“Don’t worry, Colonel,” Atwell soothed. “We’ll take care of Esteban on the way out. No one will ever know you’ve been here, I promise.”

Clifton Sanders shivered at how easily his “associate” pronounced yet another death sentence, but he said nothing. There was nothing he could say now. All he could do was obey his orders and pray that somehow GalCorp could protect him from the consequences of carrying out its instructions.

Lorenco Esteban eased himself into one of the veranda chairs and grimaced. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that something unpleasant was in the wind for Paul, and he wished there’d been more he could do for his friend. But Paul was right. If the idiots back at Central had decided to come down on him, getting involved in it wouldn’t do Lorenco any good, either.

He tipped his chair back with a sigh. Good luck, boy, he thought. You’re a better man than that fool colonel any day.

“I’ve got a drone, ma’am!” The sensor tech in Consuela Gonzalez’ command tank bent closer to her panel. “Coming up at zero-three-zero relative, altitude three thousand, heading two-niner-seven true. Speed three hundred kph. Range… three-six point five klicks and closing!”

“Damn!” Gonzalez shook her head. So much for misdirection! From the drone’s point of origin, the Bolo must be well out on her left flank, but its recon drone was sweeping almost directly perpendicular to her line of advance, as if the machine knew exactly where to look.

“Kill it!” she barked.

“Firing,” the Wolverine’s air defense tech replied, and a laser turret swiveled. A beam of coherent light sizzled through the humid air, and the drone blew up instantly.

“There goes seven or eight hundred credits of taxpayer’s money!” the tech chortled.

“Well, it’s seven or eight hundred credits your great-great-grandma paid, not us,” Gonzalez said with a grin. Damn, that felt good! She and Merrit had agreed to a hard-limit of five kilometers; any drones or recon remotes beyond that range from her tanks or the Bolo could be engaged with live fire, and she hadn’t counted on how much fun that would be.

My drone has been destroyed, but I have plotted the coordinates of two Aggressor forces in addition to the decoy emissions source. I consider a simulated missile launch against them, but the Wolverine’s computer-commanded point defense systems are efficient. Nuclear warheads have not been specified for this scenario, and the PK with conventional warheads against a force of three Wolverines is only 28.653 percent. It will be necessary to engage with direct-fire weapons.

A source count indicates the presence of ten of Colonel Gonzalez’ fourteen tanks in the known detachments. This leaves four unaccounted for, but the locations of the known forces allow me to refine my hypothetical models of her deployment. A further 0.00017 seconds of analysis indicate that the unlocated units are her extreme right flank force and reduce their possible coordinates to three locations. I call up my terrain maps and plot those loci and continuous updates of their maximum possible advance while I consider the launch of a second drone to confirm my deduction. I reject the option after 0.00311 seconds of consideration. I will reach Hill 0709-A in 9.3221 minutes, plus or minus 56.274 seconds. From its summit, I will have direct observation-and fire capability-to each of the three possible locations. I will advance and destroy this force, then sweep back to the southwest at an angle which will permit me to encounter and destroy each of the known forces in succession. In the meantime, the absence of a second drone launch may leave Colonel Gonzalez off balance, uncertain of the tactical data actually in my possession.

The air lorry landed, and Merrit came to attention on the landing apron. Two of Colonel Sanders’ companions accompanied the colonel to the bunker entrance, and Merrit felt a slight spasm of surprise at the sloppiness with which they returned his salute. All of them wore MLP shoulder flashes, which should indicate they spent most of their time back at Central, and somebody who kept stumbling over senior officers should get lots of practice at saluting.

He shook the thought aside as Sanders held out his hand.

“Welcome to Santa Cruz, Colonel.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Sanders’ handshake was damp and clammy, and Merrit resisted a temptation to scrub his palm on his trouser leg when the colonel released it. “I assume you know why I’m here,” Sanders went on briskly, and Merrit shook his head.

“No, sir, I’m afraid not. No one told me you were coming.”

“What?” Sanders cocked his eyebrows, but the surprise in his voice struck a false note, somehow. He shook his head. “Central was supposed to have informed you last week, Captain.”

“Informed me of what, sir?” Merrit asked politely.

“Of the policy change concerning Santa Cruz. We’ve been conducting a sector-wide cost analysis since your arrival here, Captain Merrit. Naturally, we were startled to discover the nature and extent of the Santa Cruz installations-we had no idea we’d misplaced a Bolo for eighty years, heh, heh!-but given their age and the sector’s general readiness states, it’s hard to see any point in maintaining them on active status. Frontier sectors always face tighter fiscal constraints than the core sectors, you know, so it’s been decided-purely as a cost-cutting measure, you understand-to deactivate your Bolo and reassign you.”

“A cost-cutting measure, sir?” Merrit asked. He was careful to keep his tone casual and just a bit confused, but alarm bells began to sound in the back of his brain. He’d expected Sanders to come in breathing fire and smoke over his blatant disregard for regulations, yet his initial relief at the lack of fireworks was fading fast. Sanders was babbling. He was also sweating harder than even Santa Cruz’s climate called for, and Paul Merrit had seen too much combat in his forty-one years not to have developed a survivor’s instincts. Now those instincts shouted that something was very, very wrong.

“Yes, a cost-cutting measure,” Sanders replied. “You know how expensive a Bolo is, Captain. Each of them we maintain on active duty takes its own bite out of our total maintenance funding posture, and without a threat to the planet to justify the expense, well-”

He shrugged, and Merrit nodded slowly, expression calm despite a sinking sensation as he noticed that both of Sanders’ companions were armed. Of course, the jungle had all sorts of nasty fauna, and all Santa Cruzans went armed whenever they ventured into the bush on foot, but they tended to pack weapons heavy enough to knock even lizard cats on their posteriors. These men wore standard military-issue three-millimeter needlers, efficient enough man-killers but not much use against a lizard cat or one of the pseudo-rhinos.

He let his eyes wander back over the parked air lorry, and the fact that they’d left a man behind carried its own ominous overtones. Merrit couldn’t see clearly through the lorry cab’s dirty windows, but from the way he sat hunched slightly to one side, the man in it might be aiming a weapon in the bunker’s direction. If he was, then anything precipitous on Merrit’s part was likely to have very unpleasant-and immediate-consequences.

“I’m a little confused, sir,” he said slowly.

“Confused?” the major at Sanders’ elbow sounded much brusquer than the colonel, and he glanced at his wrist chrono as he spoke. “What’s there to be confused about?”

“Well, it’s just that in eighty years, there’s never been any expense, other than the initial placement costs, of course, for this Bolo. Santa Cruz has never requested as much as a track bearing from Bolo Central Maintenance, so it’s a little hard to see how shutting down is going to save any money, Major.”