Flashback

“Probably good cryocamo blankets covering the buried hull-down tanks and people in their holes,” said ta. “Keeping the temperature exactly that of the soil. Someone’s going to have to go out there to give us a look at what’s coming.”

“Hai!” said Shinta Ishii from the right seat. He disconnected his comm and other umbilicals, slapped the restraint release, pulled a PEAP temporary air-supply and comm system from the dash and clipped it in place on his helmet, took a video camera and 9mm pistol from the glove compartment, opened the passenger door, and rolled out.

A second later the image flowed to the Oshkosh’s monitors from Ishii’s camera as it was tentatively shoved above the edge of the south bank. Ishii did not raise his head.

About a hundred infantry in light armor were crossing the half kilometer or so between them and the riverbed. Behind them came three tanks.

Nick bottom returned to consciousness with the sound of gunshots popping all around him. It got his attention.

No, it wasn’t gunshots, he realized as his eyes began to focus. The front part of the truck’s cabin had filled almost instantly with solid foam. Now that foam was evaporating or deliquescing or whatever it was doing, one loud pop at a time.

Nick hit the big release button at the center of his harnesses and they snapped back even as his sarcophagus of a crash-couch hissed and pulled back. Nick fell headfirst onto the ceiling and almost broke his neck as his helmet met hot steel with a loud bang.

The Oshkosh was upside down at an angle. The driver’s side seemed to be buried in the dirt. Some sort of metal fire panel had slammed down behind his and Sato’s seats and now that panel was glowing cherry red with bright white spots. The heat threatened to make Nick swoon. The fire behind that panel, Nick knew, must be terrible. Unless Joe the top-gunner had gotten out another way, he was dead.

Remembering Sato’s advice, Nick unclipped his suit’s O-two and comm channels, removed the PEAP—Personal Egress Air Pack—bundle from the console, took two tries to clip it into place on his helmet and oxygen mask, and plugged the mobile PEAP comm links in.

“Sato?”

No response.

Heaps of loose items and metal debris had tumbled onto the truck’s ceiling where Nick now crouched, sliding down under Sato’s hanging body, but when he leaned over to look up at Sato in the driver’s seat he still couldn’t be sure if the security chief was alive or dead.

Sato’s eyes were closed; he looked dead. His body hung from the straps. The blast from behind had ripped most of the red samurai armor off Sato’s right arm and Nick could see with a single glance that the arm was broken. Some of Sato’s blood had spattered the dark windshield panels and other video monitors and more blood was now dripping from the arm onto the ceiling-turned-floor.

Nick tried to remember the names of the men in the second truck.

“Willy?” he called on comm. “Toby? Bill?”

No response. Not even static. Maybe the PEAP comm unit wasn’t working. Or maybe the second truck had also been hit and destroyed.

After making sure that his 9mm Glock was still clipped on the belt on his armored hip, Nick crawled across the seat, grabbed his heavy duffel bag from where it had dropped onto the ceiling, and kicked the passenger-side door open.

He threw the weapons-duffel out first and then followed. The right side of the Oshkosh was raised about four feet above sandy soil, a trickle of river, and a line of burning willow bushes. Nick wedged himself over the edge and dropped the four feet, grunting with pain when he hit. He didn’t think anything was broken, but his entire body felt bruised as if after a good beating. Sweat dripped out of the eye sockets of his mask.

He took a deep breath to get some fresh air, but he was still on the thirty-minute PEAP air supply. He left it in place.

Nick grabbed the duffel bag before the flames got to it and dragged it and himself twenty feet away from the burning Oshkosh along the steep, sandy riverbank. He saw now that the huge M-ATV had done a corkscrew off the bridge above, tumbled flaming across the floor of the riverbed, and dug its heavy snout and right side into the heaps of soft sand just short of the riverbank on this side. Whether “this side” was the north or south bank of the river, Nick had no idea.

Nick pulled the Glock from his hip, unzipped the duffel, and looked at the weapons he’d brought. They seemed all right. He looked back at the burning Oshkosh.

The rear of the big truck was totally engulfed in flames and those flames were working their way forward along the shattered outside of the vehicle. The steel tires were melting. Ammunition from somewhere, probably next to the absent top gun bubble, was cooking off at random and rounds were impacting in every direction.

“Well, fuck,” breathed Nick.

He staggered back to the truck.