Bright flowers of muzzle-flashes dotted the darkness from return fire, and a hundred rounds bounced off the APC, sounding like rain on a tin roof. The hot spent shells rained upon the metal floor at his boots, the ringing noise deafening without protective covering on his ears. With the trigger locked into position, Ryan turned the turret in a full circle, shooting into the trees and bushes. Screams peppered the nonstop explosions, and fires were burning all over the clearing.
A gren boomed near the LAV, throwing dirt onto the hull. Then another hit the prow, igniting with a swell and casting a thick sheet of fire across the wag. A wave of searing heat flooded in through the vents, carrying the metallic stink of thermite. They were trying to melt the APC from underneath him!
Just then, a warning light started to flash as Ryan swept the clearing again and the cannon stopped abruptly, the ammo bin completely empty. Dropping out of the turret, Ryan hit the munitions locker and grabbed a fresh belt of 25 mm rounds. The linked shells were incredibly heavy, and it was an effort for him to drag the belt into the turret. Reloading was supposed to be a two-man job.
Blinking away the sweat running off his face due to the rising temperature inside the wag, Ryan fought apart the hot breech of the cannon, then spied Overton walking out of the cave carrying a short plastic tube. He extended the tube to nearly double its length, a sight popping up from the top and a pistollike handle dropping down from the bottom.
With a bitter curse, Ryan dropped the ammo belt and scrambled from the turret. Clawing at the handle of the rear door, he charged into the cool darkness.
A lance of flame reached out from the tube to slam into the fire-coated APC and violently explode, the blast lifting the wag off the ground and throwing it sideways. The noise of the massive blast rambled over the forest.
Still running, Ryan was slapped against the ground by the sheer force of the concussion.
“Now!” Overton commanded, and the night vanished in a crash of illumination, clusters of halogen bulbs on the top of poles lighting the area as bright as day.
Caught totally by surprise, Ryan found himself trapped in plain sight. Yards away from the forest, he dived behind the crumpled ruins of the satellite dish. Drawing his blaster, Ryan emptied an entire clip at the closest pole, and the lights died as the glass shattered. But that was only one out of many.
“You’re trapped!” Overton roared, working the bolt on the M-60, being extra careful not to break a finger on the powerful spring. “Chill the son of a bitch!”
A score of blasters from every direction spoke at once, sending waves of rounds into the resilient plastic dish. Designed to withstand the worst possible of storms, the antenna still cracked under the fusillade of bullets. Then the M-60 spoke, the large 7.62 mm rounds stitching a line of holes clear through the material.
Crouching low behind a crushed corpse, Ryan seized the man’s AK-47 and fired a return volley. A mound of loose dirt was at his rear, offering some protection, but the dish was being torn to pieces, and he was still horribly outnumbered. Ryan knew he better get clever real fast or else he was meat in a box.
The barrage slowed for a moment, and Ryan stood, emptying the AK-47 at the fuel drums inside the cave. But the angle was wrong, and he couldn’t reach the barrels without dangerously exposing himself to lethal return fire.
“You had a chance to surrender,” Overton snarled, laying a fresh belt of linked ammo into the hot breech of his big blaster. Spent shells lay at his boots like golden offerings to a primitive war god. “Too late now, dear Father!”
As a reply, Ryan stood and threw his only spare ammo clip for the AK-47 into the smoldering campfire.
“Incoming!” Overton cried, as the rounds started to cook off, bullets flying every which way in a totally random pattern.
Inside the cave, a sec man cried out, a red stain spreading over his stomach. A crate burst apart, spilling MRE packs, and a fuel barrel dented deeply enough to start oozing fuel like tears from a dead eye. But there was no detonation.