I am anxious to be on the ground again.
As we drop from orbit, plunging toward Thule's turbulent surface, I see the curve of the planet's snowy shoulder in triple images, one from my own sensors, one from telemetry provided by the Darknight, and a third from her destroyer escort. The Darknight and the Vengeance will remain in orbit as long as needed, guarding our vulnerable backs from potential space-based attacks by whatever alien race is providing high-tech weaponry to the Tersae. The ships track deployment of the battle group as my fellow Dinochrome Brigade comrades scatter across Thule's four main continents. We drop from the blue-black edge of space into the blue-white haze of Thule's thermosphere, which is merely a thin scattering of molecules here, at an altitude of 150 kilometers.
The blizzard which has prevented Tersae attacks at Seta Point still rages, providentially, but the telemetry I receive from the CSS Vengeance includes weather-pattern projections which show the storm system clearing Seta Point within seven hours of our arrival. It is essential that we reach our duty station before the enemy can field a force to attack it. Our very arrival may well trigger the enemy into risking the blizzard to destroy the colony before we can arrive. Our descent carries us around Thule's hulking shoulder and down into night, which is spectacular as we pass through the ionosphere. The sight draws uncharacteristic commentary from my commander.
"Damn, that's beautiful . . ."
Curious as to what John sees, I limit my sensors to only those spectra perceived by humans. A blaze of stars backlights a sky-spanning display of aurora borealis. Wildly writhing curtains and ribbons of green and red light flicker and dance, swaying across the darkness, pierced here and there by the streaks and flashpoint bombs of a meteor shower.
It is, indeed, beautiful. I am deeply pleased, that John has noticed, leaving me to hope he will not withdraw into deep isolation again, as he did after his brother's death. It took so long for me to break down that isolation the last time, I feared for many months I would lose him as commander and friend. I am therefore grateful to the silent dance of ghostly light across Thule's night skies and regret the briefness of our transition through the dazzling display.
But the eleven-kilometer reading on my altimeter marks our abrupt transition into the storm-racked troposphere. We plunge into heavy cloud cover which effectively blinds my own sensors. It is unsettling to "see" clear air above me, through the eyes of the CSS Darknight, while everything around me—and more critically, everything below—remains wrapped in the dense haze of night-darkened storm clouds.
We suffer a jolting ride due to high wind speeds, with unstable wind shears and shifting gusts making lateral corrections from the lift platform's engines a constant necessity. My commander, who loathes combat drops as much as I detest confinement aboard naval transport ships, hums tunelessly under his breath and stares fixedly at the altimeter. "Anybody down there watching us?" he asks tersely.
"I have detected no scans on any of the standard wavelengths. If the enemy has seen us, they are using a technology completely alien to our experience."
John Weyman grunts noncommittally, using a tonal inflection I have learned, over the years, to translate roughly as "wouldn't surprise me, if they did." Given the information in our mission briefing, virtually everything about the enemy is unknown. It is an interesting way to begin a war. I comment, pragmatically, "Coming up on five thousand feet. Brace for braking thrusters."
My heavy lift sled fires its main engines, slowing our precipitous plunge through the storm. Blizzard conditions leave us totally blind and rock us violently. Temperatures hover at zero degrees Celsius, plus or minus three degrees on average. Wind chill factors drop the temperature another twenty degrees, making the storm lethal to any unsheltered human on the surface.
My thoughts stray to Bessany Weyman and the unknown cause of Eisenbrucke Station's communications blackout. I grow concerned that weather fierce enough to destroy the research station's radio and SWIFT units will have left the inhabitants exposed to fatal temperatures. Even discounting the risks of enemy attack, there may be trouble ahead if serious damage has occurred to the physical shelters at Eisenbrucke Station—or at Seta Point.
Given the look in John Weyman's eyes, my commander shares this worry.
The gusts ripping through my external sensor arrays are creating problems already, running the gamut from ice and slush buildup on sensor lenses, particularly those bearing the brunt of the wind, to wild harmonics that create sensor ghosts, static discharges, and false images.
I want down. Badly.
I pull in my main sensors, tucking them back into armored turtle cowlings, and deploy backup sensors instead, as a precaution. "One thousand feet," I advise. "Scanning terrain with radar. Matching terrain features with on-board maps." I correlate data rapidly. "We are five kilometers off target, John, north of Seta Point along the Whiteclaw River. Five hundred feet. Applying lateral thrust to avoid crossing the Whiteclaw on the ground."
"Good idea," John nods agreement. According to survey data, the Whiteclaw River is a treacherous chute of white water along its upper reaches and still runs fast and deep where it spills out onto its alluvial plain, directly beneath us. The settlement five kilometers to the south has been built to mine alluvial deposits as close to the rugged mother lode as possible. Given the data from our mission briefing, plus input from my radar arrays, I do not relish the thought of trying to ford the Whiteclaw in a blizzard; the energy expenditure to avoid this while still airborne is well worth the trouble. I monitor our lateral progress carefully via radar.
"Approaching the Whiteclaw River. Two hundred feet—"
Violent wind shear topples me turret-side down. We plummet like a stone, tipping and tilting crazily as the lift's engines scream, trying to right us again. I yank all retractable small-caliber weapons systems inboard to protect them. I can do nothing about fixed systems, including my Hellbore and mortars. I am canted at a one-hundred-six-degree angle when my turret plows into something solid. One corner bites deep, digging a jagged trench. I slam into the ground like a flipped beetle, stunned by a momentary overload from my pain sensors. A howl bursts from my stolid commander. We plow across frozen ground in a slide I can neither control nor halt. Top-side external sensor arrays—ignored in the rush to protect my weapons systems—rip loose from their mountings, scoured away by the wild skid.
The sickening slide ends abruptly when the ground vanishes beneath my turret. My war hull teeters, tips, and plunges downward, half rolling and half somersaulting as we fall straight into the foaming Whiteclaw. We strike the water like the Titanic diving for the deep. Water pours in through holes where backup sensor arrays have been torn out by the roots.
I close emergency hatches on the flooding conduits, desperate to minimize electrical damage to my systems and to keep the water from pouring through interior spaces by means of cable conduits and access crawlways. Another slam against a solid surface jars my war hull, then I come to rest on the river bottom, canted mostly on my back and deeply shaken.
John gasps into the comparative silence, his breaths ragged as he hangs upside down in the command chair, cushioned by the protective webbing used during combat drops. The hiss of a hypo-spray sounds from the autodoc built into the chair, feeding medication into his system. As the medicine takes effect, he begins to swear monotonously, spitting blood from a bitten mouth. He struggles to wipe his eyes clear as that blood trickles down past his nose and into his eyes and hair.
Hand shaking, he reaches unsteadily for the med-console, which pops open. Supplies have been webbed in as snugly as my commander, with commendable foresight on the part of my designers. He fumbles an elastobrace loose while muttering creatively at Thule's inimical weather, then laboriously wraps a swollen elbow in the brace. I monitor his vitals, fearing shock and internal injuries, while attempting to ascertain damage to myself.
We have, at least, reached the ground without encountering enemy fire.
"How bad is it?" John mutters, fumbling the med-console closed again.
"Your vitals are holding at acceptable levels—" I begin.
"Not me, you loveable idiot," John mutters, "how bad is the damage to you?"
Oh.
"Performing damage assessment. I have lost backup external sensors across the entire upper surface of my turret. Portside sensor cowlings are showing red-line. There is warping damage to some of the sensor hatch covers. I managed to retract small-caliber weapons systems before we hit. Checking outboard, larger-caliber systems. One rank of turret-mounted infinite repeater snouts has sustained minor deviations from true, measured down the long axis, although the deviations are well within battle-damage tolerances for continued operations."
My commander blinks, then asks, "Your guns are bent?"
"Not all of them," I prevaricate. "A rank of portside, nonretractable fifty caliber gatlings snapped off completely. They were my least robust external weapons, however," I hasten to add, "and their loss should not materially affect my ability to carry out our mission. The remainder of my nonretractable weapons have not been affected."
"Huh. Including your Hellbore?"
I scan, performing a pre- and post-crash comparison of angles and tolerances. "There is no deformation in the Hellbore barrel," I am pleased to report.
"Well, that's something." John sighs. "All right, next step. How badly jammed into this river bottom are we? Among other things, the human body wasn't designed to hang upside down for long periods of time."
Indeed, my commander's face is already turning an alarming shade of red as blood pools under the weight of gravity. I turn my attention rapidly to my predicament, since the sooner I solve mine, the sooner I will solve my commander's. I scan my surroundings, using what sensor arrays have survived the crash, mostly nestled in the protected spaces along my prow, starboard side, and stern. "The river bottom is narrower than I would like," I relay, "but there should be sufficient room to maneuver, if I am very careful. I am still locked into the lift platform, which should be of considerable help. The engines are still functional."
John manages a shaky grin. "Best news I've heard in the last five minutes. Okay, let's see if we can flip you right-side up."
The lift platform's engines are, of necessity, powerful, capable of lifting and maneuvering a 14,000-ton Bolo. I have come to rest mostly on my turret, but my portside is lower than my starboard, which will assist my task considerably. I apply thrust carefully to the portside lateral thrusters. The engines snarl and scream and my war hull shifts ponderously. I succeed in rolling completely onto my back. And there, I find myself stuck. The lateral thrusters, less powerful than the main lift engines, are unable to shift me any farther, without the rocky river bottom to push against. Chagrined, I am forced to admit the worsening of our predicament.
"I am sorry, John," I apologize.
My commander chews his lower lip thoughtfully, wincing slightly and wiping blood again. "Can you rotate your turret? If we bring your Hellbore in line with the very bottom of the river and fire it, the recoil concussion might jar us loose enough for the lift engines to flip us all the way over."
It is a good plan. I have landed with my Hellbore facing upstream, but angled so that it is pointed slightly downwards. The river is narrow enough that my prow—and therefore my Hellbore—lies within twelve meters of the far riverbank. I slid into the water prow foremost, somersaulted once, and came to rest in this position. If I can rotate my turret so that my Hellbore faces as far down as possible, the barrel will also swing farther towards the far bank. This will give me an extra boost, as the Hellbore discharges into more surface area of stone than water.
I attempt to rotate my turret, feeling the immense strain in my internal servos as they struggle to turn with the immense weight of my war hull plus lift platform resting against them, jamming my turret down into the rocky riverbed. The servos were not designed to function under these conditions. I run them dangerously into the red, but my turret groans and grinds its way slowly in a ponderous arc. I halt the attempt to allow overheating servomotors to cool, then begin again. "I have rotated my turret as much as I dare," I report. "Brace for Hellbore fire."
WHAM!
I rock against the blast and fire thrusters on the lift platform. My prow rises off the river bottom and I fire again. WHAM! The engines scream and I rotate my turret wildly, bringing the Hellbore around for optimal position as I rock onto the very edge of my treads. WHAM! I turn and fall with a ponderous crash and slosh. The instant my treads are lowermost, I fire all thrusters and the lift platform rises with an agonizing scream. We tip and tilt, then my damaged turret breaks through into snow-shrouded air.
Water surges and pours. Steam rises from the superheated river, which now boasts a radically altered shape. My treads clear the water and I fire rear thrusters, moving across the roiled and boiling surface of the Whiteclaw toward the blessedly solid rock of the far bank. I carefully avoid the deep bite where my guns have blasted that rock, melting it in spots. I angle, instead, toward a secure landing spot farther downstream. My weight crushes flat a heavy growth of dense shrubbery which lies between water's edge and a thick stand of riverine forest. If I were human, I would cheer. My commander, collapsing white-faced into the depths of the command chair, does, in fact, manage a weak hurrah. He grins into my nearest video pickup.
"You did it!"
"We did it," I correct gently. "It was your idea, John."
"Occasionally," he chuckles, "I do have good ones. Whooee, what a ride! All right, my battered friend, damage assessment, please."
Water continues to pour out of my war hull. Within one point three minutes of exposure to the blizzard, ice forms a solid coating over my entire hull, including main sensor hatch covers, external backup sensors, and gun barrels. The ice blocking my main sensor hatches will require time to melt and the coating across visible-light sensors on the backup systems leaves me blind in the visible-light spectra, but I am right-side up and mostly intact. For the moment, it is a worthwhile trade.
I flash schematics onto my forward data screen, showing my commander the extent of damage. "Thirty-nine percent of my turret sensors have been damaged. I do not have sufficient spares on board to replace more than thirty-seven percent of them and I would advise against making any repairs while weather conditions remain this severe." Ordinarily, of course, I would have been brought up to full depot readiness before being deployed in a new combat drop, but I have seen three months of nonstop combat, much of it rugged, and there was no time to bring my on-board stores up to specs. The CSS Darknight's crew loaded as much replacement equipment as possible from ship's stores, but even their large inventory was spread thin, attempting to reoutfit no fewer than five combat-depleted Bolos.
"What are the relative levels of damage in this schematic?"
I color-code the display. "Green sensors are fully functional. Orange warning lights indicate crash damage which limits functionality. Ninety-two percent of the orange-marked damage is attributable to sensors hatch covers that have been slightly warped, preventing the hatches from opening properly. This should be relatively easy to repair."
My commander snorts. "You mean something about this mission might actually be easy?"
The wan smile accompanying this question marks a return to my commander's usual droll sense of humor, pleasing me immensely. "Compared with the landing? Absolutely."
The wan smile becomes a genuine grin.
"Sensor arrays marked in yellow are fully functional, or rather, will be once thawed out. My entire war hull is now coated with ice, which has sufficiently blocked the indicated sensor arrays, they are of limited use. The visual-light camera lenses in particular have been affected, as the ice has rendered them temporarily opaque. I have initiated antifrost heating systems, but it will take time to clear them. Navigation will be possible, of course, using radar and infrared systems, but I will not be able to move at optimal speed until the camera systems are clear of ice. My turret servomotors have suffered a twenty-three percent loss of function, due to the strain of breaking loose. I will not be able to turn my remaining turret-mounted weapons as quickly or reliably as usual."
"Understood. We've been dealt a lousy hand, for sure, but any crash you can walk—or limp—away from isn't all bad. All right, let's see if we can limp into Seta Point, shall we?"
I attempt to disengage from my lift platform and discover yet another casualty of the crash. The platform has suffered warping throughout its structure. I cannot disengage the autolocks. "John? We still have a problem."
"Oh, Lord, now what?"
I explain.
The last thing I expect is the rusty laugh my commander responds with. I stare at him, abruptly concerned for his health. He wipes tears with an awkward hand, then manages to wheeze, "What a pair we are, Rapier. All banged up and nowhere to go . . ."
"It will be very easy to pull loose, simply by engaging my drive engines, but getting back to the ship will be a problem, which is why I hesitated to act without consulting you."
John continues to chuckle. "At the moment, that's the least of our troubles. All right, Rapier. If we have to break it to get loose, then we have to break it. Somehow, I don't think they'll take it out of our pay."
I refrain from pointing out that Bolos do not earn pay, then engage my drive engines. It takes zero point three seconds to rip loose from badly bent moorings. I leave behind a tangled, mangled hunk of metal, one that has given its life nobly in service of mine and my commander's, and set out along the riverbank. I move parallel to the Whiteclaw, along which the Seta Point mines stretch, reflecting that the river is more than aptly named. It certainly has mauled me, as effectively as any clawed beast.
Perhaps the forcible jarring of our crash landing and subsequent escape from the river has knocked circuitry loose somewhere in my psychotronics, for I must work harder than usual to gather my scattered thoughts from the various remote system modules where they reside. Four point two minutes elapse before it occurs to me that I would pick up speed considerably if I were to move away from the river, where I am forced to plow through the edge of a dense riverine forest, grinding down trees and lower, dense undergrowth beneath my icy treads.
I consult on-board maps and aerial survey photos and alter course, breaking through the relatively narrow band of forest cover which hugs the route of the Whiteclaw. Beyond lies more open ground, where badlands have given way to alluvial plain, covered with tough grass which lies flattened, now, beneath a mantle of snow. The greatest obstacles here are deep snowdrifts and the frozen streambeds of small tributaries.
I pick up speed rapidly, crossing small tributary streams with a shattering of surface ice and a splash of dark water. I am anxious to reach my duty station, as my presence there will allow John to send scouting parties to Eisenbrucke Station by ground transport. If, of course, someone can be found to go. I hope—rather desperately—there will be someone at Seta Point willing to risk it, since neither my commander nor I are free to go, ourselves. If not . . . I hold onto my hope, reminding myself that humanity can be a remarkably brave and selfless species, when the situation warrants it.
John consults a side viewscreen where I have displayed a map of the region, superimposing our position onto it. John nods to himself, then opens a radio frequency via controls on my command-chair console.
"Seta Point, do you copy?"
A burst of static is followed by a human voice, one which sounds very young. "This is Seta Point. Who is this?"
"Lieutenant Colonel John Weyman, Third Dinochrome Brigade."
"Really?" This childlike squeal is followed by an excited shout. "Dad! Dad! It's a Bolo commander!"
A faint smile touches my commander's lips. A moment later, a deeper voice hails us, somewhat uncertainly. "This is Seta Point, Bill Hanson, speaking."
"Lieutenant Colonel John Weyman, here," my commander responds. "We're inbound along the Whiteclaw River, ETA your location in three minutes. We'd hoped to set down closer to your settlement, but the weather wasn't very cooperative. Our landing was a little more exciting than either of us would've preferred."
A rusty chuckle emerges from the speaker. "We're awfully grateful to that weather, Colonel Weyman. And most of us use more, ah, colorful words to describe it." My commander shares the chuckle, then Bill Hanson says in a tone that betrays worry, "I don't suppose you know what that godawful noise we heard a few minutes ago was? We thought the Tersae were attacking through the blizzard, after all. We sent out every man and woman who could scrape up a weapon to defend the edges of town. They picked me to man the radio, because I broke my leg, sliding on the ice."
My commander grimaces. "Sorry to hear that, Mr. Hanson. And that noise was us, I'm afraid. We suffered a very bad landing. Ended up turret-side down at the bottom of the Whiteclaw. We had to fire the Hellbore to jar ourselves loose. You can call everybody back inside, get 'em out of this weather."
"That'll be mighty welcome news," Hanson responds. "It's a bad night to be outside. Anything we can do, once you get here?"
"If you've got a medico, I'd welcome their help. I banged up an arm on landing."
"Roger that, and I'll put a fresh pot of coffee on, Colonel."
"I'll look forward to it. We'll see you in about two minutes. Weyman, out."
Two point one seven minutes later, Seta Point appears in my sensors, a radar ghost at the top of a bluff overlooking the Whiteclaw. The site must have been chosen with flooding in mind. This has, however, left the town unpleasantly exposed to the vagaries of Thulian weather and leaves the settlement dangerously vulnerable to enemy artillery fire. On the positive side, the openness of the terrain will make it harder for enemy infantry to approach without exposing themselves to murderous fire from my guns.
By the time we arrive, climbing a well-constructed, wide road to the top of the bluff, my visible-light sensors have warmed enough to melt the ice sheathing their lenses, allowing me to see where I am going far more clearly. I am glad of this, for we discover an immense crowd waiting for us. The entire settlement has come streaming to the edge of town, suited up against the snow and heavy, gusting winds.
I halt at a safe distance, unwilling to come closer on the icy ground for fear of a skid. My running lights make my towering prow clearly visible despite the snow-filled darkness—uptilted faces gape at my ice-shrouded duralloy war hull and gun snouts. Through my thawing external sensors, I hear the concerted gasp which rises from more than a thousand throats.
Civilian awe at seeing an ordinary Bolo never ceases to amaze me, even after fifteen years of active service. I have speculated, sometimes, that there must be something of a religious, or at least superstitious, element to this reaction. Judging by my own experience, the human mind fears—in a primitive, subconscious fashion—that which is larger and more powerful than itself. Even when that something was fashioned by human hands and human ingenuity.
I find this very lonely.
My commander unhooks himself from the command chair and shrugs on cold weather gear stored in a bin at the back of my command compartment, moving gingerly and scowling at his swollen elbow. "Well," he sighs philosophically, glancing into my forward camera, "let's see what we can do, shall we? Maintain full Battle Reflex Alert and scout the whole perimeter of the settlement. Find out which areas of town are most vulnerable to attack. I'll see if I can find anything useful from the colony's stores to repair your sensor arrays, at least."
"Understood, John."
He climbs down and greets the welcoming committee, which elicits a wild cheer of welcome. The crowd moves toward a structure adequate to hold the entire population. It is time for John to initiate his council of war—and time for me to discover the exact shape and extent of the terrain I must defend. Satisfied that I have safely delivered my commander to our duty station, I carefully back up, turn, and tackle the next phase of my mission.