It wasn't flattery; just cold truth, the way Des Grieux had admitted that Broglie was a dead shot. It occurred to Des Grieux that his personal feelings about Brogue were mutual and always had been.
He said nothing aloud. If the company commander had come to talk, the company commander could talk.
"What's your tank's name, Slick?" Broglie asked.
Des Grieux shrugged. "I didn't name her," he said. "The guy I replaced did. I don't care cop about her name."
"That's not what I asked," Broglie said. "Sergeant."
"Right," said Des Grieux. His eyes were straight ahead, toward the horizon in which the far wall of the valley rose. "The name's Gangbuster. Gangbuster II, since you care so much. Sir."
"Glad to be back in tanks?" Broglie asked. His voice was neutral, but it left no doubt that he expected answers, whether or not Des Grieux saw any point in giving them.
"Any place is fine," Des Grieux said, turning abruptly toward Broglie again. "Just so long as they let me do my job."
The anger in Des Grieux's tone surprised even him. He added more mildly, "Yeah, sure, I like tanks. And if you mean it's been five years—don't worry about it. I haven't forgotten where the controls are."
"I don't worry about you knowing how to handle any bloody weapon there is, Slick," Broglie said. They stared into one another's eyes, guarded but under control. "I might worry about the way you took orders, though."
Des Grieux swallowed. A billow of dust rose around Gangbuster's bow skirts and drifted back as Pesco slowed to avoid running over the truck ahead.
Des Grieux let the grit settle behind them before he said,"Nobody has to worry about me doing my job, Captain."
"A soldier's job is to obey orders, Slick," Broglie said flatly. "The time when heroes put on their armor and went off to single combat, that ended four thousand years ago. D'ye understand me?"
Des Grieux fumbled within the hatch and brought up his water bottle. The refrigerated liquid washed dust from his mouth but left the sour taste of bile. He stared at the horizon. It rotated sideways as Pesco negotiated a switchback.
"Do you understand me, Slick?" Captain Broglie repeated.
"I understand," Des Grieux said.
"I'm glad to hear it," Broglie said.
Des Grieux felt the company commander step away from the turret and signal to the driver of his jeep. All Des Grieux could see was the red throb of the veins behind his own eyes.
Ten kilometers to the west, the Han and Hindi outpost lines slashed at one another in a crackling barely audible through the darkness.
"These are the calculated enemy positions,"said Captain Broglie. The portable projector spread a holographic panorama in red for Broglie and the three tank commanders of H Company, 2nd Platoon.
Ghosts of the coherent light glowed on the walls of the tent. The polarizing fabric gave the Slammers within privacy but allowed them to see and hear the world outside.
"And here's Baffin's Legion," Broglie continued.
A set of orange symbols appeared to the left, map west, of the red images. The Legion, a combined-arms force of battalion strength, made a relatively minor showing on the map, but none of the Slammers were deceived. Almost any mercenary unit was better than almost any local force; and Baffin's Legion was better than almost any other mercenaries. Almost.
"Remember,"Broglie warned,"Baffin can move just as fast as we can. In fifteen minutes, he could be driving straight through the friendly lines."
A battery of the Slammers' rocket howitzers was attached to the Strike Force. The hogs chose this moment to send a single round apiece into the night. The white glare of their simultaneous muzzle flashes vanished as suddenly as it occurred, but after image from the shells' sustainer motors flickered purple and yellow across the retinas of anyone without eye protection who had been looking in the direction of those brilliant streaks.
"Are they shelling Morobad?" asked Platoon Sergeant Peres.Peres had been in command of 2nd Platoon ever since the former platoon leader vanished in an explosion on New Aberdeen that left a fifty-foot crater where his tank had been. She gestured toward the built-up area just west of the major canal that the map displayed. Morobad was the only community in the region that was more than mud houses and a central street.
Hundreds of Han soldiers started shooting as though the artillery signalled a major attack. Small arms, crew-served weapons, and even the soul-searing throb of heavy lasers ripped out from the perimeter. Flashes and the dull glow of self-sustaining brushfires marked the innocent targets downrange.
"Stupid bastards," Des Grieux muttered, his tone too flat to be sneering. "If they're shooting at anything, it's their own people."
"You got that right, Slick," Broglie agreed as he stared for a moment through the pervious walls of the tent. His face was bleak; not angry, but as determined as a storm cloud.
Han officers sped toward the sources of gunfire on three-wheeled scooters, crying orders and blowing oddly tuned whistles. Some of the shooting came from well within the camp.
A rifle bullet zinged through the air close enough to the Slammers' tent that the fabric echoed the ballistic crack. Medrassi, the veteran commander of Dar es Salaam—House of Peace—swore and hunched his head lower on his narrow shoulders.
"What we oughta do,"Des Grieux said coldly,"is leave these dumb clucks here and handle the job ourself. That way there's only half the people around likely t' shoot us."
Cyan streaks quivered over the horizon to the west. The light wasn't impressive until you remembered it came from ten kilometers away. Shells burst in puffs of distant orange.
Broglie lifted his thumb toward the western horizon."I think that's what they were after, Perry," he said to Sergeant Peres. "Just checking on how far forward Baffin's artillery defenses were."
"Calliopes?" Medrassi asked.
Firing from the Han positions slackened. In the relative silence, Des Grieux heard the pop-pop-pop of shells, half a minute after powergun bolts had detonated them.
"Baffin uses twin-barrel 3cmrigs,"Broglie explained."They're really light antitank guns converted to artillery defense. He's got about eight of them. They're slow firing, but they pack enough punch that a single bolt can do the job."
He smiled starkly. "And they still retain their anti-tank function, of course."
Des Grieux spit on the ground.
"The reason that we're not going to leave our brave allies parked here out of the way, Slick,"Broglie continued,"is that we're going to need all the help we can get. Indigenous forces may include an entire armored brigade. The Hindis are tough opponents in their own right—don't judge them by the Han we're saddled with.And Baffin's Legion by itself would be a pretty respectable opponent—even for a Slammers' battalion combat team."
"Great," Peres said, kneading savagely at the scar on the back of her left hand. "Let's do it the other way, then. We keep the hell outa the way while our indig buddies mix it with Baffin and get all this wild shooting outa their system."