“Fireblast, it moved!” Ryan raged. “Any more Molotovs?”
“No!”
“Then we use the satchel charge!”
“Too late!”
Glancing upward, Ryan cursed as he saw the fiery outline of the heatseekers from War Wag One arc over the city and plummet straight down toward the empty pool of fire. Then a pair peeled off to separate and strike different buildings still blazing, a furniture warehouse and a chemical factory. But the rest dived toward their target and impacted on the vacant street, throwing chunks of pavement in every direction, the staggering blast toppling dozens of additional ruins.
“We were too slow!” Ryan snarled. “Okay, we use the backup plan!”
Killing their radios, Ryan and J.B. rode to new locations and parked in the penumbra of jagged structures that hopefully would hide them from the sensors of the Ranger. Stepping off the bikes, the men unlimbered their LAW rockets, pulled the pins and extended the tubes to swing the launchers toward the tallest remaining skyscraper.
In a whooshing roar, the rockets launched and climbed on hot contrails to slam deep into the structure, the double explosions blowing out the Plexiglas windows on the middle floors.
Even as the shiny plastic fell, there was a brilliant strobe of light from the cliff as the L-gun of War Wag One stabbed out a short shimmering beam of destruction that hit the building and cut it in two, finishing the job the rockets merely started. As the slab of floors fell away, the war wag now had a direct line-of-sight view of the Ranger.
Even as the tank swung its main gun toward the enemy on the high ground, the homemade laser stabbed out with a sustained beam of shimmering energy that lanced straight through the machine like a burning sword. As the chassis glowed red hot, the coil gun hummed one last time as the Ranger flashed rads from the violated DU armor, flooding the vicinity to lethal levels. Everything flammable in the tank vaporized into superheated steam, and there was a brief human scream as the reserve ammo for the machine guns ignited, heaving the ruptured vehicle into the air, a halo of shrapnel brutally peppering everything in sight. Tumbling in the air, the tank crashed back down as a flaming meteor, secondary explosions cooking nuke batteries and adding to the general annihilation.
Then impossibly, incredibly, the electric motors roared with life and the Ranger tried to rally once more until lightning crackled from the engine compartment and the fusion reactor scrammed, shutting off all power. Crackling in flames, the demolished war wag sat there for a few calculated seconds, just long enough to draw an enemy closer, and then the self destruct charges welded inside its sturdy frame detonated. The four hundred pounds of thermite flaring incandescent, creating a nimbus of searing blinding light.
As the hellish inferno slowly dimmed and vision returned, there was nothing remaining of the preDark tank but a steaming crater in the ground and a very great deal of molten steel scattered about sizzling on the damp ground.
“Hello?” the hand comm crackled. “Anybody there?”
Ryan pressed the switch. “I’m okay, Pete. How about you, J.B.?”
“Alive and kicking,” the Armorer replied.
Looking to the cliff, Ryan frowned when he couldn’t find the war wag. “How is Trader?” he asked urgently. “Did they take a hit?”
“She…she’s aced,” Fat Pete said woodenly. “Everybody else got out in time, in case the attack failed, but she stayed to aim the laser.”
“The Trader is chilled,” Ryan said softly, raising a gloved hand to shield his face from the raging inferno of the dying tank. PreDark lamp posts on the distant corners were starting to soften and bend over from the heat like melting icicles, the sidewalks shattering into rubble, bricks crumbling into the ash they were forged from again.
“No way she could have escaped?” J.B. prompted hopefully.
“None,” Fat Pete said in a tight voice. “Duncan saw it happen from War Wag Two, which I guess is now One, and I’m the new Trader.” There was a pause filled with only the sound of his controlled breathing.
“Which means you fucking outlanders aren’t welcome here anymore,” Trader snarled in barely controlled rage.