“It gets over,” Cooter mused aloud. “One way or the other.”
“Sir, are we s’posed to be watchin’ this?” Simkins murmured through the intercom link. The map sliding across the main turret screen was reproduced in miniature on one of the driver’s displays as well.
“Junebug didn’t put a bloody lock on it, did she?” Ortnahme grunted. “Besides, we got all the data the drone dumped ourselfs.”
But the men on Herman’s Whore didn’t know what the Task Force commander was going to do with the recce data; and therefore, what she was going to do with them.
Warrant Leader Ortnahme was pretty sure Captain Ranson didn’t realize Herman’s Whore was echoing the displays from Blue Three; but as he’d told Simkins, she hadn’t thrown the mechanical toggle that would’ve prevented them from borrowing the signals.
And Hell, it was their asses too!
“Sir,” said Simkins, “where ‘re we?”
“We’re off-screen, kid,” Ortnahme replied, just as the image rotated eight degrees from Grid North to place as much as possible of the River Santine on the display at one time. The Estuary was on the right edge of the screen.
Symbols flashed at a dozen points—bridges, ferries; fords if there’d been any, which there weren’t, not this far down the Santine’s course.
The image jerked leftward under June Ranson’s control in the nameless tank. More symbols, but not so very many more; and none of ’em a bloody bit of good until you’d gone 300 kays in the wrong bloody direction. . . .
“Which way are we going to go, sir?” the technician asked.
The display lurched violently back to the southward. The image jumped as Ranson shrank the map scale, focusing tightly on la Reole. The numeral I overlay the main bridge in the center of the town. The symbol was flashing yellow.
“Which bloody way do you think we’re gonna go?” Ortnahme snarled. “You think we’re pushin’ babycarts? There’s only one tank-capable bridge left on the Santine till you’ve gone all the way north t’ bloody bumfuck! And that bridge’s about to fall into the river by itself, it looks!”
“W-warrant Leader Ortnahme? I’m sorry, sir.”
Blood ‘n martyrs.
It musta been lonely, closed up in the driver’s compartment.
The Lord knew it was lonely back here in the turret. Wonder if the background whisper of a voice singing in Tagalog came through the intercom circuit?
“S’okay, kid,” Ortnahme muttered. “Look, it’s just—ridin’ on air don’t mean we’re light, you see? There’s still a hundred seventy tonnes t’ support, even if the air cushion spreads it out as good as you can. And there’s not a bloody lotta bridges that won’t go flat with that much weight on ’em.”
Ortnahme stared grimly at the screens. Beside la Reole, there were two “I” designators—bridge of unlimited capacity—across the lower Santine, as well as four Category II bridges that might do in a pinch. Updated information from the drone had colored all six of those symbols red—destroyed.
“Specially with the Consies blowing every curst thing up these coupla days,” he added.
“I see, sir,” the technician said with the nervous warmth of a puppy who’s been petted after being kicked. “So we’re going through la Reole?”
Ortnahme stared glumly at the screen. The bridge designators weren’t the only updated symbols the reconnaissance drone had painted on the map from the Slammers’ database.
“Well, kid,” the warrant leader said, “there’s some problems with that, too. . . .”
“Tootsie Six to Slammer Six,” June Ranson said, loading the cartridge that would be transmitted to Firebase Purple in a precisely-calculated burst. “Absolute priority.”
Even if you got your dick half into her, Colonel, you need to hear this now.
“The only tank crossing point on the lower Santine is la Reole, which is in friendly hands but is encircled by dug-in hostiles. The bridge is damaged besides. The forces at my disposal are not sufficient to overwhelm the opposition, nor is it survivable to penetrate the encirclement and proceed to the bridge with the bulk of the hostile forces still in play behind us.”
She paused, though the transmission would compress the hesitation out of existence. “Unless you can give us some support, Colonel, I’m going to have to swing north till the river’s fordable. It’ll add time.” Three days at least. “Maybe two days.”