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Between a Knight
and a Hard Place

Philip Wohlrab

The sky was alive with sheets of orange lighting, particularly in the northwest, but occasionally branching farther south and east. Sister Mary Catherine de Buenaventura watched the fiery sky with equal parts awe and dread. Awe for the sheer beauty and dread for what it presaged. The seasons were never quite right after the Great Global War, and the fields were not ready for harvest.

“God, give these people one more week of good weather. In your infinite mercy allow this harvest to come to its full fruition. Amen.”

The prayer was barely off her lips when she heard a squeal from a girl emerging from the wheat field. The wheat had obscured the child’s view. She had not seen the sister sitting comfortably in her commander’s cupola. The girl’s initial cry of alarm turned to delight as she recognized a woman sitting atop the armored vehicle. Sister Mary Catherine watched the girl run up the low rise to her tank.

“What are you doing in there?” the girl asked.

“Well, this is my tank, and this is where I sit in it. What is your name?”

The girl’s bright blue eyes grew wider as she stared up at the sister. Behind her a mature voice called out.

“Victoria, where have you gone? It’s time to wash up for dinner.” A woman emerged from the wheat field where the girl had come from. She too glanced up at Mary Catherine and then quickly crossed to the child. She reached out, taking hold of the girl, and began to guide her toward a big Mission house that was a short distance away. “Don’t bother the sister, Victoria. Come along.”

Mary Catherine chuckled to herself at the small byplay and then turned her gaze back to the distance. The smell of the wheat field was fading, to be replaced by the ozone tang of the coming storm. Yes, this is a place worth defending.


High Priestess Mahphion smiled in anticipation of the night’s coming pleasures. She stood behind a great stone altar with her retinue of priestesses and priests. Mahphion gazed at five young girls dancing inside a large chalk ring. The girls wore nothing, though four of them were covered from head to toe in blue paint with a grimacing skull detailed onto their faces. The fifth girl was decorated in red body paint with golden symbols and runes covering her chest and belly. They danced, unaware of their surroundings and in rhythm to the drums.

Mahphion was tall and lithe, her face covered by a porcelain mask that once would have been called Venetian. Half black and half white, the mask was inlaid with colorful jewels and capped by an elaborate headdress. It was simultaneously beautiful and grotesque, just as Mahphion herself was.

Her priestesses were similarly adorned, though less elaborately while two priests to either side were stripped to the waist and wore only a loincloth and plague mask. Unlike Mahphion, who stood rigidly, these priests and priestesses swayed to the drums. Swirling in the breeze around them was a heady scent of incense and roasting meats.

Four large bonfires surrounded the altar aligning to the cardinal points on the compass. Around each, Mahphion’s followers danced and reveled. The sky was alive with the light from the fires and the orange bolts of lightning. An occasional slash would strike the ground with a great peal of thunder but the revelers didn’t care, intoxicated as they were on the festivities.

“The gods old and new are watching,” rasped Mahphion. Firelight cast a sheen across a jagged scar over her throat. “They take notice of us and these coming sacrifices. The omens and portents are so very good.”

At her side her favorite daughter and priestess nodded and said, “It is time.”

Analise lifted her heavy ritual dagger up, signaling the other three priestesses who then moved forward to catch the blue painted girls. Once done they guided each to a large scaffold erected in line with the western bonfire. Four men expertly hung the girls upside down so that they dangled waist height off the ground. The priestesses then placed a large clay bowl under each respective girl.

“Oh, great and terrible gods, look! Look here now, I beseech thee! I offer these sacrifices as tribute. Grant us your favors and deliver us victory in our next conquest!”

After Mahphion’s invocation she signaled to her four priestesses, who in turn slashed the throat of their sacrifices. Blood poured from the terrible wounds down into the clay bowls and the girls’ bodies shook with their death throes, but none of them had cried out. The last girl, painted red, continued to dance in her circle, seemingly oblivious to the butchery just a few short paces away.

Mahphion moved to the final girl’s side and guided her to the altar, gently laying her upon it. The girl’s eyes gazed into the spirit world. They never fixated on the high priestess. Mahphion raised her ceremonial dagger, calling on the gods again to grant her victory. The crowd roared their approvals at the deaths and brayed for further blood. Mahphion smiled and felt alive with the power of the gods. She slammed her dagger down into the girl’s throat. The sacrifice arched her back as the knife was driven home. She emitted a gurgling sound from the gaping wound.

Mahphion waited until the blood stopped spraying from the dying girl’s throat. She then expertly used the knife to open the torso. She quickly extracted the heart and liver from the corpse and placed each into a bowl. The other priestesses rejoined her at the altar and began to implore the gods for victory while Mahphion took up the girl’s heart. She carefully examined it, looking for any defect in shape or tone. Seeing none, she smiled behind her mask, for that too was a good omen. Stepping back from the altar, she held the heart aloft for all to see and turned to one of the fires near the altar. The high priestess threw the heart into the flames.

The warband went wild with cruel delight. At each of the bonfires a pole was lifted over the flames. On top of the pole was a screaming victim taken from their last raid, and now consigned to the fires as additional sacrifices. The shrieks of horror and pain were quickly drowned out by the cheering warband.

Mahphion took up the last bowl containing the liver. According to the gods old and new this was the organ that housed the spirit. Mahphion lifted the liver from the bowl and carefully examined it. Turning the organ over in her hands she found . . . something. Hissing, she investigated further. Within the fatty liver tissue, she found a black tumor the size of a golf ball. Screaming in rage, she cast the liver aside. Mahphion seized up her dagger and immediately turned to Analise. She plunged the dagger into her daughter’s chest. The warband knew something was wrong and gave out a great, despairing cry.

“Gods and goddesses, forgive me! I give to you my own daughter in recompense for this great shame. Forgive this unworthy offering!” screamed out Mahphion.

Analise fell to the ground, twitching. She did not die well. Thunder split the sky, accompanied by a great slash of blue lightning, so very different from the orange that had previously lit the night.


The village of El Haza wasn’t big. Mary Catherine lifted herself up in the commander’s hatch to scan around the village main square. Her tank wasn’t very large, a mere twelve tons combat loaded. It was based on a much older design yet still retained the Scorpion name, though now it had a better gun with superior armor protection. Despite the relatively small size of the tank, it still seemed to crowd the central plaza of El Haza. The villagers opened shuttered windows to look out at the procession of tanks and infantrymen in their trucks. Many crossed themselves while a few slammed their shutters shut.

Did they think there would be more of us? wondered Mary Catherine.

El Haza wasn’t far from the Mission of San Felipe de Jesus and was an outlier settlement in the north. It was a poor village that eked out a living by ranching on the grazing lands that surrounded it. Still, its tenants were faithful to the church and when they had requested help, the Archbishopric of Turcoya had sent aid. That aid was Sister Mary Catherine’s twelve tanks and Knight Companion Nicolais’s company of Hospitaller riflemen.

But what does the enemy bring? Tanks would be rare for a warband though not unheard of. Most likely raiders in trucks or even horseback. But what are their numbers? How well equipped are they? The only news has been that they are fierce and leave few survivors to flee ahead of them.

“Driver, bring us to a halt just past the fountain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Novitiate Daphne.

“Gella, keep an eye out while I go talk to the village leaders.” This was said to Sister Gella deVere, the tank’s gunner.

Once the tank stopped Mary Catherine climbed down and headed toward a small group of men clustered at the entrance of the village chapel. In addition to an old priest, the sister could see three other older men, all looking sick with worry. As she approached them, she could tell they were not reassured. Instead, they looked confused at seeing a woman wearing a habit and tanker coveralls.

“Father, gentlemen.” Mary Catherine nodded to them politely. “I am Sister Captain de Buenaventura of the Sisters of Saint Anastasia. I have been sent here to render aid along with Knight Companion Nicolais of the Hospitallers.” Here she nodded toward the infantry commander as he walked up to the group removing his helmet. He was dressed in the black battle garb of the Knights Hospitallers.

“Surely you have brought more troops than this!” exclaimed one of the village headmen. He was old and, though animated in his dismay, he was clearly frail.

“I am sorry, sir. We are who the Archbishopric had to send. Do you have a local militia?” asked Mary Catherine.

“A few of us form a town watch but, Sister—we would not be much help against what is coming. We lack anything heavier than some old bolt action rifles and locally made muzzle loaders.” The speaker appeared to be in his mid-fifties with the look of someone who had spent a life doing hard manual labor. “My name is Rodrigo Montoya, and I am the alcalde of El Haza. This is Father Diego, Señor Mendoza and Señor Williams,” Rodrigo said, indicating each man in turn.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Alcalde. I wish it were under other circumstances.”

“Thank you, Sister. We do not mean to be rude, but we did expect a larger force.” As the man spoke, his left eye twitched in apparent nervousness. “You see, we understand from the survivors from across the Rio Mattashaw, the great river north of us, that there is a very large warband numbering in the thousands. They are pagans of the worst kind.”

“I understand your concern. Do you have any information on what this warband is equipped with?” asked Mary Catherine.

“There are only a handful of survivors and most of them fled before they could really see much other than fire and destruction in the distance. One person did report vehicles, but they didn’t see much.”

“What is the lay of the land here? Are there any naturally defensible areas, difficult terrain, or the like between your village and the river?” asked Nicolais.

“Some low ridges, Brother, but mostly this is open country between us and the river, which is some twenty miles to the north.”

“Alcalde, prepare to move the townspeople back to the Mission at San Felipe,” said Mary Catherine.

“I . . . as you wish it, Sister. I understand, but it is so very hard to think we must abandon this place, our homes.”

With this the group broke up. Nicolais and Mary Catherine walked to the northern edge of the village to gauge the land beyond it.

“There is a promising low ridge there for my tanks to go hull down and make some improvised fighting positions, but if these people truly have heavy weapons my twelve tanks won’t be enough.”

Nicolais sighed heavily as he, too, glanced at the ridgeline. “I am afraid you’re right, Sister. My only real hope for defending this place is that the survivors didn’t have accurate numbers or misperceived what they saw.”


Mahphion sat upon her throne on top of the “tank” known as Monster. The vehicle had started life in the distant past as a dump truck for a city that had once been known as Colorado Springs. Everything other than the engine and chassis had been removed over the years and, through a series of warlords, Monster had grown into what it was today.

The vehicle was twenty feet long, and nearly as tall. Its broad wheelbase and weight gave Monster stability over difficult terrain. Heavy armor plates had been welded over the chassis, making an improvised fighting compartment behind the driver’s station. The fighting compartment had four positions to each side a rifleman could fire from. On top of the compartment and over the driver’s station a 106mm recoilless rifle was mounted.

Behind this was Mahphion’s throne. Her elaborate seat of power was decorated with various human and animal skulls along with fetishes to individual gods or goddesses. The whole thing was painted in a riotous palette of colors to include blues, greens, yellows, and reds.

Mahphion’s new second priestess, Skofiv, leaned into her ear. “My Lady, the Master of the Riders reports his vehicles are ready. The First Spears report they are prepared for the assault.”

“Good. We won’t bother with the mortars or rockets. Order our battlewagons forward and we will take this village as we have done previously—with speed and violence. Save the heavy weapons for the true prize, the Catolics behind the walls,” Mahphion ordered. Liquid brown eyes burning with fury, she leaped to her feet. Extending her arms above her head, she began pumping them up and down. Around her, the roar of diesel engines and the shouts of hundreds of voices rose to the heavens as one. Forty-five vehicles of different types, most old pickup trucks, surged toward the village of El Haza.

The leading trucks got to just over a mile away from the ridge when twelve puffs of flame and smoke shot out from the ridge. Three of the vehicles exploded outright while another slewed to a stop, its crew killed by fragments. Green and orange tracers danced out from the ridgeline, walking toward one of the armored trucks and spalling off its armor. In response every vehicle in Mahphion’s warband opened fire with a mixture of machine guns, recoilless rifles, and autocannons. Most of the gunfire was wildly inaccurate, but the defenders on the ridge seemed to pause in their shooting for a moment.

“This is far heavier resistance than we expected, My Lady. Could the Catolics have had time to get help?”

“Hmmm . . . they must have, but no matter. If the help is here, it probably means their big farmstead is undefended. Have the gunners use a round of rockets and a couple of mortars on the ridge, then order the Spears forward.”

Skofiv stood up behind Mahphion and took a red and a white flag up in her hands, then began to move them in a precise way to a signalman who was back with the mortars and rocket launchers. The signalman responded and a minute later four rocket batteries each launched a dozen 82mm rockets toward the distant ridge. Within another minute a score of 81mm mortars threw their bombs at the distant ridge as well.


WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

“What in the hell was that?” shouted Gella from her gunner’s station. The tank rocked from the force of the explosions around it. Through her headset Mary Catherine could hear the startled cries of the other tank crews. One of the voices rose into a bloodcurdling scream that abruptly cut off. Scanning through her commander’s periscope, Mary Catherine could see one of her Scorpions was smoking. Hatches suddenly blew open with great gouts of flame as the rounds in the turret cooked off. Fire and smoke also poured from the 76mm gun tube. She knew that no one would have escaped that conflagration.

“May the Lord bless and keep you, Sister Helen, and your crew.” Mary Catherine whispered the prayer while turning her attention back to the view in front of her vehicle. “Gunner, technical, six hundred meters!”

“Acquired,” responded Gella.

“FIRE!”

“ON THE WAY!”

The low-velocity 76mm gun on the Scorpion wasn’t as powerful as a battle tank’s main gun, but it still caused the little tank to rock back on its suspension. As the shell casing ejected from the breech of the gun, Mary Catherine reached back and fed another high-explosive shell into the breech. The stink of cordite filled the turret, cloying in Mary Catherine’s and Gella’s noses. Gella scanned through her day sights, looking to see if the target was destroyed. Disappointed at seeing it still moving, she reacquired and fired a second time without needing a command to do so. This time the HE round found its mark. The pickup truck tore apart, shredding the heavy machine gun crew and incinerating the driver.

Mary Catherine noted the destruction but didn’t dwell on it. Not only did she assist in fighting her own tank, but ensured her ten remaining tanks were doing their parts as well. She watched as one of the Hospitaller heavy weapons teams shouldered a recoilless gun and fired a high-explosive squash head, or HESH, round at one of the more heavily armored technicals bounding toward them. The round was briefly visible as it exited the gun tube before streaking toward the enemy vehicle, only to bounce off the front glacis. The technical must have spotted the flash of the weapon. It turned a pair of 23mm cannons on the heavy weapons team, who quickly dissolved into a welter of gore under repeated impacts from the cannon rounds.

“Daphne, displace left fifty meters.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Daphne’s voice sounded muffled through the headset. The diesel engine that powered the Scorpion tank sat to the right of the driver’s compartment and could sometimes overpower the mic on her headset. The Scorpion jerked backward, causing Mary Catherine to bang her helmet on the hatch coaming. She was distracted by the sight of ten eighteen-wheelers chugging to a stop about five hundred meters from the ridge. The cab of the first one exploded from tank fire, but the armored trailer survived. To Mary Catherine’s horror, the back doors opened and scores of armed individuals boiled out of each trailer. They fanned out to either side of the trucks before dropping to the ground and bringing fire on the ridge.

“Gunner, infantry in the open, six hundred meters.”

“Acquired.”

“FIRE!”

“ON THE WAY!”

The little Scorpion bucked again and another HE round spat downrange toward a group of fighters who were just a little bit too clustered. The shell burst among the group, tossing them like rag dolls through the air. Mary Catherine slammed another into the breech before turning back to her periscopes. She saw another of her tanks get hit with autocannon fire, shredding the front glacis of the tank before walking up it into the turret and punching visible holes into it. The commander’s hatch was thrown open and she observed Sister Ellen pop out of the hatch, missing her right arm from the elbow down. The sister fell out of the hatch, hitting the ground hard. No one else emerged from the tank. Smoke poured through the hatch, followed by the first hint of flames. A Hospitaller trooper ran to the fallen nun and applied a tourniquet to the mangled arm. He then pulled the sister to cover.

“Gunner, independent fire.”

“Roger, ma’am.”

The tank rocked back again and the technical that had destroyed Sister Ellen’s tank blew apart. The heretical fighters to the front of the Scorpion jumped up in groups of two or three in bounding rushes while the rest of them provided cover fire. Here the Hospitallers, with their light and medium machine guns, were able to do some work, bowling several knots over with accurate fire. A pair of 60mm mortar bombs fell beside the middle eighteen-wheeler, causing it to catch fire and killing several fighters near it.

“Sister Mary Catherine, this is Nicolais. We are not going to be able to hold this ridge much longer as the enemy is flanking us to our right and left. I suggest we withdraw to the Mission at San Felipe.”

Nicolais’s voice wasn’t rushed, and despite the gravity of their predicament he was calm.

“I concur. Have your troops bound back to their vehicles while we cover your withdrawal. We will rendezvous south of El Haza and move back to the Mission.”


Mahphion sensed the change in fire from the ridgeline, noticing less and less small-arms fire. Her own vehicle was still too far back for the recoilless rifle to be effective, though it fired a desultory shot toward the ridge. To her front she could see thirteen of her battlewagons either on fire or out of commission. She debated with herself whether she should order another round of rockets to fire at the ridge but decided against it.

After all, they are so damn hard to make, and we haven’t visited the Makers and Shapers in a while. After the Catolics are destroyed, I will have to rectify it. We need more weapons to keep the supplying the war band, and we will need more fuel soon, she rationalized.

“My Lady, it appears the enemy is disengaging. Should I order our reserves forward?” Skofiv asked. Mahphion turned to Skofiv, considering her suggestion for a moment.

“No . . . no, I think we shall hold off. We do have this village to plunder, and the Catolics were too weak to stop us. If they stand and fight at their great farmstead, we will kill them and give them to our gods there. If they run, then we don’t have to waste the ammunition on them and can save it for other prey.”

“As you wish, My Lady.” For her part, Skofiv looked disappointed and fingered the skull fetish that hung between her breasts for a moment. She then leaned over to a speaking tube and indicated to the driver to head for the village slowly while the rest of the warband consolidated.

Mahphion turned back to view the ridgeline and watched several puffs of dense white smoke explode across the ridgeline. Clearly the enemy vehicles were fleeing. I wonder if any of them can be salvaged later?

Monster picked up speed toward the village while the fighters of her warband cheered their high priestess on. The village was fully in sight now, but there didn’t seem to be any panicking villagers or signs of a desperate flight. To Mahphion’s amazement, the village appeared to be empty and void of any life. Monster rolled into the town plaza, crushing the central fountain under its great tires. Her personal guard exited the fighting compartment and moved toward several doors. Additional fighters from one of the eighteen-wheelers that followed her into the village also boiled out of their vehicle to begin searches of the houses. Doors were kicked in and windows broken, but there were no shouts of alarm, no screaming women or children. Everywhere it was silent except for the violence against the buildings themselves.

“Where is everyone, My Lady?” asked Skofiv.

Mahphion sat heavily onto her throne, smashing a fist into one of the armrests. “The bastards escaped,” she hissed. “Burn it. Burn it all down and throw some of our corpses down any wells we find.”

“Yes, My Lady.”


“We lost two tanks, and twenty-five men from the Hospitallers. Sister Ellen will likely survive but her wounds are such that she will likely never fight again. Your Excellency, it was one of the barbarian tribes of the north. We saw their fetishes and banners. We saw at least forty-five vehicles, but I suspect there were more, and they had heavy weapons. They had hundreds and perhaps even thousands of fighters.”

The archbishop’s sigh was clear even over the heavy distortion of the telephone. A war council had gathered in the office of the deacon of the Mission of San Felipe that included that worthy, Sister Mary Catherine, Brother Nicolais, and Vicar General Jorge Hernandez of the regional militia forces. On the desk was an antique phone from before the Great Global War, and was the only concession to high technology that existed in the sparse office. The deacon looked troubled.

“Surely there are not enough of you to fight such a horde. Should we not prepare to evacuate?” The man’s voice rose in pitch with his question, and it was clear he was having trouble controlling his fear.

“Calm yourself, Father Torres. Panic will do us no good here now,” replied Brother Nicolais.

The vicar general looked at both Nicolais and Mary Catherine in a way that the sister didn’t like. It was clear he wasn’t impressed with either of them.

“What would foreigners know of our troubles? You all have only been in the archdiocese a little time. Aye, the Hospitallers are well known, and we welcome your assistance, but you are far too few in numbers. As for you, Sister, I have never heard of your order. What good did your tanks prove against those war buggies of the northern barbarians?” Father Hernandez’s voice wasn’t caustic, just baffled at why the archbishopric would send such a small force.

The response was not what he expected, nor did it come from an expected source. “Vicar General Hernandez, the Sisters of Saint Anastasia are quite well-known warriors in their native Luzon, and we are grateful that Mother Church sent them to us. I have complete faith in Sister Captain de Buenaventura and Knight Companion Nicolais. Now if we have settled this question of yours, shall we move on to the matter of defeating these heretics?”

Father Hernandez had the good grace to look abashed while clearing his throat. “Yes, Your Excellency. Sister, Brother, please forgive me?”

“Father Hernandez, I would also be skeptical if I were in your shoes. I understand that this region is your home and that it is under an existential threat. I swear to you that my fellow sisters and I will give our lives if necessary to defend it.”

Their eyes met and Father Hernandez nodded at the sister.

“Perhaps you can tell us what your militia forces have to offer, Father?”

“I have two hundred and fifty men under arms, mostly with a locally produced bolt-action rifle. They are good rifles if a tad slow to fire, though they tend to be better than many of the weapons the barbarians have. I have two ancient heavy machine guns of the M2 pattern. Four light machine guns, again locally produced, four 81mm mortars, and I have two 90mm pack howitzers.”

“Artillery? What kind of ammunition do you have for it?” asked Nicolais.

“HE-FRAG for the mortars, and the howitzers have HE and canister for close-in work.”

“Hmmm . . . that gives me an idea,” said Mary Catherine.

“Yes, Sister?” asked Father Hernandez.

“My tanks have five canister rounds each. I think we can cross-load that to two of the tanks and have them join your field guns to create four giant shotguns for sweeping away their infantry. How mobile are your guns?”

“They were designed to be broken down and carried on mules over mountainous terrain. They are quite easy to move. Unfortunately, I don’t think the mules could keep up with the speed of your tanks, though.”

“No, but if we give you a few of the Hospitaller’s trucks . . . ”


“Let the Catolics know we are here,” rasped out Mahphion. Skofiv raised a torch and swung it counterclockwise to a group of men who had moved within rifle range of the outer walls of the Mission of San Felipe. Those men quickly erected three upside-down crosses that had been swathed in gasoline-soaked linens. Attached to each of the crosses was a refugee that they had caught—a man, a woman, and a child on the center cross. One of the men then lit a torch and used it to set first the left cross, then the right one, and finally the center on fire. The victims screamed first in fear and then in excruciating pain as they too caught alit from the fires.

Mahphion smiled cruelly as the victims screamed out their last agonizing minutes. The firelight danced brightly across the open ground where Mahphion’s priestesses had drawn up a sand table for her. Walking to it, she gathered Skofiv and her commanders to her and then pulled her dagger from her belt.

“We attack tomorrow afternoon, Skofiv. We will start the attack by firing our rockets where they will have the greatest concentration of their forces, here and here.” Mahphion used her dagger to point to locations on the sand table that indicated the main mission house and where the inner wall facing to the north was located. “We will hold off on using our mortars for now, and instead the battlewagons will hit them from three sides. The fifteen to the front will be our lighter ones, go fast and draw their fire.”

“Yes, My Lady.”

“Our fighters will approach with the armored battlewagons on the left and right flanks of the mission after the War Riders to the front are heavily engaged. Once engaged on three sides, I will bring up the last of our forces from the front again, but with Monster and our remaining battlewagons. That should spread the Catolics too thin to engage any of us properly and my final blow will hammer the life out of them. Try to capture as many of their priests or holy people as you can alive. I want to see their faith shatter as their dead god abandons them to our sacrificial knives.”

The warband cheered.


The Mission of San Felipe was one of the oldest in the Archdiocese of San Luis in the Catolic Protectorate of San Salvador de Corteguay. It had been built nearly two hundred years ago, just after the Great Global War had plunged humanity back into a semi-technological dark age. The site was chosen due to its ready access to clean water, and the fertile soil that was so precious in this blasted world. Its history was shared with Mary Catherine to impress further upon her the importance of safeguarding this place.

“Alright crew, listen up. One of our surviving scouts found their fuelers and we are going to use speed and violence to hit their fuel supplies. We, along with Sister Uraaca’s, Sister Candace’s, and Sister Morgaine’s tanks, are going to hit them where it really hurts. I won’t lie to you; this may be a suicide mission. Are you with me?”

There was no pause in the response from either Daphne or Gella. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Then let’s go.”

At twelve tons the Scorpion was a light tank, but this also meant that it was a fast tank, topping out at 60 mph on roads and a healthy—though jarring—45 mph cross-country. Mary Catherine braced herself. Even with her five-point restraint harness in place to prevent knocking herself out on the hatch coaming or a periscope, it was a rough ride. The little tank bounced over a small rise and streaked through the fields in a long end run toward where the fuel trucks had been spotted. Behind her, three more tanks followed. It was a dangerous gamble, one that could prove disastrous should the enemy already be moving to attack the Mission.


The flash of an explosion to the northwest caught Mahphion’s attention. Then another, and another. Finally, a fourth massive fireball rocketed skyward just as the sound wave from the first roared over her. The sound was painful and just seemed to go on as the subsequent sound waves washed over her. Her olive skin flushed red with anger.

“ATTACK! ATTACK NOW, KILL THEM ALL!”

“My Lady, what of the plan?” asked Skofiv.

“FUCK THE PLAN!”

“But we are out of place, My Lady. They will have time to adjust if we don’t get to our positions!” Skofiv was desperate to break through Mahphion’s anger. Mahphion was having none of it. She seized the dagger from her heavily jeweled belt and turned on Sokiv in a fury.

NOOO, MY LADY!” wailed Skofiv.

Mahphion repeatedly plunged the dagger into the young woman’s chest until the dying girl fell from the throne platform of Monster. Mahphion threw the bloody dagger down. She seized the signal flags Skofiv had dropped, waved them over her head, and plunged them forcefully down. Nothing happened. Her Master of Riders and First Spears all stood still, stunned first by the explosions and then by Skofiv’s violent death. Mahphion stamped her foot in fury before screaming at her Master of Riders to attack.

The Master finally nodded and issued the order for all the battlewagons to attack in a full-frontal assault. The First Spears gathered their fighters and moved to their assigned eighteen-wheeled war carriers and boarded the trailers. These armored leviathans, in addition to transporting the bulk of the warband’s fighters, had gun platforms for light machine guns welded to the front of the trailers. They were still several miles away from the Mission, all of which would be open ground. Many of the fighters clutched fetishes or charms for protection. They were afraid—the omens were bad.


Despite the bruises to her shins and arms, and a black eye from banging up against her commander’s sight, Mary Catherine was euphoric. The heretics really had left only a small garrison to protect their fuelers. This had been overwhelmed when her tanks came roaring out of a cornfield close to where the fuel trucks had been parked. Mary Catherine had mowed down the startled crews with her machine gun while Gella pumped an HE round into the first tanker. The other three tanks had done likewise in a drive-by of fire and blood. The Scorpions had barely slowed down before pivoting back into the cornfield to begin their race back to the Mission.

Mary Catherine’s tank emerged on the other end of the cornfield, and she could see to her east a large dust cloud from multiple vehicles on the move. Slewing her turret around using the commander’s override, she brought both her and Gella’s sights to bear in the direction of the dust cloud.

“Gella, do you see anything?”

“I don’t . . . Wait, yes. There, at two thousand meters. I think I can hit it.”

“As fast as they are going?”

“With the Lord’s help and a good bit of my paying attention to Sister Colonel Angela’s gunnery lectures, yes.”

Mary Catherine chuckled at the reference to the armor school’s wizened master gunner.

“Acquired, ma’am.”

“FIRE!”

“ON THE WAY!”

The Scorpion bucked as the 76mm gun fired a high-explosive round that seemed to take an eternity to reach its target . . . and strike it just forward of its machine gun mount. The driver of the technical—whether killed, incapacitated, or just overcorrecting in panic—slew his wheel around, causing the ancient Toyota Hilux to violently roll over a half dozen times. Gella screamed out her joy as the truck disintegrated. It was now a race to see who was going to make it to the Mission first.


Mahphion didn’t wait to follow the charge of her battlewagons. She ordered Monster to lead the attack, followed by everyone else. In her anger and bloodlust she forgot about her mortars and rockets. The recoilless rifle crew fired their gun as fast as they could load it, though what they were shooting at was anyone’s guess. The same could be said about any of the battlewagons, for their fire seemed to be indiscriminate as well. Still, there was something to be said for the volume of fire as Catolics manning the outermost Mission walls fell to hits. Mahphion watched a battlewagon roll viciously as it was struck by a shell, but from where the shell came from wasn’t immediately apparent. Before she could give that much thought, though, she was slapped back. An explosion blossomed near Monster from a large-caliber shell striking one of her precious up-armored battlewagons.

“Faster! We must go faster!” she yelled down the speaking tube to her driver.

WHANG!

Fragments spat past Mahphion as a chunk of the armored hide was taken out of Monster. A shell had failed to explode on its thick armor. One splinter drove into her side, causing blood to well out of a gash. She painfully thrust a finger into the wound to assess how deep it was. Feeling no penetration through her muscle, she quickly decided to ignore the wound. One more scar for my people, she thought. This also seemed to cool some of her battle lust. She decided to first order her driver to slow the approach of Monster before she stepped forward to the armored gun tub housing the 106mm recoilless rifle.

“Idiots, aim for something! Don’t just fire wildly.”

Scanning the Mission, she finally caught sight of one of the Catolic tanks and was surprised by its appearance. It was small and the turret seemed to perch on the back end of the tank. It was mottled various shades of green that would probably have fit in better in a forest but stood out against the white adobe walls of the Mission.

“There! Shoot that thing!”

Her gun crew, seeing where she was pointing, carefully laid their gun on the target and the gunner squeezed his trigger. The HE round fired by the 106mm recoilless rifle wasn’t really meant for killing tanks, but it proved more than enough to slice through the thin armor of the Scorpion and the little tank blew apart as its ammo cooked off. The gun crew shouted for joy and Monster was finally at the outermost wall. The armored dozer blade on the front, viciously curved in the style of an old-fashioned snowplow, made easy work of pushing through the adobe wall. Once inside, her warriors within the fighting compartment could see targets. They, too, added to the din of fire with their rifles. Other battlewagons began exploiting holes in the wall or, in some cases, creating them to also come through into the outer compound. Everywhere was smoke and fire.


Mary Catherine’s tank didn’t bother to wait for the gate to open and slammed through the wooden doors, charging into the Mission’s outer yards. She could see hundreds of the enemy fighters swarming over the wall or disgorging from two of the big transport trucks. Fortunately, it appeared that the other six of those were all burning intensely, having drawn intense fire from her tankers. Gella fired an HE round into a nearby technical. It rolled to a stop and started to burn as its hatches all blew open. No one emerged from the flaming vehicle. Mary Catherine looked at the mass of fighters charging for the inner wall and loaded the one special canister round she had retained onboard her tank.

“Gella, sweep that infantry.” The command was hardly standard but then again, this situation was nowhere near a normal situation, having dissolved into a drunken brawl by desperate opponents.

The special canister shell was only effective out to three hundred meters on the little 76mm gun, but was more than enough for the mass they were firing into. The Scorpion rocked back as the shell travelled the short length of the barrel before coming apart. Scores of steel ball bearings blasted forward in a cone extending out in front of the tank. Windrows were created in the mass of fighters and dozens were bloodily mowed down. Nor was Mary Catherine’s the only tank to employ the rounds. The two pack howitzers, along with the two tanks that they had cross-loaded with the rest of the troop’s canister shells, had fired nearly simultaneously. The screams of the hideously wounded and dying heretics nearly overpowered the din of battle.

Nearly.


Mahphion and her gun crew were slapped backward by the pressure of the simultaneous blasts into the main yard. The damage to her warband was terrible, even for a group that regularly sacrificed hundreds to their gods. Tears of rage filled her eyes as she searched for the source of this fresh hell. She saw the field guns flanked by two of the small tanks as they clapped another round of shells into the outer yard. Several of her lightly skinned battlewagons were caught in those blasts and each came apart, as did one of the war carriers. She jerked the gunner away from the gun sight on the recoilless rifle and threw the man aside, in the process tearing her headdress off. She situated herself behind the gun’s sight and focused it on one of the pack howitzers, then squeezed the trigger. She cried out in victory as the pack howitzer leaped apart and the crew was scythed down by the fragments. Better still, the round they were handling exploded, sending scores of tungsten balls in all directions, mowing down the crew of the second gun and perforating the right tank. It began to smolder, and the crew of the tank bailed out, only to be cut down by gunfire from the fighting compartment of Monster.

Mahphion’s cry of victory was soon tempered by the appearance of the black-garbed Hospitaller infantry who followed in the wake of the destruction wrought by the canister rounds. Mortar bombs landed among her fighters who were around the outer wall. The Catolic infantry poured devastating fire into them. She squeezed the trigger of her gun again, firing a shell into a group of the Catolics who were moving a machine gun forward. The men were blown apart in a welter of gore.

Mahphion smiled.


Of the twelve tanks Mary Catherine had brought to this land, she had only four left—those that had joined her earlier mad dash. The Scorpions were good tanks for battles in open terrain, but by being forced into a defensive position they lost the advantage of speed, which was their surest armor.

“Nicolais, how do your Hospitallers fare?”

Despite the chaos of the battle swirling all around, Brother Nicolais still managed to sound calm in his reply. “We fare a bit better than your tanks, Mary Catherine.”

“Is there anything you can do to help with that? I am down to my tank and three others.”

“We will try to keep their attention, but I really need you to kill that monstrous technical on the far side of the courtyard.”

“Roger. Gella, can you get an angle on that thing?”

“I am sorry, ma’am. I am having a hard time drawing a bead on it. If we can get around the fired outbuildings, I should be able to engage it.”

Sister Candace’s tank blew apart not twenty meters to the right of Mary Catherine’s. She agonized at the loss of yet another crew she had known for years. She ordered Daphne to use the burning tank as a screen to move between it and a low stone barn just inside the west gate. Daphne gunned the tank and jinked it in a zigzag behind the burning vehicle, nestling the Scorpion into a position of relative cover. Gella slew the turret to the left, scanning for the monstrous technical. Acquiring it, she laid her gun on the large vehicle and depressed the trigger. The 76mm gun spat a single HESH round. It streaked across the courtyard and slammed into the fighting compartment of the giant vehicle.


The HESH round used the transfer of energy to stick its plastic explosive element to the side of whatever it hit before detonating. For the occupants of the fighting compartment inside Monster, the back lining of the armor was blown into them from spalling caused by the explosion. The occupants were the priests and priestesses of Mahphion’s entourage, and all were blown to very bloody scraps of meat. Additionally, the spalling sliced through the thin barrier separating the fighting compartment and the driver’s compartment, killing the occupant there.

Mahphion was thrown from the gunner’s seat and into the wall of the gun tub, along with the rest of the crew of the recoilless rifle. Smoke billowed from the hatches of the fighting compartment, and she could feel the engine die. Still . . . the gun was intact, and she unsteadily pulled herself back behind the gun sight. She scanned the grounds, looking for the source of the hit that killed her prized Monster, and found it. One of the little tanks was wedged between the stone barn and a burning compatriot. Mahphion smiled as she laid the gun onto the target. It turned to a fierce grin as she squeezed the trigger.

“DIE, CATOLIC!”

Nothing happened. She turned to her gun crew, who were standing around. All of them seemed shell-shocked.

“IDIOTS! LOAD ME!”

They jumped to do her bidding but as she turned back toward the target, she could see the stubby gun pointed directly at her.

The omens really had been so bad.

The stubby 76mm gun of Sister Captain Mary Catherine de Buenaventura’s tank blossomed flame.


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