‘Rawne’s on it, sir,’ she replied.
He nodded. He kept looking at the flaking metal waste of the industrial barges.
‘You seem distracted,’ she said.
He looked at her, surprised by her frankness.
‘Just thinking,’ he said.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m trying to think like an etogaur,’ he said. ‘Like a Son of Sek.’
Her expression clearly showed her alarm at the idea.
‘They’re not stupid, Zhukova. They are the worst breed of monsters, but they’re not stupid. And that fact makes them even worse monsters. This isn’t an opportunist assault. It’s been planned and coordinated in advance. There is strategy here, we just can’t see it.’
‘So?’
‘So if the Sons of Sek are working to a plan–’
‘If the Sons of Sek are working to a plan, then we define their scheme and deny it.’
He nodded.
‘An opportunist assault is hard to fight because it has no pattern,’ he said. ‘This has a pattern. So, you put yourself in their boots, Zhukova. If you were at the other end of this road, what would you be trying to do?’
‘Uh… blindside the main obstacles. Get around them. The Ghosts, the Helixid, the batteries.’
‘Right.’
‘Isn’t that what they’re doing? Pushing troops up through the packing district, the hardest area to defend?’
‘Yes,’ said Mkoll. He didn’t sound sure.
‘What are you thinking now?’ she asked.
‘I think we should take a walk,’ he said.
Pasha led her crew through the fires and wreckage of the SteGs and the stalk-tanks. On the wind, through the crackle of flames, she could hear the clattering rumble of the big treads moving towards them. Despite the cover of the smoke, she felt exposed. She felt nostalgia. She felt the edge-of-death rush she’d known as a young woman at Vervunhive.
‘Move fast,’ she ordered. ‘Keep those crates away from the fires or they’ll torch off.’
‘They’re about a minute away,’ called Konjic.
‘How many?’
‘Two. AT-seventies. They’re not slowing. They’re going to pile through here.’
Pasha knelt down with one of the crates, opened the lid, and took out a grenade.
‘Do what I do,’ she told Galashia. Konjic was already working on the third crate. ‘Slide the lid shut,’ she said, working steadily and with practised hands. ‘Wedge the grenade upright at the end. Slide the lid in tight to hold it in place. Now, fuse wire or det tape. You’ll need about two metres. Loosen the pin of the wedge grenade. Not too loose! Tie the wire tight to the pin. Now play it out, back under the box. Leave a trailing end.’
Galashia watched what Pasha and Konjic were doing, and tried to copy it as best she could. Her hands were shaking.
The clatter of the advancing tanks was growing louder.
‘All right!’ said Pasha. ‘One man to a box, grenade towards you. One man on each wire, keeping it under the box. Don’t gakking pull. Lift them up, keep them steady. The real trick is placement.’
Pasha hefted her box up. Trooper Stavik held the end of her wire. Konjic lifted his box, with Kurnau on the end of the wire. Galashia got her wire wound in place, and lifted her box. Aust took up the end of her trailing thread.
‘All right,’ said Pasha. ‘This is how this madness works…’
The two AT70s were approaching the burning wreckage clogging the highway. They were moving at full throttle, one ahead of the other. Neither slowed down. They were going to ram their armoured bulks through the wrecks, and charge the roadblock. No amount of small-arms or support fire would be able to slow them then.
The first AT70 smashed into the wreckage. It crushed the flaming ruin of a stalk-tank under its treads, then shoved a burned-out SteG out of its path in a shiver of sparks. Visibility in the smoke and flames was almost zero.
Pasha and Stavik ran out in front of it, Pasha struggling with the weight of the box. They had been waiting behind another wrecked SteG, concealed by the fires spewing out of it. This close to the front of the speeding battle tank, they were outside the driver’s very limited line of sight. Both were sweating from the heat, and they were covered in soot.
Timing and placement were everything. Too hasty and you missed the line. Too slow, and the tank simply ran you down and churned you to paste.
Pasha slammed the box down in front of the advancing tank’s left tread section. Stavik kept the wire straight so when the box came down, the wire was trapped under it and lying in a line running directly towards the whirring tracks. To do this, he had to keep his back to the tank about to run him down. The roar of it was deafening. The ground shook. It was as if it were falling on him.
Pasha and Stavik released, and threw themselves clear. The tank crew didn’t even know two people had been in their path for a moment.
The left tread section rolled over the wire. The weight of the tank ground the wire between track and road, and pulled on it, drawing it back and dragging the box with it. Less than a second later, the track met the back of the placed box and began to push it forwards.
Less than a second after that, the track assembly would have crushed the box or, more likely, smashed it out of the way.
But by then, the draw on the wire and the pressure on the end of the box had combined to pull the pin from the wedged grenade.
The grenade exploded, detonating all the other grenades in the box. By placing the box in front of the treads, Pasha had made sure that the violent blast was channelled up under the tank’s armoured skirts and into the wheel housing, instead of bursting uselessly under the armoured treads. The box went off like a free-standing mine.
The searing explosion rushed up under the skirt, shredding drive sprockets and axle hubs. The blast actually lifted the corner of the AT70 for a second. Torsion bars, segments of track and parts of the skirt armour went flying. With one tread section entirely disabled, the tank slewed around hard, driven by its one, still-working, track. It crashed headlong into a wrecked SteG and came to a halt, coughing clouds of dirty exhaust.
The second AT70 was on them. Glimpsing its partner lurching aside through the flames, the tank slowed slightly, opening up with a futile burst of its coaxial gun. The shots chewed up empty roadway. Konjic and Kurnau dropped their box in its path, and sprinted clear, but the tank was turning to evade. Its tracks chewed over the wire sideways, yanking out the pin, but the box was still clear of the track and the blast, an impressive rush of dirty flame, washed up its skirt armour without doing any damage.
Galashia and Aust ran through the flames and smoke. Galashia had never been so scared in her life. This was the behaviour of lunatics.
She was screaming as she got the box in place. The tank was starting to turn and accelerate again, but she’d made a good line.
Aust tripped. He went down on his face, and the tank’s right treads went over him before he could even yell for help. His death, though swift, was the most horrible thing Galashia had ever seen. He was ground apart with industrial fury.
Facing it, she saw it all. She fell backwards. She could evade neither the blast nor the onrushing tracks.
The tank suddenly lurched into reverse. Fearing mines or sub-surface munitions, it backed out hard, smashing a burning SteG wreck out of its way. It left Aust and the box behind it. Nothing remained of Aust except a grume of blood and his spread-eagled arms and legs. The box was intact.
The tank halted and began to traverse its turret with a whine of servos. The .30 mount started coughing again.