they blew apart. I kept my E on auto, following the nearest probes on my faceplate.
'Four down—more! Three, fire to the right!'
'Got him! Got him!'
'He's firing more!'
'Coming around—Valkyrie, get that one!' It was Boudicca's strident voice. 'Watch it! Lasers!'
'Scrapper, to your rear!'
'Tenners, got him!' There were two more behind us, coming around in Gamma's sector, firing lasers, snapping past us, hissing into the dirt.
'Easy…easy…fire!' Scrapper was talking to herself. The two probes winked off my faceplate. 'They're done for!' Scrapper sounded elated.
A sparkling flare shot up into the sky and exploded, shocking blue, stunningly beautiful. Then crimson and golden and phospho white and silver, filling the skies. Warhound was still with us, and our psybloc was going strong.
Flickering green lightning up ahead—tremendous explosions shook the earth, very close, two rolling white- green phospho fireballs.
'What's that?'
'That's the O.'
'Undefined power source, laser guidance, biotic field, human range, extremely dangerous!'
'Damn! That's new!'
'Psycho, blow those green bastards apart as soon as they appear—tacstars!'
'Tenners.' Psycho's chainlink shrieked, and the tacstars flashed and ripped over to the front, and a new field of white-hot nukes appeared, glowing, to mark our progress.
Psycho poured it on and the horizon erupted, flaming nuclear skies, and the green fireballs vanished immediately, swallowed up in the apocalypse.
'Advance.' Snow Leopard, as cold as ice.
The O was still on scope. Then the world exploded, drilling me right into the ground, a horrible grinding roar in my ears, a white-hot sun dazzling my eyes, a massive shock wave—I struggled to raise my head. My faceplate was white-hot. The sky burnt phospho green.
'Five!' Tacstars burst to life, a nuclear sky, right over my head. The O had hit us, direct hit, airburst, and Psycho was exploding tacstars right above us to disperse the biotic field. My body burned, the skin crawling, contracting, blood bursting from my nose, eyes going dim, my guts twisting inside me. Biotics—deto! We were dead!
'Advance! Get up, Badboy! Fire all weapons! Let's get that O!'
'We won't go on! It's crazy!' the Systie dip shouted. 'We can't help it! This is wrong! It's wrong! They're intelligent! It should…' Someone screamed. Lasers snapped all around me. A blinding green fireball erupted in the sky to my right. The O was playing with us. Psycho's chainlink came to life again, and white-hot tacstars exploded within the fireball, blowing it apart. I don't think anyone was listening to the dip.
The skeletal frames of burning buildings drifted in and out of the smoke. We were getting closer to the O. I could see. I could move. Blood was dripping down my chin. I advanced. The Systie soldier and the Mocain female were still with me, just to my left. The dip had disappeared.
'Gamma, are you still there?'
'Tenners, we're moving up.'
'Beta Two, report.'
'We're tenners—all here!'
'Rising energy levels from target—high mag levels! High rad levels!'
Lasers, brilliant red laser light, flashing, flickering over our heads, touching down, ten, twenty, thirty, countless glittering streams, snapping and crackling, darting all around us, and any one could end a life with a gentle touch.
A blood-curdling scream.
'Who's hit?'
'Heads down!'
'Fire! Fire! Let 'er rip!' I raised my E and fired auto xmax, and off to my right there was more firing, sheets of lovely xmax. To my left I saw Snow Leopard, alternating laser and auto xmax, and further left Psycho's chainlink snarled, and the earth cringed and shook, and all our fire was centered right on that one O. The O was still firing lasers, ruby red lasers, snapping all around me. I was in the ruins of a great factory building full of burning groundcars. Splintered glass ground under my boots and smoking cables and shot-up robot arms dangled loosely from the ceiling. I found a good spot by a fiercely burning groundcar and switched my E to canister. We were getting close, and it was time to try out our new toys.
'Rising mag levels!'
'Six, do it again!'
'Enemy launching aerial device!' There was a soundless flash up ahead, and something rocketed up into the glittering sky. Off to my right Warhound launched another psybloc, a sparkling trail shooting skywards. Warhound's fireworks and the O's device exploded at about the same time. Then a solid sheet of light from Psycho's skysweep lanced up to erupt, six, seven, eight, ten tacstars, golden flowers of the Legion, as scary and beautiful as angels of the Lord, and the sky was a great bowl of glowing light, flickering and flashing and throbbing with every color of the spectrum.
'Launch deceptors.' Snow Leopard was as calm as if it was all a training exercise.
I was terrified, huddled in my armor, icy sweat trickling over my skin. I switched to deceptors and fired on auto. The sky was a shrieking, frantic beast, full of raging metal, and the tacmap was all trash.
'Tenners, what's the O done?'
'Unidentified aerial devices approaching! Attention! Enemy launching energy spheres! Unidentified devices approaching from high altitude, energy spheres approaching from low altitude!'
Damn! I could see it on the scope now, spidery lines on the tacmap, lazily approaching us. This was the weapon that had decimated Gamma on Andrion 3. But there was something else as well, coming at us from above!
'Gamma Seven, Beta Four, Five, you all in position?'
'Seven ready!'
'Four ready!'
'Five all set!'
One wanted to go after the O, but something was whirling overhead, a strange buzzing noise that turned my flesh cold.
'Genetic energy weapon, low-mass, twenty-one separate strands approaching,' Sweety announced. 'Recommend auto stunstars and v-max to disperse these energy masses.'
My blood ran cold. This was something new, too. I stepped out from behind the flaming wreckage and brought my E up to my shoulder, switching to v-max.
'V-max, gang! Five, Gamma Seven, stunstars!' I could see them now, sparkling aerial strands of biotic death, falling gently down from the sky, slowly snapping and whirling in the breeze, floating towards us, living death, coiling and uncoiling like snakes, tails snapping, programmed to wrap around the appropriate genetic material and merge with it. We were the appropriate genetic material. I knew it could penetrate our A-suits and the result was an awful, hideous death. I fired at the nearest strand, auto v-max. It was taking hits from Merlin and Warhound to my right. It writhed blindly in the air, whirling wildly. The v-max appeared to be working—the strand was being blown apart, a shower of sparkling fragments.
Four stunstars burst over our heads almost simultaneously, a tremendous ragged quadruple boom, scattering the strands all over the sky. I fell to my knees.
It felt as if I had been hit by a speeding aircar.
'The spheres! Get the spheres, then do the O!'
'Who's the casualty?' Priestess asked.
'Look out! The snakes!' A glittering sheet of raw flame swept over my head.
'Use flame on the snakes! They burn like gas!' Dragon shouted. Streams of fire shot up from his position,
