“Colonel Griffin, sir!” a voice was shouting. “Lieutenant Jones says to get your ass out of there and into his Joust before the gorillas pull together and come back to try again!”
Griffin checked the cockpit chronometer—amazingly enough, it still ran. Fifteen minutes left, he thought; close enough. We’ve done it.
The infantry had held the line.
PART FIVE
The Battle for Tara
Northwind, Early Summer 3133
44
The plains north of Tara
Northwind
June, 3133; local summer
Rain had been spitting down in a desultory fashion ever since the middle of the morning; now the clouds were growing thicker and the wind was picking up. Will Elliot, along with Jock Gordon and Lexa McIntosh, paused by the side of the road to take a breath before moving on.
Will hadn’t slept in a day and a half now—and the half day most recent had been full of fire and speed, shooting and running, hitching rides along with Jock and Lexa on any vehicle they could find after the scout car assigned to the three-person team developed too much yaw from a near miss. The Highlanders’ holding action at the mouth of Red Ledge Pass had turned into a long retreat, a retreat prevented from becoming a rout only by Colonel Griffin’s solid example and careful orders. At one point a rumor had flown through the Highlander ranks that Griffin’s ’Mech was down and the Colonel was dead, but the sound of his voice giving orders over the command circuit soon put that idea to rest.
“When do you think it’ll be over?” Lexa asked wearily. She was leaning against a boulder and working the tangles out of her dark hair with a pocket comb. What she hoped to accomplish that way Will couldn’t imagine, since she was as covered with sweat and ground-in dirt as her two comrades, but since it seemed to make her feel better he forbore to comment.
“It’ll stop when we’re dead or they are,” he told her instead. He checked the power pack in his Gauss rifle. Close to redline—and he only had one more replacement in the cargo pocket of his fatigues. “Damn—where’s Central Supply when you really need them?”
“They got lost, same as everyone else,” Jock said.
“I’m not lost,” Will said. “Tara’s up ahead a day or so, depending on how fast we run. Closer, if we get a ride.”
“There’s no safety if we run.”
“If you wanted safety,” Will said, “you should have stayed home on the farm. Let’s see if the Sergeant has any orders for us. If he doesn’t, maybe we can make our own fun.”
“Promises, promises,” Lexa said, sliding the comb back into her pocket and pushing away from the boulder.
“If you ask me, finding a place to sleep sounds like a fine idea,” Jock said.
Will shook his head. “Only if I wanted to wake up under the foot of a Steel Wolf ’Mech. Now—”
“We’ve got trucks.” A man from the Northwind Fusiliers came up the road at a half run. “Radio silence, everyone. Trucks. We’re falling back. Rally point is at grid position nine–one–forty–three. Pass it on to everyone you see.”
He continued running down the road and out of sight. The three comrades looked at each other.
“So what’s that all about?” Lexa asked.
“I don’t take orders from a Corporal in the Fuzies,” Jock said.
“All right, people,” Sergeant Donohue said, appearing suddenly out of the underbrush on the shoulder of the road. Unlike almost everybody else Will had seen in the past few hours, the Sergeant didn’t look either tired or rumpled, and Will wondered, not for the first time, if the man had his uniform tattooed onto his body. “Why aren’t you saddling up? We’ve got some trucks to catch.”
“What’s the word, Sarge?” Lexa asked. “Where are we going?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you.” The Sergeant looked around. “Where’s Corporal McCloud?”
“Last I saw, up at the observation post,” Will replied.
“Right. On your way.” The Sergeant faded back into the underbrush.
“Sounds like we have our orders,” Jock said.
“Let’s move, then,” Will said. He slung his pack onto his shoulders, picked up his rifle, and headed off at a trot for the staging area, with Lexa and Jock running beside him.
At the staging area, there were indeed trucks waiting, and hot food too, trucked in. A medical corpsman had an aid station going under a tent flap rigged from the side of one truck; a chaplain was holding services at another truck, standing up in the truck bed so that he looked down on his makeshift congregation.
“Either of you need any of that?” Lexa asked.
“What I want is some of my mum’s homemade berry tart,” Will said. “That’d make me right. But since what we have is army meat and army bread—”
“—which comes from no known animal or plant—” Jock chimed in.
“—every day’s a holiday and every meal’s a feast,” Lexa finished. “Here comes an officer; maybe he knows something.”
The officer in question—a Major with a bullhorn—took the chaplain’s place on the back of the truck as soon as the service was finished.
“Listen up, people,” he said. “I want everyone with anti-armor weapons and ammo up in the lead vehicle.” He gestured to his left. “If you have antiarmor, move up there now. If there are more than will fit, take the second truck, and the third, and so on.” He paused. “If you have anti-air weapons, I want you in the middle truck, that’s truck side number six–zero–four, right here where I’m standing. Move there now.” He paused again. “Everyone with unused demolition charges or special heavy weapons—heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, mortars, move to the rear of the convoy. Last truck, people. Fill in forward from there. Move now.”
The Major paused yet again while Will chewed on the army bread. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t tasty either. On the other hand, it had a shelf life measured in decades, and contained the minimum daily requirement of almost everything except fun.
The Major’s voice came over the bullhorn one more time. “Everyone else, pick a place on one of the remaining vehicles. Go there. The column is pulling out in five minutes.”
The truck to the left of the middle vehicle was empty. Will nodded in that direction and said to the others, “You heard the man—let’s get on board while there are still seats. Maybe someone on the truck can tell us where we’re going.”
“If you ask me,” said Lexa with pessimistic relish, “this is all an absolute disaster, and the only place we’re going is straight to hell.”
“Why do you say that?” Will asked as he climbed over the tailboards. Bench seats lined the sides of the truck. He headed forward to where the back of the cab would provide some shelter against what looked like was turning into a vile evening.
“We’re advancing to the rear in glorious victory against a foe that is routing forward in utter disorder,” Lexa said. “At this rate the Steel Wolves are going to be in the capital by daybreak. No one knows what we have or where we are—including our own side. Our units are all broken up. If I was calling this ‘every man for himself’ how wrong would I be?”
“Not very,” said Jock. “It looks like it’s the three of us against the world.”
“Then the world had better watch out,” Will said.
The truck soon filled up with more men and women, some with full kit, others carrying nothing more than a rifle and a satchel of spare charges. In fewer than the promised five minutes the humming note of the truck’s engine lowered and they lurched forward. The spot against the back wall of the cab proved to be a good one. Will, Lexa, and Jock only got wet on one side when the clouds opened and the rain poured down half an hour into their trip.