We were in the lee of a steep slope when a sharp tremor started its white face sliding. I yelled, "Avalanche!" and scrambled to get clear. Preacher, Toglog, White Cloud and Ski made it too, but Schmidt disappeared under the pile of ash-darkened snow.
"Can't take him anywhere," I muttered. "Ski!"
"On it, Sarge." Ski went over to the snow pile. Lifting his right arm" he announced, "A magic trick that I learned in the Cracovia Traveling Show. Presto." His arm plunged into the pile, and came out holding a sputtering Schmidt by the neck.
"Too small. I better throw it back." Ski brushed snow off Schmidt, and put him down.
"Move out, you yahoos!" I growled. "Before the hijackers die of old age!"
The lava flow started up a volcanic cone too steep to climb. We angled across the boulder-littered slope, then slipped and slid into a gorge with weirdly eroded rock formations. Scrawny native grass and shrubs surrounded steaming hot springs. Slogging through knee-high snow drifts, exertion put an edge on my glow. Sweat was keeping my helmet's defogger busy.
Toglog was telling one of his innumerable and interminable war stories. He came from a tribe which roamed the steepe near Novy Tartary, and he was a model of traditional Mongol virtue. "-so I tied one end of the chief's guts to a tree, then I chased him around it until he-"
Suddenly something leaped down from a high ledge, so fast that it was a blur. Our reflex shots missed. It landed on Preacher, knocking him down.
It was a northern cousin of the cliff lion, white instead of grayish-brown, one hundred-plus kilograms of felinoid predator. Roaring like a shuttle engine, it sought Preacher's throat with its slavering jaws. Somehow he managed to get his forearm in the way. They thrashed about in a deepening hole in the snow, while the cliff lion tried to chew through Nemourlon. Preacher's Kalashnikov lay nearby.
The rest of us surrounded the pair, but nobody could get a clear shot. Preacher moaned as the powerful paws batted and raked him.
"Having fun?" I asked.
"Heavenly bliss," he gasped. I caught a brief glimpse of his crazy grin.
"Quit playing with that damned cat," I ordered. "We've got a job to do."
"Spoilsport." But Preacher managed to pull out his knife. He knew he would only get one chance, so he made it count. He plunged the blade behind the massive head, severing the spine. The cliff lion spasmed violently, then went limp.
Preacher rolled the carcass off of him. "The lamb shall lie down with the lion, and the meek shall inherit the Earth."
His forearm armor hadn't been designed to cope with large carnivores. It was intact, but the arm under it was crushed and mangled. I got out my medkit and tied a tourniquet. "Best I can do. Can you handle a rifle?"
Preacher looked blissed-out. "Amen to that, Sarge. I'm ambidexterous."
"Sarge didn't ask you about your sex life," White Cloud contributed.
"Soldier," I told White Cloud, "shut up and soldier."
Preacher retrieved his Kalashnikov, and we moved out.
A few minutes later we emerged from the gorge into a relatively open area. Deep snow smoothed over the uneven ground which climbed gradually into the white-out. To our left a rocky rampart curved toward and then away from us; an irregular scarlet glow reflected from the thick clouds over it. Either an active volcanic crater or a lava lake. The blizzard was less severe here, just snow flurries and moderate gusts.
The back of my neck started itching.
"Stay sharp, grunts!" I growled. "This looks like a good spot for-"
The world split wide open in a blinding brilliance and a deafening bang. I found myself flying. I got a quick whirling view of rifle slugs kicking up sprays of snow, and the squad scrambling for cover. Then I crashed through a patch of ice.
"-trouble!" I finished.
Slugs chopped the ice around me, ricochetting off my body armor. One punched through and sent a thrill up my left thigh. Another mortar round went off a dozen meters away, showering me with snow.
The fire was coming from the rampart and the higher ground ahead. Spotting a car-sized boulder nearby, I dove behind it. "Sound off!" I ordered.
Ski, White Cloud, Preacher and Schmidt reported that they were okay. Toglog had taken a piece of shrapnel, but he was still ambulatory.
The hail of depleted uranium slugs kept up unabated. Chips flew as my boulder was whittled away. The mortars were zeroing in on our positions. We snapped off a few rounds to keep our hosts interested.
"I figure twenty, twenty-five hostiles and a pair of mortars," I told the squad. "Anybody got the boppers targeted?"
"On it, Sarge," White Cloud answered.
"Show us."
White Cloud snaked out of his crevasse. He was a Dinneh Apache from the Badlands who had developed a taste for firewater and civilized warfare. Aiming the bulky Gauss gun, he fired two quick shots. The whining cracks echoed from the cliffs to our right. Two puffs of snow were kicked up on the top of the rampart. Then White Cloud was chased back into his hole by a flock of slugs.
"All right, it's hero time!" I growled. "You know the drill! On my mark . . . cover fire!"
Toglog's Enforcer coughed twice. The grenades chewed a piece out of the rampart where one of the snow puffs had been. Reloading, he took out the second mortar. Part of a combat-suited body tumbled down the slope, staining the snow red in its wake. Meanwhile White Cloud was working on the sniper positions.
"Charge! I ordered. Instead of going around the boulder, which might have been expected, I went over the top. Then I zigzagged up the slope, using what cover there was.
A slug glancing off my thick torso Nemourlon knocked me down. I jumped back up and kept going. Spotting the hijacker, I drove him back behind his rock with a burst from my Kalashnikov.
Ski, Preacher and Schmidt were tight behind me, adding their fire. I figured to punch through the ambush straight ahead, then hit it from the flank and roll it up.
Two hijackers reared up to throw grenades. White Cloud picked one off, and Schmidt cut the other in half with a clip-emptying burst. The exploding grenades removed any doubt.
Then the ground shook.
Not another tremor, but a full-blown quake that rumbled for at least ten seconds. Everybody was knocked down. Snow slid and boulders rolled.
A fifty-meter chunk of the rampart crumbled. Three hijackers on top tried to get clear, but they didn't make it. The pool of lava behind the rampart poured through the gap like water through a broken dam. The snow in its path exploded into steam.
The lava flow was heading for Toglog and White Cloud. Toglog scrambled up the slope toward us, and barely avoided a very hot bath. But White Cloud was closer to the rampart. Facing the onrushing fiery red river, he waved the Gauss gun over his head and yelled in Apache. Probably swearing.
The lava rolled over him, and he was gone. I wondered what it felt like.
A rifle slug at my feet reminded me that I wasn't here on a tour. I spun, spotted the sniper kneeling behind a rock, and blew out his helmet with a luck shot.
Gesturing with my Kalashnikov for the squad to follow, I started up the slope again. Ski and Preacher flanked me to the right, Toglog and Schmidt to the left. Grenades hurtled down. We picked them off in mid-air. The explosions kicked up a snow-screen which hid us for a few seconds.
Bursting through it, I saw that the nine surviving hijackers on this side of the lava river had assembled about a hundred meters upslope. That suited me just fine.
"Grenades!" I ordered.
Yanking a grenade from my belt, I threw it high and hard. Ski, Preacher and Schmidt did the same, and the Enforcer coughed. The hijackers bagged a few of the grenades, but the rest went off around and among them. Bits of equipment and bodies shot out of the pink-tinted cloud. Four hijackers dove for cover and laid down withering fire. One writhed on the snow, screaming.