The Tank Lords by David Drake

When he shot at the three crew members running for a Zaporoskiye tank, his bolts slapped the flank of their vehicle instead. The cyan reflection threw the men down anyway, their clothing afire.

Hula Girl skidded. Panchin aimed at the open rear hatch of an APC close enough to spit into but punched the side of a carrier twenty meters away. The steel armor burned white in the heat of the plasma; then the whole vehicle erupted. The commander’s cupola spun out of the fireball.

Cortezar was dodging obstacles as best she could, but Hula Girl repeatedly brushed a vehicle or a sandbag wall. The skirts were sturdy, but they weren’t a bulldozer blade. If the plenum chamber was too damaged to hold high-pressure air, the car became a sitting duck for everything a regimental firebase could throw at her.

An explosion with three distinct pulses hammered the camp. Hula Girl spun ninety degrees before Cortezar got her under control again. The quivering yellow flare threw the shadows of men and equipment a kilometer across the desert. Jonas or Ericssen had hit an artillery vehicle, detonating some of the ready ammo.

Metal clanged discordantly. Pink tracers clipped one of the stakes holding Hula Girl’s overhead screen and kicked smoldering dimples in the baggage.

Panchin tried to swing his tribarrel onto the Zaporoskiye tank firing at them with the automatic weapon in its cupola. Sergeant Jonas was faster, pounding the tank’s mid-hull with a long burst that crumbled the ceramic. The tank didn’t explode violently, but a red flash lifted all the hatches. The machine gun stopped firing.

Panchin shot at a supply truck and for once hit his target. Greasy flames enveloped the crates stacked on the bed. Men jumped off the other side of the vehicle and ran unharmed into the night.

Panchin’s iridium barrels glowed so brightly that his faceshield had to gray out their glare. The long burst Sergeant Jonas fired to destroy the tank had jammed his tribarrel. He tilted his weapon up to chip with a knifeblade at the matrix material gumming his ejection port.

Cortezar swung Hula Girl hard left on the track within the outer ring of vehicles. Half a dozen rebel soldiers squatted behind their APC and the sandbag wall they’d started for a sleeping bunker. They fired at Hula Girl with automatic rifles. Panchin slewed his gun toward them. A bullet whanged Jonas’ weapon. The impact spun the tribarrel on its pintle. Like a white-hot baseball bat, the lower muzzle knocked the sergeant down.

A second artillery vehicle blew up. This time at least four rounds detonated simultaneously. The blast threw Hula Girl ten meters sideways into a heavy tractor with an earthmoving blade. The combat car rotated a half turn and stalled because Cortezar had dropped the controls when her helmet bounced off the side of her compartment.

Panchin screamed in fear and clamped his trigger. There was a sound like water dropped into an ocean of hot grease, and the center of his faceshield became a shadow with cyan edges. The protective spot collapsed to show the ruin of an air-cushion vehicle, still glowing but no longer so bright that it could etch retinas.

“Drive!” Sergeant Jonas said. “Drive!”

Hula Girl shuddered, rose minusculy, and turned to lurch off the northern edge of the knoll between a pair of Sulewesan APCs. One burned sluggishly; the other was as still as a grave though apparently undamaged.

More Brazilian rockets exploded. Hula Girl pogoed twice even though this time high ground shielded them from the shockwave. Debris from a previous explosion must have set this one off because Frosty wasn’t shooting and Panchin’s tribarrel had jammed.

Hula Girl tore through the night. Tracers arched across the sky, but the rebel laager was out of direct sight. There was a risk that the car might hit a large boulder, but Cortezar was driving with a touch as deft as a brain surgeon’s.

Panchin knelt with his hands clasped over the chestplate of his armor. He knew he ought to clear his tribarrel, but his whole body was shaking.

Ericssen worked on Sergeant Jonas’ forearm. “It’s just a bruise!” the sergeant said. His voice was tight with pain.

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