"Watch it," warned Cooter, ducking beneath the level of his gunshield. Part of Dick Suilin's mind understood, but he continued to stand upright and stare.
The dawn sky was filthy with rags of black smoke, tiny moth-holes streaming back in the wind when bomblets exploded. That was nothing, and the crackle of two tank tribarrels still firing as the remaining anti-personnel cloud impacted on the far ridge was little more.
The submunition's location, as well as its attitude and range in respect to
The blast spewed out a projectile that rode the shockwave, molten with the energy that forged and compressed it. It struck
Hammer's anti-tank artillery rounds were designed to defeat the armor of the most powerful tanks in the human universe. This one performed exactly as intended, punching its self-forging fragment through the iridium armor and rupturing the integrity of the fusion bottle that powered the huge vehicle's systems.
Plasma vented skyward in a stream as intensely white as the heart of a star. It etched and ate away the edges of the hole without rupturing the unpierced portion of the armor. The internal bulkheads gave way.
Plasma jetted from the driver's hatch an instant before the cupola blew open. Stored ammunition flashed from underdeck compartments. It stained the blaze cyan and vaporized the joint between hull and skirts.
The glowing husk of what had been
The entire event was over in three seconds. It would be days before the hull had cooled to the temperature of the surrounding air.
The thunderclap, air rushing to fill the partial vacuum of the plasma's track, rocked the thirty-tonne combat cars. Suilin's breastplate rapped the grips of his tribarrel.
Across the river, Consie positions danced in the light of hundreds of bomblets. They looked by contrast as harmless as rain on a field of poppies.
"All units," said Suilin's helmet. "Remount and move on. We've got a job to do. Six out."
