James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

“Just toss ‘em!” Chan shouted at her. He grabbed two bottles in each hand and threw them out as far as he could. You only had to light the first few; as long as the rest impacted an area on fire, they would ignite as well. And the entire street below them seemed to be on fire, Lydia had already thrown a dozen bottles out the window. One of the Growlers had broken away and was racing north up Cass along the sidewalk, one of its wheels on fire. The IMP wasn’t moving, it had been hit by a Spike, and a Tab, after realizing he couldn’t angle the roof gun up enough to engage them, was crawling out of the upper hatch and across the top of the vehicle. Another man was below him in the vehicle, which was bracketed by flame. One of the Growlers was split open like a burst tin can from a grenade hit. As Chan watched he saw the doors of a disabled Growler engulfed in flames open, and the two Tabs inside came stumbling out, trying to make it through the flames to the safety of the building. The soldiers made it across the street and out of sight, but before they’d disappeared from view they’d all been aflame. He could hear at least one man screaming horrifically.

There was rifle fire to either side of him, but after scanning the street he didn’t see anything left to shoot at, the soldiers were either dead and burning or had made it to cover. One IMP and three Growlers were disabled. The Toad, of course, had lost a tread but managed to escape. That tank’s crew would be worried about anti-tank rockets, but the range of the Spikes was far less than that of the Toad’s main gun, which could accurately target vehicles out beyond two miles, if Chan remembered correctly.

“Grab your shit! We need to displace before that Toad finds a spot to snipe us!” he shouted to his squad.

Lydia was looking at him wild-eyed. “Did they work?” she asked, panting. She had a Molotov in each hand. There were only a few left in each milk crate. She’d been too busy throwing to look out the window.

“Perfect,” he told her. “There’s a sea of fucking fire down there. But we gotta go.”

“Cambridge East has vehicles circling around to the north of our position,” they heard over the radio. “Engaging.”

Charlie One-Six, -Seven, and -Eight, one IMP and two Growlers, had broken off from the rest of the assault force early, as ordered, and swung west on Amsterdam, moving more slowly than the advance force. They’d driven several blocks west to 3 rdAvenue, then turned north.

The railroad bridge over 3 rdwas actually down, and had been for some time, but none of the men in the vehicles were aware of it. They came to a brief stop, then drove up the embankment to the left, and slowly across the four sets of train tracks. They rolled through a vacant lot and turned left, then almost immediately turned right on the service drive to the Lodge Freeway. As they did two vehicles appeared directly in front of them, rising into view as they took the freeway exit for West Grand Boulevard.

“Oh Jesus Fuck, Tabs!” Harris screamed from behind the wheel of the pickup as the IMP appeared right next to them. They were so close Harris felt like he could reach out and touch the massive vehicle. He stomped on the accelerator. He wasn’t even sure the driver of the IMP had seen him yet out of the narrow port that served as his windshield, but the Tabs in the two Growlers behind it sure had.

A dogsoldier in the Tahoe behind the pickup fired his grenade launcher and took out the trailing, unarmored Growler. It veered off and crashed into the side of a building. The roof gunner on the IMP swung his .50 belt fed over and let loose a long loud burst, stitching the SUV from the engine compartment all the way to the rear bumper. Doing that distracted him long enough for Harris’ passenger to get his carbine out the window of the pickup and fire ten rounds at the roof gunner as fast as he could pull the trigger, killing the soldier.

The Tahoe behind them slowed and drifted away, every man inside it killed by the deadly burst of the heavy roof gun. Even with its flat tire Harris’ pickup accelerated away from the heavy armored IMP and the one Growler still behind it as the Tabs inside the personnel carrier were distracted, wrestling with the body of their dead comrade, trying to clear him from behind the roof gun.

Outnumbered two to one Harris knew they had to get away from the other vehicles, and even though Growlers weren’t fast he couldn’t outrun one driving a pickup with a flat tire and a man in the bed hanging on for dear life. Besides, the man in back had an RPG, and he wouldn’t be able to get it back into play while being bounced around in a car chase.

“Hold on!” he shouted, loud enough for the man in back to hear, and took a sharp right turn, then punched the gas pedal again. He heard the IMP’s engine roar behind him as the driver accelerated to pursue.

Harris looked around and suddenly realized he was on West Grand Boulevard. The Fisher Building and Cadillac Place a quarter mile ahead of him, rising up into the sky. He knew exactly where he was, and knew that meant he was racing right toward more Tabs, and had only a second to make a decision.

“You’re not going to like this!” he yelled. The Tabs had an advantage in numbers and armor. He couldn’t do anything about their numbers, but there was one sure way to negate the effectiveness of their vehicles.

Harris cut the wheel left and the pickup bounced across the grassy median between two small trees, straight for the front of an apartment building.

“What the fuck?” his passenger in the front seat had time to say before the pickup plowed through the glass front of the ground-floor business. Tables and chairs flew in every direction and the pickup clipped the corner of a counter before slamming into the far wall with a resounding crunch. Harris bounced off the steering wheel, smashing his nose, but the dash airbag deployed for his front-seat passenger.

“Un-ass the vehicle!” Harris shouted, kicking open his door. He looked past the bed of the pickup, through the wake of destruction they’d made through the former smoothie shop, and saw the IMP on the far side of the street, the Growler pulling up behind it. Harris caught the RPG launcher tossed to him from the man in the pickup bed and then flinched as the .50 atop the IMP opened up on them. The soldier climbing down from the pickup fell onto Harris and they both landed on the tile floor.

The first burst from the roof-mounted .50 went wide, thudding into the counter and walls. Harris and the two soldiers scrambled around the pickup and through the hole it had made in the inside wall. They found themselves in a short hallway and charged down it only to discover the formerly picturesque interior courtyard of the apartment building. There were raised concrete planters, most of the decorative perennials inside them grown wild. They ran across the courtyard, kicked in a door, and rushed through a small apartment that smelled of rotting food. Harris opened the apartment door, looked left and right down the hallway, then pointed. “Stairs!” His nose was broken, and all he could taste was blood.

The Boulevard had been a trendy, upscale apartment building, constructed not too long before the war, with retail spaces on the ground floor and five floors of studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments above that. The three men pounded up the stairs, carrying their guns and gear. Third floor, fourth, fifth, then the sixth as they came around the corner. The stairs continued above them, heading for the roof. The door to the sixth-floor corridor was open, and there was someone standing there, gun in hand, an ugly look on his face.

“Who the fuck are you guys?” Weasel demanded.

“RoadRunner,” Harris panted. He staggered up the last flight of stairs and fell into the hallway. He looked up at Weasel. “You Quigley?”