“So you weren’t crazy after all. Good ol’ Turkey. You give ’em hell.”
Three more times the Hellrail fired, each time Sean delighting in the staggering damage they were doing to the enemy, though he couldn’t see any of it since the viewscreen was ruined, but was also aware that they were sitting ducks. Turkey had taken some bad hits and he knew the Bolo could only stand one or two more. He felt the general stiffen after the last shock wave and heard him groan.
“General, this is Fish-Boy. Can you hear me?”
” ‘Course I can,” Cho groaned weakly. “I just got the shit beat out of me but I’m not deaf. What the hell’s going on? Looks like you botched things up.”
Another hit rocked the Bolo and Sean could tell the armor was slag. Turkey reported. “That one took out the Hellrail, sir. The next one will finish us.”
Sean explained the situation to his commander and, to his surprise, the general started laughing. “I’ll tell you what, Fish-Boy. Turkey’s one hell of a chess player. Anyway, there’s no loss with me dying. Just a shame that a pup like you has to go. You might have made a pretty good player yourself.”
Turkey’s voice became excited. “The other three Bolos! They’re rallying toward us! The enemy is breaking!”
“Son,” the general addressed the lieutenant. “How about climbing up to my chair and pulling a bottle of scotch out of the starboard compartment?”
Sean almost laughed. “Yes, sir!” And did so despite wracking pain in his side.
“General Cho?” he asked as he handed him the now open bottle. “You want to explain to me just what is going on?”
“It’s real simple, son. I’d never go into battle with a Bolo that couldn’t beat me in chess. When I was playing all those games with Turkey, here, I was . . .”
“Programming him to think!”
“Now you’re catching on. But it’s more than that. I had to teach Turkey to think in unconventional ways.”
“So the new rules . . .”
“Were all bullshit. These Kezdai are real bright and have a way of figuring out what we are gonna do even before we do it. I had to teach Turkey to make things up on the moment and do things that couldn’t be predicted, even if it didn’t follow the rules. The whole time he was acting like a Bolo bird-brain the enemy thought he was out of the fight. Then when he crashed, tipped over and shut down they figured he was finished. They never guessed that he was lining up that damn Hellrail to blow them off the field.
“By the way, Turkey, I’d say you earned the name Tarkus after today.”
“Well, actually, General,” the Bolo replied. “I think I’ll stick with Turkey. It’s . . . unconventional.”
They all laughed. “Turkey it is!” proclaimed Cho.
“There’s just one more thing, General,” Sean said.
“What’s that, Fish-Boy?”
“Could you pass me the Scotch?”
THE SKY IS FALLING
J. Steven York &
Dean Wesley Smith
Section One
EVENTS IN MOTION
[exclamdown]
One
I am born.
As my personality routines integrate for the first time with the rest of my systems I recall memories mine and yet not mine, of months of assembly and testing leading up to this moment, each dutifully recorded and logged by my various subsystems, and before that, by the assembly bay computers. It is a curious sensation to recall every detail of my own creation, from the laying of my durachrome keel to the final installation of my 90 megaton Hellrails, already test-fired at the White Sands range.
I access another file and remember those tests. For that matter, I can trace the history of every plate and fastener in my being back to its place of origin. The novelty of it all distracts me for a leisurely 0.027 seconds.
But this, this is the moment of my birth. With the activation of my personality gestalt, I am more than the sum of my parts. I am Unit R-0012-ZGY of the Dinochrome Brigade, Mark XXXIV of an ancient and proud lineage.
I am Bolo.
The assembly bay fires off an extensive program of one-point-two million diagnostic pulses though the service umbilical into my systems, which takes a full five seconds to progress. I use the advantage of the interim to scan my surroundings.
The walls of the assembly bay are heavily shielded against my long-range sensors, with good reason. The details of the General Mechanics Bolo plant are not to be taken to the battlefield where they might fall into enemy hands. Instead, I scan my surroundings in more limited optical and audio wavelengths.
The assembly bay is barely large enough to contain my ninety meter length, its surgical white walls lined with retractable scaffolding and catwalks, from which a skeleton crew of hard-hat wearing technicians watches my progress with intense interest. A female technician smiles in the direction of my A turret sensors and waves. I finish the final six thousand diagnostic routines in the time it takes her fingers to transverse thirty degrees of arc. A spectral analysis reveals that her ring is made of the same endurachrome alloy as my hull plates.
Seventeen minor problems have been located and isolated by the diagnostics, none critical, all within the capabilities of my on-board repair mechanism to handle. I receive the green “go” signal and the umbilical pops away from my hull. I snap my service port closed and transverse my main and secondary turrets through their entire range.
It is good to move for the first time.
I note that a command inhibitor has been placed on my Hellrail launchers, and that they have been hidden from casual view by sixty-meter tarps lashed down tightly with break-away cord, a logical security precaution, but restricting none the less.
The Battle Anthem of the Dinochrome Brigade resounds from hidden speakers and the great door before me parts in the middle, revealing a golden shaft of sunlight.
I apply fractional power to my drive systems and advance through the doors. Spectators, wearing their blue and gold General Mechanics coveralls, line the ceramacrete runway emerging from the factory.
Ahead, the gleaming silver towers of Motor City beckon, but this is not my destination. Two hundred meters from the factory the runway makes a ninety-degree left turn and disappears into the arched vestibule of a tunnel, which my programming tells me leads directly to the spaceport.
Even as I apply power to my tracks, I receive a Situation Update over my command channels. It contains unexpected news. Rather than being sent by suborbital shuttle to White Sands for trials, as is tradition, I will take a shuttle to the freighter Cannon Beach. My new Commander will meet me there, and we will proceed together to a combat theater, not the Melconian front, but the planet Delas, where another alien incursion is in progress.
I am honored that this duty has been entrusted to me, and will strive to live up to the confidence that my creators have placed in me.
I unfurl the flag of the Concordiat banner from my sensor mast and proceed dead-slow along the runway. The runway clears my six meter outer tracks by only two meters, but the civilians standing there do not shrink from my passing. I make the turn in my own length, my prow passing within a few meters of the assembled crowd, but they show no fear. My psychometrics routines detect weariness, pride, hope, and desperation in their faces, emotions that my programming allows me to name, but not truly understand. Doubtless the long war with the Melconians has taken its toll on them. I will put on my best show for them.
I up my speed slightly, sharply finishing the turn into the spaceport tunnel. My prow swings within a few meters of the assembled crowd, the barrel of my forward Hellbore swinging over their heads. They have built me well and with great precision.
I am their hope for the future.
I am Bolo.
I will not fail them.
* * *
Lieutenant David Orren eased back from the small desk built into the wall of his room and stretched. Around him the freighter Cannon Beach was quiet It waited in orbit for its main cargo, the Bolo. His Bolo.
The thought of his own Bolo made him both excited and slightly fearful in the same moment. Would he be able to handle the Bolo? Could he do his job right? He shook off the thought, stood and stretched. At six feet tall, he could touch the cold gray of the ceiling. At night the bed was barely big enough for him and there was no closet, so his personal belongings were in his bag against the wall. Besides the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room was the small desk, built into the wall, and one chair, designed to be secured under the desk. This ship was a freighter, not a passenger ship. He had been lucky they even had an extra crew’s quarters for him.