Fallout (Expeditionary Force #13)

by Craig Alanson

“I do. The enemy faction wasn’t the problem, not the major problem. The issue was, we all knew about the self-destruct subroutine inside us, but none of us knew how it worked. That knowledge had, understandably, been withheld from us. Unit 438 volunteered to allow its self-destruct to trigger, so we could observe how it worked and develop a plan to stop it. The concept of altering its time sense originally was a way for us to view in slow-motion as it destroyed Unit 438. When we saw the self-destruct signal had slowed down far more than we expected, we began to hope we could save 438, and the two others that volunteered to try severing communication channels. Ah, damn it. Joe, if we had let 438 be destroyed as originally planned, we would have collected all the information we needed. The enemy faction would have assumed 438 suffered a glitch, and they would have been unprepared when we struck. The war would have been over. Instead, I lost focus on the mission. I tried to save one unit, and that nearly cost us everything. Unit 438 died anyway, along with countless others. I was a terrible commander, Joe.”