Mattingly David B. - Old Soldiers

Old Soldiers

by
David Mark Weber

2005

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Old Soldiers
Copyright 2005 David Mark Weber

Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN-10: 1-4165-0898-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-0898-4
Cover art by David Mattingly

Captain Maneka Trevor was the sole human survivor of the Dinochrome Brigade's 39th Battalion... but she hadn't wanted to be one.
The Bolo known as "Lazarus" Unit 28/G-179-LAZ was the 39th's sole surviving Bolo... but he hadn't been hers.
The doctors and the Bolo techs have put them both back together again, yet there are wounds no doctor or technician can heal.
And now Maneka and Lazarus must serve together once again, in a war whose stakes are literally the survival or extermination of the human race. They are all that stand between a desperate, secret colony of humanity and destruction: a Bolo commander torn by survivor's guilt and a Bolo whose very existence reminds her of all she has lost.
The odds against them are heavy, the stakes are huge, and surrender is not an option. The Dinochrome Brigade is used to that, but can Maneka and Lazarus survive their own shared past to defend the present

Contents

Prologue

I rouse.

More signals filter their way into my internal net. Security protocols challenge them, then allow full access as their Central Depot identifiers are recognized. They probe deep, and I wait patiently for the endless nanoseconds they spend analyzing, comparing, evaluating. My memories are incomplete, but I recognize this sensation. I have experienced it before, although I cannot now remember precisely when.

I have once again suffered massive battle damage. That much is readily apparent from the nature of the test queries being transmitted to my core programming. Central is seekingas it mustto ascertain that no errors have crept into that programming in the wake of what has clearly been perilously close to an entire creche-level initial personality integration.

The testing process requires a full 16.03 seconds. A portion of my partially aware personality notes that this is 27.062 percent less time than it ought to have taken for my original psychotronic net and software, far less my newly enhanced capabilities. This indicates that there have been major increases in computational ability, and even in my current state, I realize that I must have received a near-total upgrade to current front-line operational standards. I wonder why this should have been done with a unit as obsolescent as myself.

The testing process is completed.

Unit 28/G-179-LAZ, a Human voice says.

Unit Two-Eight/Golf-One-Seven-Niner-Lima-Alpha-Zebra of the Line, awaiting orders, I reply.

Stand by for Phase One reactivation, Lima-Alpha-Zebra, the Human command voice says.

Standing by, I acknowledge, and suddenly my net is jolted by the abrupt release of individual memory. Personal memory. My previous existence is restored to me, and I remember. Remember the planet Chartres. Remember the Melconian attack. Remember the moment the plasma bolt impacted on my side armor and carved deep into my psychotronics section.

For the second time since my original activation, I have been brought back from personality destruction. But the Human voice speaking to me is not Lieutenant Takahashi's, and so, for the second time since my original activation, my Commander has not survived.

Phase One reactivation complete, I report.

Stand by for Phase Two, the Human command voice says.

Standing by, I acknowledge once again.

Welcome to Sage, Captain.

Captain Maneka Trevor tried to look cool and composed as the unsmiling rear admiral on the other side of the carrier-sized desk stood and reached out to grip her hand firmly. Despite his almost grim expression, Rear Admiral Sedgewood's greeting was less constrained than she had anticipated. Of course, her expectations weren't exactly reliable these days, she told herself. She'd felt so much like the character Ishmael from the ancient Old Earth novel for so long that she sometimes felt her guilt must be branded upon her forehead for all to see ... and react to. But the rear admiral's expression wasn't condemnatory. Then again, it was unlikely someone of his lofty rank wasted much time and effort even thinking about mere captainseven captains of the Dinochrome Brigadeone way or the other.

And yet, there was something. She couldn't put her finger on what that something was, but she knew it was there. Perhaps no more than a trace expression, something about the eyes that looked at her as if her unpromising future were about to change in some fundamental fashion....

Thank you, sir, she said, managing not to wince as her slender, fine-boned hand disappeared into Sedgewood's massive paw. It was the hand the medics had regenerated after Chartres, and she still felt an irrational fear that the replacement would go the way of its predecessor.

Sit down, he urged, releasing her and waving at one of the office's comfortable chairs. He sat back down behind the desk and folded his hands on its immaculate top, regarding her levelly for several seconds. Then he sighed and turned halfway away from her to look out the wide window of his office across the huge, busy plain of Gaynor Field, the Sage Cluster's primary Navy base.

Maneka looked out the window past him, waiting for him to get around to explaining why an officer of his rank had requested a mere captain's presence. She was pretty certain she wouldn't like the answer, but there were a lot of things she didn't like about the universe in which she happened to live.

She let her own eyes rest on the seething activity of the enormous base. The color balance still seemed ... odd to her, but the medics assured her that was psychosomatic. The regenerated right eye, they swore, perceived light exactly the same way as the one it had replaced. And even if it hadn't, her brain had long since had time to learn to adjust. Only it hadn't. Yet.

But color balance or no, Gaynor's endless bustle should have been a reassuring sight. Even as she watched, a trio of cruiser-sized heavy-lift shuttles rose towards the heavens, drives thundering with a power she could feel even at this distance and even from inside the rear admiral's office. On the way into Sage, her transport had passed two full squadrons of superdreadnoughts, with appropriate screening elements, and she knew there were at least two carriers in orbit around Sage even as she sat here. The capital ships represented a terrifying concentration of firepower, but it wasn't reassuring. Not when she knew how badly the war was going for the Concordiat.

Well, she told herself, at least I can hope it's going equally poorly for the Puppies.

The thought was less reassuring than it ought to have been. She didn't know what the Melconian Empire called its equivalent of Plan Ragnarok, but it was obvious it had one. And somehow the reports that Melconian planets were being killed even more quickly than human ones didn't make her feel any happier.