Three paces, and he was moving fast enough to leap, reaching for one of the U-brackets welded to the car’s hull. The commander started to drop down into the turret; unfortunately, he also tried to reach for the pintle-mounted machine gun beside the hatch and to shout something into his throat mike, all at the same time. The net result was that he did nothing for a crucial second and a half.
Tom’s hand clamped on the bracket. His shoulder muscles crackled as he heaved, combining with the thrust of his legs to throw him up onto the flat deck of the fighting vehicle in a single six-foot bound. The muzzle of the machine gun swung toward him; there was nothing wrong with the other man’s instincts, although he wasn’t going to acquire the experience he needed to use them properly. Tom grabbed the gun in his left hand and wrenched it brutally away; that turned the weapon into a long lever at the end of Tom’s even longer arm, a combination that slammed the man holding it into the side of the hatchway with enormous force. He gave an agonized wheeze as it rammed into his body just below the ribs like a blunt axe, but his hand scrabbled at his belt and the holstered .45 anyway.
The determination was admirable, but futile. Tom’s right hand closed on his throat and rammed his head sideways into the upright hatch cover. Bone hit steel with a sound like heavy dense wood splintering under an iron maul. Wetness spattered Tom’s wrist; he ignored it and surged the man’s body up in a straight lift and threw it aside. It tumbled limply on to the rear deck of the Catamount, then slid over the side like something made of jelly.
Adrienne was right behind him. As the body cleared the hatchway she went into it head first… except that her right hand went before it, with the FN FiveSeveN pistol, and her left to brace her against something in the interior. Tom caught her by the rear loop of her webbing harness, taking some of the weight.
The little weapon yapped shrilly, three times, hard to hear amid the growing clamor—the burble of the idling diesel would have been enough to cover it. He was profoundly glad it was her doing this part and not him; he was anything but a pistol artist, particularly not in the strait confines of an AFV’s turret.
“Clear!” she called, and wiggled backward.
He helped, then popped the gunner’s hatch, reached in and pulled out the body of the man who’d occupied that position; it required a bit of shoving and shaking, as well as strength, to prevent the limp weight from catching on things. The dead gunner had a hole in the back of his neck. Most of the front of it missing in a ragged hole that was still pumping out blood, and the body dripped fluids as it came free. Tom threw the corpse away with unnecessary violence.
While he did, Tully was running around to the front of the armored car and leaping up the slope of the wedge-shaped glacis plate. The hatch over the driver’s compartment was open, and the central window was spattered with brains and bits of matter. Tully dragged the body out; using both hands and his back, but not taking too much time about it. He was five-six and scrawny, but his strength in a tight spot was surprising.
The whole business had taken perhaps forty-five seconds from the moment Tom made his move.
Now he slid into the hatchway himself, feet first. It was well enough lit inside, and the surfaces were mostly painted or enameled white for better visibility anyway. And it was more spacious than any APC he’d ever ridden in, too. The Commonwealth didn’t need to design its fighting vehicles to resist modern weaponry, only small arms at most. This was essentially a big overpowered cross-country amphibious truck with a turret on top. Tom took the gunner’s position to the left of the breech of the Bofors gun and the big carousel of ammunition beneath it, ignoring the tackiness and the smell, and wiping off the control surfaces with a handkerchief and the sleeve of his tunic until they were clean enough for government work.
Adrienne had given him a rundown on the fighting machine, and a glance was enough to fix the needful details in his mind’s eye. Most of the middle of the turret was taken up with the cannon’s workings; an automatic loader cycled rounds up to the breech, presenting the five-round clips to the action; the spent casings ejected out a port in the side of the turret. The gunner’s couch-style seat was leather cushioned, with a screen and control yoke before it—there was a backup set of optical sights, and manual wheels for elevation and traverse, but New Virginia had bought state of the art otherwise. Everything stabilized, and a laser rangefinder tied into the sighting screen with feedback through the ballistic computer. The screen showed everything out front, a compressed 180-degree display from a wide-lens pickup right over the gun’s barrel and two more at either front corner of the turret; in the center of it was a circle with diagonal arms just touching its perimeter. Place the pipper over the target, and the gun would automatically adjust so the shells hit right there. Another circle, smaller and to the left, gave the point of impact for the coaxial machine gun. The controls were computerized simplicity, a horizontal bar with upright handgrips at each end. Twist left like you did with a bicycle’s handlebars and the turret rotated left; twist right for the other direction. Pull back and the gun went up; push forward and it depressed; button under the left thumb for the co-ax, and a foot pedal for firing the main gun. Dial on the control panel to select type of ammunition and fusing.
The screen had magnification up to twelve times, too, and full light amplification. The scene outside was as clear as an overcast noon.
He pulled on the intercom headset as he ran through the controls once more, touching everything so his hands and feet would know what to do. That wouldn’t make him an expert, but he didn’t have to refight the Battle of 73 Easting , either.
“I’ve got the unit push for the Colletta troops,” Adrienne’s voice said in his ear. “Tully, you’ve got the closest thing to the local accent, male variety. I’m switching you live. Sound hysterical.”
“No problemo,” Tully said.
“Switching… now.”
He went on with a thickening of his native Arkansas, in a voice shrill with fear and excitement:
“We’re under attack! The Injuns are attacking! The strike force are joining them! They’re breaking into the bunkers and taking the ammuntion. I say again, we’re under attack! Open fire on any strike force or Indians you see!”
He repeated himself and then squealed: “No! God, no! Help—” and then let loose a bone-chilling scream of agony, dying off in a gurgle and a click as the exterior link was cut. Then a hoot of laughter… Roy had a rather gruesome sense of humor, when you came right down to it.
As Tully spoke, Tom settled his big hands on the control yoke and felt the quiver of the feedback. A twist, and the lower pip of the screen slid over the dirt road, still full of the startled mercenaries. His left thumb jabbed down again and again, and a streak of tracer lashed out like a finger of red arching fire as the co-ax stuttered long bursts into the packed rows of men. Adrienne was firing the pintle-mounted gun above, standing in the commander’s position with her head and shoulders out of the turret.
“Yes!” Tom shouted.
The rest of the Colletta troopers were firing at the mass of Zapotecs and their Russian cadre too!
And the Russians, at least, were shooting back. With empty weapons their students just hugged the ground, or less wisely jumped up and ran and were cut down. Both the lighter armored cars were firing as well; just then the landing lights on the airstrip went out, and the light level outside fell to something approaching full night. It didn’t affect the armored car’s screens at all, save for an imperceptible flicker as the intensification went up; probably someone at the Colletta HQ wanted to put the Zapotecs at a disadvantage. Behind them the control shack for the airstrip went up in a blast that flung its plank walls away as black confetti in front of orange-red flame.