Bolo!

The Battle of Chesterfield, in which Lazy had won that award, was the stuff of the Brigade’s legends. It was also a classic tactical study at the Academy, where not a single student had ever managed to win the engagement in a simulation.

A single company of Mark XXVIIIs had gone up against an entire battalion of Kai-Sabres during the Fringe Rebellion which had followed the Xalontese War. The Kai-Sabres had been clones of the Mark XXVIII itself, built using stolen technology after decades of espionage, and they had been based upon the Model G, not the Model B. Although their weaponry fits had been very similar, the Kai-Sabres’ armor, battle screen, disrupter shields, and targeting systems had all been superior to those of Lazy and his three consorts, but Chesterfield had been a planet whose critical strategic importance meant it could not be yielded without a fight.

So Second Company, Twelfth Battalion, Ninth Regiment, of the Dinochrome Brigade had fought at three-to-one odds. And when the relief force arrived, Lazy had been the only surviving Bolo—or Kai-Sabre—on the planet. They’d found his immobilized wreck where he’d made his final stand in a rugged mountain pass just short of Chesterfield’s capital city, his commander dead on his breached command deck… and the last four Kai-Sabres stacked up dead in front of them.

His damage had been far too severe to merely “repair.” Fixing it would have cost more and taken longer than building an entire, newer Bolo from scratch. But by that time, the Brigade had adopted the practice of upgrading Bolo AIs, and a reserve Model G hull had been activated to receive his undamaged personality center. After which, he’d soldiered on for another full Standard Century.

Although she wasn’t about to admit it to anyone, Maneka was more than a little uncomfortable around Lazy. Benjy was almost six times as old as she was, with a distinguished record any Bolo might have envied, but Lazy was older still. And it was difficult, she’d discovered, to know precisely how to react when one found oneself in the presence of what was literally a living legend. Indeed, she often wondered how Takahashi had reacted when they told him who he was getting as his first Bolo command.

Probably tempted to cut his own throat, she thought with a grin, although she really didn’t know the captain or Lazy very well.

On the other hand, she reflected as Benjy rolled back towards the Company depot area, I don’t really know anyone outside the Third “very well” yet, now do I?

The past two and half months had flown past at breakneck speed for Lieutenant Maneka Trevor. In that time, she’d become even closer to Benjy—close enough, indeed, that she was guiltily aware that, as everyone had warned her she would, she had completely succumbed to Operator Identification Syndrome. When she considered it, any other outcome had probably been impossible. Benjy was, quite simply, the most wonderful person—organic or psychotronic—she’d ever known. In less than ninety local days, he’d become her closest friend, her most trusted confidant, and the mentor the Battalion had been unable to provide her in human form. She’d learned more from him in that short period than she had in all eight previous years of her training, and she knew it.

That intense concentration on her Bolo had pretty much eliminated any possibility of a social life, and although Major Fredericks had seen to it that she’d been smoothly slotted into Third Company, she didn’t even know some of the other companies’ Bolo commanders by sight. That was something she was going to have to start doing something about, and she knew it. In fact, the major had begun dropping gentle hints that now that she’d settled in with her Bolo, it was probably time she began getting to know some of the Battalion’s flesh-and-blood members, as well.

“Well,” Takahashi said, as Lazy altered course, heading for First Company’s depot area, “I guess this is where we part company, Lieutenant. Good work. Lazy and I will be glad to have you on our flank anytime.”

“Thank you, sir.” Maneka knew her face had turned pink with pleasure, but she managed to keep her voice conversational. “Benjy and I feel the same.”

“See you around, Lieutenant,” Takahashi said.

The two Bolos continued towards their separate destinations and Maneka Trevor allowed herself to bask—briefly—in the knowledge that she was earning the acceptance of her vastly more experienced peers.

“Listen up, people!”

Maneka shook her head groggily as Major Fredericks’ sharp, hard voice echoed in her mastoid transceiver. Her entire skull still seemed to be ringing like a gigantic bell from the emergency signal which had just snatched her up out of the depths of sleep.

“We have an Alpha One Zulu alert,” Fredericks’ voice continued, and Maneka sat bolt upright in bed, such minor considerations as her vibrating cranium totally forgotten. Alpha One Zulu?

“Get your butts up and awake,” Fredericks went on grimly. “The Depot’s already begi

The voice in Maneka’s mastoid went silent, but the youthful lieutenant sat frozen for several seconds. Alpha One Zulu. Impossible!

Alpha One Zulu meant a full-fledged invasion of a major planet, and in the sort of war this one had become, with the madness of Plan Ragnarok and its Melconian equivalent, “invasion” was another word for the murder of an entire planetary population. That sort of operation wasn’t something the Puppies were going to undertake with secondary forces. No. It was the sort of operation where they committed entire armored divisions of the latest, most modern combat equipment they had, and the Thirty-Ninth Battalion was, for all intents and purposes, a training command. Its obsolescent Bolos had no business going up against front-line Melconian combat mechs with the sort of support which would be assigned to the invasion of a major Concordiat planet.

An icy wind seemed to blow through the marrow of her bones, and she was surprised when she looked down at her hands to realize they weren’t actually trembling the way they felt they were.

“Benjy?” she said over her private link.

“Yes, Maneka,” he replied instantly, with all his normal calm assurance.

“This is real? It’s not some sort of drill?”

“No, Maneka, I am afraid it is not a drill,” he told her gently.

“Where are they hitting us?”

“The target is Chartres.”

Maneka’s belly seemed to fold in on itself. Chartres was in the neighboring Esterhazy Sector, one sector further away from the frontier with the Melconian Empire, beyond Santa Cruz’s Ursula Sector. Esterhazy was a wealthier sector than Ursula, with the sort of heavily industrialized star systems which obviously made it a priority target. But it was also the better part of a month’s hyper-travel from the Line, even assuming the invasion fleet was able to use the intervening jump points without being engaged. Without that, the trip would take at least six weeks.

“How—?”

“Unknown,” Benjy answered. “The Enemy has been pressing harder on the Line in the vicinity of the Camperdown Sector for several months now.” The Camperdown Sector lay on the far side of the Ursula Sector from Esterhazy, directly in the path of the Melconians. “I would surmise that this was a deliberate stratagem intended to draw our naval forces and all available Brigade units towards that sector in order to uncover Esterhazy. If so, it has succeeded.”

“We can’t be all the Brigade has available!” Maneka protested.

“I fear we are all that can reach Chartres in time to respond,” Benjy said. “The Santa Cruz jump point co