Ukk - Badlands
On the turret basket, the crew continued to scan the sides, while to the front, its driver guided the vehicle on into the storm. The spaceship wreckages had become more sparse, with smaller fragments appearing near them as they progressed. She squinted her eyes at two pairs of flashing lights ahead, which she initially thought to be another bout of lighting, but once the same thing happened again on the same spot was when she noticed something was up, and when she had enough visibility to see through the dust storm she only had about a second to yell the warning.
"Brace, brace!" The driver yelled from her compartment a second before the rest of the crew had time to react. A moment later, the deafening sound of metal striking against metal echoed inside the tank, sending the
vehicle they had rammed tumbling on itself a good dozen meters backwards.
Ross had to press both hands against the screens in front of him for support and to prevent him from headbutting them with his helmet as the 100 ton tank went from its top offread speed to a full stop. The tank jerked as Maggie kicked it into reverse and then kicked the gas pedal as far as it would go, by then, the Vehicular Manslaughter's TC was already grapping the stick and unloading the dual HPARs on the upturned NMX vehicle. While it was designed to engage up to powered armor infantry, the twin-linked weapon system was performing admirably against the enemy vehicle, punching through the spider-like vehicle and sending pieces of the armor flying off, but the thing's flailing legs were slowly working on getting it upright again, making him kick his gunner's shoulders, who was just recovering from the bash. To his left side, his loader had lost his helmet somehow and was trying to pick it up from the floor of the turret basket with his bionic hand, while the organic counterpart put pressure against the large gash that had opened on his left cheek.
"Otto fire, fire AP!" He yelled while still pressing down the trigger on the RWS stick. The tankette, piloted by an enslaved brain either snatch from some poor sod or grown inside a vat, strugged to get up, but he could see the thing was almost standing upright.
"I can't! Marines are blocking sights and can't get reading!" Otto yelled back, which made Ross mutter a curse and instantly let go of the stick and reach up towards his hatch, while his other hand quickly secured the rebreather to his helmet. As soon as he twisted the hatch's lock the interior light changed from a bright white to a dull, emergency red, while the ACE AI wouldn't stop bitching about it. The platoon commander instantly regretted his decision as the high-speed dust sandblasted across the exposed skin on his neck.
"
Get off the tank! Down, get down!" He yelled at the nearest marine that turned its helmet towards him as soon as he emerged. Why their squad leader wasn't tapped into their comms was a mystery, but the fact that Ross was pistol whiping the shoulder plate of his armor and pointing down was a good a clue as any, and the marines promptly jumped off the sides and rear of his tank, which was right on time as the entire vehicle shook with the main gun firing, followed by the big fireball as the HESH shell detonated against the tankette.
Ross ducked back into the fighting compartment and twisted the hatch lock as the Vehicular Manslaughter shook again with the recoil from the main gun, which was followed by the coaxial HPAR firing several times. He glanced at one of the displays to see that the Flayer tankette had been reduced to a burning pile of scrap. The thought of adding another kill mark to the side of the tank's turret was short lived, as he glanced at one of the screens on his station and saw several flashes in the distance, which outline several other tankettes heading straight for them from the formation's three of clock. The first and second platoon's commander traversed the dual HAPRs from where the threats were coming from, and started firing.
"All units, contact, contact! Three o'clock!" He yelled, but paused as the gun breech was violently kicked back once the cannon fired. On his display, he saw a brief yellow flash of something exploding just a few hundred meters ahead of his tank. "First platoon, form a firing line to my left and cover the marines!" Ross continued to order, not quite yelling but still speaking loud enough so that he could be heard through the static. Ahead, the quartets of lights -he had counted at least twenty by then- started to return fire, and the migraine-bright blues of plasma flew past his tank, while thinner energy beams pierced the air.
Along the formation, it would be quite obvious what was going on by then, and while the enemy fire was largely inaccurate, the heavier plasma cannons from the Flayers were enough to leave some of the Hostiles riding on top of the tanks with red hot spots on their armor from the glancing hits.
The gun fired again, and he was rewarded with another explosion and the sound of his gunner whooping and yelling for the loader to work faster. Ross continued to relay his orders; if they stood their ground the faster tankettes would overrun their formation, pass through the heavier HMBTs and have a clean shot at the thinner rear armor of their tanks. "Second platoon, this one actual, I want you to drop your marines and spearhead a flanking maneuver to the right of the enemy formation, two-three will lead it, how copy, two-three?"
The gun fired again, but this time there was no explosion. "Activating shields!" Ross said on the intercomm, firing the HPARs once again; he had to keep one eye on the shields, or the electrically charged dust would overload them over time just like a good pounding would've.
