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The next thing I knew I was floating overhead, looking directly down at my body. It was such an astounding sight that I was stunned and awestruck. I could see everything in excruciating detail and in total silence. I was lying on my chestplate down below in a sticky sea of mud, and my A-suit was riddled with hits—the armor on my left arm was smoking and glowing. My right hand was linked with Priestess's and she was on her back—her chestplate was twisted and punctured, white-hot, splattered with bubbling blood. Coolhand sprawled nearby, his A-suit riddled with hits. I could see every tiny speck of dirt, every splash of mud, every evil smoking scar on our armor. It was raining, and every raindrop that hit our cenite burst into steam. I couldn't quite understand how I could be down there while observing myself from overhead, but then it slowly dawned on me. I was hovering at the doorway to death's cold road, and I was only a soul, floating on the wind, balanced precariously between one dimension and the next. That clay down there—that had been me!
It was probably only a split instant of time that I was out of my body but in that brief frac I saw everything. It was truly astounding—it was almost like being a God. One glance and I saw it all, the entire battlefield winking and flashing with xmax and laser, an insane tacstar sky rolling overhead with nuclear clouds burning and throbbing like Armageddon, spitting phospho debris hissing down to explode in geysers of black mud. And then I heard it, a horrific rumble, the Thunder of the Gods.
I saw Psycho running like a rat, splashing through mud on hands and knees and feet, the chainlink dangling, streaking through smoking flaming buildings, scrambling and crawling through the rubble. Lasers and xmax followed him, and the buildings shuddered and came down around him as he ran. The sky was getting darker. It was raining, fat hot drops splattering in the mud. Psycho found an opening in a collapsed wall and snaked forward on his belly, the chainlink nosing slowly out ahead of him. Rain, hissing on hot metal. He was a tiny figure on my field of dreams, but I could even see the blood on his lips.
'Give me a target, you bitch. Give me just one target!' He whispered it. I heard every word. The sky was rotten with deceptors, and the tacmap was trash. But they were close—he'd spot them soon. Green trash, flickering on his faceplate. Three Legion A-suits, down and out—that was me! Xmax, exploding off to his left. They had left him behind—perfect!
'Give me that…'
'Target, Psycho! Fire!' The tacmod illuminated what it had seen in a flash, the source of the firing—a faint green blob, hidden in a collapsed building.
'This is for Warhound.' Psycho fired full auto tacstar, a rasping screech. He scrambled away immediately, cursing, back the way he had come, a rat on the run.
Less than a heartbeat—that's probably how long my soul was hovering there, but I could see everybody, I could hear them and feel them—all of Beta, and all at once. We were one, you see. It isn't surprising. I saw Valkyrie watch Five's building detonate a block away, a series of white phospho flashes and suddenly the nukes rose into the sky and the earth shook. She scrambled to her feet and ran through the shattered building where she had been hiding, up the fiery staircase to the second floor. She lay there for a moment quaking. No response. The entire building was burning. Most of the outside walls were gone, but the basic structure was intact. Valkyrie crawled through burning desks and chairs and d-screens spitting sparks. She slithered to the edge of the building and found a good position by a riddled masonry column. She slid her E ahead of her and guided the stock into her shoulder.
'Deadman, give me a kill,' she prayed. 'Show me a Systie.' The tacstars burnt on her faceplate, and she had a great view—almost as good as mine. All of the buildings around her had been hit. Groundcars burnt in the streets. It was raining, a black sky lit up by flashes of xmax and laser and deceptors and the lovely flaming flowers of nuclear hits, rising to the sky, the flowers of the Legion. Deadman, they were beautiful!
'Deadman, you bastard, give me a target, for Gamma!' She was crying and her flesh was ice cold.
'Beta, Beta…' the rest was lost in static.
'Eight, Five…' a long roar of static. '…move, but I can't…' hopeless static. No, there's no sense in trying for commo, Valkyrie, I thought. It's hopeless. Just kill Systies, and die. That's the mission, now. Kill, and die.
'Target!' her tacmod cried out, 'Marked!' There! A Systie, sprinting through an alley from one building to another, now hidden behind a massive pile of rubble. No matter.
'Auto xmax airburst,' she instructed the tacmod, 'right over his head.' She touched the trigger gently, lovingly. A long burst of auto x exploded right over the rubble. Then she was off, running frantically back through the gutted office, hurling herself face-first down the stairs, crashing down to the ground floor as the building exploded above her with a tremendous boom. She hit the ground hard, running, gasping, sweating, moaning—running for her life. And the xmax followed her as she ran.
I could see Dragon as well—he had also sought high ground, a burning apartment mod flaming like a torch, wreathed in black smoke. Dragon was on the fifth floor now, kicking in a smoking door, moving through a fierce fire. Bodies lay on the floor all around him, a whole family sprawled in sudden death, a man, a woman, three children, their flesh smouldering.
Dragon took a position by a shattered window and watched his tacmod. He was slowly zeroing the Systies— he had ID'd three positions already from the third floor. If only he could reactivate the squad!
'Beta, Gamma—Beta Eight. Respond! Respond!' He squatted in the flames. His armor was beginning to glow. The building might collapse at any time. I wanted to respond to him, but I couldn't.
'…got two Systies spotted…' the voice was interrupted by a massive burst of static. '…to try to take…' More static. '…goodbye, Eight. Good…' Static. It was Merlin, I realized. Beta Four, the tech, the lab rat, taking on the Systies alone. At that precise moment, Dragon's tacmod spotted another Systie in the whirling chaff from the deceptors.
'Target! Mark!'
'Confirm!' Dragon pulled away from the window. He had four Systies zeroed now. He moved quickly through the flames and out the apartment and along the glowing halls and down the smoking stairway. If he fired from the fifth floor, they would have him. I knew exactly what he was thinking. He could see it was hopeless to try and organize the squad. No, it was all up to him. He was going to go from one target to another until they were all dead, or he was. As he walked carefully down the smoking stairs he set his E to canister. I was suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow for Dragon. Death was here, to claim us all…Dragon's old companion, Death, stalking him still, tracking him all the way to Mongera. Death ultimately embraced all his comrades. He had told me about his curse—some evil crone had branded him for life. 'Death will be your shadow!' she had said. 'You will bring Death with you like a plague, and everyone you love will die!' He had shot her in the face, but it had all come true —and now he could add Beta and Gamma to the list. It didn't matter, I thought. I was confident Dragon would kill our Systies. All that was important at that moment was to kill Systies. And Dragon was a first-class killer.
I saw Merlin as well. Thinking back on it, I guess all this was instantaneous. But I still remember every last detail. Merlin was almost frozen with terror—I could tell that much—but he was forcing himself on, crawling through the mud like a worm. It was raining heavily and his faceplate was splattered with mud. He was shaking and crying. He must have known he was going to die, he could surely taste it, but he was not whimpering in a hole. He was crawling forward, seeking death like a moth hurling itself into a naked flame. The Systie was right up ahead—Merlin had zeroed him, and Merlin knew the Systie could not spot him through the crumbled wall of rubble that lay between them. All he needed now was a clear shot. Beta Four, the Wiz, Merlin, our own lab rat. He was stalking the Systie like a jungle animal. Boudicca had been right all along, I thought—never trust a Systie! They had waited until the O was dead, and then they had struck. It was treason against humanity. That O was drenched in the blood of the Legion, and the System wanted to steal it away. Beta was gone, sacrificed so that others might live. Merlin was terrified, but he was not going to let the System get away with this.
There—the Systie was in sight. A Systie A-suit, half buried in a pile of rubble behind an SG, wreathed in smoke and ashes as the rain poured down on the fires. Merlin pushed his E out ahead of him and slid the stock into his shoulder. The biobloc fieldfaxer was no good against Systies; he had lasered the weapon and left it smoking in the mud.
The Systie moved—Merlin switched to xmax auto and the laser sight lit up the target. Raindrops danced on his faceplate. Life was so sweet. Merlin must have been insane to join the Legion. He surely did not want to die, but Beta was dying, and he was Beta Four. I watched him gently squeeze the trigger.
It was pouring now, black clouds scudding close overhead, lashing the burning city, a smoking moonscape. I sensed that my soul was fading—something was happening. But there was Millina! She lay in a widening puddle of
