by Andy Remic
‘Oh,’ said Carter softly.
Mongrel stared at Carter’s face. It was ashen.
‘Now I understand,’ he whispered.
‘Is it bad?’
Carter nodded. ‘It’s fucking bad, all right. We have to tell Spiral. We have to stop Durell.’
‘Is it the earthquakes?’
‘It is worse than earthquakes,’ whispered Carter, turning away and grasping his machine carbine tightly. ‘If Durell makes a wrong move in this game he’s playing, he could destroy the world.’
‘You mean take over the world, right?’ growled Mongrel.
‘No.’ Carter shook his head. ‘If Durell fucks up, he’ll take us all out with him. Every single living creature on the planet. Have you got that ECube booted up yet?’
‘It’s flickering between states of stupidity and unreliability. I think the Nex may have compromised the network.’
‘Give it to me. We have to tell Spiral - and tell them now.’
Simmo halted the HTank and breathed deeply, staring down at the tiny DigitalMap on the tank’s ECube-linked scanners. Crushed under the wide heavy tracks, trees and other jungle vegetation creaked softly and Simmo could feel sweat running down his head, stinging the cuts to both the crown of his skull and lesser wounds on his face from the pounding he’d had from Kattenheim. Beneath him cold matrix engines hissed.
They know, said a small voice in his head.
They know you are coming.
Kattenheim has warned them ...
The LVA depot deep in the Colombian jungle was a large one; it was perhaps five times the size of the one back in Slovenia and one of the largest finds reported by Spiral men across the globe. Hence, logically to Simmo, it had to be the one he personally came to investigate - and destroy. Twenty-four huge tankers containing fuel squatted in the darkness and Simmo’s scouts had reported back that there were at least fifty enemy tanks, grey-tracked Nex TK79s supported by another twenty or so six-wheeled Can-trucks.
Simmo’s TankSquad itself sported only thirty Spiral SP57s armed with twin 135mm M512 smoothbore cannons, firing HEAT-X2 combat rounds, and triple heavy-calibre machine guns. They would need the element of surprise to win this one ... and in Simmo’s mind they had been guaranteed that simple necessity before Kattenheim’s escape.
Now they would have to make the best of a shit situation.
‘I should have let the guys shoot him,’ Simmo muttered.
‘You OK, boss?’ rumbled Oz, his mission co-op.
‘Hmm. I is thinking the plateau is nice and wide, hard to protect at front - this why they have so many tanks and trucks. We need to hit them - fast and now.’
‘Frontal assault?’
‘Poor tactic but we have little option. I will take HTank in from behind, down the gulleys and through perimeter fence when you engage. Send message to Rogowski - synchronise for five minutes.’
‘Will do,’ growled Oz.
Simmo lifted the hatch and poked his head up into the night. A deep dense blackness surrounded him and he felt sweat dribbling under his shirt and down inside the legs of his urban combats.
Parrots shrieked somewhere in the jungle, followed by the chatter of squabbling monkeys. Insects buzzed. Simmo squinted, staring off into the darkness. On the scanners below, he could see the SP57 tanks moving smoothing into position, their twin cannons looking ominous in the gloom.
‘You think they know we’re here?’
‘Maybe,’ said Simmo. ‘They not move on scanners. ECube reports no engines starting, no activity whatsoever.’
‘If this attack is not a surprise, we’re fucked, Sarge.’
‘You think Sarge not know that?’
‘Sorry, Sarge.’
‘Is all right, lad.’
The valley was a wide scoop from the Colombian jungle, with steep walls climbing from the basin’s base in an insane flurry of tangled trees, flailing creepers, nature-ravaged trunks, ferns and climbers, all competing for life and light. Trees tumbled across trees in great cataracts of spewing vegetation. Ferns mated with creepers, snaking over and around and through huge hardwood mahoganies and oaks. The whole basin was an insanity of jungle through which a wide road had been scythed, leading to the Colombian LVA depot at its heart, and bordered by a natural rough-sawn mahogany barricade at the rear - a huge impassable arc of titanic trunks.
Rain started to fall from heavy clouds swirling in dark hues. It increased quickly to a tropical downpour and Simmo lifted his face, revelling in the large warm droplets which filled him with a sudden vigour - a feeling of youth and indestructibility.
He glanced down at the scanners and watched his TankSquads moving into place through the rain and wet vegetation. Once a time had been agreed the men kept radio comm and ECube silence.
‘Still nothing,’ came the voice of Oz. ‘Looks like you were wrong about Kattenheim.’
‘Don’t be too sure.’
Simmo clambered back down and took the controls; he liked being at the controls, he liked to be in control. He revved the HTank quietly, engines hissing and cold matrix fumes blowing from exhaust ports in the darkness, then activated the CamCloak. There was a tiny hum. He grinned through his own personal pain.
Easing the HTank forward, he drove it carefully through the thick jungle. Tracks crushed trees and vegetation - and with each sound Simmo winced, hoping to God that his intel was correct and there were no scouts or enemy lookouts nearby.
The huge HTank slowed as it reached the precipice of the valley wall in front of him. Trees scattered off into a treacherously steep black abyss - and distantly he could see bright halogen-II lights through the torrential downpour, illuminating the hive of activity that was the massive LVA depot. He peered at the vid. The tangle of fallen, twisted trees were like dark black emaciated limbs and the strings of creepers were like shrivelled muscles stretched across black pitted bone.
Simmo shivered.
The tracks crunched to a halt, matrix engines hissing.
‘Here we go, then,’ he whispered.
In an inverted V formation, the SP57 tanks crept forward, two at the point of the advance, then a considerable distance break with most of the remaining tanks following. Tracks crunched and crushed their way noisily through the foliage. The two lead SP57s halted, engines rumbling, and their turrets began a smooth traverse as the tanks readied for a sudden high-speed assault—
From nowhere, the darkness to either side of the lead Spiral tanks suddenly became alive with unexpected explosions and flashes of tank cannon fire. Twin combat rounds flew from the darkness and struck with precision timing, crushing the two lead Spiral tanks from either side and lifting them, suddenly blazing with HighJ purple fire, spinning high into the air where metal disintegrated and dripped flowing in a liquid stream to the forest floor far below.
Rogowski, in the second row of tanks behind this sudden onslaught, froze for a moment as realisation struck him like a brick. There were TK79s camouflaged in the jungle to either side of the trail ... the Spiral TankSquad had rumbled into an ambush.
Simmo had been right...
They had been compromised.
And, thankfully, they had sent the two lead tanks in on REMOTE - as bait, for the enemy to make the first strike and expose their positions. This would give Simmo justification for attacking without specific orders.
It would have been a trap—
Without Simmo’s simple but effective battle strategy.
Suddenly, the night lit up like day as tanks camouflaged with jungle vegetation surged forward and pounded shells into the formation of Spiral tanks, which returned heavy-metal fire as the battle exploded in an onslaught of violence. Engines screamed and tracks ploughed towards the centre of the LVA camp as the Spiral heavy armour roared ahead in a sudden planned attack—
Spiral tank turrets whirled.
Shells spat at savagely close quarters.
Tanks, both Spiral and Nex, caught fire and burned with hellish flames.
Noise ruled.
&
nbsp; Noise and fire and destruction ...
A TK79 was hit, skidding along under the impact, tilting and then collapsing onto one side as it slid through the mud, bulky chassis and heavy tracks crushing five workers to the accompaniment of screams and the snaps of broken bodies. It struck a huge spherical storage tank of LVA fuel. A million gallons of LVA washed out over the trail—
From his vantage point, Simmo stared down in grim silence, watching the raging battle.
The timing has to be right, he thought.
Growling, he dropped the HTank into the darkness ...
Shells were booming through the halogen-illuminated rain, which swept down in great dark sheets. Fire belched from huge gun barrels as they thudded back in recoil. More tanks were pulverised, sent hurtling skywards in unfolding veils of purple and violet. Exploding gases and billowing bursts of fire seemed to envelop the whole world ...
‘There.’
The HTank fired. The shell hit the TK79 target, spun it round and sent it tumbling through the LVA camp. Machine-gun fire rattled, ricocheting by chance from the HTank’s camouflaged armour.
The TK79s were converging now, pursuing the Spiral tanks to the centre of the site. There were more Nex tanks than the Spiral men had at first thought, perhaps seventy or eighty, and they seemed to be unstoppable.
Simmo’s HTank squatted at the base of the steep rocky tree-clad slope. He watched as the outgunned and outnumbered Spiral SP57s turned, engines screaming, and started a hasty retreat through the mud and crushed trees.
The TK79s pursued them.
Simmo watched impassively from the safety of his camouflage as he realigned the HTank’s superior gun and waited for the right moment...
Another LVA tank had been smashed by a well-placed shell. LVA soaked into the glistening mud. The SP57s recreated, crushing a barracks as they apparently fled the enemy in a sudden panic - and the Nex tanks formed into a fighting unit with their guns facing forward. They slowed to manoeuvre through the bottleneck leading from the LVA depot—
Simmo smiled, sighted, and hit the launch key.
Six programmed K-TF8 guided missiles were loosed from the HTank’s camouflaged and electronically invisible hull. Rockets trailing blue jets of fire sped out, seeking the massive containers of LVA premium-grade fuel...
Simmo and Oz hunkered down inside the HTank and prayed.
Engines howling, the SP57s fled from the LVA-depot basin, the site of their supposed ambush ...
Missile warheads detonated.
LVA ignited.
And the night was suddenly lit with an unfurling of gas and fire which seemed at first to creep into the sky, consuming vegetation as it went, tracers spinning around the ever-expanding cloud of destruction—
Then came a roar of infinite devastation.
Followed by the sounds of nearly a hundred TK79s being smashed together, superheated and fused into a single solid lump of steel and alloy. Melted Nex briefly ran like candle-wax fat and were then vaporised in the sudden apocalypse. Barracks were kicked into oblivion, the LVA containers disintegrated into shards of twisted steel which then melted and rained fiery droplets from the now-contracting fireball—
A deep rumbling followed.
The very earth shook.
Simmo, panting, waited for the noise to subside. He checked his scanners - and learned that the SP57s had followed their orders precisely, forming a huge wall in their apparently chaotic but well-timed ‘flight’ and flinging up combined protective shields against the fury they knew was about to engulf the camp.
Simmo flung open the hatch, which clanged against the HTank’s hull as he climbed up into the rain. All was darkness and shadows, lit by a million scattered small fires at the edges of the blast zone - the perimeter of the titanic combined missile and LVA explosion. Simmo could smell gas and the stench of burning vegetation. The whole LVA depot had been disintegrated, vaporised -destroyed.
Simmo jumped down onto the hard-baked mud. He strode forward with his Sig in his fist towards the twisted, fused block of steel and iron, its shape almost organic in its sculpted curves and waves.
Oz joined him.
Rain poured down on them.
‘Good plan, Sarge,’ Oz said. ‘We sure nuked the fuck out of those bastards. Good job the lead tanks had no crew, eh? Did we lose many in the rest of the battle?’
‘We always lose too many,’ growled Sergeant Simmo. ‘But no - we lose only four men this time. Four good men. But at major loss to enemy! Go get me a sitrep from the rest of the TankSquad. And get some scouts out, do some ECube scans, see if there are any other fuckers waiting for us ... and get the fucking shields recharged.’
‘Aye aye, cap’n’ said Oz, grinning.
‘And Oz?’
‘Hm?’
‘You ever speak to me like a Trekkie again, and I will shoot you in throat without trial.’
Oz gulped. ‘OK, Sarge.’
Simmo sat on the HTank’s hull, watching the fires that still lit the jungle through the rain. ECube scans had revealed no organic traces of Kattenheim in the massive tank wreckage, nor organic slivers in the rubble of the barracks and the surrounding destroyed LVA storage tanks. What remained of the derrick and pump were nothing more than tiny blackened stumps, broken fingers poking forlornly into the tropical downpour.
Rogowski approached with Mo, who was carrying his usual huge mug of tea. Simmo watched the curls of steam from the Pakistani’s massive container of sweet brew for a moment, then transferred his gaze to the two men’s worried faces.
‘Anything?’
Rogowski made his report. ‘Another squad of Nex tanks has been alerted. They’re at some sort of refinery twenty klicks down the river. We reckon about sixty machines in all, TK79s again with a few TK82s thrown in for good measure and bang-per-buck firepower. There’s still no sign of Kattenheim, although that doesn’t mean he escaped.’
‘You sure are a mean motherfucker, Sarge,’ said Mo, dark brown eyes gleaming. He sipped from his huge mug of tea, grimacing as he burnt his tongue. ‘That was a very clever manoeuvre, getting them to chase us and line up with the LVA tankers ... nasty. I wouldn’t like to be on the opposite side to you in a war.’
Simmo scratched at the weeping red line on his skull, where his head had been stapled back together again after Kattenheim’s heavy blow. He smiled a dangerous smile as he surveyed the fused work of art. ‘Better fucking believe it,’ he growled, and lit a cigar. Puffing out huge grey clouds of tobacco smoke, he muttered, ‘A refinery, you say? It not appear on our Spiral scout maps?’
‘They must have missed it. Or it was too well camouflaged to be spotted from the air,’ said Mo, glancing around nervously at the flickering shadows. Raindrops sent concentric ripples across his lake of tea and the huge Pakistani soldier tried to shelter his precious brew.
‘You gonna send an ECube blip? Let Spiral know what went down here?’
‘Yes.’ Simmo nodded. ‘But only after we pay this LVA refinery a visit. Don’t want to spoil our fun, do we?’
‘So we’re a private army now, are we?’ said Oz softly, meeting Simmo’s gaze.
‘No - we just carrying out orders before they been issued. You trust The Sarge on this. The Sarge never been wrong in battle. Never. We just taken on and destroyed a force more than double our own ... and you still here sipping your tea. Now we go visit refinery and see how this new Nex tank threat measure up. You with me, lads?’
‘We’re with you, all right,’ said Oz, eyes glinting in the light of the fires of the burning LVA site.
‘Sure, we’d follow you to Hell and back,’ said Rogowski.
‘Not wise offer to make,’ said Simmo, drawing heavily on his cigar and still constantly scanning the periphery of the destroyed LVA refinery. ‘Because before this thing over, Sarge think you may have to do just that.’
Carter paused on the steps, his body screaming in raw agony, and glanced further down the stone spiral to where Mongrel stood, legs braced, chest heaving and a
look of pain and nausea on his broad face.
‘Come on!’
‘I’m shagged. You go on without me!’
‘I’ll put a fucking bullet in your head if you don’t shift your arse.’
Suddenly, Carter’s Browning lifted and there was a deafening series of shots as five bullets spat from the barrel, skimmed Mongrel’s shoulder and took a pursuing Nex in the face. Its body flipped backwards and toppled down the narrow stairwell.
‘Looks like the rest have realised that we’re here.’
Mongrel grunted something incomprehensible, and started to sprint up the steep stairs after Carter. The two men ran, their bodies throbbing with pain, sweat coursing down their faces.
A cold breeze blew from above and they suddenly emerged—
Into the Egyptian night. A short walkway led around the side of the temple from the small hole - Durell’s escape tunnel - where the two Spiral operatives had appeared; it was paved with black marble and led to the—
‘Helicopters.’
‘They’re on the move,’ muttered Carter. ‘Come on.’
‘Should we not go back for Comanche?’
‘Why?’
‘It ours. It Spiral’s. It fucking expensive. I don’t want that deducted from monthly salary payment, that for sure. I want to retire as fat old man, happy with pension, not paying for damn stupid mistake in desert with billion-dollar combat helicopter.’
‘God,’ said Carter, ‘it’s like being on a fucking mission with my wife. Stop fucking nagging.’
They crept around the outskirts of the temple and could see further squads of Nex in the street outside. But none inside the compound. Quickly but cautiously they edged towards the four remaining black helicopters—
As machine-gun hell broke loose from behind them ...
Bullets, some of them tracer, flew all around. Carter sprinted for the nearest chopper as Mongrel shoved his shoulder against the temple wall and opened fire. Carter dropped to one knee beside the machine and opened fire, allowing Mongrel time to retreat to his side and change mags. Then Carter leapt into the cockpit as a line of bullets slammed into the alloy beside his head. He flicked the controls, set the rotors spinning and palmed his Browning, holding it double-handed and taking careful aim—