Romero urged Kate to hurry finishing her startup sequence. The Shrike was in range, and there was a fifty-fifty chance it would be Kate that the pilot selected as his first kill. Romero was relieved when he heard and felt the explosion of Becky Sue's death. He had a chance! Besides its very short-range attack zone, the other downside of the Shrike was that it took a while to recharge its weapons.

The nearly panicked cog laughed as Kate's turbines roared to life, lifting the damaged tank from the road. Romero didn't hesitate; he immediately accelerated away until Kate was redlined. She was hurt but still had plenty of life left in her.

Romero debated for a microsecond before deciding to turn away from the American forces in Pyongyang, streaking instead towards the ruins of the factory town he had just left. In the open fields between the industrial park and the suburbs of Pyongyang, the Shrike had the advantage. Back among the ruined buildings of the industrial complex, he had half a chance. Half a chance was better than none.

The Shrike made no effort to follow; instead, it rose upwards, disappearing from visual, cloaking itself in ECM and becoming invisible. Romero knew better than to falsely hope the pilot had headed off to hunt elsewhere. The Shrike would be following him from on high, waiting for its EMP and Lance to fully charge.

As Kate sped into the canyons of wrecked concrete buildings, Romero redirected her energy from the quench cannons to maximize Kate's anti-EMP shielding. Doing so would disable the main guns and drain her fuel cells faster than a coed doing shots of tequila, but he had no choice. He doubted the pilot would allow him a clear shot and one more burst of EMP might overwhelm the already damaged systems — new shielding or not.

It was clear; this wasn't a battle, it was a foxhunt and Romero was the fox. Sometimes the fox escapes, he thought with grim optimism though deep down he knew his chances were nearly non-existent. Romero looked for a place to run, to hide; anything to get rid of the horrible feeling that at any moment he would personally experience what one hundred million watts of light felt like as it vaporized human tissue and ceramite alloy armor.

Romero flew without direction, trying to be as random as he could until he could find something, anything, he could use to his advantage. His heart leaped into his throat when Kate's alarms sounded. The Shrike was dropping, fast. Too late, no place to run or hide, Romero played a desperate hand. He diverted all power to Kate's shields in anticipation of —

PAIN!

Romero screamed through grit teeth, spasming in pure agony as his wiring burned for a split second. Then, mercifully, his shielding kicked in again. Kate's protection held, and she withstood the burst — barely. Though his mind was rocked with fiery pain, he managed to drop Kate onto the ground, acting as if she had been shut down.

Romero waited and watched on visual channels, sweat running down his face as the Shrike dropped to lancing range. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the long glassteel tube that jutted out from the brick. It glowed with a most beautiful, intense blue light as it began to build up energy before firing. Romero grit back his fear and waited until the very last second then redirected all Kate's power to her thrusters.

The Berserker surged forward like a stuck pig. Behind her, the Laser Lance instantly burnt a perfect smoking hole deep into the ground where the tank had been a moment ago.

Romero had bought himself time with his trick, but he knew the pilot wouldn't be fooled a second time. This was no half-trained North Korean cog with last generation gear. There was no way the Chinese would sell a Shrike to the North Koreans — 'friendly neighbor' or not. No, this pilot was Chinese — elite and wired with the best tech. If Shrikes were here, China was no longer an 'interested party' but a main player. This punitive action was about to become an all-out war between superpowers.

Romero drove blindly, on the razor's edge of panic. Adrenalin coursed through his veins bringing with it heightened awareness and reflexes. He was nearing the far edge of the complex when he saw it — a river tunnel cut through a rocky hump of foothills that bordered the edge of the city. A plan formed. It would be a long shot — in fact, it was more than likely Romero would kill himself rather than the Shrike, but it was his only chance.

He scanned the skies, and sure enough, the Shrike was following. The brick-like VTOL was flying low, slow, and obvious — no more by-the-book tactics. The PRC pilot wanted the American tanker to know he was being hunted. Romero smiled, he was counting on it. He eased Kate sideways until she was lined up with the tunnel. The Shrike began to maneuver, seeking to interdict the fleeing hovertank — exactly as Romero gambled he would. Romero made his move. He urged the hovertank forward, accelerating so hard he was thrown back into his seat as if he had been catapulted. The huge tank shot forward, past the VTOL, streaking towards the wide black tunnel mouth.

Romero laughed like a maniac as the pilot fell for the ruse. The recharging VTOL went into stealth before it flew past overhead, seeking to cut off Romero on the far side of the tunnel. Romero heard the VTOL's jets on his audio pickups as the Shrike passed. Apparently, there was no PRC version of Master Sergeant Smithson either.

As soon as the Shrike had passed over the rise above the tunnel, Romero willed every last watt of Kate's power into her thrusters. The gaping maw of the river channel opening loomed, but instead of entering, at the very last second, he redirected all her power into her propulsion systems. Suddenly, her thrusters screamed and blasted the ground with full force, violently launching the tank upward. The speeding hovertank was vaulted high into the air towards the rocky ridgeline just above the tunnel archway.

Romero thought he had miscalculated as the sheer rock face the stone hill loomed. Then he was shaken hard, lurching so violently that his head smacked hard into the console and he was nearly disconnected. Kate bounced upward over the top of the rocks above the tunnel, sending a rockslide tumbling down as the straining thrusters knocked boulders loose. The hovertank hung crazily suspended above the tunnel at an angle that would have made the tank's design team cringe had they witnessed it. Dazed and bleeding from a gash across his forehead, Romero managed to switch the power back and forth quickly between the lift thrusters and steering repulsors. His desperate effort paid off, sending the abused hovertank bounding up and forward in zig-zagging spurts. He was dimly aware of mad cackling in the cockpit before realizing it was his own laughter.

Romero had jumped his hovertank onto the hill above the river tunnel — an impossible, crazy move that no sane pilot would ever contemplate. Not one of Kate's designers would have considered the maneuver possible. It was the thought of certain death that inspired Romero to even attempt it. There was no conceivable way the Chinese pilot could have anticipated Romero's move. Not in a million years of guessing.

The giddy cog looked at the wildly gyrating hula-girl, grinning madly at her. The Chinese pilot was in for a very rude surprise. If Romero's suspicion was correct, the Shrike was laying-in-wait on the opposite side of the tunnel for the Berserker's exit. Romero intended to ambush the ambusher by attacking from the slope above the tunnel mouth. He began to charge up his quench cannons as Kate bounced and slewed over the steep, rocky terrain.

"SHIT!" he swore aloud when a new alarm sounded. Kate's energy reserves were nearly drained. Not enough power to move and fire. He had used up almost all her power in that frantic death-defying leap. The cog's brain swirled chaotically as plans were quickly hatched and discarded. Finally, he selected another long shot tactic. He shut down the main guns in favor of movement. "Fuck it — no guts, no glory." He grinned as blood flowed down his face.

Surging across the rise, the tunnel exit approached. Romero expected the VTOL to be waiting but because it was cloaked there was no way he could pinpoint exactly where. He needed a visual or audio lock on it. Romero took a calculated guess, figuring where he would set-up if their roles had been reversed. Had he been religious, he might have prayed, but as it was, Romero simply steered the speeding tank towards where he hoped the Shrike was waiting to pounce.

Floating just outside and slightly above the tunnel mouth, the Shrike was lined up for an easy kill shot down the aqueduct.  Everything was almost exactly as he had hoped. Romero sent Kate flying over the edge of the cliff.  He was off target for ramming, but close enough for second option.  As the 70-ton tank soared through the air, scant meters past the hovering VTOL, Romero fired the flechette gun while howling, "Fuck youuu!"

The shocked Chinese pilot instinctively jerked his vehicle sharply away from the ludicrous attack, smashing the side of the VTOL into the tunnel arch. The Shrike's pilot struggled to avoid crashing. The unbalanced craft finally slammed down hard onto the tracks with a loud bang.

Kate sailed crazily forward in an arc for a hundred meters with the last of her momentum. Romero expended the last of Kate's energy on the thrusters in last ditch effort to soften the landing. The damaged tank slammed down hard, bounced out of the concrete channel, then skidded for a few dozen meters more, ripping up the ground in a screeching spray of sparks and smoke. Drained and dead, Kate came to rest against a heavily bunkered small building.

The flat, damaged building had had its roof shorn off during the bombing runs earlier that evening, but was otherwise intact. Its heavy walls still held strongly despite hundreds of gouges and missing chunks from the earlier bombing. The smoking hulk of the hovertank rested up against the side of the building at an odd angle, as if she'd been parked by a drunk driver. Given enough time, Kate would regenerate enough energy to move again, but it would be an hour at least. Romero had maybe a minute before the Shrike would be on him if he was lucky.

Romero unplugged himself and popped Kate's hatch, snatching the hula-girl in his bloodied fist before he crawled out of the vehicle. Blood poured from a gash on his forehead; he was dizzy, shaking with the aftereffects of his adrenalin rush. Time was running out; he had to get away.

There was a whining scream of powerful turbines behind him in the distance. The Chinese pilot had recovered. The Shrike was lifting upwards slowly in a cloud of dust and debris. It began to swing around towards the motionless wreck of the American tank. The VTOL would be within striking distance all too quickly. Romero sprinted towards a hole in the side of the building, hoping the reinforced walls had enough strength to shield him from the explosion of Kate's impending death as he ran.

That's when Romero saw them. A middle-aged Korean man was huddled inside the building, with a terrified teenage girl and a prepubescent boy clinging to him. It was immediately evident that the family had taken cover from the raids in the fortified office. Now, they were in danger of being destroyed along with the American tank and its pilot.

Something inside Romero twinged at the sight of the frightened villagers. Romero caught the look in the old man's eyes. They were wide with the horror and failure from the realization that instead of saving his family he had doomed them. Romero froze, unable to react. He owed them nothing. Innocents died in war. They were the enemy. Somehow, he couldn't justify leaving them to their fate.

"Fuck me," said Romero as he heard the VTOL approaching. He had to act and do so quickly, or they would all die when Kate was destroyed. Romero ran at the villagers, screaming at them, waving his arms, "Get the FUCK out of here NOW!" The girl shrieked in fear and bolted for the door; the old man followed to stop her from leaving, the boy stared at the American oddly then ran after his family. Romero followed them, chasing them out into the open, not stopping his raving until they were running for their lives away from the building, the incapacitated tank, and the crazy American.

Romero's internal audio sensors automatically dampened the sound of the Shrike's turbojets. He knew it was behind him and in range, yet he didn't turn around until he saw the family was away from the blast radius of Kate's impending demise. The boy turned just once as if to take one last look at the insane American tanker. Romero smiled waving at them, willing them to flee to safety, hoping the Chinese pilot could see the fleeing civilians and delay his victory for a moment. The family ducked into another building disappearing from view. Only then did Romero turn to face his death.

The Shrike hovered about fifty or so meters away. Romero inhaled deeply. Only had a few breaths remained in his life and he intended to enjoy them. He watched the Lance powering up. The length of the semi-transparent gun barrel was glowing with a steady, intense cobalt blue light. The beauty of it was mesmerizing.

Adrejan 'Wr8th' Romero decided that if he was going to die, he would do so with dignity. As he braced to meet eternity, he straightened and faced the unseen pilot squarely; his chin lifted high. Then the unexpected happened, the glow faded. The American watched with confused disbelief as the Lance powered down, turning dark. Romero stood still, dumbfounded by the unfolding events.

Romero forgot to breathe as the enemy VTOL rose up and disappeared into the starry blackness of the night sky. He stood there for a long time, in silence, watching the stars twinkle above, while the low growling thunder of the distant firefight in Pyongyang rumbled unceasingly.