The second 9-cm bolt lashed the crest of the rise which sheltered the combat cars. Grass caught fire and glass fused from silica in the soil sprayed in all directions. Buntz nodded approval. The Brotherhood gunner couldn't have expected to hit the cars, but he was warning them to keep under cover.
Brotherhood APCs slid out of the shelter of the trees and onto the grasslands below. They moved in companies of four vehicles each, two east of the firebase and two more to the west. They weren't advancing toward the Government position but instead were flanking it by more than five kilometers to either side.
The sound of the explosion reached Herod, dulled by distance. A little dirt shivered from the side of the swale. Twenty klicks is a hell of a long way away, even for an ammo truck blowing up.
The tank destroyers fired again, saturated cyan flashes that Buntz' display dimmed to save his eyes. Their target was out of his present magnified field of view, a mistake.
"Full field, Quadrant Four," Buntz said, and the lower left corner of his visor showed the original 270° display. A bunker had collapsed in a cloud of dust though without a noticeable secondary explosion, and there was a new fire just north of the combat cars. The cars' tribarrels wouldn't be effective against even the tank destroyers' light armor at this range, but the enemy commander wasn't taking any chances. The Brotherhood was a good outfit, no mistake.
Eight more vehicles left the hills now that the advanced companies had spread to screen them. Pairs of mortar carriers with pairs of APCs for security followed each flanking element. The range of Brotherhood automatic mortars was about ten klicks, depending on what shell they were firing. It wouldn't be any time before they were in position around the firebase.
Rennie's combat cars were moving southward, keeping under cover. Running, if you wanted to call it that.
The Brotherhood APCs were amazingly fast, seventy kph cross-country. They couldn't fight the combat cars head-on, but they wouldn't try to. They obviously intended to surround the Slammers platoon and disgorge their infantry in three-man buzzbomb teams. Once the infantry got into position, and with the tank destroyers on overwatch to limit the cars' movement, the Brotherhood could force Lieutenant Rennie to surrender without a shot.
One of the Government howitzers fired. The guns could reach the Brotherhood vehicles in the hills, but this round landed well short. A red flash and a spurt of sooty black smoke indicated that the bursting charge was TNT.
The gunners didn't get a chance to refine their aim. A 9-cm bolt struck the gun tube squarely at the trunnions, throwing the front half a dozen meters. The white blaze of burning steel ignited hydraulic fluid in the compensator,the rubber tires, and the hair and uniforms of the crew. A moment later propellant charges stacked behind the gun went off in something between an explosion and a very fierce fire.
Two howitzers were more or less undamaged,but their crews had abandoned them. Another bunker collapsed—a third. Buntz hadn't noticed the second being hit, but a pall of dust was still settling over it. Government soldiers started to leave the remaining bunkers and huddle in the connecting trenches.
Flashes and spurts of white smoke at four points around the firebase indicated that the mortars had opened fire simultaneously. They were so far away that the bombardment seemed to be happening in silence. That wasn't what Buntz was used to, which made him feel funny. Different generally meant bad to a soldier or anybody else in a risky business.
The tank destroyers fired again. One bolt blew in the back of a bunker; the other ignited a stand of brushwood ahead of the combat cars. That Brotherhood gunner was trying to keep Rennie off-balance, taking his attention off the real threat: the APCs and their infantry, which in a matter of minutes would have the cars surrounded.
Buntz figured it was time. "Lahti, fire'em up," he said. He switched on his radios, then unplugged the lead from his helmet and let the coil of glass fiber spring back to the take-up reel on the sensor. The hollow stoonk-k-k of the mortars launching finally reached him, an unmistakable sound even when the breeze sighing through the tree branches almost smothered it.
The hatch cover swivelled closed over Buntz as Herod's eight drive fans spun. Lahti kept the blades in fine pitch to build speed rapidly, slicing the air but not driving it yet.
"Lamplight elements, move to start position," Buntz ordered. That was being a bit formal since the Lamplight call sign covered only Herod and Hole Card, but you learned to do things by rote in combat. A firefight's no place for thinking. You operated by habit and reflex; if those failed, the other fellow killed you.
The fan note deepened. Herod vibrated fiercely, spewing a sheet of grit from beneath her skirts. She didn't move forward; it takes time for thrust to balance a tank's 170 tonnes.
A calliope—only one—ripped the sky with a jet of 2-cm bolts. The burst lasted only for an eyeblink, but a mortar shell detonated at its touch. The gun was concealed, but Buntz knew the crew was slewing it to bear on a second of the incoming rounds before it landed.
They didn't succeed: proximity fuses exploded the three remaining shells a meter in the air. Fragments sleeted across the compound. Because mortars are low pressure, their shell casings can be much thinner than those of conventional artillery; that leaves room for larger bursting charges. The blasts flattened all the structures that'd survived the ammo truck blowing up. One of the shredded tents ignited a few moments later.
Herod's fans finally bit deeply enough to start the tank climbing up the end of the gully.Buntz had a panoramic view on his main screen.He'd already careted all the Brotherhood vehicles either white—Herod's targets—or orange, for Hole Card. That way both tanks wouldn't fire at the same vehicle and possibly allow another to escape.
Buntz' smaller targeting display was locked on where the right-hand Brotherhood tank destroyer would appear when Herod reached firing position. Hole Card would take the other tank destroyer, the only one visible to it because of a freakishly tall tree growing from the grassland north of its position.
"Top, I'm on!" shouted Cabell in Hole Card on the unit frequency. As Cabell spoke, Buntz' orange pipper slid onto the rounded bow of a tank destroyer. The magnified image rocked as the Brotherhood vehicle sent another plasma bolt into the Government encampment.
"Fire!" Buntz said, mashing the firing pedal with his boot. Herod jolted backward from the recoil of the tiny thermonuclear explosion; downrange, the tank destroyer vanished in a fireball.
Hole Card's target was gone also. Shrubbery was burning in semicircles around the gutted wreckage, and a square meter of deck plating twitched as it fell like a wounded goose. It could've come from either Brotherhood vehicle, so complete was the destruction.