He paused, arranging his next words. The aircar was over Benjamin now, but Tranter was taking them in a wide circuit of the suburbs where the tree cover was almost as complete as over the virgin forest beyond.
“For that reason,” Huber said, “I figure to borrow Fencing Master for the operation. There’s a detachment leaving Central Repair for Base Alpha tonight. We’ll tag onto the back and trail off when we’re close to the bastard’s compound. If we can, we’ll duck back to CR when we’re done—but I don’t expect to get away with this, troops.”
“I been shot at before,” Deseau said calmly. “I can’t see anything worse’n that that’s going to happen if they catch us.”
Learoyd didn’t bother to speak. Huber heard the clack as the trooper withdrew his sub-machine gun’s loading tube, then locked it back home in the receiver. Like he’d said, he was getting ready to do his part of the job.
“Sergeant Tranter,” Huber said, turning to the tech beside him. “Now that you know what we’re talking about, I think it’d be a good night for you to spend playing cards back at the billets. You’re a curst good man, but this really isn’t your line of work.”
Tranter’s face was red with suppressed emotion. “Guess you’ll need a driver, right?” he snapped. “Guess I’ve driven the Lord’s great plenty of combat cars, shifting them around for repair. I guess it bloody well is my line of work. Sir.”
“Well in that case, troopers . . .” Huber said. “We’ll leave our billets for Central Repair at twenty hundred. Start time for the draft is twenty-one hundred, but they’ll be late. That’ll make the timing about right.”
Tranter muttered, “Roger,” Deseau grunted, and Learoyd said as little as he usually did. There wasn’t a lot to say at this point.
Huber wasn’t frightened; it was all over but the consequences.
Senator Patroklos Graciano was about to learn the consequences of fucking with Hammer’s Slammers.
* * *
The racket of drive fans made every joint in the girder-framed warehouse rattle and sing. There were two other combat cars besides Fencing Master; all three thirty-tonne monsters were powered up, their fans supporting them on bubbles of pressurized air. From the way the interior lights danced, some of the overhead fixtures were likely to be sucked down into the intakes unless the cars either shut down or drove out shortly.
“Are they going to get this bloody show on the road?” Sergeant Deseau muttered. His faceshield was raised and he wasn’t using intercom. Huber wouldn’t have understood the words had he not been looking into Deseau’s face and watching his lips move.
“Can it!” Huber snapped. “Take care of your own end and keep your mouth shut.”
Deseau grimaced agreement and faced front again. They were all nervous. Well, three of them were, at any rate; Learoyd seemed about as calm as he’d been a couple hours before, when he’d been methodically loading spare magazines for his sub-machine gun.
“Seven Red, this is Green One,” ordered the detachment commander—an artillery captain who happened to be the senior officer in the temporary unit. If the move had been more serious than the five kilometers between Central Repair and Base Alpha, the detachment would’ve been under the control of a line officer regardless of rank. “Pull into place behind Five Blue. Eight Red, follow Seven. Unit, prepare to move out. Green One out.”
“Tranter, slide in behind the second blower,” Huber ordered. “Don’t push up their ass, just keep normal interval so it looks like we belong.”
Chief Edlinger had put Huber and his men on the list for admission to Central Repair, but that was easily explained if it needed to be. The chief didn’t know what Huber planned—just that it wasn’t something he ought to know more about. The detachment commander didn’t know even that: he was in the self-propelled gun at the head of the column. The eight vehicles leaving for Base Alpha included two tanks, four combat cars, the detachment commander’s hog, and a repair vehicle with a crane and a powered bed that could lift a combat car. The crews didn’t know one another, and nobody would wonder or even notice that a fifth car had joined the procession.