We laid down a tremendous barrage of xmax and tacstars, retreating back up the stairs. The building wobbled. Coolhand let loose about four smokers, and somebody in Gamma lobbed down a deceptor and it crackled and spun away merrily. It would keep the Systies busy for a few marks anyway.
“Topcat, Snow Leopard. Beta and Gamma are trapped on the upper floor and we need extraction. Systies have the lower floor. We’ve got Valkyrie.”
“Good job, guys! Topcat is on you! Blow a hole in the roof! We’ll extract you!”
“Right here!” We gathered around a spot near the outside wall. Dragon and Doubledare guarded the stairwells. Sassin blew open a jagged hole in the ceiling. I shot a flare through the hole.
“We see you, guys! Tell us when you’re ready!” Another tacstar rocked the building downstairs. An aircar whistled overhead.
“They’re coming up!” Dragon announced, firing a long burst of auto xmax. Doubledare let loose as well. We charged back to the stairwells and split our forces, half to each stairway.
Snow Leopard took charge, “We have to stop them, or we’ll never get out. Down! Attack!” We fired deceptors and walked down the stairs right into them, firing, and it was the last thing they expected. The building shook with the frenzy of lasers and xmax. I expected it to collapse at any time. Green smoke whirled all around us, and even with the darksight, it was difficult to see. The Systies used deceptors too. Tacstar bursts flickered and cracked, white-hot nuclear light, glaring and fading. We fired flame on auto and filled the downstairs with rolling sheets of fire.
We paused halfway down the stairwell, again. A roaring inferno, full of burning splinters and shattered, blackened A-suits. One of them moved up from the floor, staggering sideways, flames running all over his armor. We fired lasers and white-hot tracks appeared on his armor and the metallic screeching set my teeth on edge, and he twitched and fell into the flames with a crash. At the end of the hall, the red God surveyed the scene silently, flames shooting up all around him.
“Is anyone hurt?” Snow Leopard asked.
“Dragon, Merlin, Sassin and Warhound, stay on the stairs and defend the main doorway. The rest of us, back upstairs and let’s call in the evac.” We could hear heavy firing outside again, and more sonic booms. Sweety was briefing me on the situation but I found it hard to concentrate when people were trying to kill me.
“Beta, Gamma, Topcat. We’re on the ground defending your building. You are under heavy assault.”
“Tell us something we don’t know! Keep them away from the main door, will you?”
“Your door is secure for now, but don’t exit that way. Use the roof and get out quick! More bad guys on the way!”
Valkyrie had pulled a table from a nearby room and moved it under the hole we had made in the roof. Another door opened suddenly and a Coldmarker ran out gesturing and screaming. Somebody shot him in the face, and the back of his head splattered against the wall.
Valkyrie spat at his corpse. “Idiot! What a stupid move!”
Warhound and Hotshot leaped up on the table and crawled up into the shattered wooden beams of the ceiling. Warhound shot off another flare. There was so much adrenalin in my system I could taste it on my tongue.
“Topcat Air, Beta, Gamma ready for evac! Yellow flare!”
“I’ve got ‘em, Topcat! Cover me!” Redhawk shouted as our aircar appeared above us, balanced effortlessly over the hole, assault doors snapping open. The backblast rushed down through the hole and washed over us. I boosted Valkyrie up to Boudicca, who was standing on the table. Valkyrie paused just for an instant between us, clutching my coldcoat, and she suddenly appeared very vulnerable, not at all like the terror I knew. Clear green eyes full of emotion, heavenly golden hair dancing in the breeze.
“Did you really come here just to get me back?” she shouted above the shriek from the aircar. She looked right into my eyes, and then looked up to Boudicca.
“I was in the neighborhood,” I replied. “Thought I’d look you up.”
“Don’t get mushy on me, Valkyrie,” Boudicca said. She hauled her up to Warhound’s outstretched arms. “Get your scrawny butt into that aircar!”
Snow Leopard would be the last one into the car, in true Legion tradition, waiting until our rear guard was safely aboard. We had a tremendous view from the aircar as we struggled to haul everyone in. The snowy sky burnt with glittering laser tracks and flashed with white-hot airbursts. Every few fracs the aircar rang with hits, shrapnel scarring the plex and xmax banging against the skin and rocking the car, and lasers burning into the armor mils from our flesh. Heavy Legion fighters boomed overhead, ripping holes in the sky. Legion and Systie aircars spiraled through the air in crazy patterns, looping and falling and diving and flashing past us and darting up into the leaden clouds chasing each other around and loosing long bursts of laser and tacstars.
The monastery complex rocked back and forth below us as Redhawk tried desperately to steady the car. Everywhere we looked, the buildings of the monastery glowed with swirling, multicolored clouds of smoke and flashed with brilliant explosions, as if the complex was lit up for some lunatic, barbaric festival, with flashing lights and fireworks. Legion soldiers in A-suits advanced into Systie fire, and glittering sheets of heavy laser from the skies, suddenly there. Broken, smoking A-suits littered the terraces of the monastery. Through the smoke I could see the Systies, too, A-suited DefCorps commandos, firing tacstars at the Legion! I raised my E just as Snow Leopard jumped in. We shot away from the roof instantly and the assault doors slammed shut.
“We’ve got to recover Psycho!” Snow Leopard said. Then the ceiling of the aircar exploded, an ear-shattering crack, a bright white flash, and the plex blowing away, icy air roaring in-streaks of phospho white bursting away from us. Tacstar! Laser tracks peppered the ceiling. We had two squads inside and it was an awful mess. The roar of the air rushing in and the shriek of the jets overwhelmed us all. I could barely hear Redhawk’s voice echoing in my comtop. We were dead!
“Beta Air hit! Nova! We’re coming in!”
The earth tilted up madly and another aircar flashed past us and the monastery slid away, and then moved back at us quickly. I watched the spires of one of the buildings coming right at us and I could see Valkyrie’s Legion cross, red cloth fluttering on a blue tile roof, still there!
Then there was a sickening blast and a white hot flash inside my head and I was gone.
Chapter 19: Blood of the Legion
“Cut it off! Use the laser! Oh, Lord! Give me a mag!” somebody screamed.
A terrifying blast split the sky open directly overhead. A throbbing wave of pain pulsed over my body. The sound of firing rose to a lunatic crescendo, drowning out everything else. The shriek of tacstars grated in my ears. Someone in an A-suit stood directly over me, tearing away at the twisted mass of metal that surrounded me like a coffin. We were still in the aircar, and the battle raged all around us. Another A-suited Legionnaire smashed at the wreckage with his armored fists, tearing it apart. I got a glimpse of Snow Leopard, carrying Coolhand out of the wreckage.
The A-suited Legionnaire got me by the shoulders and pulled me out of the wreckage. I had a hazy glimpse of his insignia: CAT 21, Topcat, the extraction team. The aircar was a twisted, crumpled wreck, but more or less in one piece. Two Legionnaires in armor knelt next to me, firing their E’s, auto laser, death’s bright light. The sky split with lasers and explosions and tacstars and aircars and fighters, booming overhead. Snow fell softly from heavy grey clouds.
“Kiss it! Op Star!”
“Get down! Down, down, down!”
“Oh, no!”
A brilliant phospho white flash, then a deafening blast. The mountains shook. A flaming crimson fireball rose into the sky, rivaling the morning sun.