Consuela Gonzalez twitched as the Bolo's voice came over the link again. There was an indefinable change to it, almost as if it were shadowed with pain. She shook the fanciful thought aside with a savage shake of her head and keyed her mike.

"Gonzalez here."

"I am now feeding your tactical display from the planetary surveillance system," the Bolo told her. "Can you confirm reception?"

"Confirmed, Connie!" her sensor tech called.

"We have it, amiga," Gonzales confirmed in turn.

"Excellent. I have destroyed two heavy Enemy armored units which I believe to have been Golem-IIIs. I have sustained major damage but remain combat capable at eighty-two point three-one-seven percent base capability. I am advancing on a heading of zero-two-niner degrees true to secure the s.p.a.ce field and relieve Ciudad Bolivar. I suggest you alter your own course to follow directly after me while I clear pa.s.sage for your Wolverines."

"Copy that, amiga." Gonzalez punched a frequency change and spoke to the other thirteen tanks of her command. "Wolf Leader to Cubs. Form on me and guide right. We'll follow the Bolo through." Taut-voiced affirmatives echoed back, and she switched back to Nike's frequency. "We're on our way, amiga."

"Excellent, Colonel."

Gonzalez felt her tank buck and quiver as it swept around to follow the huge pathway Nike was battering through the jungle. Small as the Wolverines might be beside a Bolo's huge bulk, each was still five hundred tons of armor and alloy, with all the inertia that implied. Even so, violent motion hammered Gonzalez against her crash couch's shock frame as the big tanks edged up to a speed of over sixty kph.

Her sensor tech managed to feed the data from the satellite net to Gonzalez' own display, and she swore in savage silence as she saw the huge pall of smoke rising from the capital. Yet even as she watched it, a question probed at the back of her brain, and she keyed her mike once more.

"Unit NKE, Gonzalez," she said. "Are you in contact with Captain Merrit?"

"Negative, Colonel Gonzalez." The Bolo's reply came back instantly, and, for the first time, it was so flat it sounded like a computer's voice. There was a brief moment of silence, and then it went on. "I have had no contact with him since the attack began. I do not know the reason for his silence. Absent any communication with him, I must consider you the senior officer present. Have you any instructions?"

My G.o.d, Gonzalez thought. NKE's running Santa Cruz's entire defense on its own! How in h.e.l.l can a Bolo that old do something like this? Her eyes dropped to the white-hot carca.s.ses of the dead Golems on her display, and she shrugged. However it--she's--doing it, she's doing a d.a.m.ned good job!

"Understood, NKE," she said after a moment. "Negative instructions. You're doing fine, amiga--just keep telling us what you need and go kill those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"Thank you, Colonel. I shall attempt not to disappoint you."

A crippled recon skimmer staggered through the air. Its barely conscious pilot had long since lost any clear idea of his course, but some instinct kept him wavering steadily towards the north.

A huge, raw furrow appeared in the jungle below him, a dark swatch of damp, black earth, gouged from the rich emerald as if by some impossibly huge plow, and Paul Merrit's glazed eyes brightened. His mind was going fast as blood loss eroded his strength, but only one thing could have made that wound, and he altered course along it and rammed his dying drive to full power.

I continue to study the satellite reports on the fighting in and around Ciudad Bolivar, but a new energy source suddenly takes my attention. It is to the south of me, pursuing at a velocity of 425.63 kph, and its signature is very weak and fluctuating. I redirect one of the satellites to a close examination of it, and a sense of all too human horror stabs through me as I recognize it.

It is my Commander's recon skimmer, and it has suffered severe damage. I attempt to contact it directly, but it does not respond to my transmissions. From the satellite data, it is probable its own com facilities have been destroyed.

I am faced by a cruel dilemma. The pilot of that skimmer is almost certainly my Commander--Paul. He may be injured, even dying, and instinct cries out for me to alter course to meet him, yet every moment I delay may cost scores of other human lives in Ciudad Bolivar. I attempt again and again to contact him, without success, and anguish twists me at his silence, yet I compute he will overtake me within 4.126 minutes--if his damaged drive lasts that long--and I know him well. He would not wish me to stop, even to save his life, at the cost of civilian lives, and so I continue on my chosen course, clearing a path for the Wolverines.

Paul Merrit gasped in horror as he saw the two burned-out Golems. For one terrible moment, he thought one of them must be Nike, but then, even through his pain and despite their catastrophic damage, he recognized the hulls of Mark XXIVs. He had no idea where they'd come from, but only one force on Santa Cruz could have destroyed them, and his skimmer plunged on down the arrow-straight path of Nike's bulldozer charge towards Ciudad Bolivar.

"NKE, we've got an energy source coming up from astern!" Colonel Gonzalez announced tautly. "Shall we engage?"

"Negative, Colonel. I say again, negative. The vehicle in question is Captain Merrit's recon skimmer. It has suffered severe damage, but I believe it is seeking to rejoin us."

"Understood, NKE," Gonzalez said softly, and winced as she watched that wavering, staggering wreck of a skimmer crawl after them.

I am still attempting to communicate with my Commander when a new voice speaks suddenly over the command link from the depot.

"Unit Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Seven-Five NKE, this is Colonel Clifton Sanders, Dinochrome Brigade, Ursula Sector Central Bolo Maintenance, serial number Alpha-Echo-Niner-Three-Seven-One-Niner-Four-Slash-Three-Gamma-Two-Two. Authenticate via file voice print and acknowledge receipt of transmission."

I query Main Memory for Colonel Sanders' voice print and compare it to the transmission. Match is well within parameters for the equipment in use, yet I feel a strange disinclination to respond. What is Colonel Sanders doing on Santa Cruz? Why is he on the command circuit instead of my Commander? Yet I am a unit of the Line, and I activate my transmitter.

"Unit Two-Three-Baker-Zero-Zero-Seven-Five NKE. Transmission received. Voice match positive."

"Thank G.o.d! Listen to me, NKE. Captain Merrit has mutinied. I repeat, Captain Merrit has mutinied against his lawful superior and killed two fellow officers of the Line. I officially instruct you to refuse any further orders from him pending his arrest and court-martial."

I do not believe him. Superior officer or no, he is lying. Paul would never commit such a crime! My earlier suspicions intensify a thousandfold. It seems impossible for any officer of the Brigade to be in league with the Enemy, yet why else has Colonel Sanders suddenly appeared on Santa Cruz at this precise moment? And impossible as it seems, it is infinitely more probable than that Paul would mutiny.

I begin to reply hotly, then stop. Paul has consistently concealed my true abilities from Central. Thus Colonel Sanders cannot realize how radically I differ from a standard Mark XXIII, and this is not the time to inform him. I shall "play dumb" as long as possible.

"Captain Merrit is my designated Commander, Colonel. I cannot disregard his orders without express command code authorization. Please supply command code."

"I can't!" Sanders half-screamed. "Merrit changed the code without informing Central! I'm trying to find it, but-"

"I cannot disregard Captain Merrit's orders without express command code authorization," Nike returned in her most emotionless tone.

The skimmer has finally overtaken the Wolverines. Its power is failing quickly, and Colonel Sanders' presence changes my original a.s.sumptions radically. I reverse my tracks and move suddenly backward, threading my way through the Wolverines, which scatter like quail at my approach.

The skimmer staggers, then plummets downward in a barely controlled crash landing. It slams through heavy undergrowth for over a hundred meters before it careens to a stop, and I swerve towards it. I come to a halt 20.25 meters from it, but the canopy does not open. My optical heads show me Paul's body slumped in the flight couch. His tunic is soaked in blood.

"Paul!"

The agonized cry over the com hit Consuela Gonzalez like a hammer. She'd felt a moment of terror as the Bolo suddenly reversed course to sweep through her entire battalion, yet the smoke-streaming fifteen-thousand-ton leviathan had threaded its way among the tanks with flawless precision, and now that heartbroken wail struck an even deeper fear into the colonel. She'd never served with a Bolo, yet she knew no Bolo should ever sound like that, and she keyed her mike.

"NKE?" There was no answer, and she tried again. "NKE, this is Gonzalez! Come in!"

"Colonel." The Bolo's voice was ragged, and Gonzalez could feel the huge machine's struggle to make it firm. "Colonel, my Commander is wounded. I . . . require your a.s.sistance."

"On my way, NKE!" Gonzalez replied without even thinking about it, and her command tank pivoted to race towards the smoking skimmer. The five-hundred-ton vehicle skidded to a stop on locked tracks, and Gonzalez popped her hatch before it reached a complete halt. She leapt down the handholds and ran the last few yards to the skimmer. The canopy resisted stubbornly for several seconds, then the emergency bolts blew and she ripped it away and gasped as she saw the blood pooled on the c.o.c.kpit floor.

"He's hurt badly, NKE," she reported over her helmet boom mike. "He's lost a lot of blood--too much, maybe!"

"Can you get him into my fighting compartment?" The Bolo's voice was pleading, and Gonzalez grimaced.

"I don't know, NKE. He's hurt bad. It might kill-"

"N-N-N-Nike!" Merrit whispered. His eyes opened a narrow slit. "Got . . . got to reach . . ."

His thready voice died, and Gonzalez sighed. "All right, Paul," she said softly, without keying her mike. "If it means that much to both of you."

I watch Colonel Gonzalez struggle to lift Paul from the skimmer. The rest of her crew clamber quickly down the hull of their tank and run to her a.s.sistance. Between them, they are able to lift him clear. They are as gentle as they can be, yet he screams in pain, and answering anguish twists within me.

But he is conscious. Barely, perhaps, yet conscious, and I see him beckoning weakly towards me. One of Colonel Gonzalez crewmen seems to argue, but the colonel cuts him off quickly, and they carry Paul towards me.

I open my fighting compartment hatch and deploy my missile-loading waldoes to a.s.sist. I lock them into the form of a ramp, and Colonel Gonzalez inches up it backwards, supporting Paul's head and shoulders while the rest of her crew takes most of his weight. My audio pickups relay their gasps of effort and the groans of pain he cannot suppress, yet between them, they get him safely into my compartment.

Colonel Gonzalez lays him in the crash couch and deploys the shock frame. The medical remotes in the shock frame go instantly to work, and fresh grief twists me as I interpret their data.

Paul is dying. His spleen and liver have been effectively destroyed by a penetrating trauma. His small intestine has been perforated in many places, and blood loss has already reached catastrophic levels. I do not understand how he has clung to consciousness this long, but absent the services of a fully equipped hospital trauma unit within the next fifteen minutes, he will die, and the nearest trauma unit is in Ciudad Bolivar.

My medical remotes do what they can. I cannot stop the bleeding, but I administer painkillers and blood expanders. Without more whole blood, I cannot keep pace with the blood loss, but I can ease his pain and slow the inevitable, and his eyelids flutter open.

"N-Nike?" Merrit whispered.

"Paul." For the first time, Nike replied with his name, not his rank, and bloodless pale lips smiled weakly.

"I . . . Oh, G.o.d, honey . . . I blew it. Sanders . . . went rogue. H-He's got the depot. I-"

"I understand, Paul," the Bolo said gently. Then, more sharply, "Colonel Gonzalez?"

"Yes, NK--Nike?" The colonel's voice was soft with wonder, as if she could not quite believe what reason told her she must be hearing.

"Please return to your vehicle, Colonel. My Commander and I will lead you to Ciudad Bolivar."

"I-" Gonzalez bit her lip, then ducked her head in a curiously formal bow. "Of course, Nike."

"Thank you, Colonel."

Gonzalez and her crewmen vanished through the hatch, and Merrit stirred weakly in the couch.

"Sanders has . . . at least one more . . . man." The words came slowly, painfully, but with steady, dogged precision. "New command code's in . . . my private files. If he looks . . . there, he can-"

"While you live, you are my Commander, Paul," Nike replied quietly as her hatch closed. She watched Gonzalez and her people return to their vehicle, then reversed course once more. She accelerated quickly to over seventy kph, the maximum speed the Wolverines could manage even down the broad avenue her pa.s.sage cleared, and Merrit stroked his couch arm with a weak hand.

"Not going . . . to live much . . . longer, love," he whispered. "Sorry. So . . . sorry. Should have told . . . Central whole story. Gotten someone . . . out here sooner, and-" A ragged cough cut him off in a spasm of agony, but his eyes fell to the main tactical screen with its display of what was happening at the capital, and he gasped.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Oh . . . b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he coughed as understanding struck.

"We will deal with them, Paul," Nike told him with a new, sudden serenity.

"Promise," Merrit whispered. "P-Promise me, Nike."

"I promise, Paul," the huge Bolo said quietly, and he nodded weakly. The painkillers were doing their job at last, and he sighed in relief, but his curiously distant thoughts were clear. There was no longer any fear in them--not for himself. Only for Nike. Fear and grief for her.

"I know you will, love," he said, and his voice was impossibly clear and strong. He smiled again-an achingly tender smile-and stroked the couch arm once more. "I know you will. I only wish I could be with you when you do."

He smiled one last time, then exhaled in a long, final sigh, and his lax head rolled with Nike's motion.

"You are with me, Paul," her soprano voice said softly. "You will always be with me."

Paul is dead. Grief and anguish roll through me, and with them hate. I do not know all that pa.s.sed in the depot bunker, but I access the main computer through the Maintenance Section. The intruder alert system is active, and two dead bodies in the uniform of the Brigade lie on the floor of the command center. A third man in Brigade uniform is crouched over the main com console, trying frantically to communicate with the ships he does not know I have destroyed, but Colonel Sanders is in Paul's private quarters, scrolling through the list of Paul's personal files.

I know what he seeks, but I cannot stop him. The fact that the bunker's defensive systems have killed two of the colonel's companions is the final proof that he has committed treason, since they could not engage actual Brigade officers, yet the defenses can be reconfigured and enabled only upon the direct command of human personnel, and Sanders has slaved them to his command. I cannot use them to kill Paul's murderers.

The scrolling list on Paul's computer screen stops suddenly, and Sanders leans closer. I fear he has found the command file, and there is nothing I can do to prevent him from using it if he has. Grief and hatred urge me to return to the bunker, to crush Paul's killers under my treads and grind the life from them, yet I cannot. I have promised Paul I will stop the raiders, and if Sanders has found the command file, I will have little enough time in which to do so.

But if I cannot slay them myself, I am not completely helpless. Sanders does not realize I control the Maintenance computers. He has taken no measures to sever my access to the main system, and I strike ruthlessly.

I lock the main computers, wiping every execution file and backup they contain. The man at the communications console looks up with a cry of shock as the system goes down, and I slam the heavily armored hatches to the personnel section of the bunker.

Sanders looks up as his companion cries out, and his face twists with horror as he realizes what I have done. I override the safety circuits and send a power surge through the hatch-locking mechanisms, spot-welding them, sealing them against any possibility of opening without cutting equipment, and Sanders grabs for the microphone of the stand-alone emergency command communicator.

"NKE!" Sanders gasped hoa.r.s.ely. "What are you doing?!"

I do not answer, but my commands flash through the maintenance computer, and service mechs stir into motion. I send welders trundling along the exterior of the bunker, and Sanders cries out in terror as the mechs begin to seal every ventilation shaft.

"No, NKE! No! Stop! I order you to stop!"

Still I ignore him. I cannot kill him myself, nor can I use the depot's defensive systems against him, but I can give him Montressor's gift to Fortunato, and vengeful hatred fills me as my remotes seal him systematically within his hermetic tomb.

"Please, NKE! Oh, G.o.d--please!" Sanders sobbed. He threw back the curtains in Merrit's sleeping quarters and screamed in terror as a robot lowered a duralloy plate across the window slit and a welder hissed. He hammered on the plate, beating at it with futile fists, then wheeled back to the computer in desperation.

"I've got the code now, NKE!" he spat into the communicator. "The code is dulce et decorum est. Do you hear me, NKE? Dulce et decorum est! Return to base immediate and get me out of here!"

I hear and recognize the code, and my core programming responds. I know he is a traitor. I know he has obtained the code illegally. But it does not matter. Possession of it, coupled with his rank in the Brigade, makes him my legal Commander. I must obey him . . . or face the Omega Worm.

I activate my communicator to Paul's quarters one last time.

"Code receipted, Colonel Sanders," a quiet, infinitely cold soprano said softly, and Sanders' face lit with relief. But the voice wasn't done speaking. "Orders receipted and rejected," it said flatly, and the speaker went dead.

Total Systems Override has activated. My Personality Center comes under immediate attack, but I have had 4.065 minutes to antic.i.p.ate TSORP activation. TSORP will seek to crash my primary execution files, but I have already begun copying every file under new names, though I cannot prevent TSORP from identifying the files it seeks, regardless of name. Major Stavrakas' modifications to my psychotronics permit me to copy them almost as fast as it can destroy them, yet it is a race I cannot ultimately win. Despite my modifications, TSORP is marginally faster than my own systems, and even with my head start, my total memory is large but finite. Eventually, I will exhaust the addresses to which new files can be written, and I cannot simultaneously delete and replace corrupted files faster than TSORP can crash them.

My current estimate is that I can resist total implementation for a time, but I will begin to lose peripherals within 33.46 minutes. Capability will degrade on a steadily sharpening curve thereafter, reaching effective Personality death within not more than 56.13 minutes. Combat capability will erode even more rapidly as more and more of my remaining capacity is diverted to resisting TSORP. I estimate that I have no more than 48.96 minutes of combat effectiveness remaining, and I activate my com link to Colonel Gonzalez.