There would’ve been coordination problems even at best, but the real trouble arose because neither the UC nor any of the other Outer States had a military staff capable of planning and executing a war on the present scale. Colonel Hammer and his team at Base Alpha had taken over the duties because there was no one else to do it, but that caused further delays and confusion. Everything had to be relayed through UC officers who often didn’t understand the words they were parroting, and even so other mercenary captains dragged their feet on orders they knew were given by a peer.
Some UC units were incompetently led; that might well be the case with Ander’s Legion. Their communications systems varied radically; Central at Base Alpha could communicate with all of them, but many couldn’t talk to one another. And some mercenary captains, especially those who commanded only a company or platoon, were less concerned with winning wars than they were with protecting the soldiers who were their entire capital.
Those were staff problems, but they became the concern of line lieutenants like Arne Huber when they meant that his combat cars were left swinging in the breeze. Ander hadn’t gotten the word, or he hadn’t obeyed orders, or he was simply too bumbling to advance when he was supposed to.
There was an obvious risk of further Solace units following close behind the initial company of Dragoons, but despite that Huber had a bad feeling about continuing on his plotted course to the southeast. He’d already asked his AI to assess alternate routes, but before he got the answers the C&C display threw sensor data across the terrain in a red emergency mask. It was worse than he’d feared.
“Three-six to Fox Three,” Huber said in a tone from which previous crises had burned all emotion. “Hostile hovertanks have gotten around us to the south. Fox Three-three—” Sergeant Jellicoe in Floosie “—leads on the new course at nine-seven degrees true. Three-six out. Break—”
His voice caught. He thought for a moment that he was going to vomit over the inside of his faceshield, but the spasm passed. There’d been too much; too much stress and pain and stench, even for a veteran.
“—Padova, throttle back so that we stay on the crest after the rest are clear. We may need the sensor range.”
The Solace commander had reacted fast by sending part of the Yeomanry around the Slammers’ left flank at the same time as the mechanized company circled their right. Huber’d held F-3 too long as he waited for supports that never came, but there was still a chance. The crews of the hovertanks wouldn’t be in a hurry to come to close quarters with the cars that had bloodied their vanguard so badly at the first shock.
Fencing Master growled onto the ridge line. The rise would separate the combat cars from the units they’d already engaged, though the tanks approaching from the south were in the same shallow valley. The forest was somewhat of a shield for F-3, maybe enough of one.
Learoyd was on the forward gun now, swaying as though the grips were all that kept him upright. Deseau scanned the trees to the right, the direction the tanks would come from. Undergrowth was sparse here, but the treeboles allowed only occasional glimpses of anything as much as a hundred meters away.
F-3 was in line with the flanks echeloned back. The four cars in the center were across the ridge and proceeding downslope, but Jellicoe had slowed Floosie also. The additional ten seconds of sensor data hadn’t brought any new surprises, so Huber said, “Padova, goose it and—”
The clang of a slug penetrating iridium echoed through the forest. The icon for Fox Three-three went cross-hatched and stopped moving across the holographic terrain of the C&C display.
“Padova, get us to Floosie soonest!” Huber shouted. “Break! Fox Three, follow the plotted course. Three-one, you’re in charge till I rejoin with the crew of Three-five! Three-six out!”
Huber hadn’t thought, hadn’t had time to think, but he knew as Padova jerked Fencing Master hard left that instinct had led him to the right decision. Though two other combat cars were nearer Floosie than Fencing Master was, they’d have to reverse and climb the slope to reach the disabled vehicle. Gravity was more of a handicap than an extra hundred meters on level ground when you were riding a thirty-tonne mass.