Another flash fiction prompt from Chuck Wendig ( http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/06/flash-fiction-challenge-song-shuffle-stories/ )
The song that was selected by my playlist was "Comin For Your Tank" by Miracle of Sound ( http://miracleofsound.bandcamp.com/track/comin-for-your-tank ).
-----------------
Fireteam Echo's radio pleas were redundant – we saw the machine gunner that nailed them into cover behind a bus stop, across the road, in the second floor of the terminal. Hostile brass and shattered glass were all but a giant reticule painted over the nest.
We, Corporals Ross, Barlotti, and Yours Truly, got in the spirit of defenestration day and crashed into the building through the windows behind a Singapore Air counter. Easy enough in MPA-03, you don't need to worry about being sliced up in a powered exoskeleton.
Stairs are just a little bit more tricky. You need to be damn sure to put your center of 'g' over your toes, or you'll fall ass backwards. It's doable, but too fucking slow when the squishier part of your squad is in ironsights below.
“Fireteams Echo, Foxtrot, be advised: hostile armor inbound, grid updated,” the eyes and mouth in the sky told our ears. We stopped and checked the grid overlay – everything we didn't know but wanted to illustrated in graphics blue.
It, an MBT designated 'dragon,' was grinding through asphalt along the perpendicular edge of the building. A glance brought everyone in a BDU to the same page – hammer and anvil. The nest was holding Echo down, and the tank was going to curbstomp them when it rounded the corner of the terminal.
Of course, I had to say “nope” as loudly and as clearly as fucking possible so that the tank crew could hear it. A gauss rifle was a whisper against front and side, so...
It could be a scream against deck armor, though.
Words weren't needed, just a point at trigger happy and my two most oft inebriated of comrades were off to end his party. I broke off and ran to the tank's edge of the building as the capacitors along my arm whined into charge.
Instructors drill it into your skull hard on how the MPA-03 is just a piece of equipment. It does not turn you into a superhero, or God, on that they are clear. On being 'A' god, something Hellenic, they're not so elaborative I fear.
I felt a lot like Zeus when I dropped out of the sky, through clouds of reactive armor shrapnel, on to the top of that alloy hulk. More when I aim and fired in that ozone haze: once, lightning, thunder and the ring of tortured armor; twice, plating ripped asunder, to the crew a promised hell; thrice, a supersonic roar through metal and cannon shell.
Actinic arcs stormed off the gauss rifle's frame as fire and fracture brewed in that can. I pulled the barrel up, away, and drew flame through the molten scores of that newly dead titan.
No comments:
Post a Comment