Birdie Sparrow curled and uncurled his hands, working out the stiffness from their grip on the gunnery joysticks.
Gases from the breech of the main gun swirled as if fleeing the efforts of the air-conditioning fans which tried to scavenge them. The twisted vapors picked up the patterns glowing in the holographic screens, mixed and softened the colors, and turned the turret interior into a sea of gentle pastels.
The radio crackled with reports of damage and casualties. That didn't touch Birdie. Deathdealer's finish had been scratched by a bullet or two, and there were some new dents in her skirts; but the Consies hadn't so much as fired a buzzbomb.
Tough about the crew of One-six, but a combat car . . . what'd they expect? That was worse 'n ridin' with your head out the cupola.
DJ Bell pointed from a whisp of mauve vapor toward the yellow warning that had just blinked alive in the corner of Screen Two.
Sparrow hit the square yellow button marked Automatic Air Defense—easy to find now, because it started to glow a millisecond after the Aircraft Warning header came up on the gunnery screen. The tribarrel in the cupola whined, rousing to align itself with the putative target.
Piss off, DJ, Sparrow thought/said to the phantom of his friend that grinned until the inevitable change smeared its features.
Aloud, certainly aloud, Sparrow reported, "Tootsie Six, this is Blue One. Aircraft warning. Sonic signature only."
He was reading off the data cascading in jerks down the left edge of his screen like the speeded-up image of a crystal growing. The pipper remained in the center of the holofield, but the background displayed on the screen jumped madly. The tracking system was trying to find gaps that would permit it to shoot through the dense vegetation.
"AAD has a lock but not a window." Sparrow paused then pursed his lips. "Signature is consistent with a friendly recce drone. We expectin' help? Over."
The bone-deep hum of Deathdealer grinding her way southward was the only response for several seconds.
"Blue One," Captain Ranson's voice said at last, "it may be friendly—but let your AAD make the choice. I'd rather shoot down a friendly drone with a bad identification transponder than learn the Terrans were giving some smart-help to their Consie buddies. Out."
The pipper jumped and quivered among the tree images, like an attack dog straining on its leash.
"No, sweat, snake," whispered DJ Bell. "It's all copacetic. This time . . ."
"Blue Two lock," said Ranson's headset as the B2 designator glowed air-defense yellow in her multi-function display.
Warmonger went airborne for an unplanned instant. Willens boosted his fans when he realized the ground had betrayed him, but the car landed again like a gymnast dropping three meters onto a mat.
The three mercenaries in the fighting compartment braced for it, splay-legged and on their toes. Shock gouged the edge of Ranson's breastplate into the top of her thighs.
"Blue Three, ah, locked," said Sergeant Wager, but the designator didn't come on, not for a further five seconds.
Wager, the recent transfer from combat cars, was having problems with his hardware. Understandable but a piss-poor time for it. His driver, that was Holman, she wasn't any better. The nameless Blue Three kept losing station, falling behind or speeding up to the point the tank threatened to overrun the car directly ahead of it.
"Janacek!" Ranson snapped. "Don't point your gun! Now! Lower it!"
"Via, Cap'n—" the wing gunner said fiercely. His tribarrel slanted upward at a thirty degree angle on the rough southwest vector he'd gleaned from seeing Deathdealer's cupola gun rouse.
"Lower it, curse you!" Ranson repeated. "And then take your cursed hands away from it. Now!"
There was almost nil chance of a hand-aimed tribarrel doing any good if three tank units failed on air-defense mode. There was a bloody good chance that a human thumb would twitch at the wrong time and knock down a friendly drone whose IFF handshake had passed the tank computers, though. . . .
Deathdealer had to be the leading panzer. Blue Three in the rear-guard slot wouldn't tear gaps the way it did in the middle of the line, but Wager's inexperience could be an even worse disaster there if the task force were hit from behind. Maybe if she put Deathdealer's driver in the turret of Blue Three and moved an experienced driver from one of the cars to—
Command exercises. Arrange beads of light in a chosen order, then step back while the grading officer critiques your result.
"Tight-ass bitch," the intercom muttered. Handkeyed, Janacek or Stolley, either one, or even Willens.
Veterans don't like to be called down by their new CO. But veterans screw up too, just like newbies . . . just like COs who drift in and out of an electronic non-world, where the graders snarl but don't shoot.
Ranson thought she heard the aircraft's engine over the howl of Warmonger's fans and the constant slap of branches against their hull. That was impossible.
"Six, it's friendly!" Sparrow called, echoing the relayed information that flashed on the display which in turn cross-checked the opinion of the combat car's own electronics. And they could all be wrong, but—
The aircraft was friendly. Its data dump started.
Maps and numerals scrolled across the display, elbowing one another aside as knowledge became chaos by its volume. Ranson was so focused on her attempt to sort the electronic garbage with a combat car's inadequate resources that she didn't notice the drone when it passed overhead a few seconds later.
The Slammers' reconnaissance drones were slow, loping along at less than a thousand kph instead of sailing around the globe at a satellite's ninety-minute rate. On the other hand, no satellite could survive in a situation where the enemy had powerguns and even the very basic fire-direction equipment needed to pick up a solid object against the vacant backdrop of interstellar space.
Stolley whispered inaudibly as the drone flicked past, barely visible against the slats of the trees. The aircraft had a long, narrow-chord wing mounted high so as not to interfere with the sensors in its belly.
The drone's high-bypass turbofan sighed rather than roared, and the exhaust dumped from its twin outlets was within fifty degrees C of ambient. Except for the panels covering the sensor bays, the plastic of the wings and fuselage absorbed radio—radar—waves, and the material's surface adapted its mottled coloration to whatever the background might be.
Task Force Ranson could still have gulped the drone down with the ease of a frog and a fly. The Consies operating here weren't nearly as sophisticated—
And that was good, because even a cursory glance at the downloaded data convinced June Ranson that the task force was cold meat if it continued along the course she'd planned originally.
Information wriggled on her multi-function display. Task Force Ranson didn't have a command car, but the electronics suite of one of the panzers would do about as well. . . .
"Blue One," she ordered, "how close is the nearest clearing where we can laager for—half an hour? Six over."
That should be time enough. There were wounded in One-six to deal with besides. Cooter could shift crews while she—
"Six," said Sparrow in his usual expressionless voice, "there's a bald half a kay back the way we came. It'll give us a clear shot over two-seventy, maybe three-hundred degrees. Blue One over."
"Roger, Blue One," Ranson said. Weighing the alternatives, knowing that the grader would demonstrate that any decision she made was the wrong one, because there are no right decisions in war.
Knowing also that there is no decision as bad as no decision at all.
"All Tootsie elements," her voice continued, "halt and prepare to reverse course."
Warmonger bobbed, its fan chuffing as Willens tried to scrub off momentum smoothly while his eyes darted furiously over the display showing his separation from the huge tanks before and behind him.
"Tootsie, One-two, lead on the new course as displayed." Better to have a tank as a lead vehicle, but there wasn't much chance of trouble here in the boonies, and it was only half a kilometer. . . .
Warmonger touched the ground momentarily, then began to rotate on its axis. A twenty-centimeter treebole, thick for this area, this forest, this planet, obstructed the turn. Willens backed them grudgingly to the altered course.
Anyway, she wasn't sure she wanted Blue Two leading. Ortnahme didn't have much field experience either.
"We'll laager on the bald. Break. Blue Three, I'll be borrowing your displays. I want you to take over my position while we're halted. Over."
"Roger, Tootsie Six. Blue Three out."
"All Tootsie elements, execute new course. Tootsie Six out."
She'd get an eighty percent for that. Down on reversing, down on halting, down on not swapping Cooter's combat car for one of the panzers. But she'd be down on those points whichever way she'd chosen. . . .
Ranson rubbed her eyes vaguely surprised to find that they were open. Her body braced itself reflexively as Willens brought Warmonger up to speed.
She'd use Blue Three's displays. And she'd use the tank's commo gear also, because that was going to get tricky.
Of course, it was always tricky to talk with Colonel Hammer.
The bald was a barren, hundred-meter circle punched in the vegetation of a rocky knoll by fire, disease, or the chemistry of the underlying rock strata. Flamethrower scudded nervously across the clearing and settled, not to the ground on idle but in a dynamic stasis with its fans spinning at high speed.
Cooter spoke to his multi-function display, then poked a button on the side of it. Suilin's tribarrel shivered.
"Just let it be," the big lieutenant said, nodding toward the weapon. "I put all the guns on air defense." He gripped the rear coaming and swung his leg over the side of the vehicle.
"There's not much chance of 'em helping, using car sensors," he added. "But it's what we got till the panzers arrive."
As Cooter spoke, Blue Two came bellowing out of the trees. The tank's vast size was emphasized by the narrow compass of the bald. The warrant leader from Maintenance, his bulky form unmistakable, waved from the cupola as his driver pulled to a location 120 degrees around the circle from Warmonger. Further vehicles were following closely.
"What's going on?" the reporter asked Gale. "Why are we in the, the clear?"
In only a few hours, Suilin had gotten so used to the forest canopy that he felt naked under the open sky. Both moons were visible, though wisps of haze blotted many of the stars. He didn't suppose the leaves really provided much protection—but, like his childhood bedcovers, they'd served to keep away the boogeymen of his imagination.
The veteran gestured toward the horizon dominated by a long ridge twenty kilometers away. "Air attack," he said. "Or arty. While we're movin' it's okay, but clumpin' all together like this, we could get our clocks cleaned. If we see it comin', we're slick, we shoot it down. But with powerguns, if a leaf gets in the way, the bolt don't touch the incoming shell it's s'posed t' get, does it?"
"The Consies don't have air . . . ?" Suilin began, but he broke the statement off on a rising inflection.
Gale grinned viciously. "Right," he said. "Bet on that and kiss yer ass goodbye."
He glanced at the combat car which had just pulled up beside them and grounded. "Not," he added, "like we're playin' it safe as is."
Cooter clambered aboard the grounded car. Its sides were scratched, like those of all the vehicles, but the words Daisy Belle could be read on the upper curve of the armorplate.
A cartoon figure had been drawn beside the name, but it would have been hard to make out even under better lighting. A bullet had struck in the center of the drawing, splashing the paint away without cratering the armor. A second bullet had left a semicircle of lead on the coaming.
There was only one mercenary standing erect in the fighting compartment to greet Cooter.
"Wisht we had a better field that way," Gale mused aloud, nodding toward the crags that lurched up to the immediate north of the bald, cutting off vision in that direction. "Still, with the panzers—" a second tank had joined Blue Two and the third was an audible presence "—it oughta be okay. Whatever hardware does best, them big fuckers does best."
Suilin climbed out of the fighting compartment and jumped to the ground. He staggered when he found himself on footing that didn't vibrate. Despite the weight of his armor, the reporter mounted the rear slope of Daisy Belle without difficulty. He'd learned where the steps in the armor were—
And he was no longer entering an alien environment.
Cooter was examining the right forearm of the standing crewman. The trooper's sleeve had been torn away. The bandage across the muscles was brilliantly white in the moonlight except for the dots of blood on opposite sides.
He must have bandaged himself, because the other two crewmen lay on the floor of the fighting compartment—one dead, the other breathing but comatose.
"I'm okay," the wounded man said sullenly.
"Sure you are, Titelbaum," Cooter replied. "Tootsie One-five," he continued, keying his helmet. "This is Tootsie Three. Tommy, send one a' your boys—send Chalkin—to One-six. Over."
"I kin handle it!" Titelbaum insisted as the lieutenant listened to the reply.
"One-five," Cooter said in response to a complaint Suilin couldn't hear. "I'd like to be in bed with a hooker. Get Chalkin over here, right? I need 'im to take over. Three out."
"I kin—"
"You got one hand," Cooter snapped. "Just shut it off, okay?"
"I'm left—"
"You're a bloody liar." Cooter looked at Suilin, balanced on the edge of the armor, for the first time. "Good. Gimme a hand with McGwire. We'll sling her to the skirts and get a little more space for Chalkin."
Suilin nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.
"Here, take the top," Cooter said. He reached beneath McGwire's shoulders and lifted the corpse with surprising gentleness.
McGwire had been a small woman with sharp features and a fine shimmer of blonde hair. Her head was bare. A bullet had entered beneath her right mastoid at an upward slant that lifted the commo helmet when it exited with a splash of brains.
McGwire's flesh was still warm. Suilin kept his face rigid as his hands took the weight from Cooter.
"Titelbaum," the lieutenant said, "where's your—oh."
The wounded crewman was already offering a flat dispenser of cargo tape. Cooter thrust it into a pocket and grasped the corpse by the boots.
"Okay, turtle," he said as he raised his leg over the side coaming—careful not to step on the comatose soldier on the floor of the compartment. "Easy now. We'll fasten her to the tarp tie-downs."
Cooter paused for a moment on the edge, using a tribarrel to support his elbow. Then he swung his other leg clear and slid from the bulge of the skirts to the ground without jerking or dropping his burden.
Suilin managed to get down with his end also. It was a difficult job, even though he had proper steps for his feet.
Gear—stakes, wire mesh, bedding and the Lord knew what all else—was fastened along the sides of all the combat cars. Cooter spun a few centimeters of tape into a loop and reached behind a footlocker to hook the loop to the hull. He took two turns around McGwire's ankles before snugging them tight to the same tie-down.
A trooper carrying a sub-machinegun and a bandolier of ammunition jogged up to Daisy Belle, glancing around warily at the vehicles which snorted and shifted across the bald. "This One-six?" he demanded. "Oh, hi, Coot."
"Yeah, try 'n keep Titelbaum trackin', will you?" the lieutenant said. "He's takin' it pretty hard, you know?"
"Aw, cop," the newcomer muttered, looking past Suilin. "Nandi bought it? Aw, cop."
"Foran's not in great shape neither, but he'll be okay," Cooter said.
The lieutenant's big, capable fingers wrapped tape quickly around McGwire's shoulders.
The corpse leaked on Suilin's hands and wrist. The reporter's face didn't move except for a slight flaring of his nostrils.
Chalkin climbed into the fighting compartment. The barrel of his sub-machinegun rang against the armor. "Dreamer," he said. "None of us'll be okay unless some fairy godmother shows up real quick."
"Okay, let's get back," Cooter said. He touched the reporter's shoulder, turned him. "Dunno how long Junebug's gonna stay here."
He glanced up at the moons. "No longer 'n she has to, I curst well hope."
Suilin found he had a voice. "It gets easier from here?" he asked.
"Naw, but it gets over," the big man said as he waved Suilin ahead of him at the steps of their vehicle.
Suilin paused, looking at the hull beneath the tribarrel he served. He hadn't had a good look at the cartoon painted on the sides of the combat car before. Above Flamethrower in crude Gothic letters, a wyvern writhed so that its tail faced forward. Jets of blue fire spouted from both nostrils, and the creature farted a third flame as well.
He wondered whether a bullet would blast away the grinning drawing an instant before another round lifted the top of Dick Suilin's head.
"It gets over," Cooter mused aloud. "One way or the other."
"Sir, are we s'posed to be watchin' this?" Simkins murmured through the intercom link. The map sliding across the main turret screen was reproduced in miniature on one of the driver's displays as well.
"Junebug didn't put a bloody lock on it, did she?" Ortnahme grunted. "Besides, we got all the data the drone dumped ourselfs."
But the men on Herman's Whore didn't know what the Task Force commander was going to do with the recce data; and therefore, what she was going to do with them.
Warrant Leader Ortnahme was pretty sure Captain Ranson didn't realize Herman's Whore was echoing the displays from Blue Three; but as he'd told Simkins, she hadn't thrown the mechanical toggle that would've prevented them from borrowing the signals.
And Hell, it was their asses too!
"Sir," said Simkins, "where 're we?"
"We're off-screen, kid," Ortnahme replied, just as the image rotated eight degrees from Grid North to place as much as possible of the River Santine on the display at one time. The Estuary was on the right edge of the screen.
Symbols flashed at a dozen points—bridges, ferries; fords if there'd been any, which there weren't, not this far down the Santine's course.
The image jerked leftward under June Ranson's control in the nameless tank. More symbols, but not so very many more; and none of 'em a bloody bit of good until you'd gone 300 kays in the wrong bloody direction. . . .
"Which way are we going to go, sir?" the technician asked.
The display lurched violently back to the southward. The image jumped as Ranson shrank the map scale, focusing tightly on la Reole. The numeral I overlay the main bridge in the center of the town. The symbol was flashing yellow.
"Which bloody way do you think we're gonna go?" Ortnahme snarled. "You think we're pushin' babycarts? There's only one tank-capable bridge left on the Santine till you've gone all the way north t' bloody bumfuck! And that bridge's about to fall into the river by itself, it looks!"
"W-warrant Leader Ortnahme? I'm sorry, sir."
Blood 'n martyrs.
It musta been lonely, closed up in the driver's compartment.
The Lord knew it was lonely back here in the turret. Wonder if the background whisper of a voice singing in Tagalog came through the intercom circuit?
"S'okay, kid," Ortnahme muttered. "Look, it's just—ridin' on air don't mean we're light, you see? There's still a hundred seventy tonnes t' support, even if the air cushion spreads it out as good as you can. And there's not a bloody lotta bridges that won't go flat with that much weight on 'em."
Ortnahme stared grimly at the screens. Beside la Reole, there were two "I" designators—bridge of unlimited capacity—across the lower Santine, as well as four Category II bridges that might do in a pinch. Updated information from the drone had colored all six of those symbols red—destroyed.
"Specially with the Consies blowing every curst thing up these coupla days," he added.
"I see, sir," the technician said with the nervous warmth of a puppy who's been petted after being kicked. "So we're going through la Reole?"
Ortnahme stared glumly at the screen. The bridge designators weren't the only updated symbols the reconnaissance drone had painted on the map from the Slammers' database.
"Well, kid," the warrant leader said, "there's some problems with that, too. . . ."
"Tootsie Six to Slammer Six," June Ranson said, loading the cartridge that would be transmitted to Firebase Purple in a precisely-calculated burst. "Absolute priority."
Even if you got your dick half into her, Colonel, you need to hear this now.
"The only tank crossing point on the lower Santine is la Reole, which is in friendly hands but is encircled by dug-in hostiles. The bridge is damaged besides. The forces at my disposal are not sufficient to overwhelm the opposition, nor is it survivable to penetrate the encirclement and proceed to the bridge with the bulk of the hostile forces still in play behind us."
She paused, though the transmission would compress the hesitation out of existence. "Unless you can give us some support, Colonel, I'm going to have to swing north till the river's fordable. It'll add time." Three days at least. "Maybe two days."
A deep breath, drawn against the unfamiliar, screen-lighted closeness of the tank turret. "Tootsie Six, over."
Would the AI automatically precede the transmission with a map reference so that the Colonel could respond?
"Slug the transmission with our coordinates and execute," she ordered the unit as she stared bleakly at the holographic map filling her main screen.
Nothing else was working out the way she wanted. Why should the tank's artificial intelligence have the right default?
"Tootsie Three, this is Six," she said aloud. "You got One-six sorted out, Cooter?"
It might be minutes before her own message went out, and the wait for Hammer's response would be at least that long again. The heavens had their own program. . . .
"Tootsie Six, roger," her second-in-command replied, panting slightly. "I gave Chalkin the blower. Mc—"
The transmitting circuit zeeped, pulsing Ranson's message skyward in a tight packet which would bounce from the ionized track that a meteor had just streaked in the upper atmosphere.
Meteorites, invisible to human eyes during daytime, burned across the sky every few seconds. It was just a matter of waiting for the track which would give the signal the narrowest, least interceptible path to the desired recipient. . . .
"—Gwire bought it and Foran's not a lot better, but there's no damage to the car. Over."
"Tootsie Three, how are the mechanicals holding—"
The inward workings of the console beneath Screen Three gave a satisfied chuckle; its amber Stand-by light flashed green.
That quick.
"Cooter," Ranson said, "forget—no—" she threw a toggle "—listen in."
Staring at the screen—though she knew the transmission would be voice only—she said, "Play burst."
Despite the nature of the transmission, the voice was as harshly clear as if the man speaking were stuffed into the turret with his task force commander. For intelligibility, the AI expanded the bytes of transmitted information with sound patterns from its database. If the actual voice wasn't on record, the AI created a synthesis that attempted to match sex, age, and even accent.
In this case, the voice of Colonel Alois Hammer was readily available for comparison with the burst transmission.
"Slammer Six to Tootsie Six," the Colonel rasped. "Absolute priority. You must not, I say again, must not, delay. I believe we can provide limited artillery support for you when you break through at la Reole. If that isn't sufficient, I'm ordering you to detach your tank element and proceed with your combat cars by the quickest route feasible to the accomplishment of your mission. I repeat, I order you to carry on with combat cars alone if you can't cross your tanks at la Reole. Over."
Over indeed.
"Send target overlay," June Ranson said aloud. Her index finger traced across the main screen the symbols of Consie positions facing la Reole. "Execute."
Artillery support? Had Hammer sent down a flying column including a hog or two, or was he expecting them to risk their lives—and mission—on Yokel tubes crewed by nervous draftees?
The transmitter squealed again.
She didn't like being inside a tank. The view was potentially better in every respect than what her eyes and helmet visor could provide from Warmonger's deck, but it was all a simulation. . . . "What do you think, Lieutenant Cooter?" Ranson said, as though she were testing him for promotion.
"Junebug," the lieutenant's worried voice replied, "let's run the gauntlet at la Reole, even with the bridge damaged. Trying t' bust what they got at Kohang without the panzers, that'll be our butts sure."
So, Lieutenant. . . . You'd commit your forces on a vague suggestion of artillery support—when you know that the enemy is in bunkers, with heavy weapons already targeted on the route your vehicles must take from the point you penetrate the encirclement?
Ranson slapped blindly to awaken herself, wincing with pleasure and a rush of warmth when her fingers rapped something hard. Her skin was flushed.
"Right," she said—aloud, alert. "Let's see what kind of artillery we're talking about."
She looked at the blank relay screen. "Tootsie Six to Hammer Six," No need for priority now. "I and my XO judge the Blue Element to be necessary for the successful completion of our mission. Transmit details of proposed artillery support. Over."
Ranson rubbed her eyes. "Execute," she ordered the AI.
"Blue Two to Tootsie Six," her headset said.
She should've involved Ortnahme—and Sparrow, he was Blue Element Leader—in the planning. She had to think like a task force commander, not a grading officer. . . .
"Junebug, if the friendlies can lay some sorta surface covering on the bloody water," the warrant leader was saying, "agricultural film on a wood frame, that'd do, just enough to spread the effect, we can—"
"Negative, Blue Two," Ranson interrupted. "This is a river, not a pond. The current'd disrupt any covering they could cobble together, even if the Consies weren't shelling. I don't want you learning to swim. Over."
"Tootsie Six," grunted Ortnahme: twice her age and in a parallel—though non-command—pay grade. "That bloody bridge has major structural damage. I don't want to learn to dive bloody tanks from twenty meters in the air, neither. Blue Two out."
If you want it safe, Blue Two, you're in the wrong line of work tonight.
Chuckle; green light.
"Play burst."
"Slammer Six to Tootsie Six. There's an operable hog at Camp Progress with nineteen rounds in storage. Using extended-range boosters, it can cover la Reole. One of the transit-company staff is ex-artillery; he's putting together a crew. By the time you need some bunkers hit, the tube'll be ready to do it."
Zip from the console, as the AI replaced the pause which the burst compression had edited out.
"Speed is absolutely essential. If you don't get to Kohang within the next six hours, we may as well all have stayed home. Over."
"Tootsie Six to Slammer Six," Ranson said with textbook precision. She could feel her soul merging with that of the nameless tank, viewing the world through its sensors and considering her data in an electronic balance. "Task Force Ranson will proceed in accordance with the situation as it develops. We will transmit further data if a fire mission is required. Tootsie Six, out. Execute."
She was the officer on-site. She would make the final decision. And if Colonel Hammer didn't like it, what was he going to do? Put her in command of a suicide mission?
"Tootsie Six," said her headset, "this is Blue Two. The hog's operable, all right. The trouble's in the turret-traversing mechanism, and that won't matter for a few rounds to a single point. But I dunno about the bloody crew. Over."
"Six, Three," Cooter's voice responded. "Chief Lavel's solid as they come. He'll handle the fire control, and the rest—that's just lift 'n carry, right? Getting the shells on the conveyor? Nothin' even a newbie with a room-temperature IQ's going t' screw up. Over."
She would make the final decision.
"All Tootsie elements," June Ranson heard her voice ordering calmly. Her touch shrank the map's scale; then her index finger traced the course to la Reole on the screen.
"Transmit," she said. "We will proceed on the marked trace to Phase Line Piper—" fingertip stroking the crest across a shadowy valley from the Consie positions above the beleaguered town on the Santine Estuary "—and punch through enemy lines to the bridge after a short artillery preparation. Prepare to execute in five minutes. Tootsie Six out."
She used the seat as a step instead of raising herself to the hatch with its power lift. Clouds streaked the sky, but the earlier thin overcast was gone.
The Lord have mercy on our souls.