Herman's Whore settled, a little abruptly. Their skirts gave the ground a tap that rattled Ortnahme's teeth and probably cut a centimeter-deep oval in the hard soil.
"Simkins—"the warrant leader began, the word tripping the helmet's artificial intelligence to intercom mode.
"Sir, I'm sorry," his driver was already blurting. "I let the sucker—"
"Blood'n martyrs,Simkins,"Ortnahme interrupted,"don't worry about that! Where dja learn that little maneuver, anyhow?"
"Huh?" said the helmet. "Sir, it was just, you know, the leverage off the berm . . .?"
He sounded like he thought Ortnahme was gonna chew his head off. Which had happened maybe a little too often in the past . . . but bloody hell, you had t' break 'em in the start . . . .
"Sir?" Simkins added in a little voice.
"Yeah?"
"Sir, I really like tanks. D'ye suppose that—"
"Like bloody hell!"the warrant leader snapped."Look,kid,you're more good to me and Colonel Hammer right where you bloody are!"
"Yes sir."
Which, come t' think about it, was driving a panzer. Well, there'd be time t' worry about that later.
Or there wouldn't.
The turret interior had darkened as the sky did,because the main screen was set on direct optical. Ortnahme frowned, then set the unit for progressive enhancement, projecting images at sixty percent of average daylight ambiance.
The visual display brightened suddenly, though the edges of the snarling armored vehicles lacked a little of the definition they would have had in unaided sunlight.No matter what the sky did—sun, moons, or the Second Coming—the main screen would continue to display at this apparent light level until Ortnahme changed its orders.
Henk Ortnahme knew tanks. He knew their systems backward and forward, better than almost any of the panzers' regular crews.
Line troops found a few things that worked for them. Each man used his handful of sensor and gunnery techniques, ignoring the remainder of his vehicle's incredibly versatile menu. You don't fool around when your life depends on doing instinctively something that works for you.
The maintenance chief had to be sure that everything worked, every time. He'd spent twenty years of playing with systems that most everybody else forgot. He could run the screens and sensors by reflex and instantly critique the performance of each black box.
What the warrant leader hadn't had for those twenty years was combat experience . . . .
"Sir," said the helmet. "Ah, when are we supposed to pull out?"
A bloody stupid question.
Sunset,and Simkins could see as well as Ortnahme that it was sunset plus seven. Captain Ranson had said departure time would be coordinated by Central, so probably the only people who knew why Task Force Ranson was on hold were a thousand kilometers north of—
Screen Two, which in default mode—as now—was bore sighted to the main gun, flashed the orange warning director control. As the letters appeared, the turret of Herman's Whore began to rotate without any input from Warrant Leader Ortnahme.
The turret was being run by Fire Central, at Headquarters. Henk Ortnahme had no more to say about the situation than he did regarding any other orders emanating directly from Colonel Hammer.
"Sir?" Simkins blurted over the intercom.
"Blue Two—" demanded at least two other vehicles simultaneously, alerted by the squealing turret and rightly concerned about what the hell was going on. Screwing around with a tank's main gun in these close quarters wasn't just a bad idea.
"Simkins," Ortnahme said. His fingers stabbed buttons. "It's all right. The computer up in Purple's just took over."
As he spoke, Ortnahme set his gunnery screen to echo on Screen Three of the other tanks and the multi-function displays with which the combat cars made do. That'd answer their question better 'n anything he could say—
And besides, he was busy figuring out what Central thought it was doing with his tank.
The warrant leader couldn't countermand the orders coming from Firebase Purple, but he could ask his own artificial intelligence to tell him what firing solution was being fed to it. Screen Three obligingly threw up the figures for azimuth, elevation, and range.
"Blood 'n martyrs," Henk Ortnahme whispered.
Now he knew why the departure of Task Force Ranson had been delayed.
They had to wait for the Terran World Government's recce satellite to come over the horizon—
Herman's Whore fired its main gun; cyan lightning and a thunderclap through the open hatch, a blast of foul gases within the turret.
—so they could shoot it down.
The unexpected bolt didn't blind Cooter because his visor reacted in microseconds to block the intense glare.The shock stunned him for a moment anyway; then the big man began to run through the mass of restive vehicles.
A tank—Deathdealer,Blue One—slid forward.When the big blower was clear, entering the Yokel area between the demolished shed and a whole one, Captain Ranson's Warmonger fell in behind it. It was as though the echoing blast from Herman's Whore had triggered an iridium avalanche.
The third vehicle, another combat car,sidled up to the line of departure.That'd be One-five, its driver a newbie on whom Cooter had decided to take a chance. The fellow was matching his blower's speed to that of the leading vehicles, but he had his bow pointing 30°° off the axis of motion.
Some dickhead Yokel had parked a light truck just inside the Slammer's area. One-five's tail skirts managed to tap the little vehicle and send it spinning halfway up the berm, a graphic illustration of the difference between a tonne at rest and thirty tonnes in motion.
Cooter reached his car panting with exertion, anger, and a relieved awareness of how bloody near that asshole Riddle had made him cut it. One-one was already pulling into line for the run through Camp Progress, though the second and third combat cars would spread left and right as outriders as soon as they left the gate.
A Yokel wearing fatigues cut for somebody shorter put a hand on Cooter's shoulder as he set his foot on Flamethrower's skirt. The fellow carried a slung grenade launcher, a kitbag, and a satchel of ammunition.
Cooter had never seen him before.
"Who the hell are you?" he snarled over the fans' intake howl. The skirts were quivering with repressed violence, and the nameless Blue Three was already headed into the Yokel compound.
"I'm Dick," the fellow shouted. "From last night. Lieutenant, can you use a grenadier for this run?"
Cooter stared at him a second, five seconds . . . ten. One-six was pulling out . . . .
"You bet your ass I can, turtle," Cooter said. "Welcome aboard!"