Even in his madness, the Troll retained his cunning. No human could match his reaction speed. He noted the disappearance of the blaster from his sensors, but he knew what to look for now, and no one but his enemy could kill him without using nuclear weapons and killing his enemy, as well. He hugged that thought to him with hating, hungry fury, and fed power to his treads, grinding from the tunnel in a billow of dust.
If the human drew its weapon again, it would die before it could aim. If it did not, he would simply kill and kill and kill until the laws of chance sent the killer of his dream into death.
Ludmilla skidded to a stop as the Troll emerged at last. Half again the size of the medium mech it loomed, dark and evil, squat on its treads, and its weapon ports were open.
She knew what it must be thinking, and she was afraid it was right.
It halted, scanning its surroundings, ignoring the rockets bursting against its battle screen, and her hand hovered a millimeter above her blaster. She dared not touch it. She must find some sort of cover, something to give her a fleeting instant of advantage. It was the only way.
And then the Troll started forward.
The enemy was hiding. Madness gibbered in the Troll's mind, and it ground the rich leaf mold under its cleated treads.
It was headed straight for Dick!
Logic told her he was already dead; only the dying remained, and it could not come soon enough. But logic was a cold, dead thing. She didn't consider it. She didn't think at all, and her hand moved.
Surprise. It was a fleeting thing, but the Troll felt it. Surprise that its enemy should stand boldly before it and activate its weapon.
Perhaps it was that brief moment of astonishment, or perhaps it was the fact that Ludmilla Leonovna had heavy-grav reactions and a cralkhi's neural impulses, moving at more than human speed. Or perhaps it was a combination of both those factors and the blind workings of fate.
The blaster rose with the deadly, fluid grace Dan Abernathy had seen on the Camp Lejeune combat range. It was a single, supple movement, and her finger squeezed the trigger stud before she even realized she'd drawn.
The Troll had time for one last emotion: disbelief. Disbelief that any human could move that quickly. Even a cral-
A sliver of pure energy blew him into infinity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
She holstered her blaster slowly, turning away from the corona of fury crackling about the massive combat chassis. Awareness of victory pulsed deep within her, but it was a feeble, joyless thing as she dropped to her knees beside Richard Aston in a litter of fallen camouflage.
His body jerked and shuddered, and his face was soaked with sweat, his eyes blind above bared teeth locked in a snarl of agony. She knew the signs. She'd seen them before, and she lifted his head into her lap, staring down through her tears while bullets cracked above them.
He couldn't speak, but she hoped he recognized her as she pressed her fingers to his carotid. She held the pressure firmly, mastering his agonized shudders with gentle strength, until unconsciousness took him.
She knew she should maintain the pressure until death stopped the pain, but she couldn't. She knelt over him, sheltering him with her body, and her gentle fingers were ready to drive him back into the merciful dark.
She was still kneeling there when Gunnery Sergeant Morton Jaskowicz skidded to a stop beside her.
"Cap'n?" She raised her head slowly, cradling Aston protectively as she stared blindly up at the big, tough sergeant.
"Cap'n, we need you," Jaskowicz said, his rumbling voice strangely gentle against the crackle of weapons. "You're in command, Ma'am."
Her mind worked sluggishly. It was unfair. She'd come so far. Paid so much. The Troll's death should have freed her, not burdened her with fresh responsibility.
"Where-" She cleared her throat and made her voice work. "Where's Major Abernathy?"
"Major's out of it, too, Ma'am. Lieutenant Atwater's dead and Lieutenant Warden's hurt bad. I think Lieutenant Frye's still on his feet, but he's up-slope."
"I-" She broke off as a Marine corpsman slithered to a kneeling halt across Aston's body from her. His teenaged face was strained, but his hands were steady. Ludmilla stared at him for just a moment. Then the despair in her own face hardened into determination, and she nodded curtly.
"With you in a minute, Gunny," she said. "Get Third and Fourth Platoon moving this way. We'll set up a perimeter against the mountain. Tie in at either end of the tunnel-Second Platoon can cover us from above. Then find me a FAC team."
"Yes, Ma'am!" Jaskowicz took a fraction of a second to salute-something a Marine in combat never did-and dashed off through the darkness. As he vanished, Ludmilla turned to the corpsman.
"Do you have a hypodermic?" she asked calmly, and he nodded. "Good."
Lieutenant Spillers couldn't understand. The howling, blood-crazed demons who'd been attacking all night had vanished. Only scattered shots rang out as a handful of more stubborn invaders went on firing until they were flanked and finished by National Guardsmen moving with the cold skill of survivors. They'd paid cash for that skill, Spillers thought grimly. Rumor said the brigade had taken fifty percent casualties-closer to eighty among the junior officers-and Spillers believed it.
But what unnerved him most were the rioters who just sat or stood there, glaze-eyed and slack-faced, fingers twitching gently while spittle oozed down their chins. It was as if whatever had driven them had also consumed them, he thought shakenly.
Ed Staunton couldn't help himself. He had to keep ducking up to see what was going on, and he'd climbed up over his protective mountain just in time to see both fountains of light and fury erupt into the heavens.
That had to be it, he decided, his thoughts oddly detached and distant. That had to be the "Troll" thing Commander Morris had told him about. And that meant his "special weapons" would not be required ... thank God.
But the sparkle and flash of small arms and heavy weapons continued to flare, and that looked like a nasty forest fire starting to the southwest.
"Romeo Team, Romeo One," he said. "Catcher, get ready. Bullpen, open your orbit and get clear." Catcher was VFA-432's call sign; they were equipped for general support. VFA-433-"Bullpen"-carried precision-attack weapons he judged would be less useful in the new situation below.
"Come on, Sneak Play," he murmured, orbiting high above the blazing firefight. "Talk to me, damn it!"
The Apocalypse Brigade was far more confused than its enemies. Most of its men had no idea Taggart was dead, few realized there were aircraft above them, and none had the least idea what the Troll was, where it had come from, or what had happened to it. But they did know they were trapped and under attack ... and that their attackers had been badly hurt.
Their initial shock faded as they recognized how substantially they outnumbered their enemies. And then, on the heels of that realization, came a second: they must escape, and their vehicles were under the guns of Ludmilla's hastily assembling perimeter.
They came from everywhere, recruited because they'd required little shaping. The Troll had touched them less deeply, bent them less terribly, than he'd been forced to do with those less inclined to violence. All he'd done was program them with fanatical loyalty to their leaders and their "cause," and his death had not impinged directly upon them. They honestly believed they were fighting for themselves, and Taggart's third in command was still alive. He was a hard, hating man, and he knew his enemies were hurt and bleeding.
Even if he hadn't needed the vehicles, he still would have attacked.
Ludmilla looked up as the first recoilless and mortar rounds came in. She'd hoped the enemy would break with the Troll's death, but she hadn't reckoned with the sort of men Taggart had recruited, and she ducked lower in her weapon-pit command post as mortars, machine guns, and covering Dragons from Second Platoon hammered back at their attackers. The unwounded survivors of the three oversized platoons which had come down the mountain would scarcely have made a single normal one, but they couldn't withdraw: there were too many wounded for the fit to carry.