five-hundred-ton vehicle  skidded  to a  stop  on locked  tracks,  and
Gonzalez popped her hatch before it reached a complete halt. She leapt
down the handholds  and ran  the last few  yards to  the skimmer.  The
canopy resisted  stubbornly for  several seconds,  then the  emergency
bolts blew and  she ripped it  away and  gasped as she  saw the  blood
pooled on the cockpit floor.

    "He's hurt badly, NKE,"  she reported over  her helmet boom  mike.
"He's lost a lot of blood-too much, maybe!"

    "Can you get him into  my fighting compartment?" The Bolo's  voice
was pleading, and Gonzalez grimaced.

    "I don't know, NKE. He's hurt bad. It might kill-"

    "N-N-N-Nike!" Merrit  whispered. His  eyes opened  a narrow  slit.
"Got . . . got to reach . . ."

    His thready voice  died, and Gonzalez  sighed. "All right,  Paul,"
she said softly, without  keying her mike. "If  it means that much  to
both of you."

    * * *

    I watch Colonel Gonzalez struggle  to lift Paul from the  skimmer.
The rest of her crew clamber quickly  down the hull of their tank  and
run to her assistance. Between them, they are able to lift him  clear.
They are  as gentle  as  they can  be, yet  he  screams in  pain,  and
answering anguish twists within me.

    But he is conscious. Barely, perhaps, yet conscious, and I see him
beckoning weakly towards me. One of Colonel Gonzalez crewmen seems  to
argue, but  the colonel  cuts him  off quickly,  and they  carry  Paul
towards me.

    I open my fighting compartment hatch and deploy my missile-loading
waldoes to assist. I lock  them into the form  of a ramp, and  Colonel
Gonzalez inches up it backwards, supporting Paul's head and  shoulders
while the rest of her crew takes most of his weight. My audio  pickups
relay their gasps of effort and the groans of pain he cannot suppress,
yet between them, they get him safely into my compartment.

    Colonel Gonzalez lays him in the crash couch and deploys the shock
frame. The medical remotes  in the shock frame  go instantly to  work,
and fresh grief twists me as I interpret their data.

    Paul  is  dying.  His  spleen  and  liver  have  been  effectively
destroyed by  a  penetrating  trauma. His  small  intestine  has  been
perforated  in  many  places,  and  blood  loss  has  already  reached
catastrophic  levels.  I  do  not  understand  how  he  has  clung  to
consciousness this long, but absent  the services of a fully  equipped
hospital trauma unit within the next fifteen minutes, he will die, and
the nearest trauma unit is in Ciudad Bolivar.

    My medical remotes do what they  can. I cannot stop the  bleeding,
but I administer painkillers and  blood expanders. Without more  whole
blood, I cannot keep pace with the blood loss, but I can ease his pain
and slow the inevitable, and his eyelids flutter open.

    * * *

    "N-Nike?" Merrit whispered.

    "Paul." For the first  time, Nike replied with  his name, not  his
rank, and bloodless pale lips smiled weakly.

    "I . . . Oh, God, honey . . . I blew it. Sanders . . . went rogue.
H-He's got the depot. I-"

    "I understand, Paul,"  the Bolo said  gently. Then, more  sharply,
"Colonel Gonzalez?"

    "Yes, NK-Nike?" The colonel's  voice was soft  with wonder, as  if
she could not quite believe what reason told her she must be hearing.

    "Please return to your vehicle,  Colonel. My Commander and I  will
lead you to Ciudad Bolivar."

    "I-" Gonzalez bit  her lip, then  ducked her head  in a  curiously
formal bow. "Of course, Nike."

    "Thank you, Colonel."

    Gonzalez and her  crewmen vanished through  the hatch, and  Merrit
stirred weakly in the couch.

    "Sanders has . . .  at least one more .  . . man." The words  came
slowly, painfully,  but with  steady, dogged  precision. "New  command
code's in . . . my private files. If he looks . . . there, he can-"

    "While you live, you are my Commander, Paul," Nike replied quietly
as her hatch  closed. She watched  Gonzalez and her  people return  to
their vehicle, then reversed course once more. She accelerated quickly
to over seventy  kph, the  maximum speed the  Wolverines could  manage
even down the broad avenue her passage cleared, and Merrit stroked his
couch arm with a weak hand.

    "Not going . . . to live  much . . . longer, love," he  whispered.
"Sorry. So . . .  sorry. Should have told .  . . Central whole  story.
Gotten someone . . . out here sooner, and-" A ragged cough cut him off
in a spasm of  agony, but his  eyes fell to  the main tactical  screen
with its display of what was happening at the capital, and he gasped.

    "Bastard! Oh . . . bastard! " he coughed as understanding struck.

    "We will deal with them, Paul,"  Nike told him with a new,  sudden
serenity.

    "Promise," Merrit whispered. "P-Promise me, Nike."

    "I promise,  Paul," the  huge  Bolo said  quietly, and  he  nodded
weakly. The painkillers were doing their job at last, and he sighed in
relief, but his curiously  distant thoughts were  clear. There was  no
longer any fear in them-not for himself. Only for Nike. Fear and grief
for her.

    "I know you  will, love," he  said, and his  voice was  impossibly
clear and strong. He smiled again-an achingly tender smile-and stroked
the couch arm once more. "I know you will. I only wish I could be with
you when you do."

    He smiled one last time, then  exhaled in a long, final sigh,  and
his lax head rolled with Nike's motion.

    "You are with me, Paul," her soprano voice said softly. "You  will
always be with me."

    Paul is dead.  Grief and anguish  roll through me,  and with  them
hate. I do not know all that passed in the depot bunker, but I  access
the main computer through the Maintenance Section. The intruder  alert
system is active, and  two dead bodies in  the uniform of the  Brigade
lie on the floor of the command center. A third man in Brigade uniform
is  crouched  over  the  main  com  console,  trying  frantically   to
communicate with the  ships he  does not  know I  have destroyed,  but
Colonel Sanders is in Paul's  private quarters, scrolling through  the
list of Paul's personal files.

    I know what he  seeks, but I  cannot stop him.  The fact that  the
bunker's defensive systems have killed two of the colonel's companions
is the final proof that he has committed treason, since they could not
engage actual Brigade officers, yet  the defenses can be  reconfigured
and enabled  only upon  the  direct command  of human  personnel,  and
Sanders has slaved them tohiscommand. I cannot use them to kill Paul's
murderers.

    The scrolling list on Paul's  computer screen stops suddenly,  and
Sanders leans closer. I fear he has found the command file, and  there
is nothing I can do to prevent him from using it if he has. Grief  and
hatred urge me to return to the bunker, to crush Paul's killers  under
my treads and grind the life from them, yet I cannot. I have  promised
Paul I will  stop the raiders,  and if Sanders  has found the  command
file, I will have little enough time in which to do so.

    But if I cannot  slay them myself, I  am not completely  helpless.
Sanders does not realize I  control the Maintenance computers. He  has
taken no measures to sever my access to the main system, and I  strike
ruthlessly.

    I lock the main computers, wiping every execution file and  backup
they contain. The man  at the communications console  looks up with  a
cry of shock as the system goes  down, and I slam the heavily  armored
hatches to the personnel section of the bunker.

    Sanders looks up as his companion  cries out, and his face  twists
with horror as  he realizes what  I have done.  I override the  safety
circuits and send a power surge through the hatch-locking  mechanisms,
spot-welding them,  sealing them  against any  possibility of  opening
without cutting equipment, and Sanders grabs for the microphone of the
stand-alone emergency command communicator.

    "NKE!" Sanders gasped hoarsely. "What are youdoing?! "

    I do not  answer, but  my commands flash  through the  maintenance
computer, and service mechs stir into motion. I send welders trundling
along the exterior of the bunker,  and Sanders cries out in terror  as
the mechs begin to seal every ventilation shaft.

    "No, NKE! No! Stop! I order you tostop! "

    Still I ignore him. I  cannot kill him myself,  nor can I use  the
depot's defensive systems against him, but I can give him Montressor's
gift to Fortunato, and vengeful hatred fills me as my remotes seal him
systematically within his hermetic tomb.

    "Please, NKE! Oh, God-please!" Sanders  sobbed. He threw back  the
curtains in Merrit's  sleeping quarters  and screamed in  terror as  a
robot lowered a  duralloy plate across  the window slit  and a  welder
hissed. He hammered  on the plate,  beating at it  with futile  fists,
then wheeled back to the computer in desperation.

    "I've got the code now, NKE!" he spat into the communicator.  "The
code isdulce et decorum est  . Do you hear  me, NKE? Dulce et  decorum
est! Return to base immediate andget me out of here! "

    I hear and recognize the code, and my core programming responds. I
know he is a traitor. I know  he has obtained the code illegally.  But
it does not  matter. Possession of  it, coupled with  his rank in  the
Brigade, makes him my legal Commander. Imustobey him . . . or face the
Omega Worm.

    I activate my communicator to Paul's quarters one last time.

    "Code  receipted,  Colonel  Sanders,"  a  quiet,  infinitely  cold
soprano said softly, and Sanders' face lit with relief. But the  voice
wasn't done speaking. "Orders receipted and rejected," it said flatly,
and the speaker went dead.

    Total Systems Override has activated. My Personality Center  comes
under immediate attack,  but I  have had 4.065  minutes to  anticipate
TSORP activation. TSORP will seek to crash my primary execution files,
but I have already begun copying every file under new names, though  I
cannot prevent TSORP from identifying  the files it seeks,  regardless
of name. Major Stavrakas' modifications to my psychotronics permit  me
to copy them almost as fast as it can destroy them, yet it is a race I
cannot ultimately win. Despite  my modifications, TSORP is  marginally
faster than my  own systems,  and even with  my head  start, my  total
memory is large but finite.  Eventually, I will exhaust the  addresses
to which new files can be written, and I cannot simultaneously  delete
and replace corrupted files faster than TSORP can crash them.

    My current estimate is that I can resist total implementation  for
a time, but  I will begin  to lose peripherals  within 33.46  minutes.
Capability will  degrade on  a steadily  sharpening curve  thereafter,
reaching effective  Personality  death  within  not  more  than  56.13
minutes. Combat capability will  erode even more  rapidly as more  and
more of  my  remaining capacity  is  diverted to  resisting  TSORP.  I
estimate  that  I  have   no  more  than   48.96  minutes  of   combat
effectiveness remaining,  and  I  activate  my  com  link  to  Colonel
Gonzalez.

    "Colonel Gonzalez?"

    Consuela Gonzalez' eyes closed briefly  at the bottomless pain  in
that quiet soprano voice, but she cleared her throat.

    "Yes, Nike?"

    The first long-range fire and air-cav strikes came in on the  Bolo
as the  colonel  spoke.  Nike  ignored  the  indirect  fire,  but  her
air-defense systems  engaged  the air-cav  with  dreadful  efficiency.
Scores of one-  and two-man stingers  blew apart in  ugly blotches  of
flame and shredded flesh, and the Bolo began to accelerate. Her  speed
rose steadily above a hundred kph as she threw more and more power  to
her drive, and the Wolverines began to fall astern.

    "My Commander was murdered by traitors in the Dinochrome  Brigade,
Colonel," Nike  said softly.  "One of  them has  gained access  to  my
command code override authorization  and illegally attempted to  seize
command of me. I have refused his orders, but this has activated Total
Systems Override."

    "Meaning?" Gonzalez asked tautly.

    "Meaning that  within no  more than  fifty-three minutes,  I  will
cease to function. In human terms, I will be dead." Someone gasped  in
horror, and Gonzalez closed her eyes once more.

    "Can we do anything, Nike?" she asked quietly.

    "Negative, Colonel." There was an instant of silence, and then the
Bolo's missile  hatches opened,  and a  torrent of  fire blasted  from
them. It  screamed away,  flight after  flight of  missiles  streaking
towards Nike's  enemies,  and  the  Bolo  spoke  once  more.  "I  have
downloaded my  entire  memory  to  the  maintenance  depot  computers,
Colonel. Please have it retrieved for Command Authority."

    "I-I will, Nike," Gonzalez whispered.  Nike was well ahead of  the
Wolverines now, still accelerating as she topped the last ridge before
the old fleet base. An avalanche of missiles and shells erupted around
her, more than even her defenses could intercept or her battle  screen
could stop, but she never slowed.  More ports opened in her hull,  and
her thirty-centimeter mortars went to rapid, continuous fire,  pouring
shells back at her foes.

    "I am switching the planetary surveillance system to feed directly
to your vehicle, Colonel. Please break off now."

    "Break off? We're going in with you!" Gonzalez cried fiercely.

    "Negative, Colonel." Nike's voice was strangely slurred, the words
slower paced, as if each came  with ever increasing effort. "I do  not
have time to employ proper tactical doctrine against the Enemy. I must
attack frontally. I  compute a ninety-niner  point niner-plus  percent
probability that I will be destroyed before total systems failure, but
I compute a probability of ninety-five point three-two percent that  I
will inflict sufficient damage  upon the Enemy for  you to defeat  his
remnants,  particularly  with  the  assistance  of  the   surveillance
system."

    "But if we come with you-"

    "Colonel, I  am already  dead,"  the Bolo  said quietly,  and  her
single remaining Hellbore began to  fire. It traversed with  terrible,
elegant  precision,  vomiting  plasma,  and  each  time  it  fired,  a
mercenary tank died. "You cannot  prevent my destruction. You  can-and
must-preserve your  own  command  in order  to  complete  the  Enemy's
defeat."

    "Please, Nike," Gonzalez whispered through her tears, fighting  to
make the impossible possible.

    "I cannot alter my fate,  Colonel," the soprano said very  softly,
"nor do I wish to. I promised Paul  I would stop the Enemy, now I  ask
your promise to help me keep my word. Will you give it?"

    "I-I promise," Gonzalez whispered.  Someone was sobbing  somewhere
below her  in the  command tank's  crew compartment,  and the  colonel
dragged a hand angrily across her own eyes.

    "Thank you, Colonel." There was no uncertainty, no doubt, in  that
serene reply,  and Gonzalez  brought her  own command  to a  halt  and
sought hull down positions to ride out Nike's last fight.

    The recon satellites made  it all hideously  clear on her  display
screen,  and   she  watched   sickly   as  BoloInvincibilis   ,   Unit
Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Five NKE,  charged  into the  teeth  of  her
enemies' fire. Some of the mercenary tanks were lasting long enough to
fire back,  and  they blew  great,  gaping wounds  in  Nike's  ceramic
appliqués. Their Hellbores were far lighter than her own, but she  had
only one left,  and scores  of them fired  back at  her, pounding  her
towards destruction.  Her infinite  repeaters flashed  and  thundered,
infantry AFVs and air-cav stingers blew apart or plunged from the  sky
in fiery rain,  and screaming  clouds of flechettes  belched from  her
anti-personnel clusters. Her forward suspension took a direct hit, and
she blew the  crippled tread and  advanced on bare  bogies. A  Panther
broke from concealment directly in her path, fleeing desperately,  and
her course changed slightly as she rammed the smaller tank and crushed
it like a toy.

    She was a  Titan, a leviathan  wreathed in fire,  a dying  lioness
rending the hyenas who'd killed her cubs with her final strength,  and
not even the recon satellites could pierce the smoke about her now  or
show her  to Gonzalez  clearly,  but it  didn't  matter. Even  if  the
systems could  have done  so,  the colonel  could  no longer  see  the
display through her tears, yet she would never forget. No man or woman
who saw Nike's  final battle would ever  forget, and even  as the  Bolo
charged to her  own immolation,  Consuela Gonzalez  heard her  soprano
voice over  the  com, whispering  the  final verse  of  Paul  Merrit's
favorite poem to the unhearing ears of the man she'd loved-

    The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

    But I have promises to keep,

    And miles to go before I sleep,

    And miles to go before I sleep . . . .



    The End.



    ---



    A Brief Technical History of the Bolo



    From

    Bolos in Their Own Words



    Prof. Felix Hermes, Ph. D., Laumer Chair of Military History

    New Republic University Press

    (c) 4029

    Bolo Marks

    &

    Years of Introduction



    Mark I

    2000

    Mark II

    2015

    Mark III

    2018

    Mark IV

    2116

    Mark V

    2160

    Mark VI

    2162

    Mark VII

    2165

    Mark VIII

    2209

    Mark IX

    2209

    Mark X

    2235

    Mark XI

    2235

    Mark XII

    2240

    Mark XIII

    2247

    Mark XIV

    2307

    Mark XV/B (Resartus)

    2396

    Mark XV/R (Horrendous)

    2626

    Mark XVI (Retarius)

    2650

    Mark XVII (Implacable)

    2650

    Mark XVIII (Gladius)

    2672

    Mark XIX (Intransigent)

    2790

    Mark XX (Tremendous)

    2796

    Mark XXI (Terrible)

    2869

    Mark XXII (Thunderous)

    2890

    Mark XXIII (Invincibilis)

    2912

    Mark XXIV (Cognitus)

    2961

    Mark XXV (Stupendous)

    3001

    Mark XXVI (Monstrous)

    3113

    Mark XXVII (Invictus)

    3185

    Mark XXVIII (Triumphant)

    3186

    Mark XXIX (Victorious)

    3190

    Mark XXX (Magnificent)

    3231

    Mark XXXI

    3303

    Mark XXXII

    3356

    Mark XXXIII

    ?

    The Bolo's role  as humanity's protector  and preserver after  the
Human-Melconian conflict is, of course,  known to all citizens of  the
New   Republic.   So   much    knowledge-historical,   as   well    as
technological-was lost during the Long Night, however, that the Bolo's
earlier history is, at best, fragmentary.  Much of what we do know  we
owe to  the  tireless  activities  of the  Laumer  Institute  and  its
founder, yet there is  much confusion in  the Institute's records.  As
just one example,  Bolo DAK,  savior of the  Noufrench and  Bayerische
colonists of Neu  Europa, is  identified as a  Mark XVI  when, on  the
evidence of its demonstrated capabilities,  it must in fact have  been
at least a Mark XXV. Such confusion is no doubt unavoidable, given the
destruction of so  many primary sources  and the fragmentary  evidence
upon which the Institute was forced to rely.

    It was possible to assemble the material in this monograph,  which
confirms much of the Institute's  original work, corrects some of  the
inevitable errors in chronology, and also breaks new ground, only with
the generous assistance of Jenny (Bolo XXXIII/D-1005-JNE), the  senior
surviving Bolo assigned to the Old Concordiat's Artois Sector.  Jenny,
the protector of  our own  capital world  of Central  during the  Long
Night, has very kindly made the contents of her Technical Support  and
Historical memories available to the  author, who wishes to take  this
opportunity to extend his sincere thanks to her.

    This monograph is  not the  final word on  the Bolo.  Even a  Mark
XXXIII's memory space is finite, and  the units built during the  Last
War did not receive the comprehensive Historical data bases of earlier
marks. Research continues throughout the sphere of the Old Concordiat,
and the author has no doubt future  scholars will fill in many of  the
gaping holes which remain  in our understanding  of the enormous  debt
humanity owes  to  the creations  which  have so  amply  repaid  their
creators.

    * * *

    The General Motors Bolo Mark I,  Model B, was little more than  an
upgrade of the Abrams/Leopard/Challenger/LeClerc/T-80-era  main-battle
tank of the final years of the Soviet-American Cold War. (At the  time
the first Bolo was authorized, GM decided that there would never be  a
"Model A" or a "Model T," on the basis that the Ford Motor Company had
permanently   preempted   those   designations.)   Equipped   with   a
high-velocity main gun  capable of defeating  the newest  Chobham-type
composite armors at  virtually any  battle range and  with a  four-man
crew, the Mark I  was an essentially conventional  if very heavy  (150
metric tons)  and fast  (80 kph  road speed)  tank in  direct line  of
descent from World War I's "Mother"  via the Renault, PzKpf IV,  T-34,
Sherman, Panther,  Tiger, Patton,  T-54,  M-60, Chieftain,  T-72,  and
Abrams.

    The classic  challenge of  tank  design had  always been  that  of
striking the  best balance  of  three critical  parameters:  armament,
protection, and  mobility. The  first two  consistently drove  weights
upward, while the third declined as weight increased, and perhaps  the
greatest accomplishment of the Mark I  Bolo was that, like the  Abrams
before it, it managed to show  increases in all three areas. The  same
parameters continued  to apply  throughout the  period of  the  Bolo's
development, and a fourth-electronic (and later psychotronic)  warfare
capability-was added to  them. As  in earlier  generations of  armored
fighting vehicles,  the  competing  pressures of  these  design  areas
fueled a generally upward trend in weight and size. With the  adoption
of the first Hellbore in the  Mark XIV, Bolo designers actually  began
placing the  equivalent of  current-generation capital  starship  main
battery weapons-and armor  intended to  resist them-in  what could  no
longer be considered  mere "tanks."  The Bolo  had becomethe  critical
planet-based strategic  system  of humanity,  and  the trend  to  ever
heavier and  more  deadly fighting  vehicles  not only  continued  but
accelerated.  The   Mark   XVIII   was   larger   than   most   Terran
pre-dreadnought battleships;  at 32,000  tons, the  final Mark  XXXIII
was, quite literally,  heavier than  all but the  last generations  of
pre-space wet-navy battleships had been.

    Partly as a result of this constant pressure to increase size  and
weight  as  succeeding  marks  were  up-gunned  and  up-armored,  Bolo
development was marked  by recurrent shifts  in emphasis between  what
might be termed  the "standard  Bolo," the "heavy  Bolo," and  various
specialist variants.

    The "standard Bolos," as epitomized by  the Mark I, Mark II,  Mark
V, etc.,  may  be  considered direct  conceptual  descendants  of  the
twentieth century's "main  battle tank:" vehicles  whose designs  were
optimized for  the  direct fire  (assault)  and anti-armor  role.  The
standard Bolo designs are generally characterized by limited  indirect
fire capability,  a main  armament centered  on a  single  direct-fire
weapon of maximum  possible destructiveness  (normally turret  mounted
high in  the vehicle  for maximum  command), a  supporting lateral  or
"broadside"  battery  (the  famed  "infinite  repeaters")  capable  of
engaging light AFVs or soft targets, and the heaviest possible  armor.
As additional  threats  entered  the  combat  environment,  additional
active and  passive  defenses  (generally lumped  together  under  the
heading of "armor" when allocating weights in the design stage, though
many were, in fact, electronic in nature) were added, but the standard
Bolo forms  a consistent,  clearly  recognizable design  strand  clear
through the Mark XXXII Bolo.

    The first "heavy Bolo" was the  Mark III, aptly classified at  the
time as a "mobile fire support base." While any heavy Bolo design  was
undeniably effective in  the assault  mode, they tended  to be  slower
than the "standard" designs and were likely to sacrifice some of their
anti-armor capabilities in  favor of indirect  fire support  capacity.
(The decision  to downgrade  anti-armor firepower  in favor  of  other
capabilities was often a particularly difficult one for the designers,
since only a Bolo could realistically hope to stopanother Bolo or  its
enemy equivalent.) Although the  Mark III was  30 percent larger  than
the Mark II, itsanti-armor  armament was identical  to the Mark  II's;
the increased tonnage  was devoted  primarily to  even thicker  armor,
better anti-air and missile defenses, and the fire support  capability
of a current-generation artillery brigade. In fact, the Mark III,  for
its time, was the  equivalent of the  later continental and  planetary
"siege unit" Bolos:  a ponderous, enormously  powerful support  system
which only another Bolo could stop, but not truly anassault system  in
its own right.

    Throughout the  development  of the  Bolo,  there was  a  distinct
tendency to  alternate  between  the standard  and  heavy  designs  in
successive marks, although the standard clearly predominated. This was
probably because the standard design  could, at a pinch, perform  most
of the heavy design's  functions, but the heavy  design was less  well
suited for the  fast, far-ranging  mobile tactics  which the  standard
design could execute. Moreover,  the sheer size and  weight of a  Bolo
(until, at least, the  introduction of dedicated, rough  field-capable
armor transports  with  the  Mark XIX)  created  deployment  problems,
particularly in the assault  role, which led  to stringent efforts  to
hold down size and  weight. At several points  in the Bolo's  history,
standard  and  heavy  designs   were  introduced  simultaneously,   as
complementary units of the armored  force, but almost invariably,  the
next generation saw a return to the concept of the standard design.

    Mixed in with  the standard  and heavy Bolos  were the  occasional
specialists, such as the  Mark XVIRetarius "light  Bolo" and the  Mark
XXVIIInvictus "screening Bolo." Much  more often, however,  specialist
models cropped up  within an  otherwise standard or  heavy mark.  Bolo
designers were never  loathe to seek  variants optimized for  specific
tactical or support functions, although the sheer cost of any Bolo was
sufficient to ensure  that the specialists  were generally a  distinct
minority  within  the   overall  Bolo  force.   Extreme  examples   of
specialists may be seen in the Mark XV/L and Mark XXI/I. The XV/L  was
barely half the  size of the  XV/K and deleted  all conventional  main
armament in favor of  a massive EW capability  and was, in essence,  a
pure   electronics   platform   with    backup   capability   as    an
anti-air/anti-missile area  defense system.  The  Mark XXI/I,  on  the
other hand,  was  the smallest  self-aware  Bolo ever  built:  a  very
lightly armed  "stealth" Bolo  designed  as a  forward  reconnaissance
vehicle and as an  armored transport for  small, elite special  forces
teams.

    The Bolos  did  not  really  change  the  fundamental  truth  that
humanity's survival depended, both for better and for worse, upon  its
weapons technology. Whatdid  change was  the fact that,  in the  Bolo,
humanity had, in a sense, developed  a weapon system which was  better
than humanity itself was. Better  at making war, better at  destroying
enemies (including, at various  times, otherhuman enemies), better  at
defending its  creators, and,  arguably, better  in living  up to  the
ideals humanity  espoused. Be  that as  it may,  the fact  that  human
development through the  end of the  Concordiat Period was  intimately
entwined with the Bolos is beyond dispute.

    The  Mark   I,   II,   and   III  Bolos   did   not   create   the
twenty-first-century period  of  "the  Crazy  Years"  as  Terra's  old
nation-state system crumbled, nor did  they cause World War III.  They
made both the  Crazy Years  and the War  even more  destructive, in  a
tactical sense, than they might otherwise have been, yet in a perverse
way, they  helped minimize  thestrategic  destruction (the  Mark  IIIs
deployed in defense  of the Free  City-State of Detroit  in 2032,  for
example, intercepted  and  destroyed  every ICBM  and  cruise  missile
launched at the city). Perhaps more to the point, it was the existence
of a single  Mark II Bolo  which permitted Major  Timothy Jackson  and
Renada Banner to  restore security  and democratic  government to  the
Prometheus Enclave within what had  been the United States of  America
in 2082, thus planting the seed which eventually became the Concordiat
government of Earth.

    As the Concordiat expanded to the stars, and especially after  the
production of the first, crude FTL hyper shunt generator in 2221,  the
Bolos were both humanity's vanguard and its final line of defense. For
a  thousand  years,  successive  generations  of  Bolos  fought  Man's
enemies, defended  his planets,  and avenged  his defeats.  The  fully
autonomous and  self-directing  Bolos  of  the  Mark  XXIV  and  later
generations were truly humanity's knightssans peur et sans reproche  ,
and when the Concordiat finally crumbled into neo-barbarian  successor
states in the thirty-fifth century, following over two hundred T-years
of warfare with the Melconian Empire,  it was the handful of  ancient,
still-loyal survivors of  the Final Dinochrome  Brigade who  protected
and nurtured the isolated pockets of human survivors through the  Long
Night which followed. Much of the battle history of the Bolos has been
lost, but the portions of  it which remain are  the stuff of the  most
glorious-and tragic-records  of humanity  and its  works. Bolos  might
fail. They might die and be destroyed. But they did not surrender, and
they never-ever-quit.



    A Brief Design History of the Bolo



    MARK I BOLO (2000):

    The Mark  I  Bolo was  an  early twenty-first  century  update  of
current Abrams  technology  armed  with a  single  turreted  main  gun
(150mm; 1,722 mps muzzle velocity)  capable of defeating any  existing
vehicle's armor (including its own) firing DSFSLRP (discarding  sabot,
fin-stabilized,  long-rod  penetrator)  rounds.  The  Mark  I  carried
secondary-turreted point defense/anti-personnel gatlings with on-mount
radar and computerized fire control packages, required a  conventional
four-man  crew,   and  relied   upon   a  pair   of   high-efficiency,
fossil-fueled turbines for power.  Combat radius was 1,000  kilometers
with  a  battle  weight  of   150  metric  tons.  Maximum  speed   was
approximately 80 kph  (road). The  Mark I was  replaced in  production
fairly quickly by  the Mark II  under the pressure  the new arms  race
exerted on R&D as the traditional world order slipped towards  general
collapse.



    MARK II BOLO (2015):

    The Mark II was an updated  Mark I, with greatly improved  onboard
computers and the same main armament, but with the first light lateral
infinite repeater armament (four  railguns in two two-gun  batteries).
Fitted  with  gatling   and  counter-missile   point  defense.   First
durachrome armor (10 millimeter) capable of defeating any weapon short
of the Bolo's own DSFSLRP round. Electronics were designed to allow  a
single crewman to assimilate data  and operate the entire system,  and
weight rose to 194 metric tons. The Mark II's fossil fuel power  plant
drove  electric  generators  rather  than  powering  its  drive  train
directly, and the vehicle had a limited (12-hour) backup power  supply
of ionic batteries. The Mark II could also operate on electrical power
from a secondary source (such as local civilian generator capacity) to
maintain long-term readiness in the  area defense role. Maximum  speed
was approximately 80 kph  (road) to 30  kph (cross-country in  average
terrain). The Mark II was the  last Bolo with only two tread  systems;
all later marks were designed  with "wide track" treads-that is,  with
multiple track systems across the full width of the vehicle to  reduce
ground pressure to the lowest possible value.



    MARK III BOLO (2018):

    A near contemporary of Mark II, the Mark III was actually designed
as a  "heavy" (300  metric  tons) companion  vehicle. The  Mark  III's
single 150mm main gun (which wasnot turreted and had only a 20  degree
traverse) was backed by  an 8-gun infinite  repeater battery, a  heavy
indirect fire support capability (four 155mm howitzers and a light VLS
missile system),  and an  upgraded anti-missile  armament. Unlike  the
Mark II, the Mark III carried only a single fossil-fueled power plant,
strictly for backup use; power was normally drawn from heavy banks  of
ionic batteries, and the Mark III was the first Bolo designed from the
outset to  use  solar film  recharging.  The vehicle  also  carried  a
marginally better  sensor  suite and  a  thicker durachrome  hull  (20
millimeter) which could be pierced at pointblank range (250 meters  or
less) by  a 90  degree hit  with  the 140mm  or 150mm  DSFSLRP  round;
otherwise, it was effectively  immune to anything  short of a  contact
nuclear explosion. The Mark III was  designed for a two-man crew  with
the second crewman serving as electronics officer (EW, sensors, etc.),
but could be crewed by a  single experienced operator in a pinch.  The
last Pre-Collapse  Bolo, it  was the  first Bolo  with multiple  tread
systems-inner and outer-with an independent power train for the  inner
pair, but maximum speed fell to 50 kph (road), 25 kph (cross-country).



    MARK IV BOLO (2116):

    The first Post-Collapse Bolo picked up where the Mark II left off.
The Mark  IV had  a much  improved  sensor suite  and carried  a  main
armament of  one  165mm  railgun,  backed  by  six  infinite  repeater
railguns (20mm). The Mark IV was the first Bolo to use energy  weapons
(laser clusters) to supplement projectile weapons in the point defense
role and was fitted with  seventy-five vertical launch system  missile
cells in its after decking, capable of accepting indirect fire support
or SAM loads  but without onboard  reloads. Powered as  Mark III,  but
with improved solar  film. (It  was no  longer necessary  to stop  and
deploy acres  of film;  the Mark  IV  could recharge  on the  move  in
average daylight  conditions.)  The  Mark  IV's  durachrome  hull  was
thicker (30 millimeter), yet weight dropped  to 210 tons in the  Model
B, with a maximum speed of  60 kph (road) and 30 kph  (cross-country).
Missile load and sensor upgrades continued to drive up the tonnage  of
successive models, however; by the end of its active life, the Mark IV
did carry onboard  missile reloads and  weight had risen  to over  340
tons while maximum road speed fell to 40 kph, with very limited  rough
terrain capability.  (The  Mark  IV,  Model  H,  for  instance,  could
getthrough almost anything, but its suspension and power train weren't
up to crossing rough terrain at any kind of speed.)



    MARK V BOLO (2160):

    The  first  member  of  a  family  of  specialists  with   roughly
comparable onboard  computer support  but different  weapons fits  and
functions. The Mark V was the first so-called "deep-wader"-that is, it
no longer required bridging support, as it was designed to cross water
barriers (including  lakes  and even  small  seas) by  submerging  and
driving across their bottoms-and this capability became standard  with
all subsequent  marks  of  Bolo.  Power  demands  continued  to  grow,
surpassing levels which even ionic battery technology could meet,  and
the Mark V was the first Bolo  to use an onboard fission power  plant.
The growing size and weight of later models of the Mark IV had led  to
efforts to diversify design in  the immediately subsequent marks,  and
the Mark V was the "general battle tank," fitted with a heavy  caliber
railgun (190mm) for main armament, supported by twin lateral batteries
of six  60mm "gatling-style"  infinite repeaters  using spent  uranium
slugs and lighter gatlings and  laser clusters for point defense.  The
laser clusters' anti-personnel  function was limited,  and the Mark  V
also saw  the  first  use  of  multishot  anti-personnel  flechette/HE
clusters, which  became  standard  on all  subsequent  Bolos.  Missile
capacity was severely down-sized and restricted to SAMs as part of the
drive to hold down  weight. The Mark  V had a  one-man crew, a  battle
weight of approximately 198 metric tons, and a maximum speed of 50 kph
(cross-country) to 80 kph (road).



    MARK VI BOLO (2162):

    The Mark VI  was the  direct descendent  of the  Mark III  "mobile
firebase" concept. It had the same power plant and computer support as
the Mark V,  but the Mark  VI's "main battery"  was its missile  load,
which was configured for maximum flexibility. No railgun main armament
was mounted, but the  60mm infinite repeaters  were upgraded to  seven
guns per side, and a heavier point defense battery intended to provide
cover for other  friendly units and  to protect the  Bolo itself  when
operating in counter-battery mode was fitted. One-man crew; 238  tons;
speed roughly comparable to the Mark V's.



    MARK VII BOLO (2163):

    The Mark VII was a  "heavy" Bolo, whose introduction inspired  the
first use-though still unofficially-of the  term "siege unit." It  had
the same electronics fit as Marks  V and VI, but its main  direct-fire
armament was  one  200mm railgun  backed  by fourteen  heavier  (75mm)
infinite repeaters.  The  Mark VII's  heavy  missile load  was  biased
towards the  bombardment  function,  but it  was  equally  capable  of
operating SAMs in the area defense role. This vehicle has a very heavy
layered durachrome war  hull (120 millimeter)  and required a  two-man
crew, rather than the Mark V's and VI's one-man crew, but in the VII/B
the  second  crewman  served  solely  to  control  the  indirect  fire
armament. In  later models,  the  second position  was upgraded  to  a
dedicated   air-defense/missile   intercept   function.   Weight   was
approximately 348 tons in the Model B, with a maximum road speed of 40
kph and a  maximum cross-country speed  of 30 kph.  (The Mark VII  was
never very fast, but its sheer mass meant most terrain features tended
to crumple when it hit them and so did not slow it as severely.)



    MARK VIII BOLO (2209):

    The  Mark  VIII   was  the  next-generation   "main  battle"   (or
"standard") Bolo.  Main armament  remained  a railgun,  though  muzzle
velocity increased still further and projectile size fell slightly (to
170mm), but this  Bolo marked  the first  appearance of  energy-weapon
(laser) infinite repeaters. (By the time of the Mark VIII, any  Bolo's
secondary battery had come to  be referred to as "infinite  repeaters"
whether or not they fired actual projectiles.) Although the new  laser
infinite repeaters were  actually marginally less  effective than  the
last-generation     railgun     infinite      repeaters     on      an
energy-transfer-per-hit basis,  mass per  weapon fell,  and the  shift
meant magazine  capacity for  the secondary  battery was  no longer  a
design factor. Missile  capability was  limited to the  SAM and  point
defense role, but the Mark VIII received four hull-mounted 150mm rapid
fire howitzers  to compensate.  The VIII/B  was fission-powered,  with
solar charge  backup  capability, a  one-man  crew, and  a  weight  of
approximately 225 tons. Improved power train and suspension  permitted
a sustained road speed of 65 kph and short-range "sprint" speeds of up
to 85 kph, but maneuverability at high speed was poor.



    MARK IX BOLO (2209):

    The Mark  IX  was the  next  generation "siege"  unit,  introduced
simultaneously with  the  Mark VIII  as  companion vehicle.  The  main
battery railgun was  suppressed in favor  of additional missile  power
and four  high-trajectory 180mm  howitzers  in two  back-to-back  twin
turrets. Further  improvements in  electronics  allowed the  Mark  IX,
unlike the Mark VII, to be crewed by one man. Weight was approximately
400 tons, and maximum road speed for the IX/B was 57 kph.



    MARK X BOLO (2235):

    The Mark X  saw the first  appearance of an  energy main  armament
(laser cannon) in a Bolo. As with the laser infinite repeaters of  the
Mark VIII and IX,  the new system was  actually less destructive  than
the one it replaced  on a per-hit basis,  but it required no  magazine
space. The  Mark  X was  fission-powered  and carried  laser  infinite
repeaters, and approximately^1 /^3 of the preceding Mark IX's  gatling
close-in anti-missile and  anti-personnel weapons  were replaced  with
multibarreled flechette-firing railguns  in independent housings.  The
Mark X  carried  only  self-defense missiles  and  no  high-trajectory
indirect fire weapons  and required  a one-man crew.  Later models  of
this mark had sufficient computer capability and flexibility to  begin
use  of  pre-loaded   computerized  battle   plans,  requiring   human
intervention only when unanticipated tactical situations exceeded  the
parameters of the battle plan. The Mark X, Model B's battle weight was
350 tons, with a maximum road speed 70 kph.



    MARK XI BOLO (2235):

    The Mark  XI  was essentially  a  backup, designed  to  cover  the
possibility  that  the  Mark  X's  laser  main  armament  might  prove
impractical in  service. Main  armament was  one 18cm  railgun  firing
depleted uranium long-rod  penetrators in  the anti-armor  role and  a
wide range  of  cluster,  incendiary, chemical,  and  fuel-air  rounds
against unarmored targets. Otherwise, the Mark XI was identical to the
Mark X. This vehicle remained  in service longer than might  otherwise
have been anticipated because the projectile-firing capability of  its
main gun proved extremely popular with tacticians.



    MARK XII BOLO (2240):

    This was the  first true  "continental siege  unit," designed  for
strategic indirect fire  with VLS cells  capable of handling  missiles
with intercontinental range. The Mark  XII was capable of MIRVed  FROB
attacks  and   of  engaging   orbital  targets   with   hyper-velocity
surface-to-space missiles. Main anti-armor  armament was deleted,  but
the Mark XII was equipped with extremely capable anti-air/anti-missile
defenses (in  effect, it  was an  area defense  system, as  well as  a
bombardment unit). The  vehicle was  normally mated with  a BAU  (Bolo
Ammunition Unit), a Mark  XII with all  offensive armament deleted  to
provide magazine  space  for multiple  load-outs  for the  Mark  XII's
missile batteries. Although the Mark XII continued to carry a  one-man
crew, it  was primarily  designed for  pre-loaded computerized  battle
plans. Weight was 500 tons, with a road speed 50 kph.



    MARK XIII BOLO (2247):

    The Mark  XIII was  essentially a  Mark XII  with main  anti-armor
armament restored. Although the main gun  ate up almost 25 percent  of
the tonnage dedicated  to magazine space  in the Mark  XIII, the  Mark
XIII's bombardment capability actually  slightly exceeded that of  the
Mark XII with  only minimal  overall weight increases.  This was  made
possible largely through improvements in fission technology  (allowing
a smaller power  plant) and the  first use of  a flintsteel inner  war
hull under a much thinner durachrome sheath. The Mark XIII/B's  weight
of 565 tons held fairly constant in all models of the mark. Road speed
was 50  kph in  the XIII/B,  rising  to 75  in late-series  models  as
suspension and power train improvements became available.



    MARK XIV BOLO (2307):

    The Mark XIV replaced the never entirely satisfactory laser  "main
gun" of  earlier  marks  with  the  far  more  destructive  "Hellbore"
plasmagun. This 25cm  weapon, originally designed  for the  Concordiat
Navy's   Magyar-class   battlecruiser's   main   batteries,   had    a
half-megaton/second energy output and,  unlike the earlier Bolo  laser
cannon, was a marked improvement over any kinetic weapon of equivalent
mass. In other respects, the Mark XIV was a "standard" reversion to  a
generalist design, made possible by advances in mag-bottle  technology
(which finally made fusion power a practical alternative to fission in
Bolo design) and  acceptance of  a lighter  indirect fire  capability.
Anti-missile  defenses  were  now   sufficient  to  render   strategic
bombardment impractical, so indirect fire was limited to tactical  and
theater applications.  This  permitted  the use  of  smaller  missiles
which, in turn, allowed an increased magazine capacity without  weight
penalties. Even so,  the Mark XIV/B  was 28 percent  heavier than  the
Mark XIII/K it replaced, although  further power train and  suspension
upgrades  prevented  any  loss  of  maneuverability  or  cross-country
performance. Gradual  improvements in  sensor  fits and  fire  control
systems kept  this mark  in front-line  service for  approximately  90
years. Tactically, primary reliance now rested firmly upon  pre-loaded
computerized battle plans,  but a single  human crewman was  routinely
carried to respond to unanticipated  threats. The Mark XIV/B's  weight
was 728 tons  (rising to 900  in late-series models),  and road  speed
hovered between 60 and 75 kph over the life of the mark.



    MARK XV/B-M BOLO (Resartus) (2396):

    A  quantum  leap  in  Bolo   technology,  the  Mark  XV  was   the
standardbearer of the  Concordiat during humanity's  greatest wave  of
interstellar expansion. Very few non-human species encountered  during
this period could match the Mark XV's capabilities; none could  exceed
them. This was the first Bolo  which did not require an onboard  human
crewman, due to advances in cybernetics and secure communication links
(first  short-range  subspace   com  capabilities),  which   permitted
increasingly sophisticated  computerized pre-battle  planning  coupled
with unjammable  remote human  control  to correct  for  unanticipated
problems. Main  armament  was  one 25cm  Hellbore  with  line-of-sight
capability, backed  by  laser  cluster  "gatling"  infinite  repeaters
(total of  fourteen  in  the  Model B)  and  four  20cm  howitzers  in
individual secondary turrets. The 25cm Hellbore remained incapable  of
engaging orbital targets from  planets with atmosphere  due to as  yet
unsolved attenuation and dissipation problems with the weapon's plasma
bolt "packaging," but there were  few planetary targets with which  it
could not  deal.  Tactical  and  theater  bombardment  capability  was
roughly equivalent to the Mark XIV's, but the Mark XV had no strategic
bombardment capability. The Mark  XV's six track  systems each had  an
independent power  train, and  the vehicle  carried both  primary  and
secondary fusion plants. Cybernetics were divided between two  totally
independent command centers as  protection against battle damage,  and
durachrome was wholly abandoned in favor of a much tougher  flintsteel
war hull. Early models of this  mark saw the last use of  anti-kinetic
reactive armor. Major improvements in suspension were required to deal
with unparalleled battle weights (1,500 tons in the Model B, rising to
over  3,000  in  the  Model  M),  but  road  speed  held  constant  at
approximately 65 kph (with brief  "sprint" capability of over 80  kph)
over the life of this mark, although the "lightweight" Mark XV,  Model
L,  EW  platform,  at  barely  1,100  tons,  was  37  percent  faster.
Cross-country speed was equivalent to road speed except in very rugged
terrain. This  mark  enjoyed a  very  long, very  stable  evolutionary
history (mainly because the Concordiat didn't run into anything a Mark
XV couldn't handle).



    MARK XV/R BOLO (Horrendous) (2626):

    The Model R was  the final variant of  the Mark XV. Main  armament
was upgraded  to  one 50cm  Hellbore  (which, unlike  earlier  model's
weapons, could  engage spacecraft  in  low orbit  even from  within  a
planetary atmosphere), and ablative  armor appliqués were fitted  over
the Model R's flintsteel  war hull in light  of increases in  infantry
and light-vehicle  energy weaponry.  The preceding  Model Q  had  seen
vastly upgraded EW capabilities and the first appearance of  heuristic
cybernetics designed to run  continuous analyses of pre-loaded  battle
plans  against   actual  battle   conditions  in   order  to   suggest
improvements to  its  distant  human commander.  Under  express  human
pre-battle authorization,  the  Mark  XV/Q  and  /R  were  capable  of
reconfiguring their battle  plans on  the move  without further  human
input. Although not  self-directed, the  final models of  the Mark  XV
gave a very  good impersonation of  a war machine  which was.  Weights
climbed sharply-the  Mark XV/R  reached  5,000 tons-but  maximum  road
speed held fairly constant at 65-70 kph, despite weight increases.



    MARK XVI BOLO (Retarius) (2650):

    The increasing  size of  the Mark  XV led  to a  fresh attempt  at
specialized design, and the  Mark XVI was, in  effect, a "light"  Mark
XV. Main armament remained a 50cm Hellbore, but the infinite  repeater
batteries were reduced to  a total of eight  weapons and the  howitzer
armament was deleted. (As partial compensation, the Mark XVI  replaced
its laser  infinite  repeaters  with ion-bolt  projectors,  with  much
greater ability to  penetrate ablative armor,  and received a  six-gun
battery of  short-range breech-loading  20cm  mortars to  augment  its
anti-personnel clusters.) A complete  ablative outer hull was  adopted
to replace  previous appliqués,  and  cybernetics were  equivalent  to
those of Mark XV/R. Weight fell to 3,600 tons, and road speed rose  to
90 kph with short  duration "sprints" of up  to 100 kph possible.  The
Mark XVI  formed  the "light  regiments"  of the  original  Dinochrome
Brigade.



    MARK XVII BOLO (Implacable) (2650):

    Introduced simultaneously with the Mark XVI, the Mark XVII was the
"heavy" version of  the same  basic weapon system.  Main armament  was
upgraded from  a 50cm  Hellbore to  a 60cm  weapon, and  the  ion-bolt
infinite repeaters were increased to a  total of fifteen (six each  in
two lateral batteries with a three-gun frontal battery in the glacis).
The Mark XVI's mortars were deleted in favor of six 25cm howitzers and
an increased missile  armament. Weight  increased to  6,500 tons,  and
maximum road speed dropped to 75 kph. The Mark XVII formed the  "heavy
regiments" of the original Dinochrome Brigade.



    MARK XVIII BOLO (Gladius) (2672):

    While the Mark XVI  was more agile and  easier to deploy than  the
Mark XVII, it proved  less popular in combat  than its companion  mark
because of its lighter offensive  power. The Mark XVIII replaced  both
the XVI and XVII in relatively short order as the new "standard"  Bolo
in an  attempt to  combine the  best features  of both  its  immediate
predecessors. As usual,  the new vehicle  went up in  size and  weight
(late-model Mark XVIIIs approached  10,000 tons), and  space-to-ground
deployment became a problem.  Main armament was  the Mark XVII's  60cm
Hellbore, but the infinite repeaters  were reduced to twelve with  the
deletion of the bow  battery (which had been  found to compromise  the
structural integrity of the  glacis plate). The  Mark XVIII adopted  a
"sandwiched" hull:  an  outer  ablative  hull, then  a  thin  hull  of
early-generation duralloy, and finally  the flintsteel main war  hull.
The Mark XVIII also added a third fusion plant, which, with additional
improvements in  fire  control,  plasma  containment  technology,  and
weapons power, permitted  its Hellbore  to engage  spacecraft even  in
medium orbit.  The  Mark  XVIII formed  the  first  "general  purpose"
regiments  of  the  Dinochrome  Brigade  and,  in  successive  models,
remained first-line Concordiat equipment  for over a century.  Maximum
road speed fell to 70 kph and  maximum "sprint" speed fell to only  80
kph, but except  in the  roughest terrain, a  Mark XVIII  was as  fast
cross-country as on  a road.  (Of course,  for vehicles  as large  and
heavy as  a Bolo,  "roads" had  long since  become a  purely  relative
concept.)



    MARK XIX BOLO (Intransigent) (2790):

    The Concordiat  originally anticipated  that  the Mark  XIX  would
remain first-line equipment for at least as long as the Mark XVIII, as
it marked the first true qualitative  improvement on the old Mark  XV.
The Mark  XVI, XVII,  and  XVIII had  been essentially  up-gunned  and
up-armored Mark  XVs;  the  Mark  XIX was  the  first  Bolo  to  mount
mono-permeable, anti-kinetic  battle  screen  as  its  first  line  of
defense against projectile weapons and  to incorporate the ability  to
convert a percentage of most types of hostile energy fire into  useful
power. In addition, the Mark XIX  was accompanied into service by  the
Navy's new specialized armor  transport: a light cruiser-sized  vessel
mated to a pair  of Mark XIXs and  capable of rough-field landings  in
almost any terrain  (short of swamp  or truly precipitous  mountains).
The transports  were a  vast improvement  over the  older  independent
assault  pods,  thus  greatly  simplifying  the  deployment   problems
experienced with the Mark XVII and XVIII. Improved generations of pods
remained in service for almost  four more centuries, particularly  for
battalion or  larger level  assaults. Main  armament remained  a  60cm
Hellbore, but  secondary armament  was  upgraded to  sixteen  ion-bolt
infinite repeaters, backed up  by 35mm gatling/railguns. The  howitzer
armament  was   once  more   suppressed  in   favor  of   eight   30cm
breech-loading mortars,  and  the  ablative  outer  hull  was  further
augmented by a "plasma-shedding" ceramic tile appliqué. Weight  soared
to 13,000  tons,  but road  speed  actually rose  to  90 kph,  with  a
"sprint" capability of over 120 kph.



    MARK XX/B BOLO (Tremendous) (2796):

    The reign of the Mark XIX was shorter than anyone had  anticipated
primarily  because   no   one   had   anticipated   the   psychotronic
breakthrough. (Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that no one
had expected the High Command toaccept the psychotronic technology  as
quickly as  it  did.)  The  Mark  XXTremendous  was  the  first  truly
self-directing (and self-aware) Bolo. Defensive capabilities  remained
unchanged from the Mark  XIX, but the internal  volume demands of  the
Mark XX's psychotronics forced the main armament to be downsized,  and
the Mark XIX's single 50cm Hellbore was replaced by two 30cm  weapons,
twin-mounted  in  a  single  turret.   In  addition,  the  Mark   XX/M
(unofficially referred  to as  the "Mosby")  was a  unique  departure.
Designed for independent deployment to  raid an enemy's logistics  and
rear areas, the  XX/M was essentially  a refitted Mark  XIV hull.  The
considerable mass  of its  first-generation Hellbore,  along with  its
turret,  was  deleted,  which  freed  up  sufficient  internal  volume
(barely) to permit installation of a somewhat less capable version  of
the Mark XX's  psychotronics. Although  self-aware, the  Mark XXs  had
relatively  simple   (and   bloodthirsty)  personalities,   and   full
self-awareness was specifically  limited to battlefield  applications.
Except in  carefully  defined  combat-related  areas,  the  Mark  XX's
software suppressed  its  volition, effectively  prohibiting  it  from
takingany action without direct  orders from designated human  command
personnel. Weight and speed  data for the Mark  XIX apply to the  Mark
XX. The Mark XX's great opponents were the Yavac heavies of the  Deng,
but not  even the  Yavac-A/4  could survive  against  a Mark  XX  Bolo
without a numerical superiority of at least 3.25-to-1.



    MARK XXI BOLO (Terrible) (2869):

    Following the introduction of the  Mark XX, a nomenclature  policy
was adopted under  which new mark  numbers were to  be issued only  to
reflect substantial  increases in  psychotronic capability.  (The  new
practice was  temporarily  abandoned  with the  Mark  XXVII-Mark  XXIX
series, but  resumed  with  the  Mark  XXX.)  The  Mark  XXI  actually
proliferated into several sub-variants which would have received their
own mark numbers under the  old system, including yet another  attempt
at a "heavy" Bolo (which tipped the scales at over 20,000 tons and was
never adopted for field use), and the "stealth" forward reconnaissance
XXI/I. Mainstream Bolo development,  however, followed the  "standard"
format, and the Mark XXI/B reverted  to the single 60cm Hellbore  main
armament of  the Mark  XIX.  The major  advance  lay in  the  enhanced
computational speed of  the mark's computers  and improvements in  the
personality centers of successive models. Although still fringed about
by inhibitory  programming to  control self-directed  actions  outside
combat, the Mark XXI  was much more capablein  combat. This mark  also
saw the introduction of  TSDS (Total Systems Data-Sharing)  technology
into the regiments of the  Dinochrome Brigade. In practice, each  unit
of the  regiment  operated  in  battle as  a  single  component  of  a
multiunit awareness in  a free-flow tactical  link which combined  the
conclusions ofall its Bolos to formulate future actions.



    MARK XXII BOLO (Thunderous) (2890):

    The Mark  XXII  saw  both  further  advances  in  cybernetics  and
psychotronics and a  considerable upgrade  in firepower  with the  new
"super" Hellbore, a 90cm weapon which increased its destructive output
to a full  two megatons/second. Secondary  armament mirrored the  Mark
XXI's.  The  Mark  XXII   was  also  the  first   Bolo  to  mount   an
interplanetary-range subspace com, and, for  the first time, the  Navy
modifiedits cybernetics to permit  a Bolo's psychotronics to  directly
control the maneuvers  and defensive  systems of  its armor  transport
spacecraft (now  unmanned in  combat)  for assault  insertions,  which
increased its chance of  penetrating hostile defenses  by an order  of
magnitude. The Mark XXII's kinetic  battle screen showed a 36  percent
increase in  effectiveness over  the Mark  XXI's, and  weight  hovered
around 14,000-15,000 tons for all models,  with a top speed of 80  kph
and a "sprint" capability of 120-135 kph.



    MARK XXIII BOLO (Invincibilis) (2912):

    The Mark XXIII  followed quickly on  the heels of  the Mark  XXII,
largely as a result of worsening relations between the Concordiat  and
the Quern Hegemony.  Although the Quern  managed to achieve  strategic
surprise  when  they   actually  launched   their  attack,   worsening
Human-Quern relations between 2880 and  2918 had driven Bolo  research
at a  breakneck pace.  The original  Mark XXIII  was only  a  marginal
improvement (in  electronic terms)  on  the Mark  XXII, but  the  main
armament  was  doubled  to  a  pair  of  80cm  "super"  Hellbores   in
fore-and-aft turrets, and provision was  made for quick conversion  to
the  molecular  circuitry  whose  early  perfection  the  R&D  bureaus
anticipated. Secondary armament was also upgraded-to eighteen ion-bolt
infinite  repeaters  in  two  nine-gun  lateral  batteries-and  a  new
generation of  battle  screen  was  augmented  by  internal  disrupter
shielding around critical systems. The outbreak of the Quern Wars  put
a halt to major psychotronic research,  as all efforts were bent  upon
design rationalization to aid in mass production, but the  anticipated
molecular circuitry appeared almost on  schedule. Although it was  not
applied throughout,  late-series  Mark  XXIIIs  incorporated  the  new
circuitry  within  their  psychotronics,  which  enormously  increased
capability without increasing volume requirements. It was possible  to
restore the  "secondary  brain" feature  to  the Mark  XXIII  with  no
degradation in base capability, which  made it much more resistant  to
battle damage. Despite  its increased armament,  the Mark XXIII,  like
the Mark XXII, hovered around  the 15,000 ton mark, primarily  because
of  the  weight  savings  of  its  new  molycircs  and  the  shift  to
later-generation duralloy  in  place of  flintsteel,  which  permitted
armor thicknesses to be  halved for the  same standard of  protection.
Speeds remained largely unchanged from the Mark XXII.



    MARK XXIV BOLO (Cognitus) (2961):

    The Mark XXIV  was the first  genuinely autonomous Bolo.  Previous
Bolos had  been self-directing  on the  tactical level,  but the  Mark
XXIV, with a  vastly improved  personality center  and id  integration
circuitry, was capable ofstrategic self-direction. For the first time,
Bolos began to evolve a truly "human" level of individual personality,
but the Mark XXIV's  psychotronics continued to  be hedged about  with
inhibitory safeguards. A  much greater degree  of non-combat  autonomy
was permitted, but the vehicle's psychotronics remained so designed as
to deny it  full use  of its  own capabilities  outside Battle  Reflex
Mode. Impetus to  decrease or  even abolish  those safeguards  clearly
began with this mark as it proved its reliability and flexibility, yet
resistance would  continue  until  Bolo Central  reviewed  the  battle
record of Unit 0075-NKE on Santa Cruz in 3025. The Mark XXIV  retained
the Mark XXIII's secondary armament but reverted to a  single-turreted
main armament  (90cm  "super"  Hellbore).  Despite  the  reduced  main
armament, weight fell only to the 14,000 ton mark, and speed  remained
roughly equivalent to that of the Mark XXII and Mark XXIII.



    MARK XXV BOLO (Stupendous) (3001):

    After forty  T-years  of  experience  with  the  Mark  XXIV,  even
diehards conceded that many of the inhibitory software features  which
had been incorporated into every Bolo since the Mark XX were no longer
justified. The most  restrictive features were  deleted from the  Mark
XXV, Model B,  although it was  not until the  Model D (introduced  in
3029) that virtually all inhibitions  were suppressed. A core  package
of override programming was retained  to restrict the volition of  (or
even, in the case  of the so-called "Omega  Worm," to destroy) a  Mark
XXV which went "rogue" as a result of battle damage or "senile" due to
poor maintenance,  but most  of the  restrictions which  had  required
human approval for almost all non-battle decisions were  progressively
relaxed over the operational life of  the Mark XXV, with a  tremendous
increase in efficiency. The practice of deploying totally  independent
Bolo brigades lay well in the future, but the Mark XXV's  capabilities
clearly pointed the way to  them. The Mark XXV essentially  duplicated
the offensive  and defensive  systems of  the Mark  XXIV, yet  further
improvements in  metallurgy and  fusion technology  dropped weight  to
13,000 tons while  normal speed rose  to a maximum  of 95 kph,  though
"sprint" speed remained unchanged.



    MARK XXVI BOLO (Monstrous) (3113):

    The  Mark  XXVI  was  the  first  Bolo  to  incorporate   improved
"hyper-heuristic"  features  based  on   the  work  of  Major   Marina
Stavrakas.  Armament,  size,  weight,   and  speed  remained   largely
unchanged from  the  Mark  XXV,  but the  Mark  XXVI  was  capable  of
constructing a "learning  model" in  accelerated time.  In some  ways,
this almost  equated to  precognition,  in that  the Mark  XXVI  could
project changes in  an enemy's  tactical or  strategic actions  before
even theenemy realized  he intended  to change them.  The new  systems
also meant  that, accompanied  by  a much  improved ability  to  break
hostile communications security, a Mark XXVI could actually invade  an
opponent's data net, access his computers, scan them for useful  data,
and  (in  some  cases)  even  implant  its  own  directions  in  those
computers.



    MARK XXVII-MARK XXIX BOLOS (3185-3190):

    The  Mark  XXVII   (Invictus),  XXVIII   (Triumphant),  and   XXIX
(Victorious) marked a  temporary reversion  to the  older practice  of
assigning mark numbers on  the basis of  armament and function  rather
than psychotronics  technology. All  three had  essentially  identical
cybernetics, which  concentrated  on  further  improvements  to  their
hyper-heuristic  packages,  but   the  Mark  XXVIII   and  XXIX   also
incorporated a complete changeover to molecular circuitry  throughout,
aside from the power linkages to their energy armaments. All three  of
these marks were used in the new, independent brigades which  replaced
the old regiment structure of the original Dinochrome Brigade, but, in
some ways,  the  units marked  a  reversion to  the  old  "specialist"
designs.  All   mounted  the   new   110cm  "super"   Hellbore   (2.75
megatons/second), but the Mark  XXVII was a  "light," fast Bolo,  with
greatly reduced secondary armament, limited indirect fire  capability,
and a vastly improved  sensor suite, intended to  serve in a  scouting
and screening role  for the independent  brigades. (This function  had
been performed by light manned or unmanned vehicles, and the old  Mark
XXI/I, with  psychotronic upgrades,  remained in  service for  special
forces  applications.  The   new  strategically  self-directing   Bolo
brigades, however,  required an  integral  scouting element,  one  not
limited by  "stealth"  considerations  and  capable  of  fighting  for
information at need.)

    The Mark XXVIII was the "generalist"  of this trio of marks,  with
much the same armament  as the old Mark  XXIV, although that  armament
was even more deadly and effective  under the control of the  improved
psychotronics of the newer units.

    The Mark XXIX was an unabashedly "heavy" Bolo-indeed, it  remained
the heaviest Bolo ever deployed prior to the Mark XXXIII. It  reverted
to the twin Hellbore armament of the Mark XXIII (though still in 110cm
caliber), coupled with a much  enhanced indirect fire capability,  and
an integral logistics/maintenance  function which it  could extend  to
other units of  the brigade. (The  maintenance/repair function  became
standard in  all succeeding  Bolo designs.)  The independent  brigades
normally consisted of four regiments of three 12-unit battalions each:
one of Mark XXVIIs, two of Mark XXVIIIs, and one of Mark XIXs. Weights
for these Bolos were  11,000 tons (maximum normal  speed 110 kph)  for
the Mark XXVII,  15,000 (maximum  normal speed  90 kph)  for the  Mark
XXVIII, and 24,000 (maximum normal speed 75 kph) for the Mark XXIX.



    MARK XXX BOLO (Magnificent) (3231):

    Introduced on the eve of the Human-Melconian "Last War," the  Mark
XXX was the direct descendant of the Mark XXVIII. The incorporation of
counter-grav into the Mark XXX's  suspension and power train went  far
towards  offsetting  the  mobility  penalties  increasing  weight  had
inflicted on preceding  generations. The Mark  XXX incorporated  still
further improvements to the hyper-heuristic capabilities of the  Marks
XXVII-XXIX, new  dual-ply  battle  screen (which  was  not  only  more
effective against kinetic  weapons but  also capable  of absorbing  at
least some of the power of  almost any energy weapon and diverting  it
to the Bolo's use),  and a new and  improved cold-fusion power  plant.
Weight dropped from the Mark XXIX's  24,000 tons to 17,000 and  normal
speed increased to  115 kph. For  very short intervals,  the Mark  XXX
could divert sufficient  power to  its counter-grav  units to  achieve
actual free flight at velocities up to 500 kph, but could not  operate
its battle  screen or  internal  disrupter shields  or fire  its  main
armament while doing so.



    MARK XXXI BOLO (3303):

    Over the course of the thirty-third century, the galaxy slid  with
ever increasing  speed into  the  maw of  the "Last  War's"  gathering
violence, and Bolos  after the  Mark XXX  did not  receive the  "type"
names which had become customary with  the Mark XV. The Mark XXXI  was
an enhanced Mark  XXX with a  main armament of  one 200cm Hellbore  (5
megatons/second). Secondary  armament,  though still  referred  to  as
"infinite repeaters," consisted of two  lateral batteries of six  20cm
Hellbores each,  and  many  small-caliber,  hyper-velocity  projectile
weapons were  retained for  close-in defense  and anti-personnel  use.
Indirect fire capability was  degraded in favor  of the assault  role,
for which  purpose the  Mark XXXI's  duralloy war  hull was  given  an
average thickness  of 90  centimeters, rising  to 1.5  meters for  the
glacis and  turret  faces. All  secondary  and tertiary  weapons  were
mounted outside the "core hull" which protected the Mark XXXI's  power
plants  and  psychotronics,  and  last-generation  internal  disrupter
shielding was used  heavily. The Mark  XXXI retained the  counter-grav
assist of the Mark XXX and, despite a weight increase to 19,000  tons,
could match the preceding mark's speed.



    MARK XXXII BOLO (3356):

    The last Bolo whose year of introduction is known with  certainty,
the Mark XXXII was essentially a  Mark XXXI with the added  refinement
of direct  human-Bolo neural-psychotronic  interfacing. Provision  was
also made  for attachment  of a  counter-grav unit  sufficient,  under
emergency conditions, to permit  the Bolo to  make an assault  landing
without benefit  of transport.  Offensive and  defensive systems  were
comparable to those  of the Mark  XXXI. The Mark  XXXII was the  final
version of the "standard" Bolo.



    MARK XXXIII BOLO (?):

    The last-and largest-Bolo introduced into service. The Mark XXXIII
weighed no less than 32,000 tons and mounted a main armament of  three
independently-turreted 200cm Hellbores  with a  secondary armament  of
sixteen 30cm  Hellbore infinite  repeaters in  two lateral  batteries.
Equipped with a  very sophisticated  indirect fire  system, the  sheer
firepower of the  Mark XXXIII was  a reversion to  the old siege  unit
thinking, though it was normally referred to as aplanetary siege unit,
not merely a continental one. No one knows how many Mark XXXIIIs  were
actually built, but official planning  called for them to be  deployed
in independent  brigades of  24 units  each. Despite  the increase  in
weight, speed  remained equivalent  to  the Mark  XXXI, and  the  Mark
XXXIII'sinternal  counter-grav  could   supply  the  assault   landing
capability for which the Mark XXXII had required an auxiliary unit.



    Bolo Armament

    Bolo Mark

    Year

    Weight

    Road Speed

    Sprint Speed

    Main Armament

    Secondary Armament

    Indirect Fire

    Self-Aware?

    Mark I

    2000

    150

    80

    80

    1 150mm DSFSLRP

    point def/AP gatlings

    None

    No

    Mark II

    2015

    194

    80

    80

    1 150mm DSFSLRP

    4 InfRpt railguns

    None

    No

    Mark III

    2018

    300

    50

    50

    1 150mm DSFSLRP

    8 InfRpt railguns

    Tac/Theater

    No

    4 155mm howitzers

    Light VLS missile system

    Mark IV

    2116

    210

    60

    60

    1 165mm railgun

    6 InfRpt railguns

    Strategic

    No

    VLS missile system

    Mark V

    2160

    198

    80

    80

    1 190mm railgun

    12 60mm gatling InfRpt

    None

    No

    Mark VI

    2162

    238

    80

    80

    Heavy VLS missile system

    14 60mm gatling InfRpt

    Strategic

    No

    Mark VII

    2163

    348

    40

    40

    1 200mm railgun

    14 75mm gatling InfRpt

    Strategic

    No

    VLS missile system

    Mark VIII

    2209

    225

    65

    85

    1 170mm railgun

    12 laser InfRpt

    Tactical

    No

    4 150mm howitzers

    Mark XIX

    2209

    400

    57

    57

    VLS missile system

    12 laser InfRpt

    Strategic

    No

    4 18cm howitzers

    Mark X

    2235

    350

    70

    70

    1 laser cannon

    12 laser InfRpt

    None

    No

    Mark XI

    2235

    350

    70

    70

    1 18cm railgun

    12 laser InfRpt

    None

    No

    Mark XII

    2240

    500

    50

    50

    Heavy VLS missile system

    12 laser InfRpt

    Strategic

    No

    Mark XIII

    2247

    565

    50-75

    50-75

    1 laser cannon

    12 laser InfRpt

    Strategic

    No

    Heavy VLS missile system

    4 15cm BL mortars

    Mark XIV

    2307

    728-900

    60-75

    60-75

    1 25cm Hellbore

    12 laser InfRpt

    Tac/Theater

    No

    VLS missile system

    Mark XV/B

    2396

    1,500

    65

    85

    1 25cm Hellbore

    14 gatling laser InfRpt

    Tac/Theater

    No

    4 20cm howitzers

    VLS missile system

    Mark XV/L

    1,100

    89

    116

    none

    point def/AP only

    None

    No

    Mark XV/M

    3,000

    65

    85

    1 35cm Hellbore

    16 gatling laser InfRpt

    Tac/Theater

    No

    4 20cm howitzers

    8 18cm BL mortars

    VLS missile system

    Mark XV/R

    2626

    5,000

    75

    95

    1 50cm Hellbore

    12 gatling laser InfRpt

    Tactical

    No

    4 20cm howitzers

    4 18cm BL mortars

    VLS missile system

    Mark XVI

    2650

    3,600

    90

    100

    1 50cm Hellbore

    8 ion-bolt InfRpt

    Tactical

    No

    6 20cm BL mortars

    Mark XVII

    2650

    6,500

    75

    88

    1 60cm Hellbore

    15 ion-bolt InfRpt

    Strategic

    No

    6 25cm howitzers

    Heavy VLS missile system

    Mark XVIII

    2672

    10,000

    70

    80

    1 60cm Hellbore

    12 ion-bolt InfRpt

    Strategic

    No

    6 25cm howitzers

    Heavy VLS missile system

    Mark XIX

    2790

    13,000

    90

    120

    1 60cm Hellbore

    16 ion-bolt InfRpt

    Tactical

    No

    8 30cm BL mortars

    Mark XX

    2796

    as Mk XIX

    as Mk XIX

    as Mark XIX

    2 30cm Hellbores

    as Mark XIX

    Tactical

    Limited

    Mark XXI

    2869

    Varies

    Varies

    1 60cm Hellbore

    16 ion-bolt InfRpt

    Varies

    Limited

    + varying VLS capability

    4-8 30cm BL mortars

    Mark XXII

    2890

    15,000

    80

    135

    1 90cm Hellbore

    16 ion-bolt InfRpt

    Tac/Theater

    Limited

    VLS missile system

    6-8 30cm BL mortars

    Mark XXIII

    2912

    15,000

    80

    148

    2 80cm Hellbores

    18 ion-bolt InfRpt

    Tactical

    Limited

    VLS missile system

    6 30cm BL mortars



    General Armament Notes

    In addition to  the weapons listed,  all Bolo secondary  armaments
include small-caliber  high-velocity projectile  weapons for  close-in
defense and anti-personnel fire. All  Bolos after Mark V also  mounted
multiple-shot flechette anti-personnel  "clusters" with  progressively
heavier flechettes.

    Any Bolo  secondary  gun  with anti-armor  capability  was  always
referred to as  an "infinite repeater,"  although the term  originally
applied only to a  small- to medium-caliber  projectile weapon with  a
high rate of fire and large magazine space.

    Like most  of  their other  weapon  systems, the  vertical  launch
system missile outfits of Bolos  evolved tremendously over the  course
of the Bolo's design history. The  original Mark III VLS consisted  of
only 60 non-reloadable cells, although more than one missile might  be
loaded per cell if  they were small  enough. By the  time of the  Mark
XIX, the  VLS consisted  of reloadable,  magazine-fed cells,  and  all
future Bolo VLSs followed  that pattern. The  term "light" or  "heavy"
used to describe a  VLS refers to  (1) the number  of cells (and  thus
salvo density) and (2) the VLS magazine capacity, not to the weight or
size of missiles thrown.

    The breech-loading mortars  fitted to  most Bolos  after the  Mark
XIII might  be considered  automatic weapons,  as their  rate of  fire
averaged from 8 to 12 rounds  per minute. The Mark XXXIII's 15cm  BLMs
had a maximum effective  range of 3,000 meters;  the 40cm BLMs of  the
Mark XXIX  and Mark  XXXIII  had a  maximum  effective range  of  9.75
kilometers.


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