“Good job, Tranter,” he said. “Now, park us in the grounds of that building up there on the mound.”
“Roger, El-Tee,” the driver said. “Ah, how about the landscaping, sir?”
“Fuck the landscaping!” said Sergeant Deseau.
Huber looked over his shoulder at Captain Orichos. She stood with the communicator in her hand but she wasn’t speaking into it. Huber grinned and said, “Frenchie’s right, Tranter. The bushes can take their chances.”
He took a deep breath and looked at the dust and debris in front of them. “The good Lord knows the rest of us just did,” he added.
* * *
The second recovery vehicle backed carefully into position between Fencing Master and a tank, grunting and whining through her intake ducts. Her rear skirts pinched up turf which her fans fired forward out of the plenum chamber in a black spray. The driver shut down, and for the first time since Task Force Sangrela’s arrival there was relative peace in the center of Midway.
“Can we stand down now, El-Tee?” Deseau asked, turning to face Huber. People in the street were staring up at the mercenaries while others looked down from circling aircars, but they were simply interested spectators. Some onlookers might have belonged to the mob that scattered half an hour earlier, but if so they’d thrown away their weapons and hidden their red headbands. Certainly they were no present threat.
“Fox, this is Fox Three-six,” Huber said, making a general answer to Frenchie’s personal question. “Stand down, troopers. One man in the fighting compartment, the rest on thirty second standby. I don’t know how long we’ll be halting here, but at least break out the shelter tarps. Three-six out.”
“Learoyd, you’ve got first watch,” Frenchie said. “In two hours I’ll relieve you. Tranter, give me a hand with the tarp and the coolers.”
Captain Orichos had vanished into the Assembly Building as soon as Fencing Master settled onto the terraced mound. To Huber’s surprise, a stream of chauffeured aircars had begun to arrive while Task Force Sangrela was setting up a defensive position around the pillared stone building. The civilian vehicles landed in the street and disgorged one or two expensively dressed passengers apiece, then lifted away in a flurry of dust.
The new arrivals walked up the steps—three flights with landings between on the terraces—and entered the building. Some eyed the armored vehicles with obvious interest; others, just as obviously, averted their eyes as if from dung or a corpse.
Captain Sangrela had spaced his vehicles bows outward like spokes on a wheel. Because there were only ten vehicles, they had to back onto the uppermost terrace in order to be close enough for mutual support; even so there was a twenty-meter gap between the flank of one unit and the next. The infantry were using power augers to dig two-man pits above and behind the armored circle.
Huber unlatched his body armor to loosen it, but he didn’t strip it off quite yet. Tranter and Deseau stood behind Fencing Master, releasing the tie-downs that held gear to the bustle rack. Huber leaned out of the fighting compartment to steady a beer cooler with his hand till the troopers on the ground were ready to take the weight.
Trooper Learoyd raised his helmet and rubbed his scalp; he was in his early twenties but already nearly bald. “Hey El-Tee?” he said. “Are all them people behind us friendlies? Because if they’re not . . . ?”
“I don’t think they’re going to shoot at us, Learoyd,” Huber said. “I won’t say I think they’re friendly, though.”
That was particularly true of the group now walking across the Axis toward where Fencing Master was grounded. There were three principals, a woman with two men flanking her at a half step behind to either side. Each wore a white blouse and kilt with a bright red sash and cummerbund. Before and behind that trio were squads of toughs with red sweatbands, some of those who’d been at the front and rear of the mob half an hour before. Now they weren’t carrying weapons, at least openly.
They’d come from a walled compound across the Axis where it circled the Assembly Building. The outer walls were plasticized earth cast with a dye that Huber supposed was meant to be bright red. Because the soil was yellowish, the mixture had the bilious color of a sunburned Han.