Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

The driver saw something in his periscope, a huge dark shape suddenly looming through the swirling dust directly ahead of him, over him, but it was too late to stop-

The main gun was abruptly punched backwards into the turret as its muzzle slammed into a boulder as big as the tank itself. The gun’s loader barely escaped decapitation as the barrel speared over him, passing right between the legs of the seated tank commander and smashing into the back of the turret with a deafening clash of metal against metal. A moment later the Leopard’s prow hit the massive rock. The tank came to an extremely sudden stop.

“Did we get them?” Nina asked anxiously, watching the monitors. All she could see was dust, a trail still swirling from the now-vertical dumper.

Chase risked a look back from the side window. One of the Leopards emerged from behind the cloud, skirting it. “One’s still going,” he reported, leaning back to check the screens. Nothing emerged from the haze behind them. “Think we got the other one, though!”

“Well, great! Too bad we don’t have another truck full of rocks!”

Chase was about to shoot back a sarcastic comment when a thought struck him.

They didn’t have another truck full of rocks. But they still had the truck itself …

He confirmed the position of the remaining tank, then steered directly away from it. “Keep watching that screen,” he said. “Shout the moment it fires.”

“We can’t keep dodging it forever!” said Nina.

The desert earth below became darker, the muddy remnants of a small river feeding into the delta discoloring the ground. “We won’t have to,” Chase told her, turning the wheel back and forth so that the truck began a snaking motion. “One way or another.”

Nina grimaced. “I don’t like the way you put that- aah!”

Chase took that as a sign the tank had fired again and immediately jammed the truck into as hard a turn as possible. The horizon tilted ahead, its angle steepening as the truck began to overbalance. The steering wheel quivered, the wobble of the tires feeding back to him as both wheels on the inside of the turn left the ground-

Boom!

An explosion, frighteningly close, but on the far side of the truck from the tank. The shell had gone right between the front and rear wheels, under the truck as it almost tipped over.

Chase twitched the wheel to drop the T282B back onto all four wheels, but kept turning.

Fourteen seconds…

“What are you doing?” Nina asked, confusion joined by fear as she realized he was heading back towards the tank.

“It takes them fourteen seconds to reload,” Chase said. “If we can reach them in thirteen seconds, then we can squash ’em before they fire again!”

“And if it takes us fifteen seconds, they’ll blow us up!” Nina objected. The Leopard swung into view ahead, Chase aiming right at it. “How long have we got left?”

“Four seconds!” Truck and tank raced directly at each other, neither slowing. “Any last words?”

“Shitshit shit!”

The main gun rose, aiming at the cab.

Chase released the wheel and yanked Nina down across his lap, throwing his upper body onto hers to protect her-

Collision!

The Leopard weighed forty tons-but even unloaded the T282B was more than five times its weight, and far larger.

The tank’s gun bent like a cardboard tube as it stabbed through the truck’s bodywork to hit the unyielding diesel block within. An instant later, the truck rode up over the Leopard’s sloping front, stamping the tank down into the soft earth up to the base of its turret. The gun was ripped away, crushed under the Liebherr’s enormous tires and left poking out of the ground in a mangled U-shape.

Over the obstacle, the truck bounced back down onto the ground, turning again as the steering wheel whipped around.

Nina opened one eye, finding herself lying over Chase’s lap, her head in the footwell. She felt his weight on top of her, holding her in place. She couldn’t tell if he was moving, or even breathing. “Eddie?”

A long silence, then: “I thought somebody with your education’d come up with better last words.”

She flapped at him with her hands. “Get offa me!”

Chase sat up, letting her push herself upright before retaking the wheel. He immediately realized that the steering had been damaged; it felt slack, unresponsive. With some effort, he managed to straighten the vehicle, seeing through the broken windshield that they were now heading north again, towards the delta.

He lifted his foot off the accelerator…

Nina ran her hands though her hair. “Jesus! I really thought we were going to die back there.” She was about to begin a tirade against Chase’s insane actions when she took in his expression. It was one she’d seen before.

And it was never a good sign. “What?”

He pointed at the floor. “See my foot?”

“Yes?”

“See how it’s not on the accelerator?”

“But we’re still going-oh my God!” She looked at the dashboard. Several of the instruments had been damaged by bullets, but the speedometer was still intact-and she instantly translated the reading of sixty-six kilometers per hour into imperial units. “We’re doing over forty!”

“The throttle’s jammed,” said Chase. The pedal was stuck firmly against the floor; he’d already tried to lift it with his foot, but to no avail. “Hold on to the seat; this might get bumpy.”

“Get?” But she obeyed, crouching behind him.

Chase pushed the brake. The truck shook, a deep grinding noise coming from the wheels below. He watched the brake temperature gauges. One was no longer working, but the other three rose with worrying speed towards the red zone.

The speedometer dropped, but not by much.

He pushed harder. The cab rattled, what little glass remained in the windows finally falling free. The speedometer needle juddered, dropping in jerky steps as the brake gauges flicked higher…

A noise like scrap metal in a tumble dryer made them both cringe. There was a sharp bang, then something clattered against the wheel below them and fell away.

Nina looked out of the window. Smoke billowed from the wheel hub. “What the hell was that?”

“The brakes!” One of the temperature needles had flicked instantly back down to zero. “They’ve burned out!”

Nina reached over and grabbed the gearshift, trying to force it into the neutral position. It refused to move. “Dammit!”

Chase eased off slightly on the brakes in the hope that their temperature would fall while the truck still slowed, but all that happened was that the speedometer rose again-the temperature gauges remained in the red. “Bollocks!” He changed tack and stamped on the brake pedal as hard as he could. The truck swayed violently, the steering wheel writhing in his grasp.

Something crunched unpleasantly, then there was a dull crack from under the dashboard and the wheel immediately became still.

The brake needles rose higher, but the truck was shedding speed…

Another disc blew apart, shards of red-hot steel banging around inside the wheel hub. The speedometer needle moved back up.

Chase kept his foot pressed down in the vain hope that the two remaining brakes would stay intact. They didn’t. Within seconds of each other they exploded under the stress.

“No hand brake?” Nina asked, not sounding the least bit hopeful.

“Nope.” Chase narrowed his eyes against the wind and surveyed the landscape ahead. If there was a steep enough slope, he might be able to aim the truck up it and cause it to slow so they could jump off…

There was a potential candidate some distance to the right. But he realized that he wasn’t going to reach it when he turned the steering wheel… and nothing happened. The wheel was no longer connected to anything-the steering column had broken.