“And your Bolos have such a device?” Khalid asked, his eyes wide. “Can we turn it to our advantage?”
Martin glanced at Lang, who was staring at the two of them with an expression mingling confusion with suspicion, and smiled. “I’m afraid not, sir.” He patted the top of the console. “The idea was to let Bolos communicate with one another, and with their HQ, without being jammed. It apparently worked pretty well . . . but too quickly for us slow human-types to understand what was going on.”
“You mean, the Bolos could understand one another, but humans could not follow the conversation?”
“Exactly. Bolos think a lot faster than humans, you know . . . although comparing the two is about like comparing Terran apples with Cerisian tanafruit. When they talk to us, they use a whole, separate part of their psychotronic network, a kind of virtual brain within a brain, to slow things down to our speed. The QDC network resides within their main processor. To slow things down in there so we could follow what was going on would be counterproductive, to say the least.” He shrugged. “They considered using it as a part of the TSDS, that’s Total Systems Data-Sharing technology, which let an entire battalion of Bolos essentially share a group mind in tactical applications, but there was no way to monitor what was going on that satisfied the human need to stay on top of what was happening.”
“Logical enough,” Lang said. “You wouldn’t want an army of Bolos operating outside of human control!”
Martin grimaced. “The threat of so-called rogue Bolos has been greatly exaggerated, sir.”
“I think not! The Concordiat faces enough threats from rampaging aliens. We scarcely need to add a battalion or two of our own creations, battle-damaged or senile, to our list of enemies!”
“If you say so, sir.” Martin had exchanged thoughts on the topic with Lang before, insofar as a mere lieutenant could exchange thoughts with a hidebound and narrow-sensored colonel. Their debates generally devolved rapidly into a polemic from superior to junior officer, laying down the law, chapter and verse of The Book, exactly the way things were, had been, and always would be in the future.
“Why are those machines wasting time with games?”
“Simulations, sir. I’ve noticed they do a lot of that, each time they’re raised to semi-active status.”
“They play games?” Khalid asked. He sounded intrigued.
“Well, it’s been almost a hundred years since Hank and Andrew were last at full-alert status, but we bring them on-line at low awareness every few months for maintenance checks and diagnostics. As soon as we do, they start throwing sims at each other. I think it’s their way of staying sharp.”
“They can do this when only partly aware?”
“Believe me,” Martin said. “Even half awake, a Mark XXIV Bolo is sharper than most people. They don’t store detailed memories in that state, so I guess they remember it as a kind of dream. And they don’t really wake up until they’re in full combat reflex mode.”
“You talk about those . . . those things as though they were alive,” Lang said, disgusted.
“What makes you think they aren’t? Sir.”
“Those machines, Lieutenant, are Bolo combat units, nothing more, nothing less. As a matter of fact, they’re Mark XXIVs, which makes them pretty well obsolete now . . . the reason, I suppose, that Sector HQ saw fit to stick them out here on this iceball. You tell those machines to sit tight. I’ll give the word when it’s time to roll!”
“Yes, sir.” Colonel Lang, Martin knew, had been sidetracked in his career . . . a screw-up of some sort on New Devonshire, with only powerful political connections to keep him from losing his commission.
And why, Martin thought, did they stick you in this hole, Colonel? Because you’re as obsolete as those Bolos out there? Or simply because you’re incompetent?
The answer to that question, he decided, might be important.
* * *
In the past 25.23 minutes, we have refought the battle of Blenheim eleven times, alternating the roles of Marlborough and Eugene on the one side, and of Marshal Tallard on the other. John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, is a favorite of Andrew’s, though not, I confess, of mine. All Bolos with sentient capabilities are programmed with exhaustive files of military-historical data, a means of drawing on and learning from the experiences of over three millennia of human experience in warfare.
At Mode Three temporal perception, we follow each engagement in what we perceive as real time, from the initial Allied scouting of the French positions from Tapfheim on August 12, 1704, through the battle proper on the afternoon of the 13th, ending with Tallard’s surrender of the encircled Blenheim garrison at 9:00 P.M. the following evening. We end up with two victories apiece, and seven draws, demonstrating the even matching of Andrew’s and my tactical abilities more than inherent differences in the troops or ground.
Four additional scenarios, however, end with two wins to two wins, all four victories for the French. In these contests, we fought hypothetical engagements based on an alternate what-if possibility north of the actual battlefield, with Tallard’s forces holding a defensive position at Tapfheim. The results suggest that Tallard was unwise in his choice of a defensive position. At Tapfheim, with his left anchored on some wooded hills and his right on the Danube, he would have enjoyed the same flank security as the historical placement, but with a narrower front where his slight numerical superiority—and his three-to-two superiority in artillery—could have made itself felt.
The simulations do not demonstrate that Tallard could have beaten Marlborough and his “Twin-Captain,” the Prince of Savoy, of course. Both Churchill and Eugene were commanders of considerable talent, while Tallard was mediocre, at best. Andrew and I agree, however, that the selection of the ground in any battle—a selection generally made by the defender—is of paramount importance in the prosecution of any military encounter.
Within our simulation, I step from the ball-battered ruin of Blenheim’s defensive wall, sword in hand. Andrew, in his virtual guise as Marlborough, meets me, his staff and Prince Eugene at his back. Around us, smashed cannon, splintered barricades, and the broken bodies of men of both armies lie in tangled heaps and scatters. Kneeling, I present my sword. This re-creation was far bloodier than the historical reality of the War of the Spanish Succession. In the original Blenheim, Marlborough lost 12,500 battle casualties, or 23 percent of his total effective force, compared to Marshal Tallard’s historical loss of 21,000 battle casualties, plus 14,000 lost as prisoners of war and another 5,000 deserted, a total of 70 percent of the Franco-Bavarian strength.
In this final refighting of the classic battle, both sides lost nearly 60 percent as outright killed and wounded, an unthinkably high attrition rate in real-world combat. I consider the possibility that Bolos may not be as sympathetic to the weaknesses of flesh and blood as human commanders and are willing, therefore, to push harder. They are only imaginary soldiers, after all, electronic shadows within our QDC-shared virtual universe. And, just possibly, the nature of warfare itself has changed. Human warfare in the era of Marlborough was a gentler art, for all that people still died in the thousands.
Interesting that Colonel Lang seems hesitant to deploy us, despite the obvious threat. He seems to have less passion as a commander even than the hapless Tallard.
* * *
An enlisted technician called from the other side of the command center. “C-Colonel Lang?” He was painfully young . . . a teenager with fuzz on his cheeks.
“Whaddizit?”
“S-sir, we’re getting reports now of major landings on the far side of the Frozen Hells! There’s fighting in both Gadalene and Inshallah, and . . . and refugees are starting to come west through the passes!”
“What do we have over there?”
“Only a few garrisons, sir. I’ve got Captain Chandler on the line now.”
“Let me talk to her.”
Martin followed Lang as he approached the com console, where a holographic image flickered above the transmitter plate. Captain Maria Chandler was a handsome, ebon-skinned woman with five battle stars on her tunic and a reputation for a tough attitude and devoted troops in her command. “Colonel Lang!” she snapped as soon as she saw the CO’s image on her console. “Either send help or get us the hell out of here!”
“What’s your tacsit, Captain?”
“My tacsit,” she said, in a prissy, near-mocking tone, “is tacshit. We have alien transports coming down all over the place. Take a look for yourself.”
A flatscreen monitor above the console lit up, transmitting jerky, sometimes incoherent images from a handheld camera. Martin saw the domes and greenhouses of flintsteel and blue crystal of one of the eastern settlements—he wasn’t sure which one, but Captain Chandler was commanding a garrison at Glacierhelm, and he assumed that was what he was seeing. Smoke rose in columns, illuminated from beneath in the black night sky by the turbulent orange glow of fires. An ungainly landing craft of unfamiliar design, all angles and bulges and blunt ends, descended toward the ice, a shadow behind the harsh glare of landing lights. Heavily armed troops were already on the ice, their combat armor painted white with random smears of dark gray, as camouflage within the icy environment. The bodies on the ground, broken and fire-tossed, were nearly all clad in light Concordiat body armor, panted black with white trim.