“Have a seat,” Bannson said to Farrell, and gestured at a side table. “Brandy? Cigar?”
“Thanks for the offer,” Farrell said. “But not while I’m working.” He took the offered chair. “I’ve still got my report to make.”
Bannson sat also. “I read the written version this morning.”
“Thought you might have.” Farrell considered his employer. Bannson wasn’t the type to offer a man a drink and a smoke before giving him his walking papers. “Good enough for you?”
“More than good enough, Mr. Farrell.” Bannson poured himself a brandy and raised the glass to Farrell in a toast. “You’ve put the screws on Ezekiel Crow, you’ve helped to weaken Northwind enough that it won’t get in the way of my expansion into Prefecture III, and you’ve managed to put both Anastasia Kerensky and the Countess of Northwind in your debt. And you accomplished all of that with minimal loss of equipment and personnel—which may not impress the polished-buttons-and-military-medals set, but it sure as hell impresses me. War is a business, and I like a man who understands business.”
“I’m honored.”
“You’re getting paid a good bonus,” Bannson said, “which is better.”
“Damn straight,” agreed Farrell. “You want the verbal report now?”
“Go ahead.”
“All right. Crow you know about already—holier-than-thou son-of-a-bitch and proud as Lucifer. Brains and guts, though. And if I had to make a bet on it, I’d say that he’s already managed to convince himself he did the right thing by cutting and running on Northwind.”
“He’s that type,” Bannson said. “Go on.”
“Tara Campbell. Still a bit green, but getting over it fast. Good fighter, and not too proud to take help when it’s offered. Knows how to pick her subordinates.” Farrell paused, considering. “Maybe a bit too trusting, at least until our friend Ezekiel showed her the error of her ways. I don’t believe she’s going to thank him for the lesson, though.”
“You’re probably right.” Bannson contemplated his brandy for a moment. “What are the odds of her going the Katana Tormark route?”
“Setting herself up as a faction leader and saying the hell with the memory of Devlin Stone?” Farrell shook his head. “No way. She really is as loyal as all the posters and magazine articles make her out to be. And where the Countess goes, all of Northwind follows.”
“Moral authority’s a wonderful thing,” said Bannson. “Stupid, but wonderful.”
He swallowed a healthy slug of his brandy. Not the sip-and-savor type, after all, Farrell thought, recognizing the betraying mark of a man who’d learned to drink on rough spirits. He goes right for the burn.
“How about the leader of the Steel Wolves?” Bannson asked.
“Anastasia Kerensky”—Farrell spoke slowly, choosing his words with care—“is crazy. Vicious fighter, not afraid of anything, sees what she wants and takes it without asking. None of it matters, though, because it’s the kind of crazy that makes all the Clan Warrior types want to follow her around with their tongues hanging out.”
“How good is she?”
“Almost as good as she thinks she is. Growing better all the time, if she doesn’t get herself killed first. She and the Countess of Northwind are quite a pair. Probably hate each other’s guts by now.” Farrell chuckled, thinking about it. “Now that’s a ’Mech fight you could sell tickets to and clean up on the simulation rights afterward.”
Bannson looked at him over the rim of his brandy. “Would you like a chance at a front-row seat?”
Farrell straightened, coming alert like a warhorse hearing the distant sound of bugles. “You have another job for me and my people, then?”
“Yes,” Bannson said. “The next world a Clan Warrior like Anastasia Kerensky is going to think about, after securing Northwind, is Terra. And the Countess of Northwind, Republic loyalist that she is, will almost certainly follow and attempt to stop her. I’m going to Terra, Mr. Farrell—a matter of looking after my investments—and I’d like you and your people to go there also. I won’t ask if you know the pirate jump points—”
“Never heard of ’em,” said Farrell, with a straight face.
“But a commander who did know of them would be well-advised to get himself into position there and wait for my signal to land and hit his target.”
“Where and who?”
“Does it matter?”
“If I’m getting paid for it—nope.”
“Good enough,” said Bannson. “When I decide on the answer, you’ll be the first to know.”
Farrell gave him a slow grin. “Who’ll be the second?”
“The person I tell you to attack.”
19
Belgorod and Vicinity
Terra
Prefecture X
March 3134; local winter
The Northwind Highlanders had landed their DropShips at Belgorod DropPort, and the DropShips had spilled out their cargo of soldiers and equipment onto the expanse of rolling fields outside the city. A garrison suburb of tents and vehicles grew up on the frozen ground as if by spontaneous generation, and there the soldiers of the Highlander Regiments drilled, and tended their gear, and waited.
The hour was late afternoon, and the sun was already sinking toward the western horizon. The work of the day was done, and Sergeants Will Elliot, Jock Gordon, and Lexa McIntosh sat drinking mugs of strong black tea in the large, open-sided tent currently serving as the Sergeants’ Mess. The smells of mutton stew simmering on the stove, and of baking bread, drifted past on the breeze from the field kitchen not far away. For a little while, at least, they and their troopers would have a chance at better food than ship’s cooking or battle rations.
Will Elliot was still not happy. He turned his heavy ceramic mug around in his hands, added more sugar, stirred, and turned the mug around again. Then he shoved it away. Finally, he said, “I don’t like this place.”
“It could be worse,” said Lexa. “At least we have cold-weather uniforms again.”
Jock for his part gave Will a curious look. “I thought you were the one who was used to snow. Guiding winter tourists in the mountains and all.”
“I am,” said Will. “That’s the problem.” He frowned out through the open front of the mess tent at the slate gray sky. “This is March. Eventually, it’s going to be April. And do you know what happens in April?”
Lexa said, “The snow melts?”
“That’s right.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“The snow melts,” said Will. “And the ground thaws.”
“Thaws?”
“All the water down in the dirt that turned to ice during the winter turns back to water down in the dirt again,” Will explained patiently, reminding himself as he did so that Lexa had grown up in the blistering-hot Kearney outback. She hadn’t even seen snow until she joined the regiment and found herself fighting in it. “Sometimes the frozen layer goes down for two or three meters. Then all the water that used to be snow soaks into the ground and joins up with the melted ice that’s already there. Which gives you—”
Farm-raised Jock Gordon knew the answer to that one, at least: “Mud.”
“Mud,” confirmed Will.
Lexa looked down at her feet, then out at the field of tanks and men and ’Mechs, with a dawning comprehension. “Damn.”
“And there aren’t enough hovercrafts to carry all of us,” Will said. “Just marching out of here is going to be nasty, if we have to wait long enough. As for combat—trust me when I say that you’ll be better off tying your bootlaces together, slinging them around your neck, and fighting barefoot. That way you’ll still have a pair of boots left at the end of the day.”