Metal shrieked over the rumble of the remaining fans. The skirt's lip was rubbing against the concrete. Three fans could no longer support the tank when the open duct of the fourth vented the pressurized cushion to the atmosphere.
The tank skidded to a halt, trapping Meyer beneath its armored mass.
The tank settled, closing the gap between skirt and concrete. "But we got the fucker, sarge," she whispered as darkness closed in.
Blohm fired at the twisted image of the tank's main gun, a high-powered Cassegrain laser. The chance of getting a pellet through the tiny objective opening to damage the mirrors within wouldn't have been high even if Blohm had been able to see the target clearly, but it was the best option going.
The magnetic dome in his sight picture changed hue. One of the intake ducts was arcing. The ionized particles couldn't penetrate the magnetic shield, so they swirled around the tank like swarms of angry blue hornets.
The tank slid to a halt. The scream of metal on concrete was so penetrating at close range that for a moment Blohm saw double. A pall of white dust rose around the vehicle, the ejecta of a four-inch trench pulverized from the starport's surface.
Blohm locked a fresh magazine into his stinger's butt well. Instead of firing, he paused to see what the changing situation would bring.
The tank tried to lift on the thrust of three fans. Air backed mournfully through the fourth duct. The shimmer of magnetic shielding vanished. The crew was throwing overload power to the remaining engines in order to get the tank moving again. The power plant didn't have enough headroom to accomplish that and meet the enormous drain of the shield at the same time.
Blohm could see the squat laser tube clearly for the first time. He hadn't fired more than a half-second burst into it before the dazzling radiance of a plasma bolt struck the turret. That didn't surprise him. Nobody survived in C41 unless he was fast, and Kurt Leinsdorf was damned near as fast as Blohm himself.
Blohm swapped magazines again. Part of him wondered how many kids Leinsdorf had killed over the years.
The red mask of a priority message flicked three times across Abbado's visor. "C41, two minutes!" his helmet ordered. "All strikers commence withdrawal. Out!"
"Time to go, kiddies!" Abbado said after he pulled his own boots clear. Rubble shifted when the automatic cannon raked the transient compound, though nobody'd been hit by the shells themselves. He paused an instant to make sure his strikers were all moving.
The tank moved, but it was drifting like a cloud. Its guns were silent. The crater glowing in the turret face was the only exterior sign of damage.
Abbado's legs wobbled for a few steps before he found the rhythm. He followed Glasebrook, the last of his strikers, toward the pickup point. Two missiles hit the transient compound. A salvo of at least a dozen landed an instant later in a fury of noise, black smoke, and debris.
Major Farrell rose from the shelter of the warehouse. "There's a striker—" he shouted. Abbado looked back.
The tank erupted a hundred feet from where the plasma bolt hit. A white-hot plume ate away the turret, spattering ash and molten metal to all sides. For a moment the huge vehicle continued to drift; then the skirts grounded again. The hull sank slowly as the walls of the plenum chamber softened and collapsed.
A striker in a hard suit climbed from the tramline the tank had crossed just before it stopped. The figure moved toward safety through the fiery drizzle.
Farrell started to go back. Leinsdorf grabbed him.
"We'll cover him!" Abbado called. Glasebrook was with him; the rest of 3-3 had paused among the first line of parked vehicles.
Leinsdorf nodded gratefully. He half-walked, half-carried the major ten strides toward the pickup point before Farrell gave up and jogged willingly on his own. Thunder pulsing intermittently from the west might be the extraction boat.
Abbado sighed and armed his remaining rocket. He and Glasebrook would help the striker from Heavy Weapons—carry him, needs must, because whatever the guy'd done was damned sure the reason that tank wasn't squatting on the pickup point right now. But first the striker had to make his own way through the circle of debris that only a hard suit could survive.
And maybe the boat would still be waiting when the three of them got to the pickup point.
* * *
The range to the hilltop where the pair of Kalendru were setting up a clip-fed rocket launcher was nearly a thousand yards. Farrell could see them clearly, magnified a hundred times in his stinger's holographic sight, but he either couldn't hit them or the pellets didn't have enough energy at that range to put the targets down.
The extraction boat would land in the center of the storage lot. As strikers withdrew toward that point, C41's base of fire collapsed. Now the Kalendru could raise their heads long enough to observe and engage the strikers.