“All right,” he said at last, grudging them credit for the task he could no longer perform. “All right. They should be coming with the next load now.”
He climbed the three steps into the gun compartment carefully. The enclosure smelled of oil and propellant residues. It smelled like home.
Lavel powered up, listening critically to the sound of each motor and relay as it came live. The bank of idiot lights above the targeting console had a streak of red and amber with a green expanse: the traversing mechanism failed regularly when the turret was rotated over fifteen degrees to either side.
Thank the Lord for that problem. Without it, the howitzer wouldn’t ‘ve been here in Camp Progress when it was needed.
Needed by Task Force Ranson. Needed by Chief Lavel.
He sat in the gun captain’s chair, then twisted to look over his shoulder. “Are you clear?” he shouted to his helpers. “Keep clear!”
For choice, Lavel would have stuck his head out the door of the gun compartment to make sure Craige and Komar didn’t have their hands on the heavy shells. That would mean picking up his crutch and levering himself from the chair again. . . .
Level touched the execute button to start the loading sequence.
The howitzer had arrived at Camp Progress with most of a basic load of ammunition still stowed in its hull. For serious use, the hog would have been fed from one or more ammunition haulers, connected to the loading ramp by conveyor belts.
No problem. The nineteen rounds available would be enough for this job.
Seventeen rounds. Two of the shells couldn’t be used for this purpose. But seventeen was plenty.
The howitzer began to swallow its meal of ammunition, clanking and wobbling on its suspension. Warrant Leader Ortnahme had ordered the shells off-loaded and stored at a safe distance—from him—as soon as the hog arrived for maintenance. That quantity of high explosive worried most people.
Not Chief Lavel, who’d worked with it daily—until some other cannon-cocker got his range.
CLUNK. CLUNK. The first six rounds would go into the ready-use drum, from which the gun could cycle them in less than fifteen seconds.
CLUNK. CLUNK. Each round would be launched as an individually-targeted fire mission. The hog’s computer chose from the ready-use drum the shell that most nearly matched the target parameters.
For bunkers, an armor-piercing shell or delay-fused high explosive if no armor piercing was in the drum. So on down the line until, if nothing else were available, a paint-filled practice round blasted out of the tube.
CLUNK. The loading system refilled the ready-use drum automatically, until the on-board stowage was exhausted and the outside tray no longer received fresh rounds. Lavel could hear the second gurney-load squealing closer.
CLUNK.
The drum was loaded—six green lights on the console. He could check the shell-types by asking the system, but there was no need. He’d chosen the first six rounds to match the needs of his initial salvo.
A touch threw the target map up on the screen above the gunnery console. The drone’s on-board computer had processed the data before dumping it.
Damage to buildings within la Reole—shell-burst patterns as well as holes—provided accurate information as to the type and bearing of the Consie weapons. When that data was superimposed on the raw new siege works, it was easy for an artificial intelligence to determine the location of the enemy’s heavy weapons, the guns that were dangerous to an armored task force.
One more thing to check. “TOC,” Lavel said to his commo helmet.
No response for ten seconds, thirty. . . . The first shell of the new batch clanged down on the loading ramp.
“Tech 2 Helibrun,” a harried voice responded at last. “Go ahead, Yellow Six.”
Yellow Six. Officer in command of Transit. Lavel’s lips curled.
“I’m waiting for the patch to Tootsie Six,” he said, more sharply than the delay warranted. “Why haven’t I been connected?”
“The bl—” the commo tech began angrily. He continued after a pause to swallow. “Chief, the patch is in place. We don’t have contact with the task force yet, is all. From the data we’ve got from Central, it’ll be about an hour before they’re on ground high enough that we can reach them from here.”