It would not shrug off the next attack so easily.
VAL812 selected its first projectile.
/ have begun manufacture of the H2 cryoneeclles. Within my manufacturing center, I possess twelve
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neutron dense-pack-lined molds which I inject simultaneously with deuterium slush piped through from the cooling vats, before applying pressures similar to those found near the cores of planetary gas giants. The result is a three-millimeter-wide sliver, pointed at both ends, holding fifty grams of metallic deuterium encased in dense-pack; since even dense-pack becomes brittle at the temperatures of liquid hydrogen, magnetic bottles contain the slivers, which would vaporize instantly and with considerable violence if released. The molds open, the twelve DP-jacketed slivers are levitated to the storage locker, and fresh dense-pack sleeves are laid for the next batch, before the cycle is repeated.
How many do I need? Twelve to twenty-four may be enough, but much depends on how many rounds each of the approaching fortress ships can launch . . . and on how soon they will do so. All three are still well beyond my effective range, but given the geometries of orbital bombardment, they could begin firing at any time. 1 have no doubts whatsoever that they are moving in response to my reactivation; I have seen what their bombardment weapons are capable of and know that I must strike the first blow.
The question, then, is how much time there is remaining to me.
DAV728 followed the unfolding drama through his links to the !б!б! primary command web, to die network of sensory collectors in planetary orbit, and to the three incoming battler/fortress pilots themselves, GRA623, VAL812, and FLE911. All three battlers were within range, now, but it was imperative that they achieve both high coordination and high precision in their attack. The human-organic construct known as a "Bolo" was potentially deadly and could interfere with !б!*! activities on the planet. That it had not
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interfered with the original I0!0! invasion was due simply to the fact that YEN925, the six-brain assembly who'd led the attack, had not given the Bolo the chance to demonstrate its full capabilities.
D AV had no intention of giving the enemy machine a fresh opportunity.
He had two possible tactical branches to follow, and it was characteristic of the !б!б! that he picked the most direct path and, once his forces were initiating that chain of events, that he set up a subroutine in two of his brains to examine the alternative. The !*!б! tended to be direct in their thoughts and actions, but they also tended to \>e-very thorough.
Tne second and less direct branch involved the !*!б! machines embedded within the human combat machine. Through the !*!*! command net, he could sense that the controller planted astride the Bolo's neural pathway bus had been destroyed, but that a second machineў actually a subassembly budded from the firstўwas intact and apparently undiscovered as yet.
This second machine parasite was buried within the Bolo's power plant controller apparatus. Its sole purpose was to act as a governor on the output from the Bolo's fusion complex, restricting the generated power to ten percent of its normal capabilities.
As the Bolo prepared to meet the threat of the first !"!"! tactical branch, it would discover that it could not engage at full power; quite possibly, depending on the machine's sophistication, it had already discovered this for itself in a routine autodiagnostic.
It was unlikely that the Bolo possessed self-repair automatons capable of dealing with the parasite, so it would simply have to engage the !"!*! forces at ten percent of its normal combat power. And . .. there might be other things the parasite could do as well.
DAV728 began uplinking some additional commands to his agent within the human battle machine.
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And in the meantime, the first tactical branch was enough to obliterate the Bolo and the entire continent it was sitting in. It would mean the loss of some thousands of minor !*!*! machines and most of the human resources in the region, but that was a reasonable exchange, from DAVs perspective. In his download memory, the web's graphics unfolded a three-dimensional representation of local spaceў Cloud, the two moons, and the three tiny complexities representing three incoming !"!*! battlers. Lines of green, blue, and near-ultraviolet showed courses past and projected, while the target glowed in soft, sparkling X-ray.
"Saturation bombardment," he ordered, directing his thoughts into the command web. "Adjust velocity and projectile mass for maximum immediate effect. Fire . . . I"
And in the graphics arrayed within his mind, each of the three symbols representing the fortress/battlers, released first one, then another, and then a third dazzling pinpoint of shimmering X-ray-colored light, each hurtling planetward on its precisely calculated high-speed trajectory.
Jaime leaned closer, studying the graphics displayed on the open window overlaying the harbor panorama stretched around the view dome. "My Godў" he started to say.
