Huber swung his tribarrel onto the canal half a klick to the north, intending to cover the troops who’d been using it as a trench like their fellows in the stretch Huber’s section had overrun. None of them showed themselves, let alone fired at Fencing Master.
A pair of gleaming troughs reaching from the south to just short of the canal’s inner lip indicated why: while Huber concentrated on the equipment sheds, two D Company tanks had warned the hidden Militiamen of what’d happen to them if they continued to make a fight of it. The main-gun bolts had converted all the silica in the ground they struck to molten glass, spraying it over those huddled in the canal. The flashes and concussion must have been enormous, but Huber hadn’t been aware of it while it was happening.
Huber glanced to his right, past the two gunners hunched over their tribarrels. The crown of red markers on his faceshield collapsed as he looked. The surviving vehicles were shutting down; the only fan motors still racing were in the wrecks whose drivers weren’t able to obey the order to switch off.
Deseau fired into the bow of a motionless truck, visible now because Fencing Master was crossing the front of the nearer shed. The molded plastic flared red, blooming into a meters-wide bubble that hung shimmering for several seconds in front of the building.
“Guns, cease fire!” Huber ordered. “They’re surrendering, boys. Cease fire!”
Via! He hoped he was right because there was the Lord’s own plenty of locals, coming out of the equipment sheds and rising from the canals on the other side of Fencing Master. The troops in the sheds must’ve been the crews for the howitzers dug into pits in the center of the complex. There the guns were safe from the sniping tanks, but they hadn’t been able to threaten the assault force with direct fire either. The commander must have pulled the crews under cover, knowing the artillerymen would’ve been no better than targets if he’d tried to use them as infantry against the oncoming mercenaries.
The nearest friendly unit was Foghorn, just managing to work out of the channel where she’d been stuck. Maybe some of Captain Sangrela’s troopers were still advancing from the south, but Huber guessed most of those figured to let Fencing Master learn what the locals intended before putting themselves in the middle of things. Huber couldn’t say he blamed them.
Costunna slowed the car, then brought it to a halt with the fans idling. Huber’d been about to order him to do that, but the driver shouldn’t have made the decision on his own. Well, Costunna was business for another time—though the time was going to come pretty cursed soon.
A middle-aged man limped toward Fencing Master with his helmet in his left hand. He looked haggard, and the left side of his face and shoulder were covered with soot. A younger man hovered at his side. The glowing muzzles of Learoyd’s tribarrel terrified the aide, but the older officer didn’t appear to notice the gun aimed point blank at them.
“I am Colonel Apollonio Priamedes,” he said. His voice was raw with emotion and the mix of ozone and combustion products that fouled the atmosphere; the Solace Militia didn’t have nose filters or gas masks that Huber could see. “I was in command here. I have ordered my men to lay down their weapons and surrender. May I expect that we will be treated honorably as prisoners of war?”
Huber raised his faceshield. His fingers were claws, cramping from their grip on his tribarrel.
“Yes sir,” Huber said, “you sure can.”
And the Solace colonel couldn’t possibly be more relieved by the end of this business than Lieutenant Arne Huber was.
* * *
When the resupply and maintenance convoy radioed, they’d estimated they were still fifteen minutes out from Northern Star. If they’d get on the stick they could cut their arrival time by two-thirds. Huber supposed the commander was afraid stragglers from the garrison would ambush his mostly soft-skinned vehicles. That was a reasonable concern—if you hadn’t seen how completely the assault had broken the Solace Militiamen.
When the convoy arrived Task Force Sangrela could stand down and let the newcomers take care of security, but right now everybody was on alert. The eight combat vehicles were just west of the building complex, laagered bows-outward so that their weapons threatened all points of the compass. The jeep-mounted mortars were dug in at the center. Two infantry squads were in pits between the vehicles, while the remainder of the platoon was spread in fire teams around the two relatively-undamaged buildings into which the prisoners had been herded.