The Forlorn Hope by David Drake

Author:David Drake
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780765387073
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER EIGHT

Churchie Dwyer knew the APC was close. They had heard it returning as a lookout from the direction the column had taken. He had been cursing as he recovered from the pounding the tanks had given him, and this too was reason to curse. But it was also reason to lie still and pray that their cover remained adequate.

The look-out vehicle had approached at a leisurely pace. That might, of course, have meant that it was taking its time to get into a perfect firing position from which to rake the trench. The pair of mercenaries could not even bump up the lip of their cover sheet to watch. They lay on their bellies with their heads toward the approach to the valley. If they tried to turn around now, they would be seen unless the Rube driver was blind. All they could do was to listen to the fans and feel their sheet quiver above them from air spilled from the plenum chamber.

Even so, when the huge blast in the valley signaled them to action, Churchie was shocked to find that the side of the personnel carrier was within arm’s length of him. That meant that if somebody dropped the sides, the two mercenaries would be knocked silly without anybody knowing they were there.

The APC was starting to lift from an idle. Dwyer fired. He was trying to angle his shot forward toward where he thought the driver must sit. The muzzle blast rebounded from the flat side with stunning force. The steel puckered inward where his projectile had struck it. The hole in the center was rimmed with lips of metal white-hot from the impact. The APC started to rise. Churchie fired again, letting the vehicle’s incipient turn change the angle for him. Then his partner began to rake the personnel carrier with fully-automatic fire.

Republican APCs had five firing ports in each side panel. The troops within could spray their surroundings through the ports without dismounting. When the shooting started, however, none of the soldiers had inserted his rifle in a port. Hoybrin’s burst gave them no opportunity to correct that error.

The big mercenary walked his fire from the rear hinge forward. He leaned into the first shot so that his gun muzzle almost touched the armor. At the end of an eight-round burst, the recoil had pounded him erect and lifted his point of aim from waist height to shoulder height. Del slid his bracing right foot against the back wall of the trench. The vehicle was still up on its fans, but the gyros which balanced it could not prevent it from beginning to slide down-hill. It would have required a living hand at the controls to stop that drift. The thin armor echoed with screams and curses as soldiers tried to clear weapons while their dying comrades thrashed in the same cramped quarters. Aimed shots from Churchie’s weapon punctuated the human sounds with high-velocity cracks. Breathing deeply with the exertion of absorbing recoil, Del

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