'Is that right?'
'Yea-h, that's right,' Race said. 'Because I've done it before.'
At that moment, unseen by Bittiker, Race jammed his thumb down hard on the rubber-sealed button that he'd found on the underside of the steering controls of the Abrams. The same rubber-sealed button that was fitted on every American-made field vehicle.
VROOOOM!
Immediately, the tank's monstrous AvcoLycoming engine roared to life, the throb of its powerful engine reverberating throughout the enormous cargo bay.
Bittiker was jolted off balance by the sudden roar of the tank's engine. Up on the catwalk in front of the tank, Troy Copeland also looked up in surprise.
Inside the driver's hatch, Race looked around for anything he could—
Oh yeah. That's nice.
He found a control stick, complete with trigger, on which was written the words: MA GUN.
Race grabbed the stick and squeezed the trigger and hoped to God that there was a round inside the Abrams' main cannon.
There was.
The boom of the tank's 105mm cannon going off inside the cargo bay of the Antonov was perhaps the loudest thing Race had ever heard in his life.
The entire cargo plane shuddered violently as the Abrams' mighty cannon went off in all its glory.
The 105mm shell blasted through the plane like a run away asteroid. First, it sheared Troy Copeland's head off—cleanly, quickly—removing it in an instant, like a bullet taking off the head of a Barbie doll, decapitating Copeland in a nanosecond, leaving his body standing for a full second after his head had been removed.
But the shell just kept on going.
It shot like a missile through the steel wall behind Copeland's body, rocketing up into the passenger deck of the Antonov, ploughing at colossal speed into the cockpit walls, exploding right through the pilot's chest before it blasted out through the plane's windshield in a spectacular shower of glass.
With its pilot now well-and-truly dead, the Antonov banked wildly, entering the first stages of a nosedive.
In the cargo bay, the world tilted crazily. Race saw the damage that he'd done, saw where this plane was going.
While I've still got one second left, I'm going to try to disarm that bomb.
Bittiker was still standing on the skirt of the tank, still holding his Calico pistol, but he'd been thrown wildly off balance by the discharge of the cannon.
Race crunched the tank's gears, found the one he wanted.
Then he jammed his foot down on the accelerator, slamming it against the floor.
The tank responded immediately—its tracked wheels leaping into motion and the massive steel beast shot off the mark like a racing car. The only thing was, it shot backwards-out along the loading ramp, shooting off its edge, tipping over it and falling out into the clear open sky.
The Abrams tank fell.
Fast. Really, really fast.
Indeed, no sooner had it dropped off the loading ramp of the Antonov than the cargo plane—gutted by the blast of the tank's cannon—just banked away into a nosedive and exploded in a gigantic, billowing ball of flames.
The Abrams fell through the sky—rear-end first—at phenomenal speed. It was so big, so heavy, it just cut through the air like an anvil, a screaming 67-ton anvil.
Inside the tank, Race was in a world of trouble.
Everything was tilted on its side and the whole tank shook violently as it was buffeted by the friction it created with the air outside.
For his part, Race lay awkwardly in the middle of the command centre, having been thrown there when he had reversed the tank off the loading ramp. Next to him was the Supernova. It now sat horizontally, wedged firmly in between the ceiling and floor.
Race saw the timer on its display screen counting down: 00:00:21 00:00:20 00:00:19
Nineteen seconds.
About the same time he had before the tank smashed into the ground from a height of about 20,000 feet.
Aw, luck it.
Either the Supernova went off and he died along with the rest of the world—-or he disarmed it and died alone when the tank slammed into the earth in about seventeen seconds' time.
In other words, he could sacrifice his own life to save the world's.
Again.
Goddamn it! Race thought. How could the same thing happen to him twice in two days?
