Bolos: Honor of the Regiment Part 25

Vehicles brought the infantry within five kilometers of their objective. There they disembarked for tactical flexibility and to avoid giving the Enemy a single soft target of considerable value.

I watch: The troops advance by tiny, jerky movements of the legs of their hard suits. My tracks, rotating in silky precision, purr with laughter.

The concept of vertical envelopment, overflying an enemy's lines to drop forces in his rear, ceased to be viable with the appearance of directed-energy weapons in the 20th century. After the development of such weapons, any target which could be seen--even in orbit above an atmosphere--could be hit at the speed of light.

No flying vehicle could be armored heavily enough to withstand attack by powerful beam weapons. The alternative was more of the grinding ground a.s.saults to which civilians always object because they are costly and brutal, and to which soldiers always turn because they succeed when finesse does not succeed.

Our forces have landed on an empty, undefended corner of this planet. The blazing combat to the east occurs as our forces meet those which the Enemy is rushing into place to block us.

I am not at my accustomed place in the front line, but the Enemy will not stop the advance of my comrades.

I watch: The leading infantry elements have come in sight of their objective. There is something wrong with the data, because the Enemy research facility appears as a spherical flaw--an absence of information--in the transmitted images.

Light blinks from the anomaly. It is simply that, light, with the balance and intensity of the local solar output at ground level on this planet.

The infantry a.s.sume they are being attacked. They respond with lasers and projectile weapons as they take cover and unlimber heavier ordnance. Within .03 seconds of the first shot, the Enemy begins to rake the infantry positions with small arms fire.

While the battalion was in transit to our target, briefing files were downloaded into our data banks. These files, the distillation of truth and wisdom by our human superiors, state that the Enemy is scientifically far inferior to ourselves. There is no evidence that the Enemy even has a working stardrive now, though unquestionably at some past time they colonized the scores of star systems which they still inhabit.

Enemy beam weapons are admittedly very efficient. The Enemy achieves outputs from hand-held devices which our forces can duplicate only with large vehicle-mounted units. Our scientific staff still has questions regarding the power sources which feed these Enemy beam weapons.

Thus far the briefing files. I have examined the schematics of captured Enemy lasers. The schematics show no power source whatever. This is interesting, but it does not affect the certainty of our victory.

Initially, the Enemy outpost to which I have been tasked was not using weapons more powerful than the small arms which our own infantry carry.

I watch: The infantry is well trained. Three-man teams shoot and advance in a ch.o.r.eographed sequence, directing a steady volume of fire at the outpost. At the present range it is unlikely that their rifles and lasers will do serious damage. The purpose of this fire is to disrupt the Enemy's aim and morale while more effective weapons can be brought to bear. The heavy-weapons section is deploying back-pack rockets and the company's light ion cannon.

An infantryman ripple-fires his four-round rocket pack. The small missiles are self-guiding and programmed to vary their courses to the laser-cued target.

Three of the rockets curve wildly across the bleak terrain and detonate when they exhaust their fuel. They have been unable to fix on the reflected laser beam which should have provided the precise range of the target. The anomaly has absorbed the burst of coherent light so perfectly that none bounces back to be received by the missiles' homing devices. Only the first round of the sequence, directed on a line-straight track, seems to reach the target.

The missile vanishes. There is no explosion. At .03 seconds after the computed moment of impact--there is no direct evidence that the rocket actually hit its target--the Enemy outpost launches a dozen small missiles of its own. One of them destroys the ion cannon before the crew can open fire.

Puffs of dirt mark the battlefield. The infantry is using powered augers to dig in for greater protection. The Enemy outpost continues to rake the troops with rockets and small arms, oblivious of the infantry's counterfire.

Seven hours before planetfall, a human entered the bay where we Bolos waited in our thoughts and memories. He wore the trousers of an officer's dress uniform, but he had taken off the blouse with the insignia of his rank.

The human's face and name were in my data banks. He was Major Peter Bowen, a member of the integral science staff of our invasion force. My a.n.a.lysis of the air Bowen exhaled indicated a blood alcohol level of .1763 parts per hundred. He moved with drunken care.

"Good evening, Third Battalion," Bowen said. He attempted a bow. He caught himself with difficulty on a bulkhead when he started to fall over. I realized that the bay was not lighted in the human-visible spectrum. Bowen had no business here with us, but he was a human and an officer. I switched on the yellow navigation lights along my fender skirts.

Bowen walked toward me. "h.e.l.lo, Bolo," he said. "Do you have a name?"

I did not answer. My name was none of his concern; and anyway, it did not appear that he was really speaking to me. Humans often say meaningless things. Perhaps that is why they rule and we serve.

"None of my business, hey, buddy?" said Bowen. "There's been a lot of that goin' around lately." He was not a fool, and it appeared that he was less incapacitated by drink than I had a.s.sumed.

He reached out to my treads. I thought he was steadying his drunken sway, but instead the scientist's fingers examined the spun crystal pads of a track block. "Colonel McDougal says I'm not to brief the battalion tasking officers because that's been taken care of by real experts. Colonel McDougal's a regular officer, so he oughta know, right?"

The situation shocked me. "Colonel McDougal is your direct superior, Major Bowen," I said.

"Oh, you bet McDougal's superior to me," Bowen said in what should have been agreement but clearly was not. "He'll be the first to tell you so, the Colonel will. I'm just a civilian with a commission. Only--I figured that since I was here, maybe I ought to do my job."

"Your job is to carry out your superior's orders to the best of your ability," I replied.

Bowen chuckled. "You too," he said. His hands caressed my bow slope. My battle honors are welded to my turret, but the flint-steel of my frontal armor bears scars which tell the same story to those who can read them.

"What's your name, friend?" Bowen asked.

My name is my pa.s.sword, which Bowen is not authorized to know. I do not reply.

He looked at me critically. "You're Maldon," he said, "Grammercy's your tasking officer."

I am shocked. Bowen could have learned that only from Captain Grammercy himself. Why would Grammery have spoken what was his duty to conceal? It is not my duty to understand colloid minds; but I sometimes think that if I could, I would be better able carry out the tasks they set me.

"You know the poem, at least?" Bowen added.

It was several microseconds before I realized that this, though inane, was really meant as a question. "Of course," I said. All the human arts are recorded in my data banks.

"And you know that the Earl of Ess.e.x was a fool?" said Bowen. "That he threw his army away and left his lands open to pillage because of his stupidity?"

"His bodyguards were heroes!" I retorted. "They were steadfast!"

The bay echoed with my words, but Bowen did not flinch back from me. "All honor to their courage!" he snapped. I remembered that I had thought he was drunk and a disgrace to the uniform he--partly--wore. "They took the orders of a fool. And died, which was no dishonor. And left their lands to be raped by Vikings, which was no honor to them or their memory, Maldon!"

The retainers of the Earl of Ess.e.x were tasked to prevent Vikings under Olaf Tryggvason from pillaging the county. The Earl withdrew his forces from a blocking position in order to bring the enemy to open battle at Maldon. His bodyguards fought heroically but were defeated. The Earl's bodyguards failed to accomplish their mission.

There is no honor in failure.

"What did you wish to tell us, Major Bowen?" I asked.

The human coughed. He looked around the bay before he replied. His eyes had adapted to the glow of my running lights.

My comrades of the 3d Battalion listened silently to the conversation. To a creature of Bowen's size, fifty-one motionless Bolos must have loomed like features of a landscape rather than objects constructed by tools in human hands.

"The accepted wisdom," Bowen said, "is that the Anceti are scientifically backward. That the race has degenerated from an advanced level of scientific ability, and that the remnants of that science are no threat to human arms."

He patted the flint-steel skirt protecting my track and roadwheels. "No serious threat to you and your friends, Maldon."

"Yes," I said, because I thought a human would have spoken . . . though there was no need to tell Bowen what he already knew was in the official briefing files.

"I don't believe the Anceti are degenerate," Bowen said. "And I sure don't think they're ignorant. n.o.body who's turning out lasers like theirs is ignorant. They've got a flux density of ten times our best--and there's not even a hint of a power source."

"The Enemy no longer has stardrive," I said, as if I were stating a fact instead of retailing information from the briefing files. This is a technique humans use when they wish to elicit information from other humans.

"b.a.l.l.s!" Bowen said. He did not speak as a human and my superior. Instead, his voice had the sharpness of a cloud as it spills lightning to the ground, careless and certain of its path. "Do you believe that, Maldon? Is that the best the mind of a Bolo Mark x.x.x can do synthesizing data?"

I was stung. "So the briefing files stated," I replied, "and I have no information to contradict-"

"b.a.l.l.s!" Bowen repeated.

I said nothing.

After a moment, the scientist continued, "There's a better than 99% probability that the Anceti are reinforcing their outpost worlds under threat of our attack. How are they doing that if they don't have stardrive, Maldon?"

I reviewed my data banks. "Reconnaissance shows the strengthened facilities," I said. I already knew how Bowen was going to respond. "Reconnaissance does not show that the equipment and personnel were imported from outside the worlds on which they are now based."

"We're talking about barren rocks, some of these planets," Bowen said. His tone dripped with disgust. I choose to believe that was a human rhetorical device rather than his real opinion of my intellect. "The Anceti and their hardware didn't spring from rocks, Maldon; they were brought there. A better than 99% probability. We just don't know how."

"The briefing files are wrong," I said. I spoke aloud to show the human that I understood.

They rule and we serve. We know one truth at a time, but colloid minds believe contradictory truths or no truth at all. So be it.

There was a question that I could not resolve, no matter how I attempted to view the information at my disposal. I needed more data. So- "Why are you telling us this, Major Bowen?" I asked.

"Because I want you to understand," the human said fiercely, "that the Anceti's science isn't inferior to ours, it's just different. Like the stardrive. Did you know that every one of the star systems the Anceti have colonized at some point in galactic history crossed a track some other Anceti star system occupied? Or will occupy!"

I reviewed my data banks. The information was of course there, but I had not a.n.a.lyzed it for this purpose.

"There is no indication that the Enemy has time travel, Major Bowen," I said. "Except the data you cite, which could be explained by an a.s.sumption of time travel."

"I know that, I know that," Bowen replied. His voice rose toward hysteria, but he caught himself in mid-syllable. "I don't say they have time travel, I don't believe they have time travel. But they've got something, Maldon. I know they've got something."

"We will accomplish our mission, Major Bowen," I said to soothe him.

Some humans hate us for our strength and our difference from them, even though they know we are the starkest bulwark against their Enemies. Most humans treat us as the tools of their wills, as is their right. But a very few humans are capable of concern for minds and personalities, though they are encased in flint-steel and ceramic rather than protoplasm.

All humans are to be protected. Some are to be cherished.

"Oh, I don't doubt you'll accomplish your mission, Maldon," Bowen said, letting his fingers pause at the gouge in my bow slope where an arc knife struck me a glancing blow. "But I've failed in mine."

He made the sound of laughter, but there was no humor in it. "That's why I'm drunk, you see." He cleared his throat. "Well, I was drunk. And I'll be drunk again, real soon."

"You have not failed, Major Bowen," I said. "You have corrected the faulty a.n.a.lysis of others."

"I haven't corrected anything, Maldon," the human said. "I can't give them a mechanism for whatever the Anceti are doing, so n.o.body in the task force believes me. n.o.body even listens. They're too happy saying that the Anceti are a bunch of barbarians we're going to mop up without difficulties."

"We believe you, Major Bowen," I said. I spoke for all my comrades in the 3d Battalion, though they remained silent on the audio frequencies. "We will be ready to react to new tricks and weapons of the Enemy."

"That's good, Maldon," said the human. He squeezed my armor with more force than I had thought his pudgy fingers could achieve. "Because you're the guys who're going to pay the price if Colonel McDougal's wisdom is wrong."

He turned and walked back to the hatchway. "Now," he added, "I'm going to get drunk."

I wonder where Major Bowen is now. Somewhere in Command, some place as safe as any on a planet at war. Behind me, the main battle rages in a fury of shock waves and actinic radiation. It is hard fought, but the exchanges of fire are within expected parameters.

The mission to which I have been a.s.signed, on the other hand . . .

The infantry company called in artillery support as soon as the Enemy outpost began strafing them with back-pack missiles.

I watch: The first pair of artillery rockets streaks over the horizon.

The missiles' sustainer motors have burned out, but the bands of maneuvering jets around each armor-piercing warhead flash as they course-correct. They are targeted by triangulation from fixed points, since the outpost itself remains perfectly absorbant throughout the electro-optical band. These are probing rounds, intended to test the Enemy's anti-artillery defenses so that the main barrage can be protected by appropriate countermeasures.

The Enemy has no defenses. The sh.e.l.ls plunge into the center of the anomaly and disappear, just as all earlier projectiles and energy beams have done. Neither these sh.e.l.ls nor the barrage which follows has any discernible effect on the Enemy.

.03 seconds from the first warhead's calculated moment of impact, the research facility begins to bombard our attacking infantry with artillery rockets.

The Enemy is firing armor-piercing rounds. They are already at terminal velocity when they appear from the anomaly. When the warheads explode deep underground, the soil spews up and flings dug-in infantrymen flailing into air. Sometimes the hard suits protect the infantry well enough that the victims are able to crawl away under their own power.

Back-pack missiles and small arms fire from the outpost continue to rake the infantry positions. The company commander orders his troops to withdraw. 5.4 seconds later, the acting company commander calls for a Bolo to be a.s.signed in support.

The air over the battlefield is a pall of black dust, lighted fitfully by orange flashes at its heart.

I am now within the extreme range even of small arms fired from the research facility. The Enemy does not engage me. Sh.e.l.ls launched from the anomaly continue to pound the infantry's initial deployment area, smashing the remains of fighting suits into smaller fragments. The surviving infantry have withdrawn from the killing ground.

Friendly missiles continue to vanish into the anomaly without effect.

Thus far I have observed the outpost only through pa.s.sive receptors. I take a turret-down position on the reverse slope of a hill and raise an active ranging device on a sacrificial mounting above my protective armor. Using this mast-mounted unit, I probe the anomaly with monopulse emissions on three spectra.

There is no echo from the anomaly. .03 seconds after the pulses should have ranged the target, the outpost directs small arms fire and a pair of artillery rockets at me.

The bullets and low-power laser beams are beneath my contempt. The sacrificial sensor pod is the only target I have exposed to direct fire. It is not expected to survive contact with an enemy, but the occasional hit the pod receives at this range barely scratches its surface.

As for the artillery fire--the Enemy is not dealing with defenseless infantry now. I open a micro-second window and EMP the sh.e.l.ls, destroying their control circuitry. The ring thrusters shut off and the warheads go ballistic. Neither sh.e.l.l will impact within fifty meters of my present location.

.03 seconds from the moment I fried the Enemy warheads, a high-amplitude electromagnetic pulse from the anomaly meets the next of the sh.e.l.ls raining in from friendly artillery batteries. The warhead has already made its final course corrections, so it plunges into the calculated center of the target. The electronic fuzing will probably have failed under the EMP attack, but the back-up mechanical detonators should still function.

It is impossible to tell whether the mechanical fuzes work: there is, as I have come to expect, no sign even of kinetic impact with the anomaly.

The outpost launches two more missiles and a storm of small arms fire at me. The missiles course-correct early. They will strike me even if their control circuits are destroyed.

To the east, the air continues to flash and thunder over the Enemy's main line of resistance. Casualties there are heavy but within expected parameters. My comrades will make their initial breakthrough within five hours and thirty-seven minutes, unless there is a radical change in Enemy strength.

This research facility is far from the population centers of this planet. Did the Enemy place it in so isolated a location because they realized the risk of disaster at the cutting edge of the forces they were studying desperately to meet our a.s.sault?

I know they've got something, Major Bowen told me. He was right. The real battle will not be decided along the main line but rather here.

I open antenna apertures to send peremptory signals to Command, terminating the artillery fire mission. I use spread-transmission radio--which may be blocked by war-roiled static across the electromagnetic spectrum; laser--which will be received only if all the repeaters along the transmission path have survived combat; and ground conduction, which is slow but effectively beyond jamming.

Friendly artillery has no observable effect on the outpost, and it interjects a variable into the situation. All variables thus far appear to have benefited the Enemy.

While I deliver instructions and a report to Command, and while my mind gropes for a template which will cover my observations thus far of the Enemy's capabilities, I deal with the incoming missiles. I spin a pair of fluctuating apertures in my turret shielding. The gaps are aligned with the lifting muzzles of my infinite repeaters and in synchronous with their cyclic rate.

I fire. Pulses along the superconducting magnets in the bores of the infinite repeaters accelerate short tubes of depleted uranium-ring penetrators-to astronomical velocity. Miniature suns blaze from kinetic impact where my penetrators intersect the warheads. The missiles lose aerodynamic stability. They tumble in glowing cartwheels across the sky.

.03 seconds after I engage the warheads, a burst of hyper-velocity ring penetrators from the anomaly shreds my sacrificial sensor pod.

My capacity to store and access information is orders of magnitude beyond that of the colloid minds I serve, but even so only part of the knowledge in my data banks is available to me at any one moment. Now, while I replace the sensors and six more missiles streak toward me out of the anomaly, I hear the baritone voice of the technician replacing my port-side roadwheels during depot service seventy-four years ago.