Crucible (14 page)

Hanna rolled over, feeling the ground shaking beneath her. She looked round and saw the Blackmare climbing over the mountain of rubble that was all that remained of those collapsed buildings. The monster bore remorselessly down on her and she saw the crawling figure of an injured Souther trooper die screaming beneath those enormous grinding tracks. She reached down and fumbled with the release catch of her pistol holster, determined to at least die with a weapon in her hand, no matter how useless it might be.

What happened next was something Sergeant First Class Hanna Coss would never forget for as long as she lived.

The Kashan tank grenadier troops riding on top of the Blackmare cheered in triumph as they watched their Souther enemies scatter before them. A few fired shots to pick off some of the wounded in the tank's path, but most were content to cling onto the handholds on the tank's hull and turret and to allow the giant beast its rightful spoils. They were still cheering when the blue-skinned figure who, impossibly wasn't wearing a chem-suit, leapt ten metres down from the rooftop of a nearby building and landed amongst them.

The plasma sphere that Rogue had dropped just before he jumped cleared a landing spot for him. The explosion didn't even scratch the Blackmare's topside armour, but it was more than enough to take care of the Kashan tank grenadiers riding on the platform behind the main turret.

He landed moments later amongst the carnage of dead and dying Norts. Gunnar chattered in his hands, sending the bodies of the grenade explosion survivors spilling lifelessly down the steep sides of the tank's hull. A second blast cleared most of the Norts riding on top of the turret.

Rogue clambered up the turret ladder sending another Nort falling towards the ground twelve metres below with a single kick.

Ascending on to the turret, he ducked to evade the buzzing las-sword blade swung at him by a Kashan Legion kapten. Even through the protection of his scaled synthi-plastic skin he felt the heat from the weapon's blade as it crackled centimetres past the flesh of his back. He countered the attack with the butt of his rifle, smashing it into his opponent's face and caving in the visor of his chem-suit helmet. The Nort officer fell off the turret with a gurgling shriek, choking on a noxious mixture of his own blood and Nu Earth's air. He hit the steep, armoured slope of the Blackmare's front and then fell screaming beneath the grinding tracks.

Rogue blew the turret hatch with a seal-burster, leaping down into the turret interior to deal with the crew. Unprotected by chem-suits or breather masks, the men manning the tank's main turret gun were easy prey to the poisoned air that came rushing into the vehicle in the wake of the seal-burster blast. Those who were still alive, choking and partly paralysed from the effects of exposure, proved even easier prey to Gunnar's vibro-knife bayonet attachment.

Rogue kicked open the hatch in the turret room floor and stepped back smartly as a volley of shots ricocheted up the ladder shaft from the tank's main control room below. The Norts down there probably as many as fifteen of them, manning the Blackmare's various weapons and power systems, had breather masks on and were now waiting for him. Rogue reached back and grabbed the three strange oblong-shaped grenade devices dispensed to him by Bagman's claw-arm.

Needle-bombs, picked up on a raid on a Nort supply base on the long, hard journey to Nordstadt. Rogue was glad he'd hung on to them. Now he'd found the perfect opportunity to use them.

He pulled the fuses and dropped them down the ladder shaft, slamming the hatch shut immediately afterwards. He heard a scream of panic from below, cut off abruptly by a series of three sharp whiplash sounds as the needle-bombs detonated, instantly turning the interior of the tank's control room into a slaughterhouse.

Each of the devices was packed with thousands of razor-sharp metal splinters wrapped around a high-density explosive core. When one detonated it sprayed the splinters out in a circumference of a hundred metres or more, perforating everything within that range. The grenades were designed for open air use against concentrations of attacking troops, to be dropped by low-flying aircraft or laid in by mortar bombardment. One splinter hit on its own was rarely enough to kill, unless it pierced a vital organ. Dozens of such hits, however, would reduce a chem-suit to tatters and cause death either by atmospheric exposure or massive blood loss. Used properly, they could break up an infantry attack in seconds. Used inside the confines of the metal-walled interior of a tank cab, they were nothing short of gruesomely devastating.

The Blackmare's crew weren't so much killed as ripped to shreds. The sprays of needles tore human bodies apart as if they were made of wet paper. Needles by the hundred penetrated control panels and operating systems, shattering delicate internal components. They struck power feeds and electric cables, causing multiple blow-outs. The huge war machine ground to a halt, its crew dead, its control systems destroyed.

Rogue opened the floor hatch again, glancing at the scene below.

"Nothing moving down there, Rogue," confirmed Helm. "No life signs, no audio pick-up of any trace of human heartbeats."

Rogue looked down and saw a metal floor slick with thick sprays of human blood. More blood dripped from the bottom rungs of the ladder. The entire interior of the space had been redecorated in shades of wet crimson. He dropped the hatch with a clang, satisfied that the bombs had done their task.

He reached for Gunnar, picking him up and gently removing the precious GI biochip from its slot in the side of the rifle. The Blackmare's main gun and turret power systems were still operational and a winking green light on a console board showed the gun was armed and ready to fire, with a large-calibre las-shell already loaded and in the pipe.

Moving quickly, he prised open the casing of the weapon's targeting computer and yanked out a handful of small circuit board chips. The device died with a quiet electronic squawk, the green status lights on its master console fading away to nothing. A second later, it hummed with life again as Rogue slotted Gunnar's biochip into the place of the missing circuit boards.

"Okay, I'm in, Rogue. Let's do it," Gunnar's voice sounded different, strange and harsh, filtered through the speech modulator of the Nort computer.

Rogue smiled. One Nort Blackmare down, one more to go.

Hanna couldn't believe it when she saw the blue-skinned figure leap onto the top of the Nort tank and wipe out almost two full squads of elite Kashans in as much time as it would normally take her to change ammo mags on her las-carbine. She still didn't believe it when she saw him vanish inside the turret and then, again in roughly the time it would take to swap las-round clips, the giant tank came shuddering to a dead halt, stopping just a few terrifying metres short of where she lay helpless in its path.

There was a loud, rumbling crash from behind the dead Blackmare and Hanna watched in horror as the second Nort tank started to crest the rise of the rubble mound blocking the street behind her. Nort infantry and smaller armoured vehicles swarmed after it, eager to avenge the mysterious loss of the first Blackmare.

Then, as Hanna watched, the turret of the first tank began to revolve, turning away from the Souther positions to point directly back down the street towards the advancing Norts.

What happened next was something else she would never forget.

"Target in sight," reported Gunnar. "Range, fifty metres and closing. Multiple secondary targets well within range of impact blast radius on primary target."

Rogue looked through the targeter scope. The enormous metal bulk of the second Blackmare entirely filled the scene in front of him. He saw the armoured slopes of the target's front and turret rise up in front of him as the Blackmare laboriously climbed its way up the rubble slope. He saw the faces of the Kashan tank grenadiers clinging onto the vehicle's sides. A shot now would probably be a kill shot, but they would only have this one chance and Rogue couldn't risk wasting it on a shot that might only disable the Nort tank or, even worse, simply just ricochet off its metre-thick reinforced front armour.

"Hold your fire, Gunnar. Wait for my order."

The front of the Blackmare reared up as it crested the top of the rubble mound.

"Wait..."

Rogue tracked down with the targeter scope, seeing the Blackmare's vulnerable underbelly slide into sight as the tank crested the rise.

"Wait..."

The tank sat at almost a thirty degree angle, its treads grinding rubble boulders into dust as they fought to push it over the top of the crest.

"Wait..."

Any moment now, it would tumble forward as it made it over the top, and charge down the other side of the slope towards them. Its own turret gun was pointing uselessly up into the air, but once the tank cleared the rise and levelled off, it would be targeting them almost immediately.

"Wait..."

Rogue scanned the underbelly of the target, looking for weak spots. Although it was the Blackmare's most vulnerable spot, the armour there was still thicker than the frontal armour of most other tank vehicles on Nu Earth.

"Wait..."

The Blackmare lurched forward, its front end descending, its underbelly slipping out of sight as it cleared the rise and started its descent of the other side of the rubble heap.

"Fire!"

The concussive roar of the Blackmare's turret gun was almost enough to knock Hanna unconscious. She saw the shot strike the second Blackmare square in the underbelly, just as the tank tipped back and forth at the fulcrum of its attempt to negotiate the top of the rubble mound.

It penetrated through, exploding inside the vehicle's hull, destroying it and instantly killing everyone aboard, both those inside it and those clinging on to its exterior. Pieces of tank and the bodies of the Kashan grenadiers riding on its hull were blown high into the air. The explosion knocked the massive body of the tank backwards, sending it sliding back down the slope and into the midst of the troops and vehicles following on behind. A whole platoon of Kashan stormtroopers died beneath its tracks. Two Firespitter flame-gun tanks and an APC full of more Kashans were crushed like matchwood by the weight of the sliding juggernaut.

It exploded a second time when it hit the bottom of the slope, the fires raging inside it setting off its fuel tanks and munitions stores. The effects on the Nort troops and infantry gathered there was catastrophic. Those that weren't consumed by the explosion were crushed under tonnes of masonry from yet another unstable building that came collapsing inwards onto the street from the effects of the blast wave.

The detonation of the munitions blew off the Blackmare's turret, sending it flying into the air atop a billowing column of flame and smoke. It came crashing down to earth a seemingly impossible one hundred and forty metres away, landing right on the heads of the Norts at the rear of the attack wave. The Kashan Legion battalion commander died along with many of his troops, as the shattered, burning mass of the turret rolled right over the top of him and his command vehicle.

Hanna saw all this and still didn't believe it. She still didn't believe it when she saw the blue-skinned figure climb back out of the turret of the first Blackmare, slide nimbly down the front of the vehicle and leap a full eight metres down on to the ground.

Rogue hit the ground with a thud, his GI legs braced for an impact that could well have broken ordinary human bones.

He took off running, pursued by las-shots from those few Kashans who had made it over the top of the rubble heap and so escaped the same fate as their comrades on the other side. He wasn't worried. In less than thirty seconds, most of these scum would be history because thirty seconds was the time setting he had fixed on the demolition charge he had dumped down the turret's shell supply shaft just before he vacated the Blackmare. It was still back there, ticking away among the stacks of shells in the munitions store buried deep within the Blackmare's hull, and when it blew the effects would be identical to those that put paid to the other Nort tank.

Rogue still wasn't worried. Running at GI speed, he would be far away when it blew and the destroyed hulks of the two Blackmares would be more than enough to effectively block off this broadway from any further Nort armoured advances. If the Norts wanted to find an open route through into the city's steelworks sector, then they would have to look for it somewhere else.

A shout from Bagman, however, quickly signalled a sudden change to Rogue's escape plan.

"Eleven o'clock, Rogue. One of ours, injured but still alive. She's lying directly in the blast radius when that Nort junk pile goes up!"

Rogue saw her, a wounded Souther Infantry sergeant, struggling to stand up despite the pain from a broken left leg. He changed course without thinking, reaching her in a few strides, scooping her up into his arms without even breaking pace.

She grunted in pain from the sudden movement but didn't cry out. A good trooper, was Rogue's instinctive judgement. He had arrived at the battle scene to see enough of her squad's stand against the advancing Kashans to know that she was an able squad leader, someone who the Southers would need in the days to come, in what was clearly the beginning of a major Nort offensive to retake what was left of Nordstadt.

Rogue kept on running, Nort las-rounds striking the ground around him. Answering fire from the Souther troops at the other end of the street crackled through the air over his head. Rogue changed direction again, making directly for the safety on offer there.

The limp body in his arms stirred. Hanna looked up into the face of her saviour.

"You... you're the Rogue Trooper," she said, incredulously. "I... I thought you were just another Nu Earth legend..."

"You better pray he ain't, lady, 'cos, right now, he's the only thing between you and a one-way ticket to Palookaville."

Hanna realised the leaks in her suit must be more serious than she thought and that she had gone chem-happy, because she could have sworn the weird-sounding, electronic-modulated voice she just heard had come from one of the Genetic Infantryman's pieces of equipment.