David Weber - Bolo!

The commanders came to their feet as Tchaikovsky and Dumfries strode briskly to the traditional briefing lectern.

“Be seated,” Tchaikovsky said in a clipped tone, and boots rustled on the floor as they obeyed.

He let them settle back into their chairs for a moment, gazing out over their faces. Then he cleared his throat.

“I’m sure by this time all of you have checked with your Bolos,” he began, “which means you’re all aware that the Dog Boys’ target is Chartres. For those of you who may not have the latest figures at your fingertips, that means a planetary population of two-point-four billion.”

Maneka shivered as the colonel’s simple sentence told them all they needed to know about the cost of failure.

“The good news for Chartres’ population is that the Dog Boys apparently want permanent possession of the system, probably because of the way it flanks the Haskell jump point. If they keep it, they can pincer Ursula and Camperdown, which would require the Navy to at least double its strength in those two sectors, weakening it elsewhere along the Line. But it also means they aren’t likely to use biologicals or radioactives against the planet. Since they’ll want to use it themselves, they’re going to put in a ground force and take it the old fashioned way, meter-by-meter. Which means it will take them a while—hopefully long enough for us to kick their ass up between their little puppy dog ears.

“Commodore Selkirk’s received a subspace situation report from Camperdown Fleet HQ. It would appear the enemy has succeeded in drawing us badly out of position. According to the Commodore’s sitrep, it will be at least two full Standard Weeks before any substantial forces can be diverted to Chartres. Commodore Selkirk has his own system—defense task force here in Santa Cruz, but it’s going to be very heavily outnumbered by the Melconian fleet units escorting their attack force.

“Nonetheless, his is the closest naval force which can respond, and we are the closest ground force. We will be reinforced by the Three-Fifty-First Recon Company and the Ninth Marines, in addition to whatever Commodore Selkirk can spare from his Fleet units, but that’s all we can count on. So it’s going to be up to us to stop the Dog Boys before they kill every single human being on the planet.”

He paused, letting his eyes travel across the grim faces looking back at him, then smiled with absolutely no humor at all.

“It’s not what we expected, and I won’t try to sugarcoat the situation for anyone. We’re going to be substantially outgunned and outnumbered. And, although the hyper surveillance grid picked them up well short of the system perimeter, they’re going to have been on the ground for at least eighteen hours by the time we can get there. Hopefully, the Chartres orbital defenses are going to have taken a chunk out of them, but we can’t rely on that. And even if they have, those defenses aren’t strong enough to fend off this big a force without the supporting Fleet units they don’t have.

“Commodore Selkirk is confident he can get us within assault range of the planet, but it’s unlikely he’ll be able to cover us all the way in. It will have to be an assault landing, because the Dog Boys are almost certain to have control of near-orbit space by the time we get there. Which means at least some of the major cities are already going to be fireballs by the time we hit dirt.

“The Exec will give you the boarding schedule and what details we have about the situation in Chartres in just a moment, but first I have one more thing to say.”

He paused for a moment, then went on quietly.

“We’re going to take losses, people,” he told them. “Probably heavy ones. But we’re the only chance the people on Chartres have. And we’re the Dinochrome Brigade. Remember that.”

He held their eyes, then nodded and stepped back as the major took his place at the lectern and brought up the huge holo display behind him.

“As you can see, the situation in the Chartres System is…”

Maneka lay back once again in the command couch at Benjy’s heart. She was aware that her pulse was hammering harder than it ought to have been, and although her mouth seemed unaccountably dry, she found herself swallowing again and again.

Jitters, she told herself. And no wonder! I guess I’d have to be a Bolo myself not to feel them. But, God, I’m scared!

“Benjy?”

“Yes, Maneka?”

“Benjy, I’m terrified out of my wits,” she confessed miserably.

“No, you are not,” he told her calmly.

The visual display showed the blurry, featureless gray of hyper-space, all his optical heads could pick up as he rode the assault pod locked to the exterior of the Sleipner-class transport Tannenberg. Over half his entire hull protruded beyond the pod’s skin, exposing his onboard sensors and his weapons, and Captain Anton Harris and Unit 28/D-431-ALN rode the pod hardpoint on the far side of Tannenberg’s hull. Between them, Benjy and Allen provided the otherwise unarmed transport with the equivalent of a battlecruiser’s energy-weapon firepower, and an antimissile capability at least as good as a light cruiser’s. What they could not provide was the stand-off attack range of a standard ship-to-ship missile; their weapons simply weren’t designed for that sort of environment.

Maneka and Benjy shared their pod with Company C, Third Battalion, Second Regiment, Ninth Marine Division. Captain Belostenec, Charlie Company’s CO, had introduced herself to them when her company embarked, and she and Maneka had spent several hours discussing possible scenarios once they hit the surface of Chartres.

Assuming any of us get to the surface, she thought grimly, acutely conscious of the flutter of her pulse.

“Oh, yes, I am terrified,” she told her Bolo.

“You are frightened,” Benjy agreed. “This is a normal and, indeed, healthy reaction to the prospect of battle and possible death. But your fear is far from paralyzing you or preventing you from thinking clearly. Nor is fear a bad thing for you to experience.

“Bolos do not experience that particular emotion in the same fashion as humans, Maneka, or so I believe. It has been said with reason that our personalities are more ‘bloodthirsty’ than those of most humans. As a result, we feel as much anticipation as anxiety at a moment like this. It is, quite literally, what we were designed and built to do. Our highest function.

“But do not think we are strangers to fear. We fear that we will fail in our mission. We fear we will prove unequal to the challenge we face. And, just as our internal diagnostic systems have been programmed to feel the equivalent of pain when we take damage, our personalities include a fierce desire to survive. It has been some time since the Concordiat made the error of believing that a warrior who embraces death without fear is the ideal. Fear is as much a tool as courage, Maneka. As too much ‘courage’ becomes suicidal recklessness, too much ‘fear’ can become paralyzing panic. But to achieve his most effective level of combat, any warrior—human or Bolo—must properly balance the cautionary impact of fear and the aggressiveness engendered by courage. This, I believe, you have done.”

“You have a better opinion of me than I do,” Maneka said.

“Because you perceive all of your faults from within,” Benjy said serenely. “I, however, am able to observe your responses and actions from without. You would not have been able to coordinate so well with Captain Belostenec had you been ‘terrified out of your wits.’”

“Maybe,” Maneka conceded dubiously.

Actually, she thought, for all of the time she and Belostenic had spent discussing possible tactical situations and responses to them, there hadn’t really been a great deal of planning they could do. Either they got to the surface of the planet alive, or they didn’t. If they did, Belostenec’s Marines would disembark their own light armored vehicles and form up to follow her and Benjy as the Thirty-Ninth Battalion advanced against the enemy. And after that, everything would depend on what happened next.