'Don't lose my Manlink, Dragon!' His Manlink! he's lost his leg, and he's worried about his Manlink. Only in the Legion!
'I have multiple tacstars, one level down,' Sweety reported. What the hell? We could feel them, the vibrations rumbling up through the deck. A fireball erupted down-corridor. Dragon had the Manlink on autoflame— everything down there was wreathed in burning gas. The heat lit up our A-suits.
'Deadman, the civilians…' We had barely had time to glance at them. The Systie tacstar had blown them to shreds. The corridor was littered with shattered, twitching bodies, the walls spattered with blood. Dead—all dead. The little girl was back with her mommy, at last.
'Move, troopers! Back to Export—now! Bring Psycho!' Priestess and I dragged Psycho along the deck as the others fired everything they had to cover us. There was nothing at all we could do for the civilians, not now.
###
The Systies had marked the door EXPORT. We weren't sure what it meant, but we were hoping it would lead to the Ship. Merlin had already opened it. We tumbled in, dragging Psycho behind us.
'Damn it! Take it easy!' he complained.
'Eleven, Twelve, Eight at the door,' Snow Leopard ordered. 'Keep their heads down.'
'Tenners!' It was another freezing metal room, coils of oily cenite twisting up the walls to a dark ceiling. Four bizarre chest-high solid metal structures rose from a slick wet floor. Tables, I thought, for the O's. There was another door at the far side of the room—PACKS ONLY, it read.
'All right, this is it. Get it open, Merlin.'
'I'm on it.' Merlin popped the panel, picking at the device with his techprobe. Our psybloc crackled away and my tacmod was still unreadable. Systies or O's could hit us at any time. Dragon fired another tacstar. The micronuke flashed white-hot in the corridor and the shock wave buffeted the room. That should slow them down!
'I have broken the Systie comnet,' Sweety announced. That was a good trick, considering the deceptors. She immediately fed us what she had caught.
'…can't hold downstairs!' a Systie said. 'How's your attack?'
A burst of static, then the response. '…outflanking them. We've got…' More static, an overwhelming roar.
'Fire down the other end, Dragon!' Snow Leopard shouted. 'They're outflanking us somehow!'
'I have multiple tacstars one level down,' Sweety said. 'The floor may soon collapse.' We could feel the blasts. A terrific battle was underway below us. Who the hell was down there? Dragon fired more tacstars—we were going to tear this place apart if we weren't careful. And we weren't.
'Opening!' Merlin announced. The inner door slid open. I crouched behind one of those massive circular metal slabs, my E and SG both pointed at the outer door. Twister was by my side and Priestess was tending to Psycho. Tara and Gildron sought cover behind another of the tables.
The outer doorway exploded, a titanic crash and a blinding flash. My faceplate went black, then lit up again. That massive metal table had caught the force of the blast so I was still upright and conscious when the Systie trooper stepped into the doorway, a terrifying vision wreathed in nuclear flame, clad in dull bronze-colored DefCorps armor, firing an SG on auto x. I fired my E on laser and caught him in the chest. The laser screeched and hissed on his armor, spitting sparks, and his arms twitched and the SG snapped down erratically and then Tara and Gildron and Snow Leopard and Merlin and Twister fired auto x, and the Systie went down like a metal doll, flashing with hits, tracers bursting away from him like fireworks.
'Clear the corridor!' Snow Leopard and Merlin and Twister and I charged the door, but skidded to a halt in the doorway when we realized that most of the corridor floor had collapsed—it was a flaming hole, with the dead Systie draped over the edge. The coiled cenite walls were pitted and smoking. I fired auto x down the corridor in one direction while Merlin and Twister took the other side. Laser bursts snapped past us and auto x exploded along the walls. We popped back into the room.
'A clear difference of opinion,' Merlin remarked. I could hardly believe he was so calm. Merlin normally couldn't test-fire his E without getting nervous.
'Seal the outer door, Merlin! Permanently! Priestess, the casualties!' Priestess was already on it. Valkyrie, Scrapper and Dragon lay on the floor, their armor smoking. They had been near the door when the tacstar hit.
'Life signs all right…Dragon all right. Valkyrie tenners. Scrapper is all right! I'm doing mags!' They were stirring, struggling to get off the floor. Thank the dead! The armor had saved them—the star had exploded outside the room, otherwise we'd all have fried.
'Outer door sealed!' It slid shut noisily as xmax popped outside. Merlin wrecked the controls with his laser.
'All right, in we go,' Snow Leopard said quietly. 'We've got to secure that ship before anyone else gets to it.' I had been trying to avoid looking at the inner door. It was open now, and it was glowing. It was bright in there— brilliant.
'Psycho, we've got to leave you here. I'm sorry, but we'll need the Manlink. Dragon, give him your E. Thinker, give him that SG.'
Psycho pulled himself up to a sitting position, leaning against one of those massive metal tables, facing the outer door, his bloody stump plastered with gel and sealant. He was flying on mags and I knew he didn't feel a thing. 'You go right ahead, guys,' he said, 'and don't you worry about your rear. Nobody's getting past me. You can bet your lives on that!'
'You got plenty of psybloc grenades?'
'I'm all set. Get out of here.'
Valkyrie and Scrapper and Dragon were on their feet, weaving. 'Deadman,' Dragon said. 'I'm still seeing double.'
'Let's go, Beta,' Snow Leopard said. 'On me. Psycho, we'll be back for you.' And he stepped into the inner doorway. We followed. I paused, for a last look at Psycho. I was going to miss the little creep.
'I expect to collect that hundred credits, Psycho,' I reminded him.
'Either way I win,' he replied. 'Now get outta my sight.'
###
We found ourselves in a brightly-lit corridor of mirrored, translucent glassy walls, frosted with ice, a road of glass under a high, shiny ceiling twice the height of a human. It led straight ahead. I could see movement behind the walls—it looked like water rushing over the glass. I swung the butt of my E at the wall and it bounced off. The air was freezing and frost was forming on my faceplate.
'Maintain attack interval!' We rushed forward blindly. Many Uldo civilians had trod this glassy road, I knew— those destined for EXPORT.
'I don't like this!' Our psybloc units were still flashing—we were now, truly, in the Land of the O's, and we could expect our hosts to appear at any moment.
'One, this may lead to the ship,' Valkyrie said, 'but the O's have to know we're here!'
'I know that, Eleven,' Snow Leopard said. 'Squad halt. Look alert! This is far enough. Dragon, the Manlink. Blow a hole in the wall—this side.' I skidded to a halt and raised my E. I made sure it was on canister x.
'How you doing, Twister?' I asked.
'Is it too late to ask for sick leave?'
'Just stay alert. Pop a mag.'
'I've been chewing them like candy!'
A tremendous bang, the air swirling, a hurricane of mirrored shards. Dragon had blown a hole in the corridor wall.
'Black Jade, Blue Gold!' The transmission came through on Legion combat freqs, cutting right through the deceptors. 'We've secured the ground floor! Systies are one level up! Repeat, we've secured…' A splattering roar overcame the transmission. Blue Gold! Those were the Legion troopers who had been tracking us. Their aircar had been destroyed, and we had walked away from their nova. A chill ran over my skin.
'Nobody answers them!' Snow Leopard snapped. 'Under no circumstances will anybody in this squad communicate with Blue Gold! Beta, on me!' He stepped out of the smoking hole in the wall. We followed.
And I held my breath when I saw where we were. Pale green light softly illuminated crystal walls behind colonnades of vertical tubes covered with glittering ice and wreathed with airy walkways. We were inside a huge
