by Roland Green
It helped neither her, nor anyone else's morale, to hear the sounds of battle drift down the tunnel.
"Shall 1 try something to tickle up whatever is out there?" Hellandros asked politely. He might have been a rocket-launcher team leader asking for permission to perform a reconnaissance by fire.
"Not yet," Jazra replied, "but stay close to the tunnel mouth, without actually standing in it."
Hellandros now looked puzzled. Jazra was too busy scrambling up the highest pile of junk to answer. She hoped nothing caught or ripped her armor. She had to get a good look at this whole junkyard—actually, it looked like a warehouse of parts for vehicles that hadn't been seen outside a museum for years— before she gave up.
She reached the top of the pile. Without waiting for a command, Hellandros threw a sphere of light into the air, arcing it over her head so that as it fell it was screened behind her pile.
Nobody behind her could see it, but she could see everything ahead.
Including the tank.
It was a massive, nearly obsolete Model 7/12-A. They had been used only for training, before Jazra even joined the marines, but this one looked as though it had just come off the assembly line. A trip through the wash tunnel to get rid of the dust, and it would be ready to move.
Except that it had to be without power, or ammunition, assuming the guns would fire. The way they were arranged was wholly nonstandard, so they probably wouldn't.
Chakfor Stonebreaker had seen as much as she had, and he was running toward the tank as fast as his legs would carry him. Gregis ran after him, and Jazra's first instinct was to scramble down behind the pile, in case the tank's guns did work, and were on robot control.
She told herself that she was infantry, with the infantry's instinct that all tanks were the enemy. She told herself that Gregis could learn his way around any piece of machinery in less time than the designer, and that Chakfor Stonebreaker would at least not press the wrong button.
She told herself this as Brinus Ha-Gelher hurried after the others. She told herself this as the first two disappeared into the tank through the open driver's hatch.
The hatch closed with a clang, and Jazra would have stopped breathing if she could, to make time go faster.
Instead, she found herself panting.
Then her breath did stop, as the tank's external lights flickered on. They went on flickering for a moment, went out, then came on again to shine steadily.
One of the lights blinked. Brinus Ha-Gelher approached the tank with the air of a man on the way to his own funeral. Then he turned and shouted: "Everybody get down! There's a sealed door that opens the other way, and they're going to use the gun to clear it away. Hellandros, they asked for you."
By this point, Jazra was feeling more like a spectator than a soldier. She thought she should order this whole nonsense to stop, before anyone was killed.
But two instincts were giving her orders. One was that everyone knew what they were doing. The other was older and less military: she simply wanted to see what would happen next, like a child at a carnival.
What happened next was simple enough: The tank's engine whined to life.
The tank turned in place, until the bow was pointed at a part of the wall where Jazra now saw corrugations. She wondered why they didn't turn the turret, until she saw that the bulge on the right side of the hull was a semi-fixed magnum mount. Maybe they had no ammunition for the other.
Jazra saw Rael lettering along the side of the tank now turned toward her. The carefully painted script read: Hulmot's Legacy.
A dot of light appeared on the corrugated metal, as the laser sight came on. She saw Hellandros reach the tank, knock on the driver's hatch, and nearly fall over backward as Chakfor Stonebreaker opened the hatch.
With unexpected agility, the dwarf climbed out, to let the wizard climb in. With similar agility, Hellandros vanished into the tank. The hatch slammed down, and Brinus Ha-Gelher retreated with more speed than dignity.
Jazra wanted to do the same. With a spell of heavy striking on them, the rounds from a tank's magnum cannon would probably pierce a spaceship's hull. If she'd had a choice, she would not have been on the same planet with this experiment.
Since she had no choice, she started humming to herself, a satirical song popular when she was about ten.
The tank twitched back and forth, like a restless sleeper finally getting comfortable. With squeals and groans, the hull-mounted cannon elevated, until it was aimed at the corrugations.
Then a solid bar of light seemed to spit out of the gun, a solid wall of sound hammered at Jazra, and what seemed to be solid fire struck the corrugated metal. Where the fire struck, suddenly there was nothing except sparks and bits of Molten Metal raining down from a gaping hole.
That must have been the lock. The tank's fire then shattered the hinges of the concealed door. Gravity took care of the rest, as the door fell with a clang.
Now the tank surged forward toward the exposed ceramic of the wall. At the last moment, they turned the turret so that its weaponry was aimed backward, and retracted the anti-air blaster pod on top of the turret.
Ceramic protested, then cracked, then crashed down, fragments larger than a spider drone sliding off the curved armor of the tank. The tank rolled completely through the gap in the wall, then backed into the junkyard again. Gregis opened the top hatch, Chakfor Stonebreaker opened the driver's hatch, and they both bowed.
Jazra wished she could have thrown roses. Instead she heard someone scrambling up her pile. Two people, as a matter of fact.
She turned to see the sweating, unhelmeted faces of two marine officers of the arcology garrison. She remembered their names as Captain Keegis, infantry, and Lieutenant Bruegind, a slightly mad tank commander. She even tried to bow, and nearly tumbled down the pile.
They caught her, though, and held her upright long enough for her to wave to the tank crew, then look back toward the tunnel. Ohlt and his party had come in with Breena, and so had nearly a dozen other armed Rael.
The companions and the newcomers were keeping their distance. Some of them were keeping their hands closer to their weapons than Jazra liked.
"What did you bring home, Jazra?" Keegis asked. Bruegind was too busy staring at the tank to even notice Jazra.
"It's a long story," Jazra said. "Too long to tell atop a pile of scrap metal, but believe one thing: They're friends worth having."
"Since they just gave us Hulmot's Legacy, I wouldn't doubt that," Bruegind said. "But what else have they done? And what
are you doing here? Did you take back Fworta?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes," Jazra said. Then she put a hand firmly on each fellow officer's shoulder. "We are atop a pile of scrap metal, deep inside enemy territory, in a half-captured arcology. If you won't trust these people without proof, we can just wait until the Director's reinforcements arrive. But I thought you would rather take the tank home than argue about our new allies."
Keegis's face hardened. He had been an officer when Jazra was born; equal rank did not mean equality.
Bruegind laughed, and her laughter rose, until it echoed around the chamber. It was a much more pleasant sound than the magnum cannon. It also eased suspicion as quickly as the cannon had hammered through the door.
"New friends," Bruegind called. "Anybody who can play with a tank like that is on our side. Is that your property now, or can a broken-down old tank commander play with your toy?"
SIXTEEN
Fedor Ohlt had reached a singularly pleasant moment in a dream about Elda, when he realized that the cot was shaking.
He opened his eyes, and found himself looking into a dismayed Rael face. "They're attacking!" the Rael—who looked young enough to be Ohlt's daughter—shouted.
Ohlt sat up. "You mean, we're attacking," he said, still groggy. "Is it today?"
"No, Captain Ohlt," the Rael said earnestly. "The Primary Director has grown suspicious. It is putting all its strength into an attack on us."
Ohlt swore in Common, then added a couple of words in Rael that he had learned from Chakfor. The Rael winced, making Ohlt resolve that he would learn what Chakfor's Rael words actually meant before he used them again.
He swung his feet off the cot and started pulling on his
clothes, basically the coverall that went on over his undergarments, but under his armor. It was not as heavy as a knight's doublet, but it served many of the same purposes, including making the wearer sweat like a pig.
"Well, this won't be the first time Overseer forces have thought to strike first," Ohlt muttered. "It won't be the first time they had their circuits handed to them on a platter, either."
The Rael soldier looked undecided as to whether to cheer or laugh. Ohlt had the feeling that he had just made a fool of himself. A fine way to start the day. . . .
If the Director was launching what the Rael called a "spoiling attack," they were most likely hunting the assault tank. If so, then whatever Keegis had ordered for this situation, the best thing Ohlt could think of was to get the tank manned and on the move.
"A moving target is harder to hit" must have occurred to the first warrior who threw a stone, just after the first time he missed.
"Five coronets was the wager, and here they are," Torgia Mel said. She swept the heavy silver coins across the table at Kalton Praug.
Her hand caught the drawstring of a red silk bag. The bag flew off the table and fell open. A thick chain of heavy gold links fell out. The chain supported a six-sided pendant, with the Grand Duke's crest enameled on it in red.
Gredin sucked in her breath. That was a baron's emblem of office. Who around here—?
Then she saw that Captain Mel was flushing red, something that Gredin would not have believed possible. She delicately picked up the chain and laid it back on the table.
"It's only a Baron-Commander's chain," Torgia said, as if making light of the honor. "My rank holds only while I'm posted at
Aston Point. Any time the Grand Duke has a favorite whose younger son needs a barony, I'll probably be sent elsewhere. I have to confess, though, that I'd miss this bleak joke of a town."
The half-smile took the sting from Torgia's words. "You will find it hard to wed, if you remain here, and so high in rank," Kalton Praug said.
"Is that an offer?" Baron-Commander Mel said, a wicked gleam in her eye.
It was Kalton Praug's turn to redden. "No—ah, yes—well, every woman ought to wed." He turned redder. "At least I thought so, once, but now ... I do not know."
"And you're willing to admit it, which makes you wiser than most folk," Torgia said. She looked at Praug as she might have looked at a plump breakfast sausage. "I am not desperate to wed. I have lived without a husband—though not without men—for a good long while.
"On the other hand, Kalton Praug, a woman would not have to be desperate to consider you for a husband. I said consider," she added hastily, for Kalton Praug seemed about to faint. "I promise nothing, and you need fear nothing. But the time will come to talk of this over wine, when duty is done."
The Baron-Commander rose. "We owe the sirines for dealing with those hobgoblins," she said, "but I think it is time that we set a permanent guard on the Valley of the Comet. That means some of the garrison, as well as some of the watch."
"Is not fear of the comet's evil a sufficient guard?" Praug said.
Erick Trussk cleared his throat. He was still hoarse, but otherwise moved almost normally, and would show fewer scars than anyone so badly burned ought to. "Good sir, I think anyone who saw the fighting is probably still running," the young man offered. "But as they run, rumors will run with them. Those too stupid to know fear may swarm to the ruins of the comet as they swarmed to Aston Tanak's prophecies.
"Who knows who will be among them? And who knows what remains in the ruins of the comet that could wreak evil in the wrong hands?"
"Well spoken, Erick," Torgia said. "And you need not call Praug 'good sir' anymore. I am appointing you lieutenant, effective from today. That makes you and Praug equals, at least."
"But then I will be under him—" Gredin said, realized that her tongue had run ahead of her thoughts, and took her turn at reddening.
"That's what I intended all along," Torgia said, not quite keeping the laughter out of her voice. "Erick will command soldiers, and you will command the watch, guarding the Valley of the Comet. You are both fit for the work, and both of you are friends of Drenin Longstaff and Asrienda, so that you can call on them more easily than some."
Erick and Gredin looked at each other, then Erick opened his arms and allowed Gredin to bury her face in his woolen tunic. It was rough, but a scratched face hidden against Erick's chest was better than a red one for all to see.
"Oh, by the way," Torgia's voice came, as from a distance. "As Erick's superior, I have to give him permission to marry.
"I give it."
The Primary Director had divided its attack into three assault groups. The center was the heaviest, with four death-strikes.
A scouting line of Doomed, supported by spider drones, went ahead of each group, which also had its own reserve. A general reserve was intended to be able to move to the support of any of the three groups that was making progress.
The Primary Director had assembled these reserves by drawing on weapons, particularly the deathstrikes, awaiting passage to other Overseer offensives accessed through the Kel-Rael arcology's active gates. As a Primary Director, it had the authority to reassign assets if it judged the reinforcements necessary. After the penetration into Green Sector, this was of the highest priority.
With the reserves in place, implementing the standard Overseer tactic of reinforcing success, the Director expected little trouble overcoming the last resistance on Kel-Rael. It also did not have the problem that organic commanders who used that method typically faced: subordinates lying about their progress to secure reinforcements.
Overseer constructs did not lie.
They could, however, receive data containing errors, and then transmit it in garbled or incomplete form. So the Primary Director had potentially as many problems as any organic commander, both in locating "success" and in defining it.
Jazra sprinted the last fifty yards to the assault tank, just as the first spattering of blaster fire echoed from the distance. She came around the bow, and saw that the name Hulmot's Legacy was gone.
In its place, roughly sprayed in red, was the name Avenger.
"Who did this?" someone snapped behind her. It was Bruegind, who looked ready to peel the new name off the armor with her fingernails.
The turret hatch popped open. Gregis stuck his head out. "Breena came by last night. She took the old name off with an abrader, and sprayed the new one on."
"It's not her tank!" Bruegind and Jazra exclaimed together.
"It's not yours, either," Gregis said. "Or at least that's what she would say," he added hastily, to avoid being more insubordinate than usual. "Besides, she had a look on her face.... 1 don't think you would have argued with her."
"It's bad luck to change a tank's name," Bruegind insisted. Jazra frowned, then remembered that old marine tanker belief. She'd always wondered how far back it went; now she wondered if it went back to the time when the Rael believed in magic.
The driver's hatch opened, and Chakfor Stonebreaker peered out, looking as if he'd slept in the driver's couch last night.
Bruegind put her hands on her hips and tried to stare him down.
Jazra was about to tell her sharply not to waste everybody's time when Chakfor spoke for her. "Anything I can do for you, Lieutenant Bruegind?"
"Yes. Change the name back, or let me drive."
"Ma'am, I've been in the simulator most of the last two days, working with Hulmot's tapes on how to drive his baby. I can drive this as well as just about anybody—"
"I'm still better." Bruegind cut him off. "I spent three years driving one, and I was the best in the Zone Command. You say Hulmot changed the control
s so that it's simpler? So much the better. I should really be able to twist its tail."
Chakfor looked about ready to climb out of the hatch and punch Bruegind. Then the dwarf shrugged.
"Well, we could share the couch. I drive sitting at the forward end, so I can reach the controls. I've never driven a tank sitting on the lap of a fine, fair Rael lady officer but. . . ."
Bruegind laughed, plainly in spite of herself. "You are almost cute enough to make me try it, little human." She reached up and ruffled Chakfor's hair.
Jazra knew that if she even smiled, the dwarf would probably have a stroke. She turned away, so did not see how Chakfor looked when he said, "That's common-sized dwarf, ma'am."
"As you wish, Assistant Driver Stonebreaker."
"Assistant?"
"A second driver never hurts," Bruegind said seriously. "The first driver sometimes doesn't last through a battle."
Chakfor looked sober, then covered it with another shrug. "I'd rather argue with you than with Breena. Climb in, Chief Driver Lieutenant Bruegind."
Running feet warred with more distant blasters, a solitary grenade, and the whine of motors. Jazra turned to see the rest of the companions hurrying up, and behind them Keegis on a cell-powered cycle.
He leaped off before the cycle stopped, and embraced
Bruegind in a way that made Jazra want to turn her back again. It didn't help that Bruegind was returning the embrace enthusiastically.
It brought home to Jazra how few farewells she would really need to say. The companions would receive most of them, and today they were all going into battle together, human, dwarf, Rael, and all.
Almost as an afterthought, Keegis handed Jazra a data file. "We'll be using plan four. That allows the fewest movements of our own people, until their plan of attack develops a little more. We know they have heavy equipment, but they've not advanced enough for the sensors to tell us how much and where."
