"Now we're sucking some clit!" Brian said as he dove into the safety of the hills once again.
In all the eight planes made five runs apiece. None of them were hit by the SALs although Brian and Matt's wing had one of the lasers pass within two meters of them (they would never know this, however, and so therefore would never be bothered by how close to death or capture they'd come). In all they managed to kill a grand total of twenty-seven of the fifty-eight tanks of the protection battalion before they were recalled.
"Why are they pulling us back?" Brian asked. "We're on a fuckin' roll here."
"Our tanks are moving in," Matt replied. "They'll be in engagement range in less than thirty seconds."
"All right then," Brian said. "Wish them luck. Get us a course back to the main line so we can take out a few more APCs before we have to go in for fuel."
"You'll have it in one minute, boss," Matt told him.
Four hundred and ninety-five Martian main battle tanks waded into the supply column, forming a semi-circle around it, and began to fire their lasers. The lead tanks in each sector, including the one crewed by Zen, Belinda, and Xenia, were tasked with anti-armor duties. The rest went after the tanker cars and the ammunition carriers.
"Target, tank!" Zen called out to Xenia as two tanks in their line suddenly exploded. "One o'clock. Get the fucker, X!"
She got him, blowing a hole in it and sending the turret flying with a single shot. She panned back and forth, searching for more tanks and found one peeking out between two of the supply cars. It's lasers flashed and two more Martian tanks exploded. Xenia fired on it, killing it.
The first of the ammunition carriers went up a few seconds later. There was a brilliant flash and the entire car was ripped to shreds, the concussion enough to overturn the two adjacent cars in its line, the shrapnel ripping into one with enough force to cause it to explode as well. This overturned two of the hydrogen carriers. Soon, other ammo cars began to explode too.
"They're reporting that three shots will take out an ammo carrier," Zen said. "They have to be exactly in the same place though, not just overlapping a little."
"I got another tank," Xenia said, panning that way, waiting impatiently for her laser to recharge. "It just came into my zone. It's not firing at the moment."
"Probably recharging," Belinda said as she brought them in a little closer.
Xenia's charge light came on. She fired at the tank and watched it explode. "Target down," she said. "You see anything else in the zone, Zen?"
"No more MBTs in our zone," he reported. "It sounds like we already got most of them across the board. Start hitting the hydrogen carriers."
"Fuckin' aye," she said, putting her targeting recticle on one of the cylindrical cars. When the charge light came on she fired, hitting it dead center and causing a bright flash to flare. As the flare faded there was a solid heat signature left behind. She kept her recticle directly on it until the other cannon was charged. She fired. The flash came again and the heat signature grew brighter. She waited impatiently until the first charge light came on again. She fired. Once again there was a bright flash but no penetration of the tank.
"Damn, that is some tough-ass armor plating they got there," she said.
Her other cannon reported charged and she fired for the fourth time. This time she achieved a burn-through of the armor. The results weren't all that dramatic. The side of the tanker buckled open and a cloud of vapor suddenly rushed out at high speed, engulfing the car for a few seconds before rising into the air and dissipating. Though hydrogen was one of the most flammable gases in existence there was not enough oxygen in the Martian atmosphere for it to burn even when a high intensity laser seared into it. But drama wasn't what they were going for here. The gas was all gone for that tanker, floating in the Martian atmosphere now, useless to the WestHem marines who relied on it to fuel their military machines.
Ammunition cars began to explode with more regularity now, scattering the cars around them, occasionally causing secondary explosions, a few times causing chain reaction explosions of four or five cars at a time. Within five minutes the entire column was in tatters, with overturned cars and debris lying everywhere. A giant but brief fireball erupted at one point when the dissipating hydrogen from one tanker mixed with the dissipating oxygen from another tanker and was penetrated by one of the lasers, thus fulfilling the three requirements of combustion — fuel, oxidizer, and ignition source.
"That was some shit," Xenia said, blinking her eyes to clear the afterimages the flash had caused. The concussion from the blast had been strong enough to rock their tank.
"That ain't propaganda," Zen agreed.
While Xenia went to work on her next target a platoon of dismounted marines suddenly appeared from the carnage, anti-tank lasers in their hands. "Zen!" Xenia said, alarmed as they began to set up their shots.
"Keep firing," Zen said. "I've got 'em." He grabbed the controls for the 4mm machine gun and put his recticle on the center of the platoon. He opened up, spraying bullets across them, killing many, and causing the others to go diving for cover back in the carnage. Other tanks took up the cause as well, sending their own machine gun fire after them. A few sent eighty-millimeter shells in their direction, proximity bursting them and blowing the exposed marines to pieces. The threat from the dismounts was neutralized before they could get off a single shot.
"All units," a voice said in Zen's ear. "Lead elements of the WestHem tank forces are now less than eight klicks out. Disengage and begin moving to the pre-planned egress point."
"We're pulling out," Zen said as Xenia ruptured an oxygen tanker. "Cease firing, X. B, get us the fuck out of here. Course should be on your screen now."
The Martian tanks turned away from the supply column and began to run at high speed away from the carnage they'd caused. Half headed northwest, the other half southwest, their plan to disappear the same way they'd come: into the mountains.
It was a good plan but it hadn't taken several things into account. They hadn't counted on an entire regiment of WestHem tanks to be less than ten minutes behind them and they hadn't counted on the fact that the survivors from the supply column would radio command and let them know the direction of travel of their tormentors as they'd left. Thus the WestHem tanks in pursuit of them divided into two, half chasing after the northern section, the other half after the southern. The last thing not taken into account was how long it would take to get more than two hundred tanks through a small opening between the hills and into the pass beyond it. A bottleneck quickly developed on both egress points, with lines of tanks waiting impatiently for those in front to clear the pass. And that was how the lead elements of the WestHem tanks found their enemy when they came into range.
"We're under fire!" Zen announced as tanks began to explode all around them. "Xenia, get the cannons turned around and start returning it!"
She did as she was told, turning and looking out on a landscape that was now dotted with main battle tanks, their lasers flashing. She immediately began to shoot back, exploding two of them within ten seconds. Her heart hammered in fear as she waited for her cannons to recharge.
The other tanks massed near the pass turned their cannons on the WestHems as well. There were plenty of targets and as the tanks continued to work their way into the mountains an epic slaughter developed on both sides as tanks exploded left and right, as flashes of lasers winked from every direction.