"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 center punched . . . .
"Whoo-ie!" Gale chortled. "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 outa 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 4th 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 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 4th," 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, tight lipped 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.