Free The Tank Lords by David Drake Page A

would detonate a few seconds after he clamped it onto the Whore 's steel skirts.
    Ortnahme fired again. His bolts lit the camouflaged lid of the hole in which the Consie had hidden—twenty meters from where the target was now.
    There was a simple answer to this sort of problem: the close-in defense system built into each of Hammer's combat vehicles, ready to blast steel shot into oncoming missiles or men who'd gotten too close to be handled by the tribarrel.
    Trouble was, Ortnahme was a very competent and experienced mechanic. He'd dismantled the defense system before he started the rebuild. If he hadn't, he'd've risked killing himself and fifty other people if his pliers slipped and sent a current surge down the wrong circuit. He'd been going to reconnect the system in the morning, when the work was done. . . .
    The intake roar of the fans resumed three Consie steps before the tank began moving, but finally Herman's Whore staggered forward again. They were a great pair for a race—the tank crippled, and the man bent over by the weight of the mine he carried. A novelty act for clowns. . . .
    Down in the hull the commo was babbling something—orders, warnings; Simkins wondering what the cop his superior thought he was up to. Ortnahme didn't dare leave the cupola to answer—or call for help. As soon as they drew enough ahead of the Consie, he'd blast the bastard and then fix the access plate so they could move properly again.
    The trouble with that plan was that Herman's Whore had started circling. The tank moved about as fast as the man on foot, but the Consie was cutting the chord of the arc and in a few seconds—
    The warrant leader lifted himself from the hatch and let himself slide down the smooth curve of the turret. He fumbled in his cargo pocket. Going in this direction, his age and fat didn't matter. . . .
    The Consie staggered forward, bent over his charge, in a triumph of will over exhaustion. He must have been blowing like a whale, but the sound wasn't audible over the suction of the tank's eight fans.
    Ortnahme launched himself from the tank and crushed the guerrilla to the ground. Bones snapped, caught between the warrant leader's mass and the mine casing.
    Ortnahme didn't take any chances. He hammered until the grip of the multitool thumped slimy dirt instead of the Consie's head.
    Herman's Whore was circling back. Ortnahme tried to stand, then sat heavily. He waved his left arm.
    By the time Simkins pulled up beside him, the warrant leader would be ready to get up and weld that cursed access cover in place.
    Until then, he'd figured he'd just sit and catch his breath.
     
    Terrain is one thing on a contour map, where a dip of three meters in a hundred is dead flat, and another thing on the ground, where it's enough difference to hide an object the size of a tank.
    Which is just what it seemed to have done to callsign Tootsie Four, the maintenance section's vehicle, so far as Hans Wager could tell from his own cupola.
    It wasn't Holman's fault.
    What with the late start, they'd had to drive like a bat outta Hell to get into position. It would've taken the Lord and all his martyrs to save 'em if they'd stumbled into the Consies while Wager was barely able to hang on, much less shoot.
    But since they caught up, she'd been keeping Charlie Three-zero about 300 meters outboard of Sparrow's blower, just like orders. Only thing was, there was supposed to be another tank between them.
    Sparrow was covering a double arc, with his tribarrel swung left and his main gun offset to the right. It was the main gun that fired, kicking a scoopload of fused earth skyward in fiery sparkles.
    Wager didn't see what the platoon leader'd shot at, but three figures jumped to their feet near the point of impact. Wager tumbled them to the ground again as blazing corpses with a burst from his tribarrel.
    They were doing okay. Wager was doing okay. His facial muscles were locked in a tight rictus, and he took his fingers momentarily from