Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (11 page)

EIGHTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY

CORPORAL BURKE GRINNED, no humor in his expression but plenty of satisfaction as he jammed the throttle of the M7 Abrams main battle tank, flattening the tiny import in front of him to a mashed pulp as he rumbled over it.

They never let us do
this
in training
. He couldn’t help but chortle as the big motors of the tank hummed smoothly along.

The two lead tanks had been outfitted with hug steel cowcatchers and were clearing the road by literally bulldozing everything out of the way. Every now and then, however, one car or another bit of debris would slide back into the road and he’d get a chance to flatten it into the dirt.

Still, it was slow going. They had info-net reports of an active combat scene just another dozen or so blocks up, and in three blocks they’d be able to get off the streets and into the park, where they could pick up some decent speed.

“Stop playing around, Burke. You’ll throw a track if you keep that shit up.”

“Oh, relax, Sarge.” Burke grinned, glancing over his shoulder. “These things are built like tanks, didn’t you know?”

“Idiot.” The Sergeant rolled his eyes. “Just watch the damn road. We’re coming up on the park.”

“You got it, Sarge.”

First Platoon of the Hundred and First rumbled into Central Park, eighty-millimeter cannons seeking out targets to hit. They were already leaning in the right direction when the first of the enemy spider-looking beasts burst out of the tree line, being patched into the drone network that was flitting around the area.

The platoon leader gave the order and the two closest tanks rocked back on their tracks as the big guns spread fire across the park, the recoil of the cannons tearing chunks out of the earth with the blast wave alone.

Two armor-piercing rounds slammed into the alien, lifting it clear off its legs and blowing it back into the tree line across three times the volume of space it had previously occupied. Cheers and whoops of victory went up across the network, but were quickly cut short when three more creatures burst out of the trees, firing as they came.

Crackling red beams of energy sliced across the park, lighting afire whatever they touched, burning into the lead tanks with enough power to trigger their active armor. The explosives blew outward, temporarily defeating the particle beams, but that defense only lasted an instant. When it was finished the beams lanced in and turned the ceramic and steel armor to slag and vapor.

The munitions in the war machines went last, blowing the remains of the tanks apart as their fellows began to react. The other three tanks in the platoon opened fire on the move, turning to give themselves enough room so as not to get in each other’s way or catch a blast intended for another target.

In seconds Central Park turned into a war zone the likes of which hadn’t been seen on Earth in over eighty years. The last great tank war had probably been during the Second World War, in fact, and heavy armor had been going out of common use slowly but steadily ever since. Of course, if you considered that one side of the engagement was a group of alien invaders, then eighty years was a most conservative number indeed.

Corporal Burke swore, bouncing in his seat as he ran his tank over a cement guard. The Abrams was cushioned on sixteen independent air shocks, but even so a hundred tons of tank doesn’t like being airborne.

“Goddamn it, Burke! I’m trying to fire here!”

“Well, do it on the fly, ’cause I’m not letting those fuckers fry us!” the corporal snarled back at his superior, not looking away from his controls. “Those beam things just sliced right through Rogers and Mick!”

“I saw it, but I’d like to
kill
them before they slice through
us,
if you don’t fucking mind!”

Burke growled, letting the right tread drag as he brought the tank around in a smoother motion. “There they are. Light those fuckers up!”

“Firing sequence coded! Going weapons free!”

The smoothbore barrel of the big eighty-millimeter rail cannon glided on its stabilizers, sliding into position as the tank kept on the move. The computers adjusted for the movement, compensating automatically for hundreds of variables, and began to auto fire as soon as they had a positive acquisition.

Eighty-millimeter rounds of solid depleted uranium roared across the park, slamming into their targets with enough force to shatter even the best Terran armor. Against the Drasin’s alien composition they did no less, blowing molten silicon across the park as the insect-like soldier drones were shattered and thrown about like toys in a hurricane.

The remaining three tanks of the One Oh One were firing eight rounds a second as they coordinated their response to the loss of two of their own, but they were not the only ones firing.

Particle beams crackled back across the park, melting and vaporizing everything they crossed with equal ease. Ground, cement, battle-hardened armor . . . it made very little difference as they all fell under the blasts. Another of the Guard tanks blew apart under the barrage. Two of the aliens were blown apart seconds later.

The battle became one of attrition in short order, each side losing one after another. The side with the most fighters was going to win this battle and that side wasn’t the Hundred and First.

“Die, you mother f—!” Burke’s scream was cut abruptly short as the crackling beams that dissected the remaining two tanks of the One Oh One’s First Platoon finished their grisly work.

“Shit.”

Eric nodded in complete agreement with that assessment, having watched the fight with a better view than Lyssa had, thanks to his armor enhanced optics. The Guardsmen at the point of the charge had dished out as good as they got, but they’d been outnumbered and main battle tanks were not intended for fighting in terrain this enclosed.

“They’ve distracted the drones in the park,” he said. “We should move now.”

Lyssa looked at him, clearly concerned, but nodded. “Right.”

She stepped closer to him and Eric wrapped an arm around her waist as she threw one over his shoulder and stepped onto his boots. The summoned chute returned on command and Eric smoothly clipped on before letting it pull them both off the roof and into a sweeping dive, taking them on an arc into the park and below the tree line.