Gears of War -Aspho Fields

it was almost above them, green-lit and filling the sky. Benjafield pushed the throttle as far forward as he could and tried to steer clear.

“It’s okay,” Dom said, for no apparent reason. “It’s going to be okay.”

The bright spotlight stabbed through the darkness and circled on the waves as if searching.

Yes, we got the bots away, assholes.

Hoffman wondered what they’d do with the seconds they’d bought. “Cho? Cho, get away, run for it.”

There’s more than one Khimera. It’s just a gesture. But it’s still better than sitting here and making it simple for them.

The beam fell straight down on the Marlin; spray kicked up everywhere. Hoffman couldn’t hear a thing now except the throbbing engine shaking right above him. He leaned back and aimed his Lancer anyway, because even a Khimera had vulnerabilities at that range.

Sorry, Dom, what with the new baby and everything.

Across the water, closer than Hoffman had thought, the other Marlin was caught in the sweep of a light too. The pilot was looking for something. He didn’t need a searchlight to aim. Then gunfire hit the sea, carving across the space between the two Marlins. Cho’s boat was hit.

Hoffman saw the explosion of splintering composite, but the Marlin was still afloat.

“You bastards,” Dom was yelling. He opened fire, aiming up into the belly of the nearest Khimera. “You bastards, they’re your own fucking civvies!”

But that was the whole point. Hoffman saw that now.

And there I was worrying about whether it was moral to shoot enemy scientists or not.

Die moral. Big comfort…

Dom emptied the clip and reloaded. Hoffman and Timiou joined him. The searchlight veered off sharply. Hoffman heard the engine stutter, and then he could smell fuel. He felt something oily and pungent spray his face.

Fuel. Transmission fluid. Whatever. Flammable.

“Shit, we’re going to burn to death at frigging sea,” Dom said.

Timiou kept firing in bursts. “We hit the asshole.”

Hoffman saw the Khimera was circling, getting lower, and then it belly flopped onto the sea a hundred meters away in a text-book ditch. All he could think of doing was firing on it, reloading, and firing again. The side hatch was open. If his boys were going to drown, then so was the Khimera crew, and the fellowship of survival could go ram itself up the nearest pipe.