“Squat, low.” Mildred paused, adjusting the focus. “Resembles a tank, but I’m not familiar with the model. Must have been on patrol around the base.”
“Waiting for coldhearts,” Jak said. “Another Leviathan?”
“No,” she retorted. “A real tank. Straight military. Only it is larger, like a Abrams on steroids. It’s covered with antennas and dish shapes. But it only has a little cannon.”
“That means no range,” J.B. stated confidently. “No prob, as long as we keep enough distance.”
“What kind of little?” Ryan interrupted. “Short in length, or thin, a small-caliber blaster?”
“What’s the difference?” the physician asked. He stared in the sideview mirror. Nothing in sight yet. “Escape,” he told her over the beeping radar.
“Short and fat,” J.B. announced. Hat in hand, the Armorer had his face pressed hard against the slot to steady his view against the jostling of the vehicle.
In response, Ryan pressed the accelerator firmly to the floor. The twin diesels roared in barely restrained fury. The quivering needle of the speedometer steadily climbed to forty kph, fifty, sixty, seventy, seventy-five, seventy-six….
Chapter Five
The radar was starting to keen so J.B. turned the machine off. They had been warned, its job was done.
“Could it be,” Krysty asked urgently, “an intact Ranger?
“Hope not,” Ryan said through gritted teeth.
“What’s a Ranger?” Dean asked.
“A predark robot tank, comp-operated, no driver. Never heard of anybody ever stopping one.”
Krysty spun her chair and worked the breech on the 75 mm recoilless rifle. It was empty. “Jak, help me find the shells for the rifle!”
“Move it or lose it, people!” Ryan shouted, watching their Hummer of supplies bounce along behind them. Several boxes had already come loose, and they were losing more goods constantly. But there was nothing he could do about that. Supplies and food could be replaced. Not lives.
“If only we had some bastard trees for cover,” he snarled to himself. Those strange gray mountains seemed a million miles away, and there was a nuke crater between them. If it was old and cold, it would mean hardly any cover. Exactly what they didn’t want. If it was hot, an even worse death awaited them of bleeding sores and coughing out pieces of their lungs. Maybe it was only the dogs pulling a trick, or some coldhearts in a Hummer.
“I do not see anything,” Doc announced at the rear doors. “Just sand and… No, wait. There it is.”
“Dark night, it’s bigger than us!”
“Stop behind a dune and kill the engines,” Doc suggested. “Perhaps it is following us by the noise.
“Must be the tracks in the sand.”
“No,” Krysty said. “It’s following our radar!”
“Already off.” Ryan cursed.
“Mebbe the guys inside only want to talk or trade,” Dean suggested hopefully. “Or we can lure them out and-”
“There’s nobody inside it,” Ryan said, turning around a dune so quickly that six wheels left the ground. “That thing is fast.”
“We are faster,” Doc said in false confidence.
“Not by much,” Ryan stated grimly.
Krysty looked at the speedometer. “Can’t we get any more speed?”
Weaving around rocks and gullies, Ryan checked the console. “We’re at the red line.”
Krysty glanced in a mirror. The black shape was closer and bigger. “It’s not enough.”
“I know.”
His face pressed hard against the cushioned eyepiece of the periscope, finger lying next to the launch button of the missile pod, J.B. worked the focus and there it was, just as Mildred had described the thing. A squat angular box covered with antennae and with a single, front-mounted cannon. He couldn’t ID the caliber of the gun, but it sure didn’t seem big enough to damage anything armored like the Leviathan.
“Hey!” Mildred cried. “Its muzzle just glowed in a rainbow pattern.”
“Rainbow?” Dean repeated.
“Yes,” Mildred said, clearly puzzled. “No explosions or missile launched. Just some pretty colors. There it goes again!”
Handing Krysty a shell from the bin, Jak scowled.
“Colors?”
“Brace for impact!” Ryan yelled, twisting the steering wheel hard. Everybody not buckled in was thrown from their seats, and supplies scattered as the ground alongside the Leviathan violently exploded. The armored craft rocked from the concussion.