One Good Soldier

singing to himself in a barely audible tone over his open tac-net tank channel. As his mecha's legs moved so fast they were a blur to the human eye, he pounded across the terrain, picking off targets with every bounce. 'Guns, guns, guns!' he shouted. 'And to build the nation's might, and the Army goes rolling along!'

'Guns, guns, guns, motherfucker!' Three shouted as he fired at a tank in the closing line. The enemy tanks from the rear were crossing the river faster than water pouring from a bursting dam.

Mason could see the tanks to the west going to bot mode to keep up with them, and the tanks to the north had beaten them. The enemy vehicles were in tank mode and firing DEG plasma bursts through the scattering AEMs and the six Army tanks. Mason pushed on as the railgun fire got thicker.

'Proud of all we have done, fighting till the battle's won, and the Army goes rolling along!' He'd found his voice, and let out a full-throated roar. Twice he leapt over AEMs so as not to squish them under his mechanized feet, and each time he went to his DEG or his auto-cannons to take on an incoming anti-tank missile or another tank. He locked onto two tanks with his lidar and QMs and went to anti-tank missiles.

'Fox three! Fox three!' The two missiles spiraled out through the air, leaving purple and white glowing ion trails in the twilight. The missiles crossed paths about seventy meters out and went in opposite directions into two different tanks. The tanks blew out at the turrets almost simultaneously. Then all the tankheads joined him.

'Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!'

'Fox three!'

'The Army's on its way . . .'

'Guns, guns, guns! Goddamn, I'm hit!'

'Count off the cadence loud and strong!'

'Take that, you Seppy assholes!'

'Warlord Seven is down, Colonel!'

'For where'er we go,'

They charged into the sea of enemy tanks.

'Shit! Three, watch your ass!'

'Guns, guns, guns! Five's hit!'

'You will always know . . .'

'Look out, One!'

Mason could see the AEMs bouncing just ahead of them . . . and ahead of the closing enemy line to the north. The marines were only meters from the mansion. The Army had done its job.

'Fox three!'

As they were engulfed by enemy tanks, the remaining Warboys' Warlords bellowed, '. . . that the Army goes rolling along!'

Chapter 27

July 1, 2394 AD

Ross 128, Arcadia

Friday, 3:45 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

'Break left, Goat! Climb, damnit, climb!' Lieutenant Colonel Caroline 'Deuce' Leeland yanked the HOTAS left and back and clamped her teeth down on her mouthpiece, thirsting for that shot of stims to hit her system. The compression layer of her armored g-suit crushed against her at over nine gravities. Her grunts, muscle squeezes, breathing techniques, and rapid cussing were barely enough to keep her from tunneling out. She stomped both right pedals and spun her mecha around with a one-hundred-and-twenty-degree yaw, and then she added some pitch and roll that let her track across the bowl at the remaining Gnat. Her radar tracking X went from green to yellow then to red, and a tone sounded in her mind and in the cockpit. 'Guns, guns, guns!'

The DEG locked on, and a wash of blue-green directed energy ablated armored hull plating off the right wing section of the enemy fighter that was on her eight o'clock. As the hull ablated away, plasma burst out of the fighter and then flashed bright as if it hit something that burned hotter. Then the beam cut into the power system and the enemy plane burst open into a million pieces along its trajectory. Deuce didn't have time, and she didn't really give a shit, to look if the pilot ejected or not.

'Warning, enemy targeting radar detected! Warning, enemy targeting radar detected!' The voice of her Bitchin' Betty rang through the cockpit.

'Deuce, we've got to