“Good job on not setting the cameras too close to the explosives this time,” Williams added.
“Looks like about 30 of them have made it this far,” Johnson said.
“Anybody got eyes on the rest of them?” Snap asked.
“Not yet, Sir,” Josh Miller responded from the main deck with the rest of the team.
The last of the stairwell booby traps exploded, only one deck above Johnson and Taylor.
“Three more down,” Johnson reported.
“Twenty-Seven Ruskies, I like my odds,” Ryan Taylor said, as he fired his DE rifle at the first soldier appearing from the stairwell.
The first couple of Russians fell in the stairwell, but the rest of them were able to fan out into the open hangar bay and find cover behind broken equipment and bulkheads. Johnson and Taylor had chosen their positions well and enjoyed the high-ground advantage, but now they did not have clear shots at the Russians. Most of Lightning Squad were two decks down and counting on Johnson and Taylor to cover this entry point so they could focus on the rest of the paratroopers that presumably would attack from ground level.
The tank climbed over the last pile of rubble and broke free of the Impegi’s broken outer bulkhead. A twinge of fear washed over Snap as the tank fell to the hard tundra below, but the tank was undamaged.
“Hell, yes, free at last!” West exclaimed, with a little too much excitement.
“Maybe so, but now we are a sitting duck for that Russian AG Fighter,” Snap reminded him.
Catrix interjected, “Did I forget to mention we have limited stealth?”
“What does that mean?” Snap asked.
“The tank is invisible beyond 100 yards when we are not engaging the enemy.”
“So, we can sneak up on the bastards?” Neal asked, as he rotated the turret toward the unseen enemy.
“Yes Sir,” Catrix replied.
“Visual contact,” Williams exclaimed through the COMM, as shots were heard.
“Enemy combatants advancing on our position,” Josh Miller said from the makeshift fortification. “Looks like about a one hundred.”
“Should be more than that; where are the rest of them?” Snap muttered mostly to himself.
The tank was several hundred yards away from the fighting, on the other side of the Impegi’s debris field. A rocket whizzed by and exploded several yards to Snap’s left.
“Shit. Well, there they are,” Snap answered his own question; again, mostly to himself. “Ruskies, about hundred strong, advancing from the south,” Snap said into his COMM.
“Everyone hold your positions. West and I can handle these guys,” Snap ordered, as he sighted in on the Russian that had fired the RPG from nearly 100 yards out.
“Major, they are spread wide and are not advancing directly on our position. I’m not sure they know where we are,” Fabris said.
“But the rocket, they had to be aiming at us,” West pointed out.
“Yes, but that guy is just barely inside the 100-yard range; we are still invisible to the rest, until we fire.”
“He will tell his comrades,” West said.
“Maybe, but having them suspect we are here is better than confirming it,” Catrix objected.
“Hold your fire,” Snap ordered. “Can we stay just outside their line of sight?”
“Yes, for a few more minutes,” Catrix replied.
“How well will this thing hold up to an RPG, Catrix?” Snap asked.
“RPG, Sir?”
Snap realized the alien was not familiar with Earthly weapon terminology and corrected himself, “Rocket propelled grenade, shoulder launched explosive.”
“Ahhh, I see. We could probably take four or five direct hits from an explosive matching the weapon that just missed us,” Catrix said, as he maneuvered the tank just outside the 100-yard mark, thus maintaining their invisibility.
Snap had been studying the display on his forearm of his FALOS armor, which was marking the enemy as red dots approaching the Impegi. Very soon, all the red dots would be within 100 yards of the Impegi and there would be no place where the tank would remain invisible.
Snap said, “The Russians are spread out over 200 yards and advancing toward the rest of the unit at the front of the ship. If they trap us against this bulkhead, we could easily be flanked, and surrounded, and tank or not, I don’t like those odds.”
“Agreed, Major. Your orders?” Fabris asked.
“Turn around, go back. Hopefully we can get behind them and have them trapped up against this bulkhead.”
Fabris expertly turned the tank and quickly moved along the bulkhead, trying to evade the advancing Russians. Snap and West watched the red dots on their displays closing in, hoping they could get behind the wall of advancing Russians before they were spotted.
Johnson and Taylor were holding off the Russians two decks above the rest of the unit, but they were not reducing the Russians’ numbers as quickly as they had hoped. The remaining paratroopers had all found positions and were exchanging fire. Ten paratroopers had started to flank Johnson and Taylor by hiding behind several large metal storage containers to their right. The other 15 or so had made it to a crumpled bulkhead to their left. Johnson and Taylor, holding the higher ground about 30 yards away, had stopped the Russian advance, but could not get a clear shot.
The two men who were perched atop a large pile of containers that had slid down to one side of the deck across from the stairwell and they could not clearly see the Russians hiding behind the smaller pile of containers.
“If I could just get a little higher, I could see those Ruskies,” Taylor said, pointing upward at a partially collapsed metal walkway above them.
“That’s almost 20 feet up, you’ll have no cover,” Johnson objected.
“I’ve jumped twenty feet before in this FALOS armor. Besides, you can cover me.”
“Don’t do it. They got us flanked on two sides. I doubt I can cover both at the same time,” Johnson argued.
Catrix expertly wielded the light tank behind the advancing Russians while maintaining their invisibility. Now, the Russian paratroopers between them and the large bulkheads of the crashed ship were still advancing toward the front of the ship, where the rest of Snap’s team was dug in and waiting. The wind picked up, fiercely swirling snow to near whiteout blindness.
Snap checked his forearm display, it was still showing red dots directly ahead of him. “West, we should engage the enemy now. Between the snow and our invisibility, we should be able to evade and overpower them.”
“Roger that.”
“Fabris, maneuver the tank toward the enemy, try to keep most of their forces in front of us.”
“How are you going to target the enemy in this blinding snow?”
“We’ve got that covered. The built-in radar should give us an advantage over the paratroopers,” Snap said, as he gripped the duel handles of the large gun and rotated his wrist to see the screen on his forearm.
“Major, this is all on you. I can’t fire this gun based solely on the radar. If I hit an unseen rock directly in front of us, it could destroy the tank,” West said.
“Agreed,” Snap said, as he fired the laser cannon in the direction of three red dots.
The laser cannon made no sound as it sent a barrage intense light beams racing into the snowy whiteness. Three red dots slowly faded away from the display screen on Snap’s forearm.
“Good shot, Major,” West said, as he watched the dots disappear.
Fabris added, “Major, don’t forget the snowy conditions are going to greatly reduce the range of the laser cannon.”
“What’s my range in this shit?”
“Four hundred yards, tops,” Catrix said.
“Damn.”