by David Drake
Broglie grimaced and turned away. "No," he muttered. "Sorry, that wouldn't work out."
Hammer nodded crisply."Hareway,"he said to the Adjutant, "have Des Grieux here put in the lockup until we lift. Then demote him to trooper and put him to driving trucks for a while. If he cares to stay in the Slammers, as I rather hope he will not."
The lobby had a terrazzo floor. Hammer's boot-heels clacked on it as he strode off, arm and arm with Broglie. Their figures shrank in Des Grieux's eyesight, and he barely heard the orderly sergeant shout, "Watch it! He's fainting!"
Part III
The Slammers' lockup was a sixty-meter shipping container. The paired outer leaves were open, and the single inner door had been replaced by a grate. The facility was baking hot when the white sun of Meridienne cast its harsh shadows across the landscape. At night, when the clear air cooled enough to condense out the dew on which most of the local vegetation depended, the lockup became a shivering misery.
If the conditions in the lockup hadn't been naturally so wretched, Colonel Hammer would have used technology to make them worse. A comfortable detention facility would be counterproductive.
"Rise'nshine,trooper,"called the jailor,a veteran of twenty-five named Daniels. "They want you there yesterday, like always."
Daniels' two prosthetic feet worked perfectly well—so long as they were daily retimed to match his neural outputs. He had the choice of moving to a high-technology world where the necessary electronics were available, or staying with the Slammers in a menial capacity. Since Daniels' only saleable skill—firing a tribarrel from a moving jeep—had no civilian application, he became one of the Regiment's jailors.
"Nobody's waiting for me," said Slick Des Grieux, lying on his back with his knees raised. He didn't open his eyes. "Nobody cares if I'm alive or dead. Not even me."
"C'mon," Daniels insisted as he inserted his microchip key in the lock. "Get moving or they'll be on my back."
He clashed the grate as best he could. It was formed of beryllium alloy, while the container itself had been extruded from high-density polymers. The combination made a tinny/dull rattle, not particularly arousing.
Des Grieux got to his feet with a smooth grace which belied his previous inertia. There was a 3cm pressure cut above his right temple, covered now with Spray Seal. His pale hair was cut so short that there had been no need to shave the injured portion before repairing it.
"What's going on, then?" Des Grieux asked. His tongue quivered against his lips as the first wisps of adrenaline began to dry his mouth. There was going to be action . . . .
"Sounds like it really dropped in the pot," said Daniels as he swung the grate outward. "Dunno how. I thought it was gonna be a walkover this time."
He nodded Des Grieux toward the climate-controlled container that he used for an office."Iwonder,"Daniel sadded wistfully,"if it's bad enough they're gonna put support staff in the line . . .?"
Des Grieux couldn't figure why he was getting out of the lockup five days early. The Hashemite Brotherhood controlled the northern half of Meridienne's single continent and claimed the whole of it. They'd been raiding into territory of the Sincanmo Federation to the south—pinpricks, but destructive ones. Unchecked vandalism had destabilized governments and economic systems more firmly based than anything the Sincanmos could claim.
In order to prevent the Sincanmos from carrying the fighting north, the Hashemites had hired off-planet mercenaries, the Thunderbolt Division, to guard their territory and deter the Sincanmos from escalating to all-out war with local forces. The situation had gone on for one and a half standard years, with the Hashemites chuckling over their cleverness.
The Thunderbolt Division was a good choice for the Hashemite purposes. It was a large organization which could be distributed in battalion-sized packets to stiffen local forces of enthusiastic irregulars; and the Thunderbolt Division was cheap, an absolute necessity. Meridienne was not a wealthy planet, and the Hashemites expected their "confrontation" to continue for five or more years before the Sincanmo Federation collapsed.
The Thunderbolt Division was cheap because it wasn't much good. Its equipment was low-tech, little better than what Meridienne's indigenous forces had bought for themselves. The mercenaries' main benefit to their employers was their experience. They were full-time, professional soldiers, not amateurs getting on-the-job training in their first war.
Then the Sincanmos met the threat head on: they hired Hammer's Slammers and prepared to smash every sign of organization in the northern half of the continent in a matter of weeks.
Des Grieux didn't see any reason the Sincanmo plan wouldn't work. Neither did Captain Garnaud, the commanding officer of Delta Company.
Normally line troops expected to serve disciplinary sentences after the fighting was over.In this case, Garnaud had decreed immediate active time for Des Grieux. D Company didn't need the veteran against the present threat, and Garnaud correctly believed that missing the possibility of seven days' action was a more effective punishment for Slick Des Grieux than a year's down-time restriction.
But now he was getting out early . . . .
Des Grieux followed Daniels into the close quarters of the jailor's office. The communications display was live with the angry holographic image of a senior lieutenant in battledress.
The face was a surprise.The officer was Katrina Grimsrud, the executive officer of H Company,rather than one of D Company's personnel."Where the bloody hell have you been?" she snarled as soon as the jailor moved into pickup range of the display's cameras.
Daniels sat down at the desk crammed into the half of the container which didn't hold his bed and living quarters. His artificial feet splayed awkwardly at the sudden movement; they needed tuning or perhaps replacement.
"Sorry, sir," he muttered as he manipulated switches. His equipment was old and ill-mated, cast-offs from several different departments. Junk gravitated to this use on its way to the scrap pile. "Had to get the prisoner."
He adjusted the retinal camera. "Okay, Des Grieux," he said. "Look into this."
Des Grieux leaned his forehead against the padded frame."What's going on?" he demanded.
Light flashed as the unit recorded his retinal pattern and matched it with the file in Central Records. Daniels' printer whined, rolling out hard copy. Des Grieux straightened, blinking as much from confusion as from the brief glare.
"Listen, Des Grieux," Lieutenant Grimsrud said. "We don't want any of your cop in this company. If you get cute, you're out. D'ye understand? Not busted, not in lockup: out!"
"I'm not in Hotel Company," Des Grieux snapped. He was confused. Besides, the adrenaline sparked by a chance of action had made him ready—as usual to fight anybody or anything, including a circle saw.
"You are now, Sarge," Daniels said as he handed Des Grieux the hard copy.
"Get over to the depotsoonest,"Grimsrud ordered as Des Grieux stared at his orders. "Jailor, you've got transport, don't you? Carry him. We've got a replacement tank there with a newbie crew. Des Grieux's to take over as commander; the assigned commander'll drive."
Des Grieux frowned.He was transferred from Delta to Hotel, all right. It didn't matter a curse one way or the other; they were both tank companies.
Only . . . transfers didn't occur at finger-snap speed—but they did this time, with the facsimile signature of Colonel Hammer himself releasing Sergeant-Commander Samuel Des Grieux (retinal prints attached) from detention and transferring him to H Company.
"Look, sir," Daniels said, "it's not my job to dr—"
"It's bloody well your job if you don't get him to the depot ASAP, buddy!" Lieutenant Grimsrud said. "I can't spare the time or the man to send a driver back. D'ye understand?"
Des Grieux folded the orders into the right cargo pocket of his uniform."I don't understand,"he said to the holographic image."Why such a flap over the Thunderbolt Division? We could put truck drivers in line and walk all over them."
"Too right," Grimsrud said forcefully. "Seems the towe
l-heads figured that out for themselves in time to hire Broglie's Legion. Colonel Hammer wants all the veterans he's got in line—and with you, that gives my 3d Platoon one, I say again one, trooper with more than two years in the Regiment. Get your ass over to our deployment area soonest."
Lieutenant Grimsrud cut the connection.Des Grieux stared in the direction of blank air no longer excited by coherent light. His whole body was trembling.
"Don't sound like she's lookin' for excuses," Daniels grumbled as he got to his feet. "C'mon, Sarge, it's ten keys to the depot from here."
Des Grieux whistled tunelessly as he followed the jailor to an air-cushion jeep as battered as the equipment in Daniels' office. His kit was still in D Company. He didn't care. He didn't care about anything at all, except for the chance fate offered him.
Daniels started the jeep. At least one drive fan badly needed balancing. "Hey, Sarge?" he said. "I never asked you—what was the fight about? The one that landed you here?"
"Some bastard called me a name," Des Grieux said. He braced himself against the tubular seat frame worn through the upholstery. The jeep lurched into motion.
Des Grieux's eyes were closed.His face looked like the blade of a hatchet."He called me 'Pops,'" Des Grieux said. Memory of the incident pitched his voice an octave higher than normal. "So I hit him."
Daniels looked at the tanker, then frowned and looked away.
"Thirty-two standard years don't make me an old man," Slick Des Grieux added in an icy whisper.
A starship tested its maneuvering jets on the landing pad beside the depot's perimeter defenses. The high screech was so loud that the air seemed to ripple. Though the lips of Warrant Leader Farrell, the depot superintendent, continued to move for several seconds, Des Grieux hadn't the faintest notion of what the man was saying.
Des Grieux didn't much care,either.There was only one tank among the depot's lesser vehicles and stacked shipping containers.He stepped past Farrell and tested the spring-loaded cover of a step with his fingertip. It gave stiffly.
"Right," said Farrell. He held Des Grieux's transfer orders and, on a separate flimsy, the instructions which Central had downloaded directly to the depot. "Ah, here's the, ah, the previous crew."
Two troopers stood beside the depot superintendent. Both were young, but the taller, dark-haired one had a wary look in his eyes. The other man was blond, pale, and soft-seeming despite the obvious muscle bulging his khaki uniform.
Des Grieux gave them a cursory glance, then returned his attention to the important item: the vehicle he was about to command.
The tank was straight out of the factory in Hamburg on Terra. Farrell's crew would have—should have done the initial checks, but the bearings would be stiff and the electronics weren't burned in yet.
The tank didn't have a name, just a skirt number in red paint: H271.
"Trooper Wartburg will move to driver," Farrell said. The dark-haired man acknowledged the statement by raising his chin a centimeter. "Trooper Flowers here was going to drive, but he'll go back to Logistics till we get another vehicle in."
Des Grieux climbed deliberately onto the deck of H271.The bustle rack behind the turret held personal gear in a pair of reused ammunition containers.
"You got any experience, Wartburg?" Des Grieux asked without looking back toward the men on the ground.
"Year and a half," the dark-haired man said. "Wing gunner on a combat car, then I drove for a while. This was going to be my first command."
Wartburg's tone was carefully precise.If he was disappointed to be kicked back to driver at the last instant, he kept the fact out of his voice.
Des Grieux slid the cupola hatch closed and open, ignoring the others again.
"One question, Sarge," Wartburg called. The irritation he had hidden before was now obvious."Grimsrud told us a veteran'd be taking over the tank,but she didn't say who. You got a name?"
"Des Grieux," the veteran said. The tribarrel rotated on its ring, even with the power off. That was good, and a little surprising in a tank that hadn't yet been broken in. "Slick Des Grieux. You just do what I tell you and we'll get along fine."
Wartburg laughed brittlely. "The bloody hell I will," he said as he hopped up to the tank's deck himself.
Des Grieux turned in surprise.His eyes were flatand wide open.All he was sure of was that he'd need to pay more attention than he wanted to his new driver.
Wartburg said nothing further. He reached into the bustle rack and pulled out one of the cases, then tossed it to the ground.
The container crashed down and bounced before it fell flat. Flowers jumped to avoid it. The dense plastic was designed to protect 3,000 disks of 2cm ammunition against anything short of a direct from another powergun. It withstood the abuse, and its hinged lid remained latched.
"What d'ye think you're doing?" Des Grieux demanded.
Wartburg threw down the other container. "I think I'm not doin' anybloodything with you, Des Grieux," he said. He jumped to the ground.
"Wait a minute, Trooper!" said the outraged depot superintendent. "You've got your orders!"
He waggled the flimsies in his hand at Wartburg, though in fact neither of the documents directly mentioned that trooper.
Trooper Flowers looked from Wartburg to Des Grieux to Farrell—and back. His mouth was slightly open.
"Look,Warrant Leader,"Wartburg said to Farrell. "I heard about this bastard. Noway I'm riding with him.Noway.You want me to resign from the Regiment, you got it. You wanna throw me in the lockup, that's your business."
He turned and glared at the man still on the deck of H271. "But I don't ride with Slick Des Grieux. If I ever get that hot to die, I'll eat my gun!"
"Screw you, buddy," Des Grieux said softly. He looked at the depot superintendent. "Okay, Mister Farrell, you get me a driver. That's your job. If you can't do that, then I'll drive and fight this mother both, if that's what it takes."
The three men on the ground began speaking to one another simultaneously in rasping, nervous voices. Des Grieux lowered himself through the cupola hatch.
H271's fighting compartment had the faintly medicinal odor of solvents still seeping from recently extruded plastics. Des Grieux touched control buttons, checking them for feel and placement. There were always production-line variations, even when two vehicles were ostensibly of the same model.
He heard the clunk of boot toes on the steps formed into H271's armor. Somebody was boarding the vehicle.
Des Grieux threw the main power switch. Gauges and displays hummed to life. There was a line of distortion across Screen #3, but it faded after ten seconds or so. A tinge of ozone suggested arcing somewhere, probably in a microswitch. It would either clear itself or fail completely in the next hundred hours.
A hundred hours was a lifetime for a tank on the same planet as Colonel Luke Broglie . . . .
A head shadowed the light of the open hatch. Des Grieux looked up, into the face of Trooper Flowers.
"Sarge?" Flowers said. "Ah, I'm gonna drive for you. If that's all right?"
"Yeah, that's fine," said Des Grieux without expression. He turned to his displays again.
"Only, I've just drove trucks before, y'see," Flowers added.
"I don't care if you rolled hoops," Des Grieux said. "Get in and let's get moving."
"Ah—I'll get my gear," said Flowers. "I off loaded when they said I was back in Logistics."
"Booster," said Des Grieux, keying H271's artificial intelligence. "Course data on Screen One."
He watched the left-hand screen. He wasn't sure that the depot had gotten around to loading the course information into the tank's memory, but the route and topography came up properly. Des Grieux thought there was a momentary hesitation in the AI's response, but that might have been his own impatience.
The deck clanked as Flowers jumped directly to the ground in his haste. The way things were going, the kid probably slipped 'n broke his neck . . . .
The course to Base Camp Two and H Company was
a blue line curving across three hundred kilometers of arid terrain. No roads, but no problems either. Gullies cut by the rare cloudbursts could be skirted or crossed.
Des Grieux spread his hands, closed his eyes, and rested his forehead against the cool surface of the main screen. Everything about H271 was smooth and cold. The tank functioned, but it didn't have a soul.
He shivered. He could remember when he had enough hair that it wasn't bare scalp that touched the hologram display when he leaned forward like this.
Tank H271 was the right vehicle for Slick Des Grieux.
In the gully beside H271,twenty or so Sincanmo troops sang around a campfire to the music of strings and a double flute. There'd been drums, too. Lieutenant Kuykendall threatened to send a tank through the group if the drummer didn't toss his instrument into the fire immediately.
That was one order from the commander of Task Force Kuykendall that Des Grieux would have cheerfully obeyed. Not that he had anything against this particular group of indigs.
There were thirty or forty other campfires scattered among the gullies like opals on a multistrand necklace. With luck, the force's camouflage film concealed the firelight from the hostile outpost two kilometers away on the Notch. Silencing the drums, whose low-frequency beat carried forever in the cool desert air, was as much of a compromise as Kuykendall thought she could enforce.
The Sincanmos were a militia organized by extended families. Each family owned four to six vehicles which they armed with whatever the individuals fancied and could afford. Medium-powered lasers; post-mounted missile systems, both guided and hypervelocity; automatic weapons; even a few mortars, each of a different caliber . . . .
Logistics would have been a nightmare—if the Sincanmo Federation had had a formal logistics system. On the credit side, each band was highly motivated, extremely mobile, and packed a tremendous amount of firepower for its size.
The families made decisions by conclave. They took orders from their own Federation rather more often than they ignored those orders; but as for an off-planet mercenary—and a female—Kuykendall's authority depended on her own platoon of combat cars and the four H Company tanks attached to her for this operation.
