Normally I would post this in the writing/story forum but...

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I wanted it a bit more visible so I could get a good critique. My second T2k short story:

...

The 35 tonne bulk of the M1A2 rolled across a rough, fallow field in Central Poland. From a distance, the tank looked like a figure-skater, gliding across the ice. Inside the vehicle, however, the crew's point of view was different. Five years of near-constant combat, few breaks for depot-level repairs and a general loosening of every nut, bolt, torsion bar and slip-gear made the inside of the Abrams rattle like a castanet. However, the worst was yet to come.

"GUNNER - TANK - FRONT LEFT - 11 O'CLOCK!" Lieutenant Murchison yelled over the high-pitched shriek of the alcohol-fueled turbine and the general racket of metal fittings shaking inside the armored turret. The yelling was no adrenaline fueled bravado - months ago a nearby tactical nuclear strike had damaged the tank's intercom system with a burst of electromagnetic interference, and the crew had no chance to repair the delicate electronics before things worsened on the broad front between NATO and the Warsaw Pact forces.

"TARGET! LOADER, SABOT!" Kelly called back to Czerwinski, the Polish national who rounded out the tank's fighting crew. Taylor, the driver, was isolated in the bow of the vehicle and very much in his own world. Twine ran into his compartment and was wrapped around each wrist - a long pull on either meant turn this way, sharp tugs on both meant stop, a long pull backward meant full reverse.

The clank of the breach closing after the round was loaded was heard over the roar of the tank's operation.

Meanwhile, the two Polish T55s had noticed their enemy and were swinging around to do battle. Like a scene from a medieval woodcut, the two tanks first raised, then lowered their main gun barrels like lances of old. But these "lances" weren't saluting their enemy: the guns' autoloaders required the cannons to shift thusly as their own armor-piercing rounds were locked into place.

The crew of the Abrams had distance, surprise and the M1's stabilizer, a computer that allowed the gun to fire somewhat accurately on the move, on their side. While the radio had been damaged, this critical piece of gear had survived well enough to do its job more or less unhindered. Still, a successful kill-shot required closer range, and the meters ticked by as the three tanks closed in.

"HOLD...HOLD...FIRE!" Murchison yelled.
"ON THE WAAAY!"
The Abrams bucked as the 120mm shell discharged, throwing off its guidance canister, the "Sabot", holding the 20mm dart of depleted uranium and tungsten snug in the barrel as soon as the round cleared the muzzle. The two kilometers between the tanks was ranged in a little more than a second, and the metal dart smashed through the thick armor of the Soviet-made vehicle. The enemy tank shuddered and blew itself to pieces. No-one leapt from the hatch of the wrecked vehicle as it lurched and burned.

The remaining T55 had fired its round. Taylor saw the incoming shot first - arcing over the rolling ground, moving too slow for a regular cannon shot. "MISSILE! MISSILE!" he called out. Murchison heard him, almost a moment too late. She threw the switch to blast out vision-obscuring smoke as Taylor reflexively jinked the massive vehicle to the right. There was a deafening clang as something caused the Abrams to lurch harder to the right; the tank skidded forward a few more meters and stopped.

"WHAT WAS THAT." Czerwinski yelled.

"SHUT UP. LOAD SABOT!" Kelly ordered. "SABOT OUT, LOADING HEAT!" Murchison took command of the situation before panic overtook her crew. "WAIT FOR IT. SWITCH TO THERMAL! ENGINE OFF!" Taylor flipped the vision mode on his main gun to thermal, but the image was black. The missile strike had knocked the amplified viewfinder out.

The inside of the Abrams was suddenly eerily quiet. Murchison held the control stick for the turret in override mode - Kelly was fighting to move the turret to track the enemy as they rode in to inspect their kill. She could still see through her hunter-killer sight and watched as the smoke dissipated and the T55 came frighteningly close.

"Come on, you son of a bitch. Come in and die," she whispered hoarsely as the enemy drew in. The heads-up range reading for the sight's rangefinder read 900m.

"FIIIIRE!" Murchison screamed. There was no call for on-the-way: the shot closed the range in less than a second, tearing the turret off of the T55. Crazily, the now unweaponed tank began to back up: at least someone inside the vehicle was still alive.

"Load HEAT!" Taylor called, but Czerwinski's reply was a simple "Rounds complete." The Abrams was out of main gun ammunition and now almost as harmless as the ruined T55 retreating away from them.

Murchison cranked her hatch open and looked at the smashed track, uncoiled like a dead snake next to her tank. She climbed over the hull and knelt next to her driver's main hatch, rapping on it until it opened. "Helluva way to run a war, eh boss?" the driver cracked a grin as he spoke. "You bet, Bob. Listen, draw a sidearm from the bustle, get on your bike and get back to the farm. See if that bunch of drunks from the 109th with the M88 are still there and if they are, offer 'em a couple of smoked hams and a fifth of whatever we don't have to put in the gas tank to come up here and get us rolling again."

"Aye aye, Cap'n!" Taylor clamored out and stepped across the turret's top to the cargo bustle, unlimbering an AK-74 and the BMX-style bicycle that had been "liberated" from the remains of a department store weeks before and now functioned as the team's reconnaissance vehicle.

We'll worry about main gun ammo tomorrow...Murchison thought.

...

I wrote this over at TheRPGSite as a hook to try and get another d00d over there interested in T2k, also to flex my creative muscle.

Yes, I know it's derivative of the Team Yankee chapter that covers the death of Bannon's Track '66. But if anyone has any mechanical or stylistic critiques of it, or even if you just like it or hate it, I'd love to hear.