Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

A section of the floor beneath Fatani slid away, exposing the gunnery dome on the underside of the HERC. Fatani worked the joystick on his seat and lowered himself into the dome, seat and all. The thickly forested hills of the Hunua Ranges rushed beneath him, the treetops just visible in the darkness. Fatani made a final adjustment, and the top hook of his seat latched into the swivel mount, suspending him in place and giving him the ability to spin and maneuver in any direction. A small window on Mazer's HUD showed him Fatani's POV, and Mazer watched as the butt of the laser cannon slid into position and locked on to Fatani's chest harness.

"Locked!" shouted Fatani.

"Acquiring targets," said Mazer.

More of the dummy STAs were shooting off around them, and Fatani picked them out of the sky before the flares could explode.

"Brass is dropping some serious cash on this op," said Reinhardt.

Mazer was thinking the same thing. These hills had long been the playground for SAS exercises, but Mazer had never heard of a team getting this much heat in a single war game.

Tracer fire arced into the sky from the northeast. The glowing paint pellets whizzed by the windshield, narrowly missing the HERC. Fatani was on the source a half second later, hitting the tracer gun with the cannon's laser, rendering the ground gun inoperable. Mazer saw the other three tracer guns on his HUD just before their arcing fire erupted upward. He blinked them as targets for Fatani, and the chair in the gunnery box spun and swiveled at a sickening pace as Fatani clicked off several more shots. Reinhardt dipped lower, weaving right and left to avoid the tracers--flying only a few meters above the tree line.

"Let's not forget I'm down here," said Fatani. "These pines will take my boots off if you go any lower."

"Relax," said Reinhardt. "If we hit a tree, you'd be a human bag of jelly so fast, you wouldn't feel a thing."

For three more kilometers they dipped and maneuvered and took out tracers and STAs. Patu kept swearing at Reinhardt for bobbing them around so violently and nearly getting them all killed. Mazer was beginning to agree; the motion-sickness pills could only do so much.

Then the HERC crested a hill and they saw it--there in a treeless valley--not a scrapyard vehicle pretending to be a Copperhead tank, but an actual Copperhead. Stranger still, it was taking heavy fire from the tree line to the north.

Patu and Fatani responded without hesitation, laying down cover fire into the trees. The lasers were harmless, nothing more than a game of tag, but everyone took the exercise as seriously as real combat.

"Put us over the tank," said Mazer.

A barrage of pellets smacked into and ricocheted off the HERC's armor as Reinhardt got them into position over the tank. Since the gravlens had no effect on anything below the HERC but only on things above it, the tank didn't so much as twitch. Thick bumper bars lowered from the underbelly of the HERC on either side of the gunnery bubble to keep it from being crushed by the payload.

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"Bars are down," said Fatani.

"Initiating load talons," said Mazer. He blinked the command, and the massive talons on either side of the HERC extended outward and unfolded themselves. There were three talons on either side, each a hooked blade with heavy rubber padding along its edges. Mazer extended his hands into the holofield in front of him on the dash. The talons responded to his hand gestures, diving downward and acting as a claw, wrapping around the tank and scooping it off the ground. Reinhardt compensated with the gravlens and suddenly the tank was airborne.

"Locking payload," said Mazer, blinking out the command. Beneath the tank, opposing talons extended farther until they reached one another and locked in to place.

The enemy fire from the trees had stopped by now, but Patu continued to lay down cover fire as the HERC banked hard to the south and headed home.

Fatani and his seat rose up from the floor and returned to their original position. He then snapped the safety harness and cable winch to his vest and unbuckled himself from the seat. Steadying himself against the wall, he punched in the command to retract the bubble. The bubble's sections of glass separated and folded away, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the HERC's floor. The ceiling hatch to the Copperhead was two meters below it. Fatani turned to Patu and yelled over the roar of the wind. "You sure you don't want to take care of the wounded?"

"Positive. I wouldn't want to deprive you of the opportunity to show off your keen medical skills."

Fatani sighed. "They better not be bleeders." He positioned himself over the hole and used the winch to lower himself down the hatch.

Mazer watched the feed from Fatani's helmetcam as Fatani opened the hatch and lowered himself into the tank. There were no bleeders inside. There weren't even dummies. There were two live men, both in safety helmets and heavy padding. Mazer didn't recognize either of them. One was in a business suit, and the other was in a tan uniform Mazer didn't recognize.

"Sergeant Fatani," said the one in the suit. "So good to see you. I was just telling Captain Shenzu here that you're the finest gunner in the NZSAS."

To Fatani's credit, he didn't respond with a stunned silence. Rigorous training and a cool head will do that for you. "Are either of you wounded?" he asked.

The man in the suit laughed and waved a hand. "No, no. We're fine. We had Colonel Napatu put in that bit of intel to get you to come down here and pull us out. Shall we go up? Captain Shenzu would very much like to see the cockpit."

"Of course," said Fatani, as if this were the most natural of requests in the world.

In under a minute, Fatani had the recovery straps around each of the men's chests. He then carefully powered up the winch and raised them into the HERC. By then, Mazer was out of the copilot's seat and giving the men a hand, helping them into the cabin.

"Lieutenant Mazer Rackham," said the man in the suit. "An honor to meet you. I hope our little Hercules has met your expectations."

His accent was European, but Mazer couldn't place it. "You seem to know all of us, sir. Yet we don't have the honor of knowing you."