The lethally accurate ion bolts ripping from her/their infinite repeaters were hers, just as much as his. It was as if she simply had to "look" at one of the Dog Boy air cav mounts and imagine that sleek, speedy vehicle's destruction to see it vanish in a teardrop of plunging flame. It was that quick, that accurate ...

that deadly.

"Beside Mary Lou's CP," her/their Maneka half directed. "Let's not squash her toes."

"I shall endeavor to park the car with a modicum of competence," her/their Lazarus half responded dryly.

Major Mary Lou Atwater watched the assault pod come whining quietly in. The plumes of funeral pyre smoke from an entire battalion of Puppy air cavalry billowed skyward behind it, and the major watched them rising with fierce satisfaction. Those air cavalrymen hadn't posed that serious a threat to her position, and her people had been well dug-in by the time they arrived. But they'd still managed to kill two of her perimeter pickets with their light weapons. If they'd continued to close, her air-defense teams would have taught them the error of their ways, but the Bolo's murderously efficient arrival had been a thing of beauty for any ground-pounder.

The massive assault pod touched down with the delicacy of a soap bubble. The clear space she'd left beside her CP was at least twice as big as it had needed to be, she observed. Well, better safe than sorry.

"Glad to see you back," she said over her battle armor's com.

"I'm afraid we can't stay," Maneka Trevor's voice replied. Atwater still wasn't fully accustomed to the eerie note of almost detached calm she seemed to hear in it. Maybe it was just her imagination, she told herself again. And maybe it wasn't. After all, Maneka was linked with the Bolo's AI in a complete mental fusion.

"I know," the militia officer replied.

"Any wounded to send back?"

"No." Atwater grimaced. "I've got two KIA, but no wounded yet."

"I see." The human voice of the human/Bolo looming over her like a duralloy cliff paused for a moment. Then it continued. "In that case, we'll be moving out to deploy as planned. Keep your heads down."

"We'll try," Atwater assured her ... or them, or whatever.

She stood back, and the pod wafted lightly back into the air once more.

Private Karsha Na-Varsk began to breathe once again as the Bolo and its pod disappeared to the west. He could hardly believe that it had failed to detect him, despite all of the stealth features designed into his one-man reconnaissance mount.

The small vehicle, less than an insect compared to the firepower of the gargantuan Bolo, lay as well-concealed as he had been able to contrive between a massive boulder and an overhanging, erosion-slashed cliff face. Na-Varsk himself was over two hundred meters from his mount, hidden under the thermal blanket's radar-absorbent, reactive camouflage material. That blanket was also supposed to conceal low and medium-powered electronics emissions, but Na-Varsk had always cherished a few personal reservations about its efficacy in that regard. Which was why, except for his communicator and power rifle, every item of electronic equipment had been switched off, and his com was set to receive-only. He was as close to invisible as it was possible for someone to become, and he raised his old-fashioned, pure-optic binoculars to study the Human infantry position below him once again.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a great deal that Na-Varsk could do with his perfect position at the moment. Oh, he might have picked off two or three of the Humans before they spotted him, although given the quality of Human powered armor, getting through it with a mere power rifle at this range would have been problematical. But killing a such a small handful of the enemy would have accomplished nothing. Besides, Na-Varsk was a trained scout, firmly imbued with the understanding that a pair of eyes and a com constituted a far more deadly weapon than any rifle.

Of course, he couldn't use that com without risking giving away his position, but Major Na-Pahrthal knew he was here. When the time came to attack the Human position in earnest, the major would be back in touch.

In the meantime, Na-Varsk occupied himself making sure his count of the enemy was complete.

7

"I am getting just a bit tired of this Bolo's ... unconventionality," Theslask Ka-Frahkhan said with massive restraint as he and Colonel Na-Salth watched the icons of Major Na-Pahrthal's air cavalry regiment falling rapidly back upon the main force.

"I understand, sir," Na-Salth replied. "Still, these are only the opening steps of the dance. We already knew the Humans' military commander plans carefully and rationally. Surely it's hardly surprising that with the advantage of careful reconnaissance over a period of months he was able to predict our most probable axis of approach. And he obviously spent that same time considering his own opening moves in the event of an attack."

"Of course," Ka-Frahkan said just a bit impatiently. "But I don't like this fellow's operational ...

flexibility. He appears to be unfortunately gifted at what the Humans call 'thinking outside the box.' He should never have been prepared to risk bringing the Bolo into range of Ha-Kahm's air-defense systems and antitank batteries while it was still mated to its pod." The general's ears flattened. "One hit, Jesmahr—just one hit by one of Ha-Kahm's Hellbores—on that pod, and he could have lost pod and Bolo alike. But he chose to take the chance, and then he used the pod's mobility to effectively ambush Na-Pahrthal."

"I agree that he appears to be more innovative than I might wish, sir," Na-Salth agreed. "But even though the loss of Death Descending and our artillery support can't be considered anything other than a major blow, the losses Major Na-Pahrthal has suffered, while painful, scarcely constitute a significant reduction of our overall combat power. And, if I might be so bold as to point this out, sir, whatever he may have done to us so far pales to insignificance compared to what you managed to do to him by destroying his second Bolo before it was ever able to fire a single shot."

"You're probably right about the actual loss of combat strength, Jesmahr," he said after a moment. "In terms of hardware and firepower, at least. But don't forget the psychological aspect of it. Our people started out with the momentum on their side, knowing we'd taken out the other Bolo and gotten down without being intercepted. Now, though ... Now the Humans have scored twice in a row, and gotten in and out cleanly both times, without taking so much as a scratch as far as we know. Do you think that isn't going to have an impact?"

Na-Salth looked at him, then flipped his ears in acknowledgment of Ka-Frahkan's point.

"I'm not saying I expect their morale to crumble like sand, Jesmahr," Ka-Frahkan continued. "But what's happened is going to have an effect, at least until we land a few punches of our own. Our people are going to feel as if the momentum may be shifting to the Humans, and I wish I didn't suspect that whoever is directing their tactics had planned on creating exactly that effect from the beginning."

The assault pod landed over ninety kilometers west-northwest of Fourth Battalion. Maneka/Lazarus unlocked her/their tracks and rumbled clear of the pod, then activated its autopilot and sent it scudding back towards Landing.

Her/their Maneka component watched through her/their sensors as the pod disappeared and felt an undeniable surge of relief. She/they hated giving up the mobility advantage the pod had conferred, but she/they were simply too vulnerable in the air. And the pod was far too valuable—especially after the destruction of the full-capability Bolo depot aboard Stalingrad. It was inconceivable that she/they weren't going to take damage in the rapidly approaching battle. Indeed, the odds were no more than even that she/they would survive at all, despite all of her/their prebattle planning. If she/they did survive, however, the services of the automated depot in that pod, however limited, were going to be sorely needed.