The War for Profit Series Omnibus (20 page)

Sevin’s decision became clear. The lead tank destroyer blinked off the screen. Then tank zero one blinked off the screen. The last tank destroyer turned east and ran at top speed along the river bank. Galen checked his auxiliary status screen. Sevin had been in the tank alone, operating it with the commander’s override controls. His status was black. Dead.

“Jones, can we go any faster?”

“This is it, Chief. We got a problem with the left final drive and the track tension is a little sloppy on that side. The computer won’t let us roll any faster.”

Galen studied the situation map. He checked the estimated speed of the enemy vehicle. It would catch up to them before they reached the perimeter of the main body. But three zero was the only operational tank left on the situation map. The task of stopping the tank destroyer was Galen’s.

“Stop, driver. Pivot a half-left and pull a half a klick up into the draw.”

Jones did as instructed.

“Okay, whip it around and back up into the trees. Get us in real good.”

The Hornet was parked facing the river, dense crab apple trees and higher ground on three sides. Galen had a nice view down to the river and was high enough to see the river bank where it met the water. He’d have a clear shot at the MS-100’s left flank.

“Tad, charge seven.”

The MS-100 came at full speed. It was tilted to the right, its right track splashing in the river’s water. Galen waited, waited until he was sure of a good hit. He fired the laser cannon and scored a hit at the base of the hull between the road wheels. A hot glob of metal splayed the inside of the vehicle. The laser bolt was strong enough to continue through the right side of the hull and explode river water into a geyser of steam. The MS-100 veered right and drove into the river with a dead driver at its controls. It continued to shove itself into the river until its piston engine drowned with river water. Its symbol disappeared from the situation map.

The Hornet’s main power was off for fifteen seconds and then came back on line. Galen spoke into his hand mike, “Jones, we can join the main body now. But take it easy, there’s no hurry.”

“Roger, Chief.”

Tad gripped Galen’s shoulder, “Nice shot.”

“I do my best. Did you see Sevin’s work?”

“Yeah. He did well. Too bad he didn’t make it.”

“He knew he wouldn’t make it. But he had to do it. He knew we’d be dog meat if he didn’t do it.”

“I think so.” Tad looked up.

“He knew he wouldn’t make it,” said Galen, in a voice too low for anyone else to hear. “He knew.”

A high-pitched loud monotone tone alarm came from somewhere behind the situation map monitor. Galen pressed the alarm-acknowledge key and looked at the screen. A free-text message appeared at the bottom.

“GO BN FREAK.”

Galen twisted to his left and used the middle finger of his right hand to stab the battalion command frequency into the numerical keypad of his receiver-transmitter. “Romeo eight Juliet six niner, this is nine three tango three zero. Request permission to enter your net. Over.”

“Cut the crap, Chief Raper. War’s over.”

“Last calling station, authenticate papa six, over.”

There was a pause, dead air space. “I authenticate tango alpha x-ray over.”

“And with whom am I speaking?” Galen decided to dispense with proper radio procedure, mostly for the hell of it.

“I’m Major Ross. Come to my location and stand down. Get some rest. Extraction is tomorrow.”

“Say again last transmission.” For the benefit of Sergeant Boggs and the three light infantry troops on the back deck of the tank, Galen switched on the external loud speakers and cranked the volume.

“I say again, this is Major Ross. Come to my location and stand down for some rest. Extraction is tomorrow. And I say again, cut the crap, Chief Raper.”

He turned the external speakers off. “Roger out.”

They arrived at the camp of the main body of the task force. The sun was just starting to come up over the mountains at the head of the valley. There was just one machine gun set up for perimeter defense, more of a courtesy gate guard to greet groups of stragglers or lone vehicles as they entered the area. The guard on duty was a panzer grenadier and he halted Galen’s tank when it pulled up. “Halt. Apple.”

Galen thought for a moment. “Chalk!”

“Right, Chief. You can park by those other cans down by the river bank. Then go check in with the Major.”

“This tank is no can, troop.”

The troop sneered, “Anything with tracks is a can.”

Galen remembered how the troop’s infantry carrier had been destroyed earlier. He decided to ignore the insubordination. “Move it, driver. Get us parked.”

There were six tanks already by the river. Two were missing turrets but apparently still ran because tow-chains connected them to the other four. One tank seemed still intact except the outside was covered with burn marks and bubbles in the ablative coating. The recovered tanks were little more than hulls and fusion bottles. However, the most salvageable and most expensive parts of the tanks were the fusion bottles. Crews were relatively cheap to replace.

Galen dismounted and walked over to the Major. The Major sat on the ground beside his pup-tent nibbling at a ration bar. Galen stopped in front of the field-grade officer and stood at attention. “Sir. Chief Raper reports.”

“Have a seat, Chief.” The Major picked up his field commander’s combat-portable noteputer and poked at the keypad.

Galen squatted and consulted notes he had scribbled on his hand with an ink stick. “Sir, I brought in Chief Miller, he’s wounded, and Sergeant Boggs and Trooper Jones from recon. From alpha light’s second platoon I brought in Corporal Nelson, Trooper McKinney and Trooper Murrell.”

The Major made some entries on his noteputer. “Good.”

“Sir, how did the battle go, exactly?”

“The Mosh commander got ambitious. He made an all-out attack against us, hoping to get by us and capture our boats. Didn’t work, though. You stopped them.”

“Glad to hear it. Too bad about Sevin.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw his tank get wasted on the situation map. My auxiliary status screen showed him as black.”

“How far were you from him when he supposedly died?”

“About nine klicks.”

“Well let me explain something. Usually information is passed between vehicles on short-range commo. When units are more spread out the ship in orbit handles the transfer of information on a redundant system and the two systems update each other.”

“Sir?”

“When Sevin’s tank was destroyed it no longer communicated. The transmitter on his election seat was too weak to reach the ship or you. He was too far away.”

“So he’s okay!”

“Yes. Go back to his last known location and recover him. There’s no hurry. We don’t extract for another nineteen hours.”

Galen stood and walked off.

The Major called after him and he stopped and turned. “Chief, while you’re out there you should pick up all the combat suits and ejection seats you might happen to see laying around.”

***

Two weeks later Tad, Galen and Spike sat together at a table in the Jasmine Panzer Brigade mess hall on the Jasmine Panzer Brigade compound on Mandarin.

“Good chow,” said Tad. He poured maple syrup on his French toast.

“Real food for a change,” said Galen. He put extra salt on his over-easy eggs. He broke the yolks and sopped up the runny yellow mass with a buttermilk biscuit.

“We ate better in flight school.”

“I’ll bet you did, Spike,” said Tad.

“Well we did. Are you coming to my promotion this afternoon?”

“Yes. It’s about time you caught up to me and Galen. Galen, you coming to see Spike get promoted to Chief?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What do you mean ‘maybe?’ You have to be there.”

Galen took a gulp of milk. “He didn’t come to my promotion.”

Spike looked indignant and Tad glared at Galen.

Galen smiled and said, “Ask a stupid question and get a stupid answer. Of course I’ll be there. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Well,” said Spike, “I’m done with training and I’ll be sent out to a direct air support squadron in the fleet. I have to report next week but I’m off until then. Probably have to fight on Grange, if things heat up.”

“Have a good time. Tomorrow Tad and I report to the Master Sergeant’s School to train for company-level command. Good thing we came in this morning or we’d have to wait until the next cycle.”

“I thought you two were applying for officer rank.”

“No,” said Tad. “We have to be with the Panzers for a year before we can apply.”

“Your year will be up in two months. The Master Sergeant course is three months long. I’m sure the Colonel would agree to save himself a few credits and let you go through the officer training program instead. It’s only a month long. The unit could have you back out in the fleet sooner that way; makes perfectly good economic sense to me.”

Tad’s mouth was full of bacon so Galen responded, “I’m not sure if I want to be a commissioned officer. I’m already a perfectly good NCO. I’m proficient and respected. Why should I give that up?”

“Greater pay and benefits.”

“My pay is adequate. Besides, commissioned officers don’t get contract shares.”

Tad spoke, “Spike, we aren’t chicken and we haven’t lost our nerve. We just aren’t in a big hurry to head back out to the fleet. We want to take it easy on Mandarin for a while. Three months of school and then three months in the field here and then maybe we’ll check on the officer angle. Or maybe not. We just don’t want to decide right now, okay?”

“Okay, I understand. Take some sham time.”

“Damn right we’ll take some sham time.”

Tad and Galen walked from the chow hall towards their barracks. Spike stayed in the chow hall to eat breakfast with his new flight school friends. As Tad and Galen walked past the athletic field they heard a voice. The sound was raspy and low and that caught their attention all the more because they could just barely hear it.

“Hey you two, come here.”

They looked. Major Ross wore a jogging suit and running shoes and sat on a bench just inside the chain-link fence of the athletic field. The expression on his flat, ruddy face was serious. He leaned forward and waved them closer.

“I need your help, but keep this quiet.”

Tad stood looking through the fence with his face an inch from it. Galen was tall enough to see over and leaned on the fence so he could hear the Major more clearly.

Major Ross stood and came closer to them. He was shorter than Tad and looked dumpy in his athletic suit because the sleeves were a little too long. “There’s a new contract. I want you two for my operations section. Day shift,” he pointed at Galen, “and night shift,” he pointed at Tad.

Galen looked at Major Ross and said, “I need to know more about this before I can make a decision. We’re scheduled for Master Sergeant School next week.”

The Major waved his left hand as though he were annoyed by gnats. “You don’t need any school. With your backgrounds you’re both qualified to command this whole Brigade. This assignment is for Operations Sergeant Majors so I’ll get waivers and promote you before we leave. Just give me the word and it’s yours.”

Tad said, “Well, what is the deal, Sir? I mean, I’m in, I’d go serve anywhere with you but right now I don’t have enough to make a decision.”

Major Ross said, “Then listen up. Myung Jin transport is building a spaceport on Alamo. That’s about halfway up the far arm and on the edge of Mosh territory. The majority of the Panzer Brigade’s non-armored tactical units will be there providing security for about 1200 Mandarin workers. You two will be my assistants in the operations center for the whole operation.”

Galen said, “Sounds risky, with them sticking a toe in Mosh space.”

Major Ross took a deep breath. “We’ll cover them for 12 months and then we’re out of there. My guess is the Mosh will wait until the spaceport is built before they take it for themselves. We should be long gone by then, relieved by Mandarin regulars.”

“A year?” Tad asked.

“A year on the ground. You’ll spend about three months in stasis on the way there to preserve your combat skills. Then you’ll spend three months in stasis on the way back. It will only seem like one year to you. And I’ll credit you another six months off your contract for volunteering for this challenging assignment.”

Galen asked, “How does that work?”

“You get paid to be unconscious for six months and I promote you two grades immediately and on top of all that I chop six more months off your five year contract. Don’t make me smack you for being stupid. This is a sweet deal.”

Tad punched Galen on the shoulder. “We’ll take it, sir.”

“Okay. We leave in eight days. Be outside my office packed and ready to go at zero four thirty Monday morning next week.”

“Roger,” said Galen, an affirmative response to hearing and understanding an order.

The Major pulled a noteputer from his pocket and made entries on it while Tad and Galen walked away. Galen did some mental calculations and figured that at the end of this new contract he’d have just over two years left on his contract. He didn’t want to insult Tad’s math skills by mentioning it to him. The two friends walked along in silence.