A Private Little War(66)

“They get it, Eddie,” Ted said, then to the pilots, “And we’re back to putting our Danny on as well, gentlemen. Just in case.”

Off to the side, Eddie nodded as if he had any idea what Ted was talking about. Ted shrank the map image to half size. He fiddled with this and that. Carter was feeling sick to his stomach. Probably, it was just the hangover.

Point five.

“Speculation,” Ted announced, and then began talking about weapons—those that Durba had lost in the rout, those that had gotten Morris, and how, odds were, these were not the same weapons. He talked of guns and bombs and said many tough things that were lost on Carter just then because all Carter could think about was the image of Morris’s hand blasted away by a bullet, by a kicked-back shard of prop or engine shrapnel punching through the firewall. He couldn’t get his head around the pain it must’ve caused, but he could see the wound in his head, Morris’s face at the moment of realization, the sickly feeling of suddenly seeing a piece of one’s self shattered, blown into hamburger, missing. The faces around him, with the exception of Fenn’s, were all gray. Porter was almost white and was shaking gently in his chair, still nodding, his mouth working even though he’d gone silent again.

At the front of the room, Ted was backing away, turning to Eddie, who had laid a hand on his shoulder and was taking the floor with a grin. Eddie had a laser pointer of his own—small and metal and about the size of a bullet. He toyed with it, walking it back and forth across his knuckles while he talked. It was a trick he probably did in bars to impress girls in places where there were bars and girls to impress.

“All right, guys. Here’s the situation…”

Fuck you and your situation, Carter thought.

“Had the fire come from the guns captured from the rifle position, it would’ve been bad news, but not awful. We would know they had only the three light machine guns and a finite amount of ammunition for them. Only now, we know that the fire came from four guns, not three, and that the rounds recovered from flight leader Vaughn’s plane were of a larger caliber than those used by Antoinne. They were…”

He paused, looked back at the podium where Carter thought he probably had a stack of notes stashed: Be casual. Smile. Curse more. And a list of nomenclatures under the double-underlined heading, NOMENCLATURES. He aimed his pointer at the projection screen. A picture of a Federated Arms light support gun came up, a belt-fed 8 mm.

“Nope,” Eddie said. “Not that one. Dammit.” He waved the pointer around until another image swelled: a water-cooled .30 caliber antiaircraft machine gun. Simple but tough, efficient, easy to maintain, and the least necessary application of force to counter the advantage given by the company’s heretofore uncontested command of the skies over Iaxo.

“Okay,” Eddie said. “There we go. It was probably something closer to this.”

Ted grumbled something under his breath that none of the pilots could hear. Carter silently measured in his head. A .30-caliber round was about as long as his middle finger, as big around as his pinky. Almost identical to the ammunition in his own plane’s guns, the difference essentially cosmetic. Eye for an eye.

“We also know from Captain Carter’s flight that the Lassateirra faction had field artillery pieces at their disposal. Reports from survivors of Antoinne’s unit estimate something in the…” Eddie checked his notes again.

“One-oh-fives,” Ted said. “Modern shells, trained gunners or computer rangefinders, imported tubes and hardware mounted with native carriage. Least force, most bang.”

Eddie nodded. “Exactly. There were four that we hit, but there’s no reason to think there’s not more out there. Also, on the night you guys hit the artillery position, Captain Carter took ground fire from crossbows using imported arrows.”

“Bolts,” Ted corrected.

“Bolts,” said Eddie, tapping his notes with the tip of his pointer. “Right. Says that right here. Aluminum shaft, steel tip.”

There was sniggering in the ranks—first sign of life in some time. Fenn, suddenly awake, leaned over to Carter and whispered, “Geez, Kev. Why didn’t you tell me? Being shot at by crossbows? Sounds so dangerous. Why, all you had to defend yourself with was an airplane, a couple of machine guns, and a whole wing of bombers overhead. You’re so brave.”

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Carter grunted. He crossed his arms over his chest.

Eddie plowed on. “Right. So anyway, this is serious. Corporate has been suspicious for some time that someone had finally gotten through to the Lassateirra with off-world supplies, but until this morning we didn’t know who or what or how much.”