“Drive on!” Huber shouted.
You didn’t have to believe in Gods to believe in Hell.
Instead of a square grid, Northern Star’s canal system formed a honeycomb of hexagons three hundred meters across each flat. Fencing Master slid to where three canals joined and halted as planned. Costunna had adequate mechanical skills and took orders well enough, he just seemed to lack an instinct for what was important. Huber had a straight view down the length of the shallow trough slanting north-northeast from his side. Solace Militiamen—some of them dead, some of them hunching in terror; a few raising weapons to confront the howling monster that had driven down on them—were dark blurs against the white concrete and the trickle of sunbright water.
Huber fired, his bolts shredding targets and glancing from the canal walls in white gouts. Deseau was firing also, and from Fencing Master’s starboard wing Learoyd ripped the canal intersecting at a southeastern angle. Foghorn’s left gun was raking that canal in the opposite direction.
It was dangerous having two cars firing pretty much toward one another—if either of the gunners raised his muzzles too far, he’d blow divots out of the friendly vehicle—but this was a battle. If safety’d been the Slammers’ first concern, they’d all have stayed in bed this morning.
A bullet from the central complex ricocheted off Fencing Master’s bow slope, denting the armor and impact-heating it to a shimmering rainbow. Further rounds clipped cornstalks and spewed up little geysers of black dirt.
Sergeant Deseau shouted a curse and grabbed his right wrist momentarily, but he had his hands back on the tribarrel’s spade grips before Huber could ask if he was all right. The slug that hit the bow had probably sprayed him with bits of white-hot iridium; nothing serious.
The two automatic mortars accompanying the infantry chugged a salvo of white phosphorus from the swale where Fencing Master had waited among the knee-high corn. The Willy Pete lifted in ragged mushrooms above the courtyard building where the farm’s workforce ate and gathered for social events.
The roofs slanted down toward the interior; Militiamen with automatic weapons had been using the inner slopes as firing positions. The shellbursts trailed tendrils up, then downward. From a distance they had a glowing white beauty, but Huber knew what a rain of blazing phosphorous did where it landed. Bits continued burning all the way through a human body unless somebody picked them out of the flesh one at a time.
Solace troops leaped to their feet, desperate to escape the shower of death. The other two-car section of Huber’s platoon, Floosie and Flame Farter under Platoon Sergeant Jellicoe, were waiting to the south of the complex for those targets to appear. Their tribarrels lashed the Militiamen, killing most and completely breaking the survivors’ will to resist.
“Costunna, get us across the canal!” Huber ordered. He didn’t feel the instant response he’d expected—the driver should’ve been tense on his throttles, ready to angle the car down this side of the channel and up the other with his fans on emergency power—so he added in a snarl, “Move it, man! Move it now!”
The tanks were firing methodically, punching holes in the sides of buildings with each 20-cm bolt from their main guns. Walls blew up and inward at every cyan impact, leaving openings more than a meter in diameter. The tanks weren’t trying to destroy the structures—a pile of broken concrete made a better nest for enemy snipers than a standing building—but they were providing entrances for infantry assault.
The infantry, twenty-seven troopers under Captain Sangrela himself—the task force commander wasn’t going to hang back when his own people were at the sharp end—were belly-down on their one-man skimmers, making the final rush toward the complex from the south,. A heavy laser lifted above the wall of a cow byre to the southeast and started to track them. Two D Company tanks on overwatch had been waiting for it. The laser vanished in a cyan crossfire before it could rake the infantry line.
Costunna shoved his control yoke forward. Fencing Master scraped and sparked her skirts over the lip of the canal, then down into the watercourse, spraying water in a fog to either side. Instead of building speed and quickly angling up the opposite wall, the driver continued to roar along the main channel.