Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [62]
Mor-ti had replaced Ti-gan on the con; she had much better night vision, although far less distance perception, than he, and so was better suited to the conditions. There was less threat at night, oddly enough. As Mucrolian night vision was so poor, an attacker would be approaching over unfamiliar terrain heavily guarded by the defenders. Though such an attack had been known to happen, the PGU relaxed a little; most of the people had been allowed to visit the water hole, leaving only the night guard aboard.
Again that sixth sense that marked the best lookouts came into play. Mor-ti couldn't put her finger on it, but there had been some sort of discord in the gathering gloom, and she signaled the engine room to slow.
A breeze was blowing from the west, off the distant sea. It was a bit stronger than the average sea breeze that cooled the length of the coastal plain at dusk, throwing the cloud of smoke from the stack almost at right angles to the stack lip.
Her ears strained to hear through the rumble of the idling engines and the hissing of the boilers. Something was out there, something both odd and wrong.
She blew into the speaking tube and got a response. "Two scouts up top," she ordered. "Something funny here. Keep pressure up. We may—"
Before she could complete the statement there was a series of reports to her right, quickly followed by a series of whistling roars all around the PGU.
"All crews to action!" she screamed into the tube. "We are under attack! Let's gun it! Zigzag pattern!"
The PGU roared to life and began a series of defensive course changes; Mor-ti pulled armored shielding around her spotter's perch and peered out from eyeslits.
More reports, and more explosions, closer now, all around them. Little bits of metal went ping, ping, ping as shrapnel bit at the steel flanks of the PGU. All around the huge steam tank the ground was erupting in explosive columns of heat and light.
Observers forward and aft tried to spot the flashes from the attacking PGU, for that was what it had to be. A spiked cannonball struck the PGU and detonated, causing tremendous concussion and vibration. The defenders screamed in rage and frustration.
"Hard right and scatter-shot!" Mor-ti commanded. "Let's see if we can smoke them out."
Ports fell with a clang from one side of the PGU, and as the vehicle turned sharply a series of cannon reports shook it again, this time the result of an outgoing volley of eight shots into the deepening night. They landed in a wide group and went off with a roar, their phosphor-gels load lighting up the countryside.
Mor-ti thought she spotted the enemy juggernaut in the dying light of the flare shells. She gambled on this and aimed her PGU where she felt the enemy was. The angle of fire showed her to be right; the new volley passed directly over her craft and struck a hundred meters to the rear.
Suddenly the enemy commander realized that he was being charged; he turned his black-painted craft and raised a nasty, sharp device on the front that looked much like a great can opener.
The defender was bearing down at full speed, which meant that he would need a good quarter-kilometer to turn fully, so the attacker slowed almost to a crawl and waited, his guns suddenly silent.
As the defender approached, it passed just to the right of the attacking armored craft. Suddenly, the attack commander screamed "Full ahead and hold!" into his speaking tube, and his PGU lurched forward with a roar.
The timing was almost perfect. The attacker struck the side of the defending PGU, not quite midships as he'd hoped but a bit behind, the great sharp corundum blade on the front