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advancing with their semi-
automatic rifles carried at the port Here and there an officer carried a
sword, or the Stars and Bars fluttered from a staff.
"Now!" General Fitzroy Anson-Hugh Beauregard III
said into the bulky mike hung from his vehicle helmet
His command tank was a little back from the edge of the combat, hull down; the
general stood head-and-
shoulders out of the commander's cupola. The turret pivoted under him, the
massive casting moving smoothly on its bearing race. The long cannon fired in
a flash that seared his vision, just as the opening salvos of artillery went
by overhead. Down along the road, tall poplar-shapes of black dirt gouted
skyward. Another explosion shook the earth and sent heavy vehicles pinwheeling
like a child's models under a careless boot;
the command-tank's round had hit the tracked carrier for a Unionist
self-propelled gun.
The general nodded. "Nothing to stop us short of the
Lakes," he said. Nothing to stop them linking up with the
British Guards Armored Corps, driving southeast out of occupied Detroit,
cutting the Union in two....
"Conceded," Florian Gusky said, and lifted the visor of the simulation helmet.
He sighed heavily and took a pull of his beer, then looked around the room as
though surprised to find himself alone with
Simeon, blinking away the consciousness of a world
and war that had never been. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his
heavy-browed face and he worked the thick muscles of his shoulders to loosen
the tension.
"You could play it out to the end," Simeon's image said from a screen above
his desk.
"No dam' point. You've whipped my butt in that simulation fo^,fromboth Union
and Confederate sides."
38
Arme McCaffnq & S JVf. SHr&ng
"I could take a handicap," Simeon said with much less enthusiasm, Gus noted.
So he nodded. The last time he had beaten Simeon was in a Caesar vs. Rommel
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
match on the site of Car-
thage, with the shellperson commanding Caesar's spear-armed host against
Panzers and Stukas. Even then he had inflicted embarrassing casualties.
"Where is she?" Gus asked. There was no need to identify the female in
question.
"She's dining at the Perimeter."
Gus raised his eyebrows in astonishment. "The
Perimeter? That's some salary she gets." The
Perimeter attracted two sets of guests: the rich, and spacers looking to blow
six months' pay on one night.
Simeon laughed. "Nab, she's a guest of the manage-
ment. Patsy's with her."
"Yeah, Patsy likes her," Gus said, his tone indicating that this revealed a
serious and heretofore unsuspected flaw in Patsy's character. "Can you see
them?"
"Yup."
"What're they doing?"
"Talking."
"About us?"
"I don't know. I'm not listening. Now they're laughing."
"They're talking about us, alright," Gus said gloomily.
"Geesh, Gus, let's get back to the game."
There was a plaintive edge to Simeon's voice. Gus reached for the helmet and
then stopped, a slow grin creasing his heavy features.
" Isn't it about time we had a drill?" he said, thoughtfully.
"We just had one. About four hours ago, remember?"
"When I was in the Navy we had 'em six times a day, sometimes," Gus replied.
He knew that Simeon badly wanted to pull Navy duty. Only a few
staff-and-command vessels used shell controllers and Simeon didn't rate, yet.
In the
THE CITY WHO FOUGHT
39
meantime, he put a lot of weight on Gus' experience as a fire-control officer
on a patrol frigate. That had been some time ago N Florian Gusky had spent a
decade's hard work clawing his way up to regional security chief for
Namakuri-Singh, the big drive-
systems firm N but Simeon had a bad case of military romanticism. And real
talent, he told himself without envy of the brain's abilities.
"I know it's early," Gus went on persuasively, "but it's important not to have
predictable intervals. So we don't get complacent."
"Well..."
"I'd love to see the look on their faces."
"Since you put it that way N"
Channa started as the klaxons rang. They sounded like no other she had ever [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]