Cold War - Jerome Preisler [117]
He lay on his back and groped more urgently for his weapon as the buzzing gained in volume, using his bloodied mitten like a rake, scrubbing it over the snow cover . . . and at last made contact with something thin and hard and smooth.
Corben glided his hand over the object, knew he’d found his VVRS, and brushed away the granular deposit covering it. He was desperate to scoop the weapon out of the snow, get it fully into his grasp. The bike was very close now and he needed it in his grasp.
And then he had it. His fist around its stock, he snatched it up with a huge swell of relief, clutching it against his body almost like someone who’d rescued a cherished pet from drowning. But that was only for a moment, and he wasn’t about to congratulate himself. Things were moving too fast, the bike approaching with what had now become a roar.
Corben slipped his finger around the sabot gun’s trigger, angled its barrel upward. The baby VVRS only weighed something like ten pounds loaded, but felt heavy as a cannon in his weakness. He was sure he didn’t have the strength to keep it raised.
Not for very long.
Perhaps ten seconds elapsed before the snow bike finally swept toward him through the blinding whiteness, bumping to a sudden halt just a few feet away.
Staring up past his gunsight, Corben lowered the rifle, once again overtaken by acute relief.
The bike was red, its rider wearing a parka shaded a little closer to orange.
He hopped off his seat, knelt, bent close to Corben. All around them guns were still firing
“Phil,” the rider said, and looked Corben over carefully. “It’s all right, don’t worry. Gonna have to get you on my bike, strapped onto my grab-rail. Then we head back to base, okay? Your fighting’s done, I’m taking you out of it.”
Corben recognized Cruz’s voice through his face mask.
“Tie me up, Sam,” he said, nodding faintly.
Burkhart was also ready to pull out of the fight.
He raced evasively astride his snowmobile, followed close on by an UpLink rider, wishing only to end the chase and extract his men before any more of them lost their lives. Considering the dimensions of his blunder, they had gotten off cheaply having taken just three casualties. But the dome’s entrance had been blocked long enough, and their job here was done. They had struck at the UpLink team’s corners, only to be outflanked themselves, a countermove that hadn’t surprised or daunted Burkhart. The thick smoke pouring from the dome told him the flames inside would have devastated its crucial desalinization apparatus—and that had been his single objective. He had no interest whatsoever in continued one-upsmanship.
It was time to finish things.
Squeezing fuel into the snowmobile’s engine cylinders, he leaned partway from its saddle, swung the Sturmgewehr around in his gun hand, and pressed back its trigger. The gun clapped fire at the red bike behind him. There had been two in pursuit moments ago, but he had been able to shake off one of them, losing it after a pitched, breakneck series of evasive maneuvers.
The rider who’d stayed on top of Burkhart was better than the other by far.
He kept right with him now, surging up from behind, swerving to avoid Burkhart’s stream of ammunition, lifting his own weapon above his handlebars to release an answering salvo.
Burkhart heard lead rounds chew at his rear bumper, felt the percussive rattle of their impact. Bits of the snowmobile’s pocked, gouged chassis spewed up around him.
Finish things, he thought.
Bent low behind his windshield, he opened the bike’s throttle, accelerated with a rush, and then sharply jerked into a full turn, swinging around to face his pursuer, applying the brakes with gentle pumps of his fist, aware he would tailspin if he worked their lever too hard.
Burkhart could feel his suspension rods quiver from stress as the bike hauled to an abrupt stop, its skis swashing up thick billows of snow.
His feet planted on the boards, he straddled his seat and poured a continuous volley out of his submachine gun, his fire cutting through the encompassing whiteness,