“Back up! Hurry!”

Casey was shaken out of his daydream when Alice hit the brakes on their scouting vehicle. She hadn’t been the one calling out on the battalion’s primary channel just now, though.

Casey knew the voice; it was the gunner for the front-most scout. As soon as he caught sight of them, a flash of yellow dove down onto the vehicle, causing it to bounce on the spot. A plume of fire and smoke erupted from the impact, and for brief, terrifying moment, Casey feared the worst.

“Automated gun!” The next report came over the airwaves–from that same insanely lucky pair up front, no less.

“Get out of there,” Casey called out to them as the two leaped from the flaming wreck and ran like mad. They were practically tripping over themselves–and getting perilously close to the corrupted crystal mounds along the path–to reach the relative safety of the 203rd’s light tanks.

By the time they were clear of the immediate danger, another shot struck their vehicle and blew it up. The explosion sent thick, hot air racing past Casey and far down the line of vehicles in the tunnel.

Just when Casey was about to ask the lieutenant for his orders, the man himself instructed the units at the front. “This is Intrepid 1 to the van. Intrepid 21, standby to take point. Intrepid 7, move up and take out that gun. Acknowledge.”

“Intrepid 21 scout vehicle, acknowledged,” Alice sent back, “Holding here. Over and out.” While Ricard was the leader of Intrepid 21, they were now divided into two independent crews, one in the light tank, Chaser, and the other in a scout car.

Intrepid 7 was another matter. Theirs was one of a handful of tanker teams that hadn’t been reconstituted after the attack on Munica’s colossus weapon. Matteo, Luca, and their swift, brawler of a light tank named Daring were the original Intrepid 7 from the start of the war. Casey and Alice both knew what kind of shenanigans to expect from them.

“Intrepid 7 acknowledges. Over and out.”

Daring pulled ahead of them in the long line of vehicles and deployed its long mechanical arms for the coming exchange. The arms had the tank’s skirt armor attached to them, so they hung like small shields off the side of each arm. Once they were close enough, Daring grabbed onto the smoldering wreck and moved it out of the way. Next, the arms folded over the turret, leaving just the gun barrel exposed to return fire.

“Intrepid 7 to Intrepid 21. Give us one minute and we’ll have the way clear for you~ Over.” Matteo said. He was talking to–flirting with Alice in particular. No one in Intrepid 21 had any doubts about that.

Daring suddenly moved up into nearly the exact spot the scout vehicle was when it had first been hit. Its gun elevated to line up whatever was waiting at the top of the incline, but the tank quickly reversed and pulled back out of the line of fire. It wasn’t a moment too soon, as a shot came down and struck the ground, sending up rock and loose parts from the first wreck. Without wasting any time, Daring pulled forward again, this time ready to fire back. As soon as Intrepid 7’s light tank came to a halt, its gun fired. Then, just as the smoke from the muzzle was beginning to disperse, Daring quickly backed up again, narrowly avoiding another shot from the automated gun.

“That’s definitely a 37mil,” Luca informed the rest of the 203rd.

Casey shrugged, seeing as Daring had already secured itself and its crew against that caliber of gun emplacement. While Munica’s anti-tank guns could punch through a light tank’s armor with relative ease, it was extremely unlikely that they would be able to make it through two separate sets of armor spaced as far apart as the skirt armor on the tank’s mechanical arms and the hull armor at the front of the vehicle. Even so, not getting hit at all had proven to be the best tactic for this fight.

Daring jerked forward again and fired another shot, then quickly retreated in the brief window it had, completely avoiding the return shot. If the weapon they were facing had been manned, they might have had the good sense to hold their fire and bait Daring out into the open before firing. Instead, the automated gun fired the moment it was reloaded, creating perfect three second intervals for Daring to weave its attacks into. This was a weakness of automatons that the Cordaeans had centuries of experience with. Using their own predictable behavior against them was enough to turn a stalwart defender into little more than a bump in the road.

Daring quickly moved back to the foot of the inclined and fired up at the gun emplacement, scoring a hit on the gun barrel itself. The light tank didn’t back off this time, and there was no return fire.

“Target neutralized. Moving to the top of the hill to check for additional guns. Over.”

“Copy that, Intrepid 7,” Lieutenant Rog replied, “Give 21 some space to get by after you clear the area. Over.”

“Hey, is everything alright up there?”

Casey laughed hearing Ricard chime in. He wasn’t sure if his friend was worried about the actual enemies in the tunnels with them, or Matteo making moves on Alice while he was half a dozen vehicles behind them. He had his suspicions, though. “Oh yeah, we’re fine, man. We’ll be out of these tunnels in no time if that’s the best they’ve got for us.”

“Clear comms,” Lieutenant Rog said warningly.

“Intrepid 7 to Intrepid 1: We’ll make sure the road is good and clear, sir. Over and out.”

Someone was beginning to sigh into the channel before realizing their mistake and cutting the transmission.

“Heh.” Casey felt the same. He cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled, “Well get to it then ya showoffs!”