The convoy contained a Han mechanized brigade, the Black Banner Guards: the main indig striking force on the Western Wing. The tanks of Hammer's H Company were spread at intervals along the order of march to provide air and artillery defense.
Out of sight of the convoy, two companies of combat cars and another of infantry screened the force's front and flanks. Hammer's air-cushion vehicles were much more nimble on the boggy lowlands than the wheeled and track-laying equivalents with which the indigs made do.
No doubt the locals would rather have built their ownACVs,but the technology of miniaturized fusion powerplants was beyond the manufacturing capacity of any but the most sophisticated handful of human worlds. Without individual fusion bottles, air-cushion vehicles lacked the range and weight of weapons and armor necessary for frontline combat units.
So they hired specialists, the Han and Hindis both. If one side in a conflict mortgaged its future to hire off-planet talent, the other side either matched the ante—or forfeited that future.
The rice on the terraces had a bluish tinge that Des Grieux didn't remember having seen before, though he'd fought on half a dozen rice-growing worlds over the years . . . .
His eyes narrowed. An air-cushion jeep sped up the road from the back of the column. It passed trucks every time the graded surface widened and gunned directly up-slope at switchbacks to cut corners. Des Grieux thought he recognized the squat figure in the passenger seat.
He looked deliberately away.
Des Grieux's tank was nearing the last switchback before the crest. The vehicle ahead began to blat through open exhaust pipes again, though its engine note didn't change. Han trucks used hydraulic torque converters instead of geared transmissions, so their diesels always stayed within the powerband. Lousy troops, but good equipment . . . .
Des Grieux imagined the jeep passing his tank—spinning a little in the high-pressure air vented beneath the tank's skirts—sliding under the wheels of the Han truck and then, as
Des Grieux caught himself. He was shaking. He didn't know what his face looked like, but he suddenly realized that the soldiers in the truck ahead had ducked for cover again.
