No firing.

Nothing.

Michael Griffin waited.

41

Red Ledge Pass and the eastern Bloodstone foothills

Rockspire Mountains, Northwind

June, 3133; local summer

The morning sun burned through the clouds hanging over the narrow road through Red Ledge Pass. During the hours of darkness Nicholas Darwin had rested as best he could in the narrow confines of his Condor tank. Now he stood once again in the Condor’s turret, with the Steel Wolves’ armored column waiting for orders behind him like a hunting beast on a tight chain.

The feel of the air had changed in the night; even a city-bred offworlder like himself could sense the difference. The storm from the southeast that the meteorologists had fretted about was definitely coming, and he had to force the pass and take out the Highlanders’ resistance on the other side while the current weather held. The last thing Anastasia Kerensky needed was for her main tank column to get caught in a canyon during a flash flood.

The overnight delay had been bad enough. He should have taken Northwind’s capital city by now, or at least have been closing in on it. Instead, he was still looking at peaks on either side and narrow passes ahead of him—and to his frustration, the ’Mech that had stopped the column for the night had pulled out sometime in the hours before sunrise, denying him and his troops the satisfaction of taking it down.

Now, damn it, that same ’Mech probably waited for them somewhere on the road ahead, ready to do its damage in daylight this time. Well, let it wait. Darwin was ready for it.

Anastasia Kerensky would reward success. He had no doubt but that she would reward failure, too—and he did not need that kind of reward.

“Forward,” he ordered. “Do not stop for anything.”

“What do we do if there are minefields?” Star Captain Greer asked over the private comm circuit.

“If there are minefields, Star Captain, then we will clear them by running over them at speed.”

“Sir?” The other man knew better than to question an order from his superior, but he was nevertheless able to infuse the respectful monosyllable with unspoken doubt. It was a useful skill for a soldier to have, and Darwin decided to honor it with an explanation.

“We can afford to lose a tank better than we can afford to lose time,” he said. “The Highlanders are gathering, calling in their forces, setting up their defenses. Can you not smell it on the wind?”

“Sir.” There was no direct agreement in that one-word answer, but no doubt or hesitation either—if the commander could smell it, the tone of voice implied, then that was enough.

Nicholas Darwin slammed his hand onto the armored ring around the Condor’s top hatch.

“Forward,” he said over the general circuit. “Leave the slower-moving vehicles behind to catch up with us. We are advancing. Maximum speed.”

“What about the possibility of ambush, sir?” Greer asked over the command circuit.

Still on the general circuit, Darwin replied, “When we come into range of the enemy, they will be in range of us. All units, forward!”

With a sound like a rising whirlwind, the powerful hoverjets of the Condor tank raised it from the valley floor and impelled it into motion.

Behind it, the column advanced.

“I don’t like it,” Will Gordon said.

In company with Lexa McIntosh and Jock Gordon, he currently occupied a position in a hastily dug hole on the side of a scree slope. The three of them had been sent there in the small hours of the morning, after driving back along Highway 66 at top speed in order to rejoin the main body of the Highlander task force. They had camouflaged their position as well as they could with branches and with tall grass, and had set up with their rifles looking across the valley to the west—the direction from which the Steel Wolves would soon be coming.

Now the morning sun shone down on their position through patchy clouds, warming Will’s body after the chilly night, but failing to lift his spirits.

“It’s too quiet,” he continued. “Like something big came through and scared all the game away.”

“I’m glad to hear that you don’t like it,” said Sergeant Donohue, approaching their position from the uphill side. He’d been inspecting the positions the ad hoc group had taken. “Battalion doesn’t like not knowing what’s out there, so they asked company. And company doesn’t know and didn’t know what was out there, and they didn’t like that. So they called all the platoons to ask. And the platoons didn’t know, so they asked the different squads if any of them had a clue as to what was out there. Nobody did. Unless you happen to know?”

Will shook his head. “Not a clue, Sergeant.”

“Wonderful, Elliot,” Sergeant Donohue said. “Because—since you and your pals did so well at playing find-the-Wolf last night—I’m tasking the three of you to go find out.”

“You were saying?” Lexa said to Will under her breath. “Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone?”

“Never tell a Sergeant that you don’t have anything to do,” Jock Gordon agreed. He shouldered his pack and picked up his rifle. “Radio silence, they said?”

“Yeah,” Donohue said. “Get the word back without using your squawk boxes if you can. But if you’re in a position where otherwise the Steel Wolves would reach us before the word did—then go ahead and use ’em. And if you’re about to get overrun, use ’em. Anything else, mum’s the word.”

“Speaking of mums, is yours still rolling sailors?” Jock said, but he said it so quietly that the Sergeant didn’t have to admit to hearing him. The three comrades picked up their weapons and headed off downslope and to the east.

“Any other bright ideas, Will?” Lexa asked after a few moments. “Seeing as you’re so full of the spirit of helpfulness this morning.”

“If we’re going to watch for the Steel Wolves, then we’re going to need a lookout spot,” Will said. “And I think I know a place near here where we can do some looking out.”

“Sounds good,” Jock said. “Not too far, I hope? We’ve been awake and moving all of a day and all of a night, and now it looks like it’s going to be all day again.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” said Lexa.

“A bitching soldier is a happy soldier,” Will said. “And if I don’t miss my guess, we’re going to have even more to be happy about before the morning’s up.”

42

Red Ledge Pass

Bloodstone Range of the Rockspire Mountains

Northwind

June, 3133; local summer

“Blocked?” Nicholas Darwin demanded of Scout Team Gamma over the tank radio. “What do you mean the road is blocked?”

“The Highlanders have used demolition gear to drop a cliff face across the road, Star Colonel,” said the crackling, distance-attenuated voice of the leader of Scout Team Gamma. “Nothing on wheels or tracks will go through until we clear it.”

“How long will that take?”

“Two hours at most. We have a MiningMech coming forward to deal with it.”

Two hours. Darwin looked at the sun, climbing ever higher into the sky. Time was passing, inexorably. Time that he did not have. “Will hovercraft be able to pass?”

“Neg, Star Colonel. The rubble is too uneven and too steep.”

“Then we will put the infantry over it,” Darwin said. He keyed on the general circuit. “Anyone with jump jets, forward. We are wasting the Galaxy Commander’s time.”

After two hours of hard labor, the block was cleared. Darwin watched as the first of the Steel Wolves’ wheeled vehicles made the narrow passage.

“Form up on the far side,” he ordered.

Star Captain Greer commented, “We haven’t heard from the infantry.”