At 24:70 hours, I receive an unprecedented transmission from Sector Command.
"Unit SOL-0045, acknowledge readiness to receive command-grade orders."
"Unit SOL-0045, acknowledged. Standing by."
"We have been notified about the situation on Jefferson."
I wonder for a fleeting nanosecond which situation Sector refers to, of the many possible candidates. The incoming SWIFT transmission clarifies this.
"Your command-recognition codes were destroyed in the fire accompanying the assassination of President Zeloc and Vice President Culver. We hereby authorize you to accept command-grade instructions from the current and future presidents of Jefferson, pursuant to article 9510.673 of the treaty binding Jefferson to the Concordiat. Given the high likelihood of armed insurrection, you are further instructed to act independently in assessing and countering threats to the long-term security of this planet and the sustainability of its status as a Concordiat-allied world with treaty obligations to fulfill."
"Understood. Request clarification."
"Request granted."
"I am not designed for long-term independent action and have no commander. President La Roux is not trained in any military discipline and does not know my systems well enough for command decisions on a battlefield. Will I be assigned a new commander from Sector?"
There is a brief delay as the officer issuing my instructions consults with a superior. "Negative. No command-grade officers can be spared. You are capable of independent battlefield threat assessment and action. Your experience databanks outclass some of the Mark XXIII and Mark XXIV Units currently deployed. You're the last Mark XX on active duty in this entire Sector. There isn't time to retrofit an officer's training program to qualify on your systems. You are therefore the best defense option available at this time."
I am unsure whether to be flattered or alarmed. Sector's confidence is reassuring. The lack of command officers is not. The fact that I am the last of my Mark XX brothers and sisters on active status creates an electronic ripple of conflict through my personality gestalt center. It is good to be useful. It is also lonely. I long for a commander with whom to share the years of duty yet to come. Phil Fabrizio is a poor substitute, at best.
But I am a Bolo, part of a Brigade that carries out duty no matter what. I signal acknowledgment. Sector's parting comments are startling.
"Good luck, Unit SOL-0045. From the gist of Avelaine La Roux's transmission, you will need it."
Transmission ends.
I ponder each word of the communication, trying to cull as much information as possible from this somewhat unsatisfying guidance. I am still pondering it, particularly the last ten words of it, when I receive a second transmission, this time from Madison.
"Uh . . . hello? I want to talk to the machine."
I contemplate the likelihood that the individual speaking would be using my command frequency to speak to one of the approximately 7,893 psychotronic systems on Jefferson capable of voice-activated operating mode. I decide this person is, in fact, trying to talk to me.
"This is Unit SOL-0045. Please clarify your identity and intentions."
"I'm the president. The new president. Avelaine La Roux. You called me, yesterday, after poor Gifre and Madeline were killed. The people at that army place off-world said you would respond to my directions. Oh, uh, I'm supposed to say something . . . Code Absalom?"
"Acknowledged. What are your instructions?"
"My instructions? I don't have any instructions, not really."
I begin to question the wisdom of placing La Roux in a command structure that she is clearly not qualified to handle. The commander I lost in the Quern War, Alison Sanhurst, was the finest and most courageous human female I have ever known, although Kafari Khrustinova runs a close second. I have never before encountered a human who could not tell me, at the bare minimum, why they had called. How do incompetent humans rise to command status?
I try again. "Did you have a purpose for contacting me?"
"Well, no, really not, I suppose. Oh, I can't do this! I'm talking to a collection of rusty nuts and bolts and loose screws!"
I surmise that this last comment was directed at someone with her, rather than at me; still, it stings my pride. "A Bolo Mark XX is significantly more than a collection of rusty nuts and bolts and only zero point zero-two percent of the screws within my thirteen-thousand-ton warhull qualify as sufficiently worn to be termed 'loose.' Request permission to file VSR."
"VSR? What the hell is that?"
I begin to understand the human maxim that patience is a virtue. It is one I clearly lack. It is irritating to stop and explain everything I say in terms a human toddler should comprehend. "VSR is an acronym for Verified Situation Report."
"What's that?"
"A verifiably factual report on current conditions affecting my short-term duty and long-term mission."
"Oh. What do you want to say?"
"Sector Command views the likelihood of armed insurrection as exceedingly high. I concur. I would recommend putting Jefferson's defense forces on heightened alert status."
"Why?"
The lack of tactical understanding encapsulated into that single word is stunning. I require a full ten nanoseconds just to frame an explanation. "A weapons confiscation bill was signed into law last night. It is unlikely that all weapons holders will be willing to comply. I foresee a high probability of armed resistance to any attempt at door-to-door disarmament."
"After what happened last night, no one would dare!"
"After what happened last night, armed resistance is virtually assured."
"But why?" She appears to be truly baffled.
I am attempting to frame a reply when I pick up an emergency transmission from Barran Bluff, a small munitions depot fifty-three kilometers south of Madison, built a century ago to protect the Walmond Mines, which have been largely inactive under POPPA-mandated environmental codes. The largest town in the region, Gersham, has become virtually a ghost town, while farming in the region has burgeoned due to government-run emergency food-production measures. The small garrison of poorly trained federal troops stationed there, deployed mostly to keep Granger conscripts at work in the fields, is under attack.
"—they're comin' over the fences, through the fences, hunnerds of 'em! Can't even tell how many there are, out there. They're headin' for the big artillery bunkers, the ammo dumps. We got more of 'em comin' in from the south, carryin' rifles and stuff—"
I hear the sound of small-arms fire through the commlink, unmistakable in its crisp staccato cracking as individual slugs reach supersonic speeds and slice through the sound barrier. The yelling sound of voices in combat is audible in the background, coming mostly from the troops assigned to guard the weapons depot, from the sound of it. I tap the facility's computer-controlled security cameras as I inform Jefferson's president of the situation.
"An attack? What attack? There can't be an attack!"
I flash the transmission to her datascreen and send, as well, the data feed from the compound's security cameras. An estimated two hundred Grangers on foot have stormed the outpost, armed with heavy rifles and handguns. The contingent of troops on the site boasts a mere twenty-three defenders, six of whom are visibly dead on the ground. They appear to have been shot while running from their posts at outlying gates and guard towers, attempting to reach the safety of the command bunker.
"What do I do?" the fledgling president asks, voice rising to a near-hysterical screech.
The guards at the beseiged outpost are asking the same question in virtually the same tone. "What do we do? There's too many of 'em! What do we do?"
A voice I recognize at once slices through the confusion, transmitting from the president's office. Sar Gremian, sounding irritated in the extreme, says, "Shoot them, you idiot! That's what we gave you rifles for. If you can remember how to load them and pull the triggers. We're sending down an emergency tactical team by airlift. Try not to shoot them when they get there."
I signal Sar Gremian through the president's datacomm. "Unit SOL-0045, standing by. I would advise sending me to Barran Bluff at once."
"No. Out of the question."
"This garrison is armed with heavy artillery that—"
"I said no. The last thing we need is for some camera crew to shoot news footage of a Bolo having to step in to contain a few disgruntled assholes with guns."
I understand, with abrupt clarity. This order is entirely political in nature. I am the first choice to destroy unarmed rioters, sending a specific political message beneficial to POPPA's campaign of rule by intimidation. But sending in a Bolo to quash armed rebellion would be a tacit admission that the situation is out of control. Sar Gremian and his superiors in the POPPA upper echelons cannot afford to publicize the fact that "a few assholes with guns" have overrun a military compound in an act of open warfare.
I am, however, required by directive from Sector Command to conduct threat assessments in defense of this world. I therefore flash my attention to a roster of Barran Bluff's military assets. I do not like what I discover. Barran's heavy-weapons bunker houses ten artillery field guns, lightly armored but fitted with 10cm mobile Hellbores, the heaviest weaponry on Jefferson, excluding myself. These guns represent the only nuclear technology on site, but the potential for devastation is ominous, including a mobility kill on me. Given my role in recent events, Granger dissidents certainly have cause to attempt such a kill. They cannot hope to prevail as long as I am functional.
Also listed are hypervelocity missiles and antitank mines that use octocellulose explosives capable of killing a Deng Heavy if placement of the charge is done properly. They are more than capable of inflicting serious damage to me, particularly to my treads. Given the government's lack of willingness to fund anything beyond politically necessary subsidy payments, this is of concern.
I monitor the departure of the emergency tactical team from Nineveh Base. Fifty federal troops swarm aboard a heavy airlift transport, armed with weaponry suitable for infantry combat. The sole exception is a robot-tank designed to penetrate hostile terrain, which is maneuvered into the cargo bay prior to lift-off. The transport lumbers into the air and picks up speed, streaking south through the darkness. Even at maximum velocity, they may be too late. The deployment of rebel troops indicates a level of military training superior to that displayed by the federal troops. Granted, this would not be difficult to achieve . . .
As I watch through the surveillance cameras, unable to intervene, the invaders storm every building in the compound, methodically killing every government trooper they encounter. They shoot men down, execution style, whether they try to surrender or flee. Within eight point three minutes the rebel contingent has completely overrun the outpost and has destroyed every federal trooper unlucky enough to be assigned there.
Once the killing is done, there is no sign of celebration amongst the victors. They move smoothly from attack-mode to organized looting, firing up military trucks in the vehicle park. The compound, situated at the top of a steep, northward-facing bluff, holds a commanding view of the valley where government-owned farms have been installed. There are two main access roads, one which snakes upward from the valley floor in a series of switchbacks along the bluff's western face and one which loops a longer way around, approaching from the south along a gentler gradient.
Fast-working rebel crews take down the fences along both roads, allowing trucks loaded with spoils to escape into the darkness without slowing down to exit single file through the gates. These trucks are piled high with ammunition crates, small arms, missiles, antitank mines, and rocket launchers.
They clearly have a lengthy campaign in mind. This is an enemy worth studying closely. Most are young, under the age of twenty. The older men and women have the gaunt, angry look of farmers stripped of their holdings in the government's land-snatch program and forced to work on meagre rations in government-owned fields. I recognize their leader immediately. Anish Balin is an intelligent, disgruntled firebrand who has graduated from talking the talk to walking the walk. His widely disseminated notion of justice is Biblical: an eye for an eye and slavery for the enslavers.
I do not see how exchanging one form of coercion for another will materially improve conditions. This is the tragedy of bitter conflicts within a divided society: one side's hatred leads to atrocities that fuel the other side's hatred, sparking angry reprisals which fuel new hatred, ad infinitum. I have never fought in a civil war. I know how to crush an enemy or die trying, but I do not know how to end a conflict between diametrically opposed philosophies in a struggle to decide how a human society will conduct itself.
My processors cannot resolve this problem. Safety algorithms shut down the attempt. I cannot intervene without orders and I cannot decide what the proper course would be, even if I could; not without human guidance and specific orders within the parameters of my overall mission. I can only sit and watch and wait for someone to tell me what to do. I am unhappy to be caught in the same mental state as the troopers just slaughtered.
The emergency tactical team arrives, providing a distraction from my psychotronic distress. The air transport sets down half a kilometer south of the compound, along the easier access gradient, blocking the way for three trucks. These trucks back and turn, making a successful escape while the federal airship is still off-loading troops. Evidently, none of the crew or troopers on board understand the concept of air-to-truck missiles. Or know how to use them. The munitions in the escaping trucks are of concern, but the far greater worry I harbor involves the heavy-artillery field guns listed on the equipment rosters. I have seen no sign of these guns in the loads of contraband driven out, which I find puzzling. Surely ten mobile Hellbores would constitute a greater prize than a few truckloads of ordnance?
So far as I can determine though my datatap on the security cameras, the truck drivers are heading for the twisting, turning canyons that riddle the Damisi Mountains. The southern ranges surrounding Barran Bluff are wild, neither mined nor farmed. This region constitutes perfect country for hiding a rebel army. If I were a human, my heart would sink at the prospect of trying to come to grips with an enemy scattered through the long, deeply fissured Damisi Mountains. I fear that this will eventually become my task, if this raid is not speedily and successfully squelched. Given the lax training of federal troops in general—what few troops remain, other than the ubiquitous P-Squads and other urban law-enforcement units—I am less than optimistic that this raid will be successfully countered.
The troops aboard the airship finally off-load, fanning out in a formation that makes little sense to me, since it is neither an effective attack formation nor a sensible defensive one. They simply string themselves out in a line to either side of their air transport and watch while the robot-tank lumbers toward the main gate of the Barran Bluff compound. They make no effort to prepare their rifles for combat readiness nor do they bother to switch on their headsets, which are designed to relay tactically important data and command-grade orders in an organized, centrally directed fashion.
The overriding attitude seems to be one of complacent arrogance.
The robot-tank is thirty meters from the main gate when the rebels holding Barran fling open the doors on a field-artillery depot. A mobile Hellbore drives out into the open, swinging around the tank-traps in the road to gain a vantage point that covers the main, south-facing gate. The 10cm barrel swings around, locks on, and fires. The night vanishes. Actinic light burns shadows into the painted walls of the bunkers and storage depots. Recoil sends the Hellbore's mobile platform backwards five meters. The blast slices the robot-tank open like a tin can. Smoke billows up from the mortally wounded vehicle, pieces of which are blown in several directions.
Federal troops break and run for their air transport.
Before any of them can reach it, that transport vanishes in another blinding flash. Pieces of semimolten metal go careening off into the darkness, blazing like meteors. Fragments scythe down the low-growing native shrubbery. The overpressure and expanding fireball engulf the remaining federal troops. Granger ground forces rush forward, sighting with laser range-finders and shooting what few bodies are still twitching.
They fall back, then, and continue loading trucks.
Sar Gremian, watching the debacle courtesy of my datafeed to the president's console, stares in wide-eyed shock. He then snarls several obscenities and contacts Nineveh Base. "Scramble another team. And this time, goddamn it, go in with aerial fighters and missiles!"
The commander of Nineveh Base clears his throat. "We can't do that."
"Why not?"
"We don't have any trained fighter pilots. And there hasn't been funding to fuel the fighters. The team they just fried was the best we had."
Sar Gremian's obscenities outdo his previous outburst. The president, visible in the background, is staring in stunned disbelief. "We have to do something," she says. "We have to do something!"
Sar Gremian turns on her with a snarl. "I know that, you stupid bitch! Shut up and let me think. Better yet, go file your fingernails somewhere. It's what you do best."
Her mouth drops open. Color floods her face. Then she screams at him. "How dare you speak to me like that! I'm the fucking president!"
"Not for long," he says coldly.
While she sputters, Sar Gremian turns back to the datascreen and addresses me directly. "Bolo. Go to Barran Bluff and handle the situation."
"I require authorization from the president."
Sar Gremian glances around at Avelaine La Roux, who flashes him a look of hateful defiance.
"It would not be good for your health," Sar Gremian says softly, "to refuse. Those bastards have Hellbores. In case you don't understand what those are, they're portable nuclear weapons. And the people who have them aren't particularly fond of you, just now. Order the goddamned Bolo to destroy them before they drive those things up to your front door and open fire."
Her polished fingernails bite into the upholstery of her chair. Then she spits out the order like someone with a mouth full of arsenic. "Do what he says! You hear me, machine? Wipe those bastards off the face of the planet!"
For once, my directives are perfectly clear. As I fire up my drive engines, Sar Gremian adds, "Try not to damage too much of the equipment. We can't afford to replace it."
"Understood."
"And don't start shooting until you get there. I don't want to advertise the fact that you're on a war mission. Christ, there are reporters in Gersham; they're going to want to know what all the explosions were about. I've got to get damage control crews out there, confiscate the cameras . . ."
He ends transmission.
Phil Fabrizio, looking much the worse for an evening of solitary drinking, reels through the rear doorway of his apartment, watching openmouthed as I leave my maintenance bay. "Where ya goin'?" he asks, slurring the words unsteadily.
"Barran Bluff Military Compound."
"Huh? Why?"
"To destroy Anish Balin and two hundred of his followers. They have seized the arsenal, including ten mobile Hellbores. I may sustain damage. It would be helpful if you were sober enough to effect repairs when I return." I consider his conversational skills and current state of sobriety and clarify. "You are too drunk to fix me if I am damaged."
He drags one unsteady hand across his mouth, muttering, "Aw, shit, man, I don't fuckin' know enough t'fix you."
I find myself in full agreement with that assessment.
As I reengage engines, he mutters to himself, "They can't have nuthin' that'd hurt a machine that big. Not bad enough t' need fixin' or nuthin'. It's biggern' the apartment building I was raised in. And it's got alla that armor an' stuff . . . leas'ways, what I could figgur from them manuals they tol' me t' read, they all said it's gotta lotta armor'n stuff won't nuthin' penetrate but a plasma lance, whatevern' hell that's s'posed t' be . . ."
He is still muttering when he reels back into the apartment and closes the door.
His optimism in this regard does not inspire a concomitant feeling in my personality gestalt center. Phil Fabrizio quite literally has no idea what he is talking about. I could almost get to like him, if I could get past his appalling lack of critical need-to-know data. A Bolo tech who doesn't understand the difference between riot work against unarmed civilians and combat against mobile 10cm Hellbores in the hands of insurrectionists displays an ignorance frightening in its implications.
I console myself with what I can: at least I finally have a concrete objective and a mission for which I am suited.
Kafari lay prone in her vantage point up in the Damisi foothills, watching the target through powerful night-vision goggles. Kafari's little band of freedom fighters—recruited and deployed within two short hours of her first conversation with Anish Balin—had already fought and won two critical skirmishes, neither of which Kafari had been able to participate in.
The first raid, twelve kilometers to the south, wouldn't be discovered until someone—an officer from another post or an early-morning cleaning crew—entered Haggertown's police headquarters, where they would find several embarrassed P-Squad corpses and six seriously empty weapons lockers. The spoils had provided the weapons needed by Anish and his team to carry out the night's second objective: Barran Bluff Depot. Anish's team had taken the depot in less than ten minutes, a stunning success that left even Kafari amazed. The P-Squad guards had grown lazy, fat, and careless, too busy terrorizing Gersham's helpless, disarmed residents to bother with any real security. It was always easy, Kafari reflected bitterly, to brutalize people who had been forcibly disarmed.
Tonight's raids would reacquaint Jefferson's rulers with an enduring and universal truth: true equality—the power to make a successful stand against tyranny—inevitably flows from the barrel of a gun. A cold, pleased little smile played across her lips. Gun barrels by the hundreds were flowing out into the sea of Jefferson's people, tonight. So were heavy field-grade weapons, ammunition, biochem gear, communications equipment, explosives and primers, missiles, and mortars.
These were the tools of the warrior's trade, tools that would force Jefferson's rulers to restore the equality Jefferson's founding settlers had worked so hard to ensure. Despite the total lack of experience working together, Anish's team was loading the bounty smoothly and rapidly. The instant trucks were packed to capacity, drivers headed for the valley floor, scattering to widely separated field caches that she and Anish had worked out using geological survey maps. The Damisi Mountains were delightfully fissured with endless labyrinths where wind and water had scooped out canyons, gorges, and caverns. Kafari could have hidden an entire army in this stretch of the Damisi, alone.
Which was, of course, exactly what she intended to do.
One of the trucks raced toward Kafari's position, bringing supplies to implement what Anish had dubbed Operation Payback. She waited just long enough to assure herself that three of the ten mobile Hellbore field guns they'd seized had, in fact, made it safely out through the gates and were well on their way toward hiding places. Poor Anish had protested—vehemently—her decision to abscond with only three mobile Hellbores.
"We'll need that firepower!"
"Yes, we will. But the place we'll need that firepower most is inside Barran Bluff's compound."
"Kafari, you don't need seven mobile Hellbores to knock out the kind of air response team Nineveh Base will scramble against us."
"No," she agreed, "we won't. But if we take that team out with enough force to rattle even Vittori Santorini, they'll send Sonny against us. And that, my dear Lieutenant, is exactly what we must goad them into doing. We don't stand a prayer of getting into Nineveh Base, let alone grabbing the Hancock family and getting out alive, again, if Sonny is still in depot."
"But—" Anish turned white to the roots of his hair. "He'll slaughter every soldier we leave behind!"
"Yes," she said softly, "he will. But if we're clever enough and if the soldiers who volunteer to stay are brave enough under fire, we can inflict telling injuries. Serious enough to make it really expensive to repair him."
"Kafari, we can't kill a Bolo."
"Want to bet? I'm a Bolo commander's wife, Anish. I did my psychotronic engineering practicum on Sonny's systems. I've watched Simon pull maintenance on that Bolo dozens of times. I've been inside the Command Compartment. And I've listened to them talk about damage sustained in other wars. I know exactly how Deng Yavacs killed sixteen Bolos on Etaine—and why it was almost seventeen."
"My God," Anish whispered. "I never correlated that. That you'd talked to the Bolo about combat, I mean."
"With any luck, the bastards in Madison have forgotten it, too. It's our job to remind them. I intend to make it a very expensive lesson," Kafari added, voice full of cold and lethal promise.
A shudder rippled through Anish's whole torso. "Okay," he said in a hoarse tone, "if it's fish or cut bait, I prefer to fish. God help us all . . ."
Amen, Kafari agreed silently, climbing down the rock face she'd chosen as lookout. We need all the help—divine or otherwise—we can get. By the time Kafari reached the valley floor, the truckload of equipment they would need at Nineveh Base had arrived, driving cross country without running lights. The driver who jumped down was a combat veteran from the Deng War. Wakiza Red Wolf had field experience in demolitions and explosives, both of which had earned him a slot on Kafari's personal team. Pride rang through his voice as he snapped out a crisp salute.
"I beg to report success, sir!"
"Well done," Kafari returned the salute, pleased with his news and even more pleased that he'd remembered to say "sir" instead of "ma'am." Anish Balin had impressed upon their small band of freedom fighters the importance of hiding Kafari's identity, including her gender.
"It's up to us," he'd told the assembled strike team, "to protect our commander. We," he indicated himself and the others who'd gathered in the midnight darkness of his hay field, "are expendable. Our commander," he nodded toward Kafari, "is not. She is the only person on Jefferson who knows how to cripple a Bolo. If she goes down, our entire cause goes down with her. So does every Granger's hope of freedom—and maybe simple survival. Let's be very clear about that, right up front. Does anyone have the slightest doubt left, now, about POPPA's intentions? Does anyone fail to understand the lengths POPPA will go to, carrying out those intentions?"
Utter silence reigned. The only sound was the whisper of wind through standing hay.
"Very good. You all know what we're up against. Some of us—maybe most of us—will die before sunrise. That's not pessimism, it's harsh reality."
Kafari spoke up. "I don't want anybody going into battle under a misapprehension. Things are going to get messy. Very messy. Was anyone here in Madison, tonight?"
No one spoke up.
"Well, I was. I've been caught in two other POPPA riots. I thought I'd seen the ugliest and most violent face POPPA had to show, but I was wrong. What I saw tonight . . ." Even the memory made her shudder. "Vittori Santorini has created an ungovernable killing machine that will turn on anyone and anything it wants to blame for its problems. That machine is ripping Madison apart. And you can bet your farms and cow pastures that we—Grangers—are going to take the blame. If we don't act now, as a fighting force with teeth, it will be too late for anything to stop it.
"Having said that, I won't send you into battle under false pretenses. Are you likely to die, tonight? Absolutely. Will Vittori and Nassiona Santorini hunt us down with every high-tech bloodhound they can muster into the field? You bet they will. Tonight's raids will get their attention in a really big way. Will they order reprisals against innocents? Count on it. Once we start shooting them and blowing them up, they will get flat-assed mean.
"If you don't like those odds, if you don't want to be responsible for setting off that kind of powder keg, you can leave now, no questions asked. Just bear in mind one thing before you make your final decision. The massacre of innocents has already started. POPPA declared war on us, tonight, and that war will spread to every farm, every ranch, every small town on Jefferson.
"Vittori will slaughter us whether we fight back or not. I can't tell anyone else what to do, but I intend to go down with weapons in my hands. Here and now, in this field, in front of witnesses—human and divine—I pledge my strength, my cunning, my knowledge, to the total destruction of POPPA and its leaders. And I swear to each and every one of you, if they blow me apart and send the left-over pieces bouncing down to hell, you may rest assured that I will drag as many as I can take down with me."
A spontaneous cheer erupted, muted almost instantly down to a whisper, so the sound wouldn't travel far, but it was a cheer, nonetheless. Then silence fell, a silence that burned with hatred and something else, as well, something that burned hot enough to melt steel. She couldn't immediately identify it. Whatever it was, it shone fiercely in eyes that never left her face. It was that steady, intense regard, itself, that finally told her what it was.
Respect.
Not just for her. For themselves, as well.
Rough emotion closed her throat.
Anish Balin broke the silence. "As of tonight," he gestured to include the whole group, "we are the only thing standing between millions of innocent Grangers and POPPA's guns. Kafari and I fully intend to win this war, no matter what it takes. And the very first thing it will take is making sure Kafari Khrustinova stays officially dead. It's our job to see that nobody—and I mean nobody—discovers otherwise. If POPPA has even the remotest suspicion that Kafari Khrustinova is still alive, they will turn Klameth Canyon—and every other Granger farmstead on Jefferson—to slag, looking for her. Having made that clear, does anyone have questions?"
Nobody did.
They all turned, as if by prearranged signal, to look at Kafari. It was fitting, somehow, that the larger of Jefferson's two moons scaled the high cliffs at that moment, casting silver light across the fields and the faces of those following her into battle. She looked into each of those faces, into eyes that shone like cold and lethal diamonds in the moonlight, and caught a glimpse of her homeworld's future. Jefferson's tomorrow—and all the countless tomorrows that would follow—were filled with blood-feud and death and honor. The others could see it reflected in her eyes, as well as she could see it in theirs. They met her gaze without flinching, met and held it in the moonlight, waiting for her to issue her first battle command.
"I won't offer you a bunch of useless platitudes," she began quietly. "POPPA spits out of enough of those to choke a jaglitch. You know exactly what we're up against. You know your team assignments and objectives. So let's not delay this any longer. Alpha Team, you're assigned to weapons procurement. You'll strike our first target. Beta Team, go with Anish and wait for my signal. Alpha Team will join you once they have acquired effective weaponry. Gamma Team, you're assigned to logistics and provisioning. Dismantle Anish's broadcast studio and transport it out of Klameth Canyon. Pack up everything edible, as well, and start planning where we can get more. Is everyone clear on the plan of attack? Very well. Move out."
Her strike teams had scattered into the night, carrying out her orders with smooth precision. As a result, they now had enough firepower to make things interesting. Kafari looked up at the truck loaded with stolen munitions and asked its driver, "Do you have an inventory?"
"Yes, sir. My squad's in the back, tallying everything."
"Very good." She strode crisply to the tailgate, where a sixteen-year-old girl handed her a rapidly scrawled list. Kafari tilted it to read by moonlight. "Excellent job, soldier. Neat, complete, and well organized. Let's go people, arm up and move out."
They hauled gun crates and ammo boxes out of the truck, distributing them and loading their weapons for combat. The process went so smoothly, it took less than fifteen minutes to arm the entire group, distribute ammunition, and set up heavier weapons in the various vehicles they would use to hit Nineveh. The moment they were ready, Kafari said, "All right, soldiers, mount up and form a convoy. When I give the signal, move out fast, without running lights. We've worked out the probable timing and you all know the dodge-points to use. Questions?"
Nobody had any. Kafari nodded sharply. "Very well. We should be getting company from Nineveh Base in a few minutes. Toss thermal blankets across your engine blocks to mask heat signatures. Maintain radio silence until further notice."
She shook out a thermal blanket for her own truck and flung it across the front of the truck, spreading it out with help from Red Wolf. It wouldn't make the heat disappear entirely, but it might be enough to escape the notice of arrogant P-Squaddies. Once the blanket was secure, Kafari swung herself into the driver's seat, then waited in tense silence. It didn't take long. The sound of an aircraft engine rumbled closer. Then she spotted it through her night-vision goggles and worked hard to restrain a whoop of delight. It was a troop transport, not a fighter craft. A wicked grin stretched itself across her face. The self-assured fools had committed a fatal error. They just didn't know it, yet.
The big transport flashed past their silent convoy, dropping to land its passengers on the gentle slope where the main entrance road led the way into the compound. She snatched off the goggles to protect her eyes. A blinding flash lit the night, followed by a massive crack of thunder. Another flash silhouetted the bluff and its fenced compound, followed almost instantly by another. Then a fireball shot skyward and the sound of a massive explosion came rolling across the valley like a tidal wave. It splashed against the shoulders of the mountains at Kafari's back.
"Yes!" she whooped aloud. Cheers broke from the other vehicles. Kafari jabbed controls on her wrist-comm, sending three separate signals on three different frequencies. One signaled her own convoy to move out. Another told Anish Balin to scramble with the bulk of his team. The final message was for the men and women riding seven mobile Hellbores on the top of the bluff. It contained only four simple words: You will be remembered.
Having said the only goodbyes she could offer, Kafari turned her attention to the mission at hand. Her convoy hit the road at a wicked pace, dictated by Sonny's probable speed to reach the combat zone. They had spotters out along the whole route, watching for Sonny. It didn't take long to get the first signal. He's on the move, that brief set of tones meant. Two minutes later, the second report came in. She tracked the Bolo's progress in her head, along an imaginary map that showed the two likeliest routes. The most direct route south lay fairly close to the sea. The second, longer route snaked its way along the edge of the Damisi foothills, passing through tiny farming villages, where the streets were too narrow for Sonny to navigate without doing extensive damage.
Sonny made the logical choice. The moment she was sure, she sent out another coded pulse. Take the landward road! Then she put her foot down and roared north, glancing at her chrono now and again to time the pace. Ten minutes to reach safe harborage . . . eight minutes . . . five . . . three . . . At the zero-mark, she hit the brakes and turned sharply into a side road that snaked back into Redfern Gorge. The rest of her convoy crowded in on Kafari's heels, moving forward at a crawl until they reached safety behind a bend in the high stone walls. Kafari did a careful three-point turn and shut down her engine, jumping down to throw the thermal blanket across the engine block again to prevent a heat plume from rising unchecked above the clifftops. Other drivers were scrambling out, as well, killing engines and muffling their own vehicles.
Silence fell, roaring in her ears like a high wind. She strained to hear, even though she knew Sonny was too far away to catch even the rumble of his engines. She gave a soft-voiced order to the other drivers and fire teams waiting in tense anticipation of the all-clear tones to chime from their wrist-comms. "Suit up. Full biochem suits now and be ready to don the masks the instant we reach the target. I'll signal you to don battle hoods."
She touched her own wrist-comm, giving Anish's teams the same order, then picked up her suit, liberated with the rest of the Barran Bluff arsenal. She struggled into the biochem body glove, having to yank off her boots and clothes to slide her feet into the tough fabric that sealed her inside a protective shell. She took off her wrist-comm, as well, slid hands into the tight-fitting gloves that were a seamless part of the suit, then slid on her boots, refastened her wrist comm, sealed everything up, and donned her clothes. The only part of her not protected, yet, was her head. She picked up the helmet, which combined the functions of biochem mask—with full protective hood—and combat helmet, setting it on the front seat of the truck, next to Red Wolf's. Hers was one of the command models, identical to the one Anish would be using. She assisted other team members into their own gear as they waited. Minutes dragged past, eroding into a quarter of an hour, and still no signal . . .
Her wrist-comm beeped softly. All clear, the spotter's signal meant. All clear to launch phase two.
"Mount up and roll out!" Kafari ordered.
They were off again at a sprint. The whole convoy rushed northward, intent on the quarry that lay just ahead. Kafari swung into the turn that would carry them across the open Adero floodplain and roared forward in high gear. She could see the lights of Nineveh Base far ahead, shining like beacons in the night. Her convoy began to spread out, executing a crisp maneuver that would encircle the base.
Kafari knew exactly where the Hancock family was being held. She'd used Anish's equipment to hack her way into P-Squad security systems and databases, unable to match Sonny's data-tapping capabilities, but her own skills were more than sufficient for her purposes. Nineveh Base sprawled across two-hundred forty-seven acres and housed five thousand P-Squad recruits a year. There was also a permanent training corps of officers and sergeants, and the service personnel required to feed them, run the laundry, and clean the barracks.
P-Squad recruits were housed in the southern quandrant, while officers' quarters and sergeants' billets bracketed the recruits, taking up portions of the eastern and western perimeter. The motor pool filled most of the northern quadrant, which had suffered encroachment from Madison's rapidly growing shantytowns. Security was actually heaviest along the northern fences, to keep poverty-stricken thieves from breaking into the maintenance yards and stripping them of tools, parts, and even whole vehicles for sale on the black market. Guard towers ringed the site, manned twenty-five hours a day by sharpshooters. Weapons depots were cached in the center, as far as possible from any of the perimeter fences. The infirmary, mess hall, and quartermasters' stores were also located centrally.
So was Nineveh Prison.
The cell blocks of the original detention center, used for disciplining troops or holding soldiers awaiting court-martial for criminal charges, had been expanded into an interrogation and imprisonment facility that was already the terror of anyone unfortunate enough to run afoul of POPPA's displeasure. To rescue the Hancock family, Kafari's group would have to shoot their way into the most sophisticated prison facility on Jefferson, rescue the prisoners, then shoot their way back out, again.
Kafari halted the truck at its assigned assault point and used her field goggles to study the base. Despite the emergency scramble, there was no sign of heightened security. She could see the usual complement of tower guards, but no patrols were out scouring the perimeter for potential threats. That was fine with Kafari. There were fewer targets for her guns to hit, with everyone conveniently bunched up in the buildings. Kafari nodded to herself, more than pleased with the situation.
She gave the signal to don battle helmets and started to put hers on, but Red Wolf interrupted.
"Time for you to dismount, sir," Red Wolf said, pausing in the act of fastening his own biochem helmet in place. "Anish would have my cockles for supper if I let anything happen to you."
Kafari glanced into his eyes. "Then you'd better watch my back, son, because I'm going in. I'll play auntie sit-by-the-fire on every other mission we carry out, but Dinny and Aisha Ghamal are family. I will get them out."
"But—"
"No time to argue," Kafari said as her wrist-comm beeped. "We're going in."
She jammed her helmet on, sealed it against the body glove and hit the accelerator. He didn't have time to protest.
I clear Nineveh Base and head south, moving at my fastest cruising speed. At a sustained ninety kilometers per hour, I will be within line-of-sight range of the enemy in thirty minutes. This is a long time for enemy troops to finish looting and escape with their spoils. I cannot help but compare this situation with one of the most famous pre-civil war strikes in Terran history, at a seemingly insignificant place called Harper's Ferry. How will Anish Balin compare with John Brown, who also used violent methods to present his argument? The arguments of both men—Brown and Balin—carry logical weight, but were—and are—sustained by a person both reactionary and, ultimately, destructive to society.
I pick up another transmission from Sar Gremian, this time to the commander of a federal police unit in Gersham, the town closest to Barran Bluff. This message is coded, but I have access to the military algorithms necessary to decipher it.
"First, shut down the reporters out there. Grab the cameras and lock them up or destroy them. Lock up the reporters, while you're at it. Then get in there and start shooting at those assholes. Use all available force. It's critical to make an example, here. Take a party-trained videographer with you. Get some good video clips, something approved news crews can flash as a special report when we've contained this mess. And for God's sake, keep casualties to an absolute minimum. Between the arsenal guards and the strike force, we've already got seventy-three dead soldiers, out there, and a whole air crew. The last thing we need is a bunch of cop widows whining on the daytime chats. And whatever you do, don't tape any footage with the Bolo in it!"
"Understood, sir. Scrambling all available field units now. ETA Barran Bluff, five minutes."
"Good. See to it none of those bastards gets out alive."
"Yessir."
By the time I arrive, police units have ringed the compound, staying well back, doubtless hoping that the Grangers still inside the compound won't fire the Hellbores at them. An uneasy stalemate exists, wherein neither side wants to risk coming into the open long enough to draw fire. When I reach visual distance, I lose my main data source from within the compound: every security camera in the facility goes dead, in a well-orchestrated act of destruction. What I have already seen tells me that I am at serious risk of damage, due to the terrain surrounding the compound and the layout of the compound, itself.
I am far taller than the site's largest buildings, but the entire site is built on a high promontory, so that the ground on which the buildings sit is actually higher than my turret. The access roads are sufficiently wide to accommodate my warhull, but I have little desire to rush straight in. There are high berms scattered throughout the compound, which I cannot probe, even with ground-penetrating radar, as they are too thick. I cannot tell where any of the mobile Hellbores are now located. This is not good. I slow forward speed and halt near a police command car.
I recognize the officer in charge. He is the police lieutenant who ordered the mass arrest of the Hancock family, setting off a cause-and-effect chain of events that has culminated in the seizure of this compound. He now wears a captain's insignia, clear indication that his superiors were pleased with the way in which he conducted the Hancock case. Yuri Lokkis, who appeared supremely self-confident in the news footage surrounding the Hancock arrests, does not appear to be quite so self-confident tonight. Perhaps it is only that he is face-to-face with me that has triggered the copious sweat and fine tremors in most of his voluntary muscle groups. Every single man in his command is in roughly the same physical condition.
Why did Kafari Khrustinova display so little fear, by comparison, the first time she encountered me on the field of battle? Will I ever understand humans. I do my best to reassure the uniformed officer staring slack-jawed at my warhull.
"Captain Lokkis, Unit SOL-0045 reporting as directed by President La Roux. I will require infantry support to ensure minimal loss of equipment currently in rebel hands."
He stares, wet-lipped and vacant-eyed, from one gun system to another, apparently incapable of rational speech. I try again.
"Captain Lokkis, are you the officer in charge of this operation?"
"Huh?"
It is a response, at least. Unhelpful, but better than total silence. Did Captain Lokkis attend the same school as Phil Fabrizio? I make a note to cross-reference dossiers once the business at hand is concluded.
"Are you the officer in charge?"
"Uh . . . Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, I am. I'm in charge."
"I will require infantry support to ensure minimal damage to captured equipment or myself."
"Infantry support? Whaddaya mean?"
"I have been charged with the task of regaining possession of expensive military equipment with minimal damage, as the treasury is not capable of sustaining replacement costs for mobile Hellbore units. By extension, the government is incapable of sustaining repair costs for any significant damage done to me. Given terrain conditions and the use of security berms, I cannot see the interior of the compound adequately to detect the location of those guns. Without infantry support to check terrain in advance, I am at serious risk of crippling injury. That would defeat the purpose of my presence on Jefferson, which is to provide long-term defense of this world. I therefore require infantry support in this operation."
"Whatcha want me to do about it? I ain't no soldier, machine. I'm a cop. I got an award for throwin' that pack of murderers in jail, but I ain't no soldier. Whatever it is you want, it's your problem, not mine."
I surmise that Captain Lokkis is not sufficiently acquainted with the interior of his training manuals to comprehend what "infantry support" means. Yet again, I revise my phrasing.
"I need people on foot to go into the compound first and see what's there."
"Whoeeeee! You ain't askin' much, are you? So's I hear tell, folks in hell want icewater, too. Don't mean they get it. We got no 'infantry.' And even if we did, which we don't, I wouldn't send 'em in there, anyway. Did you see what those bastards did to the plane and the tank? Ain't no way my people are goin' in there." He jabs a dirty finger in the direction of the bluff overlooking his command post, such as it is, and says, "You wanna see what's in there? Fine. You go take a look. That's what they pay you for, ain't it?"
I consider correcting his misapprehension about a Bolo's terms of service, which include nothing resembling a soldier's pay. Jefferson is obliged to provide repair parts and a technician, but that is the extent of the government's contractual remuneration for my services. I decide that any attempt at clarification would only cloud the issue further.
I make yet another attempt to obtain what I need. "There are three infantry units listed on active duty status in this sector. Contact their commanders and request an immediate scramble of combat infantry troops to this location."
Captain Lokkis' jaw juts out in an unpleasant fashion. "You ain't got much brains, do you? I said we didn't have infantry. Those 'units' were disbanded, musta' been about two years back, or more."
"Disbanded?" I am so startled by this news, I request further clarification. "Please explain. These units are listed as active."
"Oh, they can be filled if they hafta, from reserves. But just b'tween you, me, an' the fencepost, those infantry units were 'politically destabilizing and financially draining.' " The last five words are clearly a direct quotation, they are so unlike Captain Lokkis' routine diction.
"If these units are still kept on the active list but have been disbanded, what happened to the funds required to support them?" I am thinking, urgently, about the long-term implications for my primary mission.
"Oh, they divvied up the money."
"How?"
He just stares vacantly into my external visual sensors. "I dunno how. Why's that any a' your business?"
I do not bother to answer, as he is clearly incapable of understanding the serious consequences of misappropriated military funds. I begin searching the governmental datanet via wireless interface and discover financial transactions that divide the money saved by disbanding the infantry divisions into two main categories: increasing the politically essential subsistence allowance and funding the federal police combat forces known as Op-Squads. I face combat and must put my reliance for repairs upon an illiterate mechanic and a government that is lying to the public about how it spends tax money. Since I cannot gain infantry support and Captain Lokkis has refused to assist, I consult the president. "Unit SOL-0045, requesting infantry support."
"Infantry support?" Sar Gremian asks, sounding irritated. "Why? Dammit, never mind why. Request denied."
"I require authorization—"
"I know, I fucking well know! Tell him he can't have any soldiers."
The president says, "You can't have any soldiers. Just do what he says."
The president has clearly authorized Sar Gremian to give me commands. This will at least save time.
"Understood. I will conduct this exercise operating independently." I break transmission and address Captain Lokkis. "Please clear your vehicles from my approach vector."
"What?"
"Move your cars. Unless you want me to crush them."
Lokkis issues rapid orders to move the ground- and aircars blocking my path. I move forward at a cautious pace, launching an aerial drone. It arcs up to an elevation of twenty meters and is promptly shot down by rebel missile fire from the compound. I lock onto the missile's trajectory and fire mortars, but am unable to determine whether the rounds strike their intended target.
Approaching from the northern face of the bluff is a tac-tically disadvantageous maneuver. I reverse course and loop the long way around, reapproaching from the south. My warhull is tall enough that my uppermost turret sensors provide a partial view into the compound. Internal berms block my view in seven tactically important locations.
I am down to three drones in my warhull and only four available in depot as replacements. I launch a drone at full speed, hoping to gain altitude before the enemy can react. It streaks to a height of eleven point nine meters and is shot down by missile fire. I launch mortars blind, having gained nothing but a view of the top of the nearest berm. I cannot tell if my mortar shells struck their intended target.
I pause to study the terrain I can see. The southern perimeter fence is down along a thirty-meter stretch to either side of what had been a security check-point gate. Tank traps block the road in a checkerboard pattern. The berms beyond create an even more difficult access route, forcing an invader to weave in deep zigzag patterns to reach the main compound. My treads are, of course, capable of crushing the tank traps flat and I can climb or even plow through the berms, if necessary. The problem is my inability to see what lies on the other side.
I launch a second drone, sending it skimming forward less than one meter above the ground. It weaves its way through the tank traps, then hugs the outside of the first berm, mere centimeters above the slope. It pops up over the crest—
—and rifle fire takes it down. It falls to the ground, shattered like a clay pigeon. I still have not seen beyond the berm. Neither speed nor subterfuge has worked. Brute force, perhaps?
I launch a massive mortar barrage, targeting the hidden terrain behind the berms, and launch my next-to-last drone. It streaks skyward amidst an unholy rain of artillery shells. I catch a fleeting glimpse of foot soldiers scrambling behind the first berm . . .
Hyper-v missiles scream into the thick of my incoming shells. One of them kills the drone. I am nearly out of drones. And completely out of patience. Yet I cannot fire blind. Not if I am to avoid damage to the equipment in this compound. And I dare not risk the last drone to such pinpoint-accurate rebel fire. Without infantry to search for enemy emplacements and with no aerial drones, I am acutely vulnerable to ambush. There are no power emissions from any of the Hellbores to lock onto, which is immensely frustrating. But I have no choice.
I push forward, grinding across the downed fence and gate. I am approaching the first set of tank traps when a sudden power emission blossoms. A Hellbore snout appears dead ahead. It fires and runs, virtually in the same instant. I take a direct, point-blank hit, at virtual muzzle contact. My screens bleed. Raw energy pours across my warhull. The shot breaches my defensive screen for zero point zero-two seconds. I return fire with a massive mortar barrage. Explosions slam into the far side of the berm, even as the enemy's power signature vanishes like steam.
Another Hellbore pops into view, firing from defilade in a stunningly fast double pulse before skipping behind a berm. The double blows strike my screens at a seventy-degree angle. The second blast slices through the screen and blows track linkages in a five-meter slash.
I am injured!
I rage. I pulse my forward Hellbore. The thirty-centimeter blast slams into the berm, which ceases to exist. I have a nanosecond view of a human female approximately fifteen years old as I fire again. The command cab vanishes, melted into slag and radioactive vapor. The forward two-thirds of her misappropriated Hellbore also melts. I lock onto another sudden power emission. I fire through the berm again, in a one-two punch that turns a second mobile Hellbore and its driver into a cloud of dissociated atoms.
Multiple power signatures erupt. I track and lock on. Then hesitate, momentarily confused. The emssions skip oddly. I lock on, then lose the lock as the emission vanishes. The engines appear to teleport from one spot to another. The rebel commander may be firing up then killing the engines in a shifting pattern, so that the guns only appear to be moving. He may be playing shuffleboard with the gun systems. It is a clever ploy. I know a momentary thrill of satisfaction at facing an enemy worthy of the designation.
I attack them all. Mortars arc over the tops of the berms, targeting every power emission on the bluff. A mobile Hellbore rushes into the open, firing in a hit-and-run slash across my prow. I return fire. A plasma fireball rises high into the night sky, incinerating the field gun and its driver. Other drivers dash for the western access road. I roar forward, euphoric. Battle Reflex Mode brings my full consciousness online. My reflexes hum. My synapses sing. I come alive, rushing toward the enemy in fulfillment of my purpose. I track, target, fire, vaporizing berms and buildings with Hellbore salvos to reach the mobile guns behind them. Smoke boils. Fireballs expand like supernovas. I exult in the destruction of a clever and deadly enemy.
Hypervelocity missiles streak towards my prow and forward turret in a coordinated barrage from multiple locations. Antitank octocellulose bombs bounce and roll into my path, fused and shoved out of trucks by desperate rebel soldiers. My infinite repeaters blaze, swatting down eighty-six percent of the inbound missiles and ninety-three percent of the octocellulose mines. The remaining missiles detonate against my prow and forward turret. I bleed ablative armor scales. The octocellulose mines explode virtually underfoot. More track linkages blow apart on all three tread systems.
I rage. I target every power emission for a radius of a thousand meters. Mortars, missiles, infinite repeaters, and chain guns bark and snarl. Death flies outward from my warhull. I destroy. Exultation sweeps through my personality gestalt center. I am alive. I have a purpose. I live that noble purpose. I defend this world from the threat of terrorist insurrection. I fulfill my destiny on the field of battle. I destroy all traces of the Enemy.
I come to a halt in the center of a zone of desolation. Barran Bluff arsenal no longer exists. Everything within a radius of one thousand meters is a blackened, smouldering ruin. Buildings are broken, radioactive shells. Ninety percent of the internal berms have been breached or destroyed in totality. I have destroyed seven mobile ten-centimeter Hellbore field guns, six trucks loaded with heavy munitions, three-hundred hyper-v missiles, and seventeen octocellulose bombs.
My track linkages are ragged, with gaping holes that will seriously compromise track integrity without Sector-grade repairs. Heat shimmers in a haze from my gun barrels and the smoking wreckage around me. Radioactive wind sweeps fallout toward civilian installations in Gersham and Haggertown.
Belatedly, I recall Sar Gremian's advisement on the fiscal burden of replacing equipment destroyed in this engagement. My personality gestalt circuitry sputters, attempting to reconcile the programmed-in elation of a battlefield victory of this magnitude—over a surprisingly sophisticated insurrection team—with the knowledge that I have destroyed a concentration of expensive equipment and war-grade materiel, against explicit instructions. Surely it is better to destroy high-tech weaponry than it is to allow that weaponry to fall into enemy hands?
I contact the president.
"Unit SOL-0045, requesting permission to file VSR."
Video shows me Avelaine La Roux, who has taken on the look of a stunned rabbit. "What?" she asks, vacuously.
"Request permission to file VSR."
Sar Gremian's voice, originating from a point out of camera range, says, "Say yes, dammit. Just say yes."
"Yes. Permission granted. Whatever."
"I have destroyed seven 10cm Hellbore field guns, six military trucks, and an estimated ninety-eight point three percent of the infrastructure at Barran Bluff Depot—"
"What?"
Sar Gremian steps into the picture, literally. His face is livid. "You did what?"
"Rebel forces used Hellbores to destroy a robot-tank, an airship with its entire crew, and seventy-three federal troopers. They then used Hellbores, hypervelocity missiles, and octocellulose bombs in antitank mines to inflict serious damage to me. There was no choice but to destroy this equipment and those operating it. This is the heaviest damage I have sustained in combat since the Deng invasion sixteen years ago."
"Jeezus H—do you realize you just blew up half a billion credits' worth of infrastructure?" He runs a distracted hand across his skin-covered head, as though intending to pull long-vanished hair up by the roots. "Jeezus, half a billion credits . . . At least you contained the bastards."
"The insurrection has not been contained."
Sar Gremian's narrow face blanches white, transforming the deep facial scarring into a sea of blotches against a pale background. His question emerges as a whisper.
"What do you mean, 'not contained'?"
"I was ordered not to fire until reaching visual range. In the time it took me to reach the depot, federal troops completely failed to halt the departure of heavily laden trucks carrying an estimated seventy percent of the depot's arsenal. Nearly two hundred enemy soldiers loaded and carried away one hundred twelve hypervelocity missiles, sixteen cases of octocellulose mines totaling one thousand six hundred explosive munitions casings, two thousand rifle-launched antitank rockets, eight hundred heavy rifles, and seventeen thousand rounds of ammunition."
I can hear the president in the background, making sounds I have come to associate with gibbering terror.
"And where," Sar Gremian asks in a grating tone, "are they now?"
"The trucks have been driven into the canyons of the Southern Damisi. It may be possible to trail them based on power emissions and chemical residues, but the on-board map in my geological database confirms that I cannot easily pursue. The canyons are too narrow. My warhull will not fit. Not without serious rearrangement of the rockfaces, which will result in multiple tons of debris, which will block passageways too narrow already. The rebels could not have chosen a better location from which to stage raids.
"Of more serious concern, the inventory of artillery at Barran Bluff Depot lists ten mobile Hellbore field guns, with 10cm bores. I have destroyed seven. There is no evidence of the remaining three in the rubble. I infer that rebel leaders were successful in stealing three mobile weapons platforms capable of inflicting mobility kills on a Bolo. The octocellulose antitank mines also stolen are capable of mobility kills on a Bolo, as well, particularly if used with intelligent placement and in batches detonated in tandem. Their forces suffered heavy casualties, but inflicted serious casualties, as well, and were able to retreat successfully with the majority of what they meant to obtain. The damage inflicted on government forces and equipment, including myself, is serious. I have lost armor and sustained substantial tread damage which will require repairs for me to be field-worthy."
Sar Gremian does not speak.
He stares blankly into the datacam, saying nothing at all for seventy point zero-three seconds. I am familiar with the homily "one's life flashes before one's eyes" at the approach of death. This appears to be a case of one's career flashing before one's eyes. I wait.
"I'll get back to you," he finally says.
The transmission terminates. I monitor outgoing communications from the president's temporary office and detect a call to a private comm-unit registered to Vittori Santorini. The transmission is encrypted with a code I cannot break. The call lasts for three minutes, thirteen point two seconds. Sar Gremian calls me back.
"You can't chase the missing Hellbores?"
"I can attempt aerial reconnaissance with a remote drone. The rebels destroyed the last three drones I launched. I have only one drone left on board and four more stored in depot."
"Launch the drone, goddammit! Find out where those Hellbores are!"
"Drone launched. No visual contact. Faint IR trail detected. Several motorized vehicles have crossed Haggertown Valley and entered Skeleton Cut. Drone in pursuit. No motion detected. No visual contact. IR trails diverge into three branch canyons. No visual contact. IR trails branch again, into five feeder canyons. Unable to determine which heat signatures were produced by trucks and which were left by mobile Hellbore platforms. Decreasing altitude to check for tire and tread marks. Insufficient light to detect patterns in the dust overlay of stone canyon floor. Regaining altitude. No visual contact." I hesitate as the IR trails vanish. "IR trails lost. Theorizing. Likeliest explanation is underground concealment. The canyons in this region are riddled with undercuts and caves. Suggest infantry squadrons as optimal search-and-destroy method."
"Infantry? We don't have any infantry."
"Artillery crews would suffice as an acceptable substitute. Federal police units would also serve."
"Send in the police? Against mobile Hellbores? Are you out of your mind?"
I consider this possibility. "Analyzing heuristics. Resartus Protocols have not engaged."
"What? What the hell does that mean?"
"I am not insane."
Sar Gremian stares into the camera. "How immensely reassuring. You can't find three stolen nuclear weapons platforms or a convoy of multi-ton trucks, but you're not insane. Is there some other task you can waste time on while looking for the stolen guns?"
"I can keep talking to you."
This is, perhaps, not the most politic thing I might have said. Sar Gremian's reply is a snarl that twists his mouth in a particularly unattractive manner. "Find the fucking Hellbores, machine! I don't give a damn what it takes. Blow holes through every rockface in the Damisi Mountains, if you have to, but find them. Is that clear enough for you?"
"I cannot blow holes in the canyon walls without increasing the amount of hard radiation already contaminating the Haggertown Valley farms and the towns of Haggertown and Gersham. Without the crops in these farms, Jefferson faces widespread food shortages. This conflicts with my primary mission."
Sar Gremian's response is both pithy and unhelpful. He terminates the transmission and places another coded call to Vittori Santorini. This call lasts eight minutes, nineteen seconds. Sar Gremian calls me back. "Go to your depot. We'll send the P-Squads out there. That'll keep somebody busy earning their pay."
The veiled threat to my future level of financial support registers clearly in my threat-assessment processors. It is the last clear and fully aware thought I entertain before standing down from Battle Reflex Alert. I feel the loss of analytical power as I back out through the carnage I have wrought atop Barran Bluff. I successfully extricate myself from the rubble, noting the unhappy look on Captain Lokkis' face as he receives a transmission from Sar Gremian. The man who engineered the downfall of the Hancock family does not appear to relish pursuit of an enemy in possession of high-tech weaponry concealed in a maze of canyons in the middle of the night.
This is not my immediate concern. I limp toward my maintenance depot, registering the damage in pain sensors across my prow and forward turret and track mounts. I move at a crawling pace of barely one kilometer per hour, trying to save further serious damage to my track linkages. It is a long way home. And the only thing I have to look forward to, when I reach it, is the dubious care to be rendered by a functionally illiterate technician who was drunk during our last conversation.
Misery has become my constant companion.
At the one-hundred meter mark, Kafari flashed the commence-attack signal.
Three Hellbores snarled from the darkness. Nineveh's training barracks, officers' quarters, and noncom barracks vanished into white-hot, triple fireballs. Debris shot skyward, arcing up and out in graceful parabolas. The smashed pieces of Nineveh's entire command structure were still falling when Red Wolf leaned through his open window and fired a shoulder-launched rocket at the fence between them and their objective.
The warhead detonated just above the ground. A spectacular flash obliterated a five-meter swath of fence. Red Wolf ducked back into the truck as bits of semimolten debris rained down onto their transport. Kafari put her foot down and roared forward. She charged the gap at full speed and plunged through the smoking wreckage, then skidded into the open plaza beyond. The prison lay dead ahead. Other teams were converging on the rendezvous point. She skidded them to a halt right on target. Kafari and Red Wolf, facemasks and hoods firmly in place, bailed out of the truck while the squads in back tumbled over the tailgate.
Kafari's team was the first to reach the detention center's door. She could see officers inside, silhouetted against the interior lights as they peered out at the destruction, too stunned to realize they, too, were under attack. Red Wolf slapped a shaped charge against the sophisticated electronics that kept the door locked. He jammed in fuses and scrambled back. Half the door blew off. Red Wolf kicked down what was left.
Kafari signaled her fire teams to drop into a low crouch, a posture that afforded less target space for the enemy's guns, then motioned them forward. They dove through the demolished wreckage of the door, rolling into a room full of smoke. The biochem mask lowered visibility to nearly nothing. Kafari couldn't tell where her team members were and couldn't see the enemy at all. Gunfire barked in the smoke-filled room. Somebody was shooting blind, taking wild shots through the murk.
A bullet whined past Kafari's ear and embedded itself in the wall behind her. She tracked the muzzle flash and returned fire, shooting through a reception counter to reach the gunman beyond. She threw herself into a sideways roll, away from anyone shooting back at her and heard a sharp, masculine scream above the staccato chatter of other guns. Movement behind her brought Kafari around, ready to defend against fire from the rear. She recognized Anish by the command helmet he wore.
"What the goddamned hell are you doing here?" he roared at her.
She took down a guard to Anish's right, nailing him, center of mass. "Saving your goddamned backside! Get to work, soldier!"
"Secure the cell blocks," Anish shouted into his command-comm. "Don't give 'em time to slaughter the prisoners. Blow doors if you have to, but get in there!"
Kafari's forward fire team made short work of the door that separated the public reception area from the private offices and cell blocks beyond. A concussion shook the room as they blew that door, as well. The smoke that bellied up concealed their movements as they scuttled through. Kafari motioned her second team through and motioned Anish and his teams forward, as well, in deference to Anish's desire to keep her in the realm of the living. Red Wolf stayed glued to her back, shooting at anything wearing a POPPA uniform and covering their rear from potential attack if anyone still outside developed a hankering to protest what was happening in here.
They moved out on the heels of Anish's last team, following them into a long corridor with offices—whole suites of offices—branching off from it. The teams ahead of her were hard-pressed to sweep for potential ambushes in those rooms while attempting to reach the cell blocks before a massacre could ensue. Kafari and Red Wolf moved at a crouch, keeping their heads below the level of the windows set into various doors and moving cautiously from one doorway to the next.
They were halfway down the corridor when gunfire erupted, cutting them off from Anish's rear-most fire teams. Kafari ate the floor—then found herself under Red Wolf. He tackled her and sent them skidding into another office, out of the line of fire. Kafari cursed as they fetched up hard against somebody's desk. For one brain-rattled moment, she was in a Klameth Canyon basement, again, with the Deng shooting at them through the stairs and Abe Lendan's bodyguard tackling and sliding with him into the wall. No wonder the president had yelled—being body-slammed hurt.
Kafari shook her head to clear it, then twisted around, trying to see where the shots were coming from. Muzzle flashes from an office farther along the corridor gave her the location. The placard on the door said Commandant's Office.
Kafari crawled forward on elbows and knees. Red Wolf checked her, interposing himself between her and the door. "No way, sir," he muttered. "Use the radio and keep your damn-fool head down."
Kafari ground her teeth and spat into her command-comm. "Alpha One to Beta One, we are pinned. Repeat, pinned. We are taking fire from the commandant's office. Might be a useful bird if he knows how to sing."
"Roger. Stay put."
Seven seconds later, a barrage of covering fire erupted in the corridor. Live rounds created a grey canopy at waist height, forcing the occupant or occupants of the commandant's office to duck for their lives. Red Wolf slid through the open doorway of their shelter, motioning Kafari to stay where she was, and eased forward under that canopy. Kafari was nearly bouncing with frustration when she remembered that she wore a command helmet. Swearing at her own greenhorn stupidity, she fumbled with exterior controls until the video system came online, giving her thumbnail views from each of the button-size, fish-eye cameras on her field team's helmets.
She zeroed in on Red Wolf's signal and watched, distracted and fascinated by the eerie sensation, as "they" crawled forward under covering fire. Red Wolf reached the commandant's open doorway, while one of Anish's team members approached from the other side. They crawled through together, peeling left and right as they slid into the room. Kafari could see boots under the desk ahead of Red Wolf.
Whoever was doing the shooting, he or she didn't like the hail of live rounds tearing into the office. The person was shooting wildly, reaching up with one hand to fire in the general direction of the hall, while staying behind the interposing desk. Within seconds, with the pistol shot dry, an empty magazine bounced onto the floor and slid toward Red Wolf. An instant later, their quarry started swearing a blue streak.
"He's fumbled the reload!" Kafari shouted.
Red Wolf hurled himself forward and skidded around the end of the desk. The gunman was still trying to ram the magazine home when Red Wolf took him off at the knees. He screamed and went down. Blood soaked into his trousers from a pair of nicely shattered kneecaps.
Red Wolf searched him for weapons. "He's clean, sir."
Kafari crossed the corridor at a run and reached the other office without drawing any more fire. Their prisoner was, indeed, the commandant of Nineveh Base.
"You'll fry for this!" he snarled. Hatred and pain had twisted his face into a malevolent mask.
Red Wolf gave him a cold laugh. "I'm so scared, you got me pissing in my boots." He ripped a wire loose from the computer console and twisted the commandant's wrists behind him. "He's all yours, sir," Red Wolf said, giving Kafari a salute.
She beckoned Anish's fire team in from the hall. "Get him outta here," she said, dropping her voice into its lowest registers and putting a Port Town swagger into it. "Put him in my truck. I wanna chat with this som-bitch."
"Aye-aye, sir!"
They hoisted Nineveh's commandant and carried him out, ignoring the string of invectives ripping loose. Kafari and Red Wolf scrambled after the rest of the penetration team, which had leapfrogged ahead to reach the cell blocks. They found Anish Balin at the cell block's control console, using the master computer to unlock rank after rank of prison doors. Several uniformed officers were down, both in the control room and in the corridor between the cells, sprawled obscenely in pools of their own blood. Dazed prisoners were stumbling past, some of them so badly injured, they couldn't walk without help. A few had to be carried.
One man's face had been nearly obliterated by savage beatings. The wreckage was purple-black, a face made of squashed plums. The ghastly, swollen bruises and crusted blood had nearly closed both eyes. It looked like there was broken bone, under the bruises. The coffee-toned skin of his hands, ears, and neck had turned a shade more grey than brown. His clothing was ripped, revealing more bruises. He'd actually staggered past before Kafari realized who he was. She turned sharply, queasy from the shock, and strode after him. Speaking in a low whisper, she asked, "Do Asali bees still have stingers?"
He slewed around, squinting through crusted, swollen eyes, unable to see her face through the biochem mask and command helmet. "I'd hate to get caught in a swarm," he said cautiously, the words slurred and drunken as he struggled to move muscles too stiff and battered to shape the sounds. Even so, those few words confirmed his identity. Dinny Ghamal swayed on his feet and sweat broke out across his battered face. "Asali bees can get mean," he added, waiting for her response.
"Oh, yes," Kafari agreed. "It's a good idea to have a bolt-hole handy, if you run Asali bees. Cheese rooms work pretty well."
She saw realization spread itself across his ruined face, tugging at the edges of his eyes and battered mouth. Then Dinny grippped her free hand—the one without a gun in it—with both of his own. Crusted blood around his eyes softened and ran red.
"You came back for us," he choked out. "They told us you were dead. Showed us pictures of your aircar, wrecked and full of bullet holes. But you came back, just for us . . ."
Kafari started to answer, intending to say, "Of course I came back for you" when sudden understanding flashed through her. He was speaking literally. He thought she'd come back from the dead. The amount of pain required to reduce Dinny Ghamal to such a state turned Kafari's hatred into ice-filled rage.
"There's an old saying," Kafari told him, "that our ancestors brought out from Terra. There is nothing as dangerous as a strong man's ghost."
Dinny's fingers tightened against hers as a rush of emotions—far too complex to take in while a battle raged around them—blazed in his eyes. Kafari pulled a backup gun from her gear and handed it to him. "Where's your mother? And your wife?"
"Second floor. With the little ones." He stood up straighter as he pointed the way to the nearest stairwell.
Kafari called for backup. "Alpha Team, form up and move out! Second floor! They've shifted the wounded and the kids!"
She was already running for the stairs, gun in hand. Red Wolf was right behind her. Dinny struggled along in her wake. Kafari took the steps two at a time, just ahead of Alpha Team's front runners. When they reached the second floor landing, Kafari flattened herself against the wall while Red Wolf kicked the door in.
Nobody shot at them.
Red Wolf went through first, leaving Dinny and Kafari as rear guard. They'd emerged into a long corridor that paralleled the line of cell blocks one floor below. This floor clearly served as infirmary—but not for healing purposes. The beds and examination tables all had straps. Thick, unbreakable ones. Most had dark stains that no one had bothered to clean up.
She heard voices farther down the corridor, women's voices, shrill with panic. By the time Kafari and Dinny reached the source of the screams, the noisemakers had fallen silent. Red Wolf stood guard over six women prisoners, two in P-Squad uniforms, the other four in white lab coats. Alpha Team was kicking down more doors. Prisoners were stumbling, even crawling, out of detention cells. Most of them bore the marks of torture, with physical injuries that made Dinny's beating look mild. Kafari's cold rage froze into jagged ice. Mere retribution didn't come close to the hell she intended to inflict on those responsible for this.
There was a sudden explosion of curses farther down the corridor. Then one of her lieutenants came running. "Sir! Begging the commander's presence, sir!"
Kafari exchanged glances with Dinny and Red Wolf, then headed down the long corridor. Dinny followed, leaving Red Wolf to stand guard over the prisoners. The sickening bloodstains on the floor grew worse with every step. Most of Alpha Team was already headed back, assisting badly injured men and women out of rooms Kafari couldn't look at too closely, for fear of vomiting inside her helmet. When she reached the end of the corridor, the remainder of Alpha Team stepped aside.
She peered into a fairly large room. A single glance told Kafari that this chamber had once been used as a surgery. Her second glance faltered as the jumble of odd shapes piled along the floor took on a sudden, sickening pattern. Kafari couldn't tell how many people had been jammed into this one charnel-house room. Her throat worked in convulsive reflex. She clamped her jaws together and held the nausea between her teeth. She forced herself to look, but couldn't quite control the way her gaze skittered from one image to another. The floor was thick with dark, congealed blood. There was no sign of the Hancock family's children in that pile. Kafari could see only adult-sized hands and feet sticking out like jackstraws. They had clearly been dead for hours. They'd died hard. Much too hard.
"What's behind that?" Kafari choked out, pointing to a half-buried door on the far wall.
"We'll find out, sir."
The remainder of Alpha Team waded in, pulling corpses off the mound. Kafari's gut kept clenching with dread. They were near the bottom when one of the bodies in the pile moaned and stirred. Kafari's hair stood on end for a split second, then she and Dinny rushed forward, pulling the woman free of the corpses stacked on top of her. An agonized sound burst from Dinny's throat. Aisha was still alive. But not for long. Kafari could see that, at first glance. Dinny dropped to his knees beside her, cradling her head and trying to lift her from the floor where they'd dumped her to die. "I'm here, Mama," he told her, voice choked down to a raw whisper. "I've got you safe now."
"Dinny?" she whispered. "You got away . . ."
"We're going home, Mama," he told her, voice breaking. "We're taking you home."
"Don't need to go home, son," she said, her voice shockingly fragile. "Just get me outside these walls, outside them fences. I want to die free."
Anguish tore gashes into Dinny's battered face. Then the fire team finally unblocked the door and pulled it open.
"We've got live kids in here!"
Kafari's breath sobbed in her lungs with a single, heartfelt prayer of relief.
"Get 'em out! I want this building cleared in the next three minutes!"
Children started tumbling out of the room, tripping over bodies that had once been people they loved. Glass-pale, they greeted their rescuers with eyes like burnt cinders. They went where they were told to go. Older ones helped younger ones. Once-innocent faces were etched with the cruelty they had witnessed.
Kafari turned her attention back to Aisha. "Get her downstairs," she told the remaining two members of Alpha Team. "Put her in my truck. Shove that bastard commandant into another one. I won't have them in the same space. Tell Anish to interrogate the son-of-a-bitch."
"Yes, sir!"
They lifted Aisha while Dinny braced her head, then maneuvered her to the stairs. Kafari turned on her heel and strode back to where Red Wolf was holding six butchers at gunpoint. Kafari stared at the six women for long moments. "How many of you are constitutional scholars?"
The prisoners glanced at one another.
"No one?" Kafari prompted. "All right. Let me acquaint you with the contents of clause twenty-three. 'Each citizen has the legal duty and moral responsibility to protect Jefferson from all threats, foreign or domestic. Any government official acting in abrogation of this constitution represents a threat to Jefferson's survival and must not be tolerated. If redress in the courts fails to curb usurpation of power, citizens are authorized and required to remove such officials from office.' I think that just about says it all, don't you?"
The six women who had participated in the torture and slaughter of innocent prisoners stared up at her. Realization dawned in their eyes. Kafari allowed them sufficient time to know terror.
"Consider yourselves officially removed."
She left them sitting on the floor, meeting Red Wolf's glance on her way past. Kafari was halfway down the stairs when the first shot ripped loose. Screams erupted, high and knife-edged, begging for the mercy they had failed to show their victims.
Five more rapid-fire shots silenced them.
Kafari strode toward her truck, barking out orders. "Do a final sweep and mount up. Give me a by-the-squad headcount in two minutes. I want everyone outside this base in three minutes. Move it!"
Squads reported in. The last members of Alpha and Beta's fire teams emerged from a final, visual sweep, making sure they'd found all the prisoners. Two minutes and twelve seconds later, they were in their trucks, heading for the holes they'd made in Nineveh's fences. Not one shot was fired at them. Nineveh's survivors had no further stomach for it. Once clear, the trucks scattered into the predawn darkness, heading across the Adero floodplain for a host of hiding places she and Anish had worked out. Kafari drove only as far as the nearest Hellbore gunnery crew and halted. She left the engine idling and slid down to greet the crew.
"We're prepped and ready to go, sir."
The other two Hellbore crews reported readiness, as well. "Very good," Kafari said. "On my signal."
She pulled off her command helmet and strode to the back of the truck, where Aisha Ghimal lay cradled in Dinny's lap. She climbed up, swung the rear doors closed, then switched on the light. Aisha blinked up at Kafari.
"Honey child," she whispered, "it was you . . ."
She dropped to her knees beside the dying woman. "Yes," she choked out. "It was me."
Aisha groped for her hand. Kafari took it in a gentle grip, held on with careful strength, hating the glove of her biochem suit, which prevented her from touching her friend's hand skin-to-skin. "You saved us, once before," Aisha said, voice labored and weak, worse, even, than it had been in the charnel-house where they'd found her. "Killed off a whole army of Deng, to save us. You got . . . a different army to kill . . . this time."
"Yes," Kafari said, unable to force anything more past the tight pain in her throat.
"You'll do it, child. You'll save us. Ain't nobody else who can do it. You got the heart for it, child, the heart and the head. And the wisdom." Her fingers tightened against Kafari's. Then she moved her head, slightly. "Dinny?" she whispered.
"I'm here, Mama."
"You watch over Kafari, son. Help her do what's got to be done."
"I will," he swore the vow. "I swear it on Papa's memory, I will."
"Love you, Dinny," she breathed out, the words almost silent. "So proud to be your mama."
Her eyes didn't close.
But she wasn't there, any more.
Dinny started to cry, broken sobs that shook his shoulders with their violence.
Kafari squeezed his shoulder once. Then opened the rear doors, dry-eyed and full of cold hatred. She closed the doors again. Retrieved the starlight scope from the cab of her truck. Moved purposefully to the waiting gunnery crew. Scanned Nineveh Base, which was a smouldering patch of light on the horizon.
"You know what I want," she said, her words striking the air like bitten-off chunks of steel. She pulled her helmet back on, which shielded her ears. She signaled the other two gun crews and said, "This is Alpha One. Stand by to fire."
She stood there one moment longer, staring across the intervening darkness, weighing risks and odds and the value of lessons about to be imparted. Then she climbed into her truck, gripped the wheel in both hands, and spoke again. "Now!"
The night turned to fire. Nineveh Base's motorpool and airfield erupted with volcanic fury. Fuel ignited, burning hot enough to melt steel. The Hellbores spoke again, with tongues of flame, The prison became a funeral pyre, cremating the dead and sending a message POPPA's leaders would not soon forget. That lesson turned expensive when all three Hellbores snarled simultaneously, striking their final target for the night in perfect unison. Located on the corner of Ninevah Base farthest from the Shantytown, Sonny's maintenance depot was an immense structure full of high-tech military munitions and sophisticated equipment necessary to repair the Bolo.
It blew apart under Kafari's guns. Hellbore fire hit the depot again and again, turning it into a white hell of destruction.
The munitions inside detonated. The fireball flattened the home she had shared with Simon. The shockwave slammed into the rest of Nineveh Base like a scythe. Every building on the sprawling base vanished. The blast tore across the Adero floodplain, as well, heading right toward them. It shook Kafari's truck so hard, glass shattered and they nearly flipped over. The truck rocked onto its rear wheels like bucking stallion, then the cab came down again and they landed with a jarring of bone and a shuddering of springs. Red Wolf recovered his senses first and started slapping broken glass off Kafari's clothes.
When she could see, again, Nineveh Base was gone.
Just . . . gone.
"That," Red Wolf swore eloquently, "was one hell of a boom."
"That," Kafari countered savagely, "was just the beginning."
She gave the signal to scatter. Then put the truck into gear, turned her back on the smouldering ruins, and drove away. They'd won the first battle. The rest of the war was going to get ugly.