Orichos gave him a hard look, then nodded and spoke into her communicator. A pair of gun-metal gray aircars with blue triangles bow and stern had been paralleling the column at the fringes of the civilian vehicles. They immediately began bellowing through loudspeakers. The words were unintelligible over the intake roar of Fencing Master’s fans, but the aircars overhead edged away reluctantly.
Apparently to speed the process, a Gendarme aimed his electromagnetic carbine skyward and fired a burst. The civilian cars dived away in a panic.
That was bad enough, though the actual collisions were minor and didn’t knock anybody out of the air. It would’ve been much worse if Huber hadn’t caught Deseau as the sergeant reacted to shots fired in the fashion any bloody fool should’ve expected, by swinging his tribarrel onto the threat.
“Captain Orichos?” Huber said. “Shooting is a really bad idea. No matter who’s doing it. All right?”
Orichos nodded with a guarded expression; she didn’t like the implied reprimand, but it was obviously well-founded. She snapped a further series of orders into the communicator.
Two men in jumpsuits like the one Orichos wore—hers was now gray/yellow/red from grit it’d picked up during the run—looked over the side of the aircar to the right of the column. Deseau gave them the finger. The face of the cop who’d fired the carbine went black with anger. Orichos shouted into her communicator and the police vehicle rose quickly to a hundred meters.
“Sorry,” Orichos muttered over the intercom. Huber shrugged noncommittally.
Fencing Master’s bow slope was well within half a klick of the mob. Looking forward, his left hand on the tribarrel’s receiver and his right at his side instead of on the spade grip, Deseau said, “Some a’ them got guns, El-Tee. What do we do if they start shooting? Just take it?”
“Crew,” Huber said, “Nobody shoots till I do. Break. Six, this is Fox Three-six. If we start taking serious fire, my people aren’t going to stand here and be targets. Are we clear on that? Over.”
“Roger Three-six,” Sangrela said. “Delta Two-six—” Lieutenant Trogon “—if Fox Three-six opens fire, put a couple main gun rounds at his point of aim. Break. Sierra, Fox Three-six and Delta Two-six will do all the shooting till I tell you otherwise. Six out.”
“Roger, Three-six out,” Huber said. He was keyed up and felt as though he should be standing on the balls of his feet. Myers and Mitzi Trogon responded curtly as well.
Dinkybob slid to the left of Fencing Master’s track. Trogon was buttoned up in the turret. She’d elevated the 20-cm main gun to forty-five degrees for safety when the column entered an inhabited area; now she lowered it in line with the mob ahead. A crust of iridium redeposited from the bore made the muzzle look grimy.
If Dinkybob fired from close behind, the side-scatter from the burned-out gun was going to be curst uncomfortable in Fencing Master’s fighting compartment. But then, it was going to be curst uncomfortable regardless if this turned into a firefight.
The mob watched the column come on. Tranter closed the driver’s hatch. He’d been throttling back gradually, so by now Fencing Master was advancing no faster than a promenading couple. Huber and the troopers with him in the fighting compartment looked out through polarized faceshields as they aimed their forward-facing tribarrels. Normally the wing gunners’d be covering the flanks—and the good Lord knew, there might be snipers in the buildings, tall dwellings now instead of warehouses, to either side. The rest of the task force was going to have to deal with that threat, because Fencing Master had really immediate problems to her front.
Huber’d hoped the crowd’d scatter when the shouting civilians saw the huge vehicles coming at them, but they were holding steady. The front rank was of rough-looking men—almost all of them were men—with clubs. They didn’t have uniforms, but each of them and many of those behind wore red sweatbands. Banners with the red logo on a black ground waved from several places in the midst of the group.
Huber’s eyes narrowed. Those in front didn’t have guns, but many of the ones standing at the back of the crowd carried short-barreled slugthrowers much like the Gendarmery’s. You wouldn’t often have call for a long-range weapon in the forests of Plattner’s World, but at anything up to two hundred meters those carbines were as deadly as a powergun.