"Give me a zero, Sweety…" Soaked in sweat and blood, I kicked myself over onto my back to free my E. My left arm was completely useless. A burst of auto x, laser slicing overhead.
"That target just went off-scope, Thinker," my Persist informed me. "Someone made a good hit."
"Sweety…" the pain was so bad I was ready to pass out. "Give me a mag, then find Priestess. Now!"
Worming through black mud on my back, gasping, burning, raindrops burst on my faceplate like shrapnel as a wild smoky sky flamed overhead. The deceptors whirled all around me, but Sweety still had Priestess on scope.
"You can't get to her, Thinker," Sweety informed me calmly. "The Systies have that site well zeroed. You will die if you try."
"Shut down, Sweety!"
"Beta, Beta…any Beta, answer!" Roaring with static, but I knew the voice. Dragon!
"Eight, Three!" I shouted. "I'm going to help Nine and Two and One. Cover me!"
A tremendous roar of static. Someone was saying something. It did not matter. No, not at all. I rolled over onto my chest. Green hell, swirling all around me. There, up ahead, Sweety had them zeroed. Lumps of clay—black clay, flickering in the laser. Lumps of clay, my God, it's all we are! They pulsed on my faceplate, B2, B9, B1.
"…don't do it!" Advice for the dead.
I waved my E into the dark and fired full auto xmax. I crawled, a worm in hell, brainless, blind and deaf and dumb. The earth shook, the air crackled and burned, the sky lit up—chainlink tacstars! Micronukes exploded white-hot right in my face, rising into the sky, glittering, golden, magnificent. I scrambled to my feet and ran right into it and the shock wave knocked me flat. I gasped and reached out my good arm. B2, B2, B2 flashed on my faceplate. I had reached Coolhand. A smoking A-suit, a pile of metal junk in the mud.
The chainlink spoke again, and I cringed. Someone gurgled in my ears. Was Coolhand alive? I caught a glimpse of his face behind red plex—still and cold, eyes open, covered with blood. His mouth opened—a silent scream.
Excruciating pain, glittering white-hot stars—a massive crack hurled me bodily into the gates of Hell. I was dead, on my back, burning. My ears rang—I was hit, again. My hearing was gone. It was strangely calm. I saw Priestess, in the mud. Smoke, curling from glowing cenite. I crawled to her. My E was gone. I reached out and touched her hand. I had it now—hand in hand, we would go out together. I was so tired I could not speak. A wave of exhaustion swept over me. The lights were gently going out.
###
The next thing I knew I was floating overhead, looking directly down at my body. It was such an astounding sight that I was stunned and awestruck. I could see everything in excruciating detail and in total silence. I was lying on my chestplate down below in a sticky sea of mud, and my A-suit was riddled with hits—the armor on my left arm was smoking and glowing. My right hand was linked with Priestess's and she was on her back—her chestplate was twisted and punctured, white-hot, splattered with bubbling blood. Coolhand sprawled nearby, his A-suit riddled with hits. I could see every tiny speck of dirt, every splash of mud, every evil smoking scar on our armor. It was raining, and every raindrop that hit our cenite burst into steam. I couldn't quite understand how I could be down there while observing myself from overhead, but then it slowly dawned on me. I was hovering at the doorway to death's cold road, and I was only a soul, floating on the wind, balanced precariously between one dimension and the next. That clay down there—that had been me!
It was probably only a split instant of time that I was out of my body but in that brief frac I saw everything. It was truly astounding—it was almost like being a God. One glance and I saw it all, the entire battlefield winking and flashing with xmax and laser, an insane tacstar sky rolling overhead with nuclear clouds burning and throbbing like Armageddon, spitting phospho debris hissing down to explode in geysers of black mud. And then I heard it, a horrific rumble, the Thunder of the Gods.
I saw Psycho running like a rat, splashing through mud on hands and knees and feet, the chainlink dangling, streaking through smoking flaming buildings, scrambling and crawling through the rubble. Lasers and xmax followed him, and the buildings shuddered and came down around him as he ran. The sky was getting darker. It was raining, fat hot drops splattering in the mud. Psycho found an opening in a collapsed wall and snaked forward on his belly, the chainlink nosing slowly out ahead of him. Rain, hissing on hot metal. He was a tiny figure on my field of dreams, but I could even see the blood on his lips.
"Give me a target, you bitch. Give me just one target!" He whispered it. I heard every word. The sky was rotten with deceptors, and the tacmap was trash. But they were close—he'd spot them soon. Green trash, flickering on his faceplate. Three Legion A-suits, down and out—that was me! Xmax, exploding off to his left. They had left him behind—perfect!
"Give me that…"
"Target, Psycho! Fire!" The tacmod illuminated what it had seen in a flash, the source of the firing—a faint green blob, hidden in a collapsed building.
"This is for Warhound." Psycho fired full auto tacstar, a rasping screech. He scrambled away immediately, cursing, back the way he had come, a rat on the run.
Less than a heartbeat—that's probably how long my soul was hovering there, but I could see everybody, I could hear them and feel them—all of Beta, and all at once. We were one, you see. It isn't surprising. I saw Valkyrie watch Five's building detonate a block away, a series of white phospho flashes and suddenly the nukes rose into the sky and the earth shook. She scrambled to her feet and ran through the shattered building where she had been hiding, up the fiery staircase to the second floor. She lay there for a moment quaking. No response. The entire building was burning. Most of the outside walls were gone, but the basic structure was intact. Valkyrie crawled through burning desks and chairs and d-screens spitting sparks. She slithered to the edge of the building and found a good position by a riddled masonry column. She slid her E ahead of her and guided the stock into her shoulder.
"Deadman, give me a kill," she prayed. "Show me a Systie." The tacstars burnt on her faceplate, and she had a great view—almost as good as mine. All of the buildings around her had been hit. Groundcars burnt in the streets. It was raining, a black sky lit up by flashes of xmax and laser and deceptors and the lovely flaming flowers of nuclear hits, rising to the sky, the flowers of the Legion. Deadman, they were beautiful!
"Deadman, you bastard, give me a target, for Gamma!" She was crying and her flesh was ice cold.
"Beta, Beta…" the rest was lost in static.
"Eight, Five…" a long roar of static. "…move, but I can't…" hopeless static. No, there's no sense in trying for commo, Valkyrie, I thought. It's hopeless. Just kill Systies, and die. That's the mission, now. Kill, and die.
"Target!" her tacmod cried out, "Marked!" There! A Systie, sprinting through an alley from one building to another, now hidden behind a massive pile of rubble. No matter.
"Auto xmax airburst," she instructed the tacmod, "right over his head." She touched the trigger gently, lovingly. A long burst of auto x exploded right over the rubble. Then she was off, running frantically back through the gutted office, hurling herself face-first down the stairs, crashing down to the ground floor as the building exploded above her with a tremendous boom. She hit the ground hard, running, gasping, sweating, moaning—running for her life. And the xmax followed her as she ran.
I could see Dragon as well—he had also sought high ground, a burning apartment mod flaming like a torch, wreathed in black smoke. Dragon was on the fifth floor now, kicking in a smoking door, moving through a fierce fire. Bodies lay on the floor all around him, a whole family sprawled in sudden death, a man, a woman, three children, their flesh smouldering.