The Chosen

the tab at the end of the belt through, snapping the slide back down, jerking back the cocking lever and settling in with their hands on the spade grips and thumbs on the butterfly trigger while the officer looked through his split- view range finder. .

'Faster,' he said to the driver, licking salt off his upper lip.

His hand went to check the revolver under his left armpit; there was a pump-action shotgun in a scabbard on the back of the driver's seat. Nothing much, but it might come in handy if worst came to worst.

'Uh-oh,' he mumbled involuntarily, looking ahead. Castello Formoso was a solid jammed mass of riders, horses, carriages and carts and field guns and ambulances.

Shoomp. His head came up and looked eastward, beyond the village. Whonk! An explosion on the road; nothing dramatic, not nearly as large as a field-gun shell, but definitely something exploding. John tracked left and right with the binoculars. More armored cars.

Those things couldn't mount a cannon! he thought.

examine them again, please. Center thought.

The war machines were insectile dots, even with the powerful glasses. A square appeared before John's eyes, and the image of the car leaped into it, magnified until it seemed only a few yards away. The picture was grainy, fuzzy, but grew clearer as if waves of precision were washing across it several times a second.

maximum enhancement, Center said. The round cheesebox turrets of these held only one machine gun; beside it was a tube, canted up at a forty-five degree angle.

mortar, Center said. probable design-

A schematic replaced the picture of the armored car. A simple smoothbore tube, breaking open at the breech like a shotgun, with a brass cup to seal it, firing a finned bomb with rings of propellant clipped on around the base. Shoomp. Whonk! They were dropping mortar shells on the main road, stopping the outflow of men and carts from the village. The mounted troopers were spilling out into the vineyards on either side in a great disorderly bulge, but the trellised vines were a substantial obstacle even to horses. A few officers were trying to organize, and a field gun was being wheeled out to return fire at the war-cars.

And as sure as death, there's a flanking force ready to put in an attack to follow up those armored cars, Raj thought.

It all happened so quickly! John thought.

It always does, when somebody fucks the dog big-time, Raj thought grimly. I knew officers like del'Ostro well. Mostly because I broke so many of them out of the service; and whoever's running the show on the enemy side is a professional. Those aren't bad troops, but they're dogmeat now. Get out while you can, son.

Good advice, but it looked easier said than done. John took two deep breaths, then stood in the base of the car and held onto one of the hoops that held the canvas top when it was up.

'Driver,' he said. 'Take that laneway.' It was narrow and rutted, but it led east-and at at an angle, southeast, away from where the Land war-cars had appeared.

'Signore-'

'Do it.'

It would not be a good thing to be captured, particularly given what was strapped up in the luggage in the rear boot of the car. He doubted, somehow, that diplomatic immunity would extend to not searching him, and Land Military Intelligence would be very interested to find out what he had planned.

'Jeffrey, I hope you're doing better than I am,' he muttered.

CHAPTER SEVEN

'Watch this,' Heinrich said. 'This is going to be funny, the first bit.'

Jeffrey Farr took a swig from his canteen-four-fifths water and one-fifth wine, just enough to kill most of the bacteria. The machine gunner ahead of them made a final adjustment to her weapon by thumping it with the heel of her hand, then stroked the bright brass belt of ammunition running down to the tin box on the right of the weapon.

The command staff of the Fifteenth Light Infantry (Protege) was set up not far behind the firing line, on a small knoll covered in long grass and scrub evergreen oak. The infantry companies of the regiment were fanning out on either side, taking open-order-prone positions; many were unlimbering the folding entrenching tool from their harnesses, mounding earth in front of themselves, as protection and to give good firing rests.

He looked behind. An aid station was setting up, a heavy weapons company was putting their 82mm mortars in place, a reserve company was waiting spread out and prone, ammunition was coming down off the packmules and being carried forward. .

'Very professional,' he said.

Heinrich nodded, beaming, as pleased as a child with an intricate toy. 'Ja. Although this hasn't been much of a challenge so far. I do wish we still had those armored cars assigned to us, though.'

Jeffrey took another swig at the canteen. He was parched, and his feet hurt like blazes, even worse than the muscles in his calves and thighs. The weather was hot and dry, and the spearhead of the Land forces had been moving fast. Everyone was supposed to be able to do thirty miles a day, day in and day out, with full load, and the Chosen officers were supposed to do better than their Protege enlisted soldiers. After four weeks with them, he was starting to believe some of the things the Chosen said about themselves. Company-grade officers and up were entitled to a riding animal-mules, in this outfit-but he'd rarely seen one using a saddle except to get around more quickly during an engagement. Heinrich's light-infantry regiment moved even faster than the rest, and they treated the dry, dusty heat of a mainland summer as a holiday from the steambath mugginess of the Land.

Through his field glasses, the approaching Imperial force looked professional too, in its way. The cavalry were maintaining their alignment neatly, despite the losses they'd had in the last few engagements, in blocks a hundred wide and three ranks deep, with a pennant at the center of each, advancing at a trot. Light field guns and gatlings bounced and rattled forward between each regiment of horse; the whole Imperial line covered better than two kilometers, and infantry were deployed behind it, coming forward at the double in a loose swarm.

'How many would you say?' Jeffrey asked.

'Oh, four thousand mounted,' Heinrich said. 'The foot-'

He turned to another officer, one stooping to look through a tripod-mounted optical instrument.

'Better part of two brigades, from the standards, sir,' she said. 'Say seven to nine thousand, depending on whether they were part of the bunch that tried to force the line of the Volturno.'

Jeffrey looked left and right; three battalions, less losses; say fifteen hundred rifles, with one machine gun to a company and a dozen mortars.

'Rather long odds, wouldn't you say?' he said.

'Oh, it'll do,' Heinrich replied. He began stuffing tobacco into a long curved pipe with a flared lip and a hinged pewter cover. 'Mind you'-he struck a match with his thumbnail and puffed the pipe alight, speaking around the stem-'I wouldn't mind if the rest of the brigade came up, or at least that ferdammt artillery we're supposed to have, but it'll do.'

The Chosen colonel turned his head slightly. 'Fahnrich Klinghoffer; mortars to concentrate on enemy crew-served weapons, commencing at two thousand meters. Automatic weapons at fifteen hundred, infantry at eight hundred; flank companies to be ready to swing back. Runner to General Summelworden, and we're engaged to our front; attempted enemy break-out. Dispositions as follows-'

Messengers trotted off on foot; one stamped a motorcycle into braying life and went rearward in a spray of dust and gravel. That would be the message to rear HQ-there were only three of the little machines attached to the regiment and they were saved for the most important communications.

'Wouldn't a wireless set be useful?' Jeffrey asked.

Heinrich gestured with his pipe. 'Not really. Too heavy and temperamental to be worth the trouble; telegraphs are bad enough-the last thing any competent field commander wants is to have an electric wire from Supreme HQ stuck up his arse. Let them do their jobs, and we'll do ours.'