Read The Orion Plague for Free Online Page B

weapons, and you watch him close.” She lifted the grenade
launcher and fired three rounds in quick succession back into the
office building. They made muffled whump sounds and spread
dust and fine debris into the air. Over their heads the Vixen
roared.
    Bullets spanged off the open armored door,
and one struck Repeth in her forehead. Her lightweight helmet
jerked with the impact so she ducked instinctively into cover. She
loosed six more grenades, aiming at the front of the jail building
where she could see muzzle flashes coming from the thin windows.
They burst harmlessly against the concrete facing, but the cloud of
pulverized cement hid them from fire for a few precious seconds.
“Get in, Grusky!” She ran to the back of the Beast and flung open
the rear loading door. Grabbing a heavy wooden box, she hauled it
around and back through the window into the shattered office.
    Flinging open the box, she quickly fitted two
pressure detonators on the enormous antitank mines inside, and then
jumped back out the window. Once inside the Beast, she yelled, “Go
go go! Lockerbie, get us the hell out of here! Butler, weapons
free, use it up, we’ll resupply later.”
    The uprated Humvee spat gravel from its tires
as it turned half a doughnut. Lockerbie aimed its nose down the
road where they had entered as Butler fired profligate bursts over
the back bumper.
    Suddenly a wrecked sedan hurtled out of the
garage tunnel as if shot from a cannon. Behind it burst forth an
armored car of the kind SWAT liked to use for urban breach
scenarios.
    “Butler!” Repeth called.
    “I see it, Top,” he said as he swung the
Vixen rightward.
    Tracers reached out from the armored car, .50
caliber heavy machinegun bullets that slammed into the Beast,
sounding like triphammer blows. Next to Repeth the four-inch-thick
crystal armor starred as a round struck it. Armored or not, a few
more hits to the vision plates would break through, and huge
bullets bouncing around the interior would tear them apart.
    Lockerbie drove like a madwoman, slewing the
Beast back and forth as the armored car chased them. Butler mashed
his thumbs on the trigger of the Vixen, pouring penetrator fire
into the enemy vehicle.
    Explosions blossomed along the front of their
target, controlled pops the size of hand grenades. The armored car
drove through the smoke and detritus, showing nothing but odd
square pockmark pixels along its front glacis.
    “Reactive armor, Butler!” Repeth barked.
“Switch to Armorshock!”
    “Right…” Butler toggled the selector switch.
“Running out of tungsten anyway.” He put his HUD crosshairs on the
enemy and fired.
    Or he tried to. He couldn’t seem to make his
thumbs push down on the butterfly as he stared at one bloody ruined
hand hanging by a flap of skin. Then he slumped, grey and
unconscious. A piece of a spent .50 caliber bullet rattled down to
fall on the floor of the Beast.
    “Shit, Butler’s hit!” Grusky cried.
    “Keep that evasive, Lockerbie!” called Repeth
as she turned around in the passenger seat to help Grusky unbuckle
Butler from his turret harness. Frustrated, she pulled out her
knife and sliced the straps, dropping the gunner’s flaccid body to
flop into the interior. Grusky crawled over him and up into the
turret, wedging himself behind the gun.
    A string of curses flowed as Grusky toggled
gun switches and tried to get his squadcomm HUD synched with the
targeting computer. “Screw it,” he finally said, flipping up the
eyepieces and shoving his face forward to look over the iron
sights. He could barely see through the gap where the Vixen
protruded through the turret shell. Lining it up on the pursuing
vehicle, he squeezed the trigger.
    The gun spat briefly, then spun around with
an empty electric whine. More popcorn explosions blossomed on the
armored car as its reactive armor deflected the few tungsten
bullets with controlled micro-explosions. Cursing again, Grusky
finally found the ordnance selector and