“I don’t guess so either, Frenchie,” Huber said. For a moment he tried to visualize the future, but all his mind would let him see was forest and stabbing cyan plasma discharges.
“Hey El-Tee?” Learoyd said. Huber looked at the diffidently waiting trooper and nodded.
“What about the panzers, El-Tee?” Learoyd asked. “Aircars can’t carry the barrel for a main gun, and even if they could it takes three hours and the presses on a wrenchmobile to switch barrels on a tank.”
“I don’t know, Learoyd,” Huber said. Fencing Master reentered the unbroken forest, the second vehicle in the column this leg. “I guess they’ll just make do like the rest of us.”
Or not, of course; but he didn’t say that aloud.
The trees in this stretch had thick trunks and wide-spread branches. That made the driving easier, especially now in deep darkness. Of course if a car hit one of them squarely, it wasn’t going to be the tree that was smashed to bits.
A red bead pulsing twice in the center of Huber’s faceshield gave him a minimal warning before Central crashed the task force net with, “Highball, this is Chaser Three-one. You will halt for an artillery fire mission in figures three-zero seconds. Mission data is being downloaded now. You will resume your march after firing a battery three. Chaser Three-one over.”
The voice on the other end of the transmission was broken and attenuated to the verge of being inaudible. Central was bouncing the message in micropackets off cosmic ray ionization tracks, the Regiment’s normal expedient on planets where security was the first priority or there weren’t communications satellites. Even so—and despite interference from the foliage overhead, a screen if not a solid ceiling—the transmission would normally have been crisper than this.
What the hell was going on at Base Alpha?
But like the A Company sergeant said, it wasn’t Arne Huber’s job to worry about Base Alpha. Nor to ask questions when Central’s orders were brusque because there was no time to give any other kind.
“Roger, Chaser Three-one,” Huber said. “Highball Six out.”
“Chaser Three-one out,” the voice said, fading to nothingness in the middle of the final syllable.
“Highball, this is Six,” Huber said. Deseau had turned to look at him. “Halt at Michael Foxtrot Four-one-six, Five-one-four. Fox elements will provide security while Rocker elements—”
The artillery.
“—carry out their fire mission. Break. Rocker One-six, I want to be moving again as soon as possible. Copy? Six over.”
“Roger, Highball Six,” Lieutenant Basingstoke replied crisply. He had more time in grade as well as more time in the Regiment than Huber. Huber suspected that Basingstoke thought he should’ve been task force commander in Huber’s place, which was just another piece of evidence as to why a redleg lieutenant didn’t have sufficient judgment to command a mobile force. “You don’t want us to reload the gun vehicles before proceeding, then? Rocker One-six over.”
“Negative!” Huber responded. He bit off the words, “You bloody fool!” but he suspected his tone implied them, which was just fine with him. “Rocker, I don’t want to be halted in enemy-controlled territory an instant longer than we have to be, especially after we’ve been shooting artillery so they know exactly where we are. Six out.”
Learoyd pulled Fencing Master into the halt location the AI had chosen for them. Huber looked up, frowning. The patches of sky overhead weren’t sufficient for the Automatic Air Defense System to burst incoming shells a safe distance away. So long as the task force kept moving they were probably all right, but now, halted—
Well, Central knew the score; and anyway, the Regiment wasn’t a democracy. Ours not to reason why …
The hogs swung into position, their turrets rotating and launch tubes rising while the vehicles were still in motion. The ammunition haulers pulled off to either side of the guns. The F-2 combat cars tried to keep outside the scattered trucks, but this wasn’t a defensive position in any sense of the term. The Lord save Highball’s souls if any Solace forces were close enough to take advantage of the situation.
“Lieutenant?” said Padova, leaning close to shout over the idling fans. “I didn’t think we were going to hear anything from Central on this run. That we were on our own?”
Huber shrugged. His shoulders ached from the weight of his armor, but that was nothing new. “The operation was pretty spur of the moment, Rita,” he said. “I guess they’re flying it by the seat of their pants, just like we are.”
The howitzers fired, rippling with a half-second between discharges so that the shockwaves from the shells didn’t interfere with other rounds in the salvo. The nearest gun was within ten meters of Fencing Master. Huber’s helmet damped the blasts so they didn’t break his eardrums, but the pressure of 200-mm shells tearing skyward squeezed his whole body like loads of sand.
The hogs weighed forty tonnes apiece, and the steel skirts of their plenum chambers stabilized them better than conventional trails and recoil spades could do. Despite that the big vehicles jounced so hard when they fired that puffs of dirt and leaf litter spurted out of their fan intakes.
The rounds didn’t reach terminal velocity for seven seconds, but the crack! of each going supersonic stabbed through the deeper, world-filling snarl of the rocket motors. Overhead, branches whipped and shredded leaves swirled in roaring eddies.
Huber’d wondered how the guns would fire through dense foliage, but that obviously wasn’t a problem. The shells could course correct if they had to, but the disparity between the massive projectiles and the leaves made Huber grimace at the foolishness of his concern.
The first howitzer launched a second round immediately after Gun Six fired its first; the third followed three seconds later. As the launch tube sank back to its travel position, the hog’s driver began spinning up his fans: they’d been shut down while the gun was firing lest the blades whip into their housings and wreck the nacelle.
“Highball Six!” Lieutenant Basingstoke said, his voice crackling with the effort of Huber’s commo helmet to make it audible over the thunderous conclusion of the fire mission. “Rocker elements are ready to move. Rock—”
Gun Six fired its third and final round. The shriek of the shells arching southward seemed like silence after the cacophony of the preceding seconds.
“—er One-six over.”
“All Highball units,” Huber said. The whole operation had taken less time than switching drivers; a minute at the outside. “Resume march order. Six out.”
He grinned wryly. While he didn’t suppose Lieutenant Basingstoke was going to become a bosom buddy, at least he knew his job.
And because he was thinking that, Huber said, “Rocker One-six, this is Highball Six. It’s a pleasure to serve with real professionals, Lieutenant. Please convey my congratulations to your troopers. Six over.”
Foghorn slid out of sight among the trees. Learoyd brought Fencing Master up, following thirty meters behind the lead car. That was a greater interval than they’d maintain when the task force had reached a constant speed.
“Highball Six, this is Rocker One-six,” Basingstoke said. “I’ve passed on your congratulations to my gunners.” After a pause he added, “I’m glad we were able to perform to the standard the infantry and your combat car crews have demonstrated in order to get us this far. Rocker One-six out.”
Huber looked up at branches whipping past against a dark sky. He grinned faintly. “Thank you, Rocker One-six,” he said. “Six out.”
He wondered how much farther Task Force Huber was going to get. Who knows? Maybe all the way.
And then what? Huber added to himself; but that was a problem for another day.
Huber awakened from a doze. He’d been hunched into the back corner of the fighting compartment, held upright by ammo boxes and a carton of rations. Fields of dark green soybeans rolled to either horizon beyond the iridium walls, punctuated by stretches of native vegetation.