Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (13 page)

“What the hell was that?”

She wasn’t expecting Eric Weston to chuckle nervously, looking for all the world like a schoolboy caught doing something he knew he should be punished for.

“Oops?”

“Oops??
Oops??
” she demanded, pointing toward the collapsing cloud of dust and smoke, “
You
did that?”

“Prim guns pack a bigger punch than I thought.”

She stared, wide-eyed, at the weapon he was still holding. “What did you do?”

“Turned up the power,” he said, “about three-quarters to the top.”

Lyssa closed her eyes, her knees feeling weak. She really wanted nothing more than to collapse into a nice comfortable chair somewhere where the world made sense again. She licked her lips slowly, deliberately, and looked at him for a long moment.

“Three-quarters?” she asked, her voice croaking just a tad.

He nodded.

“How much more powerful is full?”

“Don’t know. I thought it was a linear power setting,” he said, “but after that I’m pretty sure it’s logarithmic.”

“Oh God,” she mumbled. “I need a drink.”

“I need more ammo,” he said. “I’m running low.”

She rolled her eyes, remembering what he’d told her the gun fired. “There’s a Tiffany’s down the street.”

“Cute,” he told her dryly, “but I’ll pass.”

She snapped her fingers, looking disappointed, “Damn. I was hoping for an excuse to loot the place.”

“Come on, let’s move. There’s a Guard unit about eight blocks east. I think they’ve got a munitions truck with them.”

“Right behind you.”

Third Platoon consisted of five M7s and a recon APC designed to withstand medium to heavy IEDs, but they were moving very cautiously after getting the news about what happened to First Platoon at the south end of the park. That caution had allowed a resupply group to catch up with them while they moved into position.

The platoon was moving west now, along East 85th and crossing Madison. They’d stopped briefly when the thunderclap of the explosion shook the street and rattled every pane of glass around them, but quickly got under way again when the general’s demand for eyes on scene came through.

It was spooky, moving through the streets and slamming cars out of the road with the makeshift cowcatchers on the front of the lead tanks. Every now and then they saw a person looking out a window or standing on a street corner to watch them go by, but the city felt empty in a way that it never should.

New York may be the city that never slept, but right then it felt like the city that was in a coma, and none of the Guardsmen quite knew how to handle that.

“I see the city Met coming up. The park is right there,” Lieutenant Garibaldi said. “Slow us down and edge us out.”

“You got it, sir,” the driver, Corporal Tate, said from where he was sitting. “Launch drones, sir?”

“Good idea. Go ahead.”

Two whirring aircraft lifted from the back of the tank, leaning forward and racing off to the west. One stayed low, barely flitting over the tops of cars, while the other went high and climbed for some altitude above the buildings.

Garibaldi watched the mushroom cloud show up on the top drone’s camera and shook his head. “Holy shit. Someone nuked Central Park.”

“Place had it coming, if you ask me,” Tate told him wryly. “Last time I was there I swear I almost got mugged three times before I got out.”

“Any of the muggers carry a tactical nuke?”

“Not that I saw, but I wouldn’t have put it past some of them.” Tate snorted, but he scowled as he noted something. “I think we’re missing something here.”

“Such as?”

“The rads, LT,” Tate answered. “I’m getting clean readings.”

“Huh.” Garibaldi looked over the scans himself. “You’re right.”

“Some kind of alien super weapon, you think?” Tate asked.

“I have no idea. Edge us forward some more. I can’t get a satellite signal here and the local control link is breaking up.”

“Right. I’ll tuck us into the trees just off the transverse there,” Tate offered. “Park her and put the camo on.”

“Sounds about right. Do it.”

The lead tank of third platoon rumbled across Fifth Avenue and took a right as they started into the park. Tate guided his hundred-ton behemoth under a copse of trees and let the motor die as he activated the vehicle’s cam-plates to match to local environment. In a few seconds the tank had disappeared, all save the makeshift steel cowcatcher bolted to the front, which seemed to hang out in midair for no apparent reason.

Inside the tank the crew crossed their fingers and hoped real hard that the enemy wouldn’t take notice of that particular oddity.

“Why did you stop?”

Eric glanced back, noting that the woman wasn’t winded. That was impressive, given that she was keeping up with him and he was in enhancing armor. Okay, he wasn’t going all out by a longshot, but even so.

“See the spy drones there?” He nodded up.

Lyssa looked for a moment, then finally caught one of them as it banked and a glint of sun flicked off one of the propellers. “Yeah.”

“Short range, probably launched from a tank,” he said. “In a city like this you don’t need line of sight, but it’s close unless you’ve got a good uplink, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have that.”

“Oh? How come?”

“’Cause I don’t have one,” he said with a grin, which vanished quickly. “Probably because the enemy took out the bird.”

“Oh.” She grimaced. “So where are they?”

“At a guess? Camouflaged,” he said. “Probably tucked in between those buildings up there, or maybe in the tree line. I don’t want to surprise the gunner, though. That could get ugly.”

That was a sentiment that she wasn’t about to argue with, not even remotely.

They moved out again, Eric leading them around the likely area as he began looking for the tank. As they reached the edge of the trees, he motioned her to one side.

“Hold tight here. I’m going to go ahead.”

“I don’t see any sign of the enemy.” Garibaldi scowled, looking through the feed from the drones.

“After that blast I’m surprised you can see a sign of Central Park,” Tate countered dryly.

The lieutenant snorted, shaking his head. “Oh, there’s lots of signs of the park. All over the city from what I can tell.”

Tate was about to answer when a series of clanging sounds on the armor of the tank nearly caused both men to jump out of their skin. They looked at each other, wide-eyed for a moment before Tate spoke up.

“You think it’s the enemy sir?”

Garbaldi shot him a dark look. “Did those
things
strike you as the type to knock?”

Tate appeared to consider this while Garibaldi just shook his head and reluctantly flicked from the drone feed to the external fiber optics. He frowned when he spotted the armored figure lounging on the top of the tank, looking far too casual for someone in a war zone.

The lieutenant sighed and dogged the seal on the hatch, shoving it open so he could pull himself out.

“Hello, Lieutenant,” the man in armor said. “I was wondering if I might borrow a cup of ammo.”

The sheer oddity of the statement caught him off guard. “Excuse me?”

“You have a munitions truck in your platoon, Lieutenant?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Garibaldi growled. “I’m not giving you dick . . .”

“Eric Weston, Captain, Confederation Marines. Check my bona fides if you must, but I’m low on ammo and need to top up.”

“We’re an
armored
platoon, jarhead,” Garibaldi snarled. “We don’t carry bullets for whatever popgun you’re . . .”

Weston casually hefted a gun unlike anything Garibaldi had ever seen, a ceramic white color with free-floating arcs that extended along the length of the weapon.

“I’ll take anything you’ve got up to eighty millimeter,” Weston said, looking over the camo surface of the tank he was sitting on. “This baby packs a sixty-millimeter rail gun, right? I’ll take a supply of DPU rounds.”

Garibaldi shook himself. “Look. I don’t know who you are . . .”

“You’re probably the only person on the planet right now who doesn’t, then,” Weston cut him off. “Just run my ID, son. I need those munitions, ’cause I’m almost out of diamonds.”

Garibaldi just stared for a moment, then slowly ducked back into the vehicle, resealing the hatch, to run the name and ID of the madman sitting on his tank. It really was better not to talk to lunatics in his experience.