I dislike this feeling of vulnerability. My maintenance crew have removed both port-side tracks in order to carry out a routine check of the hydraulic suspension system and at the same time have manually deactivated all weapons systems, both primary and secondary. Worse, they are carrying out similar repairs on my brother unit, Bolo 96875, an oversight that in my opinion has seriously compromised our effectiveness, carrying out this partial shutdown despite the clear directives laid out in the Bolo General Maintenance Instructions requiring a methodical and step-by-step approach to active Bolo repair protocols. Such an approach is designed to provide an element of redundancy and backup in case of a sudden change in the current tactical situation. If the situation required rapid movement or response of any kind from either my brother or me, we would be unable to comply with orders.
I devote .073 seconds to a review of the current tacsit, scanning all available base files, systems checks, and communications traffic for the past twelve-hour period. The situation remains unchanged, with the alert status set at Code Five [Green] and all traffic flagged as completely routine. Still, the intelligence gleaned from the comm reports relayed from Wide Sky, Endatheline, and Starhold three standard days ago is disquieting. Surely any suggestions of unidentified spacecraft in orbit, of civilian reports of unusual surface activity, of civil and military intercepts of unknown coded radio transmissions, should be aggressively investigated.
However, the local military hierarchy have not been particularly diligent in keeping me or my brother unit supplied with timely intelligence. In fact, all we have had to rely on for the past twenty-seven standard years has been the daily departmental intelligence briefing, uploaded each day to all commands and departments by a purely automatic server. It is entirely possible that the disturbing reports of activity by an as yet unknown and potentially hostile intruder within the boundaries of Confederation space have been investigated and cleared, but that the relevant data has not been uploaded into my files. This would be consistent with the lamentable lack of interest Muir Military HQ has shown in the Bolo facilities throughout our deployment in the Strathan Cluster.
I receive an incoming comlink query on the private channel. Bolo 96875 wants to talk.
"Unit 96875 to Unit 96876," he says. "We have a visitor. Coming in the front gate."
The base security cameras are easily accessed through the computer network, which we penetrated some time ago. Through Camera 27, mounted inside the guard shack, I can now see the two sentries currently on duty, discussing a third man walking away from them. "Sheesh," one of them says to the other, shaking his head. "He's not gonna last long!"
The object of their discussion is a man wearing the uniform of a Concordiat lieutenant, walking away from the guard post and onto the Bolo facility. I compute a 79.22 percent likelihood that this is, at last, a new commander.
"That could be a new tactical officer," Bolo 96875 says, echoing my thoughts.
"Possibly," I reply. "However, there are two billets open for TOs at this facility."
"I am accessing the base personnel files."
Bolo 96875's electronics suite has been upgraded more recently than mine, and he is slightly faster than am I at penetrating secure communications lines. Within .054 seconds he has retrieved the files and is downloading them into temporary storage.
It takes .021 seconds to scan completely the data enclosed in the personnel records and military history files, confirming that Lieutenant Donal Ragnor has, indeed, been transferred to this command as a Bolo Tactical Officer. I feel considerable curiosity as to which of us he has been assigned to.
In the guard shack, one of the men assigned to sentry duty returns to his desk, picking up the magazine he has been reading. The interest male humans have for images of unclad female humans, both in flat photo and holo, never ceases to amaze me. Most humans, I have learned, do not take the business of war seriously at all.
I wonder what kind of a commander this Lieutenant Ragnor will be.
Lieutenant Colonel Victor Wood was a small, fussy-looking man with a neatly trimmed mustache and light brown hair turning silver above the ears. His office was considerably smaller than Phalbin's, lacked the trophy wall, and possessed a much smaller window—a wallvid, this time, with a static view overlooking Kinkaid.
As Donal walked into the office, ushered through the door by a dour-faced secretary, the colonel was speaking into a small, hand-held computer transcriber, watching his words flick across the screen on his desk.
". . . in view of this, it is the recommendation of this office that alternate sources of the necessary supplies be found outside of official channels, unless such purchases are expressly prohibited by civil or military law." He clicked off the mike and looked up.
Donal came to attention and rendered a salute. "Lieutenant Donal Ragnor, reporting for duty, sir. My record files have already been uploaded to Brigade HQ."
The colonel gave him a once over, then nodded. "Welcome to the end of the Galaxy, Lieutenant," he said. "I won't bother to tell you which end I mean, since I'm sure you've figured that out for yourself."
"Thank you, sir." He wasn't entirely certain how to answer; the colonel's words, while friendly enough, carried a sharp and bitter edge, warning Donal that he was on somewhat shaky ground. Wood's face was flushed, his voice very lightly slurred. Donal wondered, with some alarm, whether the man had been drinking.
"So, tell me," Wood said. "What brings you to this dizzying nadir of your military career?"
"I . . . I don't consider it to be such, sir."
"Mmm. Or, as our illustrious and beloved commanding general might put it, 'harrumph.' It seems to me I read something about a court martial. . . ."
Donal sighed. "Yes, sir. I . . . let's just say I didn't get on well with my former CO. But I assure you that I—"
Wood held up one bony hand, shaking his head. "Leave it, son. Leave it. I'm not really interested in what happened. You're here, and we'll both have to make the best of it, eh?"
Turning in his chair, he made a keyboard entry on his desk computer, then studied the information that came up an instant later. Donal couldn't see the screen from where he was standing, but he assumed that the colonel was accessing his service record.
"Mmm-mm. Thirty-six T-years old. Sixteen years with the Concordiat Army. A little old for a lieutenant, aren't you?"
Donal wasn't sure how best to answer, so he remained silent. He'd been passed by for promotion more than once in the past sixteen years, as good an indicator as any that his future options within Concordiat service had been sharply limited, and growing more so. After the court martial, in fact, he'd been given a choice: resign his commission, or accept a reserve commission and temporary reassignment to the Strathan Confederation. Technically, the Confederation was independent, but the Concordiat still had a vested interest in the military forces and equipment now under Confederation control.
Especially the Bolos.
"Bolo officer," Wood said, still reading.
"Yes, sir."
"You like Bolos?"
"Yes, sir. I do."
"But you don't like ROEs."
Donal considered that question a moment. "There certainly is a need for Rules of Engagement, sir. I think, though, that operational guidelines can become a straitjacket. When that happens, the ROEs should be flexible. Not cast in durachrome-jacketed flintsteel."
Wood chuckled. "You'll find out about that. Just don't ever try to blame your own inadequacies and inefficiencies on the ROEs. Believe me, I've tried. The general won't stand for it."
ROEs—Rules of Engagement—were an ancient military concept, one designed to make certain that the politicians who ran things didn't find themselves in a shooting war by accident. Generally, they ran to ideas like not being allowed to fire unless you were fired on first, though they could get considerably more complex. Donal wondered what ROEs he'd be facing here.
"What units did you work with?" Wood asked him.
"Third Batt, Nineteenth Regiment. The Invincibles. Later I was transferred to the Fourth of the Sixty-third."
"What Marks?"
"Most of my service was with Bolo Mark XXVIIs and XXVIIIs. When I was with the Invincibles, of course, I was working with old Mark XXIIIs." He grinned and shook his head. "Strictly third-line stuff, of course. Three hundred years old, some of them were."
"Well, you'd best get used to that third-line stuff, Lieutenant, because we don't have anything so modern as a Mark XXVIII out here."
Bolos—those monster, land-traveling juggernauts descended from the primitive and strictly non-cybernetic tanks of thirteen centuries ago—were formidable fighting machines no matter what their Mark. A bullet, after all, was just as deadly to an unprotected man whether it was fired from a hyper-kinetic mag-pulse railgun or from a black-powder musket.
Still, Donal felt a renewed stab of disappointment. "Yes, sir. I'm aware that the 15th Gladius Brigade is made up of old Mark XVIIIs," he said.
The words came out tight and clipped. The Bolo Mark XVIII had been introduced in a.e. 727, almost six centuries ago. A good machine in its time, the Mark XVIII Gladius had been front-line equipment throughout the Concordiat for over a century after its introduction, a ten-thousand-ton general-purpose behemoth with a fusion-powered 60cm Hellbore as main armament. Mark XVIIIs had been the first of all Bolos actually able to engage warships in planetary orbit from the surface.
"Fourteen Mark XVIIIs, to be precise," Wood said with a curt nod. "Which is what remains of the original brigade that was shipped to the Strathan Cluster four hundred years ago. However, you won't be working with them."
"Oh?"
"All fourteen Mark XVIIIs are stationed off-planet," Wood said, "but there are two more on the roster. You're being brought in to serve as TO for our pair of Mark XXIVs."
Donal felt the tight knot in his gut relax slightly. For him, the thrill of working with Bolos lay in the very special relationship between a human tactical officer and those combat machines that possessed sentience, even a measure of self-awareness. The older Mark XVIIIs, though possessing voder circuits and able to communicate with their human operators, could not be considered intelligent, were no more self-aware than a typical high-speed computer . . . or a coffee-maker, for that matter. Not until the psychotronic breakthrough with the Mark XX in 851 or so were self-directing and self-aware Bolos possible; the Mark XXIV, which had appeared in 1016, had been the first truly autonomous and strategically self-directing Bolo and the first to evolve personalities that, on some level, could at last be considered "human."
"You have two XXIVs?" Donal asked.
"Yes. Both based here on Muir. The others are scattered all over the damned cluster." He didn't sound happy about that. Indeed, Lieutenant Colonel Wood did not sound happy about much of anything.
"An interesting brigade mix." Bolos were generally deployed in brigades of like-model machines . . . if only because a variety of Marks made for unpleasant logistical headaches.
"Not my idea, believe me. The Mark XXIVs were brought to Muir just before the Cluster gained autonomy from the Concordiat. That would have been . . . I guess about two hundred years ago, now. Of course, the Concordiat military forces are still concerned about where their babies have gone. That's probably why they insist on sending us transfer officers like you."
"There are still those who think self-aware Bolos are . . . a threat. Even to their owners."
"Aren't they?"
"It depends on who their owners are, I suppose. But Bolos are loyal."
"Hmm. Maybe. But I'm not entirely sure they understand the concept of politics. There are still wars between various human factions, from time to time, you know. Bolos have been used against humans, so we know their loyalty isn't to the human race."
"Their principal loyalty, Colonel, is always to their unit. And to their commander. It's the same way with most human soldiers I know."
"Maybe." Wood shrugged, apparently indifferent. "You might have an argument with the general on that."
"I, ah, gathered as much."
"In any case, we're down by two Bolo TOs for the Mark XXIVs. You'll be filling both billets."
Donal's eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
"I know, I know," Wood said. "But, well, you'll find priorities different out here from the Concordiat. The 15th is considered a support brigade, not line. General Phalbin is strictly a conventional forces man." He spread his hands, helplessly. "Look at me. A brigade command calls for a brigadier general, usually . . . or a full colonel at least. They gave the 15th to me because it really isn't that important a command. Get used to that fact, son. You'll find things pretty boring around here, and you won't have any more trouble bossing two Bolos than you would with one."
"I'm . . . surprised at that. Sir."
Wood shrugged. "General Phalbin admits that Bolos might have a certain defensive value, certainly."
"Good lord. Is that why the Mark XVIIIs were deployed on different planets, scattered throughout the cluster?"
"That's about the size of it, son. Look here." He touched a control on his desk, and the wallvid to his right faded out, the city view of Kinkaid replaced by a knotted tangle of tightly packed points of colored light. "You've seen a map of our cluster?"
"Yes, sir. Back at Sector, when I first got my orders."
The Strathan Cluster was a midget as globular clusters went, with several thousand stars packed into a ragged sphere less than fifty light years across. Like others of its ilk, it orbited the galactic core; in this epoch, it chanced to be passing through the plane of the Galaxy and lay embedded deep within the nebulae and younger stars of the trailing edge of the Eastern Arm.
The image in the wallvid was computer-generated, the close-packed, old, and metal-poor Population II stars plotted in red, the younger and more widely scattered Population Is in yellow and green. Some of the systems, the green ones, also bore identifying tags of alphanumerics. The whole rotated slowly, showing the three-dimensional relationships between the populated systems scattered about and among the beehive of thronging, cluster stars.
"The members of the Strathan Confederation are in green," Wood said. He touched a control on his desk, and one of the green stars momentarily pulsed brighter. "That one's McNair . . . and Muir, of course. McNair IV. Hanging on the ragged edge of damn-all, with nothing beyond but empty."
Donal pursed his lips but said nothing. Muir had been first of the Strathan Cluster's worlds to be colonized by humans, during the last great wave of colonial expansion along the outlying fringes of the Eastern Arm centuries before. Beyond the cluster, the Arm dwindled away into emptiness. Muir's sky might blaze with crowded suns; but beyond the cluster's ragged boundaries, looking outward from the Arm into the intergalactic night, lay parsec upon empty megaparsec of void, where suns were hauntingly few and far between.
He wondered if the cluster's location at the end of the Eastern Arm preyed on men's minds here. Phalbin had sounded preoccupied by the emptiness beyond the close, familiar spacelanes of the civilized Galaxy. Wood seemed almost morbidly so.
"Muir is, technically, at any rate, the capital of the entire Confederation, thirty-six inhabited suns scattered through a volume of some one hundred twenty thousand cubic light years. Communications and travel between those suns, though, can be a mite difficult." White lines appeared throughout the map, a webwork connecting the green points. "Navigation gets tricky in that star jungle. We depend on automated interstellar beacons. When we lose one of those, we can lose contact with some of the other confederacy worlds for months, even years at a time.
"Our strategic difficulty, of course, is maintaining any kind of coherent political order over the thirty-six inhabited systems that make up the Strathan Confederation. The Confederation Armed Forces are responsible both for protecting us from hostile forces and for keeping the peace on all thirty-six worlds, but it's obviously a lot easier to rush troops to a trouble spot than a Bolo or three. The Mark XVIIIs were split among the most important worlds a long time ago, and no one's ever bothered moving them."
"Oh, great," Donal said under his breath. A scattered brigade, and uncertain communications. That was just wonderful. . . .
"We could do more, of course, with more help from the Concordiat," Wood continued, with a sour look that suggested he took Donal's presence on Muir as far too little, too late. "But I gather that the Concordiat is having troubles of its own. We'll get no help from that quarter."
There could be no answer to that statement. Since the Terran Concordiat had first encountered the out-reaching probes of the Melconian Empire several years ago, relations had been steadily deteriorating. War was coming to the Concordiat, a paroxysm that some were already referring to somewhat apocalytically as "the Last War." The Concordiat's full attention was fixed, not on the Galaxy's remote outer rim, but inward, toward the teeming suns of the galactic core, and the Melconian threat.
"Have you heard anything about the rumors, sir?" he asked, probing. "About a new and hostile race from outside?"
"Shoot, Lieutenant. Hang out at the bars in the Kinkaid Strip long enough and you'll hear every wild kind of story there is." The slur that Donal had noted earlier was growing more pronounced now, and the colonel seemed to be having some trouble focusing on his visitor. "I've heard all kinds of rumors. You can pretty much take your pick."
"General Phalbin thought the whole idea could be discounted. He thinks there's no place out in the Gulf where hostiles could come from."
"There isn't."
"Sir, you must know as well as I do that the space between galaxies isn't completely empty. There are planet-bearing suns in the halo. There must be. They're just scattered too thinly to be worth our sending a survey to check them out."
"Sure. But they're so thinly scattered that it'd be impossible for any race that'd evolved intelligence out there to be able to develop FTL. If the next nearest star's a thousand light years off, you're not gonna be anxious to go calling on your neighbors. You'll stay at home and contemplate your navel instead." He shrugged heavily. "Besides, most stars out there are poor in heavy elements. Not that many solid planets to begin with, y'know? And even terrestrial planets out there are probably pretty poor in easily extracted iron or copper or any of the other metals you need to develop a technic civilization. So any intelligent species out there is gonna be stuck in the Stone Age, right?"
Donal didn't argue the point, but he was far from convinced. He'd learned long ago that it was risky trying to rationalize the psychologies—or the likely attitudes and actions—of non-humans. If nothing else, they didn't think like humans, which made them unpredictable.
"In any case," Colonel Wood concluded with another shrug, "it's not up to us to worry about it, right? We sit here, we follow orders, and we wait for our twenty years to be up so we can get the hell out of this stinkin' outfit and back to a civilian job that makes some kind of sense."
The colonel swung his chair away, appearing to lose himself in a glum and somewhat bleary contemplation of the slow-rotating map of the cluster still displayed on his wallvid. The interview clearly at an end, Donal turned to leave.
As he touched the door switch, however, he glanced back once more in time to see Wood pulling a bottle out of one of his desk drawers, unscrewing the lid, and knocking back a hefty chug of the dark amber liquid inside.
It was, Donal thought, a less than auspicious start to his new posting.