David Weber - Bolo!

“Yes, ma’am.”

Maneka kept her tone steady, but her cheeks burned with embarrassment. Damn it, she knew Benjy’s BattleComp had a better grasp of any tactical situation than her own merely mortal perceptions and brain could match. And God knew that everyone knew no human being could possibly match the speed with which a Bolo “thought” and responded. Yet even knowing all that, she’d found herself issuing orders when her own situational awareness was obviously at least several seconds behind the decision-making curve, and Fredericks and Peggy had handed them-her-their heads.

“It’s a common beginner’s mistake, Lieutenant,” Fredericks said in a slightly gentler tone. “Once our own adrenaline gets engaged, we all forget how much faster the Bolos think. Trust me, even commanders with years of experience do it sometimes, but it’s something the newbies have to watch even more closely.”

“Yes, ma’am. I understand, and I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

“Do that,” Fredericks responded, and this time there was an actual suspicion of a chuckle in her voice. “Of course, if you manage to never let it happen again, you’ll have accomplished something absolutely unique in the Brigade’s history. Fredericks, clear.”

Maneka’s face felt hotter than ever, and she was devoutly grateful to the major for having officially terminated the conversation before she had to figure out how to respond to that last remark.

She lay back in the incredibly comfortable command couch in the center of Benjy’s command deck while Fredericks’ comments sank in. She was perched directly atop the Bolo’s personality center, her fragile flesh and his psychotronic brain both protected at the core of his warhull along with his powerplant. It would require a direct hit with a very heavy-caliber Hellbore to penetrate this deep, and protected by Benjy’s battle screen, antiradiation fields, and duralloy armor-over two meters thick across his glacis-Maneka could ride safely through the fringes of a nuclear blast.

None of which had offered her the least protection against her Company CO’s critique.

Actually, she thought, I almost wish the Major had ripped a strip off my hide. That “I have to be patient with the squeaky-new kid on the block” tone is even more devastating.

She watched Benjy’s tactical plot as he and the other three Bolos of Third Company rumbled majestically back from the training ground. Bolos left big footprints, and the several thousand square kilometers of the Fort Merrit reservation which had been set aside for training maneuvers had been hammered into a fairly close approximation of hell. Not that Bolos particularly minded grinding through mud a couple of meters thick or over the stubble of what had once been jungle trees forty or fifty meters in height. And Maneka had already discovered that her Academy instructors had been completely correct when they assured her that even the best straight simulation wasn’t quite the same thing as a live-fire exercise.

She closed her eyes, savoring the memory despite her embarrassment at the way she’d flubbed the final part of the maneuver exercise. Moving Benjy to the firing range, and feeling that fifteen-thousand-ton hull buck as she watched the incredible, flashing speed and precision with which his thundering weapons had ripped apart the ground targets and wildly evading aerial target drones had been… incredible. It irritated her to realize she was reusing the same adverb, but she literally couldn’t think of a better one than just that-”incredible.”

In that moment, she had truly realized for the very first time on an emotional level, not just an intellectual one, that she was literally in command of more firepower than any pre-space army of Old Earth had ever deployed in a single battle. Probably more than any pre-space nation had ever deployed in an entire war. And Benjy was only one of twelve Mark XXVIIIs in the Thirty-Ninth Battalion.

“Sorry I screwed up, Benjy,” she said after a moment.

“As Major Fredericks said, it is difficult even for experienced Bolo commanders to avoid occasional such errors, Maneka,” Benjy replied through the bulkhead speaker. “It is unfortunately true that human perceptions and chemical-based thought processes find it impossible to process information as rapidly as a Bolo is capable of processing it.”

“I know,” she sighed. “And I also know we can’t multitask the way you can. But it’s so hard to just sit here while you do all the work.”

The speaker rumbled with Benjy’s electronic chuckle, and she cocked a questioning eyebrow at the visual pickup centered above the tactical plot-by long tradition, the equivalent of looking the Bolo in the “eye.”

“Maneka,” the huge Bolo said with a certain gentle amusement, “you are the twenty-seventh commander who has been assigned to me in my career. And every one of you has found it difficult ‘to just sit here.’ The Brigade does not choose its commanders casually, and it is the very command mentality for which it selects which makes it difficult for you to refrain from exercising command.”

Maneka considered that for a moment. It made sense, she supposed, given the qualities the Brigade wanted in its commanders. And yet it reemphasized a question which had always bothered her.

“You know, Benjy,” she said slowly, “I’ve wondered for a long time why we continue to assign commanders to each Bolo at all. I mean, the Major is right-and so are you. No human can possibly think and react as quickly as you can, so why put a human into the loop at this level at all?”

The Bolo did not reply for a second or two. That was an incredibly long time for any Bolo to ponder a question or problem, and Maneka wondered for a moment if he was going to respond at all.

“That question is properly one you ought to ask of the Battalion’s human command personnel,” Benjy said finally.

“I know. And I asked it several times at the Academy, but I was never really satisfied with the responses I got. That’s why I’m asking you. I want… I guess what I want is a Bolo’s perspective on it.”

“When you asked at the Academy, what did your instructors tell you?” Benjy countered, and Maneka smiled.

She’d been officially in command of Benjy for barely a month, yet she’d already come to feel more comfortable with him than she ever had with anyone else in her entire life. Partly, she supposed, that was because she was aware of how old he was, how many years of experience lay behind him. In many ways, he was like a trusted elder, a grizzled old sergeant, or perhaps even a grandfatherly presence. She felt she could ask him anything, expose any uncertainty, in the knowledge that he would regard her youthful ignorance with compassionate tolerance rather than ridicule.

And she’d also already discovered his fondness for the Socratic method.

“They told me that there were three main reasons,” she replied obediently. “First, the necessity of inserting a human presence into the command and control loop at the most basic level. Second, the necessity of providing a Bolo-and the Brigade-with a ‘human face’ to interact with the human communities Bolos are assigned to protect. And, third, to be sure that in the event of crippling damage to your psychotronics, there’s someone with at least a chance of preventing rogue behavior.”

“And you did not feel this was sufficient explanation for the policy?”

“I didn’t think it was the complete explanation.”

“Ah, a subtle but meaningful distinction,” Benjy observed, and Maneka felt a flush of pleasure at the hint of approval in his tone.

They rumbled along for a few more seconds, and then Benjy made the electronic sound he used as the Bolo equivalent of a human’s clearing his throat.