The Tank Lords by David Drake

Ranson rubbed her eyes. “Execute,” she ordered the AI.

“Blue Two to Tootsie Six,” her headset said.

She should’ve involved Ortnahme—and Sparrow, he was Blue Element Leader—in the planning. She had to think like a task force commander, not a grading officer. . . .

“Junebug, if the friendlies can lay some sorta surface covering on the bloody water,” the warrant leader was saying, “agricultural film on a wood frame, that’d do, just enough to spread the effect, we can—”

“Negative, Blue Two,” Ranson interrupted. “This is a river, not a pond. The current’d disrupt any covering they could cobble together, even if the Consies weren’t shelling. I don’t want you learning to swim. Over.”

“Tootsie Six,” grunted Ortnahme: twice her age and in a parallel—though non-command—pay grade. “That bloody bridge has major structural damage. I don’t want to learn to dive bloody tanks from twenty meters in the air, neither. Blue Two out.”

If you want it safe, Blue Two, you’re in the wrong line of work tonight.

Chuckle; green light.

“Play burst.”

“Slammer Six to Tootsie Six. There’s an operable hog at Camp Progress with nineteen rounds in storage. Using extended-range boosters, it can cover la Reole. One of the transit-company staff is ex-artillery; he’s putting together a crew. By the time you need some bunkers hit, the tube’ll be ready to do it.”

Zip from the console, as the AI replaced the pause which the burst compression had edited out.

“Speed is absolutely essential. If you don’t get to Kohang within the next six hours, we may as well all have stayed home. Over.”

“Tootsie Six to Slammer Six,” Ranson said with textbook precision. She could feel her soul merging with that of the nameless tank, viewing the world through its sensors and considering her data in an electronic balance. “Task Force Ranson will proceed in accordance with the situation as it develops. We will transmit further data if a fire mission is required. Tootsie Six, out. Execute.”

She was the officer on-site. She would make the final decision. And if Colonel Hammer didn’t like it, what was he going to do? Put her in command of a suicide mission?

“Tootsie Six,” said her headset, “this is Blue Two. The hog’s operable, all right. The trouble’s in the turret-traversing mechanism, and that won’t matter for a few rounds to a single point. But I dunno about the bloody crew. Over.”

“Six, Three,” Cooter’s voice responded. “Chief Lavel’s solid as they come. He’ll handle the fire control, and the rest—that’s just lift ‘n carry, right? Getting the shells on the conveyor? Nothin’ even a newbie with a room-temperature IQ’s going t’ screw up. Over.”

She would make the final decision.

“All Tootsie elements,” June Ranson heard her voice ordering calmly. Her touch shrank the map’s scale; then her index finger traced the course to la Reole on the screen.

“Transmit,” she said. “We will proceed on the marked trace to Phase Line Piper—” fingertip stroking the crest across a shadowy valley from the Consie positions above the beleaguered town on the Santine Estuary “—and punch through enemy lines to the bridge after a short artillery preparation. Prepare to execute in five minutes. Tootsie Six out.”

She used the seat as a step instead of raising herself to the hatch with its power lift. Clouds streaked the sky, but the earlier thin overcast was gone.

The Lord have mercy on our souls.

Chapter Nine

“Sarge,” said Holman on the intercom, “why aren’t we just crossing the river instead of fooling with a damaged bridge? When I was in trucks, we’d see the line companies go right around us while we was backed up for a bridge. Down, splash, up the far bank and gone.”

Now that the task force had moved into open country, Holman was doing a pretty good job of keeping station. You couldn’t take somebody straight out of a transport company and expect them to drive blind and over broken terrain—with no more than forty hours of air-cushion experience to begin with.

If your life depended on it, though, that was just what you did expect.

“Combat cars have that much lift,” Wager explained bitterly. “These mothers don’t. Via! but I wish I was back in cars.”

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