Eager eyes scan the ice-covered Alaskan peninsula in search of the enemy as an eight wheeled Boxer armoured fighting vehicle patiently awaits a target. Knight-Captain Nicole Harriet was sat in the commanders' chair and surveyed the icy roads leading into her area. There were constant ice storms and the temperature never rose above minus forty degrees.
Her radio squawked and a stern male voice said, "Rodeo 6-1, Nicole, there's two trucks coming your way, over."
She said, "affirmative Control, I see them now, orders?"
"They aren't ours, take them out."
She turned away from her periscope and lowered herself to look into the coffee-brown eyes of Gunner Angelika Worozs. The young woman of Polish lineage was perhaps the most beautiful Nicole had ever seen.
She had a shapely figure that was only accentuated by the padded cold-weather body suit which hugged her hips and breasts. A pair of arched eyebrows looked down over sweeping eyelashes, her delicate ears were covered by bulky communication earphones which framed her button nose. A set of dazzling angel-white teeth gleamed as she placed a stick of gum in her mouth. The sight of her plump lips as she chewed sent throbs though Nicole's groin.
Worozs turned to look through her gun sights. To take her mind off the woman, Nicole checked through her periscope after glancing at her map.
The portage glacier stood as the last natural barricade to a Chinese-ghoul settlement that was West along the road in Portage. A large mine system that had been laboured by Chinese POWs before the war was survived by a communist ghoul city. When the Brotherhood of Steel had found them, they'd set up a perimeter. Something about using the place as a test site for a new kind of weapon.
The Brotherhood had established a field base and a port at Whittier, the issue had been the cold weather. Getting to Whittier had taken three months by sea, long shifts of keeping watch on the ice breaker BOS Big Daddy had been the bane of Nicole's life. Now she was freezing her tits off twelve miles from a decent meal and a real bed.
The splash of water came as the vehicles driver, another woman named Betty Green, relieved herself into an ammo canister.
"Two trucks," Angelika listed off, "coming east, range two miles. They're brandishing a white flag." She stated idly.
Through the mist two vehicles rumbled over the icy road, they rolled on caterpillar treads and had open personnel compartments. The urinating sound had stopped and a sniff came from the driving cavity.
The starter motor struggled to turn the engine over with several sputtering chugs, "need to warm 'er up!" Trooper Green shouted.
The boxer was an 8x8 armoured fighting vehicle with a long body and small two-person turret. The commander sat in the turret itself while the gunner would stand in the hull with their upper body and arms able to move around the main armament. The hull also held spare ammo, water, food and other essentials – and the driver, who sat just in front of the turret housing. The engine was mounted frontally and they had a small unoccupied troop bay, which had been converted into their sleeping space in the rear.
The sputtering sounded for the second time and the loud fusion engine roared to life, as Green revved the engine the lights flickered on and then off again outside the vehicle. Green turned the Boxer so its front was facing a few degrees to the side of the main road, the angle would increase the chance of a deflection should they get shot at with anti-vehicle weapons.
Nicole raised her radio, "Rodeo 6-1 here, they're displaying a white flag. RoE?"
Rules of Engagement were usually pretty straight forward; if it wasn't human: kill it. If it was human, and attacking you: kill it. Ghouls were formally human and the subjugation to radiation exposure had changed them. They were more like walking corpses, rotted flesh, moulting hair, sunken rheumy eyes. Usually classed as abominations for termination, sometimes exceptions were made.
Most ghouls were still able to hold a conversation, others turned feral – no one knew exactly why, their brains had finally decomposed and they reverted to an animal-like intelligence.
"RoE remain, 6-1. Neutralise the transports, leave no survivors."
Her mouth was pressed in a thin line, "roger that."
She clipped the radio against its charging station and slapped Worozs on the shoulder gently, "fire when ready."
The turret rotated a fraction as Worozs tracked the vehicles. She began tapping her foot, two beats and then one, the first round was a rangefinder. Nicole glanced through the periscope again to see the 50mm tracer lurch from the gun in an arc. It struck nearby the first vehicle which swerved a little but didn't slow down.
A figure in rags stood behind the cabin and displayed themselves fully, frantically waving a piece of white cloth. Worozs fired a burst of three rounds, the boom-boom-boom rattled the Boxer and it swayed gently on its suspension. Half a second later and another three round burst was fired, then another, and another. By the time the last round had been fired the first three hit their intended target.
The front of the truck burst apart into smoke and metal, it fishtailed hard and smashed into the one next to it – sending it hurting away. She could see people get thrown from the troop bay as the remaining projectiles landed around them. Kicking up snow and earth. It rolled over and skidded upside down for a dozen feet, before stopping.
The second was skimmed by a few of the final rounds that had travelled wide. The engine was hit and flames that were barely tempered by the freezing cold erupted from the cabin. Someone leapt out of the passenger door smoking and alight.
The cannon thumped again, five rounds and then four. Worozs had dragged the gun in a vague lead to sprinkle the rounds around and on top of the remaining transport. Chunks of debris were tossed upwards as the rear end became a twisted mess.
Nicole said, "hit the one on the left again."
The last trucks rear caterpillar treads had seized up and it grinded to a halt. Smoke bled from the little shell craters in the rocky ice and the jagged metal wounds on the trucks.
The turret rotated left a little and two more spurts of three rounds leapt downrange. The truck was inverted and Nicole could see a few figures running away from it into the Alaskan wastes. The little bursts peppered the ground and the vehicle, rocking it and sending more debris and smoke skyward. Whatever the fuel source was exploded into an orange fireball that rose several feet.
"Hold your fire," Nicole ordered and heard the gun safety click on.
She had two optics on the top of the turret which she could use independently as well as being able to see whatever the gunner was seeing. She had a heat imager and that painted the landscape a flickering fuzzy white colour. Heat appeared as black and there were clusters of it around the two disabled transports. The vehicles themselves bled heat in a wave while little specks of it existed from the impacts of the cannon fire and the dead bodies. Nicole watched for a few minutes and didn't see any movement, even in the ice fields around the road.
Humans wouldn't last too long, even well-fed and healthy humans in decent winter weather gear would freeze to death in negative forty very quickly. Ghouls were built different, hardier creatures that required little food, water or sleep. Nicole had heard tales of them surviving in conditions no human ever could.
She swiped the radio and brought it to her mouth, "Rodeo 6-1, count two vehicles destroyed along with their cargo. Survivors in the wastes, can't see anything on thermal, over." The radio squawked static.
The stern voice returned, "O.K Rodeo 6-1, there's a situation developing – standby."
Worozs turned, they were inches apart as Nicole leaned on her knees to stretch her back. She said, "a situation? Has command run out of ass wipe again?" Worozs smile gleamed briefly.
"Periscope!" Green said with alarm. "Am I imagining this?!"
Nicole and Worozs moved to glue their eyes to their optics. Figures in rags were moving about 100 feet from the Boxer, they moved low and kept to the dips alongside the road. They were too close to have come from the transports, which was worrying.
"I'm gonna stick a flare up," Nicole said as she reached behind her for the control panel.
A flare went out, the small mote of red light blossomed into a harsh brilliance. The ice fields nearby the Boxer held dozens of brown coated ghouls, they carried rifles with curved magazines and wore little caps with fur on the sides.
Automatically the engine revved several times as the transmission clunked into reverse. The chain-wrapped wheels skidded a bit as they struggled to grip. Green had acted before being given the order, Nicole had it primed on the tip of her tongue.
As she grasped the radio she said, "keep the creeps off us, Worozs!"
The cannon burped shellfire, sending the rag-wearing ghouls scattering. Three leapt onto the road with a long bazooka and were cut in half by 50mm rounds.
Nicole gripped the radio as the Boxer wobbled with an explosion, "Rodeo 6-1 to Control, we've got hostiles all around us. Infantry with small-arms, grenades and rocket launchers, please advise, over!"
Worozs was pouring out fire so continuously that it felt as though there were no pauses in-between bursts. There was a light support laser weapon mounted next to the main weapon, it fired belts of red, turning the ghouls that moved in the ice fields into seared meat.
The radio crackled as a bump in the road lifted her off her seat, "Rodeo 6-1, fall back to base – on the double!"
Nicole said, "copy, ETA five mikes. Out."
An electronic beep sounded as the gun had depleted its magazine, Worozs and Nicole seamlessly began reloading. Once the shells were in place Worozs started firing again. The vehicle shifted down as their driver backed them into a ditch to do a U-turn. Bullets cracked against the hull in this moment and an explosion sent vibrations through Nicole's chest.
"Sonofabitch!" Green yelled as the clutch grinded and the wheels struggled to gain any traction.
Another explosion rocked the Boxer as a direct hit was scored against the side. It had only been about five seconds with them being stationary, before the AFV launched from the divot to race back down the road. The turret wound to face backwards and Worozs let loose many bursts of cannon and laser fire.
After another ten seconds she stopped, "I've lost visual."
Portage Glacier sat at the back of a frozen lake, a road built by the mining company some three hundred years ago stretched over it and connected with the old Portage road. The Ghouls were boxed in at Portage while the Brotherhood had set up at Whittier. The weather acted as a decent enough shield for the human variety, but the ghouls seemed to have adapted to these sub-zero temperatures.
Outpost Whittier was more of a research station than anything else, the region was too cold for settling and they had been surprised to find such a large number of ghouls in one place. The mines provided shelter and they would have had water and power generation facilities, those old Chinese POWs had managed to survive in isolation since the war – and now they'd seen the Brotherhood Nicole guessed they saw their one chance of getting out of this frozen hell.
Green drove the 42-ton vehicle like a race car. Taking it down the narrow icy road at high speeds, one of the rear wheels dipped over the roadside causing the backend to fishtail a bit. Green handled it and drifted the armoured vehicle easily.
Up ahead the fortifications of Whittier Outpost could be seen, the terrain dipped and rose either side, the landscape existed like a frozen shockwave. Ice pillars and spikes creating this otherness about the area like something out of a science fiction novel.
The extreme Alaskan climate made the region a foreboding place to travel and a challenging place to live. The camp was built on top of the old town with new concrete structures acting as the barracks and storage facilities, surrounded by a reinforced defensive wall. The camps power grid was tied into the nuclear-powered icebreaker BOS Big Daddy, the ship had broken through the ice to make landfall, the ice had returned and trapped the ship.
There was no one to greet them as the Boxer skipped through the gate. The weather was too cold for manned positions - even power armour didn't function reliably in these extremes. Servos weakened, the hydraulic fluid on older models froze and magnetic actuators on newer suits all behaved incorrectly.
In these arctic temperatures any gasses become liquid, plastic becomes brittle, grease becomes thick, friction of rubber decreases, condensation of liquid in clothing dramatically increases and potable water becomes scarce.
Five concrete hangars sat in a line along the southern edge of the camp, some held recovery or ice clearing vehicles, troop transports or aviation trucks. One had the camps pair of specialised Vertibird tiltrotor aircraft, heavily modified for the harsh climate and near constant ice storms. The left-most hangar door had opened a crack to pour yellow light out onto the runway, the Boxer lurched sharply as Green whipped the vehicle inside.
Nicole was already lifting herself through the commanders hatch atop the turret as the Boxer skidded to a stop. The ridged concrete floor had been designed to add maximum grip to the troop carriers. A cold wind that painfully numbed her exposed skin rushed through the slowly closing hangar doors. Nicole ran to the back of the hangar, passing two more Boxers, one of which had its engine suspended on a hoist, up a set of stairs and into the control room.
She saluted once inside, fist over her heart. A trio of control officers glanced her way before returning to their monitors. The base security chief stepped up and returned the salute, holding out a steaming tin cup afterwards. She sniffed it. Tato soup. The fruit was said to be a cross between a tomato and a potato, it was mushy and gritty, but not unpleasant – Nicole liked them fried with salt and some meat.
"Ghouls are inbound, sir."
The security chief was actually Paladin-Captain Daniel Hotchkiss. The man had been on every continent in his fifty-year career, his experience in harsh environments netted him what he called his "final posting." When they were finished here, he expected retirement, something not many soldiers in the Brotherhood lived to see.
He was stocky with thick long arms and a small gut, but the man was still incredible fit. He'd been a combat instructor, a reconnaissance specialist, a circle of steel operative and a shock trooper. Now he was the security officer in charge of Camp Whittier.
He had this perpetual smirk at all times, although friendly and approachable, the smirk was a result of a stroke he'd had a few years ago. "Too many years in the suck," he'd told her and a few others.
His smirk lengthened, "I'm aware of that, Knight-Captain."
Nicole frowned, "you aren't concerned? We saw dozens of them on the Portage road. I'd bet they'll follow us home, sir."
He sipped from a cup of his own, "I'm counting on it."
Nicole rested the back of her hand on her hip, "you knew about the ghouls?"
He inhaled loudly, grass-green eyes looked down over a crooked nose, "I've had my suspicions. Base defences are up, the cold is affecting them but they should do the job. Spy sats's tracking a large force moving in from the east – I want you and Rodeo 6-2 and 6-4 holding the welcome mat."
There was a holographic table map in the middle of the room. It flickered as they stood by it. She could see the camp, the defensive walls showed active turrets. The bay was frozen solid with the icebreaker half a mile from the shore, makeshift bridges had been laid over the ice which was several feet thick.
Two groups of hostiles were approaching from the west. They were quite large; pre-war China used human wave tactics to win battles. Maybe they were going to try that here. She was about to ask something when the power cut out, red emergency lights flicked on after, as everyone looked around for an answer.
"Power," Hotchkiss said.
He dropped his soup and shouldered passed her and leapt down the stairs five at a time. Once she'd gotten down herself, he was already across the hangar, standing near the semi disassembled Boxer. Two mechanics and a bipedal droid were guiding the engine into the front end of the vehicle with haste. The big overhead lights were off, but flashlights and microfusion-powered lamps provided enough light.
A short man with skin as black as night had appeared next to Hotchkiss. Knight-Captain Edgar Gallows, his bloodline stretched way back – was a competent commander. He was quiet yet spoke his mind freely and did not shy away from violence.
"I want that armour out there right now, scribe," Hotchkiss said with authority.
"Sir!" One of the youthful mechanics replied. The engine was lowered into place and they began tightening connections and wiring up the electronics.
"No comns," Hotchkiss started, "until power is restored. Harriet, you're on patrol, take a look around the perimeter," Nicole turned for her Boxer, hearing the rest as she did.
"Gallows, you get repair duty. Take a droid and check the cable."
"Right away," Gallows voice was deep and carried far.
She found her crew outside of the Boxer, the rear hatch was down and a few crates had been stacked for resupply. Green was tightening the chain on the rear left wheel, she was thin with a saffron-tint to her complexion which made her short blonde hair stand out even further. Dark eyes flashed back at Nicole as she turned to look at her, she held an army green right-angle flashlight.
Angelika was sat on the hull with her legs wide and back arched. A cigarette was held in her hand and she took a look drag. Her eyes squinted as if it was the most pleasurable act in the world, the cherry glow lighting up her gorgeous features.
"Powers out," Nicole began to say.
"No shit?" Green said sardonically with her back to her.
"Hotchkiss wants us to patrol the camp while Gallows checks the power line."
"And what about Paul?" Angelika asked.
Knight-Sergeant Paul Atlas was a forty-something guy from South America. His talents included drinking, eating and slacking off. He was also the vehicle commander for the third Boxer.
"No idea, he's probably jerking off somewhere."
Nicole hadn't meant to let her frustration show, but she found Sergeant Atlas insufferable. He'd asked her out four times and wouldn't take no for an answer. He'd showed up to the officers' mess with food for them both, to her quarters with rice wine, to the gym in shorts far too tight and finally crammed himself into the turret of her Boxer one morning. That proximity combined with a long shift and a bad nights sleep had been the last straw and she'd chewed him out in front of both his and her crews. Everyone knew she was a lesbian, why could this guy not get that?
Worozs smirked as she tossed the cigarette, exhaling as she said, "definitely thinking about you."
"Get in the fucking tank, Worozs." Nicole snapped as she climbed up.
Worozs smiled slyly, her face mostly obscured in the dark of the hangar as she lowered herself through the turret hatch. Green had already vanished into the cockpit and fired up the fusion engine. Harsh white headlamps shone from the front and the sides.
Nicole got comfortable in her command seat after pulling the hatch down and sealing it. The troop bay hatch closed to seal the rear end and the Boxer lurched forward with a roar from the engine turbine. The hangar doors were powered by the reactor like everything else, a manual door control existed to the flank where two droids were slowly winding the mechanism. The left-most door slowly opened on unoiled gears. Glancing through her rear-view scope she could see Rodeo 6-4 under Gallows rumble to a stop behind her.
The doors opened enough for Green to squeeze them through and the vehicle skidded on icy concrete. Green steered them right and drove along the rows of hangars towards the entrance. There were soldiers in bulky arctic clothing armed with AER Laser Rifles and flashlights stalking out from the barracks and repurposed homes from the old town.
Short-range radios were still up, but base defences and long-range comms were down. The boxer had a loudspeaker and her voice boomed nosily as she said, "powers out, all personal prepare for imminent attack. This is not a drill, maintain defence pattern gamma."
Gamma was the code used for a "lights out" scenario. Operating in the dark without communications, food or water. Hotchkiss ensured the security teams were well-prepared for any worst-case scenarios. Including the improbable, like massive unidentified airborne creatures, a comparably equipped force, a much larger force, low on supplies, low on personnel, complete equipment failure and total mobilisation at a moment's notice.
Behind them Gallows turned the other way toward the ice shelf which fed onto the frozen sea, where he would drive over steel bridges towards the Icebreaker BOS Big Daddy and attempt to fix the power. Nicole didn't like it. First there was the man in the truck, his bearing was one of urgency as he waved the flag for surrender. She hadn't looked directly at him as his truck was ripped apart. Then dozens of ghouls that were supposed to have been holed up far from the checkpoint had materialised from thin air, now the base power was dark and the ghouls were coming for them.
"Green," Nicole said, "take us out of the camp, to the junction in the road."
The boxer revved and growled, and the vehicle picked up speed to bounce back thought the gate. Woroz had her eyes through her gunsights and hands on the cannon controls. Nicoles gaze was locked though her periscope, anticipating mass-ghouls to rush out of the icy tundra.
They hit the curve in the road outbound from the base, reeling around and then straight for the fork. The fork was more of a bulge and was used as a little staging area for vehicles heading to and from the base. Notably when the patrols or checkpoint vehicles were recalled. There were two other Boxer fighting vehicles out there, standing orders if comms were down was to stay at their posts, only returning when relieved or after a two-hour period. Paladin Sheffield was at checkpoint Gamma, and would likely be tearing around trying to make sense of the situation. He and the other vehicle could be coming in hot at any second.
They arrived at the bulge, "gun left," Nicole ordered. Green automatically parked them facing down the other road – which had degraded to an extent that it was unsuitable to travel in a Boxer. The cannon was pointed back where they'd come from, out in the wastes Nicole could see stuff moving under misty arctic winds.
The after-sounds of cannon fire reached them, as did several little blasts and thumps not absorbed by the arctic weather. She could see two Boxers, one on its side and the other further back – it was coming her way and at speed. Small trails of smoke had started to rise and she doubted they could have been there for more than a second.
"Green, get us out there now!"
The engine roared as the vehicle lurched into a sharp turn and into a dead run for the soldiers in trouble. Nicole checked her cut-down AER laser carbine, the cell was fresh, primed and hot. Once they arrived, she would leap to her brother's aide; not arctic cold nor hellfire would prevent her from her duty.
"When you get a clear shot; take it," Nicole said.
"Tak," Woroz breathed absently, that meant yes in Polish.
Not long after an several shots from the cannon were sent downrange. Nicole could see rag-wearing shapes flitting around in the icy wasteland. Occasionally obstructed by spikey formations and frozen mounds. The 50mm rounds exploded around the roadside. Black blasts from the air-burst munitions sent the ghouls running or tore them apart. Green span the Boxer into a small turn, ending the manoeuvre with the rear hatch coming down next to the flipped vehicle.
Nicole was down and out the back so fast you'd think she was infantry and not a tank commander. There were no hostiles nearby, yet gunfire and cannon bursts were still traded nearby. The drivers hatch was open and a laser side-arm was pointed out at her, she saw a familiar face and offered a thumbs up as his weapon was holstered. Knight Dillon came out, having to angle his broad shoulders to squeeze through. He turned to help the woman behind him.
Scribe Gally was their driver, she was short and blonde – and a few pounds too heavy for Nicoles taste, but that was by the by. Knight-Sergeant Faraday was next, his suit was blackened and his face wrapped in bandages. Smoke followed him out and bled from the skyward side of the vehicle, Faraday placed a stick of something into the slanted cannon barrel and entered the Boxer. She followed them into her vehicle as the other passed them, cannon and laser weapon putting out covering fire into the surrounding ice fields.
As the ramp sealed there was a loud bang. The weapon of the damaged vehicle had been destroyed so as to deny It to the enemy. She was shoving her way up and behind Woroz – an act she would usually relish if not for the situation – while Green had them away rocking acceleration. The turret faced backwards and Woroz fired off the occasional burst until they overshot the bulge and vanished around the corner.
After passing more slowly into Camp Whittier Green halted their Boxer alongside two others. She poked her head through the turret hatch to talk with Chief Hotchkiss and Paladin Sheffield.
"How are they?" Hotchkiss asked with genuine concern.
"Beat up and burned, but they'll live, sir." Nicole said.
Hotchkiss said, "Gallows hasn't reported in. I'll watch the gate, Nicole you drop off the kids and find him, Paladin Sheffield I want you to run a circuit," he dropped back into the turret before they could reply.
Nicole nodded at Sheffield as they both receded into their vehicles, "take us back to the hangar!" She shouted to Green.
The Boxer growled and raced forward after Sheffield's tank, she overtook him and whirled to have their rear-end facing the hangar. There were now troops stationed around the exterior, they would be freezing and struggling, but they could manage for now. The ramp dropped, Dillon, Gally and Faraday departed and they were underway again.
Nicole tried the short-range comms, "Harriet to Gallows, come in Gallows." The line crackled and something came back. A voice, barely distinguishable but there.
"If that's you Gallows, hold on! Green, punch it!" The Boxers rumble turned into a roar as Nicole was pressed against her headrest.
They skipped over icy ground, finally the wheels caught and crunched on the snow-covered ice shelf that stretched to the anchored ship. The two-meter power cable ran alongside them, where smoke rose approximately half way between her and the ship. They rattled and were shaken as the Boxer rocked on its suspension.
A storm front was approaching. Deep into the northern wilderness, where the temperature drops so perilously low that you freeze in mere seconds, huge icy cyclones build and release every few weeks. They hit the camp and tear away anything not battened down. Including anyone outside, they only tend to last a few hours – maybe a day at most. Nicole knew they needed to restore power and return to base ASAP, or they'd freeze to death.
Nicole said, "storms coming, ladies. Woroz you're clear to fire, Green you're on repair detail with me."
They both offered words of affirmation. The weather was making it difficult to see as they slowed near Gallows vehicle. It was standing next to a concrete substation that had been added around this section of the cable, the idea was to eventually pip more power from the ship into another settlement planned for construction next year. Smoke had just finished leaking from the underside of Gallows Boxer near the front, as several bodies lay around. They were twisted with large wounds from cannon fire or burned to ash. She didn't see any Brotherhood uniforms but it was hard to tell.
She tried the radio, "Rodeo 6-1 hailing Rodeo 6-2, anyone in there? Over."
There was a crackle of static, before Gallows calm voice said, "6-2 here. Engineers and my driver are inside, I'm just keeping watch."
"Understood. Is your Boxer okay?" She asked.
He grunted, "transmissions shot. We'll need a tow."
"Copy, out." Nicole said and stowed the radio. "Green, get us around to the front, we need to set up a tether to the other Boxer."
"On it, boss," Green breathed as their vehicle came to life and slowly looped around into position.
Nicole told Woroz to keep her eyes peeled while she and Green put on their cold weather headgear and unwieldy gloves. They exited via the ramp, firstly they checked all the bodies. Many of them were frozen to the ice sheet as snow began to build. The wind was strong and already was trying to rip her AER from her gloved hands.
She persevered. Nicole would have shouted but she knew it to be a fruitless effort. Instead she pointed harshly at the front of Gallows boxer and together she and Green had a look. Gren bent over and had a closer look at the damage to the front, looked like a HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) warhead had successfully penetrated the lower glacis that angled from the headlamps to underneath the belly. The hole was only an inch across and barely blackened, but Nicole knew HEAT warheads could be deceptively devastating.
HEAT warheads had an inverted cone of copper behind a hollow cavity in the nose of the projectile with a shaped charge behind that. When it hit the target the explosive detonated, the resulting pressure and heat turns the inverted cone of copper into a molten jet that can cut a hole clean through very thick armour. Although not typically useful in eliminating crew, they can easily disable a vehicle or detonate the ammunition.
The Boxer was designed to be survivable, so once through the front plates it had to get through the engine and then a pair of two-inch (5cm) plates before the drivers' compartment. Green rose quickly to scream in Nicoles ear, "its HEAT, vehicles toast, no point me looking we'll just have to tow it!"
Green moved back so they could make eye contact. Nicole gave a thumbs up and they stepped back to their vehicle. There was an internal tow cable just above the Loading ramp, Green lowered the ramp and got inside to activate the release mechanism. Together they tugged the tether and attached it to Gallows Boxer.
They both ducked as the gunner inside his vehicle put a burst of cannon-fire down at something. The rounds moved too fast for her to see where they landed, and the ice winds were too thick to see anything anyway.
She was pulled up, the two women moved quickly to the back of their Boxer, as they got in Nicole pulled down her face covering, "I'm going to check on the engineers, keep the engine running."
She recovered her face, picked up a portable heater and hit the ramp button as she left. She moved towards the building. The squat concrete structure had no windows and only one entrance that was sealed. She hit the intercom and it buzzed. She waited.
"What?" A heavily Spanish-tinged voice said.
"Let me in!" Nicole demanded.
"No way," they said, "what's the password?"
They have to be fucking with me, "There isn't a password. I'm Knight Sergeant Harriet, open, the, door!" She said sternly.
The little red light flickered to green and Nicole tried the handle. The moon-shaped lever went down with a crunch-hiss and the door slid inside the wall. The room was dark but Nicole could clearly see and short man with a little moustache in grease-stained overalls pointing a plasma pistol at her.
"¡Venga! Shut the damn door!" The man barked.
He had a darkly tanned face with sunken weary eyes and a mop of hair. The first thing she noticed were the three ghouls covered in plasma scarring that had been dragged to the far back wall. As Nicole sealed the door he returned to a terminal console. Two other men were around a big junction box, they were replacing wiring and damaged fuses and circuitry.
"How long?" She asked.
"Dios mio," the Spaniard muttered, "at least an hour." He pressed three keys at once and cursed in Spanish again as he roughly removed his gloves. He blew into his hands and rubbed them furiously. With knitted brow he continued typing.
She moved next to him, and realised she was a head taller. She started unpacking the heater, it was a case that unfolded into a fan. A fusion cell powered heated coils and the fan blew the hot air out. It probably wouldn't get the room too hot, but it was better than nothing. They had small lamps offering them smatterings of light.
"Okay," Nicole offered consolingly, "but hurry – there's a storm on the way. If you don't repair the power, we'll need to evacuate to the ship.
He only frowned deeper at her words, "we might have to anyway, I don't know what will happen and I can't guarantee anything."
Nicole tried her radio, "Green, its me," she started, "the repair guy says it could be an hour or more. Can you patch me through to Hotchkiss?"
"Shit, yeah one second," Green replied.