What Pak didn't know was, the key reserves were "reds"-what was left of the Wyzhnyny warrior brigade.

Meanwhile Wyzhnyny batteries were also on the roads, apparently detached from their infantry brigades. He wasn't sure what plans Wyzhnyny command had for them, but he was sure he wouldn't like them. Lonesome Moses couldn't identify the caliber, but they seemed smaller than those destroyed by the marines. Five or six-inch bores, he guessed. They should have enough range to lay fire on the Wilderness Base, and on much of the defenses the Burgers had been building. It wouldn't be remotely comparable to what the Wyzhnyny bombard would have done, but he was glad he'd moved his hospital and "bot shop" to the backup site, thirty-five miles north.

And the artillery were accompanied by tanks and flakwagons. Perhaps all the tanks the Wyzhnyny had left. A simple count showed that the enemy had more tanks than he had. What was building here, he did not doubt, was a decisive showdown.

We'll see, Pak thought, what Major Phayakapong accomplishes with our own modest project.

Despite more than seven centuries of Commonwealth peace, the lineage of Major Patrick Feliks Phayakapong had kept and nourished a long military tradition. Privately for the most part. Eleven centuries earlier, an ancestor named McClintock had fought in the North American War of Secession. He'd been a private in J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry at the First Battle of Manassas, a sergeant at South Mountain, a lieutenant at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and finally a captain at Yellow Tavern. Where he lost his general to a Yankee bullet, and his shattered left leg to a surgeon's saw.

His experiences, pride, and storytelling began the tradition. Almost as far back, in various tributaries of the family line, others fought in the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Boer War, the Moro Resistance, the European Great War… but either they were not storytellers, or their stories were lost. Members of the family had compiled histories of their ancestors' units and campaigns, but those weren't the same as personal accounts.

Then a McClintock great-grandson fought in the Hitler War, serving as an armor officer under the fabled George Patton. A decade later he served as a senior officer under Walton Walker and Matthew Ridgeway in the Korean War. And described it all in his published memoirs, giving the tradition new life. Another forebear served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps in the Southeast Asian War, and another as an airborne ranger. The marine said he'd never have told his story if his grandfather hadn't passed his along. The ranger kept his memories to himself, but a buddy in his squad, in his memoirs, often referred to "Sergeant Walking Coyote," calling him a warrior's warrior.

All of this built and enriched the tradition. In yet another branch of the family, a British special forces officer had served throughout the difficult years of the guerrilla war in Malaysia. He'd shared none of it with his children, but a daughter assembled the basics from official sources, and interviewed aging veterans of her grandfather's unit. Another forebear fought, survived and escaped as a Shan guerrilla in the ill-fated Myanmar Revolution. His children recorded his reminiscences which, written down and translated, added fundamentally different material to the family lore.

Shortly before the Troubles, the core of the family went as colonists to Indi Prime, the first deep-space colony-one of only two sponsored by the government. During the Troubles, the deep-space colonies were lost track of. But after reconnection, in every generation some family member returned to Terra to join the fleet (such as it was), or its marines, or the Terran Planetary Defense Force, and kept the tradition alive. Despite the long centuries of low public esteem, little opportunity for advancement, and limited meaningful function beyond study, brainstorming, virtual warfare, and weapons design. They kept the faith. And when they retired, it was usually to Indi Prime, often bringing with them a wife and child, or children. Twice from families with a military tradition of their own.

But Major Phayakapong was the first in a very long time to ride a battle tank. Occasionally, mainly in the moments before sleep, he took time to savor what he thought of as the privilege, wondering now and then if he'd been a tanker in an earlier life.

Just now, however, his attention was on his mission, which so far had been uneventful. But that would soon change. His battalion had taken heavy losses during the Battle of the First Days, but in the reorganization that followed, it had been brought back nearly to full strength. On this mission, his infantry companies and their APCs had been left behind to help defend the base. His job was to strike deep within Wyz Country, and all he had with him were his forty-one battle tanks and eight flakwagons.

It was near midnight, and he rode in the turret of his command tank, its hatch open. The night smelled of damp soil and vegetation, for it had rained the day just past, then cleared, and now dew had formed. It occurred to him that the ancestor who'd ridden with Stuart would have smelled horse manure and urine instead, particularly near the rear of the column. Sometimes there'd have been the stink of black powder explosions, while the tanker who'd followed Patton and Walker would have smelled pungent fumes from internal combustion engines. And during combat? Probably the oxydation products of nitrocellulose. Different times, different experiences, he told himself. Tonight he'd smell ozone generated by heavy trasher pulses.

Via his visor HUDs, the jury-rigged Lonesome Moses kept him aware of where the Wyzhnyny infantry columns were, where his target was, and where he was relative to both. The columns were coming together from various locations, merging on a few major routes. Several times he'd detoured to avoid discovery, for he was going south while the enemy was going north. And human tanks, like other human ground-proximity vehicles, looked different from Wyzhnyny vehicles having the same function.

Just now the road ahead was clear. He stopped in a riverine woods, to let his men get out of their armored boxes, move around a bit, and relieve themselves. It was undesirable to enter action with a full bladder or colon.

According to his HUD he had just 1800 yards to go. Quietly he radioed orders. The column slowed, then deployed just behind the brow of a low rise, and a new HUD replaced the others all along the line. Just across the brow the ground dipped mildly, then rose again, becoming a steep ridge 1200 yards ahead. Less than 300 yards from where the tanks sat, forest began.

His tankers knew what to do. "On my count," the major said, then paused. "Ten, nine, eight…"

At zero the night flared. Penetration pulses slammed deeply into rock, and for the first few salvos it felt really good. Then the rug was pulled from beneath the major's feet. Prior to the arrival of the Liberation Corps, the Wyzhnyny had cut gun emplacements into the bluff. And after a very brief delay-the crews had been sleeping-they'd returned fire. Lots of heavy fire. He lost thirteen of his forty-one tanks and four of his flakwagons before he reached the riverine woods again. In their cover he stopped, to throw off the enemy gunners' timing, and reorganize. And open his turret hatch again. His HUDs suggested it was safe for the moment, and he didn't like the stink of sweaty fear.

Pat, he told himself, you really kicked the hornets' nest that time. Still, his heavy trashers had sent tons of rock crashing down on the road-and presumably onto the entry to the Wyzhnyny cavern complex. Pak, from surveillance information, had concluded it was the Wyzhnyny headquarters base. Actually it wasn't. It was an important Wyzhnyny supply base.

From the riverine woods, Major Phayakapong traveled mostly westward, targeted from time to time by Wyzhnyny attack floaters, but unmolested by ground forces. The floater attacks were hit and run, directed mainly at his flakwagons, which gave as good as they got. And vice versa. He lost another tank, had two more with problems, and was down to two flakwagons. Then a flight of good guys arrived, and chased the bogies off. Shortly afterward his battered battalion reached the Mickle's, and turning north, crossed on the first bridge they came to. They continued mainly west then, jogging north from time to time at crossroads.