The battle had been turned. The Kezdai were being driven back, their advance broken.
"Incoming call from General Kiel," Rover said.
"On the main screen," Veck said.
"Looks like we did it," Veck said as the general"s face appeared. But the general wasn"t smiling.
"For the moment the Kezdai fleet is scattering," Kiel said, "and their ground forces are retreating. But a dreadnought is coming to take the fleet"s place while it regroups."
"d.a.m.n," Veck said. He turned away from the general. "Order all Bolos to raise their h.e.l.lrails and prepare to fire."
"You"re going to have trouble," Kiel said. "The aliens have a scramble of some sort."
"Understood, General," Veck said. "We"ll deal with it."
He cut the general off, but then saw on the targeting scope exactly what Kiel had been trying to warn him about. There wasn"t just one target, but a dozen ghostly targets of the dreadnought, any one of which could be the real target.
But he had more than one h.e.l.lrail, he had twenty at his command.
"All Bolos coordinate your shots," he ordered. "Each take a shadow target and fire in unison. One shot has to hit."
"No!" Rover said. "That order will not be carried out."
Intentionally or not, the enemy dreadnought is in the same line of fire as the approaching convoy. If we open fire on the sensor echoes, by definition most of our h.e.l.lrail pulses will miss, and not being ranged weapons, will continue on until they disperse, or until they strike another target. It is not clear that my Commander is aware of this, despite my repeated efforts to notify him.
The situation is desperate, but my Commander cannot be allowed to act without full information. It has been 69.456 minutes since I filed the form 10354/87-3A, and I have no response. While waiting for my Commander"s response to my declining of his order, I file an emergency request to headquarters for priority processing.
"What do you mean, No!?" Veck shouted. He was beyond angry. In all his training there had never been a mention of a Bolo not following its commander"s orders. It wasn"t possible, yet Rover had just refused his direct order.
He was about to demand an explanation, when on his main screen he saw the shadows of the dreadnought open fire on the retreating Tasmanian. The transport didn"t stand a chance. It was blown into a cloud of debris.
Veck smashed his fist on the panel. "Now look what you"ve done!" he shouted at Rover. "The Tasmanian was the pride of the regiment. Now it"s gone, and it"s all your fault, you insubordinate machine."
Desperate, Veck knew exactly what he had to do. He slammed his head back in to the crash couch and activated the neural link. If the machine wouldn"t take a direct verbal command, he"d take over the machine in another way. If he didn"t do something quickly, men were going to die.
We reel from the shock of joining of purpose and logic, of neurons with superconducting circuits. The biological portion of I/we is filled with rage and single-minded intensity. The enemy must be destroyed.
The way is given.
The command is given.
Overwhelmed, the cybernetic portion of I/we responds with speed and efficiency, even as it communicates the reason I/we must not act.
Slowly, the biological elements of I/we comprehend.
So slowly.
Even as the cybernetic command goes out to our brothers. In unison the h.e.l.lrails spit plasma fire.
The comprehension is total.
I/we understand what we have done.
At cybernetic speeds we can watch the bolts in their courses, but are powerless to call them back.
As one we scream.
Orren didn"t make it to the cargo hold.
Around him the ship was jolted, then under him the deck buckled, and conduits exploded throwing shrapnel everywhere.
Orren hit the deck, stunned, his mind trying to grasp exactly what was going on, but clearly not able to.
Alarms sounded even louder than before around him.
An automated voice called for "abandon ship."
Abandon ship? How could he leave the ship? Ziggy was here. He had to get to Ziggy.
Though a nearby port he could see another ship gutted like a fish, vomiting fire.
He tried to stand. He had to get to Ziggy. But his legs didn"t want to work right.
Through the haze in his brain he reached down and felt blood on his legs.
That didn"t matter. He was close to the cargo hold. He would crawl to Ziggy.
Then suddenly a figure loomed over him. A rough figure with an angry face.
"You got to learn to follow orders, Lieutenant," Blonk said right in Orren"s face, his voice punching over the noise of the alarms and the ship breaking apart.
"Got to get to Ziggy."
"Trust the Bolo," Blonk said. "It can take care of itself. Right now you"re the problem here."
Blonk lifted Orren and without so much as a groan staggered toward an escape pod.
Escape pods were little things, more like a coffin than a s.p.a.ceship. And just big enough for one customer per pod.
Blonk threw Orren inside one and leaned in. "Just one pod, lad, the rest are sc.r.a.p. That alarms means the reactor"s going to blow any second now."
Blonk stepped back and started to close the door. Then almost as an afterthought he leaned back in. "You get down there, kid, you make sure I get a d.a.m.ned big medal, the biggest they got."
Orren raised his arm in a feeble attempt to salute Blonk.
Master Sergeant Blonk smiled and stepped back. The hatch sealed to the escape pod and the pod autoejected, the force sending Orren into unconsciousness.
A moment later the entire cargo pod was blasted free of the freighter as the forward third of the Cannon Beach crumpled under the wave of energy rushing up from Delas, exploding as its engines reacted to the wall of raging force sweeping over the ship.
On the big screen, General Kiel watched as all the ghosts of the dreadnought began to spill wreckage. Wounded, it struggled back into deep s.p.a.ce and returned to warp.
Around the planet much of the Kezdai fleet followed the wounded big ship, covering its retreat.
On the ground, the Kezdai forces regrouped and solidified their lines well south of Starveil.
The day had been won, but the cost was great.
Kiel stood, staring at the remains of the battle. War always cost lives. But some wars, some battles just seemed to cost a little more. This was one of those.
And before it could happen again, before the Kezdai could regroup again, he was going to drive them from this planet if it was the last thing he and his Bolos did.
Through Bolo optical sensors a thousand times more sensitive than the human eye we watch the sky, stars eclipsed by man-made stars, the wreckage of Kezdai ships, and of our own convoy. The damage reports come in, verifying what our sensors already tell us. Six ships damaged, one heavily, two lost, including the Cannon Beach.
We know what we have done. We have destroyed our brother Bolo.
We have killed our friend.
We have killed our own, not out of necessity, but of oversight, carelessness, confusion.
We watch as an especially bright shooting star arcs through the sky, some piece of the Cannon Beach. We watch it fall.
Our clarity is finally, finally, total.
Make it stop.
Section Two: TO THE RESCUE.
One.
Ten-year-old Jask Morton glanced around at the small, six-wheeled truck he called Bessy, moving up the trail behind him. "You can do it," he said to Bessy. "Just take your time."
The truck was actually nothing more than a large wagon, coming up no higher on Jask than his stomach. But it had a motor and could go almost anywhere on voice command. It slowly climbed over rocks and b.u.mps in the trail, using its balloon tires to keep its bed level.
Jask watched for a moment, then went forward, whistling as he went. Bessy went everywhere with him.
Around him the mountains of Delas"s southern continent towered into the sky with rocky peaks that seldom lost their snow. It was a harsh area, with angry storms and little food. Valley walls were steep, often too steep for even Jask to climb, let alone Bessy. And the valley floors were often covered in brush and trees too thick for either of them to get through.
This was also an area behind Kezdai lines. The Kezdai had swept through and over the area during the first invasion. Many Delas survivors of the invasion had taken refuge in the mountains, hiding in mine shafts and small camps scattered among the rocks and trees in the steep valleys. Most of them felt they were only waiting for the moment the Kezdai found it convenient to come and wipe them out.
A large group of the refugees in this area, a few hundred or so total, cl.u.s.tered in a mine camp called Rockgate. But not Jask Morton. He very seldom went into Rockgate. He didn"t trust all the people and the way they looked at him.
Jask was the son of geologist parents. He and his parents had been in the mountains during the invasion, studying the planet"s crust for the mining corporations. His parents had hidden him deep in an old mine on the side of a steep valley when a Kezdai patrol approached. They had never returned to get him, so Jask had climbed out two days later and found them dead. Jask, being old enough to survive on his own, had lived in the mining camp ever since.
The camp was built around a research shaft that plunged deep under the mountain. Along the shaft, long side shafts and laser carved chambers housed scientific equipment. One side chamber was walled up, though, the opening filled with rocks lifted there by Jask"s hands. On it was a hand-painted sign that read "my mom and dad." It was where Jask had buried them.
As Jask reached the top of the pa.s.s, he stopped under a tree and looked back at Bessy. The afternoon sun was warm and he used the time to take a drink. His dad had always told him to drink plenty of water when he was hiking and Jask had never forgotten that instruction. Bessy even carried extra water for him so he would never run out.
Down the trail about fifty steps the little truck with no cab or seat was making its way just fine. Jask knew it would. It was smart.
In the bed of the truck was the stuff he"d found at an old cabin down in the valley. A bunch of pots and pans, some wire, lots of really great things that might come in handy some day. He"d tied and taped all the stuff in Bessy, and so far Bessy hadn"t lost any of it, even over the roughest spots in the trail.
"Come on, Bessy," Jask said as the truck got closer. "We need to get going. You know we have a job to do."
"Hey, Jask!" A voice rang out over the valley.
Jask stopped and turned. Mr. Donavon, a nice old guy from Rockgate, was standing on the far hill, farther away than Jask could throw a rock. It was the third time this month that Jask had seen Mr. Donavon this far from Rockgate, hunting for food.
Mr. Donavan held up a dead seyzarr, a big crablike creature that Jask stayed away from at all costs. It was about the size of a small cat. Jask hated seyzarr. They were just too dangerous for his liking, but it looked as if Mr. Donavan had managed to kill one.
"Good soup tonight," Mr. Donavan shouted. "You should come eat with us."
"No, thanks," Jask shouted back. "I need to keep looking for the falling star."
Donavan shook his head and put the seyzarr back in his bag. "Jask," he shouted, "you have to stop living in your dream world. You shouldn"t be out here by yourself. There are some kids your age in town that you could play with."
"I don"t play no more," Jask said. "Got to find that falling star."
He turned and started over the ridge.
"I sure could use some help from that mule of yours," Mr. Donavan yelled. "This thing is heavy!"
Jesk stopped and turned back to face Mr. Donavan. "Bessy isn"t a mule," he shouted. "Bessy is a Bolo."
Then following Bessy, he turned his back on Mr. Donavan and went over the hill, headed toward where he thought the falling star might be.
Sluggishly, my reasoning circuits come on-line.
I am blind, insensate, immobile.
I seem to have been deactivated a very long time. Seven of my on-board chronographs are either damaged or nonoperative, but on checking the eighth I am shocked to discover that I have been deactivated only a few hours. I search for background information in my memory cells, and find only a disorganized jumble. The first question logically is, who am I?