Hundreds of Han soldiers started shooting as though the artillery signalled a major attack. Small arms, crew-served weapons, and even the soul-searing throb of heavy lasers ripped out from the perimeter. Flashes and the dull glow of self-sustaining brushfires marked the innocent targets downrange.
"Stupid bastards," Des Grieux muttered, his tone too flat to be sneering. "If they're shooting at anything, it's their own people."
"You got that right, Slick," Broglie agreed as he stared for a moment through the pervious walls of the tent. His face was bleak; not angry, but as determined as a storm cloud.
Han officers sped toward the sources of gunfire on three-wheeled scooters, crying orders and blowing oddly tuned whistles. Some of the shooting came from well within the camp.
A rifle bullet zinged through the air close enough to the Slammers' tent that the fabric echoed the ballistic crack. Medrassi, the veteran commander of
"What we oughta do,"Des Grieux said coldly,"is leave these dumb clucks here and handle the job ourself. That way there's only half the people around likely t' shoot us."
Cyan streaks quivered over the horizon to the west. The light wasn't impressive until you remembered it came from ten kilometers away. Shells burst in puffs of distant orange.
Broglie lifted his thumb toward the western horizon."I think that's what they were after, Perry," he said to Sergeant Peres. "Just checking on how far forward Baffin's artillery defenses were."
"Calliopes?" Medrassi asked.
Firing from the Han positions slackened. In the relative silence, Des Grieux heard the
"Baffin uses twin-barrel 3cmrigs,"Broglie explained."They're really light antitank guns converted to artillery defense. He's got about eight of them. They're slow firing, but they pack enough punch that a single bolt can do the job."
He smiled starkly. "And they still retain their anti-tank function, of course."
Des Grieux spit on the ground.
