[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.""Second squad!" bellowed Sergeant Green."Fire from the west!""God Kings from inland!""Expedite this, Sergeant Green! First squad, concentrate on the God Kings!"Suddenly one of the second squad suits headed towards the shuttle began doingits death dance.As the suit tumbled it knocked aside others in the squad.They started to try to catch the suit, but it suddenly stopped and was still.As they began to open the suit, Mike snapped, "Do not pop his suit!In case some of you have never seen that, Private Laski is not recoverable.Sergeant Green?!" Mike opened fire on the approaching GodKings."Third squad!" Sergeant Green bellowed, by way of answer.Wiznowski suddenly bounded out of the shuttle and off to the west; Mike hadhardly noticed him fall back to it.The lighter and faster scout began firingat the approaching God Kings with an HVM launcher.He moved around the rooftop like a hyperactive flea.The fire of the four newGod Kings angled in on him as he ran, stopped, jumped and dodged to avoid it.From time to time he would stop just long enough to fire off a hypervelocitymissile."Wiz! Dammit, quit trying to be a hero!" Mike shouted, triggering anotherburst while bounding forward in support."Get your ass back here!""If you wanna dance, sir." the scout panted and was washed away by a GodKing HVM."Wizzz!" Mike screamed and leaped to his feet."Fuckers!" He reloaded and started running towards the God Kings."Michelle, evadepattern Gamma, maximum run, broken field automatic, execute!" Now all he hadto do was reload and fire and he slammed in magazine after magazine as heclosed on first four and then three and then two saucers.TheGod Kings' fire flailed around him uselessly as they closed the distance.The suit dodged in a random zigzag pattern as he maintained constant positivetraction through the suitboots, the occasional hit by a railgun round shedding like water.A hundredmeters out a laser briefly washed his suit, but with the exception of frying aset of sensors, it was not in contact long enough to do more than raise histemperature.He closed the final distance to the last God Kings at an oblique as theirsaucers slewed, trying to track the frenetically dodging combat suit.Like aweasel Mike leapt on the offside saucer and, taking the GodKing's head in his gauntlet while planting his boot on its shoulder, rippedthe sauroid head off clean.At that the other God King swung his saucer aroundto run but Mike flipped the palmate blade off his back and hurled it entirelythrough its thorax with all the rage in the world.Then he bounced over and whacked the other God King's head off.He steppeddown off the faltering saucer and collected both heads.Tossing them adistance away, he drew his pistol.A burst of fire into the energy pack of the nearest saucer devoured thevehicle in a shattering explosion.He rode out the explosion as if it were an epiphany, staring into the firelike a soul in hell.There was no danger; the suits could shrug off anyexplosion short of the sort of cataclysm that struck Qualtren.And even thenPage 167ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlthey could give it a run for its money.He next turned his scorched pistol on the far God King's vehicle, devouring itas well.Then he kicked the vehicles over one by one, pulling all the piecesof the God Kings he could find out of the wreckage.He made a pile, hopped up and down on it until it was flat, piled it back upand put an antimatter grenade in the resulting mass.He set the timer, stepped back and watched the last remnants of the two GodKings blown sky high.Then he picked up the nearest saucer and hammered it into the roof until theroof was massively holed and the saucer was junk.His rage sated, he picked upthe two heads by their crests and flew his suit back to the platoon.By the time he returned the other fire had slackened.Those had been the onlyGod Kings so far in contact and the normals were ineffective except inoverwhelming numbers.He thrust the fresh heads at the first trooper heencountered."Go put these on Sergeant Wiznowski's smear," Mike snarled.The paratrooperhurried to obey."I swear before all the gods," he said to himself, but Michelle faithfullybroadcast it, "that samadh will grow beyond all measure."He stared off toward the ocean, without thoughts, avoiding recent memories.Immured in his armor, he had killed soldiers under his command in numbersbeyond count, but every one of those was a mere electronic chimera.For thefirst time he had lost actual human beings, living breathing entities withwhom he had established a bond.The sudden intrusion of reality into his highly developed notional world ofbloodless combat was momentarily stupefying.He shuddered in his armor,conscious for perhaps the first time that these were not shadows on the wallof some electronic cave, but people who had hopes and dreams.These werepeople whose mothers carried them for nine long months, the trail of theirlives leading to a barren rooftop under a sun not their own.As the platoon consolidated and checked equipment, he stared off into thedistance in a moment snatched from eternity, infinite and finite.Unnoticed,one of the engineers connected new auto-grenade launchers and filled hismagazines.Finally Sergeant Green broke into his reverie."Sir?""Yes, Sergeant Green.""We're ready to move out.""Thank you." Duncan handed him a rifle.Mike checked the magazine then checkedthat his store was still in place.He noticed he was still staring off intothe distance.He was loath to move."Sir?""Yes, Sergeant Duncan.""We need to move out.""Yes, I suppose we do." He still hesitated.Something vital was missing, thedrive that usually carried him through the tough times.If they hit a toughspot without it, it might mean all their lives down the toilet.He huntedaround for it, but the house in his soul where it lived seemed to be empty.That particular mask was in hiding."Michelle," he said wearily, "download coordinates of all destruction points."Platoon, mission order." O'Neal's voice was an emotionless monotone.The teammight have been taking their commands from a non-AID computer."Consolidatedplatoon, second battalion three twenty-fifth infantry battalion will perform acovert insertion of the megascrapers Daltren, Arten, andArtal.The platoon will separate into designated two- and three-man teams.Each team has a series of points that they either will directly destroy or laycharges upon."Once all the charges are laid and all the primary points are destroyed, theunit will pull out of the buildings then destroy them." As he spoke thePage 168ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]