A tread broke and writhed upward like a snake in its death throes. The hull warped, starting seams and rupturing the cooling system and fuel tanks in a gout of steam, then fire.
Metal screamed louder than men could. Blue Three’s skirts rode halfway up the shattered corpse of the rebel tank, fanning the flames into an encircling manacle. The Slammer’s driver twisted the hundred and seventy tonnes she controlled like a booted foot crushing an enemy’s face into the gutter.
Cooter stood up. Shorty Rogers raised his head from the bow hatch, glanced around, and disappeared again. A moment later, Flamethrower shuddered as her fans spun up to speed.
Blue Three backed away from the crackling inferno to which it had reduced its victim. Nothing else moved in the forest.
Dick Suilin’s fingers were reflexively loading a fresh clip into his grenade launcher.
Chapter Thirteen
Task Force Ranson, consisting of one tank and four combat cars under Junior Lieutenant Brian Cooter, was within seven kilometers of the outskirts of Kohang when it received word that Consie resistance had collapsed.
The Governmental Compound within the city was relieved a few minutes later by elements of the 12th and 23rd Infantry Brigades of the National Army.
Chapter Fourteen
Dick Suilin looked at Kohang with eyes different from those with which he’d viewed the fine old buildings around the Park and Governmental Compound only days before.
The stone facades were bullet pocked now, but Suilin had changed much more than the city had during the intervening hours.
“Good thing we didn’t have to fight through these streets,” he said.
His voice was a croak from breathing powergun residues. He didn’t know whether he’d ever regain the honey-smooth delivery that had been his greatest asset in the life of his past.
Tents had sprouted around the wheeled command vehicles in the central park fronting the Compound. There was a line of tarpaulin-covered bodies beside the border of shattered trees, but for the most part, the National Army soldiers looked more quizzical than afraid.
“Yeah,” said Albers, now manning the right wing gun. He spoke in a similar rasping whisper. “Narrow streets and every curst one a those places built like a bunker. Woulda been a bitch.”
“We’d’ve managed,” said Cooter.
I doubt it, Suilin thought. But we would have tried.
The Compound’s ornamental iron gates had been blown away early in the fighting. The makeshift barricade of burned-out cars which replaced them had already been pushed aside in the clean-up. Soldiers in clean fatigues bearing the collar flashes of the 23d Infantry stood aside as Task Force Ranson entered the courtyard.
Flamethrower settled wearily to the rubble-strewn cobblestones. The car gave a deep sigh as Rogers shut down its fans. The other vehicles were already parked within.
Blue Three listed to starboard since Kawana. The tank had brushed a stone gatepost to widen the Compound entrance, then dragged a sparking line across a courtyard-sized mosaic map of Southern District with all the major cities and terrain features described.
Flamethrower stank of burned plastic and blood. Gale’s body was wrapped in his air-tight bedroll and slung to the skirts, but the part of him that had splashed over the interior of the fighting compartment didn’t take long to rot in bright sunlight.
They took off their body armor. Suilin’s fingers didn’t want to bend. All three men were fumbling with their latches. Cooter gripped the edge of the hull armor and shivered.
“Blood and martyrs,” he muttered tiredly. Then he said, “Tootsie One-five, this is Three. Take over here till I get back, Tillman. Colonel wants me to report t’ Governor Kung.”
Suilin heard the electronic click of an answer on a channel the AI didn’t open to him. Surely assent. Nobody had the energy left to argue.
Cooter looked at the reporter. “You coming?” the mercenary asked.
Suilin shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, sure. That’s what I came for.”
He didn’t sound certain, even to himself.
“Albers,” Cooter said as he climbed over the back of the combat car. “See if you can help Tillman line up billets and rations, okay?”
Albers nodded minusculy. He was sitting on the beer cooler. He didn’t look at the big lieutenant. Except for the slight lift of his chin, he didn’t move.
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