Bolo!

8

Regina Salvatore and Allen Shattuck stood on the outskirts of Landing and watched the miracle approach behind a blaze of light. It was a sight Salvatore had never seen before… and one Shattuck had expected never to see again: a Mark XXXIII Bolo, coming out of the darkness under Ararat’s three moons in the deep, basso rumble of its tracks and a cloud of bone—dry dust.

The mammoth machine stopped short of the bridge over the Euphrates River on the west side of Landing and pivoted precisely on its tracks. Its surviving main battery turrets traversed with a soft whine, turning their massive Hellbores to cover all western approach vectors as the dust of its passage billowed onward across the bridge. The Mayor heard her chief marshal sneeze as it settled over them, but neither cared about that, and their boot heels clacked on the wooden bridge planks as they walked towards the Bolo without ever taking their eyes from it.

A light-spilling hatch silently opened on an armored flank high above them. The opening looked tiny against the Bolo’s titanic bulk, but it was wide enough for Jackson and Rorie Deveraux to climb out it side-by-side. Rorie stayed where he was, waving to the newcomers, but Jackson swung down the exterior handholds with monkey—like agility. He dropped the last meter to land facing the Mayor and dusted his hands with a huge grin.

“Evening, Your Honor,” he said with a bobbing nod. “Evening, Marshal.”

“Jackson.” Salvatore craned her neck, peering up the duralloy cliff at Rorie. Shattuck said nothing for a moment, then shook his head and shoved his battered hat well back.

“I will be damned if I ever expected to see anything like this again,” he told Jackson softly. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Jackson! D’you realize what this means?”

“It means Shiva—that’s his name, Marshal: Shiva—just kicked some major league ass. That’s what it means!”

Something in Jackson’s voice jerked Shattuck’s head around, and the younger man gave back a step, suddenly uneasy before the marshal’s expression. Shattuck’s nostrils flared for an instant, and then he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. It wasn’t Jackson’s fault, he told himself. For all his importance to Ararat’s small Human community, Jackson was only a kid, and he hadn’t seen the horrors of the voyage here… or the worse ones of the war.

“And how many people did Shiva kill ‘kicking ass,’ Jackson?” the ex-Marine asked after a cold still moment.

“None,” Jackson shot back. “He killed Melconians, Marshal… and kept them from killing the only people on this planet!”

Shattuck started to reply sharply, then locked his jaw. There was no point arguing, and he’d seen too much of the same attitude during the war not to know it. Jackson was a good kid. If he’d had to wade through the mangled remains of his unit—or heard the all too Human screams of wounded and dying Melconians or seen the bodies of civilians, Human and Melconian alike, heaped in the streets of burning cities—then perhaps he would have understood what Shattuck had meant. And perhaps he wouldn’t have, either. The marshal had known too many men and women who never did, who’d been so brutalized by the requirements of survival or so poisoned by hatred that they actually enjoyed slaughtering the enemy.

And, Shattuck reminded himself grimly, if the Bolo had selected Jackson as its commander, perhaps it would be better for him to retain the armor of his i

“I’d invite you up to the command deck, Your Honor,” Jackson was speaking to Salvatore now, and his voice pulled Shattuck up out of his own thoughts, “but we’re operating from Command Two. That’s his secondary command deck,” he explained with a glance at Shattuck. “As you can see, it’s quite a climb to the hatch, but the hit that killed Shiva’s last Commander wrecked Command One.”

“But it’s still operational, isn’t it?” Salvatore asked urgently. “I mean, your radio message said it saved your steading.”

“Oh, he’s operational, Ma’am,” Jackson assured her, and looked up at the looming machine. “Please give the Mayor a status report, Shiva.”

“Unit One-Zero-Niner-Seven-SHV of the Line is presently operational at seven-eight-point-six-one-one percent of base capability,” a calm, pleasant tenor voice responded. “Current Reserve Power level is sufficient for six-point-five-one hours at full combat readiness.”

The Mayor took an involuntary step back, head turning automatically to look at Shattuck, and the ex-Marine gave her a grim smile. “Don’t worry, Regina. Seventy-eight percent of a Mark XXXIII’s base capability ought to be able to deal with anything short of a full division of ma

“Good.” Salvatore drew a deep breath, then nodded sharply. “Good! In that case, I think we should consider just what to do about whatever they do have.”

“Shiva?” Jackson said again. “Could you give the Mayor and the Marshal your force estimate, please?”

Once again, Shattuck heard that dangerous, excited edge in Jackson’s voice—the delight of a kid with a magnificent new toy, eager to show off all it can do—and then the Bolo replied.

“Current Enemy forces on Ishark consist of one Star Stalker-class heavy cruiser, accompanied by two Vanguard-class Imperial Marine assault transports, and seven additional transport ships of various Imperial civil designs.” Shattuck had stiffened at the mention of a heavy cruiser, but he relaxed with an explosive release of breath as Shiva continued calmly. “All Enemy warships have been stripped of offensive weapons to maximize passenger and cargo capacity. Total Melconian presence on this planet is approximately nine hundred and forty-two Imperial military perso

“That sounds like a lot,” Salvatore said, looking at Shattuck once more, and her quiet voice was tinged with anxiety, but Shattuck only shook his head.

“In close terrain where they could sneak up on him, they could hurt him—maybe even take him out. But not if he knows they’re out there… and not if he’s the one attacking. Besides, those are all ma

“Nope,” the marshal went on, “if these puppies have any sense, they’ll haul ass the instant they see Shiva coming at them.”

“They can’t, Marshal,” Jackson put in, and Shattuck and Salvatore cocked their heads at him almost in unison. “Their ships are too worn out. This is as far as they could come.”

“Are you sure about that?” Shattuck asked.

“Shiva is,” Jackson replied. “And he got the data from their own computers.”

“Damn,” Shattuck said very, very softly, and it was Jackson’s turn to cock his head. The marshal gazed up the moons for several, endless seconds, and then, finally, he sighed.

“That’s too bad, Jackson,” he said. “Because if they won’t—or can’t—run away, there’s only one thing we can do about them.”

My audio sensors carry the conversation between Chief Marshal Shattuck and my Commander to me, and with it yet another echo of the past. Once again I hear Colonel Mandrell, the Eighty-Second’s CO, a