David Drake - The Forlorn Hope

"That's the last," whispered Lieutenantben Mehdi. The officer followed the trooper Waldstejn had just clapped forward by rote. "I'll stay and pick up the rear guard."

A rocket corkscrewed overhead, then plunged into the ground a hundred meters away. The white ball of the explosion was momentary but so intense that the shock wave a third of a second later seemed to be an echo. The near impact was chance. The federal soldier who launched the missile had lost control of it either through lack of training or because one of the mercenary rear guard had put a roundclose enough to the rocketeer to make him drop his controls.

Muzzle flashes lighted the face of the Complex and most of the Garrison Battalion's bunkers. Occasionally a soldier threw the switch on each assault rifle magazine which ignited the bullet jackets in a stream of blue-green tracers from the muzzle. That was rare, however, because it was certain to draw fire from one or a score of his ill-trained comrades. It was impossible to be sure what was going on at the truck park almost a kilometer away.

"Waldstejn?" ben Mehdi said, trying to prompt a response from the Cecach lieutenant.

Albrecht Waldstejn blinked beneath his goggles. Grit scooped from the ground by the near miss was drifting across the men. "Right," Waldstejn said. "Keep your head down." He scrambled off to join the last of the troopers following Sergeant Mboko.

Hussein ben Mehdi watched the firefight, trying to detach his mind from what was going on within the compound. When a stray bulletbrred overhead, his hand tightened on the sweaty grip of his own grenade launcher. In general, the Lieutenant could pretend that it was a game, a light show.

He risked a quick glance up the way the other had gone. By daylight, they should all be clear, thanks be to Allah… and to the path that Fasolini's instincts had provided. "Allahreceive you, Guido." the mercenary muttered. "If you were not a saint, then at least at the end you gave as much for your people as the Christ did for his."

Hodicky reached for the truck. Something cracked like a heart breaking on the side of it. That was surely a stray round, but the little private hunched over and ran to the next vehicle anyway.

Although the cargo bay of the ore hauler loomed high and wide behind it, the cab was only a step from the ground while the vehicle rested on its skirts. Visibility from the cab was not a factor since most of the time the vehicle tracked automatically across a line of pylons. For maneuvering in close quarters like the truck park, there were TV cameras at each corner of the cargo bay.

The cab lay-out was simple. Hodicky flipped on the battery switch to energize the controls and instruments. He did not turn on the lights. His goggles and the instrument glow let him see what he was doing well enough without drawing fire. Hodicky had driven induction-powered trucks before-never this big, and never in a lot so tight. But no one was going to complain about scraped metal tonight, the Virgin knew.

The little private twisted the joy stick to align the receiving antenna with the broadcast pylon at the gate. The cab door sprang open. Hodicky screamed and lurched around with his arms thrown up.

"You all right, Pavel?" asked Private Quade. His nose wrinkled. "Jesus Christ, what is it stinks in here?"

Hodicky licked his lips. "Go start the next one, Q," he said. "I'll have this moving in a bit." He could worry about clean trousers some other time.

"Hell, I never drove anything, Pavel," Quade admitted. He turned his head away. "I just came because… you couldof got hurt."

"I-" Hodicky said. "Keep an eye out." He turned back to the antenna control, making a final adjustment and then pressing the switch that should transfer the vehicle to external power. There was a lurch as the drive fans beneath the bay came on line automatically. The blades began to sing as they ran up to idle speed. "Watch it now, Q," Hodicky warned. He twisted the knob which should increase the power and bite angle of the fans.

The air cushion which the fans built under the skirts lifted the huge vehicle a few millimeters off the ground. It skidded forward, not yet in perfect balance. The left side almost at once scraped down the next vehicle over. Metal screamed.

The would-be driver swore and twisted at the wheel while he fed in more power. He over-corrected and Quade, on the ground, had barely enough time to throw himself out of the way as the right side dragged.

If the wheel were released, the truck would swing itself onto the pylon corridor. It would ignore obstacles in doing so, however, and it would have locked itself against the adjacent vehicles. Hodicky twisted savagely at the wheel again, wondering if the auto-pilot could possibly have done a worse job than he was managing himself.

Part of the distant rear of the cargo bay tore free. The truck lurched ahead. Hodicky released the wheel and felt the vehicle swing with glassy smoothness. The windshield was fogged by acid grime from the smelter, but through it he could see the closed gate a hundred meters away. The rifle of one of the guards there flashed. The entire panel of the truck window disintegrated, spraying the cab with fragments of pin-head size and smaller.

Hodicky threw himself out the cab door. His toe caught on the coaming. The Private tripped and rolled with a skill he could not have managed deliberately. The fans of the truck blasted dust in his face as it slid past. Weeping, Hodicky scrambled to his feet and ran for the shelter of the remaining vehicles. His rifle and bandolier pounded at the bruises they had left when he hit the ground.

No one shot at him as he ran. Quade was hosing the gate guards with bright cyan streaks of tracer, knowing that would keep their heads down-and that it would concentrate what interest remained on him instead of his friend.

A rocket from the Complex hit the rear of the careening truck. There was a white flash that silhouetted the vehicle. The jet of gas and gaseous metal spurted across the empty cargo bay and out the other side in a dazzling spike. The ore hauler shuddered, but its drive units were untouched. The gyro stabilizer had brought the truck back on an even keel when the cab plowed through the gate.

Even empty, the big ore carrier weighed over twenty tonnes. The chain-link fencing was intended to keep humans out, not vehicles in. The guards were caught between Quade's snapping tracers and the onrushing truck. Some of those who thought they had scrambled clear at the last instant were killed by the gate itself. The hinges gave before the locking chain on the other side. The whole construct of steel wires and stiffening bars sprang away from the cab like a huge flail.

The truck staggered, but it surged on through. The right skirt was trailing and a drive fan screamed as it wrapped itself in wire.

Quade fumbled for a third magazine. He paused with his hand in an empty pouch of his bandolier. He looked around for his friend as he resumed the process of reloading, this time consciously. The door of the next truck in the line was open.

The black-haired man ran to the open cab. The truck bay was creased where Hodicky's first decoy had scraped along it. Soldiers in bunkers over a kilometer away were firing rockets into the truck park, acting more from instinct than awareness. Those which were aimed well enough to hit the broad target detonated with hollow booms. That drew additional fire.

"Pavel, come on, for God's sake!" Quade shouted into the truck cab. His left palm rested on the door jamb. He could feel the vehicle quiver as its fans came on. "One was enough! Come on, they're shelling us!"

"Get out of the way!" Hodicky cried. The truck slid forward as he spoke. The gap in the line beside him let the truck swing even as its drive nudged it into motion. Hodicky could not see for his tears, and his mind was filled with the intake roar of the fans.