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smoke dissipated slowly. On the ground, the truck drivers spotted the rockets. In the few seconds they had, one turned left and the other turned right. Both vehicles accelerated violently as their drivers tried to evade the missiles. But even supersonic aircraft had difficulty doing that. Ground vehicles with a maximum speed of one-hundred kilometers per hour had no chance whatsoever.
    Zel couldn't keep his eyes off of the rocket trails even after he could no longer pick out the missiles at the far end. His rocket hit almost simultaneously with Slee's, and both trucks erupted in boiling flame and smoke. There was no chance that any of the occupants might have escaped.
    "That's a few Heggies who won't be killing our lads up on the hill," Slee said.
    Zel did not answer. Where the blazes is their air power? he wondered. They must have fighters of their own. But he had seen nothing but Accord Wasps so far.
    —|—
    Headquarters for the 13th Spaceborne Assault Team was wherever Colonel Van Stossen happened to be at the moment. At the moment, he was within fifty meters of the front line, and he was not happy.
    "Why in blazes are you sitting here with your thumb up your butt, Lieutenant?" he demanded, leaning forward right into the junior officer's face. "You're holding up the entire operation."
    "I can't help it, sir," Lieutenant Jacobi replied, barely getting the words out without stammering. "We're taking casualties. Every time we start to move forward, the Heggies zero in on us. I've had three killed and a half dozen wounded already, and we haven't been on the ground thirty minutes." Jacobi was not yet thinking of a career that might be shattered. He had seen combat before, but this was his first time as a company commander, and all he could think about were the men he had lost.
    "You've had half the Wasp wing strafing in front of you. If you could pinpoint targets, you'd have Havoc backup. But you're not showing me anything."
    Colonel Stossen, the only commander the 13th had ever had, was more frustrated than angry, but that made little difference to the lieutenant commanding Bravo Company. Jacobi merely had the misfortune of being assigned to the sector with the heaviest enemy resistance—and not being equal to the challenge.
    "Third platoon is ready to go now," Jacobi said. He gave an order over his helmet radio and thirty men started forward by squads and fire teams while the rest of the company laid down covering fire.
    Stossen turned to watch. The first relay of men had not gone ten meters before the sound of Schlinal wire rifles opened up. Third platoon hit the dirt. For several minutes, the firefight raged. The gunfire was continuous but largely ineffective. Stossen and Jacobi both eventually took cover. Some of the enemy fire had started coming uncomfortably close.
    "That's what I've been telling you, Colonel," Jacobi said, forgetting the old army wisdom of not saying "I told you so" to a superior officer. "Every damn time. We've even tried crawling forward. Same result. 'Cept then they used grenades too."
    Stossen turned away from the lieutenant and spoke into his helmet microphone, on a channel that Jacobi's helmet did not receive.
    "Sit tight," Stossen said when he had finished. "Be ready to advance in five minutes—your whole company. You're going to get what they used to call a walking barrage."
    Jacobi was uncertain what a walking barrage might be, but he suspected that it would be massive. He ordered his people to get as down as they could manage.
    Helluva waste of ordnance, Stossen thought while he waited for the artillery. It was not the normal sort of fire mission that the Havoc crews trained for. Usually, the self-propelled howitzers were set against enemy armor and strongpoints, using ammunition sparingly, one shell to a target. With pinpoint targeting, that was commonly all that was needed. This was something more primal, primitive . The 200mm rounds came in volleys over the front, the first salvo