He smelled cordite and shell everywhere. Clearly, there'd been some kind of action.
The fragrant smell of dough in hot fat set his saliva running.
"Kur bless you, Major," the missionary said.
Fort Seng looked like a whirlwind had hit it. It was the air raid all over again, redoubled. Headquarters was more or less intact, but looked scorched with several windows blown out and a hole in the roof.
The road to the fort was lined with cheering Bears and a healthy smattering of Wolves, drawn up in neater company lines. Valentine had never seen so many Hunters gathered in one place before.
The barbecue pits were ringed by furry lumps of hair, muscle, and weapons clothed in the ragged mix of Reaper cloth, Kevlar, leather, chain, and pig iron that passed for Bear duty uniforms-rumor had it that the entire Bear regiment had only three A uniforms, cleaned, swapped and returned as needed like a rental tux.
A rough count numbered them in the hundreds.
"Stevens, acting captain, Company A, First Bear regiment," a bearded little man said, stepping forward with a rather abashed and bootless Major Grace behind. "Only why it's called the first when there's only one nobody ever told me, Major. Elements of Companies C and D. Bravo's still down around Houston. Them Texans said they'd leave the UFR if the Bears got pulled out of the fighting line."
"Acting?"
"Formerly top sergeant," Connoly said.
"So you're here without orders?"
"Oh, I got you beat on that, Major. We're here specifically against orders. Written, verbal, signal flags, smoke signals. I think they tried everything."
"Except shooting at us," another Bear called.
"Nobody dared."
"Then you're volunteers," Valentine said.
"Men who want to fight. Seems like you're the one piece of Southern Command still in this war to win it. Though when we got here we were a bit surprised to find the place turned over to them Atlanta jaspers. Major Grace here was in the middle of surrendering it to a crew of them. We lit our fires and ran 'em off."
"Hear tell it, you're gunning to take on Atlanta," a Bear corporal with a strange facial hair pattern-he'd shaved off one eyebrow and half of his pencil mustache on the opposite side-put in. "We thought we'd get the ball rolling for you."
"We'll be glad to have you at Fort Seng."
"Infestations of Quislings is pract'lly our speciality," a Bear chimed in. He tightened a hook-studded leather glove.
Lambert greeted him in front of the bullet-riddled headquarters, Ediyak at her knees keeping order among the messengers reporting in and asking for instructions. The elegant old mansion had fire damage around two windows and smoke still trickled up from one glassless window frame. Lambert had an interesting dirt pattern about her eyes and smelled of sweat and gunfire. No one could accuse her of being unbloodied in battle ever again.
"Hail the man who opened up the Missouri-Ohio junction," Lambert said. "My map's looking better and better."
"I'm glad we have something to come back to, sir."
He saw Gamecock and a couple of Bears stacking captured weapons and equipment in the parking lot. There were several Pooters and some new light armor vehicles parked there, not much the worse for battle damage. Blood caked on the window of one.
"Atlanta rolled the dice. They almost won, too. Most of the Evansville milita collapsed-there was another air attack, and I don't think anyone expected them to be able to fight helicopter gun-ships. But half the Lifeweaver-trained hunters of Southern Command showed up at an opportune moment, and nobody objected to attacking without knowing much about the opposition. Luckily it was just recon stuff backed up with garrison troops."
He could tell she was holding something back.
"Who did we lose?" Valentine asked, suddenly anxious. "Where's Captain Patel?"
"Patel's fine, according to his last transmission. He's handling the pursuit with some Wolves and legworm riders."
"Then what?"
"From the very top, Valentine," Lambert said. "I just received new orders. I guess Major Grace gave us the thumbs down right before he surrendered the joint."
She handed him the communication tech's transcription. Block pencil lettering had a date, time, and code confirmation. Below that were the bare words:WITHDRAW TO RALLY BASE. AT ONCE.