Last to board, Thorne collapsed in the opening. Gloved hands grabbed at his webbing to drag him in, but were pushed aside by the sergeant.
“He’s gone. We’ll have to leave him here. The body’s contaminated.”
“I’m not fucking leaving him to rot.” Dooley stepped over the still figure. “Someone give me a hand.”
Ripper dived out past the NCO and helped the anti-tank man to lift Thorne onto the starboard engine pod where they wedged him among the spare ride-skirt panels. A few turns of loose rope around the legs and waist of the corpse made sure of its staying there.
“You’re bloody ghouls.” Hyde plugged into the intercom circuit as he took his place at the command position across from their driver.
The door silently closed and then there was only the pale illumination from the instrument panels and that reflected through the periscopes down each side and from the vision blocks in the command cupola.
“What’s the heading, Sarge?” Burke only asked as a matter of form. He’d already taken the turbofan engines to full thrust and was setting a course back for their base.
“How are we for time?”
In the turret Clarence heard the sergeant ask, and withdrawing the clip of proximity fused anti-aircraft shells from the compact breech of the Rarden, substituted three armour-piercing instead.
“I make it ten before… why?” A suspicion jumped into Burke’s mind. “If you’re thinking what I think you are, Sarge…”
“Don’t think, do. Take a right, circle the woods, all the speed you’ve got.”
Dipping under the surge of acceleration the HAPC skidded through a tight turn with its nose down and a shower of dirt thrown high to mark its progress.
“I want a maximum effort.” Though it made no difference, Hyde turned to look back down the interior as he said it. “There’ll only be time for the one pass. I don’t expect us to be taking any ammunition home with us.”
Ripper thought of Thome’s body, flopping and bumping against the hull, arms and legs outstretched, as though crucified. That’s what they’d all be if somebody’s watch was slow. “We’re gonna be ever so deep in the shit if the brass find out about this, Sarge.”
“Well, the only way they’ll find out is if the Ruskies kick up a stink and fix it on us. Let’s make sure there aren’t too many witnesses.”
Moving at top speed the hovercraft rolled and swayed in a sickening ship-like manner. The automatic ride height sensors failed to respond fast enough to the rapid changes in terrain as they crossed patches of bomb cratered landscape.
Like the others, Dooley had turned to man a ball-mounted machine-pistol. He almost lost his balance as the craft lurched and canted over on another violent change of heading.
Above him the Rarden opened up with an ear-splitting crack that was hardly lessened by the respirator, or the continual hiss of static over the intercom. Bracing himself against the jolting of the wild ride, he waited for a target.
There was a series of tremendously loud bangs and the craft shuddered as it took several impacts. All Dooley could see through his periscope was giant orange tracer skimming past so close he didn’t think it possible they could miss. Then three more struck the turret, and their gun went silent.
FOUR
“What’s the problem?” Hyde had only a second or two in which to decide whether or not to abort the attack. They were still racing straight at the rear of the convoy. The brief respite from the surprisingly accurate Russian cannon fire could only be because they were reloading.
“I’ve fixed it.”
As proof of their gunner’s word, Hyde heard the Rarden punch a measured trio of shots toward the trailer mounted flak-gun. The first shot went wild, the second was closer, seeming to strike the tow-bar joining the trailer to a light truck. The third impacted immediately below the 23mm barrel at the moment it began to reply.
There was a flash, unaccompanied by smoke and then the enemy weapon elevated skyward and loosed a long burst into the air.
Knowing he must have got the gunner and probably the elevation mechanism, Clarence took his time over the next shot. Waiting for a smooth patch of ground where the range was point blank, he put two shells into the mount from the flank.
A feed belt or magazine ignited and hid the cannon and the remains of its crew inside a sparkling cascade of brilliant white and blue flame.
One or two of the convoy’s machine guns chased the hovercraft with long bursts, but their attempts to bring their weapons to bear failed as they underestimated the attacker’s speed. Several others were still firing at the tree line and made no move to switch their fire to the real danger.
If they even recognized it, they left it too late. Crossing the ditch where it was nearly filled by rubble from craters, the dashing hovercraft seemed almost to take off as it leapt onto the Autobahn behind-the last vehicle in the convoy.
A captured Land Rover with slapped-on Warpac markings, it was actually reversing to get away when the HAPC sideswiped it. The impact spun the Rover through 360 degrees, hurling its driver onto the road. Before he could scramble to safety a ripple of machine gun fire from a side mounted weapon aboard the hover-craft virtually cut him in two. Another burst riddled his late transport and started a blaze among cans of grease and oil in the back.
“Look at them run.” Dooley had all the targets he could hope for, or cope with. A hundred meters on the far side of the road Burke put his machine through a right angle turn to bring it on course parallel with the stationary transport. With speed reduced to jogging pace they travelled slowly the full length of the convoy.
Suddenly aware they were caught on what they had thought was the safer blind side of the road, the Russian soldiers panicked, some dying as they collided with each other in their rush to find new places of safety. With steady precision, shells from the Rarden 30mm cannon were pumped into the motors and fuel tanks of every vehicle and piece of plant and machinery. Under the ferocious impacts, cylinder blocks were cracked open and fuel, cooling and electrical systems smashed and shredded. Fire sprouted instantly and tractors, trailers and loads alike were engulfed by infernos of flame.
A group of Russian field engineers had taken shelter beneath the bed of a large compressor. Oil poured over them as a solid shot ripped open the motor’s sump. They became torches as an incendiary shell burst and ignited the spillage.
Other human targets were sought out by the armoured hovercraft’s infantry passengers, and brought down by swirling cones of automatic fire as flames flushed them from hiding.
Using the roof-mounted grenade launcher, Hyde sent salvos of anti-personnel and smoke bombs at the road. Scything fragments and eruptions of white phosphorus added to the death and destruction.
“That’s it, job’s done.” Hyde shouted to their driver. “Get us out of here fast!”
As they raced from the scene, Hyde set the bomb thrower to lob decoy devices in their wake. Noise generators tumbled into strident life on the ground. A screening pall of hot smoke was created by the sequential detonation of a mass of sub-munitions. Bursting in the air, each short lived fiery-centred cloud could draw off any missiles homing by infra-red emission detection, while masking them from observation by any thermal imaging sight.
Traversing the turret, Clarence took a last look at the convoy before the smoke concealed it from view. From a rapidly increasing distance it appeared as if a full half kilometre of Autobahn was a continuous sheet of red and yellow flame. An impenetrable curtain of black smoke rose high above it, blotting out the pale sun.
“The Reds will create a stink over this.” Through the thick, clouded prisms of the command cupola, Hyde took in the scene. He heard their gunner’s words, but made no reply. It was done, irreversible. Only now did he remember to look at the time. He couldn’t be certain whether or not they had continued the one sided engagement beyond the cease-fire deadline. Well if they had, he’d be hearing all about it soon enough.