The Chosen

He looked up; it was full dark, and still early enough in spring to be overcast.

Rain? he asked.

chance of precipitation is 53 %, ±5, Center replied.

'We'll go with it,' he said aloud. 'Spread out. Avoid the sentries if you can; if you can't, keep it quiet.'

The commandos moved down from the ridge, through the aromatic scrub and into the stubblefields of the valley bottom. There was little noise; the men with him had all been at the front for long enough to learn night- patrol work. I'd have had more posts and a roving patrol here, he thought.

Whoever was in charge wanted to keep pursuing as fast as he could, Raj said. He left the minimum possible with the tank when it broke down. Sound thinking. The chances of a Loyalist band big enough to cause trouble being bypassed are low. But even low probabilities happen sometimes.

There was a low choked cry from off to the left in the darkness, and a wet thudding sound. We're going to-

A rifle cracked, the muzzle flash bright in the darkness. Jeffrey could see the crew around the tank scrambling up out of their blankets and heading for their machine; half or better of them would be Chosen and deadly dangerous even surprised in their sleep. He tossed his pistol into his left hand and drew the bundle of grenades out of the cloth satchel at his side, running forward, stumbling and cursing as clods and brush caught at his feet. Abruptly the landscape went brighter, to something like twilight level. Thanks, he thought; Center was reprocessing the input of his eyes and feeding it back to his visual cortex. It no longer felt eerie after more than twenty-five years with Center in his brain.

A red aiming dot settled on a panicked Protege soldier staring wildly about him in the near-complete darkness. Jeffrey fired, then dove and rolled to avoid the bullets that cracked out at the muzzle flash of his weapon. He didn't need to check on the enemy soldier. The dot had been resting right above one ear. A series of vicious blindsided firefights was crackling around the rebel encampment, men firing at sounds and movement glimpsed in split seconds. Or firing at what they thought was sound or movement.

Chooonk. The mortar in the turret of the Land heavy tank fired. Jeffrey dove to the ground again, squeezing his eyes shut. Reflected light from the ground still dazzled him for an instant as the starshell went off.

What was really frightening was a high-pitched chuff and squeal of steel on steel. The tank was live; they must have kept the flash-boilers warm for quick readiness. He'd counted on the half hour it took to bring the huge machine on-line.

One of the corner turrets cut loose, beating the ground with a twin flail of lead and green tracer. Then the four-inch gun in the main turret fired. That must be more for intimidation than anything else, since they didn't have a target worth a heavy shell. It was intimidating, a huge leaf-shaped blade of flame, the ripping crash and the crump of high explosive from the hillside where the load struck.

He couldn't fault the men he'd left behind on the ridge. They opened fire on the camp and the Chosen tank, dozens of winking fireflies showing from their rifles. Sparks danced over the heavy armor of the panzer as it shed the small-arms bullets like so many hailstones. . but it did force the commander to stay buttoned up, vision limited to whatever showed through the narrow vision blocks that ringed the cupola on top of the tank.

Schoonk. Another starshell. The machine-gun turrets were beating at the ridge, trying to suppress the riflemen there, and doing a good job of it. The enemy infantry were taking cover behind the tank, firing around it Then it began to move, grinding across the little valley towards the ridge. Towards him.

Stupid, Jeffrey thought as he hugged the dusty earth, blinking it out of his eyes. The Loyalist force didn't have anything that could threaten the four-inch armor plate of the Land war machine. That's the Chosen for you. Aggressive to a fault, ready to attack whether it was necessary or not.

Of course, if he was unlucky they'd reduce his own personal ass to a grease spot in this stubblefield.

The earth shook as the massive weight ground slowly, slowly towards him. The machine gun bursts from the four turrets and the coaxial weapon blended together into a continuous chattering punctuated by the occasional chugging of the mortar, firing illuminating rounds or high explosive to probe the dead ground behind the ridge. Closer. Closer.

Now it was looming over him. Good. No one had noticed him in the dark and the flickering shadows of the descending starshells as they wobbled on their parachutes. Steel screamed in protest and the earth groaned with a creaking sound as the walking fortress rolled towards him, lurching as the driver tried to keep the treads working at equal speeds. His stomach felt watery, and his testicles were trying to crawl up into it for comfort: 'tank panic' felt a lot more understandable, even sensible, right now.

Black shadow passed over him as the prow moved by. There should be more than two feet of clearance between the tank's belly and the dirt. More than enough for him, if this was one of the ones without hinged blades fitted to the bottom. He rolled on his back, despite the voice at the back of his head screaming that he should bury his face in the dirt. The pitted, rusty surface of the hull was moving only inches from his face, closer when a bolthead went by: And there were the big eyebolt rings near the rear, fitted for use with a towing line.

He dropped his pistol on his stomach and reached out with both hands. There, He pushed the handle of the stick grenade through the bolt. His cap stuffed in beside it snugged it close enough not to move for a few seconds. He scooped up the pistol again with his right hand, and kept hold of the pull-tab at the base of the stick grenade with his left, letting the motion of the tank pull it loose, arming the weapon.

Don't stop now, baby, please, he thought.

It didn't. The commander must have been waiting until he was closer to use the main gun again, and the automatic weapons were reasonably effective on the move. The weight rolled from overhead, like freedom from the grave. Jeffrey began to crawl frantically, then rose and ran two dozen paces.

The first explosion was muffled by the bulk of the tank. It seemed absurdly small beneath the huge bulk of the Land vehicle, but even on something weighing sixty tons the armor couldn't be thick everywhere. The tank came to a lurching halt, although one machine-gun turret continued to fire for fifteen seconds. Then there was a second explosion, this one inside the tank. Steam jetted from the back deck, then a few seconds later from every opening and crack in the hull, squealing into the night like so many locomotive whistles. Jeffrey could feel his skin crawl slightly at the thought of what it must have been like inside, the sudden wash of superheated vapor flaying the crew alive.

That did not stop his pumping run. A low wall of crumbling stone and adobe showed ahead of him; he hurdled it and went to the ground with his face pressed to the dirt. Hot metal was in contact with ruptured shell casings and vaporized gasoline, and right about-

Whump. The fuel and ammunition went off together, and the Land panzer came apart along the lines where the sheets of cast and rolled armor were riveted together. Chunks plowed into the wall a few feet from him, showering powdered dirt and small stones with painful force. He raised his head cautiously; he could see nothing moving near the twisted wreckage of the tank, although the light from the burning remnants was bright enough to read by. The turret lay on its side a few yards distant; further out still were bodies that lay still. Mostly still.

'I hope none of them were mine,' he muttered. His voice sounded faint and faraway in his ringing ears. Louder: 'Rally here! Rally here!'

CHAPTER NINETEEN

'Those are their final orders?' Jeffrey asked.

'Oui. Unionvil is to be held at all costs. No troops may be diverted; instead we are to commit our strategic reserve. Chairman Deschambre assures me that the political consequences of losing the capital would be 'disastrous,' quote unquote. Minister of Public Education and Security Lebars tells me that they shall not pass.'