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Grenade explosions slammed us, but it would take a lot more than that to damage a T-680. "Engaging!" I yelled. "Take out the APCs!"
I put on the driver's VR helmet; the view was like I was outside, except for the superimposed displays. Two hijackers were trying to plant their grenades under the left tread. My hands and feet worked controls by touch. The T-680 lurched back, twisted, and lunged Forward. The hijackers became red stains on the tread they had been trying to blow.
Through the swirling snow I spotted both APCs closing in, hoping to recapture or at least disable their prime piece of armament. The remaining riflemen cautiously flanked them, while the mortars and machine guns were frantically being repositioned. The T-680 shuddered as the APCs' .50 calibers tried to cut a tread; the only damage they could hope to inflict.
I spun the T-680 and charged them. If Schmidt couldn't hit them, I was going to try to run them over. The turret traversed. The tank shook from the ca
"Pretty sloppy shooting, grunt!" I yelled up at Schmidt. "Maybe they will laugh themselves to death!"
The APCs were curving away from us in opposite directions. The ca
"I might make a soldier out of you yet!" I yelled.
The fleeing hijackers ran into more trouble. Grenades and sharpshooting cut down the first six, driving the rest to cover near the gorge's mouth. Ski and Toglog had joined the party.
The remaining APC was hightailing it at max speed. Schmidt was firing as quickly as he could reload. The first four shells missed the zigzagging target, but the fifth nailed it.
I swung the T-680 around. A quake opened a crack in the tundra in front of us, but we jumped it before it got too wide. Ash from the line of volcanos was turning the snow black. The surviving dozen or so hijackers, caught between Ski and Toglog and us, were digging in for a last stand around the mortars and machine guns. Nobody was trying to surrender, which was smart, because we weren't taking any prisoners.
Switching to the twin anti-perso
The turret kept traversing, and the anti-perso
I spotted a white-suited figure limping from the gorge's mouth, and drove over. It was Toglog. Stopping in front of him, I popped the turret hatch. "Schmidt, get rid of the tanker corpse and help Toglog in!"
"Ja, Sarge!"
Toglog had acquired a few more minor wounds, and he was packing a Skoda instead of his Enforcer. "Grenades all used up!" he explained as we patched ourselves and gulped more keep-going pills. It was a good thing that we had transport again; we were all ru
"What happened to Ski?" I growled at Toglog.
"One of the .50 calibers carved him from head to toe! Fine weapons-too bad you crunched them!"
"You would want to stagger into combat carrying a field piece! Forget it! The run and games are over, you yahoos-time to do the job we came to do!"
"We still don't have anybody to ask where the base is!"
"Don't need to!" I tapped buttons on the command console, and a map appeared on the tac screen. "The auto-con will show us!"
Following the map course, we set out for the hijackers' base. I drove, and Schmidt stood by in the turret just in case. Toglog didn't like the cramped quarters; he rode on top of the turret, enjoying the scenery.
Rounding the volcanos, the T-680 wove through a region of geysers and hot springs. Blasts of steam turned the tank's interior into an oven. The hijacker force's outbound tracks had been covered by fresh snow, and visibility was down to a handful of meters, so I had to rely mostly on the auto-con. Picking a way through the rough, dangerous terrain kept me pretty busy.
"Expecting another attack, Sarge?" Schmidt asked.
"It's the one you don't expect that fries your ass! Keep your eyes open, and that wound under your mustache zipped!"
But the trip was uneventful, except for a few quakes, avalanches, crevasses, and a hail of lava chunks that almost knocked Toglog off the turret. I could see how the hijackers had managed to operate here so long without being discovered. What I couldn't see was how they managed to operate here at all.
The T-680 climbed through a pass in a nuked-looking ridge. In the middle of the snowbound lava field beyond, I could make out a lone dome-shaped hill. There were streams and some vegetation on its lower slopes, but the wind kept the glossy black summit swept clear.
"According to the auto-con," I yelled, "that's our target!"
"I don't see any base!" Toglog replied over the com. "Just rock!"
"Stay sharp anyway! Just in case that rock falls on us!"
The auto-con guided the T-680 down onto and across the lava field, toward a cavelike hole in the hill's flank. The mouth was about thirty meters across. A thin column of steam rose from it.
The back of my neck started itching again.
"Schmidt, lob a few shells into that hole!"
"You think the base is in there?"
"I think it's-"
KRUUUMP! An explosion under the front of the T-680 lifted it. It landed hard. More ca
"-damned likely!" I finished.
"Where's the fire coming from?" Schmidt yelled.
I checked the tac screen. "A ca
"Got 'em!"
"Then get 'em!" I switched on my com. "Last chance to come aboard, Toglog!"
"I was born on the steepe!" he answered. "I won't go to my ancestors in an iron yurt!"
"Have it your way! See what you can do about those machine guns!"
I sent the T-680 racing toward the cave mouth at max speed, through flame and smoke, slugs and shrapnel. Schmidt had the ca
A blast rang the T-680 like a bell. A treadplate was blown loose; I cut speed to a crawl before it could jam. Smoke came down from the turret, followed by a coughing yell from Schmidt. "Scratch the ca
I was watching a combat-suited figure zigzagging up the slope. Machine gun bursts kicked up snow at its feet. "Cover Toglog!"
"Ja!" The twin anti-perso
Too late, Schmidt nailed the last machine gun.
Another near-miss from the hijacker ca
Suddenly I noticed that Toglog's corpse had moved. Following the red trail upslope, I spotted it near the slit through which the hijacker ca