Pretty open compared to much of the forest on Plattner’s World, but light amplification didn’t make driving a combat car at night through the woods a piece of cake. Huber’d been hoping to raise the column’s speed to forty kph, but that didn’t seem likely now that the whole task force was assembled. The combat cars might be able to make it, but the hogs’ high center of gravity made them dangerously unstable while running cross-country. As for the recovery vehicle, it was a full meter wider than the cars whose drivers were choosing the route.
Another thought struck Huber. “Learoyd?” he said. “Have you seen Padova manning a gun? In action, I mean—I know she’s checked out in training.”
Learoyd shrugged. “She’s okay,” he said, flicking regular glances toward his side of the car just in case there was something besides treeboles there. “She was on nightwatch when them wog sappers tried to creep up on us a couple weeks ago. She didn’t freeze up or something.”
Good enough. On this run there’d be no halts except to change drivers. There was no way of telling who’d be in the fighting compartment if the task force ran into hostiles—as they surely would, later if not sooner. The best driver in the Regiment was a liability if she panicked when she needed to be shooting.
“El-Tee?” Learoyd said. He was talkative tonight; by his standards, that is. “What’s going to happen back at Benjamin when we’re not there? The wogs’ll waltz right in, won’t they?”
“There’s enough other mercs in the garrison to hold the place,” Huber said. “The Poplar Regiment and Bartel’s Armor, they’re troops as good as anything Solace has close by.”
He grimaced. Benjamin was all right, sure, but Solace hadn’t been making a real effort on the UC administrative capital yet. Jonesburg and Simpliche were in serious danger even before the Slammers there abandoned the defenses they’d been stiffening to run north at the same time Task Force Huber did.
“Look, Learoyd, we’ve got to hope for the best,” he said. “Chances are Solace Command’s going to take a while to figure out what’s going on. With luck they still think we withdrew back into Benjamin instead of breaking out.”
Learoyd shrugged. “I just wondered, El-Tee,” he said. “I don’t think them other lots’re worth much, but if you do …”
The trouble was, Huber didn’t.
He suddenly laughed and clapped Learoyd on the shoulder. “What I think, trooper,” he said, “is that everybody in Task Force Huber does his job as well as you’ve always done yours, then we’re going to come through this just fine. The other guys, they have to take care of themselves.”
He realized as he spoke that he was more or less echoing Colonel Hammer. Well, he didn’t guess the Colonel had lied to the Regiment, and the Lord knew Huber wasn’t lying to Learoyd either.
And because of that, just maybe the Slammers were going to pull this off after all.
According to the topo display, the Salamanca River was shallow at present though it regularly flooded its valley when the rains came in autumn. Huber hadn’t expected much difficulty in crossing it until Lieutenant Messeman—F-2 was in front for the moment—radioed, “Six, this is Fox Two-six. Take a look at these sensor inputs from—”
Huber was already bringing up the data transmitted from Messeman’s lead car.
“—my Two-five unit. Over.”
“This is Six!” Huber said. He couldn’t fully understand the data without a little time to digest it, but it was bloody obvious that Task Force Huber wasn’t crossing at the ford Central had picked for its planned route. “All Highball units, halt in place!”
Learoyd obeyed the orders literally: instead of canting all eight nacelles forward for dynamic braking, he feathered the fan blades to drop their thrust to zero. Gravity slammed Fencing Master down, chopping the skirts into the soil like a giant cookie cutter.
The car hopped forward, grounded again, and skidded to a complete stop in a cascade of dust and grit. They’d halted within five meters of the point Learoyd got the order.
Huber’d braced himself on his gun pintle when he realized what was about to happen. He swore viciously and he glanced astern to see if Flame Farter, the next car back, was going to slam into them. It didn’t, partly from the driver’s skill and partly because he angled his bow into a stand of saplings growing up in place of a giant tree that’d fallen a few years previous.
I’m the bloody fool who said “Halt in place,” Huber thought. It’s nobody’s fault but my own.
“Highball,” he resumed aloud, “keep a low profile. There’s an enemy battalion on the other side of the bluffs across the river we were going to cross. They don’t act like they know we’re here—this is just bad luck. We’ll head southwest, that’s upstream—”
His hand controller drew a line on the terrain display of his Command and Control box, transmitting it automatically to the helmets of his troopers.
“—and cross—”
The C&C box provided Huber with both a graphic and a tabular description of the hostiles arriving on the other side of the river. The data base identified them as an elite unit of the Solace Militia, the 1st Cavalry Squadron, fully professional and equipped with nearly a hundred air-cushion armored vehicles mounting powerguns.
Instead of driving overland, Solace Command had airlifted the squadron to a landing zone in the valley paralleling the Salamanca to the northwest. The terrain made the location safe from sniping by the Slammers’ tanks, and it was as close to the fighting as a dirigible could approach.
“—seven klicks down, there’s another ford there, and we’re on our way again. Fox Three-zero leads until further notice. Six out.”
If Task Force Huber had arrived six hours sooner, they’d have been past before the Solace squadron landed; two hours later they’d have fought a meeting engagement as the hostile vehicles—which mounted twin 3-cm powerguns as well as carrying an infantry fire team in the rear compartment—came over the bluffs on the south side of the river. As it was, it just meant the Slammers had to detour and add an hour or so to their travel time.
Flame Farter lifted and started to reverse in its own length. Deseau—who was blower captain, commanding Fencing Master while Huber’s duties were for the whole task force—said over the intercom, “Turn us around, Learoyd. We’re following Three-zero up the river, now.”
Padova slapped the receiver of the right wing gun in frustration. She was a slight, dark woman and smart enough to be an officer some day if she learned to curb her impatience. Padova thought Learoyd should’ve understood Huber’s unit order as meaning he should rotate Fencing Master …and so he should’ve, but—
Before Huber could speak, Deseau took Padova by the arm and turned her so they were facing. Both were short, but Frenchie had an hourglass figure and the shoulders of a wrestler.
“I’ll tell you, Padova …” he said, shouting over the howl as the fans accelerated under load instead of using the intercom. “When you can make headshots every time at five klicks downrange, then maybe you’ll be ready to give Bert lessons on being a soldier. Got it, trooper?”
Padova glanced at Huber, perhaps expecting support. Huber gave the driver a hard grin and said, “Saves me telling you the same thing. You’re good at your job, but you’re still the newbie in this car.”
Padova forced a smile and turned her palms up; Frenchie nodded and let her go. A first-rate driver, and apparently smart enough to learn …
Huber went back to the display as the combat car shifted beneath him. Fencing Master was another world, one he didn’t have to worry about right at the moment.
He had plenty of other worries. Reversing the order of march put three ammunition haulers immediately behind the two combat cars in the lead. He’d interspersed F-3’s remaining three cars among the artillery vehicles, with all of F-2 in the lead to deal with trouble in the most likely direction. He could reorganize the order of march, but first they had to get away from the Solace cavalry.