Larry Bond - Vortex

RATEL ONE SIX

LCpI. Mike Villiers ducked as a mortar round exploded several dozen meters behind his APC. Spent fragments and pieces of dirt pattered down over its deck armor and off his helmet. He raised his head and gripped his ring-mounted light machine gun even tighter. Christ. He hated riding facing backward like this, and he hated standing in an open hatch with half his body exposed outside the Ratel’s armor. Still, somebody had to do it. Kruger’s decimated battalion needed whatever antiaircraft defenses it could muster.

The three burning vehicles to his left were proof of that. They’d been shredded from end to end by 30mm cannon shells-gutted like fish.

Smoldering corpses hung half in and half out of hatches. Villiers had no desire to end up dead like those poor sods, so he watched the sky with renewed intensity.

A fastmoving blur near the horizon caught his eye.

“Here they come!

Three o’clock low!”

He squeezed the trigger convulsively, feeling the machine gun kick back against his upper arm and watching his glowing tracers reaching out for the incoming blur. Other tracer streams were rising from nearby Ratels, all aimed at the lead helicopter flying barely a hundred feet off the ground.

Trying to hit a target moving at more than one hundred miles an hour while riding a bucking, lurching platform moving at nearly twenty miles an hour itself would ordinarily seem an almost impossible task. Even a machine gun’s ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute merely lowers the odds against success from the astronomical to the wildly improbable. But sometimes you get lucky.

LCpI. Mike Villiers got lucky.

PUMA GUNSHIP LEAD

Four 7.62mm rounds hit the Puma. Three simply tore inconsequential holes in its fuselage and hurtled onward, tumbling through empty air. The fourth did catastrophic damage.

It ripped into the Puma’s starboard engine at an angle that took it straight through a fuel line and into the turbine blades. One blade shattered instantly-spewing white-hot fragments in every direction. The turbine engine seized up, died, and then erupted in flame.

Capt. Harry Kersten barely had time to notice the glowing red fire-warning light before his helicopter lost power, dipped too low, and slammed nose first into the hill. The Puma flipped end over end twice and then exploded-spraying burning fuel and sharp-edged fragments over hundreds of meters.

The second gunship veered wildly away from the rising fireball and vanished over the hill. It reappeared moments later, flying southeast-away from the battle. With Kersten dead and their potential targets already in among the defending strong points the second Puma’s crew saw little reason to stay and fight.

Maj. Rolf Bekker had just lost his ace in the hole.

REACTION FORCE

The 44th Parachute Brigade’s paratroopers were dying hard. They were taking their enemies with them, but they were dying. Rifles and machine guns were no match for armored personnel carriers mounting 20mm cannon and coaxial machine guns. A well-placed Carl Gustav round could turn any APC into a shattered wreck, but most of their recoilless rifle teams were only getting off one or two shots before being spotted and knocked out.

Burning APCs and trucks dotted the hillside, but enough made it through unscathed to overrun Bekker’s platoon strength strong points And once

Kruger’s men were inside each defensive ring, the paratroops were wiped out foxhole by foxhole-killed by soldiers firing from inside their Ratels, by point-blank cannon shots, or by dismounted infantry charging forward behind a barrage of grenades and automatic weapons fire.

COMMAND RATEL

Ian Sheffield hung to his seat strap for dear life as the Ratel canted upward, grinding uphill at more than twenty miles an hour. His ears were numb-deafened by the constant chatter of the APC’s heavy machine gun and by bullets spanging off its armor. Smoking, spent shell casings rolled back down the metal floor toward the rear.

Kruger’s staff officers crouched behind the vehicle’s firing ports, ready to open fire with their R4 assault rifles the moment they had targets.

Emily and Sibena were still in their seats, though only just barely. They both looked almost as scared as he felt.

The front end of the Ratel dropped downward as it roared over the crest.

And then the world blew up.

At first Ian was only aware of the blinding white flash that started outside the driver’s compartment and then rippled backward down the length of the Ratel. Then a shock wave punched the air out of his lungs and threw him out of his seat. The sound came last-a tremendous clanging, discordant thunderclap that tore conscious, coherent thought to shreds. As he blacked out, he felt the Ratel being lifted upward, twisting sideways in midair.

He came to on his knees, tangled in fallen gear and still hot shell casings. The Ratel lay tilted on its left side, no longer moving.

Foul-smelling smoke eddied in from the outside. Coughing and groaning men lay in heaps all around him.

Emily! Ian shook his head to clear it and regretted it right away. He must have slammed into something hard and unforgiving when the APC tipped over. He staggered upright and looked around.

There she was. Emily sat upright in a loose pile of canteens, medical kits, and assault rifle magazines. She seemed dazed but unhurt. His heart started beating again.

“You are wounded?” Kruger had to scream it into his ear to be heard. The

Afrikaner officer had a ragged, bleeding cut over one cheekbone, but no other apparent injuries.

“No!” Ian shouted back.

“What happened?”

“We hit a mine.” Kruger coughed as a thicker tendril of smoke curled in through the viewslits in his commander’s cupola. It smelled very much like burning oil. His eyes widened.

“We must get out! We’re on fire!”

Oh, shit. Ian whirled and lurched through the debris toward Emily. Sibena scrambled to his feet beside her. Behind him, he could hear Kruger rousing the rest of his crew and staff.

” Ian, thank God . She clutched at his arm as he helped her up.

“Yeah.” He turned to Sibena.

“Matt! Hit those clips!” He pointed to the metal locking bars holding the rear hatch shut.

“Right.” Sibena spun them up and away. Ian put his hand on the hatch handle and then felt someone grab his shoulder in a strong grip. He turned to see Kruger.

The South African had an assault rifle slung over his own

shoulder. His staff officers and vehicle crew crowded behind him with their own weapons.

“Let my men go first. We have enemies out there. “

“You got it.” Ian, Emily, and Matt squeezed to one side of the battered

Ratel-allowing the six men by.

The soldiers shoved the hatch open and threw themselves through the narrow opening one after the other. Staying low, they fanned out in a semicircle around the wrecked APC. A lieutenant stayed by the door to help the others out. Smoke and blowing sand cut visibility to meters at best.

Ian’s hearing was coming back. He wasn’t sure what sounded more dangerous-the staccato rattle of automatic weapons fire outside or the steady crackle of the flames now engulfing the Ratel driver’s compartment.

The young officer standing outside signaled him frantically.

“Come on, man.

Pass her through. I’ll get her to cover.”

Ian guided Emily through the hatch and turned to motion Sibena forward And an assault rifle opened up from somewhere close by, spraying rounds at full automatic. Several punched into the hatch door and howled off into the surrounding smoke.

Ian whirled round in horror. His vision darkened and then cleared. Emily and the lieutenant lay tangled together on the ground, bright blood staining the sand around them.