“I’ll put Deseau in next,” Huber said aloud. Frenchie was too active to be a good driver; he kept overcorrecting, second-guessing himself. Learoyd didn’t have Padova’s genius for anticipating the terrain, but his stolid temperament was well suited to controlling a thirty-tonne vehicle in tight quarters. “He’ll be all right on this stretch; it’s pretty open.”
Pretty open compared to much of the forest on Plattner’s World, but light amplification didn’t make driving a combat car at night through the woods a piece of cake. Huber’d been hoping to raise the column’s speed to forty kph, but that didn’t seem likely now that the whole task force was assembled. The combat cars might be able to make it, but the Hogs’ high center of gravity made them dangerously unstable while running cross-country. As for the recovery vehicle, it was a full meter wider than the cars whose drivers were choosing the route.
Another thought struck Huber. “Learoyd?” he said. “Have you seen Padova manning a gun? In action, I mean—I know she’s checked out in training.”
Learoyd shrugged. “She’s okay,” he said, flicking regular glances toward his side of the car just in case there was something besides treeboles there. “She was on nightwatch when them wog sappers tried to creep up on us a couple weeks ago. She didn’t freeze up or something.”
Good enough. On this run there’d be no halts except to change drivers. There was no way of telling who’d be in the fighting compartment if the task force ran into hostiles—as they surely would, later if not sooner. The best driver in the Regiment was a liability if she panicked when she needed to be shooting.
“El-Tee?” Learoyd said. He was talkative tonight; by his standards, that is. “What’s going to happen back at Benjamin when we’re not there? The wogs’ll waltz right in, won’t they?”
“There’s enough other mercs in the garrison to hold the place,” Huber said. “The Poplar Regiment and Bartel’s Armor, they’re troops as good as anything Solace has close by.”
He grimaced. Benjamin was all right, sure, but Solace hadn’t been making a real effort on the UC administrative capital yet. Jonesburg and Simpliche were in serious danger even before the Slammers there abandoned the defenses they’d been stiffening to run north at the same time Task Force Huber did.
“Look, Learoyd, we’ve got to hope for the best,” he said. “Chances are the Solace command’s going to take a while to figure out what’s going on. With luck they still think we withdrew back into Benjamin instead of breaking out.”
Learoyd shrugged. “I just wondered, El-Tee,” he said. “I don’t think them other lots’re worth much, but if you do . . .”
The trouble was, Huber didn’t.
He suddenly laughed and clapped Learoyd on the shoulder. “What I think, trooper,” he said, “is that everybody in Task Force Huber does his job as well as you’ve always done yours, then we’re going to come through this just fine. The other guys, they have to take care of themselves.”
He realized as he spoke that he was more or less echoing Colonel Hammer. Well, he didn’t guess the Colonel had lied to the Regiment, and the Lord knew Huber wasn’t lying to Learoyd either.
And because of that, just maybe the Slammers were going to pull this off after all.
* * *
According to the topo display, the Salamanca River was shallow at present though it regularly flooded its valley when the rains came in autumn. Huber hadn’t expected much difficulty in crossing it until Lieutenant Messeman—F-2 was in front for the moment—radioed, “Six, this is Fox Two-six. Take a look at these sensor inputs from—”
Huber was already bringing up the data transmitted from Messeman’s lead car.
“—my Two-five unit. Over.”
“This is Six!” Huber said. He couldn’t fully understand the data without a little time to digest it, but it was bloody obvious that Task Force Huber wasn’t crossing at the ford Central had picked for its planned route. “All Highball units, halt in place!”
Learoyd obeyed the orders literally: instead of canting all eight nacelles forward for dynamic braking, he feathered the fan blades to drop their thrust to zero. Gravity slammed Fencing Master down, chopping the skirts into the soil like a giant cookie cutter.