"I don't know if the Hindis are brave or not," said Captain Broglie's image. "I suppose they're like everybody else, some braver than others. What I do know is that their troops are highly disciplined, and that causes me some concern."
"C'mon, what about him, then?" Pesco said. "Broglie."
"He'll do what he's told,"Des Grieux said, staring at the video screen. His voice was clear, but it came from far away. "He's smart and he's got balls, I'll give him that. But he'd rather kiss the ass of whoever's giving orders than get out and fight. He coulda been really something, but instead . . ."
Sergeant Kuykendall got up from her table. She was wearing a red headband with lettering stitched in black. The others at the table shouted,"Speech! Speech!" as Kuykendall tried to say something.
"Yeah, but what's Broglie gonna be like as an officer?" Pesco demanded. "He just transferred to Hotel, you know. He'd been on the staff."
"Sure, courage is important," Broglie said on the screen. Though his words were mild enough, his tone harshly dismissed the interviewer's question. "But in modern warfare discipline is absolutely crucial. The Hindi regulars are quite well-disciplined, and I fear that's going to make up for some deficiencies in their equipment. As for Baffin's Legion—"
Kuykendall broke away from her companions. She came toward Des Grieux, stepping between tables with the care of someone who knows how much she's drunk. The letters on her headband read "SIR!"
"—they're first rate in equipment and unit discipline. The war on the Western Wing isn't going to be a walkover."
"Kid," said Des Grieux in a voice that grated up from deep within his soul, "I'll give you the first and last rule about officers. The more they keep outa your way and let you get on with the fighting, the better they are. And when things really drop in the pot, they're always too busy to get in your way. Don't worry about them."
" . . . from Golf Company?" trailed the stranger's voice through a fissure in the ambient noise.
Sergeant Kuykendall bent over the table. "Hello, Slick," she said in measured tones."I'm glad to see you're back in tanks.I always thought you belonged with the panzers."
Des Grieux shrugged. He was still looking at the screen, though the interview had been replaced by a stern-faced plea to buy War Stamps and support the national effort.
"Tanks,"Des Grieux said,"combat cars . . . I ran a jeep gun once.It don't really matter."
Pesco looked up at Kuykendall. "Hey, Sarge," he said to her. "Congrats on the appointment. Want a beer?"
"Just wanted to say hi to Slick," she said. "Me and him served with Captain Broglie way back to the dawn of time, y' know."
"Hey,"Pesco said,his expression brightening."You know Broglie,then?Looks to me he's gota lot of guts,telling'em like it is on the video when they must a been figuring on a puff piece, is all. Likely to piss off Hammer, don't you think?"
Kuykendall glanced at the screen, though it now showed only a desk and a newsreader who mumbled unintelligibly. "Oh," she said, "I don't know. I guess the colonel's smart enough to know that telling the truth now that the contract's signed isn't going to do any harm. May help things if we run into real trouble; and we might, Baffin's outfit's plenty bloody good."
She looked at Pesco, then Des Grieux, and back to Pesco. There were minute crow's feet around Kuykendall's eyes where the skin had been smooth when she drove for Des Grieux. "But Broglie's got guts, you bet."
Des Grieux shoved his chair backward. "If guts is what it takes to toady t' the brass, he's got 'em, you bet," he snarled as he rose.
He turned. "Hey, buddy!" he shouted. "You looking for Tip Rasidi?"
Voices stilled,though clattering glass,the video screen,and the singers' recorded background music continued at a high level.
The stranger straightened to face the summons.Des Grieux said,"Rasidi drove for me on Aberdeen.We took a main-gun hit and burnt out.There wasn't enough of Tip to ship home in a matchbox."
The stranger continued to stand. His expression did not change, but his eyes glazed over.
The girl in the red dress sat at the table where Des Grieux had pushed her, wedged in between a pair of female troopers. Des Grieux gripped the girl by the shoulder and lifted her. "Come on," he snarled. "We're going upstairs."
One of the seated troopers might have objected, but she saw Des Grieux's face and remained silent.
The girl's face was resigned. She knew what was coming, but by now she was used to it.
"The tow and the halter," sang the entertainers, "for to hang on yon tree . . . ."
The gravel highway steepened by a couple degrees before the switchback. The Han driving the four-axle troop transport just ahead of Des Grieux's tank opened his exhaust cut-outs to coax more power from the diesel.
As the unmuffled exhaust rattled, several of the troops on the truck bed stuck their weapons in the air and opened fire. A jolt threw one of the Han soldiers backward. His backpack laser slashed a brilliant line across the truck's canvas awning.
The lieutenant in command of the troops leaned from the cab and shouted angrily at his men, but they were laughing too hard to take much notice. Somebody tossed an empty bottle over the side in enough of a forward direction that the officer disappeared back within the cab.
The awnings moldered to either side of the lon,blackened rent, but the treated fabric would not sustain a fire by itself.
The truck ground through the switchback, spewing gravel. Both forward axles were steerable. The vehicle was a solid piece of equipment, well designed and manufactured. The local forces in this contract were a cursed sight better equipped than most of those you saw. Mostly the off-planet mercenaries stood out from the indig troops like diamonds on a bed of mud.
Both sets of locals, these Han and their Hindi rivals . . . .
"Booster," Des Grieux muttered as he sat in the cupola of his tank. "Hindi combat vehicles, schematics. Slow crawl. Out."
He manually set his commo helmet to echo the artificial intelligence's feed onto the left side of the visor. Des Grieux's cold right eye continued to scan the line of the convoy and the terraces that they had passed farther down the valley.
A soldier tossed another empty bottle from the truck ahead. Because the truck was higher and the road had reversed direction at the switchback, the brown glazed ceramics hattered on the turret directly below Des Grieux.A line of heads turned from the truck's rail, shouting apologies and amused warnings to the soldier farther within the vehicle who'd thrown the bottle without looking first.
Des Grieux squeezed his tribarrel's grips, overriding its present Automatic Air Defense setting. He slid the holographic sight picture across the startled Han faces, which disappeared as the men flung themselves flat onto the truck bed.
Pesco shifted his four rear nacelles and pivoted the tank around its bow,following the switchback. They swung in behind the truck again. Des Grieux released the grips and let the tribarrel shift back to its normal search attitude: muzzles forward, at a 45° elevation.
Des Grieux had only been joking. Had he been serious, he'd have put the first round into the fuel tank beneath the truck's cab. Only then would he rake his bolts along the men screaming as they tried to jump from the inferno of blazing kerosene. He'd done that often enough before.