"We're on the way, Psycho! Clear the corridor!"
"Can you see anything?" I burst out the door and rolled over to the far side of the corridor, snapping the safety off my E. My tacmod was trash. The corridor was full of unconscious civilians. Our psybloc units were flashing—it was bad news all around.
"I don't have to—tacstar!" Psycho aimed the Manlink. Then the world exploded, a dazzling supersonic crack and a titanic boom, and my armored fingers clawed at the air. My faceplate lit up with warning lights and the corridor walls and ceiling were suddenly shredded and smoking. A quick glimpse of Priestess and Twister standing in the center of the corridor wreathed in smoke, E's at their shoulders, firing auto xmax almost as if they were on the range back at Basic. Then my hearing came back and the noise overwhelmed me.
"Give me that Manlink!" Dragon snatched Five's weapon and snapped it up to his shoulder. He fired immediately and the tacstar ripped open the universe. It exploded with a merciless crack down corridor, lighting everything up with an eerie incandescent glow. I couldn't figure out why Dragon was firing Psycho's weapon.
"Psycho, lay down a suppressing fire with the Manlink," Snow Leopard ordered. "Beta, on me. We disengage—we've got a mission! We've got to find that ship!"
"Thinker, are you hurt? Thinker!" Valkyrie clawed at my armor. Tacstars shrieked and exploded down corridor. The rest of the squad let loose with auto xmax and lasers—the Systies would be keeping their heads down.
"I think I'm all right. Deadman! What happened?"
"The Systies fired a tacstar—you're lucky! Get up! Disengage! Beta, disengage!"
"Five! Oh no!"
"Psycho's hit!"
"Priestess, we've got a casualty!"
I struggled to my feet. My E was at my chest and an SG still dangled from one shoulder. Something was wrong with one leg of my A-suit. I was having trouble moving the joint. Then I saw that my armor was riddled with hits, pitted with smoking holes.
Psycho was on his back, his armor smoking. One leg was gone, blown away above the knee, his blood squirting all over Tara's armored fingers as she struggled to get a field dressing on it. I could hardly comprehend it. Psycho, the invincible, was down. Psycho, who had emerged unscathed from Andrion 2 and 3, from Coldmark, from Mongera—Psycho was down.
"Attention! Legion squad approaching the Mound!"
"Damn! Now what?"
"That's got to be Blue Gold!"
"Psycho! Psycho! Can you hear me?" I bent over his helmet. Priestess was suddenly there, dropping her E, taking over from Tara, working on Psycho's wound. I snapped open his visor. He was in shock, pale and twitching. His lips moved.
"Bastards got me…" he gasped.
"No, they didn't, Psycho!" I insisted. "It's a God-damned scratch! Don't be such a pussy!"
"I'm finished…" I could barely hear him.
"You can't die, you jerk! You owe me a hundred credits! Quit whining—Priestess is patching you up right now!"
"Psycho, your wound is not fatal," Priestess reported. "Your right leg has been damaged. The Legion will build you a new one, trooper—no worries! Try and relax!"
"Relax! Scut, how are my balls? Tell me the truth!"
"Your balls are fine, Psycho," Priestess replied. She was almost laughing.
"You've got it cracked, Psycho!" I said. "You're off to the body shop—you're a damned hero, those little nurses will be fighting to see who gives you the sponge bath. Stay awake, Psycho!"
"Don't lose my Manlink, Dragon!" His Manlink! he's lost his leg, and he's worried about his Manlink. Only in the Legion!
"I have multiple tacstars, one level down," Sweety reported. What the hell? We could feel them, the vibrations rumbling up through the deck. A fireball erupted down-corridor. Dragon had the Manlink on autoflame—everything down there was wreathed in burning gas. The heat lit up our A-suits.
"Deadman, the civilians…" We had barely had time to glance at them. The Systie tacstar had blown them to shreds. The corridor was littered with shattered, twitching bodies, the walls spattered with blood. Dead—all dead. The little girl was back with her mommy, at last.
"Move, troopers! Back to Export—now! Bring Psycho!" Priestess and I dragged Psycho along the deck as the others fired everything they had to cover us. There was nothing at all we could do for the civilians, not now.
###
The Systies had marked the door EXPORT. We weren't sure what it meant, but we were hoping it would lead to the Ship. Merlin had already opened it. We tumbled in, dragging Psycho behind us.
"Damn it! Take it easy!" he complained.
"Eleven, Twelve, Eight at the door," Snow Leopard ordered. "Keep their heads down."
"Tenners!" It was another freezing metal room, coils of oily cenite twisting up the walls to a dark ceiling. Four bizarre chest-high solid metal structures rose from a slick wet floor. Tables, I thought, for the O's. There was another door at the far side of the room—PACKS ONLY, it read.
"All right, this is it. Get it open, Merlin."
"I'm on it." Merlin popped the panel, picking at the device with his techprobe. Our psybloc crackled away and my tacmod was still unreadable. Systies or O's could hit us at any time. Dragon fired another tacstar. The micronuke flashed white-hot in the corridor and the shock wave buffeted the room. That should slow them down!
"I have broken the Systie comnet," Sweety announced. That was a good trick, considering the deceptors. She immediately fed us what she had caught.
"…can't hold downstairs!" a Systie said. "How's your attack?"
A burst of static, then the response. "…outflanking them. We've got…" More static, an overwhelming roar.
"Fire down the other end, Dragon!" Snow Leopard shouted. "They're outflanking us somehow!"
"I have multiple tacstars one level down," Sweety said. "The floor may soon collapse." We could feel the blasts. A terrific battle was underway below us. Who the hell was down there? Dragon fired more tacstars—we were going to tear this place apart if we weren't careful. And we weren't.
"Opening!" Merlin announced. The inner door slid open. I crouched behind one of those massive circular metal slabs, my E and SG both pointed at the outer door. Twister was by my side and Priestess was tending to Psycho. Tara and Gildron sought cover behind another of the tables.
The outer doorway exploded, a titanic crash and a blinding flash. My faceplate went black, then lit up again. That massive metal table had caught the force of the blast so I was still upright and conscious when the Systie trooper stepped into the doorway, a terrifying vision wreathed in nuclear flame, clad in dull bronze-colored DefCorps armor, firing an SG on auto x. I fired my E on laser and caught him in the chest. The laser screeched and hissed on his armor, spitting sparks, and his arms twitched and the SG snapped down erratically and then Tara and Gildron and Snow Leopard and Merlin and Twister fired auto x, and the Systie went down like a metal doll, flashing with hits, tracers bursting away from him like fireworks.
"Clear the corridor!" Snow Leopard and Merlin and Twister and I charged the door, but skidded to a halt in the doorway when we realized that most of the corridor floor had collapsed—it was a flaming hole, with the dead Systie draped over the edge. The coiled cenite walls were pitted and smoking. I fired auto x down the corridor in one direction while Merlin and Twister took the other side. Laser bursts snapped past us and auto x exploded along the walls. We popped back into the room.
"A clear difference of opinion," Merlin remarked. I could hardly believe he was so calm. Merlin normally couldn't test-fire his E without getting nervous.
"Seal the outer door, Merlin! Permanently! Priestess, the casualties!" Priestess was already on it. Valkyrie, Scrapper and Dragon lay on the floor, their armor smoking. They had been near the door when the tacstar hit.