The Tank Lords(25)

"They can capture Kohang, Captain," Hammer said. "And if they capture a district capital, the National Government is gone. The people who pay us."

Ranson blinked, trying to assimilate the information.

It didn't make any sense. The Consies were beat—beaten good. Multiply what her teams had done at Camp Progress by the full weight of the Regiment—with artillery and perfect artillery targets for a change—and the Conservative Action Movement on Prosperity didn't have enough living members to bury its dead. . . .

"Nobody was expecting it, Captain Ranson," Hammer said. The whiskers on his chin and jowls were white, though the close-cropped hair on the colonel's head was still a sandy brown. "The National Government wasn't, we weren't. It'd been so quiet the past three months that we—"

His eye twitched. "Via!" he cursed. "I thought, and if anybody'd told me different I'd 've laughed at them. I thought the Consies were about to pack it in. And instead they were getting ready for the biggest attack of the war."

"But Colonel," Cooter said. His voice sounded desperate. "They lost. They got their butts kicked."

"Tell that to a bunch of civilians," Hammer said bitterly. "Tell that to your Colonel Banyussuf—the bloody fool!"

Somebody at Central must have spoken to Hammer from out of pick-up range, because the colonel half-turned and snarled, "Then deal with it! Shoot 'em all in the neck if you want!"

He faced around again. For an instant, Ranson stared into eyes as bleak and merciless as the scarp of a glacier. Then Hammer blinked, and the expression was gone; replaced with one of anger and concern. Human emotions, not forces of nature.

"Captain Ranson," he resumed with a formality that would have been frightening to the junior officer were she not drifting again into glassy isolation. "In a week, it'll all be over for the Consies. They'll have to make their peace on any terms they can get—even if that means surrendering for internment by the National Government. But if a district capital falls, there won't be a National Government in a week. All they see—"

Hammer's left hand reached for his eye and clenched into a fist instead. "All they see," he repeated in a voice that trembled between a whisper and a snarl, "is what's been lost, what's been destroyed, what's been disrupted. You and I—"

His hand brushed out in a slighting gesture. "We've expended some ammo, we've lost some equipment. We've lost some people. Objectives cost. Winning costs."

Sergeant Wylde nodded. Blood was seeping from cracks in the Sprayseal which replaced the skin burned from his left shoulder.

"But the politicians and—and what passes for an army, here, they're in a panic. One more push and they'll fold. The people who pay us will fold."

One more push. . . . Ranson thought/said; she wasn't sure whether the words floated from her tongue or across her mind.

"Captain Ranson," Hammer continued, "I don't like the orders I'm about to give you, but I'm going to give them anyway. Kohang has to be relieved soonest, and you're the only troops in position to do the job."

June Ranson was sealed in crystal, a tiny bead that glittered as it spun aimlessly through the universe. "Sir," said the voice from her mouth, "there's the 4th Armored at Camp Victory. A brigade. There's the Yokel 12th and 23rd Infantry closer than we are."

Her voice was enunciating very clearly. "Sir, I've got eight blowers."

"Elements of the 4th Armored are attempting to enter Kohang from the south," Hammer said. "They're making no progress."

"How hard are they trying?" shouted Cooter. "How hard are they bloody trying?"

"It doesn't matter," Ranson thought/said.

"Lieutenant, that doesn't matter," said Hammer, momentarily the man who'd snarled at an off-screen aide. "They're not doing the job. We're going to. That's what we're paid to do."

"Cooter," said Ranson, "shut up."

She shouldn't say that with other people around. Screw it. She focused on the hologram. "Sir," she said, "what's the enemy strength?"

"We've picked up the callsigns of twenty-seven Consie units in and around Kohang, company-size or battalion," Hammer said, in a tone of fractured calm. "The data's been downloaded to you already."

Bestwick glanced up from the console behind the projected image and nodded; Ranson continued to watch her commanding officer.

"Maybe three thousand bandits," Ranson said.

"Maybe twice that," Hammer said, nodding as Ranson was nodding. "Concentrated on the south side and around Camp Victory."