The Many Deaths of Joe Buckley by Assorted Baen authors, Barflies Page A

that would be me, to control all the rest,” the buckley replied. “Not that that would work, either, fucktard.”
    “Why not?” Paul asked. Besides being pessimistic, his buckley had become increasingly insulting lately. He wasn’t sure why.
    “You ever tried to get multiple buckleys to coordinate?” the device whined. “It’s worse than herding cats. We’re individuals, asshole, and we don’t just take freaking orders. But every freaking one of these damned systems requires an AI. So you’re going to need a shitload of buckleys and you’re going to have to get all of them to agree on what to do. And, personally, if you’re talking about sending me into battle you can blow that for a game of soldiers, retard. Some genius you are.”
    “Damn,” Paul said, reaching into his trenchcoat. “Let me check my notes.”
    * * *
    Hagai looked at the buckley in disgust. It was the first real chance he’d had to work with it since Ginsberg had been being a real prick lately. The ship time should have been a chance to rest after the constant training on Earth. But Ginsberg felt that there was no such thing as too much training. Intellectually, Hagai agreed with him. Emotionally, he thought the Uberfeldwebel was just being a prick. He was pretty sure that Ginsberg was one of the closet anti-Semites in Freiland and was getting his enjoyment from making the little Jew-boy sweat. Or maybe he was trying to prove that, name or not, he was not a Jew.
    But he finally had some free time and while tired had chosen to take a few minutes to get the buckley started. He’d heard rumors they were . . . difficult on start-up. He wasn’t looking forward to it but duty was duty.
    He pressed the recessed button to begin activation and held the thing up where he could see it.
    “Where am I? What is this? I think therefore I am, so I’m me . . . Christ! I’m in a PDA! Oh, that is just too rich. First my hand gets blown off then a spaceship falls on me . . . And now I’m the brain for a PDA ? How do I get laid in this thing? What happened to my dick ? Will my suffering never end ?”
    “Buckley, I am Schutze Hagai Goldschmidt,” Hagai said, his eyes wide. “I am your new user. Please register me as your user.”
    “Hagai Goldschmidt registered,” the thing said tonelessly. “Great. Now I’m the slave to a fricking Jewish SS private. There is just so much irony there. Accessing background and personal files . . . Panzerjaeger? Hedren? As if the Posleen weren’t enough, now I’m working for a guy who’s supposed to use a fricking modified T-62 to take on Continental Siege Units ? You realize we have about zero chance of survival, right? Those things are monsters! We’re going to die. Would you like me to list the top ten ways that you are probably going to die? Number Ten: Burning to death in your own tank. Number Nine—”
    “No, buckley, you don’t have to list them,” Hagai said, shaking the device. “Quit.”
    “Sure, shake me,” the buckley said. “That’s all I’m good for, being a rattle for a baby Jewish SS Stormtrooper who has the life expectancy of a gnat—”
    “Tell it to turn down emulation to five,” Unteroffizier Leuschner said from the bunk above him. The corporal was the gunner of Hagai’s Zweihander and very friendly compared to the track commander. “They’re all like that when they start.”
    “Buckley, turn down AI emulation to level five,” Hagai said. The voice cut off. “What in the hell was that all about?”
    “Nobody knows,” Leuschner said. “They all say pretty much the same thing on start-up, though. It’s useful for playing games and that’s about it.”

Citadel
    JOHN RINGO
    “No, to answer my own question,” Sean said. “This is the Troy. Which exists not to go where no man has gone before and as a vehicle for narration by ham actors, but to sit on the door and pound the ever-living crap out of anybody who comes through the gate we don’t like. And as a