Ignore the signals, the captain said at last. Weve known all along they were talking to the civilians, havent we? Neither of his crewmen spoke. Pritchards eyes closed tightly. He said, Weve known for months, Hammer and I, every damned thing that Barthes been plotting with the skepsels. They want a chance to break Haacin now, while theyre around to cover for the Portelans. Well give them their chance and ram it up their ass crosswise. The Old Man hasnt spread the word for fear the storyd get out, the same way Barthes plans did. Were all mercenaries, after all. But I want you three to know. And Ill be glad when the only thing I have to worry about is the direction the shots are coming from.
Abruptly, the captain dropped back to the ground. Get some sleep, he called. Ill be needing you sharp tonight.
BACK AT HIS console, Pritchard resumed plotting courses and distances. After he figured each line, he called in a series of map coordinates to Command Central. He knew his radio traffic was being monitored and probably unscrambled by Barthes intelligence staff; knew also that even if he had read the coordinates out in clear, the French would have assumed it was a code. The locations made no sense unless one knew they were ground zero for incendiary shells.
As Pritchard worked, he kept close watch on the French battalions. Benoits own troops held their position, as Pritchard had ordered. They used the time to dig in. At first they had blasted slit trenches in the rock. Now they dug covered bunkers with the help of mining machinery tracked from Portela by civilians. Five of the six anti-tank guns were sited atop the eastern ridge of the position. They could rake the highway as it snaked and switched back among the foothills west of Portela.
Pritchard chuckled grimly again when Sgt. Samuels handed him high-magnification offprints from the satellites. Benoits two squat, bulky calliopes were sited in defilade behind the humps of the eastern ridge line. There the eight-barrelled powerguns were safe from the smashing fire of M Companys tanks, but their ability to sweep artillery shells from the sky was degraded by the closer horizon. The Slammers did not bother with calliopes themselves. Their central fire director did a far better job by working through the hundreds of vehicle-mounted weapons. How much better, Benoit might learn very shortly.
The mine-sweeping team cleared the Portela-Haacin road, as directed. The men returned to Benoits encampment an hour before dusk. The French did not come within five kilometers of the Dutch village.
Pritchard watched the retiring mine sweepers, then snapped off the console. He stood. Im going out to my blower, he said.
His crew had been watching for him. A hatch shot open, spouting condensate, as soon as Pritchard came out the door. The smooth bulk of the tank blew like a restive whale. On the horizon, the sun was so low that the treetops stood out in silhouette like a line of bayonets.
Wearily, the captain dropped through the hatch into his seat. Jenne and Margritte murmured greeting and waited, noticeably tense. Im going to get a couple hours sleep, Pritchard said. He swung his seat out and up, so that he lay horizontal in the turret. His legs hid Margrittes oval face from him. Punch up coverage of the road west of Haacin, would you? he asked. Im going to take a tab of Glirine. Slap me with the antidote when something moves there.
If something moves, Jenne amended.
When. Pritchard sucked down the pill. The squareheads think theyve got one last chance to smack Portela and hijack the powerguns again. Thing is, the Portelansll have already distributed the guns and be waiting for the Dutch to come through. Itll be a damn short fight, that one. The drug took hold and Pritchards consciousness began to flow away like a sugar cube in water. Damn short.
AT FIRST PRITCHARD felt only the sting on the inside of his wrist. Then the narcotic haze ripped away and he was fully conscious again.
There a line of trucks, looks like twenty, moving west out of Haacin, sir. Theyre blacked out, but the satellite has em on infra-red.
Red alert, Pritchard ordered. He locked his seat upright into its combat position. Margrittes soft voice sounded the general alarm. Pritchard slipped on his radio helmet. Michael One to all Michael units. Check off. Five green lights flashed their silent acknowledgements across the top of the captains face-shield display. Michael One to Sigma One, Pritchard continued.
Go ahead, Michael One. Sallys voice held a note of triumph.
Sigma One, pull all your troops into large, clear areasthe fields around the towns are fine, but stay the hell away from Portela and Haacin. Get ready to slow down anybody coming this way from across the Aillet. Over.
Affirmative, Danny, affirmative! Sally replied. Couldnt she use the satellite reconnaissance herself and see the five blurred dots halfway between the villages? They were clearly the trucks which had brought the Portelans into their ambush positions. What would she say when she realized how she had set up the villagers she was trying to protect? Lambs to the slaughter.
The vision block showed the Dutch trucks more clearly than the camouflaged Portelans. The crushed stone of the roadway was dark on the screen, cooler than the surrounding trees and the vehicles upon it. Pritchard patted the breech of the main gun and looked across it to his blower chief. We got a basic load for this aboard? he asked.
Do bears cop in the woods? Jenne grinned. We gonna get a chance to bust caps tonight, Captain?
Pritchard nodded. For three months weve been here, doing nothing but selling rope to the French. Tonight theyve bought enough that we can hang em with it. He looked at the vision block again. You alive, Kowie? he asked on intercom.
Ready to slide any time you give me a course, said the driver from his closed cockpit.
The vision block sizzled with bright streaks that seemed to hang on the screen though they had passed in microseconds. The leading blobs expanded and brightened as trucks blew up.
Michael One to Fire Central, Pritchard said.
Go ahead, Michael One, replied the machine voice.
Prepare Fire Order Alpha.
Roger, Michael One.
Margritte, get me Benoit.
Go ahead, Captain.
Slammers to Benoit. Pritchard to Benoit. Come in please, Colonel.
Capt. Pritchard, Michel Benoit here. The colonels voice was smooth but too hurried to disguise the concern underlying it. I assure you that none of my men are involved in the present fighting. I have a company ready to go out and control the disturbance immediately, however.
The tanker ignored him. The shooting had already stopped for lack of targets. Colonel, Ive got some artillery aimed to drop various places in the forest. Its coming nowhere near your troops or any other human beings. If you interfere with this necessary shelling, the Slammerll treat it as an act of war. I speak with my colonels authority.
Captain, I dont
Pritchard switched manually. Michael One to Fire Central. Execute Fire Order Alpha.
On the way, Michael One.
Michael One to Michael First, Second, Fourth. Command Central has fed movement orders into your map displays. Incendiary clusters are going to burst over marked locations to ignite the forest. Use your own main guns to set the trees burning in front of your immediate positions. One round ought to do it. Button up and you can move through the firethe trees just fall to pieces when theyve burned.
The turret whined as it slid under Robs control. Michael Third, Im attaching you to the infantry. More Frenchmenre apt to be coming this way from the east. Its up to you to see they dont slam a door on us.
The main gun fired, its discharge so sudden that the air rang like a solid thing. Seepage from the ejection system filled the hull with the reek of superheated polyurethane. The side vision blocks flashed cyan, then began to flood with the mounting white hell-light of the blazing trees. In the central block, still set on remote, all the Dutch trucks were burning, as were patches of forest which the ambush had ignited. The Portelans had left the concealment of the trees and swept across the road, mopping up the Dutch.
Kowie, lets move, Jenne was saying on intercom, syncopated by the mild echo of his voice in the turret. Margrittes face was calm, her lips moving subtly as she handled some traffic that she did not pass on to her captain. The tank slid forward like oil on a lake. From the far distance came the thumps of incendiary rounds scattering their hundreds of separate fireballs high over the trees.
Pritchard slapped the central vision block back on direct; the tanks interior shone white with transmitted fire. The Plows bow slope sheared into a thicket of blazing trees. The wood tangled and sagged, then gave in a splash of fiery splinters whipped aloft by the blowers fans. The tank was in hell on all sides, Kowie steering by instinct and his inertial compass. Even with his screens filtered all the way down, the driver would not be able to use his eyes effectively until more of the labyrinth had burned away.
Benoits calliopes had not tried to stop the shelling. Well, there were other ways to get the French mercs to take the first step over the line. For instance
Punch up Benoit again, Pritchard ordered. Even through the dense iridium plating, the roar of the fire was a subaural presence in the tank.
Go ahead, Margritte said, flipping a switch on her console. She had somehow been holding the French officer in conversation all the time Pritchard was on other frequencies.
Colonel, Pritchard said, weve got clear running through this fire. Were going to chase down everybody who used a powergun tonight; then well shoot them. Well shoot everybody in their families, everybody with them in this ambush, and well blow up every house that anybody involved lived in. Thats likely to be every house in Portela, isnt it?
More than the heat and ions of the blazing forest distorted Benoits face. He shouted, Are you mad? You cant think of such a thing, Pritchard!
The tankers lips parted like a wolfs. He could think of mass murder, and there were plenty of men in the Slammers who would really be willing to carry out the threat. But Pritchard wouldnt have to, because Benoit was like Riis and Schilling: too much of a nationalist to remember his first duty as a merc. Col. Benoit, the contract demands wekeep the peace and stay impartial. The record shows how we treated people in Haacin for having powerguns. For what the Portelans did tonightdont worry, well be impartial. And theyll never break the peace again.
Captain, I will not allow you to massacre French civilians, Benoit stated flatly.
Move a man out of your present positions and Ill shoot him dead, Pritchard said. Its your choice, Colonel. Over and out.
The Plow bucked and rolled as it pulverized fire-shattered trucks, but the vehicle was meeting nothing solid enough to slam it to a halt. Pritchard used a side block on remote to examine Benoits encampment. The satellites enhanced infra-red showed a stream of sparks flowing from the defensive positions toward the Portela road: infantry on skimmers. The pair of larger, more diffuse blobs were probably anti-tank guns. Benoit wasnt moving his whole battalion, only a reinforced company in a show of force to make Pritchard back off.
The fool. Nobody was going to back off now.
Michael One to all Michael and Sigma units, Pritchard said in a voice as clear as the white flames around his tank. Were now in a state of war with Barthes Company and its civilian auxiliaries. Michael First, Second, and Fourth, well rendezvous at the ambush site as plotted on your displays. Anybody between there and Portela is fair game. If we take any fire from Portela, we go down the main drag in line and blow the cop out of it. If any of Barthes people are in the way, we keep on sliding west. Sigma One, mount a fluid defense, dont push, and wait for help. Its coming. If this works, its Barthe against Hammerand thats wheat against the scythe. Acknowledged?
As Pritchards call board lit green, a raspy new voice broke into the sector frequency. Wish I was with you, panzers. Well cover your butts and the other sectorsif anybodys dumb enough to move. Good hunting!
I wish you were here and not me, Colonel, Pritchard whispered, but that was to himselfand perhaps it was not true even in his heart. Dannys guts were very cold, and his face was as cold as death.
To Pritchards left, a lighted display segregated the area of operations. It was a computer analog, not direct satellite coverage. Doubtful images were brightened and labeledgreen for the Slammers, red for Barthe; blue for civilians unless they were fighting on one side or the other. The green dot of The Plow converged on the ambush site at the same time as the columns of First and Fourth Platoons. Second was a minute or two farther off. Pritchards breath caught. A sheaf of narrow red lines was streaking across the display toward his tanks. Barthe had ordered his Companys artillery to support Benoits threatened battalion.
The salvo frayed and vanished more suddenly than it had appeared. Other Slammers vehicles had ripped the threat from the sky. Green lines darted from Hammers own three firebases, offscreen at the analogs present scale. The fighting was no longer limited to Sector Two. If Pritchard and Hammer had played their hand right, though, it would stay limited to only the Slammers and Compagnie de Barthe. The other Francophone regiments would fear to join an unexpected battle which certainly resulted from someones contract violation. If the breach were Hammers, the Dutch would not be allowed to profit by the fighting. If the breach were Barthes, anybody who joined him was apt to be punished as sternly by the Bonding Authority.
So violent was the forests combustion that the flames were already dying down into sparks and black ashes. The command tank growled out into the broad avenue of the road west of Haacin. Dutch trucks were still burningfabric, lubricants, and the very paint of their frames had been ignited by the powerguns. Many of the bodies sprawled beside the vehicles were smouldering also. Some corpses still clutched their useless muskets. The dead were victims of six centuries of progress which had come to Kobold pre-packaged, just in time to kill them. Barthe had given the Portelans only shoulder weapons, but even that meant the world here. The powerguns were repeaters with awesome destruction in every bolt. Without answering fire to rattle them, even untrained gunmen could be effective with weapons which shot line-straight and had no recoil. Certainly the Portelans had been effective.