Old Guard Bolos Book #5

"Have you ever tried your baby in a rain like this?" Kaethan asked, lazily.

"My laser will work fine," Walter returned, "just as long as the wind doesn't pick up."

"The wind?" Kaethan turned in curiosity.

A cool breeze from the west had picked up off the ocean just as the rain began to pour, slanting the raindrops with mild fifteen kilometer per hour gusts. Kaethan couldn't figure out, however, how the wind would be a problem.

"Don't tell anyone, but we tested out our tracking radar during the last hurricane." Walter had stopped typing momentarily as he confided in his friend. "If a strong gust created a localized swirl, our radar sometimes registered it as an incoming missile."

"You're kidding."

"Yes, but it was a concern."

As Walter happily returned to his typing, Kaethan sighed and turned back to the slit window. Just the two of them were in this bunker, orchestrating this demonstration. Fifty meters to their right, closer to the ocean, several faces peered back at him from another bunker. The local aldermen would probably have a poor show today through this rain. He suspected that they'd hear the artillery boom a few times, then afterwards they'd be shown the radar tracks. If they wanted, they'd be driven to ground zero to investigate the area for recent impacts.

Somewhere out there in the rain, however, was a modified mining utility Hauler with a multiphase array radar and an industrial strength battlelaser whose job was to make sure no shell survived long enough to impact the ground. Many cities on Delas had purchased the Haulers for use as APC's, but with an additional mini-fission core installed, it could power a very impressive laser system. There was a great deal of interest in these ongoing tests.

"Ready," Walter announced, then hit one more key and looked up.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"It's still taking three minutes getting that crystal up to speed, isn't it?"

Kaethan glared at Walter with narrow eyes for a moment, then picked up his headset from a chair next to him. Captain Ishida had been given this assignment for the sole reason that its lead engineer, Walter Rice, was a personal friend of his from long ago. It was either that, or nobody else in the Alabaster Guard wanted to waste their weekends at the firing range. Either way, he was still unsure of the wisdom of that decision. As much as they were enjoying working together, Walter might not have been taking this task as seriously as he should. Of course, Kaethan told himself, Walter had never taken anything very seriously, and yet he always did get straight A's. That had earned him an off-planet university scholarship at Angelrath, which had separated them for the past eight years.

Little had changed in either of them since they had last seen each other, Kaethan believed. Although in a business suit now, Walter's curly, long, light brown hair still made Kaethan see him as the beach bum that he had always been. His eternal one-day growth of beard just added to the effect. If he truly did shave every morning, then Kaethan thought that he might want to do it again at midday. To be tall, handsome, and relaxed had been Walter's quest in life since before college, and he had largely succeeded if judged by the reaction of those he valued most, women. Walter's and Kaethan's basic physiques had changed little, but at six-foot one, Walter was now a good six inches taller than Kaethan was.

The rain outside was beginning to slacken now, but the captain wasn't going to wait any longer. After a quick wave of warning towards the other bunker, Kaethan activated his headgear and pulled the microphone down to his mouth.

"Hey, Rick."

"Ready, Captain?" Corporal Rick Shaller sounded excited, as he always did before firing his howitzers.

"All set. Give me one round over the target."

"On-the-wayyy."

Kaethan's earphones squelched out as Rick's microphone was overloaded by the fire. Out of habit, he mentally counted the seconds before the sound wave passed over the bunker. The dull boom finally hit as he reached twelve, followed almost instantly by a flash of blue light that lit up the sky and a loud explosion from high above.

"One down!" Walter exclaimed.

"Ready for the next test?" Kaethan confirmed.

"All set."

"Okay, Rick. Bracket her with three rounds."

"Fire Plan Two, on the way."

This time, as the shells neared the target, Kaethan knelt on a chair so that he could see up into the sky. His view was hindered by the thick concrete overhang, but he was able to discern three separate beams tracking, and holding on their targets. After three rapid explosions from overhead, the beams stopped.

In fact, he knew that it was only one laser beam, being redirected by a rapidly spinning crystal onto multiple targets. In Walter's theory, this weapon could not be overwhelmed since it didn't track targets, rather it determined what arcs contained a threat and fired its laser as the crystal spun through that arc. In Kaethan's reality, they found in test fires that the laser lost coherence as the crystal heated up. Despite a myriad of cooling techniques, a sustained barrage would give the system problems. Also, a shell protected with modern composite alloy, or reflective armor, could get through. But unless Walter was given an expensive fusion chamber to power his toys, this was the best anyone could do.

Fire Plan Three utilized all six guns of the Alabaster Guard Artillery, Alpha Company. Six shells were engaged simultaneously by the laser and destroyed midflight, although one shell survived noticeably longer than the others did. Walter shrugged it off, not thinking it was worth the bother to investigate.

The last test scheduled for the day was a full test of all six guns firing three times at different azimuths, driven with different explosive charges. The effect was that all eighteen rounds would be impacting at the same time. Even Walter left his console to see this spectacle.

And it was very impressive. The last shells that were fired had the lowest trajectory with the most propellant. Their screaming through the air over the bunkers drowned out all other noise. The light show, though, was spectacular as the entire sky lit up with eighteen simultaneous beams firing. All of the shells survived noticeably longer than in the first tests as the laser light drifted from blue to green. But they all soon started popping, slowly at first, and then in a rush. Like popcorn, Kaethan thought.

One final explosion, though, occurred much later than the others did.

"That one could have impacted, Walter."

"Well, seventeen out of eighteen isn't bad, and I know I can improve on that by restricting the spin more. The ion bolts on your Templars wouldn't have gotten half of them."

Walter returned to his console and started reviewing some statistics. Kaethan looked over to the other bunker and found a corporal looking back, expectantly. He gave him a thumbs-up, and motioned that the testing was over for the day.

"I noticed the color shift this time." Kaethan turned back to Walter. "The beams turned green."

"As I told you, the wave-length will expand as the crystal heats up."

"What color starts being dangerous?"

Walter looked up from his console and stared straight ahead for a moment.

"I'm not sure," Walter admitted. "An alarm will trigger once the crystal hits two hundred fifty degrees Celsius. I'm not sure what color that would equate to."

"Try to find out, okay?"

"Will do." Walter turned back to his laptop. "Shouldn't be difficult."

A soft beep emanating from Kaethan's belt captured his attention. Pulling out his handphone, he noted that a personal message had just been logged. Once the phone was activated and a password was typed in, that message was downloaded and displayed on a small scrolling message line.

"What was that sour face for?" Walter asked after a glance.

"My father's on Delas. He's coming to visit."

"The colonel?" Walter laughed. "Is he on leave or something?"

"No. Some business that he won't talk about."

"When is he coming?"

"Tomorrow or the next day, he said. He doesn't know."

"Well, I'd love to meet him."

Kaethan shrugged.

"We'll see," he only said. "I assume that you'll be busy tonight."

"Very," Walter said. "Once I write up a report, my boss is treating these politicians to dinner and wants me to be there. I guess a funding vote is approaching again."

"Good luck."

"Oh, I think it's a lock. None of them believed that a battlelaser would be useful on a modern battlefield, but they've been shown."

"I think the price tag influenced them, also."

"It needed that just to bring them to the table," he said somewhat bitterly. "You heading out?"

"Yeah," Kaethan said, retrieving his raincoat from a chair. "I'll give you a call tomorrow. Turn off the lights when you're done."

"Will do. See ya."

"See ya."

Outside of the bunker, Kaethan had to dash through the rain a few steps before arriving under a concrete and steel overhang that protected their cars. Driving your own vehicle to the forward bunkers at the Fort Hilliard range required several release forms to be filled out. The overhang protected the vehicles against overhead shrapnel, but would not protect against near miss shrapnel, or direct hits. The only other choice was to walk, or be driven by someone else.

And Kaethan hated to be driven by someone else.

In fact, he hated having anything be done for him that he could do himself. He was told that this was the reason why he had become battalion commander so quickly, being only twenty-six years old, Earth standard. It was the nature of the military to promote their hardest workers into a position of delegating all their work to others. Of course, few soldiers in the Delassian Defense Force made the militia their full-time occupation, thus giving Kaethan an advantage. Most men on Delas were forced to devote four years of their lives in the DDF, but almost always quit thereafter. Many became weekend warriors, rejoining their battalions once a season for various training and wargames. Kaethan, however, joined full time. The pay sucked, he always told people, but the benefits were nice.

The work, though, especially lately, was tiring. For the last couple years, it had been Kaethan's responsibility to incorporate recently purchased equipment into the battalion's capabilities. And unfortunately, with local politicians organizing the acquisitions, the mix of technologies was poorly considered. Delas was so far away from their Sector Concordiat Base at Angelrath that they had planned on constructing a new base here. But with the Melconian war draining away resources, this never materialized. And now, with the fleet away to who-knows-where, Delas had been told to fend for itself. Except for the constantly rotating Army regiments that were based at Angelrath, the entire sector was basically left on its own. And at this time, only his father's two Bolo Mark XXXs were keeping watch.

Perhaps it would have been better to allow the planetary government to maintain its own army, Kaethan had often considered. Their recently elected governor, Leonard Traine, was a very respected man, honorable and honest. But that would never be enough for the fiercely independent miners and frontier farmers that made up the population of this world. The planetary government could never be given the opportunity to force its will on others, so instead, the planetary defense forces consisted entirely of local militias. The weapons and equipment were purchased by the cities, sometimes in cooperation with each other, but not always. Except for one mass purchase of the Metallicast Industries Templar Mark XI, and another of several hundred SE-12244 mining company Sealed Environment Haulers, the individual cities went their own ways.

Walter's battlelaser project, for the first time, was an entirely Delassian machine, with all parts and labor drawn from the planet's rapidly expanding industry. Several cities were interested in it, and its success could be the start of a very lucrative business in this sector. Quite a bit of pressure was riding on Walter's shoulders, though you'd never see it by talking to him. Personally, Kaethan thought the system would be of limited use if a Melconian dreadnought suddenly appeared in orbit and began carving up the planet into bite-sized morsels. He did, however, like that most of the electronics were standardized, easily acquired components, making his job dramatically easier. If for only that, Kaethan considered this a project worth continuing.

He'd never mention this opinion to his father, though. Of course, he had never known exactly what to talk to his father about. Kaethan hadn't met his father until he was six, though he had no memory of the event. The colonel's brief visit home when Kaethan was ten was made ever more awkward by numerous injuries that the Melconian front had inflicted upon him. At fourteen, after his mother had died from a sudden local illness, he had visited his father at a Concordiat base called Point Hermes. Kaethan could never find this on any star charts, but that is what everyone called it while he was there. Why he was told to go there, he had never found out. After several awkward weeks he was told to go home to Delas, where his sister would take care of him. The stay was excruciatingly boring, with little time spent with his father. The only enjoyment he had was talking for long hours with Chains, one of his father's Bolos.

His father transferred to Angelrath only three years ago after most of his regiment was lost in a Melconian attack. Even so much closer, he only had visited twice since then. Most of the colonel's time had been spent with Kaethan's sister, Serina. This wasn't his father's fault, however. Kaethan had gone to extraordinary lengths to be sure that he was very busy during these visits. It wasn't that he harbored any resentment towards his father for anything, it was just that they both were terribly uncomfortable around each other. Kaethan's guilt for keeping his father at arm's length was tempered by his firm belief that his father felt exactly the same way.

And so, as Kaethan navigated his way over the sand-swept ocean road, he began to mentally reorganize his next few days as inefficiently as he could. Rather than making more work for himself, it was always better to make do with what one had.

Of course, it would be best if something unexpected would happen that would keep him very busy for the next few days. This was unlikely, however, on a planet as remote as Delas.

* * *

It was there that the seven-meter long shape was heading.

The entrance to the viaduct was barricaded by thick titanium bars, but these slid back into the concrete walls as the shape approached. Then, as the massive form passed by, the bars emerged once again to secure the channel. No one noticed the immense fin as it sailed up to the building and into the large pool underneath it, not even a dark haired woman who was busily cataloging a pile of seashells by the poolside. She was lying back in a full-length reclining chair, the wet shells held in her lap, drying on her long skirt of white cotton almost as sheer as a spiderweb. The blue shirt and shorts that she wore displayed the wave logo of the Telville Oceanographic Institute where she worked. Her smooth, rounded Asian face was contorted in fierce concentration as she sketched an image of a brightly colored shell into her notepad, capturing all its contours and creases, oblivious to all other things around her. The woman's dark brown eyes studied the shell's smallest details and relayed them to her sketch with precision that their simple photographic equipment had trouble capturing.

Only when the beast exhaled a blast of air did the woman jump out of her seat, sending her notebook crashing to the floor, and shells scattering across the tiles.

"Hello, Serina," said an amused female voice from the pool speakers.

Serina Ishida's heart was beating at an astounding pace, and her eyes were wide with fright, but after a couple of shallow breaths she began to laugh. It struggled at first, but her laugh grew quickly as her lungs relaxed once again. Only then could it be seen how strikingly beautiful the woman was as she smiled broadly.

On the table next to her was a small black transmitter the size of her palm. After taking a big breath, she reached for it and spoke into it.

"Kuro, please . . ." Serina struggled for another breath, "please do not ever do that again. I thought you were a daeger."

The orca rose up from the water and nodded its head in delight, sending small waves to lap up against the smooth tiled walls of the pool.

"Daeger would never come here," said the voice from the speakers. "You are foolish."

Serina's laugh quieted to deep breaths as she retrieved her notebook, and sat back down again. Tears had formed in her eyes and she wiped them away. As much as she disliked being called foolish, Kuro was right. Daeger were territorial creatures and wouldn't be wandering the shoreline like this. And as large as daeger were, they couldn't break through the titanium bars protecting the viaduct.

"You only left last night," Serina spoke into her transmitter, "what are you doing back?"

"I found a reef full of those colorful eels that you wanted."

"Really! That's wonderful! Can you locate it on the computer map?"

"I already have. Will you want to go there tomorrow?"

Serina sighed heavily and shook her head. The creatures were called "painted eels," and the local fishermen had often complained that they would sometimes congregate in a pack and shred their nets to get at their haul. This kind of behavior had never been documented before from these normally solitary creatures. She imagined that the sight of these bright red, yellow, and lavender eels swarming would be incredible.

"No, sorry. I'll be very busy. You and Peter will have to go alone."

Her colleague Peter Sallison never especially liked photo assignments, but he'd use any excuse to take the institute's thirty-meter jetboat out for a cruise.

"Sad," said the voice from the speakers, though Serina didn't believe it for a minute. She suspected that Kuro had a crush on Peter. "Why will you be busy?"

"My father is visiting. I have to prepare a few things."

"The colonel is on Delas?"

Serina was surprised that Kuro had remembered her mentioning him, but then scolded herself for being so anthropomorphic. The psychotronic enhancements that Kuro had surgically implanted in her not only gave her a near-human intelligence, but also a super-human memory.

"Yes, my father Colonel Ishida is on Delas. He'll be visiting me, and I need to make sure that Kaethan comes also so we're all together for a while."

"Is this a female duty?" Kuro asked. It was a common question of hers as she tried to make sense of human society.

"It is in my family," Serina responded despondently. "Kaethan and my father don't get along very well, but I think I can fix things."

"Families should remain together," Kuro said simply.

"Yes, they should," Serina responded just as simply, not wanting to explain any further. "I'd like you stay in the area for the next couple days so I can introduce you to my father when he visits with Kaethan. I've told him so much about you in my messages."

"Will they swim?"

"Kaethan might this time, but you'd have to be gentle with him if he wants to play. He's not as good as Peter is."

Kuro loved playing in the water with Serina and Peter. The orca was gentle with her, but with Peter their play had lately gotten quite acrobatic.

"I'll be careful, Serina. Did you want to play now?"

"Oh . . ." Serina moaned. "I have to finish cataloging these seashells from Oradin for Professor Kilby. Then I have to call Kaethan's commander and tell him to give my brother the next couple days off."

"He'll do what you say?" Kuro didn't hide her confusion.

"Well, he said that he would when I danced with him at Kaethan's promotion celebration last year."

Kaethan hadn't even told his father that he was given command of his heavy armor battalion. His commander, Colonel Neils, was surprised that Colonel Ishida wasn't there. Serina was just plain angry.