Chief Diabate's armored car—the only vehicle in the Sincanmo force with real armor—had come through the barrage unscathed. It wallowed toward the eastern flank of the butte with its siren summoning survivors from the gullies to follow it to safety. Sincanmo 4x4s lurched through the remnants of the camouflage film, abandoning their cached supplies to the needs of the moment.
Sparks and rock fragments sprang up before and beside the armored car. Diabate's driver swerved, but not far enough: a second three-round burst punched through the car's thin armor. A yellow flash lifted the turret, but the vehicle continued to roll on inertia until a larger explosion blew the remainder of the car and crew into pieces no larger than a man's hand.
Leading elements of the Thunderbolt Division had reached the Notch. One of them was a fire-support vehicle, a burst-capable 90mm gun on a half-tracked chassis. The gun continued to fire, switching from solid shot to high explosive as it picked its targets among the fleeing Sincanmo trucks. Other mercenary vehicles, primarily armored personnel carriers with additional troops riding on their roofs, crawled through the Notch and descended the slope littered by the bodies of indigs locked in the embrace of death.
It was getting to be time. Des Grieux closed his main power switch.
H271's screens came alive and bathed the fighting compartment with their light. Des Grieux lifted his commo helmet, ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair, and lowered the helmet again. He took the twin joysticks of the gunnery controls in his hands.
"Booster,"Des Grieux said to the tank's artificial intelligence. "On Screen One, gimme vehicles on a four-kay by one strip aligned with the main gun."
The topographic map of the main battle area flicked out and returned as a narrow holographic slice centered on the Notch. The APCs and other vehicles already north of the Knifeblade Escarpment were sharp symbols that crawled down the holographic slope toward—unbeknownst to themselves—H271 waiting at the bottom of the display.
The symbols of vehicles on the other side of the sandstone wall were hollow, indicating the AI had to extrapolate from untrustworthy data. The electronics, pumps, and even ignition systems of Thunderbolt and Hashemite trucks had individual radio-frequency spectrum signatures which H271's sensor suite could read. Precise location and assignment was impossible at a four-kilometer range beyond an intervening mass of sandstone, however.
One vehicle was marked with orange precision: the Legion tank destroyer which had huffed itself to within five hundred meters of the Notch. The tank destroyer's tribarrel licked skyward frequently to keep shells from decimating the retreating forces. The lines of cyan fire, transposed onto the terrain map in the tank's data base, provided H271 with a precise location for the oncoming vehicle. The other two tank destroyers were at the very top of the display, where they acted as rear guard against the Slammers.
They would come in good time. As for the closest of the three—it would have been nice to take out the tank destroyer with the first bolt, the round that unmasked H271, but that wasn't necessary. Waiting for the Legion vehicle to rise into range would mean sparing some of the half-tracks that drove off the slope and disappeared into swales concealed from the tank.
Des Grieux didn't intend to spare anything that moved this night.
The gunnery screen shrank in scale as it incorporated both orange pippers, the solid dot that marked the tribarrels target—the leading APC, covered by the flowing robes of a score of Hashemites riding on top of it—and the main gun's hollow circle, centered at the turret/hill junction on the fire-support vehicle which still, from its vantage point in the Notch, covered the retreat.
Des Grieux fired both weapons together.
It took a dozen rounds from the tribarrel before the carrier blew up. By then, the screaming Hashemite riders were torches flopping over the rocks.
The main gun's 20cm bolt vaporized several square meters of the fire-support vehicle's armor. Ammunition the Thunderbolts hadn't expended on Sincanmo targets were sufficient to blow a passing APC against the far wall of the Notch; the crumpled wreckage then slid forward, down the slope, shedding parts and flames.
Nothing remained of the fire-support vehicle except its axles and wheels, stripped of their tires.
Des Grieux left his main gun pointed as it was. He worked the tribarrel up the line of easy targets against the slanted rock, giving each half-track the number of cyan bolts required to detonate its fuel, its on-board ammunition, or both. Secondary explosions leaped onto the slope like the footprints of a fire giant.
Nothing more came through the Notch after the 20cm bolt ripped it, but Screen #1 showed the Legion tank destroyer accelerating at its best speed to reach a firing position.
Des Grieux's face was terrible in its joy.
So long as H271 was shut down and covered by broken rock, it was virtually undetectable. When Des Grieux opened fire, anybody but a blind man could call artillery in on the tank's position. A number of Thunderbolt Division personnel survived long enough to do just that.
Four HE shells landed between ten and fifty meters of H271 as Des Grieux walked 2cm bolts across an open-topped supply truck with armored sides. His sight picture vanished for a moment in the spouting explosions. A fifth round struck in a scatter of gravel well up the side of the mesa. It brought down a minor rockslide, but no significant chunks landed near the tank.
Des Grieux ignored the artillery because he didn't have any choice. He'd ignited alleight of the supplytruck's low-side tires with the initial burst. When the debris of the shellbursts cleared, the vehicle was toppling sideways. Its cargo compartment was full of wounded troops who screamed as they went over.
Twenty or thirty shells landed within a dozen seconds.A few of the Thunderbolt gun crews had switched to armor piercing, but none of those rounds scored a direct hit on the tank. A heavy shell burst on H271's rock-covered back deck. The shock made all the displays quiver. The air of the fighting compartment filled with dust shaken from every minute crevice.
Screen #1 showed the Legion tank destroyer's orange symbol entering the Notch from the south side. The heavy vehicle had collided with several Thunderbolt Division APCs in its haste to reach a position from which it could fire at the Slammers' tank.
Des Grieux slapped the plate that set his tribarrel on Automatic Air Defense. He said in a sharp,clear voice,"Booster,sort incoming from the southeast first," as his foot poised on the firing pedal for the main gun.
The 20cm weapon was already aligned. The eighty-times magnified tube of the tank destroyer's gun slid into the hollow circle on Screen #2. More shells burst near H271, but not very near, and the tribarrel was already snarling skyward at the anti-tank rounds which the Legion battery hurled.
The tank destroyer's glacis plate filled Des Grieux's display. He rocked forward on the foot-trip. The saturated blue streak punched through the mantle of the 15cm weapon before the Legion gunner could find his target.
The tank destroyer's ready magazine painted the Notch cyan. Then the reserve ammunition storage went off and lifted the vehicle's armored carapace a meter in the air before dropping it back to the ground.