be
the close partnership required between Bolo and operator precluded use of Bolos in situations where the “partnerships” would not last past the exercise of the moment. Nor were Bolo partners often “retired” to the Reserves.And not too many Bolos were available to the Reserves. Retirement for both Bolo and operator was usually permanent, and as often as not, was in the front lines.
But luck (good or ill, it remained to be seen) was with Rommel; he had lost his partner to a deadly virus, he had not seen much in the way of combat, and he was in near-new condition.
And Bachman’s World wanted a Reserve battalion. They could not field their own—every able-bodied human here was a farmer or engaged in the export trade. A substantial percentage of the population was of some form of pacifistic religion that precluded bearing arms—Janist, Buddhist, some forms of Hindu.
Bachman’s World was entitled to a Reserve force; it was their right under the law to have an on-planet defense force supplied by the regular military. Just because Bachman’s World was back-of-beyond of nowhere, and even the most conservative of military planners thought their insistence on having such a force in place to be paranoid in the extreme, that did not negate their right to have it. Their charter was clear. The law was on their side.
Sending them a Reserve battalion would be expensive in the extreme, in terms of maintaining that battalion. The soldiers would be full-timers, on full pay. There was no base—it would have to be built. There was no equipment—that would all have to be imported.
That was when one solitary bean-counting accountant at High Command came up with the answer that would satisfy the letter of the law, yet save the military considerable expense.
The law had been written stipulating, not numbers of personnel and equipment, but a monetary amount. That unknown accountant had determined that the amount so stipulated, meant to be the equivalent value of an infantry battalion, exactly equaled the worth of one Bolo and its operator.
The records-search was on.
Enter one Reserve officer, searching for a Bolo in good condition, about to be “retired,” with no current operator-partner—
—and someone to match him, familiar with at least the rudiments of mech-warfare, the insides of a Bolo, and willing to be exiled for the rest of his life.
Finding RML-1138, called “Rommel,” and Siegfried O’Harrigan, hobbyist military historian.
The government of Bachman’s