“Look alive, people. Exoskeletons are coming at us fast.”Devries’ warning came just as a schematic of the enemy’s dreaded anthropomorphic war machines blinked on Kakas’ screen. Icons, fifty of them, crawled across his battle grid sensor. Kakas put a visual fix on the inbound machines.The exoskeletons moved as quickly and as fluidly as a human would have in top line battle armor. They were not just running like humans. The machines were dashing from side to side in speed skating motions designed to shake targeting.Kakas had seen probe feeds of how fast and lethal the exos were in their first encounter with Munga tanks. The footage left him numb with fear. Seeing these machines first hand left Kakas, on one hand, feeling inclined to jump out of the tank and run for cover. On the other hand, he was itching for a measure of revenge. Kakas decided that he liked the second feeling much more than the first one. There was something immensely intoxicating about revenge.Kakas brought up Target Sequencers for the smoothbore primary weapon. Multiple target brackets slapped themselves across the approaching exos. But the exos were moving too fast for the multiple locks to hold.Kakas accelerated the sequencing speed, enabling him to achieve better locks. “Targets acquired,” he announced.“Targets acquired,” said Davis.“Targets acquired,” repeated Malik.Devries had a real-time tactical graphic of the surrounding battle space laid out before her like a panoramic tapestry.The NeoAfrican armored column was approaching the end of the highway. Five narrower streets split off from the highway, leading into different sections of the downtown district.The Unity exoskeletons were approaching the column along the north and northwestern streets.“Hold,” Devries ordered. Her lead tank drew nearer to a street that curved westbound.“Henrys, take the west lane on my mark,” said Devries.“Yes, LTO.”Devries counted to five then gave the order to fire.It seemed to Kakas as if he and the tank’s primary weapon were one. He stabbed the fire control and an immense shaft of directed hell spewed from the mouth of the smoothbore.The exoskeleton Kakas targeted danced out of the path of the energy bolt with uncanny quickness. The beam, however, struck the exoskeleton behind it, shattering the machine’s chest plate, extinguishing the pilot. The exo torpedoed to the ground dredging up a high tide of broken tri-crete in its collapse.Devries threw a fist down. “Now, Henrys!”The tank pilot maneuvered the Munga onto the westbound lane, just avoiding a stream of exo-launched proton bolts.The impacting bolts sent a thermal broil washing over the other tanks. A shock wave upended a Munga closest to where a proton bolt landed. The tank dropped on its side with a deafening thud, followed by an ear piercing screech as it skidded along the lane, sparks and clods of debris fuming in its wake.Three exos leapt high in the air, a rain of proton fire blazing from the emitters attached to the ends of their arms.A succession of proton bolts battered the defense screen of the Munga Devries was commanding.The screen absorbed the punishing blasts, but not without cost.Henrys’ control panel grew warm. Not a good sign. The defense screen took some major frontal hits resulting in an elevated heat spike that seeped inside the vehicle. Plus, the sheer, pounding force of proton bolts smashing into the screen released other energies that channeled tributaries of feedback through the tank’s systems.The right side of Henrys panel crackled, then erupted in a gray puff. The tank pilot’s screen went fuzzy.“Damn, I’m losing visual!”Devries transferred part of her visual feed to the pilot’s display as damage diagnostics ran down the right side of her view.Meanwhile, Kakas struggled to maintain a lock on the fast moving exos.The Unity war machines were bounding and prancing like metal acrobats.Improved as the Mungas’ ability to track the exos, their turrets were still a slip of a second behind their opponents’ movements.Kakas had some success in compensating for this slight disadvantage, by targeting where an exo was going to be as opposed to where it was. The resistance leader knocked one exo out of the sky. The armless exo carved a smoking path toward the ground, shattering upon impact. The second exo Kakas hit literally swerved in the path of a smoothbore-launched beam. The exo spun about, nearly full circle, having been struck in the shoulder segment. A flurry of anti-armor rockets and scatter beams from smaller turret weapons chewed into the stricken exo’s outer plating. The Unity machine stumbled, glowing divots decorating its hull, before crashing flat on its back.Taking his sweet time (in the context of a high speed combat environment) Kakas fixed a targeting bracket dead center of the prone exo and triggered a coup de gras’ blast from the smoothbore.The downed exo went up like a solar flare. The ground where it lay was converted into a bubbling pool of lava.The Munga tank column rammed through a phalanx of Unity exoskeletons in a thunderous running battle. Errant missile and beam fire gouged massive craters in streets and walkways. An entire building collapsed after a damaged out of control tank plowed into it. Another building was blasted down to its framework by an exploding exoskeleton. Giant death machines grappled, driving a fiery lance of collateral ruin straight into the heart of the city’s downtown district.Other battles rocked the city. Transports crammed with resistance fighters made landings under the combined cover of Red Tail fighters and anti-aircraft batteries. The severely outnumbered Red Tails would have been consumed in a swarm of enemy fighters were it not for the devastating and compensatory firepower of Locust AA guns. The Locusts were small enough to be mistaken for portable launchers. The guns were taken off an assembly line in an undisclosed factory somewhere in the belt and smuggled piecemeal to Garvey. Once they reached Toure’, they were deployed and reassembled at secret locations throughout the city. Rooftops, alleyways, jet tube junctions, inside produce haulers, even residences.The Locusts threw up a blinding wall of flak. Multiple, gaseous cloud bursts that were Unity fighters filled the sky with a flaming precipitation of debris.Armed resistance fighters, already on the ground, joined the fighters that were debarking the transports. Both groups fanned out into the city, confronting Unity and collaborationist forces in battle.Given that the white soldiers were too few and too shocked by the ferocity and boldness of the rebel assault, they could do little other than defend their scattered outposts and pray for relief.The black collaborators fought harder. Their resolve was stiffened by their deep and abiding hatred for the NeoAfrican Federation. The collaborationist regime had brought in thousands of supporters into the capitol over the past several months, making Toure’ a hotbed of Holistic Renewal fanaticism. Nevertheless, the resistance fighters through equal resolve and grim determination were forcing the collaborators to give ground. Neither side was prepared to give quarter. Unity soldiers were killed on the spot by resistance fighters. It did not matter if the former had surrendered or were unarmed or wounded. Holistic Renewal captives suffered the same fate, many dying slowly for their crimes of aiding and abetting murderers from afar.
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