He’d fallen hard, finally, right in the path of one of the advancing ore mills. The treads rose a hundred feet high, clanking iron links rumbling like the end of the world. Around him, the explosions were still going off, blasting black gashes in the red-brown stone and dirt—the jerry-rigged mortar operators having found their range. He’d been rescued in plenty of time by a recovery team flying a heavy lifter, but he would never forget the image of those treads grinding down on him, his own hands pressed to the cockpit glass, staring past them at the mill pilot in his bubble, the two of them watching each other, waiting to see what would happen next.
EVEN IN HIS PANIC, Carter’d been able to count the explosions blossoming below him on Iaxo. There’d been four of them, walking in a line. And then four more, oblique to him, off his right wing, opening outward and upward and, at a distance—too far away to hurt him—really rather beautiful. Down on the ground, he knew, it would seem like something different entirely.
He poked a shaky finger at the radio, clacking it twice, and adjusted his headset and collar. “Control, this is Roadrunner. Do you copy?”
“Roadrunner, this is control. We copy.” Diane still, her professional voice unfazed, even by the screaming. “What is your status?”
“I’m five-by-five. Just shook up, but still in flight and on-target. My flight electronics are out. Can you see where I am?”
“We’re trying to reboot you from here, Roadrunner, but I’ve got you smooth and level at ten-two-five off the deck, heading thirty-eight degrees east by double north, west of target six-point-five miles, closing angle.” A pause. “Also, biologicals show you pissed yourself. Nice going there, hotshot.”
Bloom of shame in Carter’s cheeks not at all unlike the bloom of artillery shells in the distance. “You want to come up here and try flying for me, Diane?” Everyone pisses themselves on night missions, Carter thought. Everyone. “Jesus Christ, like I need this from some dumb—”
Diane interrupted. “Roadrunner, control. Hold for the commander. Diane out.”
Historically speaking, hearing Ted’s voice almost never meant one was about to receive good news. All the pilots knew this, discussed it at length sometimes when there was nothing else worth talking about. Bearer of shit and ill tidings was Ted Prinzi. Like Fenn had said, bad news walking.
“Carter?”
“Ted. What the f—”
“Stand down, Captain.”
“Artillery, Ted.”
“You’ve got one of Billy’s maps with you, Carter, yeah?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Map, Carter. Have one?”
“Artillery.”
“Map, Captain.”
“Artillery, goddammit. Artillery!”
“Map.”
Carter took a breath. “Yeah, map. Why?”
“Good. There’s a series of hills then, should be on your nose almost. North-nor’east of the ford a few thousand yards, dead west twenty-two miles from Southbend. Elevation near two hundred ten, ranging about four miles. See it?”
With his flight electronics out, there was no light to see by, so Carter had to fish a mini flashlight out of his jacket one-handed. When he found it, he stuck it in his mouth, then checked the map taped to his thigh, tracing Ted’s directions with his finger and finding the hills—the first line of them rising just beyond the reach of the forested bank of the river.
“Got it,” he said, keeping the place with his finger, free hand juggling the stick, and speaking around the light held in his teeth. “Why?”
“Because we think the natives have just discovered artillery.”
“Didn’t I just tell you that?”
“No, I’m telling you, Captain. Right now. It’s nothing fancy, we don’t think.”
“Nothing fancy,” Carter repeated.
“That’s what we think.”
“We? Who else you got in there with you, Ted? I’m telling you right now. Durba’s position was just hit by artillery fire. Saw it myself.”
“Right,” Ted continued, and it suddenly occurred to Carter that Ted was working off some kind of honcho-in-crisis script, something issued by corporate, kept in a locked drawer in a yellow folder, To be opened in the event of… Or maybe it was just in his head; a thing he’d practiced, that he’d been cooking up for months.
“As I said, we don’t think it’s anything fancy. Field cannon and the like. Simple howitzers. But that’s a rather precocious leap, technologically speaking, from bows and fucking arrows, don’t you think?”
A script. He’d rehearsed it, alone at night in his one-man commander’s tent, standing balls-out naked in front of a full-length mirror and standing in his uniform. Cleaning his fake teeth in the morning, mumbling snatches of it into the cold air. Lying in his bed at night, straight as a board, mouthing it like talking dirty to a lover in the dark. Sound tough, make hard jokes, be confident, be strong, act like a man, like the worst actor of all time.