"Mike," said a puzzled Wiznowski on a side frequency, "what's that?"
In the east, towards the distant line of human resistance, a fireworks display had suddenly erupted. "Michelle, enhance."
Lines of fire were blasting upward from the break between two buildings. Hypervelocity missiles and other kinetic energy weapons along with lasers and lines of plasma reached up to the heavens. Suddenly the broken body of a combat shuttle, gloriously aflame, burst into sight above the intervening buildings. It was followed by six more, one twisting off, crippled, just as the shuttles reached the dubious safety of the air over the megascrapers. One crested too high and a plasma bolt that would do credit to a space cruiser slapped it out of the air. The fire penetrated its antimatter containment field and it exploded with the sun-bright flash of nuclear detonation, destroying the upper portions of the buildings to either side and forcing one of the other shuttles off course into a roof.
The platoon's visual sensors automatically screened the optical overload. "Damn! There goes half our ammunition," cursed Sergeant Green as the debris of the buildings crashed down all around.
"More likely a third," contradicted Mike just as a half dozen Posleen God Kings in their saucer-shaped craft swooped upwards in pursuit of the shuttles. His mind slipped into razor sharp fugue, every detail diamond clear. "Platoon, down! Activate deception systems!"
As the suit careted the Posleen, Mike's pistol locked onto them automatically. The God Kings were concentrating on the undefended shuttles and Mike's first silvery burst swept two of them out of the sky from three kilometers away, one of the vehicles disappearing in actinic fire as the relativistic teardrops searched out its power supply. He hopped sideways and dropped as the remaining vehicles' targeting systems slewed the God Kings' weapons onto his location. A hurricane of fire swept his former position, but he took out another from his kneeling position. Two of the remaining Posleen went back to attacking the shuttles as one swept towards the platoon's position.
The suits were doing a good job of mimicking the top of a building in every frequency so the Posleen thought there was a sole human to deal with. Mike missed the rapidly dodging craft with his next two shots and, in a series of wild jumps and somersaults, dodged three bursts of plasma, one of which cooked the external sensors on his right side. The Posleen was moving in at over three hundred kilometers per hour swerving crazily from side to side. Michelle tossed the suit to the side under thrusters as another burst of plasma passed through the space he had just occupied. Mike tumbled over onto his back and was trying to fire upward, an awkward position in a suit, when he was suddenly covered with the flaming wreckage of a God King's saucer.
"Sucker figured he had you bagged, sir," said Duncan, holstering the pistol borrowed for the sweep, "so he finally stopped flying all over the sky."
"Thanks, Duncan," said Mike, rolling to his feet. "Little too close, that one."
"Just a little walk in the mornin', sir."
"Airborne. Anybody see where the other God Kings or our shuttles went?"
"Negatory, sir," said Sergeant Green. "Nothin' in sight."
Two remaining shuttles suddenly popped up to the west, still relentlessly pursued by the God Kings. The personnel with pistols or captured Posleen weapons, having recovered from the shock of the attack, opened up on them. One more shuttle crashed after taking plasma fire but the God Kings were both dead moments later. The last shuttle banked towards the platoon's location and nosed up to a landing in the center of their perimeter. Its back door dropped immediately.
"Okay, first squad, inside, grab what you need and then back out! Move it! Sergeant Green, handle the distribution, the shuttle should have an inventory."
"Roger, sir," the NCO headed for the drop-door as the first squad lined up for weapons.
"Posleen!" called one of the troopers on the perimeter. Sun bright nicks of ricochets began skipping off the shuttle's armored skin. Mike looked seaward towards the source of the fire. A group of Posleen normals had gotten up onto the roof of the far building and were firing toward the shuttle and the platoon grouped around it.
"Spread it out!" He noted that first squad had hardly ducked getting to the shuttle. "Fire dammit!" He slapped a fresh magazine into his pistol and demonstrated, tumbling several of the distant horse-figures. The personnel with captured Posleen weapons began firing.
"I'm hit!" screamed one of the troops, followed by a bemused, "I thought I was hit." He sat on the roof looking at his thigh. "Am I hit?"
"You're hit," said Mike, belatedly falling to a prone position. "Everybody get down, dammit. Don't sweat it, your suit will take care of it."
"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 doing its 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 God Kings.
"Third squad!" Sergeant Green bellowed, by way of answer.
Wiznowski suddenly bounded out of the shuttle and off to the west; Mike had hardly noticed him fall back to it. The lighter and faster scout began firing at the approaching God Kings with an HVM launcher. He moved around the rooftop like a hyperactive flea. The fire of the four new God 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 hypervelocity missile.
"Wiz! Dammit, quit trying to be a hero!" Mike shouted, triggering another burst while bounding forward in support. "Get your ass back here!"
"If you wanna dance, sir . . ." the scout panted and was washed away by a God King HVM.
"Wizzz!" Mike screamed and leaped to his feet.
"Fuckers!" He reloaded and started running towards the God Kings. "Michelle, evade pattern Gamma, maximum run, broken field automatic, execute!" Now all he had to do was reload and fire and he slammed in magazine after magazine as he closed on first four and then three and then two saucers. The God Kings' fire flailed around him uselessly as they closed the distance.
The suit dodged in a random zigzag pattern as he maintained constant positive traction through the suit boots, the occasional hit by a railgun round shedding like water. A hundred meters out a laser briefly washed his suit, but with the exception of frying a set of sensors, it was not in contact long enough to do more than raise his temperature.
He closed the final distance to the last God Kings at an oblique as their saucers slewed, trying to track the frenetically dodging combat suit. Like a weasel Mike leapt on the offside saucer and, taking the God King's head in his gauntlet while planting his boot on its shoulder, ripped the sauroid head off clean. At that the other God King swung his saucer around to run but Mike flipped the palmate blade off his back and hurled it entirely through its thorax with all the rage in the world.
Then he bounced over and whacked the other God King's head off. He stepped down off the faltering saucer and collected both heads. Tossing them a distance away, he drew his pistol.
A burst of fire into the energy pack of the nearest saucer devoured the vehicle in a shattering explosion. He rode out the explosion as if it were an epiphany, staring into the fire like a soul in hell. There was no danger; the suits could shrug off any explosion short of the sort of cataclysm that struck Qualtren. And even then they could give it a run for its money.