The Tank Lords(10)

"Remaining Blue elements," Ranson concluded, "hold what you got, boys. We got to take care of this now, but we'll be back. Tootsie Six over."

Remaining Blue elements. The maintenance and logistics people, the medic and the light-duty personnel. The people who were crouched now in bunkers with their sidearms and their prayers, hoping that when the armored vehicles shifted front, the Consies wouldn't be able to mount another attack on the Slammer positions.

"Deathdealer, roger."

"Charlie Three-zero, roger."

"Herman's Whore, roger," Ortnahme reported. He didn't much like being under the command of Birdie Sparrow, a flake who was technically his junior; but Sparrow was a flake because of years of line service, and it wasn't a point that the warrant leader would even think of mentioning after it all settled down again.

Assuming.

He switched to intercom. "You heard the lady, Simkins," he said. "Lift us over the bloody berm!"

And as the fan note built from idle into a full-throated roar, Ortnahme went back to looking for targets.



The combat car drove a plume of dust from the berm as it started to back and swing. The man who'd been firing the forward tribarrel turned so that Dick Suilin could see the crucifix gilded onto the plastron of his body armor. He flipped up his visor and said, "Who the cop're you?"

"I'm, ah—" the reporter said.

His ears rang. Afterimages like magnified algae rods filled his eyes as his retinas tried to redress the chemical imbalances burned into them by the glaring powerguns.

He waggled the smoking muzzle of the grenade launcher.

That must have been the right response. The man with the crucifix looked at the trooper who'd guided Suilin to the vehicle and said, "Where the cop's Speed, Otski?"

The wing gunner grimaced and said, "Well, Cooter, ah—his buddy in Logistics got in, you know, this morning."

"Bloody buggered fool!" Cooter shouted. He'd looked a big man even when he hunched over his tribarrel; straightening in rage made him a giant. "Tonight he's stoned?"

"Cut him some slack, Cooter," Otski said, looking aside rather than meeting the bigger soldier's eyes. "This ain't the Strip, you know."

Suilin rubbed his forehead. The Strip. The no-man's-land surrounding the Terran Government enclaves in the north.

"Tonight it's the bleeding Strip!" Cooter snapped.

Cooter's helmet spoke something that was only a tinny rattle to Suilin. "Tootsie Three, roger," the big man said. Otski nodded.

A multiple explosion hammered the center of the camp. Munitions hurled themselves in sparkling tracks from a bubble of orange flame.

"Blood 'n martyrs," Cooter muttered as angry light bathed his weary face.

He lifted a suit of hard armor from the floor of the fighting compartment. "Here," he said to Suilin, "put this on. Wish I could give you a helmet, but that dickhead Speed's got it with him."

Their combat car was sidling across the packed earth, keeping its bow southward—toward the flames and the continued shooting. The car passed close to where Fritzi Dole lay. The photographer's clothing swelled in the draft blasting from beneath the plenum chamber.

Dust whipped and eddied. The other combat cars were maneuvering also, forming a line. Here at the narrow end of the encampment, the separations between vehicles were only about ten meters apiece.

"The gun work?" Cooter demanded, patting the breech of the tribarrel as Suilin put on the unfamiliar armor. The clamshell seemed to weigh more than its actual twenty kilos; it was chafing over his left collarbone even before he got it latched.

"Huh?" the reporter grunted. "I think—I mean, I don't—"

Making a bad guess now meant someone might die rather than just a libel suit.

Meant Dick Suilin might die.

"Oh, right," Cooter said easily. He poked with a big finger at where the gun's receiver was gimballed onto its pedestal. A green light glowed just above the trigger button. "No sweat, turtle. I'll just slave it to mine. You just keep bombin' 'em like you been doing."

The helmet buzzed again. "Tootsie Three, roger," Cooter repeated. He tapped the side of his helmet and ordered, "Move out, Shorty, but keep it to a walk, right?"

Cooter and Otski bent over their weapons. When the big trooper waggled his handgrips, the left tribarrel rocked in parallel with his own.

"What are we doing?" Suilin asked, swaying as the combat car moved forward. The big vehicle had the smooth, unpleasant motion of butter melting as a grill heats.

The reporter pulled another loaded clip from the bandolier to have it ready. He squinted toward the barracks ahead of them, silhouetted in orange light.