“For me to do something stupid.”

“I want to make them hesitate,” Voss said. “Hesitation in mud is worth a thousand rounds. Their carrier can’t maneuver in this sludge if they panic and reverse. Their infantry will go to ground. That buys us time.”

She shook her head. “Just the name of the game.”

“Time for what?” asked Fallon, his voice thin.

Voss didn’t believe in that kind of math. She believed in mud and blood, because those two things had kept her alive through three campaigns. Mud slowed everything down—bullets, boots, even the clock. Blood reminded you that you were still soft enough to leak. Together, they made a kind of horrible glue that held a person to the moment.

Silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the burning wreck and the soft, wet sound of rain starting again.

That was when Voss saw it: a second carrier, much farther back, barely a shape in the haze. Its turret was traversing—not toward the barn, but toward the first carrier. They thought the first carrier had been hit by friendly fire. They thought it was a blue-on-blue mistake.