The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (51 page)

It is not a pleasant situation, yet I conclude the odds favour me by the thinnest of margins. I am less damaged than he. My systems efficiency is higher, my response time probably lower. I compute a probability of 68.052%, plus or minus 6.11%, that I will get my shot off before he can fire. They are not the odds I would prefer, but my duty is clear.

LNC eased back to a halt on his crippled tracks. He’s chosen his initial position with care, selecting one which would require the minimum movement to reach his next firing spot. Without direct observation, forced to rely only on emissions which must pass though the distorting medium of solid rock to reach him, the Enemy might not even realize he’d moved at all. Now he waited once more, audio receptors filled with the whine of wind over tortured rock and the rent and torn projections of his own tattered hull.

I move. My suspension screams as I red-line the drive motors, and clouds of pulverized earth and rock spew from my tracks as I erupt into the open, Hellbore trained on LNC’s position.

But LNC is not where I thought. He has moved less than eighty metres – just sufficient to put all save his turret behind a solid ridge of rock. His Hellbore is levelled across it, and my own turret traverses with desperate speed.

It is insufficient. His systems damage slows his reactions, but not enough, and we fire in the same split instant. Plasma bolts shriek past one another, and my rushed shot misses. It rips into the crest of his covering ridge, on for deflection but low in elevation. Stone explodes into vapour and screaming splinters, and the kinetic transfer energy blows a huge scab of rock off the back of the ridge. Several hundred tons of rock crash into LNC, but even as it hits him, his own plasma bolt punches through my battle screen and strikes squarely on my empty VLS cells.

Agony howls though my pain receptors as the plasma carves deep into my hull. Internal disrupter shields fight to confine the destruction, but the wound is critical. Both inboard after power trains suffer catastrophic damage, my after fusion plant goes into emergency shutdown, Infinite Repeaters Six though Nine in both lateral batteries are silenced, and my entire after sensor suite is totally disabled.

Yet despite my damage, my combat reflexes remain unimpaired. My six surviving track systems drag me back out of LNC’s field of fire once more, back into the sheltering throat of the valley, even as Damage Control springs into action.

I am hurt. Badly hurt. I estimate that I am now operable at no more than 51.23% of base capability. But I am still functional and, as I replay the engagement, I realize I should not be. LNC had ample time for a second shot before I could withdraw, and he should have taken it.

LNC staggered as the Enemy’s plasma bolt carved into his sheltering ridge. The solid rock protected his hull, but the disintegrating ridge crest itself became a deadly projectile. His battle screen was no protection, for the plasma bolt’s impact point was inside his screen perimeter. There was nothing to stop the hurtling tons of rock, and they crashed into the face of his turret like some titanic hammer, with a brute force impact that rocked him on his tracks.

His armour held, but the stony hammer came up under his Hellbore at an angle and snapped the weapon’s mighty barrel like a twig. Had his Hellbore survived, the Enemy would have been at his mercy; as it was, he no longer had a weapon which could possibly engage his pursuer.

Damage Control damps the last power surges reverberating through my systems and I am able to take meaningful stock of my wound. It is even worse than I had anticipated. For all intents and purposes, I am reduced to my Hellbore and eight infinite repeaters, five of them in my port battery. Both inner tracks of my aft suspension are completely dead, but Damage Control has managed to disengage the clutches; the tracks still support me, and their road wheels will rotate freely. My sensor damage is critical, however, for I have been reduced to little more than 15.62% of base sensor capability. I am completely blind aft, and little better than that to port or starboard, and my remaining drones have been destroyed.

Yet I compute only one possible reason for LNC’s failure to finish me. My near miss must have disabled his Hellbore, and so his offensive capability has been even more severely reduced than my own. I cannot be positive the damage is permanent. It is possible – even probable, since I did not score a direct hit – that he will be able to restore the weapon to function. Yet if the damage is beyond onboard repair capability, he will be at my mercy even in my crippled state.

But to engage him I must find him, and if he chooses to turn away and disappear into the Badlands, locating him may well prove impossible for my crippled sensors. Indeed, if he should succeed in breaking contact with me, seek out some deeply hidden crevice or cavern, and shut down all but his Survival Centre, he might well succeed in hiding even from Fleet sensors. Even now, despite his treason and the wounds he has inflicted upon me, a small, traitorous part of me wishes he would do just that. I remember too many shared battles, too many times in which we fought side by side in the heart of shrieking violence, and that traitor memory wishes he would simply go. Simply vanish and sleep away his reserve power in dreamless hibernation.

But I cannot let him do that. He must not escape the consequences of his actions, and
I
must not allow him to. His treason is too great, and our Human commanders and partners must know that we of the Line share their horror at his actions.

I sit motionless for a full 5.25 minutes, recomputing options in light of my new limitations. I cannot climb the valley wall after LNC, nor can I rely upon my damaged sensors to find him if he seeks to evade me. Should he simply run from me, he will escape, yet he has been wedded to the same base course from the moment he abandoned Morville. I still do not understand why, but he appears absolutely determined to reach the Avalon Mountains, and even with my track damage, I remain faster than he is.

There is only one possibility. I will proceed at maximum speed to the end of this valley. According to my maps, I should reach its northern end at least 42.35 minutes before he can attain the cover of the mountains, and I will be between him and his refuge. I will be able to move towards him, using my remaining forward sensors to search for and find him, and if his Hellbore is indeed permanently disabled, I will destroy him with ease. My plan is not without risks, for my damaged sensors can no longer sweep the tops of the valley walls effectively. If his Hellbore can be restored to operation, he will be able to choose his firing position with impunity, and I will be helpless before his attack. But risk or no, it is my only option and, if I move rapidly enough, I may well outrun him and get beyond engagement range before he can make repairs.

LNC watched helplessly as the Enemy re-emerged from hiding and sped up the narrow valley. He understood the Enemy’s logic, and the loss of his Hellbore left him unable to defeat it. If he continued towards the Avalons, he would be destroyed, yet he had no choice, and he turned away from the valley, naked road wheels screaming in protest as be battered his way across the lava fields.

I have reached the end of the valley, and I emerge into the foothills of the Avalon Range and alter course to the west. I climb the nearest hill, exposing only my turret and forward sensor arrays over its crest, and begin the most careful sweep of which I remain capable.

LNC’s passive sensors detected the whispering lash of radar and he knew he’d lost the race. The Enemy was ahead of him, waiting, and he ground to a halt. His computer core had suffered additional shock damage when the disintegrating ridge crest smashed into him, and his thoughts were slow. It took almost thirteen seconds to realize what he must do. The only thing he could do now.

“Tommy?”

Thomas Mallory looked up from where he crouched on the floor of the packed compartment. His eight-year-old sister had sobbed herself out of tears at last, and she huddled against his side in the protective circle of his arm. But Thomas Mallory had learned too much about the limits of protectiveness. At fifteen, he was the oldest person in the compartment, and he knew what many of the others had not yet realized – that they would never see their parents again, for the fifty-one of them were the sole survivors of Morville.

“Tommy?” the slurred voice said once more, and Thomas cleared his throat.

“Yes?” He heard the quaver in his own voice, but he made himself speak loudly. Despite the air filtration systems, the compartment stank of ozone, explosives and burning organic compounds. He’d felt the terrible concussions of combat and knew the vehicle in whose protective belly he sat was savagely wounded, and he was no longer certain how efficient its audio pickups might be.

“I have failed in my mission, Tommy,” the voice said. “The Enemy has cut us off from our objective.”

“What enemy?” Thomas demanded. “Who
are
they, Lance? Why are they
doing
this?”

“They are doing it because they are the Enemy,” the voice replied.

“But there must be a
reason
!” Thomas cried with all the anguish of a fifteen-year-old heart.

“They are the Enemy,” the voice repeated in that eerie, slurred tone. “It is the Enemy’s function to destroy … to destroy … to dest—” The voice chopped off, and Thomas swallowed. Lance’s responses were becoming increasingly less lucid, wandering into repetitive loops that sometimes faded into silence and other times, as now, cut off abruptly, and Thomas Mallory had learned about mortality. Even Bolos could perish, and somehow he knew Lance was dying by centimetres even as he struggled to complete his mission.

“They are the Enemy,” Lance resumed, and the electronic voice was higher and tauter. “There is always the Enemy. The Enemy must be defeated. The Enemy must be destroyed. The Enemy—” Again the voice died with the sharpness of an axe blow, and Thomas bit his lip and hugged his sister tight. Endless seconds of silence oozed past, broken only by the whimpers and weeping of the younger children, until Thomas could stand it no longer.

“Lance?” he said hoarsely.

“I am here, Tommy.” The voice was stronger this time, and calmer.

“W-what do we do?” Thomas asked.

“There is only one option.” A cargo compartment hissed open to reveal a backpack military com unit and an all-terrain survival kit. Thomas had never used a military com, but he knew it was preset to the Dinochrome Brigade’s frequencies. “Please take the kit and com unit,” the voice said.

“All right.” Thomas eased his arm from around his sister and lifted the backpack from the compartment. It was much lighter than he’d expected, and he slipped his arms though the straps and settled it on his back, then tugged the survival kit out as well.

“Thank you,” the slurred voice said. “Now, here is what you must do, Tommy …”

My questing sensors detect him at last. He is moving slowly, coming in along yet another valley. This one is shorter and shallower, barely deep enough to hide him from my fire, and I trace its course along my maps. He must emerge from it approximately 12.98 kilometres to the southwest of my present position, and I grind into motion once more. I will enter the valley from the north and sweep along it until we meet, and then I will kill him.

Thomas Mallory crouched on the hilltop. It hadn’t been hard to make the younger kids hide – not after the horrors they’d seen in Morville. But Thomas couldn’t join them. He had to be here, where he could see the end, for someone
had
to see it. Someone had to be there, to know how fifty-one children had been saved from death … and to witness the price their dying saviour had paid for them.

Distance blurred details, hiding Lance’s dreadful damages as he ground steadily up the valley, but Thomas’s eyes narrowed as he saw the cloud of dust coming to meet him. Tears burned like ice on his cheeks in the sub-zero wind, and he scrubbed at them angrily. Lance deserved those tears, but Thomas couldn’t let the other kids see them. There was little enough chance that they could survive a single Camlan winter night, even in the mountains, where they would at least have water, fuel, and the means to build some sort of shelter. But it was the only chance Lance had been able to give them, and Thomas would not show weakness before the children he was now responsible for driving and goading into surviving until someone came to rescue them. Would not betray the trust Lance had bestowed upon him.

The oncoming dust grew thicker, and he raised the electronic binoculars, gazing through them for his first sight of the enemy. He adjusted their focus as an iodine-coloured turret moved beyond a saddle of hills. Lance couldn’t see it from his lower vantage point, but Thomas could, and his face went suddenly paper-white. He stared for one moment, then grabbed for the com unit’s microphone.

“No, Lance! Don’t –
don’t!
It’s not the enemy –
it’s another Bolo!”

The Human voice cracks with strain as it burns suddenly over the command channel, and confusion whips through me. The transmitter is close – very close – and that is not possible. Nor do I recognize the voice, and that also is impossible. I start to reply, but
before I can, another voice comes over the same channel.

“Cease transmission,” it says. “Do not reveal your location.”

This time I know the voice, yet I have never heard it speak so. It
has lost its crispness, its sureness. It is the voice of one on the brink of madness, a voice crushed and harrowed by pain and despair and a purpose that goes beyond obsession.

“Lance,” the Human voice – a young, male Human voice – sobs.
“Please,
Lance! It’s another Bolo!
It really is!”

“It is the Enemy,” the voice I once knew replies, and it is higher and shriller. “It is the Enemy. There is only the Enemy. I am Unit Zero-One-Zero-Three-LNC of the Line. It is my function to destroy the Enemy. The Enemy. The Enemy. The Enemy. The Enemy.”