by David Drake
Though the main screen was in high-magnification mode, the right-hand display—normally the commo screen, but De Grieux had shut off external commo—retained a 120° panorama of Warrior's surroundings. Images shifted as the tank reversed through the ruin its guns had created. Air spilling beneath the skirts stirred the flames and made their ragged tips bow in obeisance.
A Rep with the green tabs of a Central Command officer on his epaulets knelt with his hands folded in prayer. He did not look up as Warrior slid toward him, though vented air made his short-sleeved khaki uniform shudder.
Des Grieux touched his left joystick. The Rep was already too close to Warrior for the tribarrel to bear; and anyway . . .
And anyway, one spaced-out man was scarcely worth a bolt.
Warrior howled past the Rep officer. A crosswind rocked the tank minusculy from Kuykendall's intended line, so that the side skirt drifted within five meters of the man.
Sensors fired a section of the automatic defense system. Pellets blew the Republican backward, as loose-limbed as a rag doll.
Kuykendall ground the skirts to bring the tank to a safe halt at the edge of the mesa. Warrior lay across a zigzag trench, empty save for a sprawled corpse. The drive fans could stabilize a tank in still air, but shockwaves and currents rushing to feed flames whipped the top of Hill 661.
Des Grieux depressed the muzzle of his main gun slightly. On Warrior's gunnery screen, the hollow pipper slid over a high-resolution view of Republican positions on Hill 504.
The mesa on which Warrior rested was 150 meters higher than the irregular hillock on which the Reps had placed their western firebase.The twelve kilometers separating the two peaks meant nothing to the tank's powerguns.
On Hill 504, a pair of bombardment rockets leapt from their launching tubes toward the Federal encampment. The holographic image was silent, but Des Grieux had been the target of too many similar rounds not to imagine the snarling roar of their passage. He centered his ring sight on the munitions truck bringing another twenty-four rounds to the launchers—
And toed the foot-trip.
Warrior rocked with the trained lightning of its main gun. The display blanked in a cataclysm: pure blue plasma; metal burning white hot; and red as tonnes of warheads and solid rocket fuel exploded simultaneously. The truck and everything within a hundred meters of it vanished.
Des Grieux shifted his sights to what he thought was the Republican command post. He was smiling.
He fired. Sandbags blew outward as shards of glass. There were explosives of some sort within the bunker, because a moment after the rubble settled, a secondary explosion blew the site into a crater.
Concussion from the first blast had stunned or killed the crew of the single calliope on Hill 504. The weapon was probably unserviceable, but Des Grieux's third bolt vaporized it anyway.
"I told you bastards . . ." the tanker muttered in a voice that would have frightened anyone who heard him.
Dust and smoke billowed out in a huge doughnut from where the truckload of rockets had been. The air-suspended particles masked the remaining positions on Hill 504. Guns and bunker sites vanished into the haze like ships sinking at anchor. The main screen provided a detailed vision of whorls and color variations within the general blur.
"Booster,"Des Grieux said. "Feed me targets." Warrior's turret was supported by superconducting magnetic bearings powered by the same fusion plant that drove the fans. The mechanism purred and adjusted two degrees to starboard, under control of the artificial intelligence recalling the terrain before it was concealed. The hollow pipper remained centered on the gunnery screen, but haze appeared to shift around it.
The circle pulsed. Des Grieux fired the 20cmgun.Even as the tank recoiled from the bolt's release, the AI rotated the weapon toward the next unseen victim.
"Booster!" Des Grieux snarled. His throat was raw with gunnery fumes and the human waste products of tension coursing through his system. "Show me the bloody—"
The pipper quivered again. Des Grieux fired by reflex. A flash and a mushroom of black smoke penetrated the gray curtain. "Targets!"
The main gun depressed minutely. To Des Grieux's amazement, a howitzer on Hill 504 banged a further shell toward the Federal positions. Warrior's AI obediently supplied the image of the weapon to Des Grieux's display as it steadied beneath the orange circle.
A bubble of gaseous metal sent the howitzer barrel thirty meters into the air.
With only one calliope to protect them, the Reps on 504 had dug in somewhat better than their fellows on Hill 661.Despite that,there was still a suicidal amount of ready ammunition stacked around the fast-firing guns. The tank's data banks fed each dump to the gunnery screen.
Des Grieux continued to fire. The haze over the target area darkened, stirred occasionally by sullen red flames. A red 0 replaced the green numeral 1 on the lower right corner of the screen. The interior of the fighting compartment stank like the depths of Hell.
"I told you bastards . . ."Des Grieux repeated, though his throat was so swollen that he had to force the words out. "And I told that bastard Lindgren."
"Sarge?" Kuykendall said.
Des Grieux threw the charging lever to refill the ready magazine. Just as well if he didn't use the main gun until the bore was relined; but the status report gave it ten percent of its original thickness, a safe enough margin for a few bolts, and you did what you had to do . . . .
"Yeah," he said aloud. "Get us somewhere outa the way. In the morning we'll rejoin. Somebody."
Kuykendall adjusted the fans so that they bit into the air instead of slicing through it with minimum disruption. She'd kept the power up while Warrior was grounded. In an emergency, they could hop off the mesa with no more than a quick change of blade angle.
The smoke-shrouded ruin of Hill 661 was unlikely to spawn emergencies, but in the four hours remaining till dawn some Rep officer might muster a tank-killer team.No point in making trouble for yourself.There were hundreds of kilometers of arid scrub which would hide Warrior until the situation sorted itself out.
And there were no longer any targets around here worthy of Warrior's guns. Of that, Des Grieux was quite certain.
Kuykendall elected to slide directly over the edge of the mesa instead of returning to the logistics route by which they had attacked. The immediate slope was severe, almost 1:3, but there were no dangerous obstacles and the terrain flattened within a hundred meters.
There were bound to be scores of Rep soldiers on the road, some of them seeking revenge. A large number might fly into a lethal panic if they saw Warrior's gray bow loom through the darkness. A smoother ride to concealment wasn't worth the risk.
"Sarge?" asked Kuykendall. "What's going on back at 541 North?"
"How the hell would I know?" Des Grieux snarled. But he could know, if he wanted to. He reached to reconnect the commo buss . . . and withdrew his hand. He could adjust a screen, and he started to do that—manually,because his throat hurt as if he'd been swallowing battery acid.
Instead of carrying through with the motion, Des Grieux lifted the crash bar to open the hatch and raise his seat to cupola level. The breeze smelled so clean that it made him dizzy.
Kuykendall eased the tank toward the low ground west of Hill 661.With a swale to shelter them, they could drive north a couple kays and avoid the stragglers from the Republican disaster.
For it had been a disaster. The Federal artillery on Hill 541N was in action again, lobbing shells toward the Rep staging areas. Fighting still went on within the encampment, but an increasing volume of fire raked the eastern slope up which the Reps had carried their initial assault objectives.
The weapons which picked over the remnants of the Republican attacks were machine guns firing white tracers, standard Federal issue; and at least a dozen tribarreled powerguns. A platoon of Slammers' combat cars had entered the Federal encampment and was helping the defenders mop up. The relief force had finally arrived.
"In the morning . . ." Des G
rieux muttered. He was as tired as he'd ever been in his life.
And he knew that he and his tank had just won a battle single-handedly.
Warrior proceeded slowly up the eastern slope of Hill 541 North. The brush had burned to blackened spikes. Ash swirled over the ground, disintegrating into a faint shimmer in the air.
Given the amount of damage to the landscape, there were surprisingly few bodies; but there were some.They sprawled,looking too small for their uniforms; and the flies had found them.
Half an hour before dawn,Des Grieux announced in clear, on both regimental and Federal frequencies, that Warrior was re-entering the encampment. The AI continued to transmit that message at short intervals, and Kuykendall held the big vehicle to a walking pace to appear as unthreatening as possible.
There was still a risk that somebody would open fire in panic. The tank was buttoned up against that possibility.
It was easier when everybody around you was an enemy. Then it was just a matter of who was quicker on the trigger. Des Grieux never minded playing that game.
"Alpha One-six to Oyster Two commander," said a cold, bored voice in Des Grieux's helmet."Dismount and report to the CP as soon as you're through the minefields. Over."
"Oyster Two to One-six,"Des Grieux replied. Alpha One-six was the call sign of Major Joachim Steuben, Colonel Hammer's bodyguard. Steuben had no business being here, "Roger, as soon as we've parked the tank. Over."
"Alpha One-six to Oyster Two commander," the cold voice said. "I'll provide your driver with ground guides for parking, Sergeant. I suggest that this time, you obey orders. One-six out."
Des Grieux swallowed. He wasn't afraid of Steuben, exactly; any more than he was afraid of a spider. But he didn't like spiders either.
"Driver," he said aloud. "Pull up when you get through the minefield. Somebody'll tell you where they want Warrior parked."
"You bet," said Kuykendall in a distant voice.
Federal troops drew back at the tank's approach. They'd been examining what remained of the perimeter defenses, and dragging bodies cautiously from the wire. There were thousands of unexploded mines scattered across the slope.
Nobody wanted to be the last casualty of a successful battle.
Successful because of what Des Grieux had done. Something about the Feds seemed odd.After a moment, Des Grieux realized that it was their uniforms. The fabric was green—not clean, exactly, but not completely stained by the sandy red soil of Hill 541 North either. These were troops from the relieving force.
A few men of the original garrison watched from the bunker line. It was funny to see that many troops in the open sunlight; not scuttling, not cowering from snipers and shellfire.
The bunkers were ruins. Sappers had grenaded them during the assault.When the Federals counterattacked, Reps sheltered in the captured positions until tribarrels and point-blank shellfire blew them out. The roofs had collapsed. Wisps of smoke still curled from among the ruptured sandbags.
A Slammers' combat car—unnamed, with fender number 116—squatted in an overwatch position on the bunker line. The three tribarrels were manned, covering the troops in the wire. Bullet scars dented the side of the fighting compartment. A bright swatch of Spray Seal covered the left wing gunner's shoulder.
A figure was painted on the car's bow slope, just in front of the driver's hatch: a realistically drawn white mouse with pink eyes, nose, and tail.
The White Mice—the troops of Alpha Company, Hammer's Regiment—weren't ordinary line soldiers.
Nobody ever said they couldn't fight but they, under their CO, Major Steuben, acted as Hammer's field police and in other internal security operations.
A dozen anti-personnel mines went off under Warrior's skirts as the tank slid through the perimeter defenses. Kuykendall tried to follow a track Rep sappers blew the night before, but Warrior overhung the cleared area on both sides.
The surface-scattered mines were harmless, except to a man who stepped on one. Even so, after the third bang! one of the Feds watching from the bunker line put his hands over his face and began to cry uncontrollably.
Three troopers wearing Slammers khaki and commo helmets waited at the defensive perimeter. One of them was a woman. They carried submachine-guns in patrol slings that kept the muzzles forward and the grips close to their gunhands.
They'd been sitting on the hillside when Des Grieux first noticed them. They stood as Warrior approached.
"Driver," Des Grieux said, "you can pull up here."
"I figured to,"Kuykendall replied without emotion. Dust puffed forward, then drifted downhill as she shifted nacelles to brake Warrior's slow pace.
Des Grieux climbed from the turret and poised for a moment on the back deck. The artillery shell that bounced from Warrior on Hill 661 had dished in a patch of plating a meter wide. Number seven intake grating ought to be replaced as well . . . .
Des Grieux hopped to the ground. One of the White Mice sat on Warrior's bow slope and gestured directions to the driver. The tank accelerated toward the encampment.
"Come on, Sunshine,"said the female trooper. Her features were blank behind her reflective visor. "The Man wants to see you."
She jerked her thumb uphill.
Des Grieux fell in between the White Mice. His legs were unsteady. He hadn't wanted to eat anything with his throat feeling as though it had been reamed with a steel-bore brush.
"Am I under arrest?" he demanded.
"Major Steuben didn't say anything about that," the male escort replied. He chuckled.
"Naw,"added the woman."Hejust saidthat if you give us any crap,we should shoot you. And save him the trouble."
"Then we all know where we stand," said Des Grieux. Soreness and aches dissolved in his body's resumed production of adrenaline.
The encampment on Hill 541 North had always been a wasteland, so Des Grieux didn't expect to notice a change now.
He was wrong. It was much worse, and the forty-odd bodies laid in rows in their zipped-up sleeping bags were only part of it.
The smell overlaid the scene. Explosives had peculiar odors. They blended uneasily with ozone and high-temperature fusion products formed when bolts from the powerguns hit.
The main component of the stench was death. Bunkers had been blown closed, but the rubble of timber and sandbags didn't form a tight seal over the shredded flesh within. The morning sun was already hot. In a week or two, a lot of wives and parents were going to receive a coffin sealed over seventy kilos of sand.
That wasn't Des Grieux's problem,though; and without him, there would have been plenty more corpses swelling in Federal uniforms.
General Wycherly's command post had taken a direct hit from a heavy shell.A high-sided truck with multiple antennas parked beside the smoldering wreckage. Federal troops in clean uniforms stepped briskly in and out of the vehicle.
The real authorities on 541N wore Slammers khaki. Major Joachim Steuben was short, slim, and so fine-featured that he looked like a girl in a perfectly-tailored uniform among Sergeant Broglie and several Alpha Company officers. They looked up as Des Grieux approached.
Steuben's command group stood under a tarpaulin slung between a combat car and Lieutenant Lindgren's tank. The roof of Lindgren's bunker was broken-backed from the fighting, but his tank looked all right at first glance.
At a second look—
"Via!" Des Grieux said. "What happened to Queen City?"
There were telltale soot stains all around the tank's deck, and the turret rested slightly askew on its ring. Queen City was a corpse, as sure as any of the staringeyed Reps out there in the wire.
The female escort sniffed."Its luck ran out.Took as hell down the open hatch. All they gotta do now is jack up what's left and slide a new tank underneath."
"Dunno how anybody can ride those fat bastards," the other escort muttered. "They maneuver like blind whales."
"Glad you could rejoin us, Sergeant," Major Steuben said. He gave the data terminal in his left hand to a lieute
nant beside him. His voice was lilting and as pretty as Steuben's appearance, but it cut through any thought Des Grieux had of snarling a response to the combat-car crewman beside him.
"Sir," Des Grieux muttered. The Slammers didn't salute. Salutes in a war zone targeted officers for possible snipers.
"Would you like to explain your actions during the battle last night, Sergeant?" the major asked.
Steuben stood arms akimbo. His pose accentuated the crisp tuck of his waist. The fall of the slim right hand almost concealed the pistol riding in a cut-out holster high on Steuben's right hip.
The pistol was engraved and inlaid with metal lozenges in a variety of colors. In all respects but its heavy 1cm bore, it looked as surely a girl's weapon as its owner looked like a girl.
Joachim Steuben's eyes focused on Des Grieux. There was not a trace of compassion in the eyes or the soul beneath them. Any weapon in Steuben's hands was Death.
"I was winning a battle,"Des Grieux said as his eyes mirrored Steuben's blank, brown glare."Sir. Since the relieving force was still sitting on its hands after three weeks."
Broglie slid his body between Des Grieux and the major. Broglie was fast, but Steuben's pistol was socketed in Broglie's ear before the tanker's motion was half complete.
"I think Sergeant Des Grieux and I can continue our discussion better without you in the way, Mister Broglie," Steuben said. He didn't move his eyes from Des Grieux.
The White Mice hadn't bothered to remove the pistol from the holster on Des Grieux's equipment belt. Now Des Grieux knew why. Nobody could be that fast . . . .
"Sir,"Broglie rasped through a throat gone dry."Warrior did destroy both the Rep firebases. That's what took the pressure off here at the end."
Broglie stepped back to where he'd been standing.
He looked straight ahead, not at either Des Grieux or the major.
"You've named your tank Warrior, Sergeant?" Steuben said. "Amusing. But right at the moment I'm not so much interested in what you did as I am in why you disobeyed orders to do it."
He reholstered his gorgeous handgun with a motion as precise and delicate as that of a bird preening its feathers.
