The lower half of June Ranson's visor was a fairy procession of lanterns. They hung from tractor-drawn carts and bicycles laden with cargo.
"Action front!" Ranson warned. She was probably the only person in the unit who was trying to follow a remote viewpoint as well as keeping watch on her immediate surroundings.
The reflected cyan crackle from Deathdealer's stabilized tribarrel provided an even more effective warning.
The main road from the southwest into la Reole and its bridge across the Santine Estuary was studded with figures and crude vehicles. Hundreds of civilians, guided—guarded—by a few black-clad guerrillas, were lugging building materials uphill to the Consie siege lines.
The lead tank of Task Force Ranson had just snarled into view of them.
Sparrow's first burst must have come from the bellowing darkness so far as the trio of Consies, springing to their feet from a lantern-lit guardpost, were concerned. The guerrillas spun and died at the roadside while civilians gaped in amazement. Without light-enhanced optics, the tank cresting a plowed knoll 500 meters away was only sound and a flicker of lethal cyan.
Civilians flung down their bicycles and sought cover in the ditches beside the road. Bagged cement; hundred-kilo loads of reinforcing rods; sling-loads of brick—building materials necessary for a work of destruction—lay as ungainly lumps on the pavement.
The loads had been pushed for kilometers under the encouragement of armed Consies. Bicycle wheels spun lazily in the air.
A rifleman stood up on a tractor-drawn cart and fired in the general direction of Deathdealer. Sparrow's tribarrel spat bolts at a building on the ridgeline, setting off a fuel pump in a fireball.
Ranson, Janacek, and at least two gunners from car One-five, the left outrider, answered the rifleman simultaneously.
The Consie's head and torso disappeared with a blue stutter. The canned goods which filled the bed of the cart erupted in a cloud of steam. The tractor continued its plodding uphill progress. Its driver had jumped off and was running down the road, screaming and waving his arms in the air.
There were no trucks or buses visible in the convoy. The Consies must have commandeered ordinary transport for more critical purposes, using makeshifts to support the sluggish pace of siegework.
In the near distance to the east of Task Force Ranson, the glare of a powergun waked cyan echoes from high clouds. One of the weapons which the Consies had brought up to bombard la Reole—a pedestal-mounted powergun. The weapon was heavy enough to hole a tank or open a combat car like a can of sardines. . . .
"Booster!" Ranson shouted to her AI. "Fire mission Able. Break. Tootsie Three, call in Fire Mission Able directly—in clear—as soon as you raise Camp Progress. Break. All Tootsie elements, follow the road. They can't 've mined it if they're using it like this. Go! Go! Go!"
Warmonger bucked and scraped the turf before clearing a high spot. Willens had wicked up his throttles. Though he'd lifted the car for as much ground clearance as possible, Warmonger's present speed guaranteed a bumpy ride on anything short of a pool table.
Speed was life now. These terrified civilians and their sleepy guards had nothing to do with the mission of Task Force Ranson, but a single lucky slug could cause an irreplaceable casualty. Colonel Hammer was playing this game with table stakes. . . .
In the roar of wind and gunfire, Ranson hadn't been able to hear the chirp of her AI transmitting.
If it had transmitted. If the electronics of a combat car jolting along at speed were good enough to bounce a transmission a thousand kays north from a meteor track. If Fire Central would relay the message to Camp Progress in time. If the hog at Camp Progress . . .
Two men shot at Warmonger from the ditch across the road.
Ranson fired back. Bolts ripped from the rotating muzzles of her powergun and vanished from her sight. It wasn't until the lower half of her visor blacked momentarily and the upper half quivered with cyan reflections that she realized that she'd been aiming at the remote image from Deathdealer.
Part of June Ranson's mind wondered what her bolts had hit, might have hit. The part in physical control continued to squeeze the butterfly trigger of her powergun and watch the cyan light vanish in the divided darkness of her mind. . . .
The night ahead of Dick Suilin was lit spitefully by the fire of the other armored vehicles. He clung to the coaming of Flamethrower's fighting compartment with his left hand; his right rested on the grip of his tribarrel, but his thumb was curled under his fingers as if to prevent it from touching the trigger.
There were no signs of Consies shooting back, but a farm tractor had collapsed into a fuel fire that reminded Suilin of the bus after his bolts raked it.
Oh dear Lord. Oh dear Lord.