Monster swung his massive horned head to bear on the tank. The puny soft things had gotten under cover mighty quickly; it would be inconvenient to root them out. Here was prey that would find it harder to get away.
Casaday’s big shoulders heaved in a sigh of relief. “T-72. They’ll handle the son of a bitch.”
“Five bucks,” Carnifex growled from the side of his mouth, “says you’re wrong.”
With a whining of servomotors the long gun rose to aim at the center of that broad chest. The commander, sitting half out of the top turret hatch, decided the target could likely be considered armored. He muttered into his helmet mike, calling for an armor-piercing sabot round to be loaded.
A moment, and the loader called the round loaded. Immediately the gunner called ready; he didn’t need a return from his laser rangefinder to lock a target that size less than a hundred meters away.
“Fire,” the commander said.
The horrific sound of the 125 practically knocked the little knot of onlookers into the cracked temple façade. Hot wind slapped them and stole their breath away.
The monstrous being rocked slightly as the round took him in the center of the chest. Hellfire blazed yellow through the hole. The Monster roared his pain. His voice dwarfed the cannon’s.
Unfortunately his hide wasn’t as tough as a NATO main battle tank’s. The round just passed through him, imparting little energy. He threw out his arms and flexed his muscles.
The hole closed up.
Carnifex stuck his hand out. “Pay.” Absently, transfixed by the awful scene, Casaday dug in his pocket for his billfold.
The Monster started walking toward the T-72. Its commander was shouting into his mike, drumming his fist on the low domed turret top to speed his crew. He wanted high explosive this time.
They had about three strides of clawed feet to reload in the cramped confines of the turret. They had considerable motivation. The gunner cranked his cannon to full elevation. It still only bore on the creature’s navel, if he had one. He fired without waiting for command, the millisecond the heavy breech closed. The tank rocked back to the recoil as a flame the size of the vehicle itself bloomed from the cannon.
A globe of yellow flame obscured Monster’s stomach. The under-lighting flare would have made his features demonic if they hadn’t already been. He stopped.
Then he smiled. And grew a foot.
“Shit,” Carnifex said.
“Fuck,” said Crypt Kicker, who wasn’t impressed by much.
“Shitfuck,” Carnifex added.
The impact had at least rocked Monster back on his heels. He took a step back, braced. “Bastard sure is hung, isn’t he?” Casaday remarked to no one in particular.
The tank commander stood his ground. He was no candy-ass Annamese or Cochin Chinese. He was a Northerner, proud, tough and hard as socialist steel. He grabbed the handles of the heavy 12.7mm roof gun and sent a stream of green tracers arcing at the giant beast, aiming for the eyes.
The thumb-sized bullets bothered Monster no more than a swarm of gnats. He held out his clawed hands, made fists. Lightning squeezed out between his fingers and struck the tank.
Wreathed in sparks, the tank commander threw his arms in the air as the enormous current fired his neurons for him. Then the remaining thirty-eight rounds of main-gun ammo cooked off at once. The turret flew into the air on a column of blue-white flame. The men on the temple steps cringed as it crashed smoking to the ground beside the building.
The Monster threw back his head and laughed.
J. Robert Belew sat with his arms crossed on the wheel of his blacked-out GAZ jeep and stared. “Well, I’ll be dipped,” he said softly.
The PAVN infantryman the FULRO patrol had picked up while trying to work its way to the temple had told the truth. A rotary-wing squadron had set up an impromptu base in a bean-field seven klicks from the ambush site. Four shark-like Mi-28 Havoc attack choppers sat in the hard shine of generator-powered spots, their motors turning over, their rotors sweeping lazy circles. Soviet-bloc doctrine notwithstanding, this band was tuning up for a little night music.
There had been no way to reach the temple, especially when the tanks put in their appearance. Mark would have to fend for himself, if he still happened to be alive. The priority now was to try to keep the core of the rebel army intact under attack by at least a division of PAVN armor.
Belew had ordered the men to scatter in the woods. The rebels were probably outnumbered, certainly outgunned. Evasion was their best defense, as it always was. Because the People’s Army was well equipped with antitank rockets in various shapes and sizes, the rebels were too — they stole them, bought them, or received them from deserters, the way God intended guerrillas should be armed. If they could just melt into the woods and fields, the rebels could not only survive, they might even lay some hurt on their enemies. The key was having enough time to break into cover.
Belew was looking to help buy them that time.
The eagle-headed joker Osprey and the other NJB deserters had given Belew grief. Mark was one of their own. They were determined to wade through however many of their former comrades and PAVN troopies lay between them and him.
The unmistakable sounds of tanks on the prod had changed their minds for them. To the untrained, tanks are totally terrifying, vast prehistoric beasts, deadly and invulnerable.
As a matter of fact a man afoot, in the dark, in vegetation, had it all over a tank; the beast couldn’t see him. If he were cunning — or had a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, or even your clichéd pop-bottle-o’-gas, he could take the offensive. Belew just didn’t tell them that. Shuffling their feet with the guilt of their self-assumed cowardice, the erstwhile New Joker Brigaders joined the exodus from the derelict plantation.
The engine whine’s timbre changed, rising, becoming more insistent. The squad had gotten the word to move.
There are two ways to get someplace where you don’t belong. You can sneak. Or you can just cruise on in as if you had all the business in the world there.
Belew let out the clutch and drove, fast enough to come on like a Man in a Hurry, not fast enough to look like a charging foe.
As the armorers checked the weaponry slung beneath the Havocs’ stub wings, Belew drove up right alongside the nearest ship. The hustling ground crew barely spared him a glance; they recognized the Gestalt of one of their own jeeps, and they had more important things on their mind than brass coming out to kiss the brave People’s Flyboys ’bye.
The pilot looked out his still-open side hatch and saw a pale, square face. His thick-gauntleted hand fumbled for his sidearm.
Belew quick-drew his Para Ordnance and shot the pilot twice in the chest. The ground crew fled as he vaulted out of the jeep, ran to the chopper to drag the dying pilot out.
The gunner turned a blank visor toward Belew from his station in the nose. Belew gestured with the handgun. The gunner was brave but not stupid. He climbed on out and ran. Sensing what was about to happen, he ran hard.
Holstering his 10mm, Belew slid into the pilot’s seat. He tore the bandages off his left hand, pressed it palm down onto the helicopter’s console, and slashed off his budding new fingers. Then he pressed the spurting stumps against the cool metal.
“Ahh,” he said, as his soul entered the metal. There was nothing better than the feel of fusion with a fine machine. It was better than sex.
Well, almost.
J. Robert Belew was a pronounced polymath. But piloting was not among his many skills. With his hands on the controls he could no more fly the Havoc than he could fly by flapping his arms.