Phoenix Feathers, Part II

Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Joss is Boss, and…and…and all these ideas floating around in my head are mostly his doing. So it’s really just a lesser version of something that he could do much better. And I personally wouldn’t have any complaints if he did…

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From his vantage point atop the Stallion’s Mule, Douglas Clarke looked out over the hustle and bustle of the Dyton City Bazaar. He was perched on one of the crates lashed onto the hovercraft’s hull, and had to keep a hand on the heavy-duty ropes to avoid being thrown off by the Mule’s sometimes erratic movements.

It wasn’t the Mule’s pilot that was the problem; Monty had flown the hovercraft during the War for Independence, often pushing it past its limits during maneuvers. Of the dozens of battlefield roles that the hovertank was called on to fill by the somewhat overburdened and outgunned Independent Armored Corps, one of the most common roles involved providing close support to infantry on the line. This meant that the IAC was almost constantly locking horns with the Alliance’s front-line battle tanks, and at the same time eluding the deadly tank-hunting Peregrine combat skiffs.

In bitter fighting across a dozen worlds, Monty and men like him had to invent new approaches to combating the Alliance’s armor. The IAC tankers could not afford to emulate the Alliance’s straightforward methods of warfare, their armored phalanxes battering the fragile Browncoat lines into the mud of their foxholes; the IAC pilots did not drive, they flew. As a seasoned veteran, Monty could put the aged hovercraft through its paces better than most. However, even he couldn’t stop the old tank from acting up occasionally.

The Mule ran over a depression in the dusty road and lurched forward, almost spilling the seasoned tracker from his seat. A few passerby looked up at the ramshackle group and tittered as the Mule yawed widely, almost shutting down several street vendors’ displays prematurely. Clarke heard the Captain soo