The seat controls were electrical; nothing happened when Des Grieux tugged the bar. He reached up—his ribs hurt almost as much as his lungs did—and slid the cupola hatch open manually.
Buildings around the market square were burning. Smoke mingled with ozone from the powerguns, organic residues from propellants and explosives, and the varied stench of bodies ripped open as they died.
It was like a bath in cool water compared to the interior of the tank.
The iridium barrel of Gangbuster II's main gun was shorter by eighty centimeters. That was what saved Des Grieux's life. At this range, the tank destroyer's bolt would have penetrated if it had struck the turret face directly.
The stick of shells that just landed had closed the boulevard entering the square from the west. The tank destroyer that hit Gangbuster II wriggled free of collapsed masonry fifty meters away. The vehicle was essentially undamaged, though shrapnel had pecked highlights from its light-absorbent camouflage paint, and the cupola machine gun hung askew.
Bodies, and the wreckage of equipment too twisted for its original shape to be discerned, littered the pavement of the square.
Des Grieux set the tribarrel's control to thermal self-powered operation. It wouldn't function well, but it was better than nothing.
The manual traverse wheel refused to turn; the 15cm bolt had welded the cupola ring to the turret. The elevating wheel spun, though, lowering the triple muzzles as the tank destroyer's own forward motion slid it into Des Grieux's sight picture.
Cargo shells popped open high in the heavens. Des Grieux ignored the warning. He squeezed the butterfly triggers to rip the tank destroyer's skirts. Bolts which might not have penetrated the vehicle's heavy iridium hull armor tore fist-sized holes in the steel.
Des Grieux got off a dozen rounds before his tribarrel jammed. They were enough for the job. The tank destroyer vented its air cushion through the gaps in the plenum chamber and grounded with a squealing crash.
Des Grieux bailed out of Gangbuster II, carrying his carbine. He slid down the turret and hit the pavement on his feet, but his legs were too weak to support him. He sprawled on his face.
The anti-tank submunition, one of three drifting down from the cargo shell by parachute, went off a hundred meters in the air. The whack! of the blast knocked Des Grieux flat as he started to get up. The supersonic penetrator which the explosion forged from a billet of depleted uranium had already punched through the thin upper hull of Gangbuster II.
Ammunition and everything else flammable within the tank whuffed out in a glare that seemed to shine through the armor. The fusion bottle did not fail. The turret settled again with a clang, askew on its ring.
Secondary explosions to the east and further west within Morobad marked other effects of the salvo, but none of the submunitions had targeted the disabled tank destroyer. Des Grieux sat up and crossed his legs to provide a stable firing position. He wasn't ready to stand, not quite yet. Heat from his tank's glowing hull washed across his back.
What sounded like screaming was probably steam escaping from a ruptured boiler. Humans couldn't scream that loud. Des Grieux knew.
He pointed his carbine.
The tank destroyer's forward hatch opened. The driver started to get out. Des Grieux shot him in the face. The body fell backward. Its feet were still within the hatch, but the arms flailed for a time.
The hull side-hatch—the tank destroyer had no turret—opened a crack. Des Grieux covered the movement. Cloth—it wasn't white, just a gray uniform jacket, but the meaning was clear—fluttered from the opening.
"We've surrendered!" a woman called from inside. "Don't shoot!"
"Come on out, then," Des Grieux ordered. His voice was a croak. He wasn't sure the vehicle crew could hear him, but a woman wearing lieutenant's insignia extended her head and shoulders from the hatch.
Her face was expressionless. When she saw that Des Grieux did not fire, she climbed clear of the tank destroyer. A male commo tech followed her. If they had sidearms, they'd left them within the vehicle.
"We've all surrendered," she repeated.
"Baffin's surrendered?" Des Grieux asked. He had trouble hearing. He wanted to order his prisoners closer, but he couldn't stand up and he didn't want them looking down at him.
"Via, Colonel Baffin was there," the lieutenant said, gesturing toward the three command vehicles.
The center unit that Des Grieux hit with his main gun was little more than bulged sidewalk above the running gear.
She shook her head to clear it of memories. "The Legion's surrendered, that's what I mean," she said.
"We must've lost ten percent of our equipment from that one salvo of artillery. No point in just getting wasted by shells. There'll be other battles . . . ."
The lieutenant's voice trailed off as she considered the implications of her own words. The commo tech stared at her in cow-eyed incomprehension.
Des Grieux leaned against a slope of shattered brick. The corners were sharp.
That was good. Perhaps their jagged touch would prevent him from passing out before friendly troops arrived to collect his prisoners.
Regimental HQ was three command cars backed against a previously undamaged two-story school building. Flat cables snaked out of the vehicles, through windows and along corridors.
The combination wasn't perfect. Still, it provided Hammer's staff with their own data banks and secure commo, while permitting them some elbow room in the inevitable chaos at the end of a war—and a contract.
"Yeah, what is it?" demanded the orderly sergeant. The lobby was marked off by a low bamboo barrier. Three Han clerks sat at desks in the bullpen area, while the orderly sergeant relaxed at the rear in the splendor of his computer console. Behind the staff was a closed door marked headmaster in Hindi script and adjutant/hammer's regiment in stenciled red.
Des Grieux withdrew the hand which he'd stretched toward the throat of the Han clerk. "I'm looking for my bloody unit," he said, "and this bloody wog—"
"C'mon,c'monback,"the orderly sergeant demanded with a wave of his hand. "Been partying pretty hard?"
Des Grieux brushed a bamboo post and knocked it down as he stepped into the bullpen. The local clerks jabbered and righted the barrier.
"Wasn't a party," Des Grieux muttered. "I been in a POW camp the past week."
The orderly sergeant blinked."A Han POW camp,"Des Grieux amplified."Our good wog buddies here—" he kicked out at the chair of the nearest clerk; the boot missed, and Des Grieux almost overbalanced "—picked me up when they swept Morobad. Baffin's troops got paroled out within twenty-four hours, but I got stuck with the Hindi prisoners 'cause nobody knew I was there."