The problem wasn’t anybody’s fault. This Solace deployment must’ve been planned weeks in the past, but the dirigibles wouldn’t’ve lifted off until after the reconnaissance satellites went down at the start of the breakout. Central couldn’t have extrapolated the appearance of an armored cavalry squadron across Task Force Huber’s line of march. It’d been close, but close only counts in horseshoes—
“Bloody hell, Six!” Lieutenant Messeman shouted over the command channel. “There’s a couple aircars coming over! They’re going to spot us sure!”
—and hand grenades.
Huber opened his mouth to order the task force to hold its fire; the Slammers’ discipline was good enough that his troops would probably have obeyed, though the gunners with a clear shot at the aircars would’ve cursed him.
But secrecy was screwed regardless. Unless the Solace scouts were stone blind, they weren’t going to miss a company’s worth of thirty- and forty-tonne armored vehicles on the route they’d been sent to reconnoiter.
“All Highball elements!” Huber ordered. “Slap ’em down as soon as you can get both at the same time! All Fox units, form below the ridgeline—”
His controller drew another line across the terrain map.
“—in line abreast, five meter intervals between cars, and wait for the command to attack. Fox Two-six has the right flank. India elements—”
The infantry platoon under Sergeant Marano, and Lord help them if the influx of rear-echelon troopers weren’t up to the job.
“—on your skimmers and prepare to follow the cars over the ridge.”
Fencing Master grounded again, not as hard because they weren’t scrubbing off the inertia of thirty kph this time. Huber was barely aware they’d halted, but from the corner of his eye he saw Padova climb out of the fighting compartment. A moment later Learoyd clambered in and seized the grips of his tribarrel. Frenchie was giving the orders Huber would’ve wanted if he’d had time to think about Car Three-six at this juncture.
Tribarrels, at least a dozen of them, snarled from the head of the column. Huber couldn’t see the targets from where he was, but an orange flash briefly filled interstices in the foliage to the north. The aircars were chemically powered, and the multiple plasma bolts had atomized their fuel cells into bombs.
The C&C box had converted Huber’s orders to a graphic of routes and positions for the nine combat cars. Huber could’ve overruled the computer but there was no reason to. He’d planned to put Fencing Master on the left end of the line, but that would mean changing position with Flame Farter when there wasn’t much room or time either one. Sergeant Coolidge and his crew could handle the flank.
Fencing Master was moving again without the bobbling usual when a combat car lifted from the ground. That was good, but having Learoyd on the right wing was better yet. . . .
“X-Ray elements—”
The vehicles seconded to the task force from Regimental command: the artillery, transport, maintenance, and engineers that the line elements were escorting.
“—hold what you got, we’ll be back for you.”
Huber drew a deep breath and raised his head from the holographic display. Fencing Master was passing to the left of an ammo hauler with about the thickness of the paint to spare. Huber would’ve liked more clearance, but he wasn’t going to second-guess Padova.
“Troopers,” Huber resumed, his eyes on the trees jolting past, “on the command the combat cars are going over the hill to shoot up all the hostiles we can in thirty seconds. We’re going to make it look like we’re trying to force the crossing, but we’ll pull back, I repeat, pull back in thirty seconds. The infantry follows the cars over the ridge line ten seconds later but grounds and conceals itself on the downslope instead of withdrawing.”
Lord, Lord. . . . He was counting on the hostiles being fooled by a fake withdrawal, counting on them not spotting the infantry ambush, counting on not losing every car in the task force in the initial attack which had to look real if this had a prayer of working.
And there was no choice.
“When the wogs’re moving up from the river,” Huber continued aloud, “the bypassed India elements will hit their flanks and rear, then Fox comes back over the hill and finishes the job. It’ll be a turkey shoot, troopers! Six out.”