permission

weren’t allowed to activate their own weapons. And they weren’t allowed to fire on living troops without permission from a human, either. That was the only real reason for a Bolo needing an operator.
“Surrounding Port City, but starting from about where the first farms are.” Rommel ran swift readiness-tests on the systems as Siegfried brought them up; the screens scrolled too fast for Siegfried to read them.
They had a name for that particular scenario. It was one of the first possibilities they had run when they began plotting invasion and counter-invasion plans.
“Operation Cattle Drive. Right.” If the invaders followed the same scheme he and Rommel had antici­pated, they planned to drive the populace into Port City, and either capture the civilians, or destroy them at leisure. He checked their current location; it was out beyond the drop-zone. “Is there anything landing close to us?”
“Not yet—but the odds are that something will soon.” Rommel sounded confident, as well he should be—his ability to project landing-patterns was far better than any human’s. “I’d say within the next fifteen minutes.”
Siegfried suddenly shivered in a breath of cool air from the ventilators,