The panic that had driven Master Sergeant Sours was fading. In its place a sort of euphoria began to overcome him. While somewhere in the back of his mind this bothered him, the veteran Guardsman didn’t have any time to sort out his feelings. It took his full undivided attention to keep Tim from running over the paratroopers they were chasing. It wasn’t that Tim was evil. It was just that the young man, like Sours himself, was caught up by the excitement. “Idiot,” Sours yelled into the mike hanging in front of his face as he hung onto the edge of the tank commander’s cupola. “After they start running let ’em go. There’s no need to keep hounding them.”

Down below in the hull of the tank, Tim listened and grinned as he jerked the steering T one way then the other in a effort to throw up as much loose rock and dirt as he could. “Okay, Sarge,” he shouted back, ignoring his supervisor’s orders and taking off after a paratrooper who looked as if he were getting ready to fire his rifle at them.

Sours, too, saw the man and turned to watch him more closely just in case the paratrooper did anything uncalled for or foolish, like shoot at them. It wouldn’t do to allow things to get totally out of hand, Sours thought.

With his attention focused squarely on the lone paratrooper, Master Sergeant Sours almost missed the sudden flash of a missile being fired off to the right. Though he didn’t quite know what was happening, he instinctively snapped his head around. For a second he watched as an object trailing flame and spewing smoke came at him. Even before he fully understood what exactly he was looking at, Sours was shouting to his driver to start taking evasive maneuvers. “Cut right, Tim, NOW!”

Tim heard and understood the order. But he didn’t make the turn. The paratrooper they had been headed for had opted to flee rather than fight by making a flying leap, to the right, out from in front of the tank. Not knowing of the danger that Sours was seeking to avoid and fearing that a sharp right turn would crush the fleeing paratrooper, Tim held his course for a second longer than he should have.

Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car Sours watched the incoming missile. Other than execute some fancy maneuvers he had no idea what to do. “Tim,” the maintenance sergeant yelled. “Turn the damned tank. We have a …”