Dragon took a position by a shattered window and watched his tacmod. He was slowly zeroing the Systies—he had ID'd three positions already from the third floor. If only he could reactivate the squad!
"Beta, Gamma—Beta Eight. Respond! Respond!" He squatted in the flames. His armor was beginning to glow. The building might collapse at any time. I wanted to respond to him, but I couldn't.
"…got two Systies spotted…" the voice was interrupted by a massive burst of static. "…to try to take…" More static. "…goodbye, Eight. Good…" Static. It was Merlin, I realized. Beta Four, the tech, the lab rat, taking on the Systies alone. At that precise moment, Dragon's tacmod spotted another Systie in the whirling chaff from the deceptors.
"Target! Mark!"
"Confirm!" Dragon pulled away from the window. He had four Systies zeroed now. He moved quickly through the flames and out the apartment and along the glowing halls and down the smoking stairway. If he fired from the fifth floor, they would have him. I knew exactly what he was thinking. He could see it was hopeless to try and organize the squad. No, it was all up to him. He was going to go from one target to another until they were all dead, or he was. As he walked carefully down the smoking stairs he set his E to canister. I was suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow for Dragon. Death was here, to claim us all…Dragon's old companion, Death, stalking him still, tracking him all the way to Mongera. Death ultimately embraced all his comrades. He had told me about his curse—some evil crone had branded him for life. "Death will be your shadow!" she had said. "You will bring Death with you like a plague, and everyone you love will die!" He had shot her in the face, but it had all come true—and now he could add Beta and Gamma to the list. It didn't matter, I thought. I was confident Dragon would kill our Systies. All that was important at that moment was to kill Systies. And Dragon was a first-class killer.
I saw Merlin as well. Thinking back on it, I guess all this was instantaneous. But I still remember every last detail. Merlin was almost frozen with terror—I could tell that much—but he was forcing himself on, crawling through the mud like a worm. It was raining heavily and his faceplate was splattered with mud. He was shaking and crying. He must have known he was going to die, he could surely taste it, but he was not whimpering in a hole. He was crawling forward, seeking death like a moth hurling itself into a naked flame. The Systie was right up ahead—Merlin had zeroed him, and Merlin knew the Systie could not spot him through the crumbled wall of rubble that lay between them. All he needed now was a clear shot. Beta Four, the Wiz, Merlin, our own lab rat. He was stalking the Systie like a jungle animal. Boudicca had been right all along, I thought—never trust a Systie! They had waited until the O was dead, and then they had struck. It was treason against humanity. That O was drenched in the blood of the Legion, and the System wanted to steal it away. Beta was gone, sacrificed so that others might live. Merlin was terrified, but he was not going to let the System get away with this.
There—the Systie was in sight. A Systie A-suit, half buried in a pile of rubble behind an SG, wreathed in smoke and ashes as the rain poured down on the fires. Merlin pushed his E out ahead of him and slid the stock into his shoulder. The biobloc fieldfaxer was no good against Systies; he had lasered the weapon and left it smoking in the mud.
The Systie moved—Merlin switched to xmax auto and the laser sight lit up the target. Raindrops danced on his faceplate. Life was so sweet. Merlin must have been insane to join the Legion. He surely did not want to die, but Beta was dying, and he was Beta Four. I watched him gently squeeze the trigger.
It was pouring now, black clouds scudding close overhead, lashing the burning city, a smoking moonscape. I sensed that my soul was fading—something was happening. But there was Millina! She lay in a widening puddle of muddy water behind her E, trembling with hate and terror. A wave of sympathy swept over me. She had switched sides! It was almost miraculous—after all that Valkyrie had said about her. Why? What could have motivated her? Of course they would never have told her about the plans for the aircar—such knowledge is dangerous. They would have simply listened to the progress of the op, and then suddenly neutralized the aircar, and shown up themselves in an identical car, to collect the results. No mess, no fuss.
A brilliant op. Millina knew the System well. And she had switched sides!
The sky flickered and laser snapped over Millina's helmet. Death, we had said, launching the op. Yes, death it was, death for us all, Legion and Systies and O's, death for everyone, without favor or prejudice. And I suddenly understood about Millina. Death was Millina's goddess—Death, a remote pale blind goddess with a black cloth wrapped around her eyes, and a huge sharp sword. And whenever she heard a noise, she swung the sword.
The Hand of the Mocain, suddenly awakening to the truth, after a lifetime of service. I knew Valkyrie was part of the answer. Millina had hit at least two of the DefCorps soldiers as they leaped from the aircar, but they must have had two squads in that car, and most of them made it out before the car had been shot down. One of them was right up ahead, hiding in the energy field of a fiercely burning groundcar. It was time for Millina to play her dangerous game.
"It's Millina! Millina! DefCorps, hold its fire!" Millina shouted it out, her skin crawling as she crept forward. If even one DefCorps soldier had seen her firing at them during the landing, she would die as soon as she exposed herself.
She scrambled to her feet and charged forward into the rain, her E held low. The DefCorps soldier was on his belly in the flames from the burning groundcar. His SG was up and scanning. He motioned Millina down with one hand. She hit the ground, breathing hard. Rain hissed off her A-suit. She switched to laser. All those years, in the service of a false god. All that misdirected hate. It wasn't enough, to betray humanity. Now she had to betray the System as well. I felt an indescribable sadness, for Millina. Then she stood up and fired laser, right into the DefCorps soldier's A-suit.
###
It came out of nowhere in a heavy sheet of rain, spitting tacstars, booming past in a heartbeat, gone, back into the dark sky. Micronukes erupted in its wake, sudden flashes, the earth shaking, and a winking forest of phospho fireballs, rising to the sky. Lightning flickered wildly, and there was a stunned pause as a great crackling roar rolled over the battlefield.
My head was throbbing. My faceplate was covered with mud. I strained to move—a black cloud of pain. I squirmed over on to my back. Tacstars rose all around me. I smeared the mud around on my visor and stared out stupidly. Alive—I was alive! And back in my body!
"Cover me, gang…" Who was that? It was Merlin, suddenly up and running towards our tragic pile of shattered A-suits, Coolhand and Snow Leopard and Priestess and me. Merlin, for God's sake, throwing himself away, for Beta. Behind him, Psycho suddenly appeared, running forward firing his chainlink, full auto x, hosing down everything in sight to cover Merlin. Tacstars erupted in great, glowing flashes. Psycho hit every building in the vicinity. The buildings disintegrated, spitting phospho streaks, the sky full of junk, the buildings falling slowly in massive clouds of dust and Psycho crouched there, a perfect target, panting and screaming, finger fixed on the trigger, firing right over Merlin's helmet.
It was a nuclear morning for Fernveldt.
###
The escape pod hovered a few mikes over the smoking earth of what had once been Fernveldt City, and the access door snapped open and a girl appeared, an E in one hand, the other hand covering her mouth. The girl was unarmored, her hair blowing in the backblast. She paused briefly in the doorway, then leaped to the ground. I was still in the mud beside Priestess, too weak to move. I had ripped open my medkit and spread medpads all over her wounds, but the blood was bubbling up around the bandages and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't understand why nobody was helping me. What had happened to Merlin? Perhaps we were still fighting. It slowly dawned on me that the escape pod had strafed the Systies and probably turned the tide of the battle. And then I recognized the girl. It was Tara.