Or however far.
“Junebug,” said Hammer, “I’m not hanging you out to dry. Thirty seconds before you start your move, all the WG satellites are going to go down, recce and commo both. They’ll stay down for however long it suits me that they do.”
Ranson blinked, “Sir,” she said hesitantly, “if you do that . . . I mean, that means—”
“It means that our commo and reconnaissance is probably going to go out shortly thereafter, Captain,” Hammer said. “So you’ll be on your own. But you don’t have to worry about tank killers being vectored into your axis of advance.”
“Sir, if you hit their satellites—” Ranson began.
“They’ll take it and smile, Captain,” Hammer said. “Because if they don’t, there won’t be any Terran World Government enclaves here on Prosperity to worry about. I guarantee it. They may think they can cause me trouble on Earth, but they know what I’ll do to them here!”
“Yessir,” June Ranson said. “I’ll check the status of my assets and plot a route, then get back to you.”
“Captain,” Hammer said softly, “if I didn’t think it could be done, I wouldn’t order it. No matter how much it counted. Good luck to you and your team.”
The hologram dissolved into a swirl of phosphorescent mites, impingement points of the carrier wave itself after the signal ceased. Bestwick shut down the projector.
“Cooter,” Ranson said, “get the guard detachment ready. I’ll take care of the tanks myself.”
Cooter nodded over his shoulder. The big man was already on the way to his blower. It was going to be tricky, juggling crews and newbies to fill the slots that last night’s firefight had opened. . . .
If Hammer took on the World Government, he was going to lose. Not here, but in the main arena of politics and economics on Earth.
That bothered June Ranson a lot.
But not nearly as much as the fact that the orders she’d just received put her neck on the block, sure as Death itself.
Chapter Five
Speedin’ Steve Riddle sat by Platt’s cot in the medical tent, listening to machines pump air in and out of his buddy’s lungs.
And thinking.
They sat on the lowered tailgate of Platt’s truck, staring at the sky and giggling occasionally at the display. At first there’d been only the lesser moon edging one horizon while the other horizon was saffron with the sunset.
Lights, flames . . . streaks of tracers that painted letters in the sky for the drug-heightened awareness of the two men. Neither Platt nor Riddle could read the words, but they knew whatever was being spelled was excruciatingly funny. . . .
“Speed,” called Lieutenant Cooter, “get your ass back to the blower and start running the prelim checklist. We’re moving out tonight.”
“Wha . . . ?” Riddle blurted, jerking his head up like an ostrich surprised at a waterhole. He was rapidly going bald. To make up for it, he’d grown a luxuriant moustache that fluffed when he spoke or exhaled.
“Don’t give me any lip, you stupid bastard!” Cooter snapped, though Speed’s response had been logy rather than argumentative. “If I didn’t need you bad, you’d be findin’ your own ticket back to whatever cesspit you call home.”
“Hey, El-Tee!” Otski called, sitting up on his cot despite the gentle efforts of Shorty Rogers to keep him flat. “How they hangin’, Cooter-baby?”
He waggled his stump.
“Come on, Otski,” Rogers said. Shorty was Flamethrower’s driver and probably the best medic in the guard detachment as well as being a crewmate of the wounded man. “Just take it easy or I’ll have to raise your dosage, and then it won’t feel so good. All right?”
The medicomp metered Platt’s breathing, in and out.
“Hey, lookit,” Otski burbled, fluttering his stump again though he permitted Shorty to lower him back to the cot.
An air injector spat briefly, but the gunner’s voice continued for a moment. “Lookit it when I wave, Cooter. I’m gonna get a flag. Whole bunch flags, stick ’em in there ‘n wave ‘n wave. . . .”
“Shorty, you’re gonna have to get back to the car too,” Cooter said. “We’ll turn ’em over to the Logistics staff until they can be lifted out to a permanent facility.”