Instead . . .
As I advance, I review the ongoing mission report filed in real-time by the infantry and enhanced at Headquarters before being downloaded to me microseconds later. My mind forms the blips of digital information into a panorama, much as the colloid minds of my superiors process sensory data fired into them across nerve endings.
Vehicles brought the infantry within five kilometers of their objective. There they disembarked for tactical flexibility and to avoid giving the Enemy a single soft target of considerable value.
I watch:
The troops advance by tiny, jerky movements of the legs of their hard suits. My tracks, rotating in silky precision, purr with laughter.
The concept of vertical envelopment, overflying an enemy’s lines to drop forces in his rear, ceased to be ~viable with the appearance of directed-energy weapons in the 20th century. After the development of such weapons, any target which could be seen—even in ~orbit above an atmosphere—could be hit at the speed of light.
No flying vehicle could be armored heavily enough to withstand attack by powerful beam weapons. The ~alternative was more of the grinding ground assaults to which civilians always object because they are costly and brutal, and to which soldiers always turn because they succeed when finesse does not succeed.
Our forces have landed on an empty, undefended corner of this planet. The blazing combat to the east occurs as our forces meet those which the Enemy is rushing into place to block us.
I am not at my accustomed place in the front line, but the Enemy will not stop the advance of my comrades.
I watch:
The leading infantry elements have come in sight of their objective. There is something wrong with the data, because the Enemy research facility appears as a spherical flaw—an absence of information—in the transmitted images.
Light blinks from the anomaly. It is simply that, light, with the balance and intensity of the local solar output at ground level on this planet.
The infantry assume they are being attacked. They respond with lasers and projectile weapons as they take cover and unlimber heavier ordnance. Within .03 seconds of the first shot, the Enemy begins to rake the infantry positions with small arms fire.
While the battalion was in transit to our target, briefing files were downloaded into our data banks. These files, the distillation of truth and wisdom by our human superiors, state that the Enemy is scientifically far inferior to ourselves. There is no evidence that the Enemy even has a working stardrive now, though ~unquestionably at some past time they colonized the scores of star systems which they still inhabit.
Enemy beam weapons are admittedly very efficient. The Enemy achieves outputs from hand-held devices which our forces can duplicate only with large vehicle-mounted units. Our scientific staff still has questions regarding the power sources which feed these Enemy beam weapons.
Thus far the briefing files. I have examined the schematics of captured Enemy lasers. The schematics show no power source whatever. This is interesting, but it does not affect the certainty of our victory.
Initially, the Enemy outpost to which I have been tasked was not using weapons more powerful than the small arms which our own infantry carry.
I watch:
The infantry is well trained. Three-man teams shoot and advance in a choreographed sequence, directing a steady volume of fire at the outpost. At the present range it is unlikely that their rifles and lasers will do serious damage. The purpose of this fire is to disrupt the Enemy’s aim and morale while more effective weapons can be brought to bear. The heavy-weapons section is deploying back-pack rockets and the company’s light ion cannon.
An infantryman ripple-fires his four-round rocket pack. The small missiles are self-guiding and programmed to vary their courses to the laser-cued target.
Three of the rockets curve wildly across the bleak terrain and detonate when they exhaust their fuel. They have been unable to fix on the reflected laser beam which should have provided the precise range of the target. The anomaly has absorbed the burst of ~coherent light so perfectly that none bounces back to be received by the missiles’ homing devices. Only the first round of the sequence, directed on a line-straight track, seems to reach the target.
The missile vanishes. There is no explosion. At .03 seconds after the computed moment of impact—there is no direct evidence that the rocket actually hit its target—the Enemy outpost launches a dozen small missiles of its own. One of them destroys the ion cannon before the crew can open fire.
Puffs of dirt mark the battlefield. The infantry is ~using powered augers to dig in for greater protection. The Enemy outpost continues to rake the troops with rockets and small arms, oblivious of the infantry’s counterfire.
Seven hours before planetfall, a human entered the bay where we Bolos waited in our thoughts and memories. He wore the trousers of an officer’s dress uniform, but he had taken off the blouse with the ~insignia of his rank.
The human’s face and name were in my data banks. He was Major Peter Bowen, a member of the integral science staff of our invasion force. My analysis of the air Bowen exhaled indicated a blood alcohol level of .1763 parts per hundred. He moved with drunken care.
“Good evening, Third Battalion,” Bowen said. He ~attempted a bow. He caught himself with difficulty on a bulkhead when he started to fall over. I realized that the bay was not lighted in the human-visible spectrum. Bowen had no business here with us, but he was a ~human and an officer. I switched on the yellow navigation lights along my fender skirts.
Bowen walked toward me. “Hello, Bolo,” he said. “Do you have a name?”
I did not answer. My name was none of his concern; and anyway, it did not appear that he was really speaking to me. Humans often say meaningless things. Perhaps that is why they rule and we serve.
“None of my business, hey, buddy?” said Bowen. “There’s been a lot of that goin’ around lately.” He was not a fool, and it appeared that he was less incapacitated by drink than I had assumed.
He reached out to my treads. I thought he was steadying his drunken sway, but instead the scientist’s fingers examined the spun crystal pads of a track block. “Colonel McDougal says I’m not to brief the battalion tasking officers because that’s been taken care of by real ~experts. Colonel McDougal’s a regular officer, so he oughta know, right?”
The situation shocked me. “Colonel McDougal is your direct superior, Major Bowen,” I said.
“Oh, you bet McDougal’s superior to me,” Bowen said in what should have been agreement but clearly was not. “He’ll be the first to tell you so, the Colonel will. I’m just a civilian with a commission. Only—I figured that since I was here, maybe I ought to do my job.”
“Your job is to carry out your superior’s orders to the best of your ability,” I replied.
Bowen chuckled. “You too,” he said. His hands ~caressed my bow slope. My battle honors are welded to my turret, but the flint-steel of my frontal armor bears scars which tell the same story to those who can read them.
“What’s your name, friend?” Bowen asked.
My name is my password, which Bowen is not authorized to know. I do not reply.
He looked at me critically. “You’re Maldon,” he said, “Grammercy’s your tasking officer.”
I am shocked. Bowen could have learned that only from Captain Grammercy himself. Why would Grammery have spoken what was his duty to conceal? It is not my duty to understand colloid minds; but I sometimes think that if I could, I would be better able carry out the tasks they set me.
“You know the poem, at least?” Bowen added.
It was several microseconds before I realized that this, though inane, was really meant as a question. “Of course,” I said. All the human arts are recorded in my data banks.
“And you know that the Earl of Essex was a fool?” said Bowen. “That he threw his army away and left his lands open to pillage because of his stupidity?”
“His bodyguards were heroes!” I retorted. “They were steadfast!”
The bay echoed with my words, but Bowen did not flinch back from me. “All honor to their courage!” he snapped. I remembered that I had thought he was drunk and a disgrace to the uniform he—partly—wore. “They took the orders of a fool. And died, which was no dishonor. And left their lands to be raped by ~Vikings, which was no honor to them or their memory, Maldon!”
The retainers of the Earl of Essex were tasked to prevent Vikings under Olaf Tryggvason from pillaging the county. The Earl withdrew his forces from a blocking position in order to bring the enemy to open battle at Maldon. His bodyguards fought heroically but were defeated.