The comsat station and the repository were straight ahead. So even though the street that would take them there was heavily defended and preregistered by half a dozen sloths, Trent and his resocialized marines went right up the middle. Shells exploded all around them, two men fell within a matter of seconds, and the only reason the rest were able to continue forward was because the artillery barrage stopped suddenly and a squad of rippers threw themselves into the fray.
It was a desperate move. One that was intended to stall the invaders long enough to bring reinforcements up to block their advance. Raynor felt a rising sense of anger as the rippers killed Trent and the rest of his marines within a matter of seconds. Vanderspool had known, damn him—and sacrificed the resocs like pawns in a chess game.
Revenge came swiftly as a couple of goliaths came forward to destroy the rippers. Ward unleashed four of his eight heat-seeking missiles, and a series of eye-searing explosions strobed the surrounding buildings. “Follow me!” Sanchez yelled over the platoon frequency, as she led her troops forward.
Even as the Devils stepped over dead marines and plodded up the street firing as they went, more resocialized marines were surging forward, seemingly eager to enter the meat grinder up ahead. Raynor felt a surge of adrenaline as a ripper lurched out of a side street. Raynor brought the gauss rifle up and opened fire, knowing full well that the ensuing engagement would be more a matter of luck than skill since the two of them were evenly matched.
And Raynor was correct, because the 8mm spike that killed the Kel-Morian wasn’t fired by Raynor. It was a ricochet that hit the plascrete in front of the enemy soldier, bounced upward, and punched its way through a weak spot in the jury-rigged armor into his helmet.
Raynor stepped over the armored body and followed Sanchez up the blood-splashed street. Resocialized marines were all around them as a Kel-Morian goliath emerged from a parking garage to confront them. But the towering machine was transformed into bloody sleet as Ward fired the rest of his missiles at the walker and it exploded.
Raynor felt pieces of the monster’s neosteel skin rattle against the back of his hardskin as the Devils followed Sanchez into what had been a department store. They walked parallel to the sidewalk. The front of the building gave the Devils some momentary cover as two squads of marines charged straight up the middle of the street and were cut to bloody ribbons.
Raynor caught only glimpses of the slaughter through the store’s blown-out windows, but the sight of it made him feel sick to his stomach. It had become clear that if it weren’t for the resocs’ mindless self-sacrifice, the assault would have stalled by then. The resocs were like robots who would take chances that regular troops wouldn’t, charge no matter what the odds against them were, and die without complaint.
It was a moment he would never forget as the Devils were forced to leave the relative safety of the store through a window and reenter the street in front of a barricade. The KMs had made use of overturned vehicles, ribbon wire, and anything else they could lay their hands on to block the entire width of the street. About two dozen Kel-Morian regulars were concealed behind the obstacle, hosing the street with automatic fire, as both the marines and the Devils pounded their fortification.
But there were gaps between the cars, and holes in between the sheets of metal that bridged them, so Sanchez called Harnack forward. “See that gap?” she demanded. “The one next to the bus? Light ’em up.”
Harnack’s firebat suit was impervious to small-arms fire, so with Raynor and Tychus to guard both flanks, he was able to make his way up to the barricade and send a tongue of fire in through the gap. The bus caught fire, the gas stored in its tank exploded, and a hole appeared. The resocialized marines stormed through. Two of them went down, and it was necessary for Tychus to step on one of them to reach the other side.
Unfortunately, the next barrier was harder to overcome. Two sloths were positioned about a block away, and as the first barricade fell, both opened fire. “This way!” Sanchez shouted as she took a sudden left and led the team up a plascrete ramp and into a parking garage. The tanks were still firing at the marines and rangers as the group continued to climb.
Once they arrived on the roof it would have been a simple matter to cut across it and make the twelve-foot jump to the next building, had it not been for the Kel-Morian dropship that was sitting on top of the garage!
Even as the Confederates continued to charge forward, a group of unarmored Kel-Morian regulars spilled out of the dropship’s belly and opened fire. Raynor saw their weapons sparkle and heard the insistent rattle of small-caliber bullets as they hit his armor, but really couldn’t feel much.
A few of the enemy soldiers were armed with rocket launchers, however, and Raynor saw a bright flash as a ranger’s legs were cut out from under him and his hardskin cauterized the bleeding stumps. He was screaming by then, but only until a noncom cut him out of the comm net, so that orders could be given.
Doc was there seconds later, kneeling in a pool of blood as she eyed the scanner in the palm of her hand. Thanks to a link with the suit’s CPU she could see the patients’ vital signs. She did the best she could to comfort the soldier, as she opened the safety clasps and applied plastiscab dressings to the raw stumps. Having treated such injuries before, she knew what was on the soldier’s mind.
“Don’t worry,” Doc said kindly, as bullets whipped around her. “They missed your balls. We’ll strap a pair of electro-mechanical sticks onto you, reprogram part of your brain, and voilà! You’ll be good as new.”
It looked as though the advance was about to stall out when Tychus shot two Kel-Morian regulars and got close enough to toss a grenade into one of the dropship’s air intakes. The bomb exploded inside the starboard engine; it blew up, and a fuel tank went with it.
Sanchez yelled, “Duck!” and most people did, as a fireball floated up into the sky and the dropship’s retros fired for the very last time. Then, having achieved an altitude of about six feet, the ship crashed onto the roof and broke into three large pieces. All of which continued to burn.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Ward said contentedly. “Burn, you bastards.”
Zander slipped a set of rockets into the empty launch tubes on Ward’s shoulders. “I’m out of reloads,” Zander said. “You only have four rockets left. Use them wisely.”
“Roger that,” Ward rumbled, as he hefted his gauss cannon. “Meet Mister Backup!”
Both men were overridden as Sanchez ran toward the edge of the roof. “This is Alpha-One-Six, follow me!” She was picking up speed, and about to jump the gap that separated the garage from the building next to it, when a sniper hidden somewhere in the densely packed buildings on the hill in front of them squeezed his trigger. The first bullet hit her visor. The second passed through her right eye. The officer took two additional steps, toppled forward, and fell straight down.
Tychus, who was second in command, swore as Sanchez disappeared between the two buildings. “Kydd!” he shouted, as the rest of the Devils sought cover. “Find that bastard and kill him!”
Kydd was already on the job. He was crouched behind the low wall that circled the roof, scanning the rampart-like blast walls on the hill. The acoustic targeting system built into his suit fed information to his HUD. The other sniper was somewhere on the hill, but he already knew that. The rifle, which was normally so heavy, seemed a good deal lighter now that he was wearing powered armor.
The sun was just starting to rise, so the eastern side of the comsat station was glazed with silvery light, and a dark shadow fell toward the west. Eventually the daylight would be helpful. But for the moment the overall light level was still relatively low, the effectiveness of Kydd’s night vision equipment was starting to fade, and there were so many targets on the fortification it was impossible to know which one to shoot at. Assuming the enemy sniper was visible, that is—and odds were that he was too smart for that.