“Here we go, Tranter,” Huber warned, though the driver obviously had everything under control. “Easy right turn, then get on—”
Fencing Master was already swinging; Tranter dragged the right skirt, not in error but because the direct friction of steel against gravel was hugely more effective at transferring momentum than a fluid coupling of compressed air. As the combat car straightened onto a much narrower street than the route they’d been following from Repair, the headlights of four ten-wheeled trucks flooded over them. An air cushion jeep pulled out squarely in front of the combat car.
“Blood and bleeding Martyrs!” somebody screamed over the intercom, and the voice might’ve been Huber’s own. Tranter lifted Fencing Master’s bow, dumping air and dropping the skirts back onto the road. The bang jolted the teeth of everybody aboard and rattled the transoms of nearby houses.
The combat car hopped forward despite the impact. They’d have overrun the jeep sure as sunrise if its driver hadn’t been a real pro as well. The lighter vehicle lifted on the gust from Fencing Master’s plenum chamber, surfing the bow wave and bouncing down the other side on its own flexible skirts.
A trim figure stood beside the jeep’s driver, touching the top of the windscreen for balance but not locked to it in a deathgrip the way most people would’ve been while riding a bucking jeep upright. The fellow’s faceshield was raised; to make himself easy to identify, Huber assumed, but the glittering pistol in his cutaway holster was enough to do that.
“Lock your tribarrels in carry position!” Huber shouted to his men. As he spoke, he slapped the pintle catch with his left hand and rotated the barrels of his heavy automatic weapon skyward. “That’s Major Steuben, and we won’t get two mistakes!”
Tranter never quite lost control of Fencing Master, but it wasn’t till the third jounce that he actually brought the car to rest. Each impact blasted a doughnut of dust and grit from the road; Huber’s nose filters swung down and saved him from the worst of it, but his eyes watered. The jeep stayed just ahead of them, then curved back when the bigger vehicle halted.
The trucks—they had civilian markings and weren’t from the Logistics Section inventory—moved up on either side of the combat car, two and two. They were stake-beds; a dozen troopers lined the back of each, their weapons ready for anybody in Fencing Master to make the wrong move.
That wasn’t going to happen: Huber and his men were veterans; they knew what was survivable.
“Bloody fucking hell,” Deseau whispered. He kept his hands in sight and raised at his sides.
“Get out, all four of you,” Major Steuben ordered through the commo helmets. He sounded amused. “Leave your guns behind.”
Huber slung his 2-cm weapon over the raised tribarrel, then unbuckled his equipment belt and hung it on the big gun also. He paused and looked, really looked, at the White Mice watching Fencing Master and her crew through the sights of their weapons. They wore ordinary Slammers combat gear—helmets, body armor, and uniforms—but the only powergun in the whole platoon was the pistol on Major Steuben’s hip. The rest of the unit carried electromagnetic slug-throwers and buzzbombs.
“Unit,” Huber ordered, “let me do the talking.”
He raised himself to the edge of the fighting compartment’s armor, then swung his legs over in a practiced motion. His boots clanged down on the top of the plenum chamber. Starting with the coaming as a hand-hold, he let himself slide along the curve of the skirts to the ground.
Deseau and Learoyd were dismounting with similar ease, but Tranter—awkward in body armor—was having more difficulty in the bow. The technician also hadn’t taken off his holstered pistol; he’d probably forgotten he was wearing it.
Huber opened his mouth to call a warning. Before he could, Steuben said, “Sergeant Tranter, I’d appreciate it if you’d drop your equipment belt before you step to the ground. It’ll save me the trouble of shooting you.”
He tittered and added, “Not that it would be a great deal of trouble.”
Startled, Tranter undid the belt. He wobbled on the hatch coaming, then lost his balance. He and the belt slipped down the bow in opposite directions, though Tranter was able to keep from landing on his face by dabbing a hand to the ground.