As Dieter reached the top of the crater rim, the Bolo fired again, lancing the sky with a bolt of blue-white radiance so intense it cast shadows in defiance
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of the suns, and Dieter felt his skin prickle and his eyes water beneath the beam's harsh splash of ultraviolet. Four seconds later, the thunder rolled again, so loud it clawed at the gut and left the ears ringing, and the ground beneath his bare feet bucked with the concussion.
Other slaves fleeing the pits scrambled up the slope around him, jumping and sliding into the relative shelter provided by the crater's interior. All had the same idea as Dieter, to take cover from the searing flash and shock of the volleying Bolo in the harbor.
The strobing, violent pulses of light from the Bolo were going off every second or so now, the fire alternating between the forward and middle turrets. It looked as though the huge machine's rear turret was out of action. When Dieter took a last glance at the Bolo across the lip of the crater rim, it looked as though the entire machine was wreathed in rising clouds of steam. The heat generated by each Hellbore discharge must be astonishing.
Jaime hated being helpless.
That, perhaps as much as anything else, was the goad that had been driving him for these past months of captivity, the knowledge that he was helpless, that there was nothing he could do to defeat or escape the conquering !*!*! war machines. It had led him to find some way out of the slave compound, led him to the ridge of bones atop Overlook Hill. . . and ultimately had led him here, to the battle-center bowels of this animated mountain and the chance to strike back at his tormentors.
Now the Bolo was engaged against forces he could only dimly comprehend, in a battle that was completely beyond his grasp. He could not fight, he could not give orders, he couldn't even suggest a course of action to the huge machine, which was dealing with forces,
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calculations of masses and velocity, and targeting data that, to be blunt, only a machine intelligence of high capability could handle.
Leaning back in the Battle Center's command chair, he watched the battle unfolding on the main window on the display above the console. Green brackets appeared, closing on the nearest of the moving boxes, flashing to confirm target lock. With each Hellbore shot, the lighting in the center dimmed sharply, and the ear-ringing thump of detonation and recoil transmitted through the steel deck plating like the impact of a titanic hammer. The track of each Hellbore shot was displayed as a bright gold, ruler-straight line drawing itself within the flick of an eyelid from the surface of the planet, across empty space, and through the target box. Usually, a white flash and the words TARGET DESTROYED marked a clean hit. Sometimes, a different message was displayed. TARGET FRAGMENTED: NEW TARGETS INCOMING ... followed by strings of vector data.
The pace of Hellbore shots seemed unhurried to Jainle, a steady, stately pulse of sound and shock. With the fragmentation of some of the incoming projectiles, though, it seemed to him that Hector's rate of fire was slower than it should have been. He worried too at the flickering of the lights, and at how hot and close the air was becoming inside the Battle Center. Surely, a machine with power enough to accelerate squirts of fusing plasma to relativistic velocities had power enough to spare for the air-conditioning and lighting!
He wanted to ask the Bolo about it, but was afraid of revealing his ignorance to the machine. Damn it, he'd never served as a Bolo commander and didn't know a tenth of what he ought to. Would a stupid question on his part prove to the machine that he wasn't qualified to sit in this chair?
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They said there was no such thing as a stupid question. Did that hold true when you were asking it of a superintelligent AI. . . one that was engaged at the moment in an all-out fight for survival?
"We have a problem, my Commander," Hector's voice said.
"What?"
"My power is limited to approximately nine point six percent of maximum output. Fusion plant operation appears nominal, but the flow governor is operating at much less than peak efficiency. I suspect that an alien device or devices are somehow interfering with plant controller operation."
"An alien device. Another thing like we found in your computer core?"
"Affirmative. I cannot test this hypothesis directly, and it is possible that the problem stems instead from battle damage sustained at Chryse." There was a pause, a beat of silence. "If I cannot increase my current rate of fire within a few minutes at most, I will not be able to stop all incoming projectiles."
Jaime was up and out of his seat in an instant, crossing to one of the bulkhead lockers. Inside, a line of Mark XIV power guns rested in recharger slots. Reaching in, he pulled out one weapon, checked the charge, and slammed the door shut. In another locker nearby, he found a comm headset which he clipped to his ear, extending the threadmike until it rested near his lower lip. "Comm check," he said.
"I read you, Commander," Hector's voice whispered in his ear,
