Huber’s AI pulsed a warning on his faceshield. The task force was still under combat conditions, and a pair of aircars were approaching from the northeast a thousand meters up. The cars’ tribarrels weren’t on air defense, and the AI thought maybe they ought to be.
“They got running lights on, El-Tee,” Deseau said, swinging his gun onto the aircars manually. “They’re not trying to sneak up on us, but maybe they’re just too smart to try what wouldn’t work.”
“Put that gun on safe, trooper!” Colonel Hammer roared. Then he snapped his faceshield down and continued, “All Slammers units, do not shoot. Under no circumstances harm the incoming aircars. They’re bringing Solace representatives to treat with us! Six out.”
The aircars hovered a kilometer from the perimeter of Port Plattner. Hammer continued an animated conversation with someone on a push that didn’t include Highball Six. After nearly a minute’s discussion, the aircars mushed toward the laager together. The command car’s rear door opened; Major Pritchard stepped out of the vehicle.
Colonel Hammer nodded approval and swung his legs over the coaming of his fighting compartment to stand on the plenum chamber. He looked at Huber, grinned, and said, “Come along with me, Lieutenant. We’re going to take the surrender of the Republic of Solace.”
The two squads of infantry tilted their skimmers on end and stacked them in groups of three between the combat cars of Highball section. Sergeant Tranter swung down a cooler from Fancy Pants since the infantry’s supports were back with the hogs.
The troopers looked more concerned with the Colonel and his operations officer in the center of the circle than they were with the crackling destruction that covered most of the near distance. They’d seen destruction more often than they’d been this close to the Colonel, after all.
The aircars hovered for a moment, then landed a hundred meters out from the laager. Hammer grimaced and snapped to Pritchard, “Get ’em in here, Major. Do they think we’re going to walk over to them?”
Huber wasn’t sure he could walk that far. His left leg had been numb till he dropped from the plenum chamber to the ground. That shock had seemed to drive a hot steel rod straight up from his heel to the hip joint. His knee didn’t want to bend, and every time he moved the rod burned hotter.
Pritchard spoke into his commo helmet. He must have had a link to the aircars through his command vehicle, because after a moment they lifted and crawled toward the laager in ground effect. He smiled tightly to Hammer and Huber, saying, “The gentleman from Nonesuch was concerned that the terminal might fall in this direction. I assured him that the shell of a ferroconcrete building will remain standing after it’s burned itself out.”
His grin grew even harder. “I’ve got a lot of experience with that, of course. We all have.”
“Right,” said Hammer. “That’s why they hire us.” He glanced at Huber and added, “You’ve met Mister Lindeyar already, haven’t you, Lieutenant?”
“Him?” said Huber, shocked out of his torpor. He wasn’t sure he’d heard right; or if he had, that his brain hadn’t taken a shock during the battle that was making him remember things that’d never happened. “There was a Lindeyar at Benjamin, but what’s that got to do with Solace?”
A starship was dropping slowly. It was still at high altitude but the effort of supporting its mass in a controlled descent made it pulsingly noticeable. Hammer’d mentioned ships landing, so Huber supposed it part of the plan. Somebody’s plan, and no concern for a line lieutenant.
“Sigmund Lindeyar is the Nonesuch representative for all of Plattner’s World, not just to the United Cities,” Major Pritchard said, sounding detached. “Quite an important man back home, I gather.”
Hammer spat on the dirt at his feet. “Yeah,” he said, releasing the catches on the right side of his clamshell. “And if you don’t believe us, just ask Lindeyar himself.”
The aircars landed again, this time a few meters short of the bows of the combat cars. The slick-finished limousines reflected the surging firelight like pools of oil; by contrast, Foghorn and Fancy Pants were hulking gray boulders, scarred by the ages.
The starship continued to drop, balanced on the repulsion of two self-generated electromagnetic fields. Violet corona discharges danced across the heavens, crackling and roaring. Huber glanced at it, then frowned as he looked higher in the sky. A second starship was descending, and he thought a third waited above the second.
“El-Tee, there’s a couple more aircars coming up from the south,” Deseau said over Fencing Master’s intercom. “I don’t guess there’s a problem—they’re responding with Regimental IFF—but I figured I’d mention it.”
Huber nodded to Deseau. Learoyd had the receiver cover of the left wing tribarrel raised to adjust the feed mechanism. The crew of a CO’s vehicle caught a lot of extra work, which bothered Huber. Neither Deseau nor Learoyd seemed to notice, let alone care.
And it wasn’t like either one of them wanted to be platoon leader.
A group of military and civilian personnel were getting out of one of the aircars. Among them was an attractive—
Via! The attractive young woman was Daphne Priamedes, and the senior officer whom she’d bent to help to exit was her father, Colonel Apollonio Priamedes. Huber’d never expected to see either one of them again.
Lindeyar had arrived in the other vehicle, alone except for three bodyguards. Huber looked at him and smiled wryly. How many people have I killed in the last two days? And not one of them anybody I knew, let alone disliked.
“Colonel?” Huber said aloud. “There’s two more aircars coming from the south. I guess you’ve already got that under control, but—”
“But you thought you’d make sure I had the information,” Hammer said with an approving nod. “Right, I do.”
He gestured to the southern sky. “That’s the UC delegation,” he said. “They’re our principals on this contract so they need to be here.”
The first starship settled onto the far end of the pad, close by the ship that had brought the Waldheim Dragoons. The new vessel was about the size of the one that had held an entire brigade of armored cavalry. Its sizzling discharge ceased, but the concrete continued to vibrate at a dense bass note.
Lindeyar straightened the fall of his jacket and strode into the laager past the combat cars. His bodyguards waited beyond the circle.
The civilians who’d arrived in the other vehicle huddled for a moment. The old man wearing a fur stole and cap of office directed a question at Colonel Priamedes with a peevish expression.
Priamedes snapped a reply and walked after Lindeyar, his daughter at his side. Daphne kept her face blank, but Huber could see from the way she held herself that she was ready to grab her father if his body failed him. Exchanging looks of indignation, the four civilians followed.
The two aircars coming from the south landed with a brusque lack of finesse; one even bounced. Huber leaned back slightly to get a better look between two vehicles of Lieutenant Messeman’s platoon. He’d been right about what he thought he’d seen: the four civilians getting out of the aircars were members of the UC Senate whom he’d seen before when he was assigned to duties in Benjamin, but White Mice were driving and guarding them. Their battledress was as ragged as Huber’s own, and one trooper’s plastron had been seared down to the ceramic core.
The man in the fur cap glared at Hammer. “You sir!” he said. “I’m President Rihorta. Colonel Priamedes tells me you’re the chief of these hirelings. May I ask why it’s necessary to hold these discussions in such a, such a—”
At a loss for words, he waved a hand toward the chaos beyond. His sleeves were fur-trimmed also. As if on cue, a fuel tank in the vehicle park exploded, sending a bubble of orange fire skyward.