I kept thinking of the student on the walk back to the compound. We got back with more time than I’d expected, and we were no longer on alert, so to take my mind off the café I helped Athena for a bit by wrenching on Ardennes. If Rocco was going to be running her into combat, I wanted to make sure the old girl didn’t have any nasty surprises waiting for him.
As much as I love her, Ardennes can be a temperamental old mare. And with her age she really needs more maintenance hours per patrol hour than some of the fresher uprights. I even fixed the two comm antennae that failed to extend on my maintenance patrol. If Rocco led the formation, he’d need the extra reception to get anything through Overcast.
It bothered me, I realized, that I wouldn’t be in the hangar enough to keep her in as tip-top shape as I had when I’d been on the auxiliary team. Now that I’d been jockified nearly all my time was occupied learning how to stay alive in a combat role. No one else wanted to take care of the old warhorse like I did. No one else even cared.
When my commpad buzzed in my pocket, I headed up to the briefing room. Most of the formation’s air asset pilots and marine squad leaders had filled up the left chairs, while the jockeys gravitated to the right. In case you’re new to Cav formations, this is how they work: Armor, infantry, and close air support work together to achieve tactical objectives. No one aspect works without the other two, but upright armor is always the anchor.
This being my first pre-patrol briefing, I didn’t know if sitting with my section was tradition or requirement, so I took a seat behind Stag and Dancer to be safe. I tapped Dancer on the shoulder and gave her a thumbs up when she turned back.
“Hey, how you feel?”
She shrugged. “Good enough,” she said. “Still a bit nauseated.”
Stag nudged me. “It’ll take more than a little vomit to stop Dancer. This girl could out-drink the both of us. Remind me to tell you about the time we hit up this place in the valley called San Simeon’s—ow!"
Dancer drove a knuckle into his thigh, right above the knee.
“Shut up! Ain’t no one here who needs to hear that story.”
Stag grinned and rubbed his leg.
I dug in my pocket and pulled out one of the precious injectors Pug had given me. I offered it to her. “Peace?”
She glanced down at my hand and shook her head. “I need to fully feel Theseus to jockey. But yeah, peace. Heard I was better off, anyway. Besides,” she said, turning back to face the front, “I’ve made you puke at least five times. You’ll need those way more than me.”
Stag snickered next to her.
“Alright, alright,” I said. “Fine. You’re still way ahead.”
I settled back and muttered under my breath. “We’re fine, by the way.”
Rocco came into the briefing room with Felix and Harris, who rounded out Third Formation’s active jockeys. He took his place by the data screen and pulled his data pad from a go-bag. He looked around, mouthing a quick head count to make sure everyone was present before opening the briefing.
“Alright, boys and girls. War Dogs need some time in the shade, so we’re stepping up to cover security in the southern quadrant.”
He pulled up a map of the city, with the bottom quarter carved out and highlighted in several spots.
“Primary points of strategic advantage are the fuel depot, university campus, private airstrips, and two groups of anti-air batteries in the fabricator facilities. Those guns have been working overtime, so it’s a safe bet the Princeps’ forces know where they are.”
He leaned back against the podium. “It’s a lot of ground to cover, and we’re under strength. Hell, we’re basically a recon formation now without Marmaluk, Cossack, and Destrier. Not enough tonnage for a brawl. But we can use that flexibility. Divide resistance and engage on our terms, strike with numbers and get out. You’ve all been practicing ambush tactics in the sims. Questions?”
One of the VTOL pilots raised his hand. “Are we expecting contact on this patrol?”
“Always. Rules of engagement are in effect. This is still a civilian population center, so pick your targets and watch your step. There are several marches and demonstrations planned today in support of both the Princeps and the Templars. Good chance the rebels have sympathizers within the city, too. Probably sheltering combat cells. They’ll go active for the big one.”
Another raised hand, from one of the marine sergeants. “What about Catalan relief from off world?”
“None,” said Rocco. “Winter hasn’t picked up any incoming wormholes forming on Catalan fleet vectors. Templars have already written the planet off as a loss, too unruly to control politically and too remote to warrant additional resources to throw at the meat grinder in a ground war. They had twenty good years of sucking fuel out of the mantle.”
Dancer raised her hand ahead of me. “What’s the disposition of the rebel army?” she asked.
“Large numbers, mostly traditional-pattern ground vehicles: a mix of wheeled, hovering, and rarer heavy tracked tanks. A few uprights from the last transition war scattered around. Limited VTOL support and sub-orbital fighters, but we have orbital superiority for the moment. Infantry well-equipped with a mix of local and off-world equipment. The governor was paying them to maintain order, after all. They’ve got military hardware that can do some real damage, but our biggest concern is these guys…”
He swiped the screen of his data pad and the wall-mounted screen shifted to a view of the Paladin Devils.
My view, from the cockpit of Ardennes. I could feel eyes turning in my direction.
“I don’t need to tell you guys what a few Paladin uprights pulled off at the refinery. Without advanced warning from a lucky Chevalier, who shall remain nameless, it could have been even worse. But they won’t catch us with our dicks in our hands again. All the uprights’ passive sensors are tuned to detect the energy surge of their insertion tech. We’ll know when and if Au’duir takes the field in Grand Marrakech.”
I felt eyes on my back as Rocco shifted the slides on the screen to a set of photos from various angles, and only a few of them looked like Tyunta. Someone unfamiliar might have thought they were different pictures of the same vaguely-humanoid vehicle. All the Emirati uprights tended to mimic the human aesthetic to some degree. Paladin designs even took it a step further, evoking ancient Saracen imagery with sloped conical helmets, protective gold-dyed layers of ballistic fiber, scale patterned white ceramic armor, and guns molded to look like relics of a bygone age. But I could spot subtle differences that marked each chassis. I didn’t know who engineered them, but they were masters of their craft.
“These are the Paladin uprights we currently know about. The first seven have been spotted on-world, the others have been seen in our corner of the Gulf within the last year. It’s a mix of middleweights and heavies across at least three formations. Tank to tank we’ve got the numbers, but Au’duir considers anything below 150 tons to be unbefitting the station of his pilots, so don’t go thinking you can take a slug fest because we’re still underweight.”
I raised my hand. “How do we kill them?”
“They’ve got the same weaknesses as any upright: joints, gyros, radiators, counter-grav, and reactor linkages.” Rocco pointed at each spot in turn with a small laser. “But chances are, you won’t. These guys don’t get out of bed for anything less than a full cavalry company, and they like fighting outnumbered. Au’duir sees victory against superior numbers as a badge of honor.”
Rocco leaned over his podium and peered down at me.
“But we don’t need to kill them, just keep them out of the palatial grounds as long as possible. We want to show them how much rushing will get them bent over, because every fuel barge that makes it to orbit is a payout on our contract, and two are going up every hour. Once those shipments halt, we beat feet. Get geared up if you’re not already. Contact Crow’s Nest for reactor clearance and mount up. Dismissed.”
Metal chairs scraped across the tile. I already had my gear, so I checked my commpad for the time and headed down to the hangar to mount up. I got downstairs and spotted my old maintenance lieutenant, who was already looking at me so I couldn’t avoid her.
“VanDelle,” she said as I approached. “You’ve been busy.”
“Yeah. Look, Lieutenant Karna, I need to mount up,” I said, moving past.
“I wasn’t done talking to you, brevet cadet,” she hissed. “Stand at attention when a superior officer addresses you.”
I turned around and tried to suppress my anger. Karna had always hated me. She hated that I was on a first-name basis with jockeys who outranked her. She hated that I saw the Chevaliers like a family instead of a ladder to be climbed. Most of all, she hated that I was a chop shop street dog wearing the same storied uniform as her.
I fixed my eyes at collar level. The immaculate lapels on her blouse that had never seen a spot of oil or grease (but boy, was she proud of that first lieutenant’s pip) while she looked me up and down. “What a slob. You’re a disgrace to that uniform. I ought to march you back up to the armory so you can apologize for the way that vest hangs off your sorry hide.”
“Ma’am I have orders,” I said. I tried not to let the venom into my voice. If I showed any cracks, she’d worm her way in.
“They can wait.”
A new voice interrupted. “They cannot wait. What’s this about, Karna?”
She turned, sneer in her voice replaced with cold indifference. “Simply checking on my maintainer, Major Hyalt. Try to bring him back in one piece, there’s plenty of work to be done when I get him back. Taking him leaves me short-handed.”
Rocco crossed his arms. “We’re all short-handed. That will be all, Lieutenant.”
Karna saluted and pushed past me. “Don’t get too comfortable in the cockpit, VanDelle,” she hissed.
Rocco followed her with narrowed eyes, then punched me in the chest. It didn’t hurt, but it did surprise me.
“Who do you work for?” he asked.
“I, uh,” I stammered. “The Chevaliers?”
“Me, idiot,” growled Rocco. “And my jockeys don’t get pushed around by hospital-creased Templar rejects”—he glanced after her—“no matter how nice their asses are. Next time anyone below me tries to supersede my orders, you tell them to blow you.”
“What if they outrank you?” I asked.
“Then I want to know what the fuck did you fuck up to get their attention in the first place.” He turned me around toward the uprights. “C’mon.”
I walked with him down the line of uprights, looking up at the auxiliary crews and armorers connecting ammo belts, loading missiles, and pressurizing plasma reservoirs. “I might not be a jockey when this is all over, Rocco.”
“Well, we’ll see about that. Focus on surviving today, first.”
We stopped in front of a welterweight upright, one with asymmetric weapons loaded, like Theseus. This one had satyr-pattern legs, an up-sloping chassis, and a tasty 98-millimeter smooth bore cannon mounted high on its right arm. Thick belts ran back to an armored drum behind her right-side articulating shroud.
On the other arm: the wide gullet of a magnetic plasma repeater, similar to the larger top-mounted mortars you’d see on fire support uprights. Underneath it hung the polarizer. Paint another upright’s chassis with the polarizer, and that plasma (not to mention every nearby mortar on the same frequency) would deviate toward the unfortunate victim.
A calliope rack of 260-millimeter tubes on her back held a complement of indirect missiles, longer ranged than those carried in the 190s. I got the feeling she had been built as a true fire support platform to help fill the gap left by Destrier.
I saw the armorers loading several laser-comm drones into the tubes as well. Those would let us continue to communicate clearly under Overcast, at least until they got shot down. The name outside her cockpit chassis read Sioux. I wasn’t actually sure what the base model had been. She looked like she’d just walked out of the cargo yard and had her forklift arms pulled off and weapons bolted on.
“Quite a machine, eh?” said Rocco, looking up.
“Of all the uprights in the Chevaliers, Sioux is certainly one of them,” I answered.
Rocco grinned, then broke into a guffaw and slapped my shoulders. “You’re right, she’s not much to look at. Good luck, Randal the Vandal.”
“Good luck, Dirty Rocco,” I said, and took hold of the ladder rungs leading up Sioux’s chassis.
Rocco grabbed the carry strap on my armor and yanked me back. “Wow, wow, wow. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Mounting up?” I said, confused.
“Not in this you’re not. Sioux is my cherry new ride.”
“What about me?” I asked.
Rocco pointed to the end of the line of uprights, where the ancient, black-blue specter of Ardennes loomed above her neighbors. “Nobody knows Ardennes like you, Vandal. Go get the old warhorse warmed up.”