The stone facades were bullet-pocked now, but Suilin had changed much more than the city had during the intervening hours.
"Good thing we didn't have to fight through these streets," he said.
His voice was a croak from breathing powergun residues. He didn't know whether he'd ever regain the honey-smooth delivery that had been his greatest asset in the life of his past.
Tents had sprouted around the wheeled command vehicles in the central park fronting the Compound. There was a line of tarpaulin-covered bodies beside the border of shattered trees, but for the most part, the National Army soldiers looked more quizzical than afraid.
"Yeah," said Albers, now manning the right wing gun. He spoke in a similar rasping whisper. "Narrow streets and every curst one a' those places built like a bunker. Woulda been a bitch."
"We'd've managed," said Cooter.
I doubt it, Suilin thought. But we would have tried.
The Compound's ornamental iron gates had been blown away early in the fighting. The makeshift barricade of burned-out cars which replaced them had already been pushed aside in the cleanup. Soldiers in clean fatigues bearing the collar flashes of the 23d Infantry stood aside as Task Force Ranson entered the courtyard.
Flamethrower settled wearily to the rubble-strewn cobblestones. The car gave a deep sigh as Rogers shut down its fans. The other vehicles were already parked within.
Blue Three listed to starboard since Kawana. The tank had brushed a stone gatepost to widen the Compound entrance, then dragged a sparking line across a courtyard-sized mosaic map of Southern District with all the major cities and terrain features described.
Flamethrower stank of burned plastic and blood. Gale's body was wrapped in his air-tight bedroll and slung to the skirts, but the part of him that had splashed over the interior of the fighting compartment didn't take long to rot in bright sunlight.
They took off their body armor. Suilin's fingers didn't want to bend. All three men were fumbling with their latches. Cooter gripped the edge of the hull armor and shivered.
"Blood and martyrs," he muttered tiredly. Then he said, "Tootsie One-five, this is Three. Take over here till I get back, Tillman. Colonel wants me to report t' Governor Kung."
Suilin heard the electronic click of an answer on a channel the AI didn't open to him. Surely assent. Nobody had the energy left to argue.
Cooter looked at the reporter. "You coming?" the mercenary asked.
Suilin shrugged. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, sure. That's what I came for."
He didn't sound certain, even to himself.
"Albers," Cooter said as he climbed over the back of the combatcar."See if you can help Tillman line up billets and rations, okay?"
Albers nodded minusculy. He was sitting on the beer cooler. He didn't look at the big lieutenant. Except for the slight lift of his chin, he didn't move.
Suilin slid down the last step and almost fell. His legs didn't want to support him. They seemed all right after a few steps.
"The Consies 're asking for a cease fire," Cooter announced as he and the reporter walked toward the entrance to the Governor's Palace, the middle building of those closing the Compound on three sides."Not just here.Their Central
Command announced it."
"From the enclaves," Suilin said, thinking aloud.
The soldiers at the entrance thirty meters away wore fatigues with the crossed-saber collar tabs of the Presidential Guard Force. They eyed the newcomers cautiously.
A buzzbomb had cratered the second floor of the Palace, directly above the entrance. Other than that, damage was limited to broken glass and bullet-pocks on the stone. The fighting hadn't been serious around here after all.
Dick Suilin now knew what buildings looked like when somebody really meant business.
"Will they get it?" he said aloud. "The cease fire, I mean."
Cooter shrugged. "I'm not a politician," he said.
Now that the reporter had taken off his clamshell armor, the sling holding his grenade launcher was too long. He adjusted the length.
The pink-faced captain commanding the guards blinked.
Cooter looked at his companion. "I'm not sure you'll need that in here," he said mildly.
"I'm not sure of anything," Dick Suilin replied without emotion. "Not anymore."
* * *
"The hole in the skirt," said Warrant Leader Ortnahme in a judicious tone as he walked slowly toward Blue Three, "we can patch easy enough . . . ."
"Yes sir," said Tech 2 Simkins through tight lips.
When a Yokel tank blew up three meters from Simkins' side of Daisy Belle, he'd been spattered with blazing diesel fuel. Bandages now covered the Spray Seal which replaced the skin of the technician's left arm.
He wasn't hurting, exactly;nobody carrying Simkins' present load of analgesics in his veins could be said to be in pain. Still, the technician had to concentrate to keep his feet moving in the right order.
"The bloody rest of it, though . . ." Ortnahme murmured.
Hans Wager had managed to find a can of black paint and a brush somewhere. He was painting something on the tank's bow skirts. His driver, a woman Ortnahme couldn't put a bloody name to, watched with a drawn expression.
The pair of 'em looked like they'd sweated off five kilos in the last two days. Maybe they had.
The tungsten-carbide shot that holed the skirt must have been so close to the muzzle that its fins hadn't had time to stabilize it. The shot was still yawing when it struck, so it'd punched a long oval in the steel instead of a neat round hole.
Ortnahme estimated the shot's probable further course with his eyes and called, "Did ye lose a bloody fan when that hit you?"
Wager continued painting, attempting a precision which was far beyond his present ability.
The driver turned slowly toward the pair of maintenance personnel. She said, "Yeah, that's right. Number 3 Port went out. That was okay, but the air spilling through the hole here—" nodding toward the gaping oval "—that was bad."
She paused for memory before she added, "Can you fix it?"
"Sure,"the warrant leader said."As soon as they ship in a spare."He shook his head. "A whole bloody lotta spares."
Simpkins nodded without speaking.
"What, ah . . . are you doing?" Ortnahme asked.
Wager turned at last. "We're putting the name on our tank," he croaked.
Wager's vacant expression turned to utter malevolence. "She's ours and we can call her anything we bloody please!"he shouted hoarsely."They're not takin' her and givin' us some clapped out old cow instead, d'ye hear? Not even the Old Man's gonna take her away from us!"
The warrant leader looked at the tank that had only been a call sign until now.
The turret had taken at least a dozen direct hits, most of them from armor-piercing shot. Ortnahme wondered if any part of the sensor array had survived.
One round had blasted a cavity in the stubby barrel of the main gun. It hadn't penetrated, but until the tube was replaced, firing the 20cm weapon would be as dangerous as juggling contact grenades.