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Had they arrived a few minutes later, once sure that no enemy lurked in ambush among the seemingly harmless inhabitants, they would have pulled over, all hatches open and dispersed to try and restock with food. Any who had been caught outside at the moment of the gas attack would have been left there, who ever they were. The hatches would have slammed in their faces.

As the APC drifted to a halt and sat lower on the ground with its ride skirt deflated there was a thunderous concussion against the exterior of the hull. Like a wild drumbeat. Muted as it was by the thickness of the welded aluminium hull there was still no mistaking the frantic hammering of civilians desperate to find sanctuary from the nerve gas. Fists, handbags, and anything that could be wrenched from fences were employed in the wild assault. It created a furious cacophony that blended with the shouts and screams of those wielding the improvised weapons. The thundering reached a crescendo accompanied by screeching voices that produced sounds that went off the human scale.

Surrounded by stick flourishing civilians Revell could see most of the street from his elevated position in the command cupola. He flinched, reacting automatically as a large stone struck the vision block he was looking through, gouging a large chip from the armoured glass.

At the far end of the road, centred on a large building with two police cars outside, were a number of collapsed civilians. Closer, some who were down were still moving, their bodies giving ugly spastic jerks and their faces distorted by fear and suffering as they fought for air. The futile attempts to gain access to the hovercraft reached a frantic level as closer still a man screeched and began to claw the ground when his legs gave way. Another looked at him and reeled, toppling over, white foam frothing from his mouth and nose. A last assault of the Iron Cow was led by a woman battering at the rear door until the heel of the shoe she was using broke off, then with the broken piece she made a pathetic attempt to lever the panel open.

As insanely fast as the attack on the vehicle had been launched, it ceased. A last middle-aged woman clutched her face, trying to stuff the ends of a silk scarf in to her mouth and across her nose. Eyes bulging she corkscrewed to the ground and commenced a jerking spasm as she knelt in a puddle.

“What ever it is, it has spread a long way considering there is not a breath of wind.” Revell made an all round scan. “The Commies don’t seem to be following it up though, so what has that achieved?”

From the turret Libby had a good view of the area, in fact better than the officer as he could see all the encircling bodies, some of them collapsed against the hull or slumped over the folded ride-skirt, sightless eyes looking down at hands that had bled from clawing the metal. Many still held whatever implement they had improvised to try and gain access to the vehicle.

“The cloud must still be spreading.” Libby watched. Although now so dilute that it no longer appeared as a faint droplet laden haze the effect could still be seen. People had rushed to the incident, to look for relatives perhaps or with unbelievable naiveté or stupidity to just gawp at what had happened. Coughing, fighting for air, was the first indication they had that the gas had not dispersed as yet. It was still here and in its less powerful form there was a delay in the on-set of the symptoms. The effect was to prolong its cruel effect. Those who were now ingesting the microscopic dilute amounts were fully as doomed as those who had walked in to that first massive dose. The only difference was a scale of the suffering. All died, but for some it was a horribly prolonged process.

“There is no follow up. Absolutely nothing.” Boris was monitoring the hostile fire locators and saw that the screen revealed no further traces, no more incoming shells.

“They must have done it stampede the civilian population.” He shuddered, finding it hard to believe that many of those who had devised the tactic, had executed it, were his own countrymen. “They are animals.”

“They’re your people.” There was a last noise outside and Dooley realised the sound came from beneath the floor. One of the dying Germans had crawled under the hovercraft. The scraping continued for a short while, then stopped.

“I am Russian, but I was never a Communist.”

The bickering between the two men was frequently non-stop and Revell found it wearing. “Give it a rest you two.” From a vision port he saw that all movement in the street had ceased, save for wisps of steam from a radiator in the crumpled front of a rust streaked old Mercedes saloon whose driver hung from the open drivers door.

There were about fifteen or twenty bodies in sight. Many others would be in the buildings, on the floors of cars or maybe so close to their transport that he couldn’t see them.

The behaviour of many had been pitifully ignorant, to the point of suicidal. When newspapers and magazines, TV and radio were constantly filled with articles on the dangers of the Zone, still people were caught unprepared and died because of it. Like the man who had crawled beneath the ride skirt. It would have given him no more protection than an umbrella.

“We can’t do anything for them. Let’s move out.”

Burke had anticipated the officer’s call and was already increasing the revs of the turbines. A deft touch of the controls and he had the craft rising on its cushion of downdraft. Another touch and he tapped sufficient of the power to give them forward propulsion, a percentage of the engines output channelling through the downdraft ducts.

The ride skirt firmed its contours, the thick material crackling and snapping as it filled out. Bodies slid off of it to the ground. Litter and scarves, spectacles and shopping bags flew outwards as the output increased and the craft rocked slightly as it nudged aside a VW delivery van that had come to rest across their bow.

Now Boris was kept busy at the monitoring and communications board. Several small screens gave him comprehensive information about what was happening in the area. His first act, as they began to bore deeper into territory where they might any moment see or be seen by enemy ground or air units, was to check the IFF was working. Many times before the Identification Friend or Foe device had saved them, it was likely it would have to do it again, and soon.

Anything that moved in the Zone, and much that didn’t, was a potential target. Air activity in this sector was on nothing like the scale it was in the central or northern sectors but there was still enough of it to pose a constant threat, whether from enemy fire or friendly.

To the fighter bombers and ground attack aircraft were added the unmanned drones, some of them armed, that roamed the sky searching the ground for activity. With real time transmission of information back to their controller’s, precision guided or area munitions could be delivered swiftly to almost any spot in the Zone. It was only the sheer number of targets that kept them safe. As a lone vehicle, they did not present an attractive target, unless of course that was exactly what some Russian controller was looking for right now.

“There is something rather weird going on around here major.” Boris watched his screen, re-entered data and looked at it hard.

“What precisely.” It was very rare for their Russian to volunteer information. When asked, Revell knew he could be counted on to give precise and accurate answers but it wasn’t like him to bring anything to his attention unless it was important. That was a useful quality in their communications man as he was constantly flooded with information and had constantly to make judgements as to what was relevant, really important to them.

“I have been plotting the fall of shell, to see if there was any more chemical rounds going down in our path.”

“And?”

“The Communist batteries are dropping salvoes in a crescent across the suburbs to the east of the city. If it didn’t go such much against the way I know they think and work, I’d say they are trying to stampede all the remaining civilians eastwards, into Warsaw Pact territory.”