Bolo Brigade (30 page)

"Even so, we could have done a lot better than we did."

"Maybe," he replied, nearly shouting. "I've been reviewing the recordings of the battle. It's been my experience that Bolos have one specific and serious weakness."

"What's that?"

"The fact that they're controlled by humans, who usually are either afraid of what the Bolo can do, or who just don't know what the hell they're doing. They're vulnerable to human stupidity!"

Alexie rammed the throttle full forward, and the airspeeder whipped down the road, trailing dust.

The satellites I launched earlier have detected the telltale magnetic and neutrino surges of ships coming out of hyper-L. I note the formation of magnetic vortices and the materialization in normal space of large number of vessels, thirty-two within the first five seconds, with more appearing all the time, their exit point located less than 1.7 million kilometers from Muir. They are decelerating rapidly on a vector that will bring them into planetary orbit within the next forty minutes.

Though they are still at extreme range, drive characteristics, magnetic and IR signatures, and neutrino emissions are all within the general parameters established by my Commander's observations at Wide Sky. At this point, probability that these are Malach ships and hostile stands at 93.65 percent.

I continue to observe their approach.

The Sh'whiss probe crouched in the shadows at the forest's edge, watching the scene in the disordered habitat area below with a machine's implacable and unruffled calm.

After several local days of lurking in the nearby forest, it had been drawn to this site by the presence of the large machine excavating a rectangular pit in the soft ground above the lake.

The probe could draw no distinction whatever between civilian and military activity. In fact, the idea of a specific military would have struck any Malach female as strange, since that would assume there could be such a thing as a civilian. There were noncombatants in Malach society, certainly—warriors who'd grown too old to serve, or who'd been crippled by wounds, or who'd dishonored themselves by some breach of regulation or custom and been forbidden to enjoy the honors and joys of either combat or procreation—but the main division in Malach society was between the warriors who ran with the hunter packs and the ordinary foot soldiers.

Such matters were beyond the probe's limited awareness and reasoning power, but there was no question, so far as its processors were concerned, that the huge vehicle laboring in the pit just over one
t'charucht
distant was a weapon of war.

The probe had not been given information about the powerful enemy combat vehicle on Lach'br'zghis, but it knew that this machine in front of it represented a significant threat to the incoming Malach fleet.

A hatch opened and an antennae unfolding, pivoting to bear on the incoming Malach fleet.

Pulse transmission of all available data required nearly .24
quesh.

I detect a pulse of modulated EM radiation of .0864 second's duration, originating on a bearing of 047 degrees at a range of approximately four kilometers. Though the burst is key-encoded and tightly beamed, radio frequency leakage gives me the position with a general accuracy of plus or minus 150 meters. Signal strength suggests a military unit; details of phasing, harmonics, and code structure all are unfamiliar to me, though they show a distinct family similarity to signals recorded during the fighting on Wide Sky.

I accept this as confirmation that the scout on the planet's surface is of Malach origins, and the probability that the incoming fleet is also Malach rises to 98.87 percent.

This is not, unfortunately, enough to allow me to drop my current set of ROEs regarding hostile contact.

My immediate course of action, however, is clear. I must investigate the source of RF interference and, if possible, confirm that it is a Malach scout. Backing out of the foundation I am digging for the refugee barracks, I pivot sharply to the northeast and engage my track drives. If I move swiftly enough, I may be able to surprise the scout and force it to initiate hostilities.

And this, of course, would allow me to kill or disable the scout, as provided for by Rule of Engagement One.

* * *

"Where the hell is he going?" Alexie cried. They'd been within a kilometer or so of the Bolo when the huge machine had suddenly backed out of the hole, turned abruptly, and raced toward the northeast, leaving a high-flung cloud of dust behind it.

Donal already had his communicator out and was questioning the Bolo. "Bolo 96876 of the Line!
Freddy
! What are you doing?"

"I am investigating presumed hostile forces, Commander," the Bolo's voice came back. Alexie had to strain to hear the words above the speeder's whine. "The source of the RF interference is confirmed within four kilometers of my position."

"Okay, Freddy," Donal replied. "Go get 'em!" He turned to Alexie. "Let me off here."

She braked the vehicle to a halt, lowering it on dwindling repulsors until it crunched gently into the gravel below. "What do you want me to do?"

Donal glanced skyward, then looked her in the eyes. "Alexie, if that recon unit is that close, it could mean the Malach are targeting this area for a landing, and that means things are going to get pretty hot around here. When Freddy opens up with his Hellbore . . . well, I think you'd better try getting the children away from here before he does. Fast!"

"Donal! There're fifty thousand people here! Most of them kids!"

"Damn, it Alexie, I don't know what else to tell you!" His eyes looked haunted, and a little wild. "Get your group leaders and adults organized, and have them start leading the kids out. You have complete authority to requisition those transports over there by the lake, and I'll call Kinkaid and see if they can send some more out here. If you have to, start moving them out by foot."

"Which way?"

He clambered out of the speedster, then turned, leaning against the vehicle's body. "Southwest. Around the curve of the lake, and then south. Quickly, now!"

"Any particular destination? Or are we just supposed to wander about in the wilderness for forty years?"

He didn't seem to catch the joke. "Just get
away
! Now!"

She realized then that Donal was feeling a deep and genuine horror . . . and suddenly she felt that horror herself, as she followed his chain of thoughts. "The Malach! You think they're going to attack us
here
?"

"It's possible."

"But the camp . . . They're just
kids
!"

"We already know the Malach don't make distinctions like that. Not for humans, anyway. You've got to get the kids out, Alexie. Before the Malach show up in force!"

"Okay!" she said. She took a deep breath. "Be careful!"

"You too!"

She nodded and powered up her repulsors again, spinning the little speedster in a quick one-eighty, and hitting the accelerator.

Joni, Magda, and Clem ought to be at the ramshackle shelter they'd jokingly named City Hall now. She would start with them.

Only now was the realization sinking in: that wild look in Donal's eye had been fear . . . fear for the children, fear for her.

The fact that Donal could be afraid of anything made her afraid as well.

A sharp, staccato cracking sounded in the distance behind her. She didn't slow to have a look but pressed the accelerator pedal even harder.

She just hoped she would be in time.

I am closing with the probable Enemy scout and am detecting magnetic, infrared, motion, and seismic anomalies now, all consistent with a sizable machine of approximately five metric tons' mass moving behind the treeline of the forest ahead at a range of approximately thirty-two meters. I intend to immobilize and capture the machine if possible but am aware that this may prove difficult. A robotic probe will most likely possess a self-destruct mechanism for just that possibility, while a manned scout will probably attempt to fight or flee, necessitating its destruction to prevent its escape.

But I need to obtain a visual lock on the object in order to procure a full and informative ID.

Movement flickers in the trees ahead, moving down an embankment in the general direction of the lake. The shoreline of the lake comes up to the edge of the forest here, and it is possible that the scout hopes to use the water as cover for its escape.

I elect to broadcast a warning message to the target. Normally, I would consider this foolish, but ROE 17 states explicitly that unknown targets are to be challenged verbally before engaging them. I experience a .132-second delay as I attempt to resolve a potential conflict in the ROE overrides: ROE 1 specifically states that I may not engage the enemy unless I am fired upon first, while ROE 17 specifically states that I must challenge the target before engaging it.

As Alexie and the speeder raced back toward the camp, Donal trotted forward, topping a low rise. Ahead and to his right, Lake Simms sparkled in the sunlight. Ahead and to the left, hills rolled away toward the north, each ridgeline higher than the last, each thickly clad with the yellow-green to emerald-green vegetation that grew on Muir . . . jeweltrees and sucklewort, for the most part, with a scattering of native species that Donal didn't recognize. Freddy was squatting right at the point where woods met lake, two hundred meters away.

"Attention, intruder!" Freddy's voder-voice boomed, and the echo floated back from the more distant hillsides. "Advance and identify yourself!"

Donal groaned. Those damned ROEs were making the big machine vulnerable. He grabbed his communicator, switching it to the Bolo command frequency. "Freddy! This is Ragnor! Do you copy?"

"I copy, Commander."

"Freddy, can that crap! I say again, Freddy, can that crap!"

There was a brief pause. "ROE instructions deleted, Commander."

Was it Donal's imagination, or did he sense a new fire, a joy in the huge fighting machine's electronic voice?

The hampering, entangling Rules of Engagement fall away, and at the same instant, with the threat of Enemy action imminent, my awareness shifts to full Battle Reflex Mode. Within .024 second, I am suffused with a surging hyperawareness of my surroundings, a sensation that is new each time I engage it, since I am programmed to forget the sensation each time I drop to a lower awareness level.

For now, however, I feel as though I am a different being, filled with knowledge of myself, of my surroundings, and with a sense of purpose and duty that makes my half-aware state a bare, waking shadow of the reality.

The promise of combat, of grappling with the enemy, sings in my circuits. This is why I am here, why I was assembled, to protect the people of Muir from the Malach threat, to blunt the Enemy assault with every means at my disposal.

I hope I am worthy of this trust.

The Malach probe did not understand the commands broadcast on audio frequencies and would not have obeyed them if it had. It recognized the fact, however, that it was trapped.

In a sense, the probe had its own set of ROEs. When trapped, with no way out and faced with the certainty of capture or destruction, there was only one action it could take.

It attacked.

The target is changing direction suddenly, moving toward my position and emerging from the trees. It is a robotic machine of unfamiliar design, a complex but compact body suspended on a universal swivel mount from six slender legs. A laser mounted on the side of its body fires—I estimate the weapon to be in the three-megajoule range—but the energy is easily dissipated by the ablative layer of my glacis armor.

I sense, however, that the laser is intended more to distract me or to lull me into a sense of complacency regarding the machine's abilities. A powerful magnetic field is building within the body of the device, as though enormous powers are gathering. . . .

I return fire .003 second after its initial shot, seeking to cripple the Enemy mechanism by targeting the joint to which the legs are affixed. Ion bolts rip through the lightly armored motivaters and power couplings, shattering the delicate mechanism in a shower of sparks and flashing bursts of energy.

The body of the device drops to the ground, then explodes in a searing blast in the fractional kiloton range, toppling several trees and flinging bits of metal that ping off my forward armor.

At a range of less than twenty meters, the blast sends a shock wave smashing across my outer hull like a brief, furious hurricane.

I turn my full attention now on the Enemy fleet, which still is approaching Muir rapidly. I have relayed warnings to the Military Authority Headquarters in Kinkaid but am skeptical that they will be able to field any force powerful enough to slow the oncoming ships. I have also initiated a combat link between myself and Bolo 96875 of the Line. My brother unit tells me that he has left the depot area and is now deploying toward a point from which he can maintain a close watch over all approaches to the Kinkaid and Kinkaid Starport areas. We believe there is a significant chance, with a probability in excess of forty percent, that the Enemy will attempt to seize the starport in order to deploy his landing forces more swiftly.

His ROEs are still in effect and will be until our Commander specifically gives him the code phrase.

Several of the ships are close enough now that my EW satellites can distinguish general shape and hull features, confirming that these are, indeed, Malach ships, identical to several classes recorded at Wide Sky.

Particle beams lash out, touching my satellites, my remote eyes in orbit. No matter. I needed them as early warning sensors and to expand my sensor envelope in near-Muir space, but my ground-based sensors provide an adequate view of the enemy fleet.

They appear to be deploying for a direct assault on the planet. They will almost certainly commence with bombardment from space.