Pasha reached Galashia, and hauled her to her feet.
‘Grab it! Grab it, girl!’ Pasha yelled.
They scooped up the box. Pasha had to peel the wire out of the jelly slick of Aust’s remains, carefully, to stop it sticking and pulling the pin.
Together, they ran behind the tank. Pasha kept so close to the tank’s hull she might as well have been leaning on it. It was counter-intuitive to be so close to such a terrifyingly indomitable enemy object, but staying tight kept them out of sight and out of the line of its coaxial fire.
‘Here! Here!’ Pasha yelled.
They placed the box behind the right-hand tread.
‘It’s stopped moving!’ Galashia yelled.
Pasha bent down. Holding the wired grenade in place, she slid the lip open, and fished out one of the other hand-bombs.
‘What the gak are you doing?’ Galashia screeched.
Pasha ignored her, and slid the lid shut, bracing the wired grenade.
‘Come on,’ she said.
They started to run. Pasha pulled the pin on the grenade she’d lifted, and hurled it high over the tank. It landed on the road in front of the AT70, and went off with a gritty crump.
‘What–’ Galashia stammered.
Pasha threw her flat.
The AT70 driver assumed the grenade blast in front of him was evidence of a frontal attack or another mine. He threw the transmission into reverse. With a jolt and a roar of its engines, the tank backed over the box-mine.
The blast took out its back skirts and wheel-blocks. Galashia felt grit and debris rain down on her. Shrapnel from the blast penetrated the tank’s engine house, and in seconds, the rear end of the massive vehicle was engulfed in fire.
Two members of the crew tried to escape, bailing from the hatches. Pasha was calmly waiting for them, pistol in hand. She cut them both down.
‘Let’s get clear,’ she said, hurrying Galashia away from the burning tank. ‘The fire will reach the magazine.’
The first AT70, crippled and immobile, was trying to train its main gun on the roadblock. Konjic, Stavik and Kurnau rushed it. Konjic fired his lasrifle repeatedly into the armoured glass of the gunner’s sighting slot, blinding the machine. It fired the main gun anyway, but the shell fired wild, wide over the roadblock line.
There was no way to crack the hatches from the outside. Konjic hoped that the commander would pop the hatch to get a target sighting. If that happened, he’d be ready to hose the interior with full auto. But then tanks often had auspex. It didn’t need to see in order to aim. They’d stopped it, but they hadn’t killed it.
‘What do we do?’ asked Kurnau frantically.
‘Get the feth clear,’ said Chiria.
She had run from cover at the roadblock to join them, her tread fether over her broad shoulder.
‘Shit!’ said Konjic.
‘Can’t miss at this range,’ said Chiria, and didn’t.
Even AT70 hull plating couldn’t stop a tread fether at less than six metres. The rocket punched a hole in its side, and there was a dull, brutal thump from within. The tank didn’t explode. It simply died, smoke gusting from the rocket wound, its crew pulverised by the overpressure of the blast trapped inside the hull.
Chiria turned and grinned at the others.
She was about to say something when a colossal blast knocked them all off their feet. The second AT70’s magazine had detonated.
Debris and burning scraps fluttered down on them. They got up, coughing and dazed. The centre of the road where the second AT70 had been was a large crater full of leaping flames. Pasha limped towards them, her arm around Galashia’s shoulders.
She was smiling.
‘Back into cover, lucky ones,’ she said.
Varl’s flamers were at work, at the head of Turnabout Lane. Loosing jets of fire, they were burning down the makeshift drapes and rugs strung up by the Urdeshi to block line of sight. Lubba and Mkhet burned out the ropes securing the top corners of the hanging sheets so that they dropped away, and fell, limp and smouldering, against the fronts of the buildings supporting them. Brostin seemed to prefer to hose the drapes, decorating the streets with flaming banners that slowly disintegrated.
‘You only have to burn the ropes,’ Varl said. ‘Just bring them down.’
‘Where’s the fun in that?’ Brostin asked.
Nomis and Cardass ran up.
‘Enemy sighted,’ Cardass told Varl. ‘Two streets that way, advancing fast.’
‘Infantry?’
‘Yes.’
‘A lot of infantry?’
‘Far too many,’ said Cardass.
Varl checked his microbead.
‘Larks?’
‘I hear you.’
‘Can you see better now?’
‘Much better, thank you, ta.’
Varl turned to his squad.
‘Fall back. Come on, now.’
Lubba and Mkhet made their flamers safe. Brostin looked disappointed and reluctant.
‘There’ll be more to burn later,’ Varl reassured him.
‘Promise?’ asked Brostin.
‘Cross my heart.’
Larkin had taken up position in a third floor room in one of the plants on Turnabout Lane. He had a commanding view down the thoroughfare. Nessa and Banda were in position in adjacent buildings, and other Tanith marksmen were on nearby rooftops on the other side of the street.
He settled his long-las on the sill and clicked his microbead.
‘Larkin,’ he said.
A crackle.
‘Rawne, go.’
‘We’ve made ourselves a kill-box, Eli,’ he said. ‘They’ll be on us in a matter of minutes. We’ll take as many as we can, but–’
‘Don’t worry, Larks. You’ve got full companies either side of you and capping the end of the street. Once it gets busy, you’ll have serious support. Let’s just walk them into a surprise first.’
‘Happy to oblige,’ said Larkin. He shook out his old shoulders, and took aim. The street was clear and empty. The smouldering rags left by Varl’s flamer squad had all but gone out.
He waited. He was good at waiting.
‘They’re not coming,’ Banda said over the link.
‘Shut up, girl.’
‘They’ve gone another way.’
‘Just wait. Keep your shorts on and wait.’
A minute passed. Two. Three.
Larkin saw movement at the far end of the lane. A figure or two at first, furtive. Then more. Assault packs, advancing by squad, weapons at their shoulders, drilled and disciplined. Big bastards too. Sons of Sek. There was no mistaking the colour scheme or the brutal insignia.
‘Feth,’ he heard Banda say. ‘Look at the bastards.’
‘Keep waiting,’ he answered, calmly.
‘There are hundreds of them, you mad old codger.’
There were. There were hundreds of them, close to a thousand, Larkin figured, advancing urgently down the commercial lane. And many more behind that, he reckoned. This was their way in. This little, dark, undistinguished street was their route to victory.
‘Do we take shots?’ Banda asked.
‘Wait.’
‘For feth’s sake, they’re almost on us.’
‘Wait.’
He paused, sighed.
It was time.
‘Choose your targets and fire,’ he said into his microbead.
He lined up. Who first? That one. That one there. A big fether. An officer. He was gesturing, barking orders.
Larkin lined up his sights. The man’s head filled his scope.
‘Welcome to Eltath, you son of a bitch,’ he breathed, and pulled the trigger.