Normally we would have texted the ignition codes to the FAVs but being comms dark meant we had to do it manually by plugging in. This was taking longer.
My audio filters kicked up a notch as Cat fired a long burst from her railgun, one hypersonic bang ripping into the next. The railgun drowned out the long burst from my SAW.
The smoke eddied violently as blindly fired rockets jetted towards us. Cat and I leaped into our FAVs. Morag didn’t bother with the slope; she just drove off the fifteen-foot ledge. I shot forward. I hadn’t had time to put on my harness. The dashboard rushed up to hit me and I felt the subcutaneous armour on my nose give and blood squirt out. The smartfoam on the tyres tried to grab at the smooth, steep rock slope with some success. The front wheels were forward of the vehicle so fortunately they hit the ground first, the heavy-duty suspension cushioning the blow. Morag slewed the wheel hard to the left, battering me against the side of the vehicle. A concussion wave rocked us and we were driving through fire.
Fingers of flame reached for us through the disruption in the air as we drove. Mudge and Pagan emerged from the flame behind us and then Merle and Cat.
The FAV’s suspension and tyres made light work of the rough ground beneath us as I struggled into my harness and then jacked into the vehicle’s weapon systems. Suddenly the view in my IVD changed to provide a compressed three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panorama around the vehicle. Information scrolled down and cross hairs appeared in my view as I wrapped my hand around the grip for the weapon system’s smartlink, connecting it to the receiver in my palm. The grip also had manual triggers. I brought the front and rear ball-mounted, point- defence lasers online first.
Behind me the cavern burned. Fire swirled around the gunship as it flew through the flames, skimming over the ground. The flames made it look like an even more violent and predatory piece of military tech. I didn’t recognise the model – it looked new, next generation. Only the best for the Black Squadrons.
The pop-up turret unfolded from the middle of our FAV. It had a railgun mounted on it with two light anti- armour missile batteries on either side. I couldn’t get an angle on the gunship because of the other two FAVs behind us. Cat and Pagan could, however. Sparks were flying off the front of the gunship as the two FAVs’ railguns chewed away at its armour.
There were flashes from underneath the gunship’s wing-like weapons pontoons as it launched missiles. Red laser light glittered off chaff foil as the missiles exploded mid-flight, taken out by Mudge and Pagan’s anti-missile point defences. The panoramic view in my IVD showed the force of the explosions kick up the rear of their FAV, lifting the wheels high in the air as Mudge struggled to control it.
The gunship appeared again through its own missiles’ flames, the triple-barrelled railgun on the nose rotating as it fired. Sparks were flying off the rear armour of Mudge and Pagan’s FAV. Pagan was returning fire. He risked firing off a salvo of missiles but the gunship fired its own chaff dispensers and point-defence lasers. More fire filled the cavern.
‘We need to split up,’ I told Morag. I knew that the FAV’s on-board sensor would be providing a detailed topographical map of the tunnels ahead. She would have overlaid the three-dimensional map onto her IVD, offering her various routes to our various RVs. The only problem was the map was incomplete because not all of the cave systems had been explored and it was almost a year out of date.
Morag yanked the steering wheel hard to the right into an even tighter tunnel and then sped up. The armoured vehicle was smashing stalagmites as we drove over them and tearing stalactites off the roof of the tunnel. The two other FAVs shot past the entrance to our tunnel, then the gunship shot past as well. I can’t say I was disappointed, but on the other hand we needed to get the pressure off Pagan and Mudge. I had about a millisecond to think about reversing out behind them when a second gunship went past. As it did there was a flash of white light. Just behind us part of the rock exploded, caught fire and started to melt. Warning signals lit up my IVD letting me know that part of the FAV had also melted.
‘They’ve got door gunners with plasma weapons, so stick to tight tunnels,’ I told Morag. She just concentrated on driving. Now we would have to go back. Then the third gunship turned into the tunnel behind us. Morag went faster. Possibly too fast.
I was exchanging railgun fire with the gunship but its higher rate of fire was telling on the integrity of our rear armour. After my audio dampeners had filtered out the worst of the impact noise it sounded like heavy rain. Ahead of us I could see several pillars where stalactites and stalagmites had joined to make thick columns. The FAV was accelerating towards them.
‘Morag!’ Her response was to go faster.
‘Turret,’ she said through gritted teeth. I sent the command to fold the turret away as she slewed the FAV up the wall of the tunnel. The smartfoam of the tyres bit into the irregular surface of the rock wall. The turret only just folded way in time, though a column tore off part of the hatch.
Behind us the gunship fired missiles at the column, which exploded. The tunnel filled with fire. There was another column bisecting the path ahead of us. We just missed that, driving up the wall at what felt like ninety degrees to the tunnel floor. Back on the ground Morag continued accelerating.
Missiles reached out through the flames to destroy the second pillar. The gunship followed, buffeted by the explosions but not slowing down, railgun fire still eating at our rear armour.
Morag jammed on the brakes. The straps on my harness had to work to keep me in the bucket seat. Ahead there was a large, roughly circular crevice in the tunnel floor. I thought she was stopping to avoid it; she was in fact slowing so that she wouldn’t jump it. The FAV skidded into the crevice and we started to fall.
The suspension extended and the tyres bit into the rock all around us. It was part vertical driving but mostly free fall. I’m not too ashamed to admit that I cried out. Red light from our point-defence lasers lit up the darkness as two missiles from the gunship dipped into the crevice above us. The subsequent explosion forced the FAV down, dropping it about twenty feet before the tyres caught again. I fired the railgun blind up through the flames. The gunship hadn’t followed us, as it would have had to expose its vulnerable belly.
I shouted in surprise when Morag retracted the suspension and just let us drop. The impact felt like something that should be followed by death. Then there was a second jarring impact as we hit the ground. Morag was lolling around in her seat like a rag doll. She spat blood out of her mouth as she came to life again. There was the sound of tortured metal as she pressed the accelerator, and the rugged FAV moved forward. I’d been battered around so much I had trouble working out what was going on. There was the sound of tearing metal from the rear of the FAV and then we broke free.
‘Missile!’ Morag shouted. Without thinking I swung the turret round to face behind us and fired off half the light anti-armour missiles. It was only then I realised what she’d done, why we’d had to drive so fast. She’d known about the crevice and how it bisected the tunnel that the others were in. She’d dropped us down on the front of the second gunship chasing the others. The missile salvo had finished it off. My panoramic view showed the twisted burning wreckage filling the tunnel behind us. She must have programmed an algorithm to do the maths on her internal computer while she was driving. She would probably shake and sob later when she thought about there being people in the gunship. That was okay, as long as it was later.
Morag accelerated. Now we were behind a gunship this was more fun. I triggered the railgun, firing long bursts, chewing away at its rear armour. The gunship’s weapon pontoons reversed. Warning icons appeared in my IVD – they had a missile lock on us. The gunship fired two missiles, but we’d kept well enough back that they were easy pickings for the point-defence lasers. We drove through the flame of their explosions still firing at the back of the gunship.
I risked two of our own missiles at it, but chaff and laser fire took care of them as we drove through fire again. As we emerged through the flames the gunship had gone. Ahead of us I could see the other two FAVs. The back of Pagan and Mudge’s looked like someone had been eating it. It had just driven up the wall and was now returning to the flat. I was remembering something about the map. There was a branching tunnel here that sloped down. The others must have avoided it by driving up the wall while the gunship, probably badly damaged, had taken it to escape. Morag went after the gunship.
‘No!’ I shouted too late.
The downward tunnel was short. The end of it was a hole in the roof of a large cavern. We were airborne. Suddenly we were the world’s shittest aircraft. The gunship was waiting for us. Its railgun opened up and it fired two more missiles. One of the plasma door gunners missed. Rock melted and burned behind us. The other clipped the front of the FAV, partially melting the bonnet and leaving the metal and composite armour burning.
I’m not sure how I had the presence of mind to do it, but the FAV’s superb systems gave me lock even as we
