David Drake - The Forlorn Hope

The cable lay in tangled sections beside the upright truck. Some lengths were still reeved through holes punched in the side. By looping the cable around braces and putting men on both ends to pull, the Company had managed to right the truck with a concerted heave. Waldstejn had supposed that they would need to double-loop the cables, using sturdy vegetation for mechanical advantage in lieu of proper blocks and tackle. Fifty strong, disciplined humans had proved to be all the advantage required.

There were no obvious signs of what had been the truck's cargo.

The low-ball snapped past the three of them, close enough that a puff of exhaust from its engine dried the corneas of Waldstejn's eyes. It was moving much faster than the ordinary survey drone which Trooper Powers had brought down. Even from his height, Waldstejn could follow its course with his eyes for only a second or two before it was gone. He lowered his arms, but it was a moment before he remembered to relax the rictus into which his face had formed itself when he tried to smile.

"Goddam," muttered Jirik Quade. He was knuckling the muscles of his own taut belly with his head bent over. Quade's pain was real enough, but it had nothing to do with physical fear. The black-haired soldier had to become an actor in a few minutes. He was out of his depth, part of a complex scheme at which all of his instincts rebelled. He did not understand the whole plan, and he was desperately afraid that he would not be able to handle his role. But the stakes were clear: the certainty that Pavel and the Lieutenant would die if he did not carry out the act.

Pavel Hodicky had been waving also. "They'll make another pass," he said in a fast, detached voice. "The drone approached from the east, so the ground units will come from the east too. Even if the drones have infra-red, they won't pick up anyone but us, because Lieutenantben Mehdi says Cecach technology isn't up to-"

Waldstejn put a gentle hand on the little private's shoulder. The younger man was shivering. "That's right, Pavel." the officer said. "See, the high one's orbiting already-" he pointed. "In a few-sure, here it comes."

Water sloshed against both narrow banks of the stream. The drone angled back up the valley so low and tight that its wing-tips trailed twigs. Its nose cap was flat black, uncamouflaged and permeable to the full assortment of sensors which might be included in its instrument package. For an instant, the drone pointed directly at the truck. Waldstejn saw a blurred flash of the terrain behind the aircraft through the cowling of the turbofan. Then the drone pitched and was gone, whipping soots and smoke from the fires high enough to make the men cough.

Then there was silence in the valley, and nothing moved except by pressure of the wind.

Private Hodicky took a deep breath. "You know, sir?" he said in a normal voice. "I thought they'd shell us when they found us. Shell us first, I mean. I know they'd send somebody by to pick up the pieces later…" He gave Waldstejn a wan grin.

The young officer laughed. He thumped the heels of his hands together in an instinctive attempt to loosen his muscles. "Tell you what, soldier," he admitted, "I was guessing fifty-fifty myself on that. Eagles, a patrol checks us out, crowns they target the next salvo on this truck instead of up there at the mine." He waved.

"Hell, shells or no shells, what's it matter?" asked Private Quade off-handedly. "We're sitting on a bomb, ain't we?"

It was an honest comment, not a gush of pessimism forced into words by fear. Jirik Quade's fears had little to do with the lethal hardware they were juggling. But his words tightened the insides of his two companions.

Churchie Dwyer had expected the induction roar and the higher-pitched howl of the fans themselves as they pumped air into the plenum chamber at pressures so high that steel floated on it. He had not expected the oncoming tank to shake the ground beneath it without any direct contact.

"Black Three," he said, touching his key. He was not sure the tiny transmitter in his helmet would carry down to the Lieutenant, not with him flat on his belly in a slit trench like he was. "Vehicles approaching, estimate thirty kph-" that was slow, must have backed off the throttle when they got close- "estimate several vehicles."

Beside Dwyer, Del Hoybrin stretched out his arms to grasp the forward corners of their cover sheet. Churchie had carefully strewn the top of the microns-thick fabric with loam and foliage before they crawled beneath it into the cramped trench. The sheet would blur to match its surroundings more slowly but with even greater delicacy than their uniforms did; but the veteran figured that in a pinch, nothing looked more like dirt than dirt did. Now gusts eddying beneath the skirts of the approaching vehicle swept across the light soil and caused the sheet itself to flutter.

Tanks were hideously expensive and in short supply for exploiting the main breakthrough. Therefore, Waldstejn's quick appraisal had left the Company in reasonable hope that the pursuit _would be limited to light, indigenously-produced armor, vulnerable to their shoulder weapons. But they could handle a tank also, so long as "Lead vehicle is a tank," Churchie reported, but he was unable to hear his own voice. The muddy daylight through bare patches of the cover sheet was blotted out. The roar was palpable as the huge armored vehicle slid across the trench on its cushion of air. The cover sheet molded itself to the mercenaries like a coat of body paint. It rammed them down with a pressure which though uniform forced a wordless scream from Dwyer's throat..

Then it was past. Brush whanged and popped against the skirts of the next vehicle, an armored personnel carrier which slipped along at a respectful distance from the tank. Equally large, the APC lacked the tank's massive armor and weaponry. Its crew and infantry complement scanned the brush through vision blocks, uneasily aware that because the tank was proof against most weaponry, a band of cornered fugitives might hit the APC first in hopes of dying with their teeth in a throat.

The personnel carrier slid over the trench. Its fans were powered by gas turbines and not by a fusion bottle like that of the tank. Its passage was a caress by comparison with that of the heavier vehicle. With the hatches buttoned up, it was difficult to see the ground even at a distance from the vehicle. If anyone aboard tried, whirling dust hid the outlines of the mercenaries.

It did not occur to Del Hoybrin to try to report. Churchie handled that sort of thing. Dwyer was only half conscious. Blood drooled from his left nostril.

There were five more armored personnel carriers ripping stolidly through scrub already bulldozed by the lead tank. Then, closing the column with the scarred, brutal assurance of the townbully, came the one they could not count on dealing with.

The Rubes must really want them bad, Dwyer thought muzzily, to sendtwo tanks after the Company.

"Ooh, Daddy Krishna, that's a big mother," murmured Trooper David Cooper.

"Tell me about it," agreed his shelter-mate, Grigor Pavlovich. "You know, if we hadn't left the gun behind, they'd be expecting us to do something about that bitch ourselves. And goddam if I know what we'd do except get eat up."

The troopers who had been actually overrun by the Republican armor had a worse view of the vehicles than many others in the Company. As the Cecach lieutenant-was he a captain?-had said, there were Rubes any way they moved, so it was a toss-up where a patrol would be vectored in from. The Company was strung in one and two-man shelters no deeper than body thickness, in a circuit three hundred meters' radius from the truck. Twenty-odd shelters in a kilometer or so made the bunkers around Smiricky #4look as dense as a phalanx… but the guns would carry, and the chances of the entire Rube unit being in range of somebody were very good.