"I thought," said Dick Suilin, looking down at the silent trench line as Flamethrower accelerated past, "that we'd have to fight our way out of la Reole, too."
It must have rained recently, because ankle-deep mud slimed the bottom of the trench. Two bodies lay face down in it. Their black uniforms smoldered around the holes chewed by shell fragments.
The bruises beneath Suilin's armor itched unbearably. "I wonder what my sister's doing," he added inconsequently.
"The Consies were just tacking the west bank down," Cooter said, his eyes on his multi-function display. "Nothin' serious."
"Nothin' that wasn't gonna run like rabbits when the shells hit—thems as could," Gale interjected with a chuckle.
"All their heavy stuff this side of the river," the lieutenant continued, "that's at Kohang."
He shrugged. "Where we'll find it quick enough, I guess."
"Where's your sister?" Gale asked. The veteran gunner poked a knifepoint into the crust around the ejection port of his tribarrel. Jets of liquid nitrogen were supposed to cool and expel powergun rounds from the chambers after firing. A certain amount of the plastic matrix remained gaseous until it condensed on the outside of the receiver, narrowing the port.
Suilin unlatched his body armor and began rubbing the raw skin over his ribs. His fatigue shirt was sweaty, but the drenching in salt spray from the estuary seemed to have made the itch much worse.
"She's in Kohang," the reporter said. It was hard to remember what he'd said to whom about his background, about Suzette. "She's married to Governor Kung."
The past two days were a blur of gray and cyan. Maybe fatigue, maybe the drugs he was taking against the fatigue.
Maybe the way his life had been turned inside out, like the body of the Consie guerrilla his tribarrel had centerpunched. . . .
"Whoo-ie!" Gale chorted. "Well, if that's who she is, I sure hope she don't mind meetin' a few good men. Er a few hundred!"
The reporter went cold.
Cooter reached over and took Gale's jaw between a big thumb and forefinger. "Shut up, Windy," he said. "Just shut the fuck up, all right?"
"Sorry," muttered the wing gunner to Suilin. He brushed his mouth with the back of his hand. "Look, the place's still holdin', far as we know. We'll get there, no sweat."
He nodded to Cooter. "Anything on your box, El-tee?"
"Nothing yet. Junebug'll report in pretty quick, I guess."
The task force was moving fast in the open country between la Reole and Kohang further up the coast. A clump of farm buildings stood beneath an orchard-planted hillside two kilometers away.
Suilin found it odd to be able to see considerable distances with his normal eyesight. He felt as though he'd crewed Flamethrower all his life, but this was the first time he'd been aboard the combat car during daylight.
Almost daylight. The sun was still beneath the horizon. His fingertips massaged his ribs.
"You okay?" Gale asked unexpectedly.
"Huh?" Suilin said. He looked down at his bruises. "Oh, yeah. I—the armor, last night a bullet hit it."
He saw Gale's eyes widen in surprise a moment before he realized the cause. "Oh," he corrected. "I mean the night before. At Camp Progress. I lost track. . . ."
Cooter handed out ration bars. The reporter stared at his with loathing, remembering the taste of the previous one.
"Go ahead," Cooter encouraged. "You need the calories. The Wide-awakes, they'll keep you moving, but you need the fuel to burn anyhow."
Suilin bit down, trying to ignore the flavor. This bar seemed to have been compressed from muck at the bottom of the estuary.
The two tankers they'd rescued wanted to stay together, so Cooter had transferred them both to One-six. The vehicles of Task Force Ranson were fully crewed at the moment—over-crewed, in fact.
Dick Suilin had seen at Adako Beach how quickly a short burst could wipe out the crew of a combat car. Without the firepower of the two tanks lost at la Reole . . .
Funny to have another combat car directly ahead of Flamethrower. The only view of the task force the reporter'd had during most of the night was the stern of the tank which now lay at the bottom of the Santine.
"Will they raise her?" he asked. "The, that is, the tank that fell off the bridge?"
"Through the bloody bridge," Gale corrected.
"The hull's worth something," Cooter said.
His lips pursed in a moue. "Maybe the gun could be rebuilt to standard. But the really pricy stuff's the electronics, and that's all screwed for good 'n all. I figure the Colonel, he'll combat-loss it and the other one both and try to squeeze a victory bonus outta your people to pay for 'em."
His eyes swept the horizon, looking for an enemy or a sign. "Lord knows we'll 've earned a bonus. If we win."
The display box beside Cooter's tribarrel clucked and spat.
"C'mon, El-tee," Gale demanded greedily. "What's she sayin'?"
"Give it a minute, will you?" the lieutenant said as he stared at his display. "It's a coded burst, right? And that takes a while."
Gale nodded to Suilin. "Tootsie's talkin' to the Old Man," the veteran explained. "Ain't meant for us to hear, but this close, we kin read anything she kin code."
He giggled. "The black box giveth and the black box taketh away."
"Bloody hell," Cooter muttered.
"Well, c'mon!"
"She told him we were across the Santine," Cooter said, still watching the display where holograms spelled words decoded by the vehicle's AI. "She told him about the casualties. Told him we were going ahead with the mission."
"Well, what did ya bloody expect?" Gale snorted. "Come this far and settle down to rest 'n refit?"
Cooter turned to face the other two men. He looked very worn. "Also she told Central," he went on, "that we were getting messages from First of the Fourth Armored Brigade. They're ahead of us and they're requesting our positions so they can join up with us."
"Via," said Gale.
Dick Suilin blinked. "So we'll have a National armored battalion to support us in entering Kohang?" he said, puzzled at the mercenaries' attitude. "I didn't realize there were any friendly units this near the city."
"Via," Gale repeated. He scowled at the tribarrel, picking at the ejection port with a cracked fingernail. "How many bloody tanks in a Yokel battalion?"
In the frozen moment before anybody else spoke, Dick Suilin remembered the truck he'd ripped apart near the Padma, a National Army vehicle filled with troops in National Army uniforms.
"I said it was First of the Fourth," Cooter said. "I didn't say they were friendly."
Warmonger had settled into a reed-choked draw. The other vehicles were invisible, but June Ranson's display indicated that all of them were in place and awaiting her orders.
Steam rising from la Reole behind them was golden in the light of sunrise.
Janacek watched her expectantly; Stolley scanned the sky past the reed bracts with a scowl of displeasure. He knew there wasn't a prayer that he'd be able to hit any incoming with his tribarrel, but he was determined to try.
Blue Three was the only task force vehicle in the open, poised 300 meters to the east on what passed for high ground in this coastal terrain. Its cupola gun quivered in air defense mode.
Whether their sole remaining tank could provide sufficient defense depended on what came through the air at the task force while its leader held the vehicles grounded for a council of war.
Maybe nothing would come. Probably nothing would come.
"Booster," said Junebug Ranson. "Council display, all Tootsie units."
Her multi-function display hummed and clicked. Faces glowed in the thirty-centimeter cube, replacing the holographic map and location beads. She'd have done better to use the tank's big screens, but she couldn't risk leaving her command vehicle here.
They were within twenty kays of Kohang. Everything that had occurred since they left Camp Progress, the danger and the losses, was only a prelude to what would happen in the next few hours.
Faces—the entire fighting-compartment crews of the other four combat cars, and the tense, tightlipped visage of Wager in the turret of Blue Three—crowded the multi-function display.
For a moment, no one spoke; the crews were waiting for Ranson, and June Ranson's mind was extending into a universe of phosphor dots.
The image of Cooter's face brightened and swelled slightly to highlight it as the lieutenant said, "Junebug, we gotta figure these guys've gone over to the Consies. They left Camp Victory without orders, just before the general attack. Only question is, do we go around 'em or do we fight 'em?"
"We're tasked to get there, not to fight, ain't we?" said Tillman, blower captain of One-five. At the best of times, Tillman was a thin, sallow man. The past two days had sweated off weight he couldn't afford to lose.
"Look, just in case they are friendly . . ." said Chalkin. He looked sour, partly because he was crowded in the fighting compartment of One-six with Ortnahme and Simkins as well as the shot-up survivors of the car's original crew. "I wouldn't mind havin' fifty tanks alongside us when we hit Kohang, even if it's Yokels."
"Max of forty-four tanks," interjected Warrant Leader Ortnahme, looking at something off-screen low, probably his clenched knuckles. There were problems on One-six, Daisy Belle; not just the crowding, but a fat non-combatant with a lot of rank, dropped on a blower commanded by a mere Senior Trooper on transfer.
"There were forty-four at their bloody laager when the drone overflew 'em," Ortnahme continued, looking straight at the pick-up in the car's multi-function display. "Some'll be dead-lined, twenty percent given what passes fer Yokel maintenance."
His fingers rose into the tiny field-of-view, ticking off the third point: "Some more drop out on the route march to block us when they've fine'ly get the lead out. So, say thirty-five max, maybe thirty."
"And," said Cooter's voice in the enfolding electronic tendrils of June Ranson's mind, "there's no bloody way—"
"—that those bastards're friendly," Cooter snapped at the hologram display beside his tribarrel while Dick Suilin shivered on the ribbed plastic crates of ammunition lining the interior of the fighting compartment.
At the signal to halt in dispersed order for council, Flamethrower had forced its way into a thicket of knotbushes. Their gnarled branches sprang back to full four-meter height behind the vehicle, concealing the combat car on all sides and even covering it fairly well from above.
"Look, just 'cause they sat out the last couple days—" argued a voice that had spoken earlier, not one that the reporter recognized.
The net wasn't wide open, as Suilin first thought. The computer—the AI—controlling the discussion cut off whoever was talking the instant someone higher in the hierarchy began to speak.
"There was no sign from the recce flight that they'd been hit," Cooter boomed onward. "With all the Consies did the other night, there was no chance they'd 've ignored a tank battalion—except it'd gone over or it was about t' go over."
Suilin's face was turned slightly away from the display. There was probably a way to magnify the images through his helmet visor, but he didn't much care.
He felt awful, as though he were in the midst of a bad bout of flu. Despite his chills, his throat felt parched. He gestured toward the cooler on which Gale sat.
The veteran shook his head, then nodded in explanation toward the display.
"Later," he said in a husky whisper that presumably wouldn't carry to the pick-up. He tossed Suilin another Wide-awake. "You're on the down side. No sweat. You'll get used t'it."
"Via, still wouldn't mind havin' the help," muttered a voice from the display. "Some cursed help."
The cone sent needles of delicious ice up the throat vein to which Suilin applied it. Gray fog cleared from his eyes. The holographic display sprang into focus, though the figures in it were featurelessly small.
He realized that Captain Ranson hadn't spoken during the discussion.
As though the jolt of stimulant in the reporter's bloodstream had unblocked the commander's tongue, the mercenary captain's cool—cold—voice said, "We are nearly in contact with a force of uncertain loyalty, estimated to be a battalion of thirty to thirty-five armored vehicles."
Tiny, toothed birds jumped and chittered through the branches of the knotbushes, ignoring the iridium monster in their midst. Their wings were covered with pale fur, familiar to Suilin but probably exotic to his mercenary companions.
"If the battalion is allied with the Conservative Action Movement, it will threaten the rear of Task Force Ranson as the task force performs its mission of breaking through hostile forces encircling the Governmental Compound in Kohang."
The sense of glacial well-being reached Suilin's fingertips. His hands stopped shaking.
Probably not exotic. The Lord only knew how many worlds, how many life-forms, these scarred veterans had seen uncaring on their career of slaughter for money. . . .
"The loyalty of the battalion must first be ascertained. If hostile, the force must be engaged and neutralized before Task Force Ranson proceeds with its primary mission."
"Thirty bloody tanks," Cooter whispered.
"We will proceed as follows. First, I will inform the armored battalion that we have received heavy casualties and have taken refuge in the settlement of Kawana."
"Even bloody Yokel tanks. . . ."
"Blue three—"
Hans Wager's head jerked up. You can only stay scared for so long. Ranson's clop-clop mechanical delivery had bored him, so his attention had been on the holographic plan of a Yokel tank he'd called up on Screen Three.
"—will take a position north of Kawana, behind Chin Peng Rise."
"Roger, Tootsie Six," Wager said, suddenly afraid that he'd actually fallen asleep and missed some crucial part of the Operations Order.
"Set your sensors for maximum sensitivity," Ranson's voice continued without noticeable emotion. "You will supply the precise location and strength of the other force. In event the force proves hostile, you will be the blocking element to prevent them breaking out to the north."
"Roger, Tootsie Six," Wager repeated in a whisper.
They didn't operate with Yokel armor—the difference in speed was too great, and the mercenaries had a well-justified concern about the fire discipline of the local forces in general.
Still, Wager'd looked over Yokel tanks out of curiosity. Memories echoed in his mind when his eyes rested on the holographic image.
"We can expect the other force to continue their approach from due south," Ranson's bored, boring voice continued. "Tootsie Three, you'll command the eastern element. Proceed with your blower and One-six clockwise from Chin Peng Rise, around Kawana by Hull Creek and Raider Camp Creek. Stay out of sight. Wait at the head of Raider Camp Creek, a kilometer east of Sugar Knob to the south of Kawana."
Via, thirty of them. If it wasn't thirty-five.
Or forty-four, despite Blue Two's scorn of the Yokel's ability to keep their hardware operational.
Each tank weighed sixteen point eight tonnes. They were track-laying vehicles with five road-wheels per side and the drive sprocket forward. Steel/ceramic sandwich armor. Diesel engine on the right side, opposite the driver. A two-man turret with either a high-velocity 60mm automatic cannon or a 130mm howitzer.
Lighweight vehicles, designed for the particular needs of the National Army in a guerrilla war that might at any moment burst into pitched battles with a foe equipped by the Terran World Government.
Nothing Wager's panzer couldn't handle, one on one. Nothing a combat car couldn't handle, one on one.
Thirty. Or thirty-five. Or more.
"I will command the western element," Ranson said coolly. "Cars One-one, One-three, and One-five. We'll circle Kawana by Upper Creek and wait a kilometer west of Sugar Knob until the intentions of the other force become clear."
A shaped-charge round from the 130mm howitzer moved too fast for the close-in defense system to knock it down. A direct hit could penetrate the armor of a Slammers' tank.
The 60mm guns fired either high-explosive shells or armor-piercing shot. A single tungsten-carbide shot wouldn't penetrate Blue Three's hull or turret armor. Three hitting the same point might. Twelve on the same point would penetrate.
The clip-loaded 60mm cannon could cycle twelve rounds in twelve seconds.
"Blue Three," Ranson said, "if the other battalion is hostile, we will need precise data on enemy dispositions before we launch our counterattack. This may require that you move into the open so that your sensors are unmasked. Do you understand?"
"Roger, Tootsie Six."
Hans Wager's hands were wiping themselves slowly against his pants legs. The rhythmic, unconscious gesture dried his palms for less than the time it took for his arms to move back and start the process again.
"Blue Three—" still no emotion in the voice "—if you like, for this operation I can replace you and your driver with more experienced—"
"Negative!" Wager snarled. He hand-keyed his helmet to break out of the council net. "Tootsie Six, that's a negative. We'll do our job. We understand. Out."
"Roger, Blue Three," said the voice. "All Tootsie units, courses and phase lines are being down-loaded into your AIs—now."
Wager's palms rubbed his thighs.
"Sarge?" whispered his intercom. "Thanks."
"Don't thank me, Holman," Wager said. "I think I just bought us both the farm."
Thirty or more guns aimed at them, and Blue Three wouldn't be able to reply until the combat cars had the data needed to target every one of the enemy tanks.
Yeah, he understood all right.