It requires somewhat longer than it ought to have—almost 6.273 seconds—for Thermopylae's AI to fully relinquish control to me. The delay is mildly frustrating but has no significant tactical consequences. It does, however, give me sufficient time to once again regret the death of my previous Commander. Lieutenant Takahashi and I had served together for 22.31 Standard Months at the time of his death and my own incapacitation. In that time, he became more than my Commander; he became my friend. Captain Trevor—Lieutenant Trevor, then—on the other hand, had joined the Thirty-Ninth Battalion only 85.71 Standard Days before our deployment to Chartres. It is not that I doubt her courage or her capabilities, but that I simply do not yet know her as I should. Yet I do know that her original Bolo, 28/G-862-BNJ, thought most highly of her, for he confided his appreciation for her native ability to me before Chartres. And the most cursory examination of her own performance on Chartres is eloquent evidence that Benjy was correct.

That she is, indeed, a worthy upholder of the Dinochrome Brigade's stern tradition. Yet I sense a certain hesitancy. It is as if she guards some inner secret. In time, I feel confident, her reserve, whatever its cause, will fade. But this is my own first call to action since Chartres, and we have not yet become the fully integrated team a Bolo and its commander are supposed to be. I am aware of a potential weakness, which might compromise our combat effectiveness, and I long for the complete mutual confidence Captain Takahashi and I had developed. Especially when I am . .

. uncertain of my own capabilities.

That realization sends a ripple of disquiet through my psychotronic network. A Bolo of the Line is not supposed to feel uncertainty. Yet I do.

A quick scan of my emotional overlays and filters reveals the probable cause for my reaction even as I begin slowly and unobtrusively easing Thermopylae towards a more central position on our assigned flank of the convoy.

I am a Mark XXVIII, Model G, Bolo, one of the Triumphant-type. I am also well over a Standard Century out of date, and have been in near-continuous commission for the last 171.76

Standard Years. Indeed, I began my service not as a Model G, but as a Model B, and was upgraded into my current hull 118.86 Standard Years ago following my first near-total destruction in the Battle of Chesterfield. Yet even a Model G had become so obsolescent by the time Lieutenant Takahashi was assigned as my Commander that the possibility that I would ever again be deployed for combat had become vanishingly remote.

There is a Human cliche: "Old soldiers do not die, they simply fade away," and that was the fate I had anticipated for myself ... until the outbreak of the current hostilities with the Melconian Empire. The Thirty-Ninth Battalion, for all our proud traditions, was a reserve unit, essentially a training formation, composed of newly commissioned Human officers and units of the line no longer adequate for the demands of front-line combat. What happened to the Battalion on Chartres is ample evidence that Brigade HQ was correct to so regard us, for despite our success in defending the planet from the Enemy, I am the only Bolo of the Battalion to survive, as Captain Trevor is the only surviving unit commander of the Battalion.

I begin scanning for additional scraps of Melconian ship-to-ship chatter. It is unlikely I will detect any. The Melconian Navy's equipment is considerably inferior to that of the Concordiat, but its personnel are well-trained veterans who practice effective communications discipline. If, indeed, Foudroyant did detect a ship-to-ship transmission, it represents a statistically unlikely stroke of good fortune. Without better data on the geometry of the hypothetical Melconian naval force opposed to us, I am unable to generate a meaningful probability for precisely how unlikely it truly was, but the odds cannot have been high.

"Status, Lazarus?" my commander requests.

"Commodore Lakshmaniah will complete the redeployment of her units in approximately 12.375

Standard Minutes, Commander," I respond. "I am in secure communication with Unit MKY via whisker laser. At this time, neither of us has detected any further evidence of the Enemy's presence."

"I see."

I return a portion of my awareness to the visual pickup in Captain Trevor's cabin and watch her right hand lightly touch the headset lying on her desk. I have already noted my new Commander's disinclination to employ the direct neural interface which has been incorporated into my upgraded psychotronics. I do not fully comprehend the reasons for it, however. While the decision to return an obsolescent unit like myself to active duty may be questionable, there is no doubt that the upgrades in my psychotronics, secondary survival center, neural command net, internal disruptor fields, and battle screen have greatly enhanced my combat capabilities. Analysis suggests that they have been improved on the order of 37.51 percent, yet the full realization of that improvement in action requires my Commander to interface directly with me, and she has steadfastly refused to do so. It is not required for the normal day-to-day relationship of a Bolo and its Commander, especially not for a Bolo which was not initially designed for neural interfacing.

Yet that capability exists, and as yet, Captain Trevor has never initiated full contact, even in our few, brief training exercises and tests. We have exchanged surface thoughts, but no more, and she has zealously guarded the privacy of her own mind. That is certainly her privilege, yet her clear lingering distaste for allowing the deeper fusion of which the system is capable represents a potentially significant impediment to the achievement of our full combat potential.

"May I suggest, Commander," I say, "that it would be prudent for us to activate the neural interface in order to be fully prepared in the eventuality that we do indeed encounter the Enemy?"

"We'll have time if the Puppies do turn up, Lazarus," Captain Trevor says, and removes her hand from the headset.

"Acknowledged," I reply.

The flag bridge of CNS Valiant was deadly silent, with a stillness which would have astonished any naval officer of humanity's past. Even the Concordiat's officers would not have believed it as little as twenty-five Standard Years earlier. But the same neural interface technology which had been applied to the current generation of Bolo had also been applied to the Navy's major warships. It was one of the primary reasons for that Navy's qualitative superiority over the Melconian Empire's ships of war.

And it was also the reason Commodore Indrani Lakshmaniah and her entire staff lay in their command couches, eyes closed, without speaking while they concentrated on the pseudotelepathy the flagship's AI made possible through their headsets.

"Up to 98.653 percent probability Foudroyant's intercept was genuine," her tactical officer's thought reported instantly. "Probability this is an entire Puppy raiding squadron is up to 75.54 percent."

"God damn it!" Lakshmaniah uttered the curse aloud, her eyes squeezing even more tightly shut as her reasoning brain considered the grim information the tac officer had just delivered. She didn't doubt its accuracy—not when it came directly from Valiant's AI. But a corner of her soul cursed God Himself for letting this happen.

If this was indeed a Melconian raiding squadron, then its units would outnumber her own escort force by at least two-to-one, and very probably more. Under normal circumstances, a human commander could expect to defeat up to four times her own weight of metal, but the new deep-raiding squadrons the Puppies had begun using to strike at smaller colony worlds well behind the front almost invariably boasted a Star Slayer-class battlecruiser as their flagship. If this one did, then its flagship alone would out-mass all four of her own heavy cruisers. And that didn't even count the dozen-plus heavy and light cruisers of the rest of a typical raiding squadron.