Texas Nights - Book 13 of the Damned of the 2/19th

Blindside

WARNING!
TIME/DATE ERROR!
MEMORY OVERRIDE!

"MAD MINUTE!" Stillwater bellowed out. "MA DEUCE WALTZ!"

Everyone but me started firing, not bothering to conserve ammunition or verify targets, just firing at anything that looked like it might be important. Bomber was on the fifty-cal, and he braced his feet against the tripod, pressing the butterfly trigger down with his thumbs. Gunfire blasted out as everyone on Red Velvet Actual opened fire.

Stillwater kicked my boot, I could tell by the angle, and I scrambled up, running for the pilot who was sprawled out on the ground. He'd been shot in the leg that the helicopter crash had broken, and he was ripping out the rest of his magazine as part of the mad minute.

I'd need to control the bleeding, set the leg, stabalize it, and use the branches around us to splint it. Easy peasy basic stuff.

Three steps in and burning pain filled my right side as bullets hit home with the ugly sound of metal hitting meat.

I stumbled, going down on my hands and knees. I vomited up blood and slumped face down, my vision going dark.

...that's not what happened...

"MAD MINUTE!" Stillwater bellowed out. "MA DEUCE WALTZ!"

Everyone but me started firing, ammo conservation thrown to the side as part of the mad minute, and I jumped up, running toward the injured pilot that had been the first one hit in the ambush.

Two steps before I reached him there was an explosion. Burning pain filled me as I was thrown to the side, skidding across the leaves and rolling bonelessly.

My arm came to rest next to me, my aid bag still tightly held in a hand that was attached to an arm that was no longer attached to me.

Things started going dark as the hand on my severed arm relaxed, letting go of the aid bag.

...no... that's not what happened...

"MAD MINU--!" Stillwater's bellow was cut off by an explosion as the Soviet T-series tank pushed its way through the jungle, the vines and trees blowing away into ash and sand that swirled around me.

"AT-4 OUT!" Groom yelled, bracing herself as Foster whipped the Gypsy Wagon into a tight turn, the back wheels throwing up a plume of sand behind us. She hit the trigger, the backblast washed over the wooden side-board behind her. The missile's motor kicked in just outside of the backblast range. The missile hit the tank with a crack, striking on the side of the cupola.

The old LAW rocket was capable of penetrating 13.25 inches of rolled steel armor. The AT-4 was capable of penetrating 16 inches of rolled steel, six inches of modern hexagon laminate composite armor.

The T-74 had only 10.5 inches of rolled steel on the side of the cupola.

The AT-4 missile struck, the explosion a brief bubble of fire as thee explosively forged penetrator went off. The trigger worked, the explosive behind the inverted copper cone, turning the copper cone into a stream of copper plasma less than a quarter inch thick that speared straight through the armor, exploding the far side of the armor into the crew compartment.

The hatch blew off the top of the tank.

Foster's banking curve, which made the Gypsy Wagon shudder as the wheels bit into the hard packed sand underneath the looser stuff, brought us out of the dust and sand as flames and smoke belched out of the top of the tank.

"ON THE GUN!" Bomber bellowed from the front of the Gypsy Wagon where the mechanics had ripped a hole in the roof of the cab so that a ring mount could be installed.