The Tank Lords (21 page)

"Tootsie, One-two, lead on the new course as displayed." Better to have a tank as a lead vehicle, but there wasn't much chance of trouble here in the boonies, and it was only half a kilometer. . . .

Warmonger
touched the ground momentarily, then began to rotate on its axis. A twenty-centimeter treebole, thick for this area, this forest, this planet, obstructed the turn. Willens backed them grudgingly to the altered course.

Anyway, she wasn't sure she wanted Blue Two leading. Ortnahme didn't have much field experience either.

"We'll laager on the bald. Break. Blue Three, I'll be borrowing your displays. I want you to take over my position while we're halted. Over."

"Roger, Tootsie Six. Blue Three out."

"All Tootsie elements, execute new course. Tootsie Six out."

She'd get an eighty percent for that. Down on reversing, down on halting, down on not swapping Cooter's combat car for one of the panzers. But she'd be down on those points whichever way she'd chosen. . . .

Ranson rubbed her eyes vaguely surprised to find that they were open. Her body braced itself reflexively as Willens brought
Warmonger
up to speed.

She'd use Blue Three's displays. And she'd use the tank's commo gear also, because that was going to get tricky.

Of course, it was always tricky to talk with Colonel Hammer.

The bald was a barren, hundred-meter circle punched in the vegetation of a rocky knoll by fire, disease, or the chemistry of the underlying rock strata.
Flamethrower
scudded nervously across the clearing and settled, not to the ground on idle but in a dynamic stasis with its fans spinning at high speed.

Cooter spoke to his multi-function display, then poked a button on the side of it. Suilin's tribarrel shivered.

"Just let it be," the big lieutenant said, nodding toward the weapon. "I put all the guns on air defense." He gripped the rear coaming and swung his leg over the side of the vehicle.

"There's not much chance of 'em helping, using car sensors," he added. "But it's what we got till the panzers arrive."

As Cooter spoke, Blue Two came bellowing out of the trees. The tank's vast size was emphasized by the narrow compass of the bald. The warrant leader from Maintenance, his bulky form unmistakable, waved from the cupola as his driver pulled to a location 120 degrees around the circle from
Warmonger
. Further vehicles were following closely.

"What's going on?" the reporter asked Gale. "Why are we in the, the clear?"

In only a few hours, Suilin had gotten so used to the forest canopy that he felt naked under the open sky. Both moons were visible, though wisps of haze blotted many of the stars. He didn't suppose the leaves really provided much protection—but, like his childhood bedcovers, they'd served to keep away the boogeymen of his imagination.

The veteran gestured toward the horizon dominated by a long ridge twenty kilometers away. "Air attack," he said. "Or arty. While we're movin' it's okay, but clumpin' all together like this, we could get our clocks cleaned. If we see it comin', we're slick, we shoot it down. But with powerguns, if a leaf gets in the way, the bolt don't touch the incoming shell it's s'posed t' get, does it?"

"The Consies don't have air . . . ?" Suilin began, but he broke the statement off on a rising inflection.

Gale grinned viciously. "Right," he said. "Bet on that and kiss yer ass goodbye."

He glanced at the combat car which had just pulled up beside them and grounded. "Not," he added, "like we're playin' it safe as is."

Cooter clambered aboard the grounded car. Its sides were scratched, like those of all the vehicles, but the words
Daisy Belle
could be read on the upper curve of the armorplate.

A cartoon figure had been drawn beside the name, but it would have been hard to make out even under better lighting. A bullet had struck in the center of the drawing, splashing the paint away without cratering the armor. A second bullet had left a semicircle of lead on the coaming.

There was only one mercenary standing erect in the fighting compartment to greet Cooter.

"Wisht we had a better field that way," Gale mused aloud, nodding toward the crags that lurched up to the immediate north of the bald, cutting off vision in that direction. "Still, with the panzers—" a second tank had joined Blue Two and the third was an audible presence "—it oughta be okay. Whatever hardware does best, them big fuckers does best."

Suilin climbed out of the fighting compartment and jumped to the ground. He staggered when he found himself on footing that didn't vibrate. Despite the weight of his armor, the reporter mounted the rear slope of
Daisy Belle
without difficulty. He'd learned where the steps in the armor were—

And he was no longer entering an alien environment.

Cooter was examining the right forearm of the standing crewman. The trooper's sleeve had been torn away. The bandage across the muscles was brilliantly white in the moonlight except for the dots of blood on opposite sides.

He must have bandaged himself, because the other two crewmen lay on the floor of the fighting compartment—one dead, the other breathing but comatose.

"I'm okay," the wounded man said sullenly.

"Sure you are, Titelbaum," Cooter replied. "Tootsie One-five," he continued, keying his helmet. "This is Tootsie Three. Tommy, send one a' your boys—send Chalkin—to One-six. Over."

"I kin
handle
it!" Titelbaum insisted as the lieutenant listened to the reply.

"One-five," Cooter said in response to a complaint Suilin couldn't hear. "
I'd
like to be in bed with a hooker. Get Chalkin over here, right? I need 'im to take over. Three out."

"I kin—"

"You got one hand," Cooter snapped. "Just shut it off, okay?"

"I'm left—"

"You're a bloody liar." Cooter looked at Suilin, balanced on the edge of the armor, for the first time. "Good. Gimme a hand with McGwire. We'll sling her to the skirts and get a little more space for Chalkin."

Suilin nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"Here, take the top," Cooter said. He reached beneath McGwire's shoulders and lifted the corpse with surprising gentleness.

McGwire had been a small woman with sharp features and a fine shimmer of blonde hair. Her head was bare. A bullet had entered beneath her right mastoid at an upward slant that lifted the commo helmet when it exited with a splash of brains.

McGwire's flesh was still warm. Suilin kept his face rigid as his hands took the weight from Cooter.

"Titelbaum," the lieutenant said, "where's your—oh."

The wounded crewman was already offering a flat dispenser of cargo tape. Cooter thrust it into a pocket and grasped the corpse by the boots.

"Okay, turtle," he said as he raised his leg over the side coaming—careful not to step on the comatose soldier on the floor of the compartment. "Easy now. We'll fasten her to the tarp tie-downs."

Cooter paused for a moment on the edge, using a tribarrel to support his elbow. Then he swung his other leg clear and slid from the bulge of the skirts to the ground without jerking or dropping his burden.

Suilin managed to get down with his end also. It was a difficult job, even though he had proper steps for his feet.

Gear—stakes, wire mesh, bedding and the Lord knew what all else—was fastened along the sides of all the combat cars. Cooter spun a few centimeters of tape into a loop and reached behind a footlocker to hook the loop to the hull. He took two turns around McGwire's ankles before snugging them tight to the same tie-down.

A trooper carrying a sub-machinegun and a bandolier of ammunition jogged up to
Daisy Belle
, glancing around warily at the vehicles which snorted and shifted across the bald. "This One-six?" he demanded. "Oh, hi, Coot."

"Yeah, try 'n keep Titelbaum trackin', will you?" the lieutenant said. "He's takin' it pretty hard, you know?"

"Aw, cop," the newcomer muttered, looking past Suilin. "Nandi bought it? Aw, cop."

"Foran's not in great shape neither, but he'll be okay," Cooter said.

The lieutenant's big, capable fingers wrapped tape quickly around McGwire's shoulders.

The corpse leaked on Suilin's hands and wrist. The reporter's face didn't move except for a slight flaring of his nostrils.

Chalkin climbed into the fighting compartment. The barrel of his sub-machinegun rang against the armor. "Dreamer," he said. "None of us'll be okay unless some fairy godmother shows up real quick."

"Okay, let's get back," Cooter said. He touched the reporter's shoulder, turned him. "Dunno how long Junebug's gonna stay here."

He glanced up at the moons. "No longer 'n she has to, I curst well hope."

Suilin found he had a voice. "It gets easier from here?" he asked.

"Naw, but it gets over," the big man said as he waved Suilin ahead of him at the steps of their vehicle.

Suilin paused, looking at the hull beneath the tribarrel he served. He hadn't had a good look at the cartoon painted on the sides of the combat car before. Above
Flamethrower
in crude Gothic letters, a wyvern writhed so that its tail faced forward. Jets of blue fire spouted from both nostrils, and the creature farted a third flame as well.

He wondered whether a bullet would blast away the grinning drawing an instant before another round lifted the top of Dick Suilin's head.

"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."

A deep breath, drawn against the unfamiliar, screen-lighted closeness of the tank turret. "Tootsie Six, over."

Would the AI automatically precede the transmission with a map reference so that the Colonel could respond?
 

"Slug the transmission with our coordinates and execute," she ordered the unit as she stared bleakly at the holographic map filling her main screen.