Far to the north a tremor of the earth dislodged a slab of fallen concrete, and a sift of dust closed a circuit now exposed to the air.  Ten metres below the ground power flowed to a niche; the ancient robot in the niche began to return to service.  R-10-T's body ran through checks and power-up routines and then, satisfied that R-10-T was fit for action fed power to his electronic brain.

R-10-T began his checklist, as he had done a dozen times before when wakened after a period in reserve.  First he checked his sensors and finding them functional attempted to connect to the command net.  Attempt after attempt failed and suspecting a failure of his wireless systems extruded a cable and using one massive finger and thumb jacked the cable into a socket on the side of the niche.  The command net was still unavailable.  Jumping to the next series of routines R-10-T began to prepare to leave his niche and move to seek out a connection to the network; only then could he find why he had been wakened, what was the nature of the threat, and what was his role.

Stepping forward from the niche R-10-T slotted one arm into the straps of the massive shield, the other into the rings of the telescopic baton. He noted that the station in which his niche stood was partially ruined. The roof had collapsed so that it formed a ramp to the outside; a layer of sand and dust nearly a metre thick lat on the floor, and all the few workstations that had power seemed to be carrying out repeated and unsuccessful restart tests.  His first assessment was enemy action, making connection to the command net still more urgent.