For a moment, no one spoke; the crews were waiting for Ranson, and June Ranson’s mind was extending into a universe of phosphor dots.
The image of Cooter’s face brightened and swelled slightly to highlight it as the lieutenant said, “Junebug, we gotta figure these guys’ve gone over to the Consies. They left Camp Victory without orders, just before the general attack. Only question is, do we go around ’em or do we fight ’em?”
“We’re tasked to get there, not to fight, ain’t we?” said Tillman, blower captain of One-five. At the best of times, Tillman was a thin, sallow man. The past two days had sweated off weight he couldn’t afford to lose.
“Look, just in case they are friendly . . .” said Chalkin. He looked sour, partly because he was crowded in the fighting compartment of One-six with Ortnahme and Simkins as well as the shot-up survivors of the car’s original crew. “I wouldn’t mind havin’ fifty tanks alongside us when we hit Kohang, even if it’s Yokels.”
“Max of forty-four tanks,” interjected Warrant Leader Ortnahme, looking at something off-screen low, probably his clenched knuckles. There were problems on One-six, Daisy Belle; not just the crowding, but a fat non-combatant with a lot of rank, dropped on a blower commanded by a mere Senior Trooper on transfer.
“There were forty-four at their bloody laager when the drone overflew ’em,” Ortnahme continued, looking straight at the pick-up in the car’s multi-function display. “Some’ll be dead-lined, twenty percent given what passes fer Yokel maintenance.”
His fingers rose into the tiny field-of-view, ticking off the third point: “Some more drop out on the route march to block us when they’ve fine’ly get the lead out. So, say thirty-five max, maybe thirty.”
“And,” said Cooter’s voice in the enfolding electronic tendrils of June Ranson’s mind, “there’s no bloody way—”
“—that those bastards’re friendly,” Cooter snapped at the hologram display beside his tribarrel while Dick Suilin shivered on the ribbed plastic crates of ammunition lining the interior of the fighting compartment.
At the signal to halt in dispersed order for council, Flamethrower had forced its way into a thicket of knotbushes. Their gnarled branches sprang back to full four-meter height behind the vehicle, concealing the combat car on all sides and even covering it fairly well from above.
“Look, just ’cause they sat out the last couple days—” argued a voice that had spoken earlier, not one that the reporter recognized.
The net wasn’t wide open, as Suilin first thought. The computer—the AI—controlling the discussion cut off whoever was talking the instant someone higher in the hierarchy began to speak.
“There was no sign from the recce flight that they’d been hit,” Cooter boomed onward. “With all the Consies did the other night, there was no chance they’d ‘ve ignored a tank battalion—except it’d gone over or it was about t’ go over.”
Suilin’s face was turned slightly away from the display. There was probably a way to magnify the images through his helmet visor, but he didn’t much care.
He felt awful, as though he were in the midst of a bad bout of flu. Despite his chills, his throat felt parched. He gestured toward the cooler on which Gale sat.
The veteran shook his head, then nodded in explanation toward the display.
“Later,” he said in a husky whisper that presumably wouldn’t carry to the pick-up. He tossed Suilin another Wide-awake. “You’re on the down side. No sweat. You’ll get used t’it.”
“Via, still wouldn’t mind havin’ the help,” muttered a voice from the display. “Some cursed help.”
The cone sent needles of delicious ice up the throat vein to which Suilin applied it. Gray fog cleared from his eyes. The holographic display sprang into focus, though the figures in it were featurelessly small.
He realized that Captain Ranson hadn’t spoken during the discussion.
As though the jolt of stimulant in the reporter’s bloodstream had unblocked the commander’s tongue, the mercenary captain’s cool—cold—voice said, “We are nearly in contact with a force of uncertain loyalty, estimated to be a battalion of thirty to thirty-five armored vehicles.”
Tiny, toothed birds jumped and chittered through the branches of the knotbushes, ignoring the iridium monster in their midst. Their wings were covered with pale fur, familiar to Suilin but probably exotic to his mercenary companions.