The Road to Damascus (bolo)

by John Ringo

  A number of reasons had prompted Kafari to risk contacting him. He just might be serious enough about the Granger cause to risk greater danger, far greater than the mere string of warnings he’d received from P-Squads so far, to find a healthier line of work. He was also the most popular Granger on the planet, an icon of Granger attitudes and culture, well respected and capable of marshaling the kind of followers Kafari needed. Her conviction that Anish Balin’s expected life span could be calculated in hours prompted her to head straight for his studio. He deserved fair warning, if nothing else. There was a great deal he could do, if Kafari could keep him alive long enough to do it.

  She reached Maze Gap unchallenged and focused her attention on the high rock walls, not wanting to end up as a grease stain on the canyon walls. She used the skimmer’s on-board nav computer to display a map that led her straight to Anish Balin’s homestead. When she was half a kilometer away from his front gate, she stashed the skimmer in a crevice weathered into the eroding canyon walls, then hiked the rest of the way.

  Anish’s studio proved to be a small workshop behind his house, tucked back into a corner of Klameth Canyon. His house was dark, but she could see light through the studio windows, out back. She lifted her wrist-comm to listen. He was talking about her again, in terms almost embarrassing, and was furiously demanding an investigation into her whereabouts, accusing the P-Squads of holding her incommunicado for any number of sinister purposes.

  When he signed off the live datacast and set his equipment for auto-repeat, Kafari made her move. The studio door wasn’t locked. She eased her way inside, finding him seated at his console, shutting down various control boards. She waited long enough for him to complete the ritual, not wanting to interrupt his routine. Any deviation from his normal pattern might show up on somebody’s security net — and Kafari was absolutely convinced that somebody was, in fact, watching his databoard very closely tonight. When he swung around to leave the studio, she stepped into the light.

  His lower jaw came adrift.

  Before he could utter a sound, she held one cautionary finger to her lips, then pointed outside. A muscle jumped in his jaw and his eyes went abruptly hard. He gave her a curt nod and followed her out into the night. They walked, by mutual consent, past the house where he lived alone, out into the fields he and his family had once tilled, before the Deng had blown them to atoms.

  “You’re dead,” he finally broke the silence, out in the middle of a field that had grown up into standing hay.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “That will be rather useful, don’t you think?”

  He snorted. “Damned useful. You’re planning to do something about that unholy pack of mobsters?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  He hesitated. “Your daughter?”

  Yalena’s political inclinations were widely known, in Granger circles. “She’ll be aboard the Star of Mali by the time it breaks orbit for Vishnu.”

  “Good God, how’d you manage that?”

  Words got caught in Kafari’s throat for long moments. Even having told Simon, already, she still found it difficult to say without breaking down. When she told him, he halted, his face and shirt pale blurs in the starlight, and stood motionless in the waist-high hay for long moments. Kafari wished she could see the expression on his face more clearly, but the moons weren’t up yet and the starlight was too faint to see more than shadows and the faint glint of his eyes.

  “I see,” he said at length. The emotion in his voice was full of nuances that made two simple words into a profoundly complex political commentary. “And you stayed.” It wasn’t a question, it was an awe-struck compliment that rivaled Abraham Lendan’s words to her, so long ago. “What do you want me to do?”

  “To start with? Get the Hancock family out of Nineveh Base.”

  A soft whistle reached her ears. “You don’t do things in a small way, do you?”

  “There is no way to start small. Not with what we’re up against.”

  “And what do you suggest we use for weapons? POPPA didn’t leave us with much to choose from.” The anger in his voice was an echo of an entire world’s wrath.

  “There are plenty of weapons. You just have to summon the nerve to go and get them.”

  “You must know something the rest of us don’t.”

  “Like how to cripple a Bolo?”

  “Jeezus!” He breathed hard for a couple of seconds. “You don’t beat around the bush, either, do you?”

  She swept her arms in a wide gesture, encompassing the dark canyon and the people who lived there — and those beyond, who also needed their help. “We don’t have time for niceties. Not if we hope to get the Hancock family out of Nineveh Base alive. Let me ask you a pointed question. You’ve got a wide audience. Are any of them reliable enough to form a guerilla fighting force? One we can assemble tonight? And are any of them willing to die, striking our first blow?”

  Anish Balin didn’t hurry his answer, which Kafari found encouraging. The last thing they needed was someone eager to jump in with both feet before considering the very real possibilities for disaster. “I think so, yes,” he said at length. “I’ve talked to a few people — in person, mind you, not over the datanet — people who’ve lost everything. Not just their livelihoods, but their homes and their land, legacies they were holding for their kids and grandkids, ripped away in POPPA’s environmental land snatches and tax forfeitures.”

  “Yes,” Kafari bit out. “I know too many of those, myself.”

  “The lucky ones had relatives they could turn to, people they could pool resources with, sharing workloads, establishing cooperatives like the Hancocks did. But a lot of folks — too many by half — were simply shipped to government-run farms. They’re working the collectives at gunpoint. Would they be willing to die, to stop POPPA? Oh, yes.”

  “Fair enough. How quickly can you assemble a strike force? I want twenty people, at most.”

  “How soon do you want to hit Nineveh?”

  She smiled in the starlight. “Oh, it isn’t Nineveh I had in mind to hit. Not first, anyway.”

  “What on earth have you got up your sleeve?”

  “A few tricks I picked up over the years. But there’s one more thing I want to say before we go any further with this. It concerns you. After tonight, Vittori Santorini is going to come after Grangers with a vengeance. You are the best-known — and most vocal — Granger advocate on Jefferson. You wield enough influence and popular support to cause a whole lot of trouble for the Santorinis. They have to take you out. What’s worse, you’ve given them the perfect legal pretext for doing it. You hacked into federal security systems to download the Hancock family massacre footage and the distress call they sent out.”

  “I had to do that. And you damned well know why!”

  “Yes, I do. And, yes, you were absolutely right. Getting that recording into the hands of the public was the most critical service anyone has provided Grangers in the last ten years. It woke up my own daughter and she’d supported POPPA — and I mean really believed in it — virtually her whole life. But they’ll crucify you and use that illegal download as the excuse for destroying you.”

  “You seem awfully sure of that.”

  “I watched them destroy my husband!” He flinched from the serrated edge in her voice, shuddered visibly, even in the faint starlight. She said more gently, “They can’t afford not to take you out. Especially now, with the president and vice president dead. The government’s in chaos, Madison is burning, and the Santorinis need a scapegoat to blame it all on. You’re the voice of Granger opposition. A rallying point people will flock to, a natural leader they’ll follow. And the Santorinis know it. You want my best guess? You’ll be in custody before dawn. And I seriously doubt you’ll live long enough to come to trial. The only choice you have is the one I’ve already made for myself. Disappear into the darkness. Then make them fear the shadows.”

  He didn’t say anything at all for long moments. Wind whispered past high overhea
d, moaning across the clifftops. “Lady,” he finally said in a voice full of rust and respect, “you are one tough bitch. And scary as hell.” He wiped his forehead with one sleeve despite the rising chill of the night wind. “All right. How light do we travel?”

  “How much of that studio equipment can you rip out and transport in the next couple of hours?”

  “My studio equipment?” He stared at her. “Why, for Chrissake?”

  She pushed hair back from her brow. “Because this won’t be a short war. We’re going to need a command post — a mobile one — and good equipment. I’ve already salvaged my computer and some communications gear. You’ve got equipment we’ll need, as well, if you can dismantle it in time. Bear in mind that we also need to assemble fire teams, tonight. I want to hit three targets before dawn. The first will give us the small arms we need to take Barran Bluff arsenal. The arsenal will give us the firepower we’ve got to have, to tackle Nineveh Base. Hyper-v missiles. Octocellulose mines. Mobile Hellbores.”

  He reached up to grab a handful of hair on either side of his head. “Jeezus Mother H… You don’t ask for much, do you? You want I should throw in the keys to Vittori’s palace?”

  “Might save time,” Kafari agreed equably.

  He let out a strangled sound that defied interpretation. Then gave a sudden snort. “I can see already, things won’t ever be boring with you around. All right. Lemme think, a minute.”

  Kafari waited.

  “Okay, we might just pull it off. I’ve got some calls to make. We could probably recruit twenty, maybe thirty people right here in Klameth Canyon, in the next ten minutes. Could be as many as two or three hundred, if we have time to contact everybody on my nothing-left-to-lose list. We can put some of them to work dismantling the studio. That isn’t as complicated as it looks. You can pack a lot of function into a setup as small and simple as mine. The rest of us can work on your battle plans.”

  “Good. Start calling. I’m going to borrow your computers while you start assembling the team. There are a few other illegal downloads we need to make and I’ve got to hack my way into some seriously tough systems, to do it.”

  He didn’t ask why — or what.

  Kafari took that as a good sign, as well.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I

  At 24:70 hours, I receive an unprecedented transmission from Sector Command.

  “Unit SOL-0045, acknowledge readiness to receive command-grade orders.”

  “Unit SOL-0045, acknowledged. Standing by.”

  “We have been notified about the situation on Jefferson.”

  I wonder for a fleeting nanosecond which situation Sector refers to, of the many possible candidates. The incoming SWIFT transmission clarifies this.

  “Your command-recognition codes were destroyed in the fire accompanying the assassination of President Zeloc and Vice President Culver. We hereby authorize you to accept command-grade instructions from the current and future presidents of Jefferson, pursuant to article 9510.673 of the treaty binding Jefferson to the Concordiat. Given the high likelihood of armed insurrection, you are further instructed to act independently in assessing and countering threats to the long-term security of this planet and the sustainability of its status as a Concordiat-allied world with treaty obligations to fulfill.”

  “Understood. Request clarification.”

  “Request granted.”

  “I am not designed for long-term independent action and have no commander. President La Roux is not trained in any military discipline and does not know my systems well enough for command decisions on a battlefield. Will I be assigned a new commander from Sector?”

  There is a brief delay as the officer issuing my instructions consults with a superior. “Negative. No command-grade officers can be spared. You are capable of independent battlefield threat assessment and action. Your experience databanks outclass some of the Mark XXIII and Mark XXIV Units currently deployed. You’re the last Mark XX on active duty in this entire Sector. There isn’t time to retrofit an officer’s training program to qualify on your systems. You are therefore the best defense option available at this time.”

  I am unsure whether to be flattered or alarmed. Sector’s confidence is reassuring. The lack of command officers is not. The fact that I am the last of my Mark XX brothers and sisters on active status creates an electronic ripple of conflict through my personality gestalt center. It is good to be useful. It is also lonely. I long for a commander with whom to share the years of duty yet to come. Phil Fabrizio is a poor substitute, at best.

  But I am a Bolo, part of a Brigade that carries out duty no matter what. I signal acknowledgment. Sector’s parting comments are startling.

  “Good luck, Unit SOL-0045. From the gist of Avelaine La Roux’s transmission, you will need it.”

  Transmission ends.

  I ponder each word of the communication, trying to cull as much information as possible from this somewhat unsatisfying guidance. I am still pondering it, particularly the last ten words of it, when I receive a second transmission, this time from Madison.

  “Uh… hello? I want to talk to the machine.”

  I contemplate the likelihood that the individual speaking would be using my command frequency to speak to one of the approximately 7,893 psychotronic systems on Jefferson capable of voice-activated operating mode. I decide this person is, in fact, trying to talk to me.

  “This is Unit SOL-0045. Please clarify your identity and intentions.”

  “I’m the president. The new president. Avelaine La Roux. You called me, yesterday, after poor Gifre and Madeline were killed. The people at that army place off-world said you would respond to my directions. Oh, uh, I’m supposed to say something… Code Absalom?”

  “Acknowledged. What are your instructions?”

  “My instructions? I don’t have any instructions, not really.”

  I begin to question the wisdom of placing La Roux in a command structure that she is clearly not qualified to handle. The commander I lost in the Quern War, Alison Sanhurst, was the finest and most courageous human female I have ever known, although Kafari Khrustinova runs a close second. I have never before encountered a human who could not tell me, at the bare minimum, why they had called. How do incompetent humans rise to command status?

  I try again. “Did you have a purpose for contacting me?”

  “Well, no, really not, I suppose. Oh, I can’t do this! I’m talking to a collection of rusty nuts and bolts and loose screws!”

  I surmise that this last comment was directed at someone with her, rather than at me; still, it stings my pride. “A Bolo Mark XX is significantly more than a collection of rusty nuts and bolts and only zero point zero-two percent of the screws within my thirteen-thousand-ton warhull qualify as sufficiently worn to be termed ‘loose.’ Request permission to file VSR.”

  “VSR? What the hell is that?”

  I begin to understand the human maxim that patience is a virtue. It is one I clearly lack. It is irritating to stop and explain everything I say in terms a human toddler should comprehend. “VSR is an acronym for Verified Situation Report.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A verifiably factual report on current conditions affecting my short-term duty and long-term mission.”

  “Oh. What do you want to say?”

  “Sector Command views the likelihood of armed insurrection as exceedingly high. I concur. I would recommend putting Jefferson’s defense forces on heightened alert status.”

  “Why?”

  The lack of tactical understanding encapsulated into that single word is stunning. I require a full ten nanoseconds just to frame an explanation. “A weapons confiscation bill was signed into law last night. It is unlikely that all weapons holders will be willing to comply. I foresee a high probability of armed resistance to any attempt at door-to-door disarmament.”

  “After what happened last night, no one would dare!”

  “After what happened last night, arme
d resistance is virtually assured.”

  “But why?” She appears to be truly baffled.

  I am attempting to frame a reply when I pick up an emergency transmission from Barran Bluff, a small munitions depot fifty-three kilometers south of Madison, built a century ago to protect the Walmond Mines, which have been largely inactive under POPPA-mandated environmental codes. The largest town in the region, Gersham, has become virtually a ghost town, while farming in the region has burgeoned due to government-run emergency food-production measures. The small garrison of poorly trained federal troops stationed there, deployed mostly to keep Granger conscripts at work in the fields, is under attack.

  “—they’re comin’ over the fences, through the fences, hunnerds of ’em! Can’t even tell how many there are, out there. They’re headin’ for the big artillery bunkers, the ammo dumps. We got more of ’em comin’ in from the south, carryin’ rifles and stuff—”

  I hear the sound of small-arms fire through the commlink, unmistakable in its crisp staccato cracking as individual slugs reach supersonic speeds and slice through the sound barrier. The yelling sound of voices in combat is audible in the background, coming mostly from the troops assigned to guard the weapons depot, from the sound of it. I tap the facility’s computer-controlled security cameras as I inform Jefferson’s president of the situation.

  “An attack? What attack? There can’t be an attack!”

  I flash the transmission to her datascreen and send, as well, the data feed from the compound’s security cameras. An estimated two hundred Grangers on foot have stormed the outpost, armed with heavy rifles and handguns. The contingent of troops on the site boasts a mere twenty-three defenders, six of whom are visibly dead on the ground. They appear to have been shot while running from their posts at outlying gates and guard towers, attempting to reach the safety of the command bunker.