That made Stan sick. “Listen!” he shouted. “Fire at the enemy turrets! Aim at the turrets and we might win this battle!”
Then Stan saw a running man. It was Pastor Bill. He ran down the slope as if he was driving to the hoop for a winning basket.
“What are you doing?” whispered Stan.
The pastor heaved a sticky round. Wired to it was a cluster of grenades. The pastor dove into a foxhole and the sticky round stuck to the T-66’s tracks. The cluster exploded, knocking off a tread and halting the deadly tank. An anti-personnel machine gun opened up, sending rounds in the pastor’s direction.
At that moment, the remaining Abrams fired, and the Sabot rounds bored into the crippled T-66’s single operational turret. The great Chinese tank shuddered.
“Retreat!” shouted Stan. “It’s time to leave.” Another T-66 tank was headed in their direction. The third continued to slaughter Americans in their foxholes.
Stan’s company needed no more urging. Five Abrams tanks backed up fast, racing for the next slope and so they could get to the road. Four other Abrams remained where they were, burning. The fifth Abrams was among the stalled tanks, but it didn’t burn.
“Go, go, go,” Stan said. He was shaking. Was Bill still alive? What had that crazy-man been thinking? Stan opened the hatch and popped his head outside into the cold air.
The second tri-turreted tank clanked over the top of the slope as it gave chase. One of its guns roared, and another Abrams exploded, leaving the company with four tanks.
Stan cursed feebly and then shouted down the hatch, “Jose!”
“I see it,” said Jose, who adjusted the Abrams’s gun.
The tri-turreted monster traversed two cannons at them as it clanked past burning Abrams tanks, those that never had a chance to leave the slope.
“It has us,” said Stan. He felt sick inside as the giant cannons aimed at his tank. There was no way his armor could stop the 175mm shells. This was murder.
The monster T-66 passed burning Abrams tanks littered behind the slope. One of those five M1A2s wasn’t burning, however, although it had been disabled. Now, as the giant Chinese tank clanked past it, the fifth Abrams’ turret adjusted slightly. Someone in the disabled tank was still alive! Before the T-66 could alter its path, the 120mm cannon fired at point blank range. The Sabot round drilled into the mighty Chinese tank. The T-66 stopped, and it exploded, turrets popping off.
“A miracle,” whispered Stan. “That was a miracle.”
“What now?” asked Hank.
Stan couldn’t speak, for the hatch to the fifth Abrams opened. Flames licked up as a man tried to climb out. Then he blew upward as the insides of his tank cooked off.
“Did you see that?” Stan whispered.
“I saw,” said Jose.
“He saved our lives,” said Stan.
“He let us get away.”
Stan felt numb inside. That was heroism. Bill charging the T-66s alone and the Abrams gunner just now—Stan made a fist. He struck the turret. “Let’s get out of here before the last T-66 shows up.”
He’d seen what those things could do. One T-66 was more than a match for five Abrams tanks.
“We had ten Abrams and now we have four,” Stan said. “They slaughtered us.”
“It isn’t over yet,” said Jose. “You’d better get us out of here,” Jose told Hank.
“Roger that,” said Stan. “It’s time to run away so we can live to fight another day.”
-13-
War in the Ice
Paul Kavanagh was tired, cold and sore. The sound of his skis was a constant noise, interspaced with a moaning wind that bit into his bones. Despite everything, he stared up at the polar darkness in awe. An eerie display of colors lit the heavens. It was the Northern Lights, otherwise known by the more scientific name Aurora Borealis. Red and green patterns of light seemingly formed motionless waves of beauty before the stars.
Red Cloud glanced back at him, his features hidden under a ski mask. Maybe he noticed Paul’s fixation, for the Algonquin looked up. Resting on his ski poles, Red Cloud waited for Paul to catch up with him. Then the Algonquin began to cross-country ski beside Paul.
“Sunspots make the lights,” Red Cloud said.
“How?” asked Paul, who hadn’t spoken for days.
Red Cloud glanced at him again. The Algonquin had spoken to him several times a ski-period, even though Paul had never acknowledged him or his words. It was almost as if Red Cloud had been worried about his state of mind. Now Paul wondered if the Indian had felt lonely, if this Arctic desert adversely affected the Algonquin as it did him.
Did he fear I would give up and he’d be trapped alone in this icy wasteland?
“Protons and electrons are shot from the Sun in massive bursts during a solar storm,” Red Cloud said. “The protons and electrons strike the Earth’s atmosphere, and the planet’s magnetic field drives them to the poles. There they act like the charged particles in a fluorescent tube.”
“What kind of Indian are you?” asked Paul. He’d been expecting some ancient Algonquin myth, the way TV Indians always answered nature-related questions.
Red Cloud pointed at the heavenly display. “Green is the most common color. It is caused by atomic oxygen. Red is caused by molecular oxygen and nitrogen.”
“Were you a scientist?” asked Paul.
“…no. I love science fiction. Asimov taught me it was fine to desire to know the reason behind a thing, but Jack Vance has always been my favorite SF author.”
“Never heard of either one of them,” Paul said.
They fell silent then as they continued the endless trek across the pack ice. It was a monotonous journey and tedious to the mind. There was a flat expense of white in every direction as far as the eye could see.
“That’s interesting,” Paul said, who continued to stare at the Northern Lights as he thought about the Algonquin’s words.
Red Cloud grunted. He still pulled the toboggan, the supplies having dwindled since leaving Murphy in the stalled snowcat.
“Why does that little red light move like that?” asked Paul.
“Northern Lights do not visibly move.”
“That one sure does.”
Red Cloud looked up again. He stopped. Paul stopped beside him. They both watched the blinking, moving red light.
Suddenly, the Algonquin hissed, “Get down and remain still.” He threw himself flat on the ice.
Paul did likewise as he slipped the assault rifle from his shoulder. He watched the blinking dot move along the Aurora Borealis.
“Look,” Paul said. “There’s another light farther behind the first.”
The two men glanced at each other. Then both craned their necks, studying the phenomenon. The second blinking light came toward them, following the light ahead of them.
“I see a third one even farther behind,” Red Cloud said.
“Yeah,” Paul said.
“They must be airplanes.”
“Or helicopters.”
“Listen,” Red Cloud said.
Paul listened, and he heard it—a faraway drone.
“These aircraft do not fly at the same height as the intercontinental planes,” whispered Red Cloud. “Maybe they fly low to escape high-flight detection.”
“They’re passing us—who knows how many miles to our left.” Paul studied the three locations. “They’re headed south, which means they’re coming in from the north. Do you think this has anything to do with the destruction of Platform P-53?”
“Yes,” Red Cloud said.
“Yeah,” Paul said, nodding. “Why blow an oil rig? There has to be a good reason, a purpose.” He recalled Murphy watching him from the cat’s window. The mind-image brought a painful knot to his sternum. “Where are those aircraft going, do you think?”