Bolos: Honor of the Regiment Part 26

He sings: Get in, get out, quit muckin' about- Drive on!

My data processing system has mimicked a colloid mind to short-circuit my decision tree. I have been pa.s.sive under attack for long enough.

I advance, blowing the hillcrest in front of me so that I do not expose my belly plates by lifting over it.

Both direct and indirect fire have battlefield virtues. Direct fire is limited by terrain and, if the weapon is powerful enough, by the curvature of the planet itself. But, though the curving path of indirect fire can reach any target, the warheads have necessarily longer flight times and lower terminal velocities because of their trajectory. When they hit, they are less effective than direct-fire projectile weapons; and the most devastating artillery of all, directed energy weapons, can operate only in the direct-fire mode.

The worst disadvantage of direct fire weapons is that the shooter must by definition be in sight of his target. Bolos are designed to be seen by our targets and survive.

My tracks accelerate me through the cloud of pulverized rock where the hillcrest used to be. The infinite repeaters in my turret hammer the anomaly with continuous fire. I am mixing ring penetrators and high explosive in a random pattern based on cosmic ray impacts.

I hope this will confuse the Enemy defenses. The only evident effect of my tactic is that, .03 seconds from the time the first HE round should have hit the anomaly, the Enemy begins to include high-explosive rounds in the bursts which flash harmlessly against my electromagnetic shielding.

I am clear of the rock dust. I align myself with the anomaly and fire my h.e.l.lbore from its centerline hull installation.

Even my ma.s.s is jolted by the h.e.l.lbore's recoil. A laser-compressed thermonuclear explosion at the breech end voids a slug of ions down the axis of the bore, the only path left open. The bolt can devour mountains or split rock on planets in distant orbits.

My h.e.l.lbore has no discernible effect on the anomaly; but .03 seconds after I fire, an ion bolt smashes into me.

I am alive. For nearly a second, I am sure of nothing else. Circuits, shut down to avoid burning out under overload, come back on line.

I have received serious injuries. My hull and running gear are essentially undamaged. Most of the anti-personnel charges along my skirts have gone off in a single white flash. This is of no importance, since it now appears vanishingly improbable that I will ever see Enemy personnel.

87% of my external communications equipment has been destroyed. Most of the antennas have vaporized, despite the shutters of flint-steel which were to protect them. I reroute circuits and rotate back-up antennas from my hull core.

My infinite repeaters were cycling when the ion bolt struck. Ions ravening through the aperture in my electromagnetic shielding destroyed both infinite repeaters, bathed the hull and wiped it clean of most external fittings, and penetrated the turret itself through one of the weapons ports. All armament and sensory installations within my turret have been fused into a metal-ceramic magma.

The turret ring is not blocked, and the drive mechanism still works. I rotate the turret so that the back instead of the hopelessly compromised frontal armor faces the anomaly.

Data clicks into a gestalt which explains the capabilities which the Enemy has demonstrated.

I brake my starboard track while continuing to accelerate with the port drive motors. My hull slews. The change in direction throws a comber of earth and rock toward the outpost. Though my size and inertia are so great that I cannot completely dodge the Enemy's second ion bolt, the suspension of soil in air dissipates much of the charge in a fireball and thunderclap. My hull shakes, but the only additional damage I receive is to some of the recently replaced communications gear.

I am transmitting my conclusions to Command via all the channels available to me. I load a message torpedo intended for communication under the most adverse conditions. This is a suitable occasion for its use.

The h.e.l.lbore discharge has disrupted the guidance systems of the artillery rockets the Enemy launched at me seconds earlier. In the momentary silence following the bolt's near miss, I release my torpedo. It streaks away to warn Command. The Enemy ignore the torpedo in the chaos of their own tumbling sh.e.l.ls.

The Enemy is not mirroring matter. Rather, the Enemy mirrors facets of temporal reality. Our forces have seen no evidence of Enemy stardrive because, for the Enemy, a planet can fill a point in s.p.a.ce where it once existed or will one day exist. The Enemy need not transit the eternal present so long as there is a congruity between Now and When.

Personnel of the research facility I have been tasked to eliminate have developed the technique still further. They are creating a special s.p.a.ce-time in which whatever can exist, does exist for them so long as there is an example of the occurrence in their reality matrix.

Their tool is the anomaly that appears from outside to be a non-reflecting void. It is a tunable discontinuity in the local s.p.a.ce-time. The staff of the research facility use this window to capture templates, copies of which are in .03 seconds shuttled into present reality and redirected at their opponents.

The research facility can already mimic the firepower of an infantry company, a battery of rocket artillery, and--because of my actions--a Mark x.x.x Bolo. I have only one option.

There is no cover for an object my size between me and the research facility. Though my drive motors are spinning at full power, nothing material can outrun the bolt of a h.e.l.lbore. The third discharge catches me squarely.

The shockwave blasts a doughnut from the soil around me. My turret becomes a white-hot fireball. The electromagnetic generators in the turret were damaged by the initial bolt and could not provide more than 60% of their designed screening capacity against the second direct hit. My port skirts are blasted off; several track links bind momentarily. My drive motors have enough torque to break the welds, but again I slow and skid in a jolting S-turn.

My target is a research facility. It is possible that the Enemy will not be able to develop similar capabilities anywhere else before our forces have smashed them into defeat. That is beyond my control--and outside my mission. This is the target I have been tasked to eliminate.

I open the necessary circuits and bypa.s.s the interlocks. A disabled Bolo is too valuable to be abandoned, so there have to be ways.

I have no offensive armament. My h.e.l.lbore is operable, but the third ion bolt welded the gunport shutters closed. A salvo of armor-piercing sh.e.l.ls hammers my hull, lifting me and slamming me back to the ground in a red-orange cataclysm. The multiple impacts strip my starboard track.

I think of Major Bowen, and of the Saxon bodyguards striding forward to die at Maldon: Heart grow stronger, will firmer, Mind more composed, as our strength lessens.

The citizens do not need to know what the cost is. They need only to know that the mission has been accomplished.

My sole regret, as I initiate the scuttling sequence that will send my fusion pile critical, is that I will not be present in .03 seconds. I would like to watch as the Enemy try to vent an omnidirectional thermonuclear explosion into their research facility.

Baen Books By Keith Laumer The Retief Series Retief and the Rascals Reward for Retief Retief's War Retief and the Warlords Retief: Diplomat at Arms Retief: Envoy to New Worlds Retief of the CDT Retief to the Rescue Retief and the Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritrude Retief in the Ruins