by Keith Laumer
"We done it!" Kibbe exulted, while Frink stared at the screen, wide-eyed.
"I see now why you weren't concerned about how the unit would turn around to withdraw," Henry said in an almost lazy tone. "It's buried under, I'd estimate, a few thousand tons of pulverized limestone. Not that it matters much, considering what the explosion did to its internal circuitry. Not even a Bolo can stand up unharmed to a blast of that magnitude actually within its war-hull."
"Cain't make a omelet without you break a few aigs," Kibbe said complacently, then busied himself at the panel. Again he scanned down the cliff-face, ending this time at a panorama of smoking rubble which filled the bottom of the Cut from wall to wall. Not a Yavac was to be seen.
"Don't reckon them spodders is going no place now, General," he commented complacently. Both men turned as Freddy uttered a yelp and turned and ran from the room, yelling the glad news. In moments, a mob-roar rose from the street below.
"Don't start celebrating just yet," General Henry said quietly, his eyes on the screen. Kibbe glanced at him, swallowed the objection he had been about to utter, and followed the general's glance. On the screen, almost clear of obscuring dust, the blanket of broken rock at the bottom of the Cut could be seen to heave and bulge. Great rocks rolled aside as the iodine-colored snout of a Class One Yavac emerged; the machine's tracks gained purchase; the enemy fighting machine dozed its way out from its premature burial and maneuvered on the broken surface of the drift of rock to take up its assigned position, by which time two more heavy units had joined it, while the rubble was heaving in another half-dozen spots where trapped units strove to burst free. Forming up in the deep wedge specified, Henry knew, by Deng battle regs, the salvaged machines moved off toward the south and the defenseless town.
"It appears we'll have to evacuate after all," Henry said quietly. "I shall ask Mr. Davis to get off an emergency message to Sector. I can assign a GUTS priority to it, and I think we should have help within perhaps thirty-six hours. I'm no longer on the Navy list, but I still know the old codes."
"That'd be Wednesday," Kibbe said, rising hastily. "Best they can do, General?"
"Considering the distance to the nearest installation capable of mounting a relief mission, thirty-six hours is mildly optimistic, Mr. Mayor. We'll just have to hold out somehow."
There was a sound of hurrying feet, and the door slammed wide as Dub arrived, flushed and panting.
"We seen the big dust-cloud, General Henry," he gasped out. "Is Johnny OK?"
Henry went to the boy and put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. "Johnny did his duty as a soldier, Dub," he said gently. "It's to be expected that there will be casualties."
"What's a casualty mean?" Dub demanded, looking up at the old man.
"It means old Jonah done his job and got himself kilt, as you might say, boy," Cy Kibbe said lazily. Dub went past him to stare at the screen.
"He's under that?" he asked fearfully.
"The grave will be properly marked, Dub," Henry reassured the lad. "His sacrifice will not go unnoticed."
"They done it," Dub charged, pointing at Kibbe and Frink, now cowering behind the mayor. "I ast Mr. Frink how Johnny was going to unload the smashite and put it in the right place, and he didn't even answer me." The boy began to cry, hiding his face.
"No call to take on, boy," Frink spoke up. "All I done was what I hadda do. Nobody'd blame me." He looked almost defiantly at Henry.
"You could of gone along and unloaded the stuff, instead of blowing Johnny up," Dub charged. "You didn't hafta go and kill him." He advanced on Frink, his fists clenched.
"Now boy, after all it's only a dang machine we're talking about," Kibbe put in, moving to block Dub's approach to Frink. "A machine doing what it was built to do. You can't expect a man to go out there and get himself kilt, too."
Dub turned away and went to the screen, on which could now be seen the slope of rubble, from the floor of the canyon to the aborted road far above, with the great black cavity of the blast site.
"Look!" Dub exclaimed, pointing. Beside the blast pit, rocks were shifting, thrust aside; small stones dribbled down the talus slope-and then the prow of the Bolo appeared, dozing its way out from under the heaped rock fragments, a gaping wound visible where its aft decking was ripped open.
"He's still alive!" Dub cried. "Come on, Johnny! You can do it!"
I am disoriented by the unexpected blast. Assessing the damage, I perceive that it was not a hit from enemy fire, but rather that the detonation originated in my cargo bin. Belatedly, I realize that I was loaded with explosives and dispatched on a suicide mission. I am deeply disturbed. The Code of the Warrior would require that my commander inform me fully of his intention. This smacks of treachery. Still, it is not for me to judge. Doubtless he did what was necessary. Yet I am grieved that my commander did not feel that he could confide in me. Did he imagine I would shirk my duty? I have suffered grievous damage, but my drive train at least is intact. I shall set aside.003 nanoseconds to carry out a complete self-assessment…
Happily, my hatch cover blew first, as designed, thus venting the greater part of the pressure harmlessly into the surrounding rock. My motor circuits are largely intact, though I have suffered serious loss of sensitivity in my sensory equipment. Still, if I can extricate myself from the entrapping rubble, I compute that I have yet sufficient energy-my Y grid having absorbed some two hundred mega-ergs from the blast and converted the simple kinetic force into usable C-energies-to extricate myself and report to base. I sense the overburden shifting as I apply pressure; now I emerge into sunlight. The way is clear before me. I descend the slope, taking care not to initiate an avalanche. It is clear that I will never again know my full potency, but I shall do what I can.
General Henry shouldered Freddy Frink aside and commandeered the chair before the remote view-screen in Kibbe's observation shed, now crowded with excited villagers, all talking at once, all anxious as to their impending fate.
"… do it? Are they going to be able to climb out?"
"… things come over that heap! Can you see them?"
Manning the small telescope mounted at a window and commanding a view of the terrain where the Yavacs would appear if they indeed succeeded in climbing clear of the fallen cliffs debris, Bud Tolliver maintained a running commentary.
"-see one of 'em-big fellow, lots bigger'n those little ones old Jonah tangled with. There's another one. They keep on coming. Blasting the cliff didn't do no good, it looks like. They're headed thisaway. Our museum-piece is way behind."
In a brief lull, Henry spoke up:
"Only the heavies apparently are able to dig out. Three, so far-and they appear to be sluggish. No doubt they suffered concussive damage at a minimum."
"Can I look?" Young Dub crowded in and Henry took the boy onto his lap.
"Where's Johnny?" the boy demanded, staring at the screen. "Hard to make out what's happening, Mr. -General Henry. You said he started downslope, but-"
"There he is," Henry cut in, pointing to a dust trail near the edge of the screen. "He's going to try to outflank them and beat them into the open."
"Think he can do it, sir?" Dub begged.
"He'll do his best," Henry reassured the boy. "It's his duty to return to base and report."
I win clear of the blast area, and by channeling all available energy to my drive train, I shall attempt to gain egress from the Cut in advance of the enemy units which I perceive have succeeded, like myself, in digging out. They, too, are sluggish and as they slow to maneuver around a major rock fragment, I steal a march and clear the Cut and am in the open. It is only a short dash now to base. Yet I am a fighting machine of the Concordiat, with some firepower capability remaining. Shall I withdraw in the face of the enemy?
"It's clear," General Henry said. "Incredible that a machine could withstand such a blast-treacherously planted within his hull-and still retain the ability to return to base-to say nothing of digging out from under thirty feet of rock."
"Dang right," Fred Frink chimed in. "How about it, Mr. Davis?" He sought out the eye of the government man in the crowd. "Are me and Cy traitors, or what?"
"The matter will be investigated, you may be sure, Fred," Davis replied coolly. "The matter of planting a bomb within the unit without authorization is questionable at best."
"Ha!" Frink cried. "Jest because some kid and a broke-down ex-soldier got all wet-eyed about that piece o' junk-"
"That's enough from you," Henry said, and put his hand in the noisy fellow's face and shoved him backward. Frink sat down hard, looked up at Henry resentfully.
"I orter get one o' them medals, me and Cy, too," he grumped.
"I told you to shut your big mouth, Frink," Henry cut him off. "Next time it will be my boot in your face."
Frink subsided. Kibbe eased up beside Henry.
"Don't pay no mind to Freddy, General sir," he said, "he don't mean no harm." Kibbe glanced at Frink cowering on the floor.
"Guess now old Jonah'll skedaddle back here to town," Kibbe rambled on, watching the screen. "He got out ahead o' them spodder machines; he's in the clear."
"It would serve you right if he did," General Henry said coldly. "But look: After all he's been through, he's preparing to ambush them as they come out. Instead of using the last of his energy reserve to run for cover, he's attacking a superior force."
"Don't do it, Johnny," Dub begged. "You done all you could for them, and they paid you back by blowing you up. To heck with 'em. Run for it, and save yourself. I'll see you get repaired!"
"Even if he could hear you," Henry told the boy, "that's one order he'd ignore. His destiny is to fight and, if need be, to die in combat."
"Damn fool," Kibbe said. "It ain't got a chance against them three Yavac heavies."
On the screen, the Bolo was seen to enter a wide side crevasse and come to rest. A moment later, the first Yavac appeared and at once erupted in fire as the Bolo blasted it at close range with its main battery of Hellbores. The next two Deng machines veered off and took up divergent courses back to the Cut.
"They'll stand off and bombard," Henry said. "I think Unit JNA has exhausted his energies. But of course, if their fire is accurate, he can absorb a percentage of it and make use of it to recharge. They don't know that, or they'd simply bypass him. Instead, he's got them bottled up. Even in death, he's protecting us."
It was an hour after the first ship of the Terran Relief Force had arrived. After Henry had briefed the captain commanding, he returned to Dub, who, with Mick, had been awaiting his return at the hastily tidied office of the Planetary Rep.
"I think we can be sure," Davis told them, after an exchange of SWIFT messages with Sector, "that the museum will be rebuilt promptly, better than ever, and that Unit JNA will be fully restored and recommissioned as a Historic Monument in perpetuity. And his commander will, of course, have free access to him to confer any time he wishes."
"That's good," Dub said soberly. "I'll see to it he's never lonely again."
My young commander has been confirmed in the rank of Battle Captain, and, after depot maintenance and upgrading to modern specifications, I have been recommissioned as a Fighting Unit of the Line. This carries with it permanent full stand-by alert status, an energy level at which my memory storage files are fully available to me, as are also my extensive music and literary archives. Thus, I have been enabled to renew my study of the Gilgamesh epic, including all the new cuneiform material turned up in recent years at Nippur. The achievements of the great heroes of Man are an inspiration to me and should the Enemy again attack, I shall be ready.
A Short History of the Bolo Fighting Machines
The first appearance in history of the concept of the armored vehicle was the use of wooden-shielded war wagons by the reformer John Huss in fifteenth-century Bohemia. Thereafter the idea lapsed-unless one wishes to consider the armored knights of the Middle Ages, mounted on armored war-horses-until the twentieth century. In 1915, during the Great War, the British developed in secrecy a steel-armored motor car; for security reasons during construction it was called a "tank," and the appellation remained in use for the rest of the century. First sent into action at the Somme in A.D. 1916 (BAE 29), the new device was immensely impressive and was soon copied by all belligerents. By Phase Two of the Great War, A.D. 1939-1945, tank corps were a basic element in all modern armies. Quite naturally, great improvements were soon made over the original clumsy, fragile, feeble, and temperamental tank. The British Sheridan and Centurion, the German Tiger, the American Sherman, and the Russian T-34 were all highly potent weapons in their own milieu.
During the long period of cold war following A.D. 1945, development continued, especially in the United States. By 1989 the direct ancestor of the Bolo line had been constructed by the Bolo Division of General Motors. This machine, at one hundred fifty tons almost twice the weight of its Phase Two predecessors, was designated the Bolo Mark I Model B. No Bolo Model A of any mark ever existed, since it was felt that the Ford Motor Company had preempted that designation permanently. The same is true of the name "Model T."
The Mark I was essentially a bigger and better conventional tank, carrying a crew of three and, via power-assisted servos, completely manually operated, with the exception of the capability to perform a number of preset routine functions such as patrol duty with no crew aboard. The Mark II that followed in 1995 was even more highly automated, carrying an on-board fire-control computer and requiring only a single operator. The Mark III of 2020 was considered by some to be almost a step backward, its highly complex controls normally requiring a crew of two, though in an emergency a single experienced man could fight the machine with limited effectiveness. These were by no means negligible weapons systems, their individual firepower exceeding that of a contemporary battalion of heavy infantry, while they were of course correspondingly heavily armored and shielded. The outer durachrome war hull of the Mark III was twenty millimeters thick and capable of withstanding any offensive weapon then known, short of a contact nuclear blast.
The first completely automated Bolo, designed to operate normally without a man aboard, was the landmark Mark XV Model M, originally dubbed Resartus for obscure reasons, but later officially named Stupendous. This model, first commissioned in the twenty-fifth century, was widely used throughout the Eastern Arm during the Era of Expansion and remained in service on remote worlds for over two centuries, acquiring many improvements in detail along the way while remaining basically unchanged, though increasing sophistication of circuitry and weapons vastly upgraded its effectiveness. The Bolo Horrendous Model R, of 2807 was the culmination of this phase of Bolo development, though older models lingered on in the active service of minor powers for centuries.
Thereafter the development of the Mark XVI-XIX consisted largely in furthur refinement and improvement in detail of the Mark XV. Provision continued to be made for a human occupant, now as a passenger rather than an operator, usually an officer who wished to observe the action at first hand. Of course, these machines normally went into action under the guidance of individually prepared computer programs, while military regulations continued to require installation of devices for halting or even self-destructing the machine at any time. This latter feature was mainly intended to prevent capture and hostile use of the great machine by an enemy. It was at this time that the first-line Bolos in Terran service were organized into a brigade, known as the Dinochrome Brigade, and deployed as a strategic unit. Tactically the regiment was the basic Bolo unit.
The always-present though perhaps unlikely possibility of capture and use of a Bolo by an enemy was a constant source of anxiety to military leaders and, in time, gave rise to the next and final major advance in Bolo technology: the self-directing (and, quite
incidentally, self-aware) Mark XX Model B Bolo Tremendous. At this time it was customary to designate each individual unit by a three-letter group indicating hull style, power unit, and main armament. This gave rise to the custom of forming a nickname from the letters, such as "Johnny" from JNY, adding to the tendency to anthropomorphize the great fighting machines.
The Mark XX was at first greeted with little enthusiasm by the High Command, who now professed to believe that an unguided-by-operator Bolo would potentially be capable of running amok and wreaking destruction on its owners. Many observers have speculated by hindsight that a more candid objection would have been that the legitimate area of command function was about to be invaded by mere machinery. Machinery the Bolos were, but never mere.
At one time an effort was made to convert a number of surplus Bolos to peacetime use by such modifications as the addition of a soil-moving blade to a Mark XII Bolo WV/I Continental Siege Unit, the installation of seats for four men, and the description of the resulting irresistible force as a "tractor." This idea came to naught, however, since the machines retained their half-megaton/second firepower and were never widely accepted as normal agricultural equipment.
As the great conflict of the post-thirtieth-century era wore on-a period variously known as the Last War and, later, as the Lost War-Bolos of Mark XXVIII and later series were organized into independently operating brigades that did their own strategic as well as tactical planning. Many of these machines still exist in functional condition in out-of-the-way corners of the former Terran Empire. At this time the program of locating and neutralizing these ancient weapons continues.
John Keith Laumer
