Bolo Brigade (29 page)

Permission for this deployment was won on two levels. My Commander was able to convince Governor Chard that with the addition of a plow blade welded to my glacis, I could be employed in the construction of permanent facilities for the refugees, including underground barracks and a sewage treatment facility. This we have been doing, in cooperation with the Confederation Military Authority's Engineer Brigade.

A second piece of reasoning won permission from General Phalbin. My Commander convinced him that if Malach scouts were loose in the Lake Simms region, we would be in a better position to track them if at least one Bolo was present in that region and, in addition, that Bolo would be in a better position to locate that threat and counter it.

I am pleased and somewhat relieved to note that my Commander has written the additional code and uploaded it to my main memory. The code, in effect, deletes the entire list of ROEs when my Commander gives the verbal order "can that crap." I admit some uneasiness at this; my Commander shows a tendency to disregard inconvenient orders, a tendency that could well get him into serious trouble. Even so, the ROEs as originally implemented would have caused considerable difficulty had I tried to execute them as written. Integration testing with the ROEs in place was never performed, but I am certain the ROEs would have markedly degraded my performance in battle.

Since arriving at Simmstown, I have been converted to heavy digging, excavating a plot 320 meters long by 110 meters wide, which the engineers are now lining with cast plasfoam preparatory to constructing multi-story barracks, supply, and dining facilities, all of which will subsequently be buried, save for tunnel entrances and ventilator shafts. I have also excavated a circular pit which will handle the primary treatment of raw sewage once the facility is equipped with running water and sewer lines.

My separation from my brother has not interfered with our communications in the slightest. We have continued our chess games, concentrating especially on the strategies of Alekhine and Morosov in high-value exchanges for position.

And, of course, we continue to review all available data on Malach tactics and on the combat abilities displayed by their war machines. on Wide Sky. The recordings returned to Muir by our Commander have given us a singular advantage to help offset our lack of information on the Malach themselves; in particular, visual recordings of the last stand by Bolo Unit of the Line 76235 ALG at the Camp Olson military base can be compared on the millisecond level with telemetry received from Unit 76235, providing Bolo 96875 and me with an excellent means of estimating enemy capabilities. "Know the enemy and know yourself," the human military philosopher Sun Tzu noted some 3600 years ago, "and in a hundred battles you will never be in peril." That statement, while tending to hyperbole in its absolutism, is accurate enough in its sentiment. A decent understanding both of enemy capabilities and of our own strengths and weaknesses, while not guaranteeing victory, is the only route through which victory may be obtained.

So far, we have gleaned a great deal of useful information. In general, it must be admitted that the Malach walker-fliers are at least equivalent, on a one-to-one basis, with Deng-built Yavac A-4 heavy combat units in terms of mobility, firepower, and armor, which makes them formidable opponents indeed. While an initial assessment of their capabilities and weaknesses suggested that the legs would be key weak points in their design, it is now clear from the capabilities demonstrated at Fortrose that they can, at need, dispense with legs entirely and operate as low-performance attack aircraft. This duality suggests a dangerous flexibility in Malach tactical thinking.

One-to-one, of course, a single Yavac heavy unit is no match for a Mark XXIV Bolo of the Line. During the Deng Wars, combat analysis assumed a 3.75-to-1 superiority in the then-current Bolo Mark XX over Yavac heavies, and this superiority is, of course, substantially improved in later marks through the Mark XXIV. Though no specific studies have been made on the subject, estimates suggest a margin of at least 11.72-to-1. Meaning, of course, that the Malach would need a 12-to-1 numerical advantage in order to have an even chance of destroying a Mark XXIV. The speed with which 16 Malach walkers destroyed a Mark XVIII—28.5 seconds according to the combat telemetry I have accessed—suggests that this analysis is of at least passable accuracy, with a probable range of error of plus or minus fifteen percent. We will have to observe the Malach combat units in a variety of conflict situations to develop our estimates of their individual capabilities more fully.

Key to Malach tactics appears to be their propensity for operating in packs, with typical small-unit deployments of eight machines. In fact, the number eight recurs constantly in Malach operations and deployments, so much so that Unit 96875 has suggested that Malach mathematics utilize a base-eight counting system. Since their four hands possess four fingers apiece, paired eight and eight, either octal or hexadecimal might be expected to be a logical starting point for an understanding of Malach mathematics. At this point, I fail to see a practical use for this datum, but it is undeniably a part of the larger image, a part of learning to know the Enemy and how he thinks.

Malach pack tactics, however, will be extremely difficult to counter. Assuming, provisionally, a 1-to-12 force ratio between a single Malach war machine and a Mark XXIV Bolo of the Line, it is clear that my brother unit and I could eventually be overwhelmed by as small a force as four Malach combat groups. If they manage to concentrate any sizable force in our area and keep us pinned or immobile, we will fare no better against them than did Mark XVIII Bolo of the Line 76235. Since we are certain to face much larger force ratios than 12-to-1, obviously we must consider various mobile strategies and means by which we can hope to divide the Enemy's forces and engage fewer than twelve of them apiece at a time.

As yet, neither Unit 96875 nor I has thought of a way of reliably doing this, given the rigor with which the Malach seem to cling to their eight-unit pack structure.

And it may well be that we are running out of time. Twenty-seven point three five minutes ago, I detected a burst of FTL communications from an unknown extraplanetary source and at an unusual frequency. The signal was extremely powerful and probably transmitted from relatively nearby. Though coded with a key algorithm impossible to crack without a knowledge of the key, I suspect that it may be from a Malach warship, intended as a coordination signal with scouts or probes already on Muir.

After consulting with my Commander, I have launched four MilTek J-40 Mark VII early warning satellites into low-Muir orbit, programmed to maintain a close watch on local magnetic fields and neutrino flux.

It is probable—with a specific probability of 82.3 percent—that the Enemy is nearly upon us. I can only hope that we are ready for this new challenge.

Donal stood on a hillside overlooking Lake Simms, watching as Freddy continued the laborious process of digging out the enormous pit that would soon serve as the refugees' new and temporary home. Current estimates called for completion of the barracks facility within two and a half weeks, and the sewage plant in perhaps half that time. That was good news to everyone concerned. Two nights ago, it had rained, and many of the flimsier shelters in the vast and sprawling tent city had all but dissolved, increasing the crowding in the horde of brightly colored tents and portable shelters that happened to be waterproof. Word of the kids' plight had started to spread in Kinkaid, Glasmore, and some of the other communities on Muir, and more volunteers were starting to come in, doctors and medics to help care for the sick, workers to help with the meals and the construction. A number of huge surface transporters had been gathered for the relief effort; most of them were parked by the lake now, a long line of rust-brown boxes on tracks, each almost as big as a Bolo, with more, filled with food, shelter, and medicine, due each day.

But things were progressing so slowly!

From his hilltop perspective, Donal could see all of the refugee camp, rainbow bits of pastel color extending for kilometers to north and west. Southward, the blue, clear waters of Lake Simms sparkled in the afternoon sunlight all the way to the horizon. Simms was a large lake, virtually a landlocked sea, with an area of some forty thousand square kilometers. The three largest of the refugee ships, the Conestogas, had landed in the water and were moored now to deep-water piers extending well out into the lake. They were visible as squat domes on the water, about a kilometer out. The other ships, smaller and more maneuverable, had touched down on land and were gathered at an impromptu spaceport on the shores of the lake southwest of the tent city.

To the east, just beyond the perimeter of the camp, Freddy was working at his assigned task scraping away at the hole to the precise specs given him by the site engineers.

It was interesting to watch Freddy in the role of construction worker. His four massive sets of tracks gave him a surprising mobility, and the way he maneuvered the blade welded to his glacis suggested a delicacy improbable in a machine of his bulk. What was not obvious was the fact that he was still on duty, monitoring the local airwaves for any sign of the mysterious, here-again-gone-again intruder.

Since their arrival at Simmstown, there'd been no further indication of enemy activity in the area . . . not until Freddy's receipt of that disturbing FTL transmission just half an hour ago. Donal had immediately authorized the EWS launch without clearance from Kinkaid. Freddy had moved to a position about two kilometers away from the tent city and provided the kids with an unexpected display as, one by one, the powerful MilTek J-40 rockets had lanced into the sky from his vertical launch tubes, scrawling bright, unraveling trails of cotton-white smoke in their wakes. The rockets launched, he returned to his digging, continuing the work as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

A slim figure in white slacks and a long, black leather jacket was coming up the hill from the west. Shading his eyes against the afternoon sun, Donal recognized Alexie. "Hey!" he called. "Good to see you!"

"Good to see
you
. You look in a little better shape than the last time I saw you."

"Well, a shower and a little sleep go a long way."

"I just wanted to tell you, this is a wonderful thing you're doing out here."

"Delighted to be able to help." He grinned at her. "Anyway, I had ulterior motives."

"Well, it let you get one of your Bolos out in the fresh air and sunshine."

"And we've been nosing about for that elusive Malach scout."

"Any luck?"

"No, but I suspect that any scout vehicle they came up with would be small and pretty stealthy. It'll only give away its location when it transmits the data it's accumulated, and it won't do that except infrequently, when no one else is around, or in a last-ditch emergency."

"Maybe we could organize search parties. You know, lots of the older Skyans here could—"

He shook his head. "Thanks, Alexie, but I don't think so. I still don't know what it is we're dealing with. Even if it's just smugglers, I'd hate to see kids caught in the crossfire. And if it
is
the Malach . . ."

She nodded. "Yeah. I see what you mean."

"So. What've you been up to?"

"More of the same. Conferences yesterday with the Muir Committee of Public Safety. And another party last night." She wrinkled her nose. "God. Don't you people ever do anything but throw parties?"

"They're not
my
people. I'm a stranger around here, remember."

"My mistake." Alexie laughed, a delightful sound. "They don't get much stranger, either."

Donal's personal comm unit gave a shrill chirp. He plucked the palm-sized unit from his belt. "Ragnor."

"Commander, this is Bolo 96876. I may have something. There are indications of a sizable fleet exiting hyper-L close to the planet."

"Red alert, Freddy. And pass the word to Ferdy and the Command Authority."

"Affirmative. Do I have weapons free, Commander?"

"If you can ID those vessels as Malach when they come out of hyper-L," Donal told the Bolo, "then hell, yes! You can have all the weapons free you want!"

"Affirmative. Weapons free with positive ID. Unit 96876 out."

"A fleet?" Alexie asked. "The Malach?"

"We'll find out soon enough, Alexie. C'mon. Let's get down to the camp."

"I've got an airspeeder parked at the bottom of the hill. I can take you to your Bolo."

"Let's go!"

The speeder was an aging Correl Lightspeed, a rental vehicle provided for Alexie's use while she was on Muir. As they climbed into the front seats and buckled in, Alexie gave him a measuring look. "Donal? You didn't give Freddy that code word you mentioned the other day, did you?"

"Oh, for the ROEs? No. I'll wait on that until we're sure of what we're dealing with."

She touched the starter controls and the airspeeder lifted from the ground on a wind-whipped cushion of dust. Alexie shouted to make herself heard above the engine's whine.

"When you gave Freddy permission to fire just now . . . you meant he could fire at the Malach ships up in space?"

"That's right."

"Can they
do
that?"

"A Bolo's Hellbore is essentially a weapon designed for navy capital ships," he called back to her. "Ever since . . . I guess it was the Mark XVIII, Bolos could engage ships out to medium orbit."

"The Mark XVIII was what we had on Wide Sky, wasn't it?"

"That's right."

"Then we might have been able to stop them before they even touched down on our world."

"I doubt it. One Bolo could do a lot of damage to incoming ships, but the size of the Malach fleet at Wide Sky . . . well, no one Bolo could have handled them all. Besides, they could have come in on the opposite side of the planet, maybe touched down so far from the Bolo's position that they were below its targeting horizon."