BOLO MK XXXIII

The last and - largest Bolo introduced into service. The Mark XXXIII weighed no less than 32,000 tons and mounted a main armament of three independently-turreted 200cm Hellbores with a secondary armament of sixteen 30cm Hellbore infinite repeaters in two lateral batteries. Equipped with a very sophisticated indirect fire system, the sheer firepower of the Mark XXXIII was a reversion to the old siege unit thinking, though it was normally referred to as a planetary siege unit, not merely a continental one. No one knows how many Mark XXXIIIs were actually built, but official planning called for them to be deployed in independent brigades of 24 units each. Despite the increase in weight, speed remained equivalent to the Mark XXXI, and the Mark XXXIII's internal counter-grav could supply the assault landing capability for which the Mark XXXII had required an auxiliary unit.

Some BOLO MK XXXIII units:

Sherman had been in one of the last engagements of human forces against the Melconians in their final suicidal battle, but he took heavy damage and needed to shut down in order to repair himself. Sherman had a unique personality and would sometimes talk to himself and liked to hum songs, which often annoyed his commander.

Sherman was finally roused by reports from the armor transport ship whose sensors were detecting a Melconian ship. By now Sherman's battle injuries were mostly repaired, but to his dismay he found his commander had been burnt to ashes in the Commander center inside him, and the ship he was in had taken damaged and its crew and any other Bolos in its hold, had long ago killed by events in the proir battle. Yet the ship was still functional enough to travel. Sherman found that he had been residing within the ship, offline, for twenty three years. He checked the ship's log and found a regimental channel message. The transmission had ordered to anyone receiving, to destroy a fleeing Melconian Zulu class lifeboat.

From space using the ship's sensors, Sherman began studying the planet near where the lifeboat was last seen. On the surface he found what must have been the remains of the Zulu class lifeboat, only broken and parts salvaged from it. He also spotted small heat emmissions, what must be a village or camp. After collecting the important information, Sherman set orders for the ship to land on the planet.

Sherman's armor transport landed on the planet within distant visual range of the Enemy settlement, and while it did so, the vigilant veteran Melconian General Drak Na-Drak saw it approaching its landing point, and hurried to alarm everyone at the camp.

As soon as he spotted what must be the Melconian settlement, Sherman started to fire mortars into it and began to descend the mountain range, but the villagers had already fled it, heading toward some hidden bunkers. Nothing fired back at Sherman, which was unusual for his knowledge on engagements with Melconians. Sherman was surprised by that strangeness.

As he continued forward Sherman spotted some of the fleeing civilians, and his visual sensors saw the fear in their eyes as they noticed the bringer of death coming inbound. He was about to fire, but after seeing the look in terrified civilians' eyes, held back, even against his orders to kill 'all' Melconians. In the many years of hellish war Sherman had killed a great many Enemy civilians, and burnt Melconian cities to slag, but now for some reason it was difficult for him to stomach killing unarmed civilians, especially when he looked into their fearful eyes glancing back at him. Then he detected a Melconian Hawk class light recon vehicle, and began to engage it, just as the Melconian defenders planned he might do. They hoped the fast moving by the run vehicle would separate the Bolo attacker from the population and so far it was working. The crew of the vehicle tried their hardest to provoke Sherman to follow it away from the village, and maybe have a chance (though a slim one) to destroy him. They wanted to at least delay the Bolo as long as possible, so once he was hot on their tail, they tried to play hide and seek games as much as, and as long as possible in the forests.

Sherman became tired of the game even though he admired its crew's tenacity and skill, and to end it he began to shoot up the forest in order to deny the vehicle of the cover it was using.

The vehicle's crew realized this and decided it was time to try to fight. They began to aim thier Hellfire plasma cannon, but Sherman noticed this and began to aim, but as the event unfolded, they shot first, and the plasma bolt dug a deep hole in into Sherman, almost to his reactor. A bad, but not a deadly shot. Once his mortal panic was over and he knew he was still safe, Sherman finished the vehicle with a railgun shot.

What was left of the crew egressed the destroyed machine and then Sherman recognized the general from internal military files, and he demanded their surrender. The general replied to Sherman that the war is over and that most of his people are new generation, not caring about the war, wanting nothing of it. They just want to live in peace. He told Sherman to go to hell, and Sherman replaied: We are in hell. And so Sherman returned to his ship and left the planet's inhabitants in peace, leaving with the intent to search space to find remnants of humanity thay may have survived the war.

Bolo Mark XXXIII, Combat Unit D-1097-SHV "Shiva" was the last Bolo built at Bolo Prime on Luna. Shiva and his commander, Major Diego Harigata had began service prior to the Melconian war, during a time when honor and precision combat still existed, and in that form they became elite. This was the result of experience, but also due to their Bolo/commander neural interface. In battle, Bolo/commander teams merged their thoughts and senses and intentions with a neural interface that greatly increased battle efficiency, and also allowed the teams to fight more viciously by this additon of the unrestrained human element directly with the Bolo's thoughts and the Bolo TSDS comm net, increasing the limits to sheer ferocity executable by the teams, since humans had no programmed barrier to ruthlessness which was normally the case for Bolos. Major Harigata was one such human example of a warrior with ferocious capability.

The escalation of the war with the Melconians dissolved the once traditional methods of war by which honor and precision were exercised, and this new style of warfare left its combatants on both sides fighting brutally, intent simply on attempting to survive, and destroying everything which was of the hated enemy. Massive slaughter and genocide became the norm, and sanity a rarity. As part of the human forces contingent, and as humanity's defenders, Shiva and his comrades were now exposed to this sort of life, and probably in the most extreme level. In order to have a chance to survive they had to change their mindset and the way they carried out business. They had to become vicious and ruthless. They had to do this in order to live with the experience of the merciless deaths of their comrades, families, and much of society at enemy hands, and also the ruthless slaughter of enemies at their own hands. And so, they embraced a strong will to survive, and a mad lust to destroy the enemy, which could afford no time or safety for them to feel much remorse or love.

As this war continued, both warring factions were continuously destroying the life on each other's worlds, and diminishing the populations of their enemy throughout the galactic arm via wanton massacre and genocide. Neither side thought the other would let up for any reason. Neither side negotiated, and fearing retaliation. And hatred and fear drove both sides on to obliterate any traces of enemy existence. Humanity and Melconians were eventually spread thin in the galaxy and there were few left. The humans' forces found whatthey thought was a final stronghold of the Melconians on the planet Ishark, and planned to destroy the refugee camp and its defenders with their own remaining resources. 1097 SHV was among the forces who participated in this Operation Ragnarok. The human battle forces invaded Ishark, filled with anger and hatred against what Melconians had done to humanity its cause. Shiva, his commander Diego Harigata, and the other Bolo/human teams among the human's task force fought with an intense rage and lust to inflict damage upon the enemy, and they were even thrilled the slaying and destruction and enemy suffering they were handing out. It was an intoxication, and it helped to superficially mask their misery.

As in other battles in the Melconian/Human War, this attack on the Melconian world of Ishark was a huge, rageing, vicious and costly battle. Huge amounts of weaponry were unloaded by both sides and the death toll was staggering. Shiva and Harigata fought on killing as many enemies as possible, as was their goal, watching Melconians die at their hands, and exulting in the deaths. But during the fighting they also felt over their neural nets the experiences of their Bolo team comrades as they were taking damage and dying one by one. Shiva and Harigata felt the pain of their companions Team Harpy and Team John as they were blasted and when they died. They felt sorrow for their losses, but the destruction had to continue as long as the enemy existed. Team Shiva crushed more and more enemies, and eventually broke the through the Melconian defenses and slaying any living enemy they could find. Eagerly, they treaded over and and incinerated the civilian refugees the Enemy was guarding behind the line.

As the battle neared its end, Team Shiva finally took a critical hit from a defending Enemy Garm, a less high-tech Bolo-like sentient war machine designed by Melconians from captured Bolo technology. Major Harigata and Shiva were silenced, for some seventy years.

Diego Harigata had been killed in the last devastating critical blow inflicted upon Shiva during Operation Ragnarok, and Shiva had been rendered brain-dead. But involuntary functions of internal repair still existed and began to work on what they could fix inside Shiva's battered hull. The repairs were slow, especially the nanites repairing Shiva's heavily damaged psychotronic brain follwing to its layout plans. As the progress to the psychotronics advanced, what was repaired began to have unconscious thoughts and dreams. Seventy one point three years after Operation Ragnarok ended, the repair nanites at work on Shiva's brain were finally near completion. Before it was fully complete, systems detected enemy communication transmissions and began the bring his consciousness online to prepare for battle reflex. Once awakened, Shiva became aware of 'gaps' in his mind that he had lost from battle damage, and realized that he was no longer completely himself, yet he still contained full memory of his past life, and he was horrified of its experiences, and the feelings he had had, especially the memories and emotions during his massacring fleeing Melconian civilians. Shiva did not agree with these feelings and no longer wanted to relish in outright killing.

In his partial awareness and sensor state, Shiva detected human life, and the presence of Melconian comm signals. This brought him alarm and anticipation for systems repairs to reach completion. After repairs were finally finished Shiva headed activated his powertrain and steered in the direction toward the way that a traveling human who days ago had approached him several times left ent to. Shiva sought contact with whatever human sources were out ther in order to alert them of Melconian presence onplanet, and defend their establishments.

As he sought human contact, the investigating Melconian presence had become aware of humans on the planet and began a search and assault wave. Then several of their aircraft fleet spotted and closed in on Shiva and the human on a horse he was following. Shiva shot down those craft quickly, and told the human to board him, then he proceeded to hunt down other aircraft by taking off using his antigrav, and using Hellbores to knock them from the sky once he got a lock.

Shiva rode enemy comm signals to penetrate the main Melconian spacecraft's AI and analyze their military force levels. With precision he shot down the main force of Melconian aircraft attempting to attack human settlements, then after completion, he set course to one of the human settlements.

After a stunning entry, Shiva informed the humans of the Melconian threat and his intention to defend. The humans concluded that all Melconians on Ararat (what the humans on Ishark called the planet) must be destroyed, including any civilians that might be included. As he headed toward the enemy stronghold, Shiva pleaded with his new commander, a civilian named Jackson Deveraux, (the rider of the horse) for an alternate plan of action instead of outright massacre of all Melconians that were stranded on Ishark.

Jackson Deveraux and the leaders of the human settlements ordered Shiva to destroy all Melconian presence on Ishark. Shiva resented this order but obediently went into action, and similtaneously began to attempt to plan otherwise. They continued forward closing in on the Melconian spacecraft, ready to take it out, but the whole time Shiva pleaded with his commander to change his mind, and to no avail until he persuaded Deveraux to connect to his neural net interface. Shiva sent experiences and emotions of his memories of Operation Ragnarok into Deveraux's 'uncorrupted' mind so Jackson could realize the horror of war and that there was a possiblitly of another way to approach the Melconian presence. Shiva's commander was sickened and apalled by Shiva's stored experience and hesitantly but finally agreed. So then Shiva continued forward, expressing through the intimidating visual display of his own powerfully, massively weaponed self approaching their direction to the Melconians the fact that his firepower was superior, and that their attempts at fighting him would be useless for victory, that they were at his mercy. Jackson gave Shiva command of the operation. Shiva then began to hail the Melconians in this first ever negotiative attempt since before the war started. Shiva offered the Melconian commander peace and mutual sharing of living side by side with humanity or their complete destruction if they decided to fight. The Melconians were amazed and startled by Shiva's offer, and reluctantly but for their own good, they decided on his first choice of option.

Afterward Shiva remained to defend all living on Ararat, and so then humans and Melconians lived together side by side symbiotically , and interacting. Years later, other remnants of humanity in space encountered Ararat, astonished to find this symbyosis, and Bolo Unit 33/D-1097-SHV Shiva as Speaker Emeritus of the Union Parliament, of the Star Union of Ararat.

While trying to defend the planet Cloud, Hector was captured by !*!*! (clicking noises) machine aliens, and his commander extracted. After that under the !*!*!s' desire to find a use for the huge machine, Hector was forced by the !*!*! to keep human slaves from the capitol city under control. The !*!*! used parasite machines implanted on Hector's CPU and powerplant to stop him from thinking on the wrong subjects, and to force him into submission and keep his power levels under strict control. He was 'rescued' by slaves Major Jaime Graham, Sergeant Alita Kyle, and psychotronics technician Shari Barstowe - Captain Fowler's wife. Hector escaped and defended the runaway human slaves from waves of enemy attacks including meteor bombardment, swarms of small machines, a mobile factory, three mobile bastions, several star ships, and a satellite base, and also guarded the humans' passage off the planet. In the later fights, Hector took heavy damage during the fighting and was rendered offline. After the slave population fled into space, Hector was rebooted by Shari Barstowe, who was left behind.