into the sky, rivaling the morning sun.
“Dead-man!” The firing slowed momentarily. A Legion aircar shot overhead. Another settled in a cloud of red smoke next to the wreckage of Beta Air. Priestess was all right and working on Coolhand, she had his comtop off. I found I could move. Merlin was on his knees, fumbling with his E. I didn’t see Warhound, Dragon, or Valkyrie.
Systie xmax rounds spattered the wreckage around us! The op star had exploded right among the Systie commandos, but it had not taken them all out. We stayed low.
“Thinker, have you seen Psycho?” Snow Leopard paused briefly with his E at his shoulder, wreathed in snow.
I gestured, “He was over there when the strafing hit. I haven’t heard from him since.” I could not imagine anyone surviving that laser rain.
“Somebody! Help me out here!” Boudicca called out. I scrambled onto the wreckage, my body shooting jagged barbs of pain into my brain in protest. A squad of Legion troopers moved past us, CAT 21, ghostly A-suits advancing into the hovering nuclear cloud, snapping off random bursts on laser. I spotted Boudicca’s fluttering hands and hauled her up out of a twisted escape hatchway. Valkyrie emerged behind her, pale and shaken, a bruise on her forehead, her lower lip bleeding. But still alive! I grasped her hands and she rushed into my arms and held on with a death grip.
She still wore the priest’s robe and was deathly pale. Laser bursts flickered a few mikes over our heads. I caught a glimpse of Redhawk crawling out of a tangle of twisted metal with Scrapper.
“Down, down!” A red smoker burst brilliantly right in front of us. Sassin rose up out of the mists, a dark vision, still clutching his Manlink.
Another figure emerged from behind him. “Valkyrie! Welcome back! Are you all right?” Lowdrop himself greeted us in a litesuit and comtop, E in one hand. Someone else stood beside him, and then I got a sudden glimpse of her face through the faceplate-pale weary child, limp golden hair. Gravelight! Why in Deadman’s name would they expose her to this idiotic shoot-out?
Valkyrie pulled away from me and struggled to compose herself. “I’m all right,” Valkyrie replied bravely, rubbing blood from her mouth. Light snow settled on her hair. “I’ve lost my handgun. Has anyone got an E?”
“All units evac! Immediate evac, please.” A booming all-channels maxburst, from Downside Ops.
Lowdrop replied. “Tell Opscon we’re on the way! Recovering casualties, we’re on the way!”
“Valkyrie!” Gravelight exclaimed. She seized Valkyrie by the arm. “Your captors…was there a Mocain girl called Millina?”
Valkyrie’s face darkened, and her mouth tightened. “Yes, I killed that bitch sub! Why?”
Gravelight shrank back, stunned, then frantically grabbed Valkyrie’s arm, “No! You killed her? Where? When? Where is she?”
Valkyrie tore away from Gravelight’s grasp. “She’s in Hell! Where she belongs!”
“Where is she? NOW, trooper!” Lowdrop erupted, his eyes flashing. The fellow was certainly touchy.
I intervened before Valkyrie did something unforgivable to a superior officer. “Right over there, Sir.” I pointed out the burning, smoking building from which we had just escaped. Flames shot through the hole we had made in the roof, and licked out the windows. “Second floor. We came out through the roof.”
Lowdrop bared his teeth, “You didn’t bring her?”
I blinked. “No, sir, we didn’t bring her!” I tried to hold my temper in check. “I guess we were more worried about Valkyrie and our own troops than some Mocain sub.” How do people like him get promoted?
He whirled away and pounded his fist on an already dented aircar bulkhead. “Damn!”
Gravelight rushed toward Lowdrop, tripped over something, recovered slightly and seized his arm. “We’ve got to get her,” she pleaded. “She may still be alive!”
“What’s the problem, Sir?” Snow Leopard and Boudicca joined us. A fighter barreled right over us, firing chainlink tacstars. Red smoke swirled madly around us, and pink snow fell softly from the sky. Lasers snapped nearby, a flickering cold terror in my guts.
Lowdrop looked at Gravelight, nodded and turned to us. “Beta, Gamma, we will recover this Mocain woman…Millina…immediately.” He had made up his mind.
I think we all had the same reaction: stunned disbelief. Boudicca bristled and Snow Leopard grabbed her just in time, holding her back. She spoke up anyway, “Oh, great!” she exclaimed. “Yes, Sir! That’s a terrific idea! She’s in that hellhole over there with her throat cut. Are you coming?”
Veins popped out on his temples and for a moment I was certain Lowdrop was going to shoot her. He pursed his lips and barked, “Yes, Trooper, I’m coming! Into my aircar. Now!” He turned and ran toward his aircar with Gravelight in tow and shouted over his shoulder, “We need a medic!”
Snow Leopard took Boudicca by the elbow and held her in place. “Priestess, Thinker, Merlin, Sassin, you’re with me!” We dashed after Lowdrop and leapt aboard. One of the CAT 21 troopers hustled Valkyrie away. She struggled a bit but her heart wasn’t in it. The assault doors slammed shut and we lurched away from the crash site.
The skin of the aircar rang with hits, and I wondered briefly why we had to risk our necks for a Mocain.
We hovered over the building in a rush of flame and smoke shooting up from the hole in the roof. Xmax and lasers popped and screeched against the armor. The assault doors snapped open and the cabin filled with a great gust of black smoke and sparks, and the hole in the roof slid back and forth dizzily beneath us. A second Legion aircar darted up above us and began strafing the Systie troops with tacstars and lasers.
“Jump!” We jumped right into the inferno, our E’s strapped to our chests. Lowdrop went first, followed by Snow Leopard and Boudicca. I landed on a burning ceiling beam and it snapped and dropped me right down onto the burning table that Valkyrie had pulled out into the corridor. I rolled off to the floor and raised my E. For a moment, it felt like I’d broken several ribs, and maybe a leg or two as well, but I was still moving so I concluded I was all right. The corridor was ablaze, the ceiling burning brightly. I suddenly realized that I did not even have on a liteshirt. My Legion coldcoat smoked, and my naked hands were blistering.
Boudicca and I led the way down the corridor, with Lowdrop and Gravelight and Snow Leopard and Priestess and Merlin and Sassin right behind us.
The open doorway glowed, flames crackled up the walls, the room full of smoke. A figure crumpled on the floor, Millina, as still as death.
“Priestess!” Boudicca called out. Priestess appeared immediately, bending over the body. It lay on a pile of smoking, blood-soaked blankets, wrists and ankles still tied behind her. Gravelight was on her quickly, a psychic parasite, hovering mils from Millina’s face as Priestess frantically tried to repair the massive damage done to her throat. I caught a glimpse of the Mocain’s face, dead white, drained of life. Dead for sure. Priestess hit her with a biotic charger. Sassin and Merlin stood guard in the corridor. The firing outside increased.
“Opscon to Downside. Recall! Recall! All units evac Coldmark. Immediate recall, all units evac. All units off- planet. Repeat, recall, all units return topside now!”
“God, she’s still with us!” Gravelight spoke, her voice charged with wonder. “Bring her back, Priestess!”
“I’ve got a faint heartbeat. She’s alive. She used the blankets to stop the bleeding.” Priestess had done a quick flesh patch on the horrible slash along the Mocain’s throat. Now she slipped a biopack into the charger and it immediately began pumping life into Millina’s cold, still body. I knew how it worked. It was the blood of the Legion, our own blood, cooked up by our own unholy lifies.
I don’t think we even heard the recall order. To us, it was just background noise. We were busy.
Boudicca commented absently, “Your jacket’s on fire, Thinker.”
“Can you put it out, please?”
Merlin called out a warning, “Systies on the roof!” A deafening explosion rocked the building.
I charged out the door into the corridor with Boudicca, Snow Leopard and Lowdrop.
“Systies in armor!” Sassin, Gamma Seven, informed us, “coming in through the roof!” He backed towards us from our left, and fired a deceptor into the smoke.
“Defend the exit!” Lowdrop called out. “Priestess…” Merlin appeared on our right, also backing up, and even as we spotted him, he opened up with a laser burst.
“Systies! They’re here!” A wild tracery of laser bursts flickered all around us, screeching into the stone walls, raising dust. We dropped and fired back, xmax and lasers. Suddenly, I saw the Systie troopers in my darksight, huge armored beetles bristling with antennae and weapons, walking right at us, flames licking all around them. Sassin fired a tacstar.
