“It’s true the Mark XX is obsolete by Concordiat standards,” Fife said carefully. “Unit JSN is almost eighty years old, one of the last Mark XXs off the ~assembly line. The new Mark XXIV models represent the cutting edge the Concordiat needs against hostile powers like the Legura. But even an old Tremendous outclasses anything in Deseret’s arsenal. Ten of them would cut through the ANM like a hypership through N-space.”
“So you say, Captain,” Wilson said coldly. “Nonetheless, I never asked for your super-tanks, and I’m not about to change anything in midstream just to include them. Maybe . . . maybe, I’ll find a use for whatever machines you get into service as they become available. But as adjuncts to our own forces. The Citizens’ Army is fully capable of taking care of itself without your Terran techno-toys.” The Coordinator seemed about to say more, but his mouth clamped in a tight line and he waved an unmistakable dismissal.
Major Durant led the way out of the command center, a buried chamber bored into the heart of the mountains southeast of Denver Prime, New Sierra’s capital and largest city. Less than a hundred kilometers away, the forces of Deseret were consolidating their ~initial planethead and preparing to drive through the high mountains that separated the invaders from their intended victims.
The Bolos would have been enough to stop them cold, with minimal casualties to the CANS. Fife emerged from the command center shaking his head, unwilling to believe that Wilson was foolish enough to ignore the advantage those Mark XXs offered.
“I suppose you think we’re all hopeless,” Durant said with a half smile. He hadn’t realized she had stopped to wait for him outside the tunnel entrance. In the soft orange light of the world’s K-class sun, so much less intense than the artificial light of the headquarters complex, she looked too young to be an army major with degrees in electronics and cybernetic theory. The dossier he’d scanned on the long trip out from Terra had called her one of the New Sierran army’s most intelligent and free-thinking officers, but it had left him expecting the stereotypical hatchet-faced schoolteacher instead of a young, attractive woman who spoke with studied eloquence and no small ~degree of passion. “Perhaps you found it easier to get things done in the Concordiat, without all this irritating civilian meddling?”
“It’s not that, Major . . . It’s just . . . I don’t know.” He shook his head again and started to turn away.
“Look, Captain, what we’ve got on New Sierra isn’t perfect. I’ll be the first to admit that. The Coordinator is a civilian who’s doing a job your army would give to a professional soldier. His judgment isn’t always going to measure up to your expectations. But we’ve been cut off from home a long time out here, without any contact with the Concordiat . . . or any help. We’ve had dictators worse than the Archspeaker of Deseret, and we’ve seen what happens when the professional soldiers operate without civilian control. Around here, our rights as citizens come first . . . and we want a ~civilian commander calling the shots when the army is mustered.”
He faced her again. “I’m all for making the army responsible to the people, Major,” he said. “But your Coordinator’s ignoring the best chance of a victory you people have got. And why? Because he doesn’t like Terrans? Or he doesn’t trust the Bolos? Why?”
Durant shrugged in reply. “The Concordiat isn’t very popular around here just now,” she said. “And I suppose there are some people who would be worried about turning those Bolos loose. They may be old hat to you, Captain, but we’ve never had self-aware combat units around here.”
“Well, they’re not going to turn on us,” he said harshly. “If we’d created an army of robotic Frankensteins we would’ve found out about it by now. A Bolo’s loyalty is a matter of programming, and there are plenty of safeguards built in to keep a malfunction from causing some kind of AI nervous breakdown. And as for your feelings about Terrans, Major . . .”
“Hold on!” she said, holding up a hand. “Hold on before you say something we’ll both regret, Captain. Look, I wouldn’t have volunteered for this job if I had any problems with it. With Bolos or Terrans. So save the speeches for the nonbelievers, please.”
“Sorry,” he said, grinning sheepishly. With a background in electronics and training in the more conventional military sciences, Major Durant had been selected as commanding officer of New Sierra’s First Robotic Armor Regiment. Fife and his small contingent of technicians had only been sent to New Sierra to train locals to handle the Bolos. If everything had gone according to plan, he would have given the Major a quick course in working with the self-aware combat units while local computer and armor experts learned the care and feeding of the Mark XXs. Instead the Terrans had arrived in the middle of a full-fledged war. If the Bolos were to see any action at all, he would have to work with them himself. There would be no time for Durant and her staff to learn the job.
Not that it seemed likely Wilson would make any good use of the Terran fighting machines.
“Sorry,” he repeated. “Looks like I’m flunking out of Basic Diplomacy right and left. But it’s so damned frustrating to run into all these roadblocks. Those ten Bolos are more powerful than all the rest of the armed forces here and on Deseret put together . . . hell, Jason by himself could probably fight the invasion force to a standstill if we gave him his head! Think of the lives those Bolos could save. But your Coordinator has something against the idea, and everything falls apart!”
“Whatever you think of him, Captain,” Durant said quietly, “Coordinator Wilson is a patriot. When the time comes. he’ll use whatever weapons he has to make sure the Archspeaker doesn’t win. Even your Bolo . . . even if he doesn’t like the idea.” She smiled back at him. “I don’t know what his reasons are for distrusting your machines, but I do know that Wilson’s no fool. Even if you think he is . . .”
He shook his head. “No, Major,” he said, broadening his grin. “No way I think that. It’s in the Army Manual. No civilians, politicians, or superior officers are ever wrong . . . at least not officially.” Fife pointed toward the officer’s club on the other side of the military compound that surrounded the entrance to the command center. “Look, I have to check in with Tech Sergeant Ramirez, maybe patch in to Jason to check his status. But when I’m done, let me buy you a drink and try to persuade you that my bosses weren’t totally insane in making me a liaison officer. Okay?”
“Okay, Captain,” she nodded. “With one variation. If I’m supposed to be learning your job, I expect to be part of things. So we’ll both check in with your friend the tank. . . .”
“Unit JSN, this is Command. Request VSR.”
Major Elaine Durant, sitting across from Captain Fife at the work table in his living quarters in the BOQ block of the headquarters compound, leaned forward and raised her eyebrows quizzically. Fife looked up from the microphone on his suitcase-sized portable communications link and hit the pause button, delaying transmission of the message. He answered her unspoken question with a faint smile.
“Vehicle Situation Report,” he explained. “It’s an ~update on the Bolo’s current status, surroundings, tactical situation, and whatever else he thinks I ought to know.” The Terran officer laughed. “One time I asked for a VSR and Jason saw fit to include an analysis of the mistakes Edward II made in his battle with Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314, old-style.”
“Is that sort of thing normal?” she asked.
“Well, he wouldn’t bring it up in a combat situation, though for all I know he thinks about it even when the missiles are flying. Thing is, Bolos are programmed with the sum total of human military knowledge and experience. They are constantly improving their own grasp of tactics by analyzing past battles. Human generals—the smart ones, at least—do the same thing all the time. But the Bolos have a little trouble understanding some elements of the battles they study. Especially the ones where the generals really screwed up, like Edward at Bannockburn. The concept of ~human error is something a Bolo has been told about, but he’ll still have trouble grasping it on a practical level. It just doesn’t seem reasonable, to a Bolo, that anyone could make the sort of mistakes a human can make.”
“So you have to be an expert on military history to explain all this stuff?”
He grinned sheepishly. The smile transformed his face, making him look less serious and intense. With his dark hair and eyes and an almost swarthy complexion, his usual dour expression gave him an air of single-minded fervor that reminded her of the invaders from Deseret, but now he was much less intimidating. “I’m no expert. It’s a tragedy for a good Scot like me to admit it, but I didn’t know the first thing about ~Edward II or Bannockburn, and all I knew about Robert the Bruce was an old folk story about a spider in a cave.”