by David Weber
Graduated thirty-second out of an Academy class of eleven hundred and fifteen, he noticed. Top of her class in tactics, bottom third in psychotronic theory. Substantially and regularly above average in all of her other courses, and ranked fourteenth in military history.
Forty-plus Standard Years in the Brigade had taught Everard Tchaikovsky’s face to wear whatever expression he told it to, and so he managed to avoid any dramatic widening of his eyes or pursing of his lips, nor did he stand to applaud her arrival. She was certainly impressive on paper, although he had his reservations about her apparent weaknesses in psychotronics. But he’d seen quite a few passed-cadets who looked impressive on paper and never lived up to that apparent promise in the field.
He finished his perusal, cleared the display, and cocked his eyebrows interrogatively as he looked directly at the lieutenant for the first time.
“Lieutenant Maneka Trevor, reporting for duty, sir!” she said, snapping to full attention and saluting sharply.
Her Standard English had an interesting accent which gave a throaty, almost smoky edge even to crisp, formal military phraseology, he noticed. He felt certain that hint of soprano sensuality was both unconscious and unintentional, and he hid a mental grin as he contemplated how testosterone-challenged young bucks were likely to respond to it.
“Stand easy, Lieutenant,” he said, returning her Academy-sharp salute rather more casually. She dropped back into parade rest, rather than a full stand-easy position, her eyes gazing a regulation fifteen centimeters above his head.
“So, you’re our new Bolo commander,” he said.
Maneka’s eyes popped wide and, against her will, they dropped to Colonel Tchaikovsky’s face. Bolo commander? Surely she must have misheard him!
He simply sat there, gazing back at her with a mildly speculative expression, and she fought an urge to lick her lips nervously as she realized he was prepared to go right on doing it until she said something.
“Sir,” she began, surprised her voice didn’t quiver uncertainly, “my orders were to report to Fort Merrit for duty with the Thirty-Ninth Battalion. Exactly what those duties were to be wasn’t specified. However, I certainly never anticipated that someone as junior and inexperienced as I am might be considered for assignment as a commander.”
“Think you’re not up to the job?” Tchaikovsky let a deliberate edge of challenging coolness into his voice, but the young woman’s composure remained unruffled.
“Yes, sir, I believe I’m up to the job. I believe my Academy record demonstrates that I have the training and the native ability to command a Bolo in combat. I am also, however, as I said, very junior and aware of my inexperience. I’d anticipated an assignment to additional training with hands—on experience under the tutelage of a fully qualified and experienced Unit commander. That was what I was led to expect by my instructors at the Academy.”
“I see.”
Tchaikovsky cocked back in his chair, propped his elbows on the chair arms, and steepled his fingers in front of his chest. He considered her coolly for several seconds, then allowed the first millimetric hint of a smile to show.
“Not a bad answer, Lieutenant,” he told her. “And I’m sure that’s exactly what the Academy types told you to expect. But the truth is, the Brigade is experiencing some changes just now.”
Maneka’s eyes darkened. She knew exactly what he was referring to.
“The Melconian Empire isn’t as technologically advanced as the Concordiat,” Tchaikovsky continued in a flat, dry, lecturer’s tone. “Or not, at least, in most areas. They do remarkably well in electronic warfare and stealth capabilities, but they’re far, far behind us in cybernetics, and they’ve demonstrated no equivalent of our own psychotronic technology. Unfortunately, the Empire is also much larger than the Concordiat. We knew that. What I strongly suspect none of the analysts considered was that we might be underestimating just how much larger it might be. And now that we’re busy killing one another in planet-sized lots, that particular question takes on a certain burning relevance.”
He looked at her levelly, and neither of them needed for him to be more specific. The current war against the Melconian Empire had begun in 3343, the same year Maneka was born. Everyone had seen it coming; no one had even begun to imagine how terrible it would be once it began. The sheer, stupendous size of the Empire had taken the Concordiat’s so-called “intelligence experts” completely by surprise. On the other hand, the Concordiat’s technological superiority must have come as just as great a surprise to the Melconians. The initial naval engagements had gone overwhelmingly in humanity’s favor… until, at least, the Puppies had mobilized their real battle fleet. After that, things had gotten progressively uglier.
Six years ago, after fifteen years of increasingly bloody warfare, the Melconians had carried out what the Emperor had been pleased to call a “demonstration strike” on the planet of New Vermont. None of the planet’s billion inhabitants had survived.
The Concordiat’s inevitable retaliatory strike on the Melconian planet of Tharnas had been equally… effective. But instead of inspiring the Melconians to renounce its genocidal attacks, the Tharnas Strike had simply become the first human contribution to an ever upward spiraling cycle of murderous violence. By now, under the grimly appropriate “Plan Ragnarok,” the extermination of the Melconian ability ever to wage war again-which everyone knew, whether they would admit it or not, meant the effective extermination of the Melconian species-had become the official policy of the Concordiat.
As, self-evidently, the extermination of Humanity had become the reciprocal policy of the Melconian Empire.
For Maneka, at this point, that was still an intellectual awareness; for Tchaikovsky, it wasn’t. Maneka was aware (though she really wasn’t supposed to be) that Tchaikovsky’s last post before being given the Thirty-Ninth had been as the executive officer of the 721st… which had taken sixty-six percent casualties at the Battle of Maybach.
“It’s obvious that we have a significant advantage in combat power on a ton-for-ton basis,” Tchaikovsky continued. “Their warships need a three-to-one advantage to meet us on an even footing, and the differential is even worse for their planetary heavy combat units going up against modern Bolos. The problem is that they appear to have that numerical advantage, and quite probably a good bit to spare. I take it that you are already aware of most of this?”
“Yes, sir,” she said quietly.
“Then you realize the Brigade is going to take heavy casualties in this war,” he told her flatly. “In addition, we’re expanding our strength at the highest rate in the Brigade’s history. That, of course, is why your Academy curriculum was shortened by a full semester and why your graduating class was twenty percent larger than the one before it… and twenty percent smaller than the one behind it, despite how difficult it is to find officer candidates capable of passing the Brigade’s screening process. It’s also why the Thirty-Ninth has been systematically raided for experienced commanders. We’re running at full stretch-and beyond, frankly-to keep up with combat losses and simultaneously crew the new-build Bolos. So while I would prefer to assign you to an experienced commander in the traditional mentor relationship, it simply isn’t practical. In fact, of the Thirty-Ninth’s twelve Bolo commanders, only three, including myself, have seen actual combat.
“You’ll be our youngest and most junior commander, and I’m giving you Eight-Six-Two-BNJ-’Benjy’-as your Bolo. He’s been around the block more than a few times, Lieutenant. You can learn a lot from him, just as you’d better be learning from everyone else around you. I’m sure you and your classmates at the Academy worked the math on your odds of surviving to retire. Assuming that anyone is allowed to retire in the foreseeable future, of course.”
He smiled briefly.
“If you did the math, then you know your odds aren’t especially encouraging. Recognizing that will probably contribute to a realistic perspective, but don’t fixate on it. That sort of thing can create a s
elf-fulfilling prophecy situation. Instead, remember this, Lieutenant. Every single thing you can learn here, every trick you can pick up, every tactical insight and every speck of deviousness you can acquire, will shift the probabilities in your favor. It will also make you a more effective commander, more dangerous to the enemy in action. For right now, that’s your entire responsibility-to learn. To learn how to survive, how to meet the enemy, and how to defeat him. A Mark XXVIII Bolo like Benjy is too long in the tooth for front-line deployment in a war like this, but he’s been around for one and a quarter Standard Centuries. Over a hundred and twenty-five years, Lieutenant Trevor. He’s picked up quite a few tricks in that time. Learn them from him.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll try,” she said quietly, when he paused.
“Don’t ‘try,’ Lieutenant,” he said sternly. “Do.”
He held her eyes for another few moments, then nodded briskly.
“Very well, Lieutenant Trevor. Welcome to the Thirty-Ninth.” He stood and shook her hand briefly but firmly, then nodded his head at the door. “Sergeant Schumer will have your formal order chip assigning you to Benjy. Major Fredericks is out on maneuvers at the moment, so the sergeant will probably turn you over to Sergeant Tobias. He’s your company’s senior Bolo tech, and that makes him the best man to introduce you to Benjy, anyway. Good luck, Lieutenant.”
He straightened up, and she came back to attention and saluted. He returned it.
“Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
“Ever met a Mark XXVIII, ma’am?” Sergeant Alf Tobias asked respectfully as he and Maneka walked across the Company parade ground towards the looming mountain of weapons and alloy which awaited them.
“On active duty?” Maneka asked, glancing at him, and he nodded.
“Only once,” she admitted. “I did work with a couple of retired Mark XXVIII AIs at the Academy, though.”
“You did?” Tobias cocked his head at her. “That’s good, ma’am,” he told her. “I know the XXVIII’s not exactly first-line equipment anymore, but I always thought they had… I dunno, more personality, maybe, than the newer marks. ‘Course that may just be because they’ve been around so much longer, I suppose. Lots of time to develop personality quirks in a century or two.”
“I imagine so,” Maneka agreed, remembering the “staff” Bolo AIs retired from their war hulls and assigned to the Academy to interact with its students. One, in particular-28/B-163-HRP-had had a delightfully acerbic personality which made her cognomen of “Harpy” a perfect fit. Maneka doubted she would ever forget the afternoon Harpy had spent critiquing one Cadet Trevor’s less-than-brilliant solution to a tactical problem, and she smiled as she looked back at the sergeant.
“Personally,” she said, “I’m glad the Brigade started retiring and upgrading software instead of just burning personality centers, Sergeant.”
“You and me both, Ma’am,” Tobias agreed in turn, giving her a look which held a hint of approval. “Never did seem fair to just throw ‘em away when they got too old,” he continued. “Of course, the older models-before the XXIVs and XXVs-probably had too many inhibitory features to make upgrading their AIs into new marks practical. They weren’t really designed to be upgraded in the first place.”
“I know.” Maneka started to say something more, then changed her mind as the two of them stepped into the shadow of the looming Bolo. She half-expected Tobias to immediately introduce her to the huge combat machine, but the sergeant waited patiently for her to absorb its full impact, first.
Unit 28/G-862-BNJ was a 15,000-ton Mark XXVIII, Model G, Bolo, one of the old Triumphants. His hull measured eighty-seven meters from his much-decorated prow to his aftermost antipersonnel clusters and point defense cannon. His bogey wheels were almost six meters in diameter, his tracks were eight meters wide, and the top of his center-mounted main battery turret rose twenty-seven meters above the ground, yet he was so broad and long that he still seemed low-slung, almost sleek. His indirect fire system was divided, with his four 30-centimeter rapid-fire breech-loading mortars mounted forward of his turret, and the twenty-four cells of his vertical-launch missile system mounted behind it. The secondary weapons of his infinite repeaters bristled in a lozenge pattern around the central turret, eight 10-centimeter ion-bolt rifles in four twin turrets on either flank, with a pair of single turrets mounted on the centerline fore and aft of the main turret. The broadside turrets were echeloned to allow at least five infinite repeaters to engage on any target bearing, and while the ion-bolt armament was far less powerful than the small-bore Hellbores mounted as secondary weapons aboard current model Bolos, Maneka knew the 10-centimeter version mounted in the Mark XXVIII would penetrate better than a quarter-meter of duralloy at close ranges. And if the 110-centimeter Hellbore of BNJ’s main armament was much lighter than the current-generation 200-centimeter weapons, it could still pump out 2.75 megatons/second.
BNJ’s glacis glittered with the welded-on battle honors of well over a century of active service. Maneka recognized perhaps half of the campaign ribbons, including awards for several of the Xalontese and Deng War campaigns. She felt embarrassed at not recognizing the others and made a mental note to look them up as soon as possible. But if she failed to recognize some of those, the awards for valor were another matter. She ran her eyes down the long, glittering row of platinum and rhodium stars and tried not to show her reaction to the discovery that BNJ had received no less than three Galactic Clusters. There were probably at least some equally or even more highly decorated Bolos still in service, but there could not have been many.
And yet, for all the Mark XXVIII’s undoubted firepower and all BNJ’s proven lethality and courage, Colonel Tchaikovsky and Sergeant Tobias were right. BNJ and his brothers and sisters were no longer fit for combat against first-line enemy opposition.
At the Academy, Maneka had studied everything she could get her hands on about the Melconian Empire’s ground combat systems, and she knew the human advantage in psychotronics and artificial intelligence generally gave even older Bolos like BNJ an enormous edge in any one-on-one confrontation with the Puppies’ manned armored units. The Melconian heavy combat mechs-the Surturs, as the Concordiat had code-named them-had heavy AI support, but the AIs in question were far less capable and required command inputs at almost every stage. They were roughly equivalent to an old Mark XX, or possibly only to a Mark XIX, albeit with far more powerful weapons than those ancient Bolos had mounted: fast, lethal, and capable as long as they operated within preplanned “canned” battle plans, but much slower than any current-inventory Bolo when faced with tactical situations outside their preprogrammed plans.
But if their cybernetics were vastly inferior to the Concordiat’s psychotronic-based systems, they were also less massive, and the Melconians had accepted the use of antimatter-reactors rather than the bulkier cold-fusion plants humanity employed. The result was an 18,000-ton fighting machine with two echeloned main turrets, each mounting the Melconian equivalent of three 81-centimeter Hellbores. The turret arrangement meant that each turret masked the other’s fire over an arc of about twenty-five degrees, but that still meant all six Hellbores could be brought to bear on a single target over a three hundred and ten-degree field of fire. That much main battery armament meant that the Surtur’s secondary armament was inevitably much lighter than current-generation Bolos mounted, although it was heavier than that of an older model, like BNJ, and the Surtur came in two distinct variants. One “standard” model, and a “support” model which suppressed the secondary armament almost entirely in favor of an indirect fire capability at least twenty-five percent heavier than BNJ’s.
The Surtur’s stablemate, the medium mech the Concordiat had code-named Garm, weighed in at barely nine thousand tons and was hopelessly outclassed against any Bolo. But the Melconians operated their armored forces in tactical units, called “fists,” each of which combined one Surtur with two of the Garms. With the lighter Garms to probe ahead and provide flanking units under the command
Surtur’s tight tactical control, a Melconian “fist” was probably the most dangerous foe a unit of the Dinochrome Brigade had faced in centuries.
And there were a lot of fists out there. Which was one reason the Academy was now graduating two classes a year, instead of one.
As those thoughts flashed through her, BNJ’s forward main optical head unhoused itself and swivelled around to face her. She felt particularly buglike as the mammoth Bolo regarded her with every appearance of watching thoughtfulness, and her mouth wanted to twitch into a smile at the thought of how ridiculous she must look standing in front of him, with the top of her head reaching barely a quarter of the way up one of his bogey wheels.
“Benjy,” Sergeant Schumer said after a moment, “this is Lieutenant Trevor.”
The introduction, Maneka knew, was purely a formality. BNJ-it was considered the height of bad manners to refer to any Bolo by its cognomen until after one had been formally introduced to it-had undoubtedly scanned her implant IFF the instant she crossed his defensive zone perimeter. But over the centuries the Brigade had evolved an ironbound tradition of proper protocol and courtesy.
“I am pleased to meet you, Lieutenant,” a resonant baritone said pleasantly over the Bolo’s external speakers.
“Thank you,” she replied.
“The Lieutenant’s being assigned as your new Commander, Benjy,” Schumer said. “Command authentication: ‘When the bluebirds sing in the spring.’”
“Authentication accepted.” A red light blinked on the optical head, and then the baritone voice spoke again, this time directly to Maneka. “Unit Two-Eight-Golf-Eight-Six-Two-Baker-November-Juliette of the Line awaiting orders, Commander,” it said.
“Thank you, Benjy.” Maneka fought, almost successfully, to keep the tremors out of her voice as for the first time one of the stupendous, awe-inspiring war machines she had trained for almost eight Standard Years to command acknowledged her authority. She had never expected this moment to come so early in her career, even with the war’s intensity growing steadily to fresh heights of violence, and she inhaled deeply as she savored it.