The figure in the fighting compartment stood up again and gave Herman’s Whore an ironic salute. “Blue Two,” said Ortnahme’s helmet. “Sorry ’bout that.”
“Tootsie One-two,” the warrant leader responded. He felt expansive and relieved, now that he was sure they wouldn’t be deadlined at the last instant by a stupid mistake. “No harm done. It’s prob’ly my bloody fault for not seeing your nacelles were aligned right when we had time to screw with ’em.”
Herman’s Whore settled, a little abruptly. Their skirts gave the ground a tap that rattled Ortnahme’s teeth and probably cut a centimeter-deep oval in the hard soil.
“Simkins—” the warrant leader began, the word tripping the helmet’s artificial intelligence to intercom mode.
“Sir, I’m sorry,” his driver was already blurting. “I let the sucker—”
“Blood ‘n martyrs, Simkins,” Ortnahme interrupted, “don’t worry about that! Where dja learn that little maneuver, anyhow?”
“Huh?” said the helmet. “Sir, it was just, you know, the leverage off the berm . . . ?”
He sounded like he thought Ortnahme was gonna chew his head off. Which had happened maybe a little too often in the past . . . but bloody hell, you had t’ break ’em in the start. . . .
“Sir?” Simkins added in a little voice.
“Yeah?”
“Sir, I really like tanks. D’ye suppose that—”
“Like bloody hell!” the warrant leader snapped. “Look, kid, you’re more good to me and Colonel Hammer right where you bloody are!”
“Yessir.”
Which, come t’ think about it, was driving a panzer. Well, there’d be time t’ worry about that later.
Or there wouldn’t.
The turret interior had darkened as the sky did, because the main screen was set on direct optical. Ortnahme frowned, then set the unit for progressive enhancement, projecting images at 60% of average daylight ambiance.
The visual display brightened suddenly, though the edges of the snarling armored vehicles lacked a little of the definition they would have had in unaided sunlight. No matter what the sky did—sun, moons, or the Second Coming—the main screen would continue to display at this apparent light level until Ortnahme changed its orders.
Henk Ortnahme knew tanks. He knew their systems backward and forward, better than almost any of the panzers’ regular crews.
Line troops found a few things that worked for them. Each man used his handful of sensor and gunnery techniques, ignoring the remainder of his vehicle’s incredibly versatile menu. You don’t fool around when your life depends on doing instinctively something that works for you.
The maintenance chief had to be sure that everything worked, every time. He’d spent twenty years of playing with systems that most everybody else forgot. He could run the screens and sensors by reflex and instantly critique the performance of each black box.
What the warrant leader hadn’t had for those twenty years was combat experience. . . .
“Sir,” said the helmet. “Ah, when are we supposed to pull out?”
A bloody stupid question.
Sunset, and Simkins could see as well as Ortnahme that it was sunset plus seven. Captain Ranson had said departure time would be coordinated by Central, so probably the only people who knew why Task Force Ranson was on hold were a thousand kilometers north of—
Screen Two, which in default mode—as now—was boresighted to the main gun, flashed the orange warning director control. As the letters appeared, the turret of Herman’s Whore began to rotate without any input from Warrant Leader Ortnahme.
The turret was being run by Fire Central, at Headquarters. Henk Ortnahme had no more to say about the situation than he did regarding any other orders emanating directly from Colonel Hammer.
“Sir?” Simkins blurted over the intercom.
“Blue Two—” demanded at least two other vehicles simultaneously, alerted by the squealing turret and rightly concerned about what the hell was going on. Screwing around with a tank’s main gun in these close quarters wasn’t just a bad idea.
“Simkins,” Ortnahme said. His fingers stabbed buttons. “It’s all right. The computer up in Purple’s just took over.”
As he spoke, Ortnahme set his gunnery screen to echo on Screen Three of the other tanks and the multi-function displays with which the combat cars made do. That’d answer their question better ‘n anything he could say—