The withdrawal would look real, though; a maneuver forced by desperation on Slammers who had to cross the river and who’d failed to shoot their way through at their first attempt. The Solace commander would certainly have sent a report and request for support back to his superiors, but he’d also be looking for revenge. The 1st Cavalry Squadron would follow the retreating Slammers— cautiously, because the Militiamen had learned how dangerous the combat cars could be—in hopes of closing the door behind them when other Solace troops had blocked the way forward.
Of course for Huber’s plan to work, the Solace commander had to know what the Slammers appeared to be doing.
“All Highball units,” Huber said. “When enemy scouts appear, shoot to miss, I repeat, miss them. We want the wogs to know that we’ve cut and run. Six out.”
His helmet buzzed with a series of callsigns followed by “Roger.” The ball was in the Solace court. Huber could only hope his opposite number would act sooner rather than later; which was a pretty fair likelihood, given the way he’d responded to the initial exchange.
The artillery vehicles were taking longer to get turned around than they would’ve done if this had been a real change of plan, but the delays and seeming clumsiness were perfectly believable. The hogs were bloody awkward under the best conditions, and the ammunition haulers rarely operated very far off a road. The maintenance vehicle was larger and heavier still, but its driver was used to maneuvering anywhere a combat vehicle could go—and become disabled.
Huber brought up the C&C display again to check the location of his vehicles. “Padova,” Huber ordered, “get us moving but not fast.”
The X-Ray portion of the task force was half a klick south and west of the combat cars. The last hog in line wasn’t moving yet, but it would be before Fencing Master closed up. The forest fire was getting serious enough to pose a danger, especially to Lieutenant Messeman’s cars at the end of the line.
Padova eased Fencing Master into motion, picking a line close to the crest. The fire was bloody serious, but more so downslope where Solace bolts had flung most of the flaming debris.
Huber looked at his gunners again. Learoyd’s body armor lay on the ammo boxes at the back of the compartment. Deseau’d sliced off Learoyd’s sleeve with his belt knife and was covering the shoulder with bright pink SpraySeal, a combination of replacement skin with antiseptic and topical anesthetic. Learoyd tried to watch, but because of the angle his eyes couldn’t both focus on something so close.
“Bert’s all right!” Frenchie said over the intake noise. He gestured with the can of SpraySeal. “Make a fist, Bert! Show him!”
Learoyd obediently clenched his right fist. His thumb didn’t double over the way it should have. Frowning, he bent it into place with his left hand.
“A chunk of Flame Farter spattered him,” Deseau explained. “It was still a bit hot, but Bert’s just fine. A little bad luck is all.”
Learoyd opened his hand again. This time the thumb worked on its own, pretty well. The molten iridium had hit mostly on the back of his clamshell, but some splashed his upper arm where nothing but a tunic sleeve protected the flesh.
Frenchie needed to believe Learoyd wasn’t seriously injured. Learoyd being who he was, that was probably true: another man who’d been slammed by a quarter-kilo of liquid metal might well have gone into shock, but apart from stiffness and the fact his shoulder was swelling, Learoyd seemed to be about what he always was.
“Learoyd,” Huber asked. He nodded toward the clamshell behind him. “Can you get your armor back on over that?”
“I guess,” Learoyd said. He worked his fist again; the thumb still didn’t want to close. Doubtfully he went on, “Frenchie, will you help me?”
“Sure, Bert, sure!” Deseau said, his voice as brittle as chipped glass.
He snatched up the armor, holding the halves apart for Learoyd to fit his torso into. The fabric covering the right shoulder flare had been melted down to the ceramic core; in its place was a wash of rainbow-hued iridium, finally cool after flying from Flame Farter’s hull to strike Learoyd thirty meters away.
“Good,” said Huber as he turned deliberately back to the C&C display. “Because we’ve still got work to do today, and I want you dressed for it.”
That blob of white-hot metal could as easily have hit Huber himself between helmet and body armor, burning through his neck …or it could’ve missed Fencing Master and her crew entirely. You never knew till it was over.
Task Force Huber was moving at last. Padova held Fencing Master twenty meters off the stern of the last hog in line. More debris flew from beneath the skirts of a self-propelled howitzer than even a combat car threw up.
Huber grinned. It could be worse: following a tank closely was a good way to get your bow slope sandblasted to a high sheen. Of course if Huber had a platoon of tanks with him right now, he’d be dealing with the Solace cavalry squadron in a quicker fashion….
The C&C display warned of new movement on the Solace side of the river. “Fox elements!” Huber said. “Four wog aircars are lifting; it looks like they’re going to swing around us to east and west in pairs. Remember, shoot to miss.”
A thought struck him, almost too late, and he added, “And make sure your guns aren’t in Air Defense Mode! Put your guns on manual, for the Lord’s sake! Six out.”
The cars’ gunnery computers couldn’t be programmed to miss. If a gun was on air defense—and one on each combat car normally would be while the column was in march order—then the Solace scouts were going to vanish as quickly as they appeared. That’d almost certainly be before they could report back.
Frenchie and Learoyd lifted the muzzles of their tribarrels, tracking blips on the inside of their faceshields. Fencing Master was now weaving through forest that hadn’t been cleared by plasma bolts and the fires they ignited. The gunners were tracking on the basis of sensor data because the low-flying aircars were screened by bluffs and undamaged treeboles. When metal finally showed through a gap in the foliage, they were going to be ready.
The hog immediately ahead wobbled through the forest, moving at about twenty kph but seeming even slower than that. The leading vehicles had rubbed the bark to either side of the route, leaving white blazes a meter high on the treetrunks. Often their skirts had gouged brushes of splinters from deep into the sapwood.
Tribarrels volleyed from the tail of the column; an instant later Deseau and Learoyd fired together, their guns startling Huber out of his concentration on the display of sensor data overlaid on a terrain map. He jerked his head up as the upper half of a tree thirty meters toward the northwest burst into red-orange flames. The blasts of plasma had shattered the trunk, blowing it into spheres of superheated organic fragments which exploded when they mixed with oxygen-rich air a few meters distant.
In the sky a kilometer away, a diving aircar flashed its belly toward the column. Deseau sent another burst into empty sky; some of the artillerymen were firing sub-machine guns from the cabs of their hogs.
Huber checked his display again. Three of the scouts had flattened themselves close to the Salamanca’s surface. The fourth—
“Six, this is Two-six,” Lieutenant Messeman reported in a clipped, cold voice. “I regret to report that we hit one of the aircars. The other should’ve gotten a good look at us before it escaped, though. Two-six over.”
“Roger, Two-six,” Huber said. “Proceed as planned.”
This was even better than if all the scouts had gotten away: it made the Slammers’ response look real. Messeman would be talking to the shooter when things had quieted down, though. Hitting the car had been a screwup, and a battle at these odds was dangerous enough even when all your people executed perfectly.