Did Orichos think that Colonel Hammer cared about trees when the lives of his troopers were at stake? And if there’d been a thousand civilians in the corridor before the incendiaries fell, that wouldn’t have changed the Colonel’s plan either.
This was war. If the government of the Point hadn’t known what it meant to hire the Slammers to do their fighting for them, then they were in the process of learning.
* * *
Fencing Master slowed, wobbled drunkenly, and finally came to rest on a south-facing backslope with her fans at idle. Deseau rotated the driver’s hatch open; Tranter was already climbing off the right side of the fighting compartment.
Huber raised his faceshield, then lifted the commo helmet for a moment to scratch his scalp. He grinned at Captain Orichos and said, “We’re getting ready for the final run-up, Captain. If there’s anything you need to do while we’re halted, do it now. We won’t stop again until the shooting’s over.”
He smiled more broadly and added, “At least over for us, I mean.”
Huber was keyed up, but it was in a good way. The drive had been physically and mentally fatiguing. It had blotted out the past and future, turning even his immediate surroundings into a gray blur. Now adrenaline coursed through him, bringing the fire-swept wasteland into bright focus and shuffling a series of possible outcomes through his mind.
Arne Huber was alive again. He might die in the next ten minutes, but a lot of people never really lived for even that short time.
“No, I’m ready,” Orichos said. She rubbed her hands together, then wiped her palms on the breast of her jumpsuit. If she was trying to clean the ash and grit off them, she failed. “What do you want me to do? In the battle, that is.”
Frenchie climbed into the fighting compartment past his tribarrel; Tranter was walking forward on the steel bulge of the plenum chamber. The thirty-degree slope was awkwardly steep for the exchange, but the relatively sparse vegetation here had left fewer smoldering remains than the flatter, better-watered stretches the task force had been crossing.
“Keep out of the way,” Huber said. “Keep your head down unless one of us buys it. If that happens, take over his gun and try not to shoot friendlies.”
He grinned, feeling a degree of genuine amusement to talk about his own death in such a matter-of-fact way. He’d chosen the line of work, of course.
Huber really would’ve preferred to get the Gendarmery officer off his combat car, but that wasn’t a practical solution in this landscape. Orichos was smart and quick both, so he could at least hope that she’d jump clear if he or a trooper needed one of the ammo boxes stacked behind her.
Frenchie slid behind his gun and spun the mechanism, ejecting the round from the loaded chamber in a spurt of liquid nitrogen. As he did so, Tranter spun the idling fans up one at a time so that he could listen to the note of each individually. Both men were veterans and experts; they didn’t trust their tools to be the way they’d left them until they’d made sure for themselves.
Barely visible eighty meters eastward, Foghorn’s crew were giving their car and weapons a final check. Sierra’s remaining six combat vehicles waited still further to the east, out of sight from Fencing Master behind undulations of the ground.
Despite hotspots in the terrain, the infantry had deployed from the wrenchmobiles; they’d advance on their skimmers to avoid the risk of losing two squads to a single lucky hit. Besides, the recovery vehicles might shortly be needed for their original purpose.
“Central, this is Sierra Six,” Captain Sangrela reported over the command channel. “Sierra is in position. Over.”
“Roger, Sierra,” Base Alpha replied. Despite the compression and stuttering created when the transmission bounced from one ionization track to another, Huber would’ve been willing to swear the voice was Major Pritchard’s. “Hold two, I repeat, figures two, minutes while we prepare things for you from this end. Central out.”
Though the transmission closed, an icon on the corner of Huber’s faceshield indicated there was view-only information available if he wanted to tap it. He did, tonguing the controller instead of voice-activating the helmet AI.