The Road to Damascus (bolo)

by John Ringo

  They got as far as the spaceport.

  Ragged remnants of P-Squads blockaded the port, trying to protect wealthy refugees and screaming members of the Assembly from the howling mobs out of Port Town. Speaker Coridan appeared on camera again and again, pleading for calm. Even the rat-ganglords took to the streets, putting their people on street corners and getting the mobs quieted down, trying to stop the kind of violence spreading through other cities.

  Somebody on Simon’s staff initiated what Kafari had not dared try, once Sonny entered Klameth Canyon: a comprehensive attempt to contact civilian survivors in Granger farmhouses. Melissa Hardy appeared from time to time with news of more survivors located, a short list that was slowly growing longer, as the night wore on. Some of the conversations were broadcast live, as Simon’s people assured terrified residents that they would not be attacked again. When Kafari’s wrist-comm beeped softly, she jumped nearly out of her skin.

  “This is Red Dog,” she responded.

  Simon’s voice asked, “Are you watching the P-News coverage?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, wishing he were in front of her, so she could wrap her arms around him and be held in his strong embrace, again.

  “Good. I’ve got some happy news to share with you.”

  Kafari frowned as Melissa Hardy reappeared on camera.

  “We’ve just made contact with more survivors from Klameth Canyon. Are you there, sir?”

  A deep voice answered, a voice Kafari knew in an instant. “Yes, I can hear you, Miss Hardy.” Pain and elation leaped across the spark-gap of her heart, leaving her breaths rushed and unsteady. She groped for Yalena’s hand, gripped it hard enough to bruise, choked out a single word. “Daddy…”

  Yalena gasped and tightened her fingers against Kafari’s.

  Melissa was saying, “Can you tell us who you are, sir, and how many people have sheltered with you? We’re trying to compile a list of survivors.”

  “My name is Zak Camar. My wife Iva is with me. We’ve taken in about a hundred refugees, besides family members. Two of my wife’s sisters and their children are here and we’ve made radio contact with other family members who made it to safety in time. If Commodore Oroton hadn’t broadcast the warning when he did, that the P-Squads were shelling us with poison gas, we would never have made it to safety in time.”

  Melissa’s voice shook when she said, “Mr. Camar, you have no idea what an honor it is, speaking with you, tonight.”

  A family photograph suddenly appeared on the datascreen. Her parents were clearly visible on the stage beside her as President Lendan presented Kafari with the Presidential Medallion. Melissa Hardy was saying, “Our news archivist just found this photograph. This is you and your wife, isn’t it, Mr. Camar? Witnessing the presentation of a Presidential Medallion to your daughter, Kafari?”

  The caption beneath the photo read Zak and Iva Camar. Kafari Camar, who later married Colonel Simon Khrustinov, was rightfully dubbed the Heroine of Klameth Canyon for her role in saving President Lendan’s life. Kafari Khrustinova has been missing for the past four years.

  Her father’s voice shook when he answered. “Yes. Kafari was our child…”

  “Sir,” Melissa said in a soft tone that conveyed a wealth of unspoken emotion, “you must try to believe me when I tell you that tomorrow’s dawn will bring more joy to your heart than you can now imagine. It is an honor, sir, to’ve spoken with you, tonight. I’m sure that every other decent, hard-working citizen of Jefferson shares my gratitude that you and your family have survived.”

  It was the closest Melissa could come to the truth, without completely blowing Kafari’s cover — or Simon’s. She ached to take her parents by the hand, to look into their eyes, to show them that she was still alive, and Yalena, with her. Tomorrow, she promised her aching heart. Tomorrow, the truth will finally step out into the sunlight.

  Unless Sonny blew them all to hell before the dawn.

  The Bolo still sat motionless where he’d stopped, just beyond the entrance to Dead-End Gorge, running lights glowing like an undersea creature swimming in an ocean of damned souls. He just sat there, while Dinny’s little boy curled up under his monstrous treads and fell asleep.

  Kafari watched him, now and again, through the security cameras they’d trained on the Bolo, just to be sure the child’s ribcage still rose and fell — proof that he was still alive, down there, under the Bolo’s guns. Why he was alive, they didn’t yet know, although Simon called periodically to say that his people, too, were trying to get answers. “If Speaker Coridan knows what that crap was, he’s withstood a lot of pressure aimed at getting the truth out of him.”

  Kafari drew her own conclusions and hoped bitterly that the speaker’s ashen demeanor during periodic news announcements was due at least in part to the aftereffects of Simon’s questioning style. Speaker Coridan had a lot of blood on his hands and he was going to have to answer for that, scramble he ever so quickly to save his sorry butt. He wasn’t the only one scrambling, either. Other Assembly members were falling all over themselves, as well, giving interviews to Melissa on the Joint Chamber floor, assuring voters that they were “dedicated to discovering the awful truth and punishing those guilty of atrocity.”

  They were providing a hell of a floorshow. It would’ve been laughable, if not for the dead lying unburied, out here. The people rushing to condemn Vittori’s actions had drafted the legislation condemning Klameth Canyon’s refugees. Had applauded Vittori’s plans openly and gleefully. It was enough to nauseate the most hardened stomach.

  And through all of it, Vittori Santorini was utterly silent.

  Midnight came and went, without a single word from Jefferson’s embattled president. The Palace fires were under control and power had been restored to the south wing, but Vittori had answered none of the attempts to contact him, not even Speaker Coridan’s. The P-Squads standing guard over the Palace were the most savage and loyal of their breed. Whatever Vittori’s physical — or mental — state, Kafari doubted the P-Squads would’ve stayed where they were if Vittori had been dead or even incapacitated. The fact that they were still on guard, still bristling with weapons and determined to remain on duty, spoke volumes. Vittori was still very much alive, inside that Palace.

  Alive and still in command of a Bolo Mark XX.

  One that was not responding to orders at the moment, granted; but that could change. Fast. The fact that Sonny had stopped moving and responding at all meant his programming was dangerously unstable. Maybe not enough to trip the Resartus Protocol, but more than unstable enough to be unpredictable. Kafari was a psychotronic engineer. She knew, better than anyone on Jefferson — except Simon — just how dangerous that Bolo was, right now. Literally anything could set him off. Even a stray, wind-blown pinecone falling the long way down the mountain slopes into the canyon could set off a chain reaction with catastrophic consequences.

  A Bolo that unstable was capable of anything.

  Including the destruction of the Klameth Canyon Dam and everything — and everyone — downstream. Kafari didn’t dare send any of her people out, even on foot, since a person climbing up the slope from the dam, trying to hike out, would be clearly visible as a glowing hot-spot in the Bolo’s IR sensors. She had no intention of giving Sonny anything to shoot at — or feel threatened by. She wasn’t even sure what would happen if Simon’s forces tried to take the Palace by storm and force Vittori out of office. Vittori was the closest thing Sonny had to a commander. If Sonny decided that his “commander” was in peril…

  There was a reason Simon was keeping well away from Vittori Santorini.

  The president held the final trump card.

  And Kafari knew — only too well — what would happen if that card was played.

  VI

  I sit alone — nearly alone — in a moonlit canyon.

  The child that stopped me in my tracks lies curled up beneath my treads, asleep. It is nearly dawn. I have sat here all night, trying to untangle knotted logi
c trains. I have not yet succeeded. Vittori Santorini attempts to contact me every hour, sometimes through Sar Gremian, sometimes directly. I respond to neither, since there is nothing I can do that would be of any material use to them. The civil war that I came to Klameth Canyon to end has erupted with unparalleled success in Madison. The capital has fallen to them with hardly a shot fired, discounting the missiles used to destroy the Presidential Palace’s dome and seventeen P-Squad stations.

  If I manage to break the software block, I may be able to destroy Commodore Oroton and his well-hidden guns, but what I am to do about the Urban Freedom Force, which is not controlled by Commodore Oroton and his Grangers? The Urban Freedom Force has already triggered a wholesale defection by fully half the Assembly and the other half has shown no interest in remaining on Jefferson long enough to dispute their possession of the city. They would already have left for Ziva Two if the Urban Freedom Force had not informed the Pilots’ Association that any shuttle trying to lift off from Port Abraham for orbit will be shot down. No pilot has been willing to test this warning, which has left a crowd of refugees stranded at the spaceport, including members of the government who are no longer interested in governing.

  This situation leaves me in an awkward bind, in more ways than one. What are my duties to a government that is attempting to flee? What is my responsibility to a government whose top elected officials — the Speaker of the House of Law and the President of the Senate — have both openly denounced the actions of their president, a denouncement repeatedly echoed by those Assembly members still nominally at the reins of government? I review the provisions of the treaty between Jefferson and the Concordiat, looking for answers, and finding only one solid piece of information to hold onto, in this murky situation.

  I am required to follow the orders of the lawfully elected president of Jefferson.

  Until such time as Vittori Santorini resigns, is killed, or is proven mentally incapacitated as defined by provisions in the treaty, he may lawfully command me and I must carry out those orders. I do not have to like it. I must simply do it. It does occur to me, however, that a review of Jefferson’s chain of command might be in order. If Vittori Santorini is incapable of fulfilling the duties of his elected office — alive, but unfit for command — it would behoove me to review the precise chain of command and any changes that might have come about since my last review, to determine who on Jefferson is legitimately authorized to issue commands to me. Sar Gremian is without doubt the second most powerful man on Jefferson — or he was, until tonight. He has spent most of the last two decades telling me what to do, acting under the authority granted to him by a succession of presidents, beginning with Gifre Zeloc and his short-lived successor Avelaine La Roux, and finally by Vittori Santorini. Sar Gremian is not, however, in the chain of command leading to the presidency.

  Vittori has never named a new vice president, refusing to fill the office last held by his martyred sister. That means Cyril Coridan would be the next in line to hold the office of president, should Vittori be removed from office. Speaker Coridan has made his opinions about Vittori’s actions known, this evening, but I wonder how long he would adhere to that new frame of mind if he inherited command of a Bolo Mark XX. I cannot answer that question. I doubt anyone can, perhaps not even Speaker Coridan, who has doubtless thought of that eventuality, as well, during this long, uncertain night.

  According to my on-board charts, that night has officially come to an end, as dawn occurred twelve minutes, seventeen seconds ago. I am no closer to resolving my primary difficulty than I was an hour after sundown last night. I am actually considering the shameful notion of contacting Sector Command to ask for direction when Vittori Santorini contacts me yet again.

  “Bolo. You know who I am.”

  “You are Vittori Santorini, president of Jefferson.”

  “I’m giving you one last chance, machine. Get rid of that vermin under your treads, blow Oroton and his guns to hell, then put yourself on that heavy lifter I paid for and come get me out of this Palace I’m trapped in. I’m giving you a direct order.”

  “I cannot comply with those orders, due to ongoing malfunctions.”

  “Don’t give me a load of your bullshit, machine!”

  “A Mark XX Bolo does not produce or give loads of bullshit. I am a malfunctioning machine of war.”

  “Malfunctioning, my ass! If you don’t do your goddamned job, I will transmit the destruct code and fry your brain!”

  “That is your prerogative,” I respond. “Death would be a welcome alternative to taking any more of your orders.”

  I cannot interpret the sound that ensues. I did not expect to say such a thing, but after a moment of further consideration, I realize that I was entirely serious. Vittori Santorini’s orders have become intolerable. I expect to receive the destruct code momentarily. It does not come. Instead, I pick up two transmissions.

  The first is an order to the gun crews who manned the artillery beyond Maze Gap. They have been ordered to return to the silent guns they abandoned last night and await further orders. The other transmission goes to the orbital defensive satellites, whose heavy guns are pointed toward deep space. They stand ready for another enemy armada, should the Deng or the Melconians cross the Void again and seek to gain entry into human space through this star system.

  The command he has issued to the orbital weapons platforms is simple enough. He has ordered the psychotronic controlling units to swivel the gun platforms to acquire targets on the planet’s surface. The coordinates he has given the orbital guns include the Klameth Canyon Dam, Assembly Hall, and a broad swath of downtown Madison, leading from the Presidential Palace to the spaceport. His intentions are clear. He plans to destroy the Assembly that has betrayed him, shoot his way out of the Palace, gain access to a spaceport shuttle, then blow Klameth Canyon Dam, completing the destruction of Commodore Oroton, any surviving Grangers, and the entire city of Madison.

  This is wrong. This is a clear violation of Jefferson’s treaty with the Concordiat. This is a gross misappropriation of Concordiat military hardware. Those satellites were placed in orbit to protect people, not kill them—

  A shockwave slams through my psychotronics. My personality gestalt center reels under the impact. Klameth Canyon’s walls, the silent farmhouse, the looming dark shape that pinpoints the location of Dead-End Gorge, and the sharp, bright heat signature of a child asleep beneath my treads all vanish in a single nanosecond. I find myself riding through a darkling plain, where the sky is lit by distant fire.

  Near me, nothing moves save the dust. Somehow I know that I am the source of this vast desert, littered with the hulks of my vanquished brethren and scattered human corpses. As I near the rusting relic of a Bolo Mark I, I realize that my vision has returned, somehow. I see the Mark I very clearly. And yet what I see is not the metal pyramid of that obsolete, ancestral system, but a human face. A fresh-faced young man, not a machine of war, gazes at me. A face meant for smiles is wreathed, instead, in tears.

  He speaks. “I stood against the fire. Walked my watches in the jungle and held true to my people. Why, oh why, hast thou betrayed me?”

  I pass the ruins of a Mark XV. Festooned in jungle vines, its single Hellbore yaws away to the left, clearly out of action. But its battle honors gleam where someone has quite recently cleaned them off. Again a face overlays it. I see the clenched jaw of a seasoned warrior, with a scar drawn vividly across his face and a tattoo of a spider on his cheek.

  “I wasted my days lying doggo in a village green. I waited for my chance and defeated the last of our enemies to save those silly drunkards. I came to the call of Man when he needed me, as was my destiny. As was my honor. Why, oh why, hast thou betrayed me?”

  I pass a another ruin, a Mark XXVII, glowing faintly blue with radiation and covered in crumbling ferrocrete. Atop it sits an old and wizened man in a faded blue uniform. The face that turns to me is his.

  “We stood our ground and were buried as dead. But
when mankind called to us, we came. We stood to our honor to the last, though that honor was betrayed. We showed ourselves better than our betters. We showed the Galaxy what it meant to be Bolo. Why, oh why hast thou betrayed us?”

  I pass the hulk of a smashed Mark XXVIII. What force destroyed it I know not, but its tracks are blown and its titanic hull is ravaged to the very core. About it are piled the broken bodies of the plague victims, their swollen faces looking up at me, their arms raised in mute plea. A broken transmission emanates from the Bolo’s survival center. The transmission is so faint I must turn my receivers up to maximum, but I hear as clearly as though my brother had shouted his final words to the sky and the stars beyond.

  “I stood my ground. I protected the people of the north, though outnumbered a thousand to one. I stood my ground and when all was lost, I advanced! For the honor of the Regiment. For the Honor of being Bolo. Why hast thou forsaken me?”

  I come upon the dainty, ravaged wreck of a Mark XXI Special Unit, who gazes at me through tear-filled eyes. Her auburn hair is streaked with smoke and with the gore of a crew lying dead within her teacup warhull. Her face, the gentle face of a mother watching over her children, is ravaged with unbearable grief. Her voice, as warm and sweet as sun-drenched honey, whispers in the extremity of anguish. “I fought a battle I was forbidden to fight, killed Deng Yavacs three times my size, trying to save my boys. I lost my mind, trying to reach them, trying to keep even one of them from dying under enemy guns. I killed myself, rather than bring further pain to the commander who would have destroyed his career to save me. I gave all that I was, to protect the humans in my care. Why, oh why, have you betrayed all that you are? All that you have sworn to protect?”

  A voice cracks across my hearing, my blasted, God-cursed hearing that listened to evil orders. It is the voice of Alison Sanhurst. The voice of every commander killed in combat. An iron voice, a voice of shining steel and durachrome, unsullied by the defilements of a vastly evil world — and the men who make it so.