“Is there going to be a battle, then, Lieutenant?” a voice asked. Gears slipped a moment before meshing in Huber’s mind. Captain Orichos had spoken; she was standing upright with her eyes on him, her faceshield raised. Orichos looked calm but alert. Vibrant as her face now was, she seemed brightly attractive instead of the haggard, aged derelict she’d looked before the alarm.
Learoyd stood at his tribarrel, scanning the scattered forest to starboard. None of the trees were more than wrist-thick, though the tufts of flowers at the tips of some branches showed they were adults. The leading vehicles, the tanks and especially the broad-beamed recovery vehicles, had to break a path where the stunted forest was densest.
Closer to the coast where the soil and rainfall were better, the overarching canopy would keep the understory clear. The task force’d have to skirt the trees there, however; not even a tank could smash down a meter-thick trunk without damaging itself in the process. . . .
“Not a battle, no,” Huber said over the intercom. “If things work out, the hostiles won’t get anywhere near us. If things don’t, we’ll still go around them rather than shooting our way through. That may mean worse problems down the road, but we’ll deal with that when it happens.”
As Huber spoke, he cued his AI to project a terrain and status map in a seventy percent mask across the upper left quadrant of his faceshield. His helmet with all Central’s resources on tap could provide him with whatever information he might need. What electronics couldn’t do was to stop time while he tried to absorb all that maybe-necessary information.
In a crisis, making no decision is the worst possible decision. A shrunken map that he could see through to shoot if he had to was a better choice than trying to know everything.
“Is it gonna work, El-Tee?” Deseau asked, still watching the sensor display. He cocked his head to the left so that he could scratch his neck with his right little finger.
Instead of saying, “Who the fuck knows?” which a sudden rush of fatigue brought to his mind, Huber treated the question as a classroom exercise at the Academy.
“Yeah,” he said, “I think it maybe will, Frenchie. The Wolverines, that’s who’s coming, they know what a big powergun can do as well as we do—but knowing it and knowing it, that’s different. If Sierra just keeps rolling along, they’re going to forget that a tank can hit ’em any time there’s a line of sight between them and a main gun’s bore. A surprise like that’s likely to make the survivors sit tight and take stock for long enough that we can get by the place they planned to hold us.”
“That’s good,” Deseau said. “Because I saw what a battery of the Wolverines did to a government armored regiment on Redwood. Bugger me if I want to fight ’em if we can get by without it.”
“Sierra, this is Sierra Six,” said Captain Sangrela, sounding hoarse but animated. “Delta elements, execute the orders downloaded to you from Central. Remaining Sierra elements, hold to the march plan. We’re not going to do anything to alert the other side. Estimated time to action is thirty-nine, that’s three-niner, minutes. Six out.”
“Fox Three-six, roger,” Huber said, his words merging with the responses of Sierra’s other two platoon leaders.
He stretched his arms, over his head and then behind him, bending forward at the waist. It was going to feel good to get the clamshell off; it itched like an ant colony had taken up residence.
Always assuming he lived long enough to get to a place he didn’t need body armor, of course. But he did assume that, soldiers always assumed that.
Arne Huber grinned behind his faceshield. And it was always true—until the day it wasn’t true.
* * *
The task force had slowed again to switch assignments. Fencing Master was now at the head of the main body, Foghorn and a fire team of infantry who’d jumped their skimmers off the maintenance vehicle where they’d been resting were scouting a klick in the lead, and Sergeant Jellicoe’s section trailed to the rear.