by Mark Wandrey
“You want to send the APC back?” Murdock asked Jim.
“No,” Jim ordered, climbing again. “I’m really wondering where that other tank is, and I’m concerned about air assets.” He redirected more of the robots to begin transmitting active detection to try and find anything else. “Phoenix 1 and 2, report!”
“Phoenix 1, standing by,” Jane Wheeler reported.
“Phoenix 2, standing by,” Prescott reported a second later.
“Power up, but stay groundside. Be ready to provide CAS at a moment’s notice.” CAS, or close air support, would be vital if the enemy had heavy firepower.
“Understood,” both pilots reported immediately. Jim climbed as fast as he could.
“Contact,” one of his troopers on the ridge above called out. “Marking five dozers,” he stated, using the slang for tanks, “call it one thousand feet, speed four-five mph.”
“Confirmed,” another trooper agreed. “Five dozers, all mediums.” Jim sighed; he wasn’t going to make it.
“Hargrave, be sure Second Squad is ready to cover First. Move it as fast as you can, but be conscious of leakers.”
“We got it.”
“Good. First Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Clear to engage as planned.”
“Roger,” was the immediate reply.
Jim slowed just enough to free a little of his brain to watch the battlespace, a 3-D representation of the ambush site built from the images of all eleven troopers on the ridge. The tanks were hauling ass in rough, rocky terrain. The ground-effect tanks were in the lead, picking out a route, with the wheeled ones following close behind. He could clearly see the soldiers in armor on the tanks now; it looked like Jivool and Zuul troopers.
“Preparing to engage,” the First Sergeant said. In his mental battlespace, Jim saw the tanks reach the optimal position. At exactly that moment, all eleven troopers fired.
Six of them carried rockets designed to engage medium-armored targets. The others didn’t have heavy weapons of that caliber, so they opened up with their shoulder-mounted rail guns. The first tank took two missiles and instantly turned into a metallic fireball, along with all of the troops hanging onto it. One of the missiles must have found its magazine or its fuel tank. The fifth and last tank took the last two missiles. One was a little ahead of the tank, and the concussion lifted it off the ground like it had driven over a ramp. Several of the troops flew clear from the sudden jump. The second missile struck it between the squat turret and the chassis, separating the two parts and filling both with fire and death. Another couple of troops were obliterated by the blast.
“Lead and trailing down,” Murdock confirmed as railgun rounds slammed into the middle three tanks, some just damaging armor, others chewing up troops hanging there. “We’re moving!” All eleven CASPers stepped forwards, and plummeted off the ridge as fire began to flash up at them. It was all aimed at where the humans had been moments before, and hit nothing.
While he climbed like an idiot, his troops were in their first fight. He felt a combination of frustration and embarrassment and began to think about heading back for the base. As the battlespace showed a third tank go up from a perfectly placed missile, he didn’t think this was going to last long. That was when the gunship showed up.
“ECAS!” someone yelled. Jim’s battlespace updated to show an enemy airborne target flashing down the approach used by the tanks. Enemy Close Air Support, or ECAS. A dozen possibilities for the asset were listed, from a space fighter to a multi-rotary winged craft. It was moving at about 150 mph and coming in fast.
“Murdock!” Jim barked.
“On it,” the older 1SG replied. “Decoys!” he ordered. All eleven CASPers landed and fired one of a pair of decoy pods they carried. The pods flew up a dozen yards and popped, releasing strings of sensor tape, flares, and smoke. The ECAS dove on the Cavaliers’ CASPers only to find nothing to aim at. The ground was covered in hundreds of overlapping targets. The frustrated pilot, having no clear targets to aim at, unleashed a long strafing run with the craft’s underslung railguns. Hypersonic slugs tore up the wintery landscape, exploding frozen trees and shattering rocks and ice. No rounds got within a foot of a Cavalier.
“Simpson,” Buddha called out, “splash it.”
As the craft passed over, a multi-ducted fan gunship identified as a Piqui 104, one of the squad’s two anti-air equipped troopers fired on it. The two-megawatt, chemically-fired laser pulsed faster than the eye could follow, punching a series of holes in the craft’s starboard wing that compromised a primary drive fan. The blades, spinning at more than 30,000 rpm, exploded spectacularly. It yawed hard to the right, then corkscrewed down. The pilot fought the controls all the way down as the craft spun faster and faster, until it slammed into the ridgeline with a thunderous flaming crash. There was no ejection; the pilot fought it to the end. Jim hoped there weren’t many more of those, his squad only had one more pod each.
“Phoenix 1 and 2,” he called, “lift off and provide CAS. We have ECAS.”
“Affirmative,” Jane’s voice came in, the sound of her engine’s scream already audible over the radio, indicating she’d begun taking off as soon as the enemy Piqui had attacked. Jim had stopped climbing as the air attack took place. His arms were starting to ache. Despite the suit’s enhancements, he was becoming exhausted.
On the other side of the ridge, his squad had spread out as the troops on the tanks unassed and began engaging them. As the platoon commander, Jim had detailed readouts on all the men under him, so when the first one took a hit, he saw it. And the second. Jim sucked in his breath as the trooper’s suits handled the damage. No injury to the operators noted. He heaved a palpable sigh of relief.
The last two operational tanks were trapped on their chosen path. Faced with destroyed vehicles front and back, they cut sideways to the edge of the dry river bed they’d been moving along and found several large boulders to maneuver around that allowed them to present a hull-down defensive position. Their troopers rallied on that position. It was starting to look like they’d dig in when Phoenix 1 screamed over and strafed them with dual streams of railgun rounds. A split second later, Phoenix 2 followed on a parallel path. Jim was just cheering the air attack when he saw it. The sixth damned tank, and it was a heavy.
“I got that last tank,” Jim said over the command net.
“Observe and stand by,” Murdock said.
“We’ll have these in hand shortly,” Buddha agreed, his transmission interspersed with the thudding of his CASPer firing its magnet accelerator. “We can be there in a few minutes.”
Jim examined his battlespace. The tank was massive. It had to be one of the fusion-powered beasts he’d read about. Which meant shields and energy weapons. It was heading down the same gap the APC had taken, so it was heading toward Second Squad, and fast.
“Shit,” he said.
“Jim,” Hargrave said, “we’re in position. What are you doing?”
“Leading the charge,” Jim said, and jumped outward from the rock wall.
* * * * *
Chapter 17
The CASPer dropped like a rock. Since it was big hunk of steel, that only made sense. Jim did his best to carefully tweak the jumpjets to guide his descent, and almost flipped head over heels.
“Shit, shit, SHIT!” he yelled as he desperately tried to control his fall. He’d timed it to land behind the racing tank, with the intention of firing a rocket right up its ass. As his suit began to yaw out of control, that plan turned to crap in an instant, and it was all he could do to keep from landing head first. He managed that at least.
He got his legs back in proper landing position just twenty-five feet above the ground. He squealed in panic and crushed the jumpjets control for all he was worth. Although he managed to kill most of his downward momentum, the bad news was he’d also considerably altered his final landing point. In the instant before hitting, he realized that, though he’d managed to keep from hitting
the ground and cratering like Wile E. Coyote, the tank he was after was directly under his feet.
“Fu-” Wham!
His CASPer collided with the tank’s turret, which he found to be rather like…hitting a tank. He folded like cheap lawn furniture over the tank’s turret with a “Whumph!” The suit’s servos cried out in protest, and his face smacked painfully against the cockpit shield. He understood the chin shield in the helmet much better now. Dash bounced off his face, her tail tickling his cheek. He didn’t find it amusing. The suits really were tough as hell, though, and aside from a few bruises, he was unhurt. The only problem was, he was bent over the turret of a very, very big enemy tank.
It was a beast – at around forty feet long and twelve feet wide, it was the size of a large dump truck back on Earth. There was a massive-but-sleek turret mounting a single energy weapon – probably a particle accelerator cannon. Numerous lasers were mounted for light duty as well as what had to be five or six retractable missile launchers. A fusion power plant drove the weapons system and the four independently-stabilized treads which moved the ninety tons at startling speeds. He knew without having to check it would have shields too. It was a high-tech mobile killing machine, and it was heading right for Second Squad.
The inside of the suit’s cockpit functioned almost like a window, the images projected there by miniature Tri-Vs. He shook off the stunning impact and looked up at the turret to see an armored camera turn to look right back at him.
“No free pictures,” he said as he reached up and smashed the lens.
Jakutah was pleased. As the most experienced tank crewman in the gang, he and his nine fellow Zuul had been given command of the heavy tank, which happened to be of Zuul design. His long muzzle skinned back over sharp teeth as he imagined the profit they would make from this raid. The Duplato were easy targets. Even with a few mercs here now, it shouldn’t be a huge challenge, not with the kind of firepower they had. Naturally he was as surprised as the rest of his crew when the heavy combat-armored trooper crashed onto the turret like an unexploded bomb. Much better than the exploding kind, of course. But now he had a damn trooper on top of his tank, and it had just crushed a camera!
“Anti-personnel gunner!” he commanded.
“Sir!”
“Get that cursed thing off my tank.”
“Right away, sir!”
The threat buzzer went off on Jim’s display. His head spun around as a laser slid out of a recess on the turret’s side and spun around toward him.
“Oh crap!” he barked and raised his right arm. It was an instinctive move, and the right one, completely by accident. The motion was preprogrammed into the suit to trigger a defensive system. As the arm came up, the brace on the forearm sprang open into a shield just as the laser fired. The shield was highly reflective and hardened armor. The laser’s pulses ricocheted in every direction as the weapon tried to strafe him. “Forgot about that,” Jim said when he realized he hadn’t been perforated. Several of the reflected beams struck the tank. One blew off the primary communication antenna. The other…
Jelltoh, the chief anti-personnel gunner of the tank, had been forced to flip up a visor to see the armored attacker who’d destroyed the only camera with a clear view. Luckily the visor had a built-in display interface so he’d put the cross hairs on the center of the huge armored figure’s ‘chest’ and hit the activate button. The laser popped out and spun on target. The enemy trooper brought an arm up with incredible speed and timing, deploying a laser treated shield that sent the beams bouncing like crazy.
“Communications are down!” Jistoop the radio operator yelled.
“Damage to targeting system,” Jinpaka the main gunner cried out.
“Jelltoh!” Jakutah barked, “I said kill that!”
“I’m trying, sir,” Jelltoh said, and he slewed the lasers’ aim. As the gun moved along the shield, it found a very specific angle. The next beam pulse melted a little of the shield. Unfortunately for Jelltoh, it also bounced most of the beam right into the barely five-inch-tall visor aperture. An incredible shot, actually. The heavy-duty optics reflected the nearly 1 megawatt of attenuated light before melting. The beam flashed into the crew compartment, melted Jelltoh’s face, and exploded his brains all over the inside of the turret.
The laser stopped, and Jim glanced around his shield. It was just sitting there, still pointing at him. Several important-looking pieces of equipment on top of the tank were smoking, but the laser was still there. He swung his left arm around, activated his sights, and fired a burst of light accelerator rounds that tore the laser apart. Lowering his right, the shield immediately retracted onto the arm. Well that worked! Encouraged, he clamped onto the broken remains of an antenna and pulled into more of a crouch before looking around to see what other kinds of damage he could do.
“Gah!” the other two crew members in the turret yelped as Jelltoh’s brains and blood were spread around the compartment.
“What was that explosion?” Jakutah demanded below.
“The anti-personnel gunner,” replied Jinpaka.
“Is that armored trooper gone?” Jakutah asked.
“I cannot tell,” Jinpaka said, “the observation port is burned out.” He leaned over his former crewmate’s body and triggered the laser again. It flashed a red telltale, meaning it was not responding to commands or firing. “The gun is out of action, too.”
Jakutah snarled and spat on the floor of his command position. He could run the entire tank from there if necessary, so he knew about the gun being out. The tank’s shield would have kept anyone from getting on it, but he’d been running without it to decrease the chance of being spotted. Besides, he’d always thought it made the ride bumpier.
From the sound on the chassis, it appeared the nuisance was moving around to the rear of the tank. At least it could do less damage there.
“Reactor Thermal Vent Number One has been sealed,” Joshpa, the engineer reported. Jakutah felt his hackles rising in fear and anger. “Vent Number Two is sealed too! Reactor overheat and shut down in one minute.”
“Entropy!” Jakutah roared. “Driver!”
“Yes, sir,” Juslogo, the driver replied instantly. He was less than a foot away from his commander, with his back to him, so he was already quite afraid.
“Get that damned thing off my tank, I don’t care how you do it! Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
The Zuul were known in the merc world as being quite literal. This translated into following orders both precisely and with very little imagination. That was until they were told to do it however they could. In moments like that, a Zuul could do the most unpredictable and nonsensical things. Often described as anarchy under orders, those who employed the Zuul were always careful not to leave any of their orders open to improvisation or interpretation. Juslogo interpreted his order as just that, an order to improvise.
An enemy trooper was on top of their tank perpetrating mischief, and he had to get it off. He looked through his screen displaying the layout of the ground ahead of them, the tank’s treads chewing quickly toward their destination. Off to the left was a dense copse of ice-encrusted trees and the ground slowly climbed upwards. The trees had numerous low branches.
“It will be done, sir,” he said, then both accelerated and slewed them off the mostly clear path and began crashing into the trees. He accelerated, jerking the tank from side to side.
“Son of a...ahhh!” Jim caught a foot-thick tree branch right in the middle of his suit, about where his chest was on the inside. The tank was still going over fifty mph as it left the clear area of the trail and careened into the thick growth of trees. The deep-frozen branch met hardened armor and exploded, nearly sending Jim flying off the back of the tank. He’d been partially bent over, jamming another vent on the tank’s fusion reactor closed. They’d been easy to spot: the air was super cold and the vents were like white hot lasers to his IR sensors. He’d sealed the second one by just bending the cover cl
osed and was standing up again when the branch nailed him.
Jim did a wonderful CASPer version of a windmill with both arms before flipping over on his back with a crash and sliding half off the tank. At that moment, the tank hopped over a low hummock, launching him into the air and over the back.
“Hah!” Juslogo barked and yipped. “That got him!”
“Excellent job, driver,” Jakutah complemented. “Now get us back on track! We can expect more resistance. Joshpa, update on the reactor?”
“I’ve managed to partially open one of the vents. If we keep the reactor at twenty-five percent like it is now, we’re fine. Anything higher and the temperature will spike. I’ll have to go outside to fix it.”
“Any signs of that fur-scratching combat suit?” the commander asked. All of his crew indicated negative. “Fine, we can take a minute. I’m sure the rest of the force is mopping up the enemy defenses. Driver, halt while repairs are made.”
Jim didn’t know what he was holding onto, but it was attached to the tank, and he was being dragged through the snow, ice, and rocks. He was afraid to let go, because who knew what would happen? He was afraid to hang on, because who knew what would happen? And he was terrified of trying to use his jumpjets, because— fuck! So indecision, more than anything else, kept him hanging on as his suit’s systems racked up an impressive list of damage from the impromptu road-hauling.
“Jim…status?” he heard from his radio once, but he was too busy keeping his brains from being beaten out on the side of his own cockpit and didn’t answer. The call started again, but cut off mid- transmission.
The insane ride continued for another minute, then the tank came to a quick and sudden stop. Jim ended up laying on his suit’s back, looking up at the sky and breathing hard.