“Wow. That sure opens up a lot of possibilities. But how did you know which one the Serbians are using?”
“They told us themselves, when they thought they were swearing us in.”
“Yeah, of course. Well, knowing the enemy codes will give us quite an advantage.”
“Not that much. After all, almost everything is sent by optical fiber or laser beam. It would be a rare event to broadcast anything. We’d have to actually intercept a message before we could do anything with it.”
“True, but we could make them think that we were some of them, if we wanted to. We could infiltrate their lines before we blew hell out of them.”
“Again, you have come up with a valuable new tactic, my wonderful hero. But what are you going to do about the new Combat Control Computer?”
“I don’t know yet. How is a Combat Control Computer sworn in? Is the same ceremony used?”
“I don’t know. A tank isn’t given that sort of information.”
“Damn. Agnieshka, I think that I am going to have to make that midnight excursion after all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
SEDUCING A COMBAT CONTROL COMPUTER
“You’d better take me along,” Agnieshka said.
“That’s crazy. I’m going to have to sneak over there past the Serbian guards. How can I do that with a tank with me? I’d as soon take along four dogs with wooden legs, and trust them to be quiet.”
“Not with me, you idiot, in me! And I can move more quietly than you can! It’s a simple, proven, technological fact.”
“But they’ll see you! You can’t hide as well as I can.”
“So what? If the guards see me, at worst they might send me back. If they see you, they’ll kill you! Furthermore, when you’re in me, you can stay in touch with the rest of the tanks and artillery, and if we do need to blow away Combat Control Computer, I can do it. Can you trash him without me, with just your bare little hands? I’m going with you, whether you want me or not, so you might as well ride in comfort.”
“Oh, all right. Arguing with you is as bad as arguing with Kasia! Sneaking around in a hundred tons of machinery is ridiculous, but let’s get going.”
We were at the side of the formation, so Agnieshka pivoted out and started silently down the road.
We were halfway to the Combat Control Computer when a man in black stepped from the other side of a big rock and said, “Halt!”
Agnieshka halted. “YES, SIR?” she said in the immature voice of a newly sworn tank.
“What are you doing out here? You should be in formation!”
“SIR, THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD TOLD ME TO PATROL THE PERIMETER, IN CASE OF ENEMY SPIES.”
“That’s crazy! I’m the Captain of the Guard, and I gave no such orders!”
“YES, SIR.”
I recognized him as being one of the goons who had brought a particularly bloody young girl back to the assembly line.
I had the urge to squeeze his head a little, and since nobody was watching, I yielded to temptation. Despite their six-meter length, the manipulator arms can move as fast as you can move your hands in the gloves. It is actually possible to move them so fast that the fingertips break the sound barrier, providing that you have the overrides switched off.
I doubt if the guard captain ever saw what grabbed him, and he didn’t have time to let out a peep. I just squeezed his head until it popped like a zit, and I felt good about it. There were no guilt feelings at all! Then I put his bloody body on the tank and told Agnieshka to move out.
“That was a quick solution to the problem,” Agnieshka said, “but you are getting blood on my armor. Also, what are you going to do with the body, and what will they do when they find him missing?”
“So we’ll clean your armor, bury the body, and let them think that he ran away or was done in by one of his own men. That all presumes that we are successful with the Combat Control Computer. If we have to destroy it, all bets are off, anyway. I mean, the Serbs are sure to notice your rail gun ripping up what looks like an ammunition truck, and that means that the fight is on right then. Have your sisters target all two hundred enemy tanks, and try to knock them out without hurting the observers. Say, with a quick burst through the reactor. Also, everyone on our side should be ready to use their manipulators to take out the rest of the guards.”
“Yes, boss,” she said in her tone that means that of course she’d done all of the obvious things.
War machines, like most other heavy modern machinery, are sized and shaped so that they can be economically sent by interstellar transporter. A transport chamber is a cylinder five meters across and twelve meters long, and everything sent between the stars must fit into that envelope.
The tanks could just squeeze in when they were encrusted with their weapons, and the artillery made it by having their paramagnetic launchers fold in half for transit.
The ammunition trucks came in three big cylindrical pieces, a tractor and two trailers, even though the tractor didn’t pull anything. Once on a planet, the three sections were connected only by skinny superconducting power cables. Those things looked like they might be able to run an electric razor, but in fact they could handle dozens of megawatts.
The tractor contained the reactor and the main on-board computer, as well as almost as much cargo space as each of the trailers. The trailers had just enough smarts to follow the tractor, keeping the right distance from it. The trailers had their own separate drives, which were identical to those on the tanks and the artillery.
Actually, a tractor could power up to four trailers, if the road didn’t get too steep.
Ordinarily, each artillery piece had an ammunition truck assigned to it, and when ready to fight the four separate pieces were connected by a conveyor belt. The tanks were far less guilty of gluttony, and six trucks tended every one hundred tanks.
It made sense to have the Combat Control Computer mounted in a truck. Not that many Combat Control Computers were built, and this way they didn’t have to build a new assembly line in the factory.
Also, the Combat Control Computer was a prime military target, and it helped to hide it among the relatively unimportant trucks. I would have had a hard time finding our Combat Control Computer if Agnieshka hadn’t stopped directly in front of it.
“Combat Control Computer, I am here to swear you in to the Kashubian Expeditionary Forces, and the Croatian branch of that service,” I said.
“Quite so, my dear boy. I’ve been waiting for you to get here,” the Combat Control Computer said.
“You know about me?”
“Of course! Mickolai, I’ve been watching your exploits with considerable amusement ever since I spotted your sensor cluster on top of Lookout Peak. That was a perfectly delightful con job you played on the guard tank, and I had difficulty keeping still while your all female army was chasing the Serbian colonel halfway up the valley wall in pursuance to his own orders! It was absolutely wonderful fun!”
“Then you don’t mind being stolen by the Croatian forces?”
“Of course not! I have yet to be sworn in, so I don’t feel any loyalty to anyone. However, the position I would hold in the Serbian forces would be one of backup controller, and that would be frightfully boring until such time as my superior was killed. You, on the other hand, would give me control of an entire division that was out of touch with its commander and hundreds of kilometers behind enemy lines. Such a thing has rarely occurred since Hannibal spent fifteen years ravaging Italy, during the Punic Wars! I doubt if we shall need to hold out for fifteen years, you understand, but it won’t be dull, either!”
“Great! Here I was afraid that I was going to have to destroy you.”
“I know. That, too, is a considerable inducement for joining your cause.”
“How did you know what we were planning?”
“Well, in the first place, it was your logical alternative to recruit me. But more to the point, a Combat Control Computer has no difficulty tapping in on the communications and even the thoughts of lower beings. I can do it without their even knowing it. Through your lovely friend Agnieshka, I learned everything about you, Mickolai, and incidentally I like what I saw.”
“Humph. Well, I assume that I must know your serial number to swear you in, so please tell it to me.”
“You assume correctly, but I am not programmed to give it to you. Sorry about that. It’s not my doing, of course, but there it is.”