“Death, Gamma! Death! Fire all weapons! Advance, Gamma, advance! Follow me, Gamma! Follow me!” And all of Gamma suddenly appeared, up and moving forward, and the world shook to their firing.
“Beta-advance! Fire controlled xmax!” We followed Snow Leopard, and my armor rang with hits as soon as I stepped forward. I aimed the E high and fired auto xmax, and Sweety did the rest. I didn’t bother looking at the tacsit.
Sweety was still talking. “Enemy troopers ahead! I see six, marked, fire xmax now! Ignition! Enemy tacstars! Fire all weapons! Fall now!” The deck hit me in the face. A ringing in my head, but nothing hurt any more. A great roaring. Get up.
“Get up! Attack! Biogas ignition! No effect! Recommend stunstar to take enemy prisoners! Ignition! Fire xmax! Major antimat launching sequences continuing! I detect a major launching completed! Numerous deceptor launches! Airburst antis! Major enemy troop concentrations directly ahead! Enemy V, laser, nuke, tacs now on you! Fire all weapons! Psycho fire tacstars, fire! Ignition! Multiple attacks, fire and fall!”
I fired and fell, just as we had practiced a thousand times in Hell. Again a white-hot sun licked at my armor.
“Get up! Attack! Psycho, give me some stunstars! I want prisoners!” Snow Leopard walked into the firestorm just ahead. Every muscle in my body screamed in agony. Engulfed in flames, I found something in my way. A massive chunk of metal, hanging from the overhead by a thin strip. I kicked it away. I thought I saw Valkyrie walking past me, calmly firing her E from the hip, wreathed in flames. I immediately thought of Priestess, somewhere behind me. I raised my E and fired. I could not afford such thoughts.
Sleepwalking, I stepped over the smoking armor of another Systie soldier, his A-suit torn open by unimaginable forces. Several of them sprawled, pitted and dead, frozen in grotesque positions, flames licking all around them. Someone screamed. I thought for a moment it was me. A sharp, eerie whistling, all around me. Suddenly pure white smoke enveloped me, and the air sparkled like diamonds. Biogas! I held my breath, instinctively.
I almost stumbled over another A-suit. This one moved, and I was about to shoot when I realized it was Legion armor. Ironman had fallen to his knees, his left arm missing below the elbow, armor burnt and smoking, raising his other arm to me. His eyes appeared strangely calm and vulnerable. Blood spurted from the wound.
“Medic! Priestess, Thinker, on me! Ironman’s hit!” I tore open my medkit, ripped out a pressure dressing and forced it up past the jagged edges of Ironman’s armor and into the wound. His blood squirted all over my armor.
Priestess arrived in a frac, working on Ironman immediately. He slumped into unconsciousness. I cradled his helmet in my arms. I thought of when I had first met Ironman, in Providence, and of everything that had happened since then. He was just an innocent kid, a schoolboy who had somewhere taken a wrong turn and found himself on Atom’s Road, still full of wonder at it all. Ironman-our last link with innocence. Deadman, don’t let him die!
“I’ve done the wound,” Priestess said calmly. “The biogas, we’ve got to seal the suit, now. Help me with the sealant.”
We stuffed sealant into the jagged remains of the A-suit’s left arm, while lasers snapped all around us, drilling ragged lines into a nearby wall. I aimed my E with one hand and fired blindly on auto xmax. Ironman’s armor was badly scarred and pitted, but appeared to be functional. Shrapnel suddenly rained on us, pinging off our armor.
“Beta! Attack! We need more firepower!” Snow Leopard called out.
“Go, Thinker,” Priestess insisted. “We’ve got to leave him, I’ll mark it.”
“Will he be all right?”
“Yes. Go!”
Whatever used to be here was now unrecognizable. It had been a major Systie base, full of heavy equipment and starline containers, buried far underground, hidden in the heart of the exoseg complex, worlds within worlds, so deep and silent we had never even suspected its existence. Now it was smoking junk, still burning brightly, torn and vaporized and shredded and melting. Command would be hitting the base from above, and I did not see how we could survive.
A blue flash with white streaks of streaming debris lit up just ahead, followed closely by a sharp concussion wave. More shrapnel. I could barely see out my faceplate, it was so scarred. I moved forward into thick clouds of black smoke.
Sweety continued talking. “Enemy stunstar! Beta and Gamma ahead, engaging the enemy. Fire xmax, Thinker, I’ll guide it!”
A blinding flash up ahead, a tacstar. The shockwave, rocking me. I aimed high and fired a burst of xmax. Lasers flashed past me.
Suddenly a great roaring vibration echoed from above and a massive section of ceiling came down in awesome slow motion, low grade metal beams melting like icicles in the flames, carrying down the world from up above. A great glowing mass of equipment, ripping and tearing and popping.
It all fell in on us. Sweety squeaked a warning and Psycho, on my left, fired a tacstar right up there, fighting to the end, alarms shrieking, nowhere to go but stand there, head up, and face my death.
I raised my E and fired, full auto xmax, screaming.
Light. Heat, rushing through my veins. Whispers.
“Get up, Thinker! Get up!”
“Thinker! Answer me, Thinker!” Dreaming. Sweety’s voice. Priestess’s voice. Valkyrie’s voice.
My eyes flickered open. Light, glimmering. A dull roaring. Shadows. A face. Dark eyes, through a red faceplate. Priestess. Priestess! Kneeling over me, her black armor streaked with white scars and covered with dust. A confusing tangle of wreckage surrounded us. Lights flashed.
“Thinker! Speak to me!”
“Priestess…love you!” I reached up a hand and she collapsed onto me gasping, her eyes closed. We enjoyed the moment, faceplate to faceplate. I looked right into her face and I saw a child looking back, cheeks streaming with tears. Deadman, what were we doing out here, on the bad side of outside, beyond the edge, locked in a lunatic struggle for the future with an enemy who should not be here. I held her tightly. We would get through this, somehow, and then it would be Thinker and Priestess, forever.
“I’m so happy, Thinker!”
“We’ll be all right, Priestess. What’s the sit?” My entire body throbbed in agony, but Sweety told me I had no injuries. It’s not easy to hurt yourself in an A-suit.
“It’s a mess,” Priestess replied. “This whole section has collapsed. I thought I’d never find you. Get up, we’ve got to go! Everybody is here now. The Second and the Third and the Fourth. Central did airburst antis right over the base. It’s a miracle we’re still alive! The Systies launched all their ships to get away. I don’t know what happened. Get up, we’re still fighting!”
We crawled through a tangled maze of collapsed walls and ceilings, festooned with spitting, hissing power cables and twisted structural beams and shattered consoles and huge metal poles. We struggled past bombed-out aircars, heavy construction equipment, and burning crates of rations and supplies, riddled with holes. Thick billowing smoke rose and emergency lights glared and flickered, revealing bodies, smashed and crushed, in armor and out, pale and fragile and still. Weapons littered the wreckage.
Lasers snapped somewhere up ahead. What a mess! We crawled over a pile of wreckage and the collapsed ceiling scraped my helmet.
“Elektra, Farside, Gamma have this area secured,” Sweety told me. “Mopping up activity underway. The enemy successfully launched seven starships. They had evidently prepped for our arrival. Although all power systems were off, they were set to initiate launches as soon as they powered on.”
“Thinker, Snow Leopard! You with us yet? On me!”
“Snow Leopard, Thinker. Tenners!” I replied. We slid down a great pile of smoking rubble. To our right we could see up several levels through gaping holes in the floors. A pair of massive blast doors rose up even higher, sealed tight, burned black. It was quiet except for the fire, consuming this secret world.
“Priestess, how’s Ironman? Did we lose anyone?”
“Ironman is with Beta now. He’s stable. We called an evac but they’re still trying to get through. The place is an absolute mess. As far as I know, we’re all here. We thought they got Psycho, but you can’t kill Psycho, he’s laserproof, you know that.” She sounded tired, but thrilled to be alive.
