Pathspace

by Matthew Kennedy

Chapter 88

  Peter: “Impatient to assume the world”

  By mid-afternoon the thrill of riding on the front of the tank had faded and he climbed back over the turret and into the hatch to escape the dust and grit of the road. He was surprised that it was so roomy inside. Aft of the driver and gunner's seats, padded benches faced black screens rather than the windows he had expected. These, he was told, were 'monitors' that were supposed to show what was seen by electric eyes called “videocams” – though all were blank except one near the front on the left side, and all it showed was a black background occasionally peppered with white dots and lines. Not all of the tank's systems, it appeared, had survived the entombment of the buried armory.

  Below the dark monitors were narrow rectangular hatches that turned out to be the windows he had expected. These were currently shut to keep out the chill of the air that had been growing ever colder as they sped North. He heard a hum as ancient ventilation blew filtered air into the confines of the interior.

  Besides the driver, whose name he learned was Mathers, and the gunner, Thompson, there were only two others inside the tank with him. He tried not to imagine how it would have felt if the benches were full. Despite his initial impression of roominess, the interior was beginning to feel a little confining, especially since he could not see out The way he had always been able to see out of his horse-drawn limousine.

  His mouth felt suddenly dry, and he looked around the interior for a canteen.

  “Here you are, sir.” One of the men was handing him a cup of water.

  He thanked the man. “Don't know why I feel so dry all of a sudden.”

  “It's the filters, sir,” the other man volunteered. “I saw in the manual this model was originally supposed to be able to fight anywhere.. Must have thought they'd be using them south of the border, down near Panama.” The man took a sip from his own cup. “Anyways, the air intakes have filters to absorb moisture from the outside air before it gets in. Guess damp air must be bad for the electrical stuff.” He grimaced. “We found 'em sealed in plastic boxes. If we'd known they'd dry us out this much we'd have left 'em packed up.”

  “Live and learn, corporal. We'll know better what to bring and what to leave home next time.”

  “Yessir. We're almost out of water as it is. And we'd sure appreciate it if we could stop soon, and, you know, let it back out.”

  He absorbed that in silence, thinking, yet another detail we didn't anticipate. When he'd been younger, out on campaigns fighting Okla and Newmex, you had to be careful to not overtax the horses, which made for natural stops along the trails and roadways. Now that they had these vehicles, it was the men, not the horses, you had to worry about. The sheer power of the motorized conveyances would tempt you to travel far from sources of water, as horses would not.

  “It'll be dark soon,” he said. “Well find a pond somewhere, break the ice and refill our water while the fuel truck is topping off the gas tank. We ought to be getting near Denver before midnight.”

  One of the men swallowed, but he wasn't swallowing water. “Er, you really sure you want to attack at night, sir?”

  The Honcho smiled. “Does that worry you, son? I should think it'll be hard to miss the Governor's 'scraper, even at night, don't you? Not to mention, it'll be even harder for her lookouts to spot our trails.”

  The man tried to look brave. “Oh, I, uh, just wanted to be able to see 'em fall when we shoot 'em, sir.”

  Finding water turned out to be more of a challenge than he had thought it would be. They passed the remains of ancient truck stops and towns too far from rivers to survive the fall of civilization, and he looked at them wistfully, but there was no water to be had there. Given time, they could probably have located a pond or creek in the hills, but he elected not to take the time for it. It had snowed again, and when he climbed out to survey the area they were passing through, he could see that it might be hard to find even a shallow pond under the winter's blanket of white.

  Instead, he told the driver to stop between towns, and they climbed out under the darkening sky to gather the snow itself Shielded from distant eyes and the bone-chilling wind in a dry gully by the shoulder of the old highway, they built a small fire and melted the snow, pouring the still-cold water into their canteens before climbing back to resume the drive.

  When darkness fell there was a new magic, one he hadn't noticed before. Just as he wondered how he would feel in the closeness of the tank interior when it was emphasized by darkness, he noticed that it had stopped getting darker. A soft glow had somehow appeared inside the tank, preventing total darkness within.

  “This thing has glowtubes?” He was amazed and delighted, remembering how it was in his father's time, before the last glowtubes in the old headquarters of the Lone Star Empire had finally died. He knew the lifespan of the ancient magic seemed random, that some tubes lasted longer than others, but somehow he had never dreamed that the ancient weapons of war would have some still alive within them.

  In the dimness, the soldier who had shared his water hesitated, seeming unwilling to disappoint him. “Er, no sir. Not as such. Not the sort that glow by themselves.” He pointed to the driver and gunner stations, where parts of the controls were glowing in tiny pinpoints of green and blue. “The manual calls them LEDs, sir. The engine generates power for them, as well as for the electric motors that swing and tilt the gun. And for the monitors, although the 'cams for them don't seem to work.”

  Ah, now he understood. Like glow-worms, the little light they put off had been too faint for him to notice when sunlight had still been pouring in the open hatch. Now the coming of night had let his eyes adjust to the dark enough to let him see the feeble illumination.

  He did his best to hide his disappointment. “How clever. Do the manuals tell us how to make these LEDs?”

  The man shrugged helplessly in the dimness. “I'm afraid not, sir. But on that panel over there, there are enough of them to read maps at night, at least.”

  “Do all of the tanks have them? In case we get separated in the dark?”

  “I don't know sir. They should, but I don't know for sure. This is the tank I trained on.”

  More details to learn. Peter leaned forward to speak to the driver. “How far are we from Denver now?”

  “Not that far. We crossed the border a while ago. We should be inside their outer lookouts within the hour.”

  “Good. Stop here for a few minutes. I want to confer with my Commanders.”

  Arranging for the convoy was a simple matter, since they were the lead vehicle. Once the tank stopped the others had to follow suit to avoid crashing into them. Peter clambered out of the tank and walked back.

  Brutus, in the tank behind him, had already emerged. In their starlight it was hard to make out his expression, but it was probably impatience modulated by curiosity. “What's up?”

  Peter waited for Jeffrey to join them before speaking. “One we get into Denver we won't have as much room to maneuver,” he said. “Denver isn't Noodle.”

  “Neither is Noodle, anymore” Jeffrey said. “Thanks to us.”

  “My point is, we can't draw up the tanks in a line abreast, or anything like that, to concentrate our fire. My original plan was that we would keep making passes pounding rounds into the foundations of her fortress until we bring it down.

  “And if we have to bring it down, we will. But that's not our primary objective, actually, is it? We're here to begin the conquest of Rado. With a larger army we would have begun at the border, swallowing up territory mile by mile, then bringing up reinforcements to hold it. We don't have enough vehicles to mount that sort of campaign, though. So our real purpose here is to end the Governor's rule. To destroy her forces, and kill or capture her to remove the possibility of any effective leadership trying to rally the resist our main force of cavalry that won't be here for days.”

  “So what are we going to do?” asked Jeffrey.

  Peter unfolded the map and held it against
the front of Brutus's tank as he pointed. “Brutus and I will take two tanks right down her street and begin lobbing rounds into buildings to get her attention. If we meet any of her forces there we'll finish them, then head back to here, where Jeffrey, you'll have the rest of the tanks waiting in ambush. We won't come back to you until we have her main force in pursuit. You'll line up the rest of the tanks, there, and when we lead her main cavalry past you'll be waiting to blast 'em.”

  “But we won't be in single file any more. They'll see the trap and abandon chase.”

  Peter grinned. “No, they won't. You'll be lined up abreast, true, but your gauntlet, from their point of view, will still be in a line. Captain Ludlow can deploy the cloaking device on the tank closes to them and they'll ride past you, ducks in a row, to their slaughter. You won't even have to aim, just fire into the column of horses as it passes.”

  Standing near to him to see where he indicated the position on the map, he could see their faces. Brutus was grinning, but Jeffrey looked sick. “If Kristana is fool enough to lead her own forces,” he continued, “that'll be it for her. Otherwise, when she realizes her main force is gone, she'll probably beat a 'strategic retreat' and go off to hide and fight another day. Either way, she's finished in Rado. After that, we'll position the tanks around her fortress until our main cavalry catches up to us, then dismount some and sweep the building clean of any stragglers floor by floor. Then we consolidate our position here and use it as a base while we mop up and take the rest of the country. Any questions?”

  Jeffrey shook his head. “You're forgetting that this isn't Noodle. Denver's a big city, and even if a lot of it isn't standing any more ...”

  “And even less will be, when we're done,” Brutus laughed.

  “...there are still plenty of places for resistance fighters to hide, regroup, and strike from. We can't possible flatten the whole place, even if we wanted to. Your army could be here for weeks, months, maybe years trying to root them all out and finish the fighting. Your whole Expansion could get bogged down with your army kept busy trying to secure this one city.”

  “We'll do whatever we need to do,” Brutus grunted.

  Jeffrey snorted. “I don't think either of you have really thought this through. Denver isn't a walled city. Even if you killed most of the fighter that are here now, more could slip into the place from dozens of roads. We need a better plan.”

  Brutus sneered. “And I suppose you have one?”

  “How about this? You destroy her main force, sure, but you spare the Governor and leave her in place here as your puppet. Less chance of an organized resistance then.”

  “What makes you think that?” Peter asked.

  “She's popular,” said Jeffrey. “I could see it in their eyes. With her still in place, her people will have something to keep them from a long guerrilla struggle.”

  “And what's that?”

  “Hope. Don't you see? They'll be sure she has a plan to push you back out again, and they'll sit waiting to see what it is, instead of organizing a rebellion. They'll be so sure she can pull it off that they won't want to do anything to hinder her, believing that she'll find a way to turn it around and shake off our occupation. But she won't even try.”

  Peter stared at his son. “Why not?”

  “Because you'll have her daughter. Her only child. The last bit of the General she has left. The Governor might be one tough lady, father, but Aria is her plan to continue the Legacy. She risked her only wizard to get her back! If we take Aria back to Dallas, your problems in Denver will be over, and then you can move most of your army on to your next objective.”