The Road to Damascus (bolo)

by John Ringo

  I open fire with forward infinite repeaters and mortars, blowing apart every square meter of ground between my treads and the far side of the Gap. I move forward slowly, barely inching my way into the narrow opening in the cliffs. I anticipate rebel artillery at any moment. No one opens fire. I clear the Gap without being shelled or shot at. This is out of pattern, even for Commodore Oroton, whose thought processes frequently run circles around mine.

  I discover why, when I reach the rebel guns. They stand silent because they have no crews. They have not been abandoned. The crews are still there. But they are not firing their weapons. They are not even trying to run from my guns. They are sprawled across the ground in the contorted shapes I have learned, through more than a century of combat, to associate with violent death. The heat signatures from their bodies suggests a time of death within the past thirty to forty minutes. Certainly not more recently than that. If these gun crews have been dead since my departure from Madison, who were the federal troops shooting at?

  My mandate is clear, in one point, however. I am to destroy enemy installations wherever I find them. I pulse infinite repeaters, blowing apart the artillery that stands silent guard over the now-breached Gap. Before the pieces have spun away to strike the ground, I move forward again, easing my bulk through the fender-scraping turn that leads into the main gorge of Klameth Canyon. I squeeze through the narrows, crushing the highway bridge that crosses the Adero River to gain the main canyon floor, then halt.

  Not because I need to assess battlefield terrain. I know what Klameth Canyon looks like and I am “viewing” it through the dual system of recorded terrain from the Deng War correlated to the IR images from my real-time sensors. That is not why I come to a complete, stunned halt. No one is shooting at me, because there is no one alive to do the shooting.

  I do not count the seconds that tick past. I am too appalled to count seconds. I am too busy trying to count bodies. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. The canyon floor is carpeted with them. My weapons systems twitch in a sudden, involuntary spasm that originates from that deep, murky tangle of experience data recorded during my long service to the Brigade. Every gun barrel on my warhull jumps twenty centimeters, an eerie sensation reminiscent of descriptions I have read of epileptic seizures. I do not know why my weapons twitched uncontrollably. I know only that my enemy lies dead before me and that I have absolutely no idea why. Nor do I understand what I am doing here, since the rebellion is effectively over.

  On the heels of this thought, I receive another communique from Sar Gremian.

  “You stopped. Why?”

  “There is no point in continuing. The rebellion is over. The enemy is dead.”

  “The hell it is. Don’t let all those dead criminals fool you. The commodore’s in there somewhere, alive and devious, playing dead to lure you into his gun sights. We know he imported antivirals and biochem suits from Vishnu’s weapons labs. He’s got artillery plastered all over that canyon, manned by crews with plenty of protective gear. This rebellion is far from over. You are going to end it, my friend. So get the hell in there and end it.”

  I do not move. “What did you use to kill the civilians in this canyon?”

  “Civilians?” A cold laugh — ice cold — runs through my audio processors like needle-sharp spears. “There aren’t any civilians in that canyon. That’s a war zone, Bolo. The Joint Assembly passed the legislation declaring it and President Santorini signed it. Anyone loyal to the government was ordered to leave a week ago. Anybody still in that canyon is a rebel, a terrorist, and a condemned traitor.”

  I find it difficult to believe that young children and infants are guilty of committing terrorist acts, yet I see heat signatures with distinct, sharply defined outlines that correspond to the correct size and shape for human toddlers and infants. Children this young are not criminals. Jefferson’s assemblymen may draft as many pieces of paper as they like and Vittori Santorini may sign them to his heart’s content, but a piece of paper declaring that the sun is purple because they find it convenient to insist that it is purple does not, in fact, make the sun purple.

  The sun is what it is and no decrees — legal or otherwise — will alter it into something else. These children are what they are and no mere edict declaring them to be terrorists can alter the fact they are physically incapable of doing the physical acts necessary to be classified as a terrorist.

  These thoughts send tendrils of alarm racing through my psychotronic neural net. These are not safe thoughts. I fear the destabilizing effect such thoughts have on my decision-making capabilities. This would not be an opportune moment for the Resartus Protocol to kick in, depriving me of any independent action. There is no one on Jefferson qualified to assume total command of a Bolo Mark XX. I cannot allow my processors to go unstable enough to invoke the Protocol. But a faint electronic ghost whispers along the wires and circuits and crystal matrices of my self-awareness synapses, repeating a faint echo that never quite fades away into silence: “Stars are not purple,” that voice whispers, “and infants are not terrorists…”

  Sar Gremian has not yet answered my main question. I reiterate my query. “What did you use to kill the people in this canyon?”

  “I don’t see how that’s any concern of yours. They’re dead. You’re not. You ought to be happy. You can do your job without having to worry about half a million terrorists trying to kill you.”

  “Wind dispersal patterns will carry the substance far beyond the confines of these canyon walls. Civilians in other communities — loyal towns as well as Granger-held canyons — are at lethal risk. My mission is to defend this world. If you have released something that threatens the survival of citizens loyal to the government, you have compromised my mission. This is critical need-to-know data.”

  “You’re getting mighty big for your britches,” Sar Gremian snarls. “You’ll be told what you need to be told. Get in there, curse you, and get busy finding and killing Grangers.”

  I do not budge from my position. “I will continue my mission when I have received the mission-critical information I require. If the information is not provided, I will remain where I am.”

  Sar Gremian’s vocabulary of obscenities is impressive. When he has finished swearing, he speaks in a flat, angry tone. “All right, you mule-headed, steel-brained jackass. There’s no danger to towns downwind because the shit we released has an effective duration of only forty-five minutes. It’s a paralytic agent, gengineered from a virus we bought from a black-market lab on Shiva. We paid a shitload of money for it, to get something that would kill quickly and degrade fast. The virus invades the mucous membranes and lungs and tells the nervous system to stop working long enough to cause catastrophic failure of the autonomic nervous system. The stuff can’t reproduce and it’s gengineered to die exactly forty-five minutes after exposure to oxygen. There are no towns close enough to Klameth Canyon for the live virus to reach and still be lethal. It’s safe, easy to use, and damned effective. Does that answer your goddamned question?”

  I cannot argue with its effectiveness, given the carnage that lies ahead of me. As for the rest of it, I will have to take it on faith, since I have no way to prove or disprove it. I therefore move cautiously forward. The silence in the canyon is eerie. Motion sensors detect the movement of wind through vegetation, which shows up as dark masses against the hot glow of sun-warmed stone. Trees and crops sway gently, providing the only motion I am able to discern. Even the pastures are still and silent, their four-footed occupants lying sprawled as haphazardly as the humans who once tended them.

  With Klameth Canyon’s herds lying dead and no one available to harvest the crops in these fields, hunger will bite deeply during the coming winter. I do not believe POPPA’s leadership has reckoned the full cost of what they have wrought here, today. Even after one hundred twenty years in service to humanity, I still do not understand humans, let alone the human political mind.

  I traverse the first long stretch of the canyon floor, p
assing nothing but dead refugees, dead fields, and dead farmyards. Power emissions are normal, with various household appliances and farm equipment giving off their typical power signatures. I detect no sign of communications equipment of the kind used by guerilla forces and find no trace of heavy artillery, with its unique and unmistakable power signature.

  If Commodore Oroton has lined this canyon with artillery, he is keeping it well hidden. If I were the commodore, I would hide every single heavy weapon in my possession and bide my time, staying hidden long enough to move them elsewhere at a safer time. I cannot remain in this canyon in perpetuity and I cannot destroy weapons I cannot find. Time is on his side, if he manages to lie low enough to avoid destruction. Even if he perishes, there are other rebel commanders more than skilled enough to make use of such weapons.

  The only guaranteed solution would be to turn the entire canyon and the mountain slopes overlooking it to molten slag. It would take so many Hellbore blasts to accomplish that, I would deplete myself to extinction and turn this canyon to radioactive cinders for the next ten thousand years. The fallout of radioactive dust dispersed by the prevailing winds wouldn’t do the communities downwind much good, either. Nor would anyone dare to drink the water pouring through this watershed for several millennia.

  This is not an acceptable alternative. Neither is leaving the enemy with functional weaponry capable of destroying anything the government throws at it, including myself. If I can secure the dam, depriving Commodore Oroton of his heaviest artillery and the bulk of his supplies, the federal troops in retreat from the dispersal pattern of the virus would be able to return and scour the mountain slopes on foot or in aircraft, spotting what I cannot see, from my current position. It is not an ideal solution, but better than the alternatives I have considered. If, of course, I survive long enough to put it into effect. In one-hundred twenty years of combat, I have never been so unsure of my ability to complete a mission as now.

  It is not a good feeling.

  Neither is the persistent whisper that this mission is a disaster that should never have been undertaken in the first place. This is a dangerous thought. I dismiss it. I continue to move blindly forward, as ordered. I do not know what else to do.

  IV

  Simon punched a code into his wrist-comm. “This is Black Dog. Come in.”

  Stefano Soteris responded at once. “Yes, sir?”

  “You’re watching the datacast?”

  Stefano’s voice came back hard with anger. “Yes, sir. Orders?”

  “How much can you throw at them and how soon can you roll?”

  “Not enough for a crater, but enough to shake shit out of his roof. We can leave in the next two minutes.”

  “I want blood, my friend. Blood and the biggest damned lesson we can deliver on the consequences of committing war crimes.”

  “Yes, sir! You got one fine lesson, on its way.”

  Simon switched frequencies and raised Estevao, who responded crisply. “Sir?”

  “We’re about to set off a fireworks display. When it blows, we’ll have a window of opportunity from the reaction shock. I want teams in place to smash P-Squad stations while they’re still staring at their datascreens. Scramble on Plan Alpha Three, immediately. I want key assemblymen — Senate and House of Law — alive and kicking. Find the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, at a bare minimum. I’ve got a few words I want them to say. You’ve got the link for Star Pup?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then make contact and move out. The more teams we have in place, the more of those bastards we can string up. I want surgical strikes and a public display to show we mean business. I want our new friends from Port Town to put patrols out on the streets. Have them throw barricades across major intersections. I want them to hold those barricades with any weapon they can lay hands on in the next fifteen minutes.”

  “Sir?” Estavao asked.

  “We’re going to stop rioting before it gets started. We can take POPPA down without burning Madison around our ears and that’s by God what I intend to do. And scramble teams to the big news broadcast studios and secure them. Send some of our combat vets and the students. It’s our turn to make a public announcement, my friend.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Vittori was still on screen, gloating. He had no idea what was about to hit the fan. With luck, they’d suck Vittori Santorini right into the fan blades. Simon met Maria’s gaze. “Activate your whole network. Right now. Get your people out onto the streets and keep this city from blowing itself apart. And if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like for you and your son to escort me to the P-News broadcast studio. If she’s willing to risk it, I want your daughter to join us. I’m going to pay a little visit to Pol Jankovitch. And I’d very much like the rest of Jefferson to meet you. All of you.”

  Wicked pleasure lit Maria’s eyes. “I’ve been itching to meet that braying jackass.”

  “Good. Let’s go introduce ourselves.”

  The urban team dispersed to activate their widely scattered network. Simon followed Maria and her family down to the street, escorted by one of the urban guerillas who’d brought the prodigal son home. “Car’s this way,” the roughly dressed man said, jerking his thumb toward a dismal, filthy alleyway. Simon didn’t know his name, since the urban fighters were every bit as cautious as the Grangers, these days. The car was guarded by two other men whose guns — carried openly — served as warning to anyone who might be interested in that car.

  Nobody was anywhere near it, mostly because nobody was on the street, any longer. Even the drifts of ragged children had gone. Maria, mouth thinned into a grim line, darted a look both ways down the street, a look that might have been scared, if anger hadn’t burned so fiercely in her eyes.

  They climbed into the battered groundcar and headed out. The car might be a decrepit, rusted hulk, but its deceiving appearance hid an engine that purred like a black-maned lion after a kill. The slums had gone ominously still and quiet, but as they reached a more prosperous part of town, they encountered normal traffic — the busy flow of early evening, with white-collar workers heading home or out to dinner. Wealthy socialites headed into town for the dance clubs and theaters, the gaiety of evening shopping with friends — a pursuit only the wealthy were now able to afford — and the high-fashion whirl of a typical evening in the capital city. Government offices still glowed with lights, where bureaucrats monitored the progress of the war of extermination they had just unleashed on the helpless refugees in Klameth Canyon.

  Nobody in the car spoke.

  The silence was so profound, the asthmatic wheeze of the groundcar’s air-conditioning was deafening. They were twenty minutes away from P-Net’s corporate headquarters, which housed the largest news network on Jefferson, when Simon’s wrist-comm beeped at him, in code. He touched it, softly. “This is Black Dog. Go ahead.”

  “We’re in place,” Stefano said. “Gonna give us a little help? Something along the lines of Alpha Three, page twelve?”

  “Making contact now. Stand by for a voice signal if it’s a no-go, or a go-ahead sign if Red Dog can implement it.”

  “Roger, standing by.”

  He changed frequencies. “Red Dog.”

  Kafari’s altered voice came back, crisp and in control of herself, if nothing else.

  “Go ahead, Black Dog.”

  “I need to implement Alpha Three, page twelve. Somebody on your end will have to pull the plug.”

  “Page twelve?” Surprise gave way to a steel-sharp edge. “You want just Madison or the whole plug?”

  “Protect what you can, out there, but Madison has to go. The rest of the Adero would be helpful. I want a silent night until we persuade some folks to see the light.”

  Kafari’s chuckle was wicked enough to scare Satan. “One Prince of Darkness Special, comin’ at you. Give me time to get somebody in place.”

  Minutes ticked past. Five. Seven. Twelve. Simon leaned forward and asked the driver, “Can you
tune into Vittori’s broadcast?”

  “You want me t’ lose my supper?” the driver muttered, but he switched on the comm-unit. Like the engine, the comm-unit was a top-of-the-line, military model that had either been purloined by raiders or distributed from one of the shipments Simon had sent to Kafari over the years. The datascreen blazed to life. Vittori was still behind the podium, face alight with an unholy passion. He clawed the air with wild, extravagant gestures, banged the podium with clenched fists, screamed his hatred, and shouted his gloating triumph into the microphones and cameras.

  Come on, Kafari, he found himself uttering a silent prayer, we have to strike now… Simon was keenly aware that every single moment their fire teams remained in place, just waiting for the signal to strike, was another moment in which suspicious security guards and P-Squad patrols might investigate the men and women loitering on the street or hunkered down in parked groundcars within striking range of critical governmental offices. POPPA’s security guards cultivated suspicious minds as a way of life.

  God alone knew how long it would take for Kafari’s people to carry out their mission. It’d been too long already and the clock was still ticking. The silence in the car was thick enough to cut with a hatchet. The urban guerillas, unfamiliar with Plan Alpha Three, page twelve, didn’t know what to expect. Simon was on the verge of explaining when the countdown clock stopped. POPPA’s bright and artificial world came to a sudden, screeching standstill.

  The entire power grid went down.

  Traffic lights, shopping arcades, and government office towers went black. Maria whooped aloud. Cars careened to a halt ahead of them. Their driver ripped off a string of curses and threw them into some truly creative skidding turns, rocketing past stalled vehicles. The only lights visible anywhere were car headlights, the hospital windows of Riverside Medical Center, and the high dome of the Presidential Palace, powered by independent, backup generators.