A Boy and His Tank by Leo Frankowski

Author:Leo Frankowski [Frankowski, Leo ]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 0-671-57796-4
Publisher: Baen Publishing Enterprises
Published: 2000-02-07T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BEHIND ENEMY LINES

I couldn't leave Eva lying on the ground. I had Agnieshka spin back, and with one of my manipulator arms, I picked her up and put her gently into my own almost empty drone hopper.

I checked out the other girls, but those that weren't absolutely destroyed still had their coffins in. There wasn't a way to manually extend a coffin from the outside without special tools, so if any of them still had intact memories, they would have to wait until a salvage team got there.

Maybe, some of them would be all right. Maybe.

I looked to the squads to my left and right, and nothing was moving at all. IR signatures said that there was no power being generated in either battle zone, just dead machines cooling down.

I was all alone, just a boy and his tank.

Using my external speaker, the only communication device I had left since I'd managed to snap my fiber again, I called up the forty-odd drones we had left. With my manipulator arms, I put one of them in the hopper along with Eva's module and the land mine that I hadn't found any use for thus far. I didn't know how, but someday I might need a drone. The others would have to be left behind.

"Boys, we are going to have to leave you, because we have to go faster than you can travel. What I want you each to do is to scatter and at the first sign of company, dig in. Head in the general direction of the enemy beach head. If you can find any major war machine that is using the Serbian codes, you are to get as close to it as possible and blow it up. If you find anything using Croatian codes, you are to report for duty. In all other cases, you are to stay low and do nothing. Do you understand exactly what I am saying?"

They said that they did, like good little puppy dogs, and I had them come along with us and charge their capacitors, while Agnieshka moved out slowly enough for them to keep up. That job done, I had Agnieshka head at full speed for the Serbian army. It was a pity to abandon the drones, but they weren't really sentient, and I didn't see where they could be of much use in the present situation.

"Where are we going, Mickolai?" she said.

"To the Serbians, my lecherous young lady."

Looking back on these records, I think that I must have been a little out of my head at this point. Maybe it was an after-effect of the battle, or maybe it was the realization that for the first time in months, I was something like a free man, but the fact is that I was more than a little manic.

"What! Do you mean to defect?"

"Of course not! But have you considered, pretty girl, just how dangerous our own lines will be to us now? I've told the drones to stop and

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.