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ERIC NYLUNO
113
Hunter must have made up its mind—come to find them and
stomp them into the ground.
"Move," Fred whispered.
They crossed the field, quickly and silently, and the Grunts
never saw them. Fred and Kelly reached the smooth-surfaced
Wraith tanks. He gave Kelly a go signal, and she sprang into
the nearest open hatch. A moment later Fred inched ahead to the
next tank and eased inside.
He sealed the hatch behind him.
This was one of the most desperate and stupid decisions he
had ever made. How were they going to take on an entire Cove-
nant invasion force with a pair of tanks—especially tanks they
hadn't a clue how to operate?
"Red-One," Kelly said over the COM. "Ready when you are."
Fred examined the dim interior. Directly ahead was a seat,
constructed with the same mottled purple metal as the Banshees.
Fred settled his bulk onto it. It was too high; he had to stand in a
half crouch. Holographic control surfaces and displays sprang
into the air before him and showed a 360-degree view.
Through the armored shell he felt the rumble and roar of
Kelly's tank starting.
Fred didn't understand any of the symbols, yet something
seemed familiar about them. Some of the controls were similar
to the Banshee, but nothing was an exact match. He relaxed as
best he could given the situation, and his hands drifted over the
controls. He tapped a symbol that could have been Aztec iconog-
raphy, a tangle of spaghetti, or a crisscross of bird tracks.
His tank coughed and rumbled and rose a meter off the
ground.
Fred frowned. He'd been damned lucky to get it right the first
time. That was more than luck—-just as it was more than luck
that he knew that the controls under his left hand moved the
tank, the ones under his right aligned the mortar on target, and
the one in the center armed and fired the main battery. But Fred
wasn't going to examine how he knew this. He'd just use this cu-
rious development to his advantage.
"Ready here," he told Kelly. "Let's take out the motor pool."
"Affirmative," she said, trying to conceal the faint trace of an-
ticipation in her voice.