by David Weber
"It's a Bolo," Na-Lythan said, and this time Sa-Thor straightened his shoulders visibly in the com display as Na-Lythan's tone registered. "It knows the platforms are out there," the colonel continued in slightly less frigid tones. "It may not have detected them—although I find that difficult to believe—but even if it hasn't, it knows they must be out there. Yet it appears to be taking no measures to localize and destroy them. It isn't even looking for them. So either it's decided there's no point, that we'll simply replace them as quickly as it can destroy them, or else it wants us to know where it is and what it appears to be doing."
"Sir, I would respectfully suggest," Sa-Thor said very carefully, "that it's more probably the former possibility. Our supply of reconnaissance drones is scarcely unlimited, but we have more than enough to replace losses to its air-defense systems and keep it under observation over the span of a day or two."
"You may be correct," Na-Lythan conceded. "Certainly I can't think of any advantage to it in letting us know precisely where it is. I simply wish I were certain that it couldn't think of one."
He grimaced, ears flattened in thought for several heartbeats, then looked at his communications tech.
"Get me a link to General Ka-Frahkan."
* * *
"Do you think Uran has a point, sir?" Na-Salth asked.
"I'm certain he does," Ka-Frahkan said, trying not to sound testy as he bent over the terrain display, scrolling through maps. The original imagery from which those maps had been made had been lost along with Death Descending, but his command vehicle's computers had a copy of it. And, limited though they might be compared to the equivalent Human technology, they were quite capable of manipulating the radar map to generate the detailed three-dimensional terrain representation he required.
"I'm just uncertain as to which of his points is valid," the general continued.
He found the map he wanted, and the moving icon of the Bolo appeared upon it. The Human vehicle was headed directly towards his main body, just as Na-Lythan had reported. And as he scrolled ahead along the line of its probable advance, Ka-Frahkan realized it was making for a firing position from which it would be able to interdict at least two of his own possible approach axes with long-range Hellbore fire.
"This is where it's headed," he said, tapping the position with a claw.
"That's going to make difficulties," Na-Salth observed. He brought fresh data up on his own displays and considered it briefly. "Na-Lythan's battalions are approaching along both of those routes," he informed Ka-Frahkan. The general already knew that, of course, but it was one of Na-Salth's jobs to make certain that he did. "At the moment, First Battalion is ahead of schedule, sir. At present rate of advance, it will enter the Bolo's engagement range roughly twenty minutes after the Bolo's estimated time of arrival. Assuming that it stops there rather than continuing to advance to meet Major Sa-Thor, that is."
"I know," Ka-Frahkan murmured, rubbing the tip of his claw back and forth across the hilltop firing position. "But why is it telegraphing its tactics this way?" he continued.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" Na-Salth looked puzzled, and Ka-Frahkan snorted.
"Uran is absolutely correct," he said. "Even if the Bolo doesn't have positive locks on our drones, it has to know they're out there. Yet here it is, ambling towards its chosen position at barely half its top sustained speed, and I want to know why. It's faster than we are. If it had waited longer—let us get closer, move further apart—it could have drawn us out of position, off-balance. It could have used its sprint capability to move as quickly as possible into position, caught us separated. It could have gotten in between our armored battalions before we could react and engaged one of them at a time. As it is, we have ample time to react."
"We haven't seen any of its drones because it isn't using them," Ka-Frahkan replied. He looked back up at Na-Salth. "But this Human, whoever he is—this commander who thinks 'outside the box'—knows exactly where we are, Jesmahr. What he did to Death Descending would suggest that, but in my opinion, his present maneuvers prove it. If he felt the least uncertainty about our positions, he would be doing everything in his power to resolve it. And he would either not be moving at all while he used his own reconnaissance assets to find us, or else he would be moving at a higher rate of speed, in order to minimize his own window of vulnerability between chosen defensive positions."
"But how can he know where we are, sir? We destroyed all of their surveillance satellites on our way in."
"We think we destroyed them all," Ka-Frahkan corrected. "It's possible we missed one. I don't think that's what's happening here, however. I think, Jesmahr, that this particular Human has thoroughly seeded these mountains with pre-emplaced, ground-based, carefully concealed sensors. He has every approach route wired, and he's using secure, directional communication channels—or probably burst subspace transmissions, since Bolos, unlike our mechs, mount their own subspace coms—to monitor them. That's why he isn't expending drones tracking us; he already knows where we are."
"But in that case ..." Na-Salth's voice trailed off, and Ka-Frahkan flicked his ears in emphatic agreement.
"In that case," he said, "he wants us to know where he is, and he's deliberately letting us know where he's going. And the only reason I can think of for him to do that is to maneuver us into doing what he wants."
"But what could he possibly want us to do, sir?"
"I don't know. That's what worries me," Ka-Frahkan admitted.
* * *
Maneka/Lazarus watched through the reconnaissance net as the Melconian advance slowed, then came—temporarily, at least—to a complete halt. She/they waited, while several minutes passed. Then the Enemy began to move once more, and her/their human component frowned in her command couch without ever opening her eyes.
The Enemy commander, she/they thought, was clearly more capable than she/they would have preferred. Which didn't exactly come as a surprise—an incompetent would never have managed to follow the colony fleet this far so tracelessly and then execute such a devastating initial surprise attack.
Still, he was doing a part of what she/they wanted.
She/they continued to trundle leisurely along, but the Melconian formation was shifting. The Enemy's leading battalion of three Surtur Alphas and six Fenrises had begun falling back, accompanied by two of the infantry regiment's battalions and half of the armored regiment's twelve Heimdalls. The second armored battalion, with all six of the Surtur Betas, the other six Heimdalls, and the third infantry battalion, had changed course and begun to move rather more quickly. They were sliding to the south to advance along the one approach route which would bypass the blocking position towards which she/they were headed. That line of approach—the one she/they had designated Route Charlie—wasn't the shortest one, but unless she/they also changed course in the next few minutes, the Melconian units advancing along it would get clear around her/their flank without ever exposing themselves to her/their direct fire. She/they could still loft missiles onto their route, but with only a single Bolo's missile load-out and launchers, it would be virtually impossible to sufficiently saturate a Melconian armored battalion's missile defenses to get through them, and an entire mountainside would block Hellbore fire at their closest approach.
She/they considered the timing. If she/they continued on her/their current heading at current speed, the flanking column would be past any point at which she/they could subsequently intercept it short of Fourth Battalion's position in another twelve minutes. And, if that column got past her/them, worst-case, Fourth Battalion would find itself ground into the mud under the tracks of a full battalion of heavy armored vehicles. Best case, she/they would find themselves trapped in a constricted, mountainous valley between both Dog Boy armored battalions while the Enemy ignored the Fourth to concentrate on killing her/them.
Pity. She/they had rather hoped the Puppies' CO would decide to send all of his mechs around her/their flank. Unfortunately, he'd turned out to be too wary for that.<
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* * *
"Now it begins to retreat!" Ka-Frahkan flapped his ears in frustration. "Nameless Ones! What sort of game is this damned machine playing?!"
The Bolo icon on his display had, indeed, begun to retreat—and at a far higher rate of speed, at that.
But it was too late. Major Julhar Ha-Shan's Second Armored Battalion and Major Thuran Ha-Nashum's Third Infantry were already past it. The Bolo was faster than Ha-Shan's heavies, but it also had much further to go if it wanted to retreat to its militia blocking position before Ha-Shan and Ha-Nashum reached it, and there was no way even a Bolo could catch them now without using the pod in which it But why had it waited so long?
Of course, Na-Lythan's First Armored Battalion and the rest of Colonel Ka-Somal's infantry were also advancing once more, along the route Ka-Frahkan had designated Axis Three, if much more slowly and cautiously than Ha-Shan's battalion. They would have entered the Bolo's engagement range, had it continued to advance on its original course, within another thirty minutes or so. The fight when they reached that point would have been ugly, and Ka-Frahkan was far from certain of what its final outcome would have been, given how the Human machine's individual power and superior technology would have offset his own forces' advantages in tonnage, numbers, and combined firepower. He'd been willing to court the engagement anyway, however, if it would have pinned the Bolo in place while Second Armored got on with the business of destroying the blocking position and advanced upon the colony itself. That was why he'd held First Armored back and sent Ha-Shan ahead. Sa-Thor's heavies were marginally better suited to a direct engagement against the Bolo, and Ha-Shan's additional missile power would make his battalion far more dangerous to the Human settlement once he got past the blocking militia.
But now the accursed Bolo seemed unwilling to give him that engagement ... even though it was self-evidently too late for it to reverse course and intercept Second Armored!
Theslask Ka-Frahkhan glared at his tactical plot and tried not to grind his teeth together as he tried to deduce just what hellish surprise the Bolo and its Human commander were attempting to spring upon him.
* * *
Maneka/Lazarus monitored the flanking column's position carefully. It was continuing to advance, and she/they were tempted to continue her/their advance and engage the remainder of the Melconian force head on. Unfortunately, if she/they did, the main Puppy column would engage her/them well before the flanking column reached the decisive point. It was as certain as anything could be that she/they would have taken damage in that engagement, and she/they could not afford to risk that. Not yet. The flanking column had to be dealt with before she/they could accept any reduction in her/their own capabilities.
"Timing," her/their human half thought. "It's all a matter of timing, now."
"It always is," her/their Bolo half replied.
* * *
Captain Farka Na-Rohrn felt his spirits rising as Second Armored Battalion thundered eastward behind his Heimdall. He could see the Human Bolo on his tactical display, although there were enough mountains between them to prevent it from seeing him, praise the Nameless Lord! And while Na-Rohrn had never claimed to be a tactical genius, it seemed obvious to him that the Bolo had made a fatal error.
The positions and maximum possible rates of advance indicated on his display made it abundantly clear that there was, quite simply, no possible way for the Bolo to intercept Major Ha-Shan's armor and Major Ha-Nashum's infantry before they wiped out the Human militia positioned to stop them. And after that, there would be nothing between them and the Human colony.
There were only six of them, and she/they had added the rather special warheads they mounted to her/their normal ammunition mix in place of the same number of more conventional warheads over three weeks ago. Now the missiles carrying those warheads erupted from the heavily armored wells of her/their vertical-launch missile system and rose on pillars of flame until they were high enough for their counter-gravity drives to take over. Then the thundering wakes of fire vanished, and the missiles screamed suddenly southeastward at seven times the speed of sound.
* * *
"General Ka-Frahkan!" a sensor tech said sharply. "The Bolo has just launched missiles!"
"At us?" Ka-Frahkan demanded, spinning around to face the master tactical plot.
"No, sir," the noncom replied in puzzled tones. "At Colonel Ha-Shan."
* * *
"Incoming!" Ha-Shan's sensor operator announced suddenly. "Multiple—six incoming from the Bolo, sir! Mach seven!"
Ha-Shan's eyes instantly found the missile icons on his own display. Even at that velocity, there was plenty of time, he thought as the targeting systems of his armored units' antimissile defenses turned onto the threat bearing. Besides, that was a ridiculously low number of missiles for a target like his. His command Surtur alone could have defeated all of them with ease, Human technology or no. So what was the damned Bolo up to now?
"Impact projection," the sensor operator said, and Ha-Shan blinked.
That couldn't be right! He looked at the visual display showing the terrain directly to his west. The river-cut valley through which his battalion was currently passing had, indeed, grown narrower, with precipicelike cliffs looming on both sides. The ones to the west were both higher and steeper than the ones to the east, and if the missiles' impact point was properly projected, all six of them were going to land harmlessly on the other side of the mountain which reared that protective rampart. Which was stupid. Yet one thing no Bolo had ever been accused of was stupidity, so what—?
* * *
The same mountains which protected the Melconian column from Maneka/Lazarus' direct fire also protected her/their missiles from interception. They sped directly to their targets, separating, spreading out, adjusting their trajectories with finicky precision.
At precisely the correct moment, all six of them killed their drives and continued onward at just over seven thousand kilometers per hour. They slammed into the mountainside, and the superdense, ballistically shaped deep-penetrator warheads she/they had mounted upon them drilled through solid earth and stone like hypervelocity bullets. They plunged deep into the heart of the mountain, driving directly into the fault pattern Maneka/Lazarus' deep scan radar mapping had revealed weeks before.
And then six megaton-range warheads detonated as one.
* * *
The stupendous shockwave was enough to shake even a Surtur like a toy. Ha-Shan had never experienced an earthquake before, and he was ill-prepared to feel his 18,000-ton mech shivering like a frightened child. But Surturs were designed and engineered to survive far worse than a little shaking, and he felt his speeding pulse began to slow once more.
Until he looked into the visual display again.
* * *
So that was what the Human was thinking, Theslask Ka-Frahkhan thought. He was too calm about it, a corner of his own brain told him. Shock, he supposed. I should have listened to my instincts. But even if I had, what else could I have done with what I knew?
He watched the thick, curdled cloud of dust rising above what had once been a river valley. Perhaps it would be a river valley again, someday. But at this moment, it was the huge common grave which had just engulfed half of the 3172nd Heavy Assault Brigade's armor and a third of its infantry. The horrendous landslide the Bolo's missiles had triggered had sent two-thirds of a mountain sliding unstoppably across Second Armored and Third Infantry. There were, he already knew, no survivors from either, although the handful of Na-Pahrthal's air cav which had been assigned to Ha-Shan had probably been able to climb out of destruction's path in time.
He turned his head slowly and looked at Na-Salth. The colonel was still staring slack-jawed at the unbelievable sight on his visual display.
"Contact Colonel Na-Lythan and Colonel Ka-Somal," Ka-Frahkan heard his own voice saying with a flat, steady calm. Na-Salth turned stunned eyes towards him. "Tell them both that I want their recon elements to begin deploying seismic sens
ors immediately. They're to use the sensors and sounding charges, as well as the Heimdalls' sonar and deep-scan radar, to check for additional fault lines. I doubt very much that there are more of them out here, but I could be wrong, and this Human devil is not going to lead us into any more ambushes like that one."
He stabbed the visual display with a vicious claw and the soft echo of a barely audible challenge snarl.
"No more finesse, Jesmahr," he said grimly, harshly. "I don't care what the Bolo does. We will advance at our own chosen rate. We will check every valley, every cliff, for booby traps and dangerous terrain features. Eventually that Nameless-cursed Bolo will have to stop and fight us on our terms. And when it does, we will destroy it."
* * *
Maneka/Lazarus launched a single recon drone. She/they had no choice; the landslide which had enveloped the Enemy column had also wiped out the sensors with which that stretch of river valley had been seeded.
The drone swept over what had once been the valley, and her/their human half felt a chill as she/they surveyed the desolation. Her/their missiles had shattered an entire mountain, disemboweled it and spewed its fragments across the Melconians in an unstoppable tidal wave of broken rock, shattered trees, and dirt. The river was already beginning to back up behind the solid plug of debris, and she/they saw the rising water lapping at a single Melconian corpse. From its equipment, it had been an infantryman, probably one of the advance scouts probing ahead of the Enemy column on their one-man grav-scooters. But he hadn't been far enough ahead. Two-thirds of his body was buried under the huge boulder which had come bounding down to crush the life out of him. He lay face-down, one arm and shoulder protruding from the rubble and earth, and the clawed fingers of his raised hand seemed to be reaching for the heavens, as if to hang onto his life for just a moment longer.
She/they made one more sweep of the site with the reconnaissance drone. It was remotely possible that there might be one or two Enemy survivors, she/they decided, but there could not be more, and all of the Enemy armored battalion's mechs had been positively accounted for.
