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  My eyes began working again a moment later. Although I was dazed, I was able to take stock of the situation. We’d been hit—taken out. I didn’t know where the strike had come from, probably from a well-aimed lightning bolt. Someone down there had figured out who was burning hordes of their troops and had aimed very carefully.

  Carlos was dead. One of his stick-like goggles was smoking and the other had been blasted back into his head like a spear. As I watched, his body gently rolled over then slid down the side of the building, bouncing and flopping all the long, long way to the throngs in the street.

  The 88 itself was damaged. The muzzle had taken the majority of the hit, and I could tell right away it had unleashed its last broad stripe of death.

  I shrugged my way out of the harness and crawled out of the bunker. Gaining a little more capacity for cogent thought, I tapped my way into the tactical channel and reported.

  “Western corner gun emplacement has been knocked out,” I said.

  “McGill?” Graves snapped. “Are you still with us?”

  I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky which was made up of fake panels and glimpses of bright, real stars. My HUD said my body was in the green—but I had my doubts.

  “Yes sir,” I said, half groaning the words. “But I feel like someone has been using my helmet for a church bell.”

  “Good enough. Join Leeson on the stairway—I sent him down into the building.”

  I frowned in confusion and hauled myself into a sitting position. Every second, my brain operated a little more smoothly.

  “The stairway, sir?”

  “The enemy has breached the armory. We’ve lost the bottom floor.”

  “Right. On my way.”

  Struggling to my feet, I grabbed a snap-rifle off a dead sharpshooter—my own gun had been lost when they’d lit up my bunker—and I staggered to the stairs.

  The scene inside the stairwell wasn’t encouraging. Men were shouting, and weapons chattered far below, echoing up the long, long shaft from the ground floor. The enemy was fighting their way upward, and I could tell they weren’t in an easygoing mood.

  -21-

  I checked my snap-rifle with slightly blurred vision. I knew I probably had a concussion of some kind, but I figured the bio people could give me the details whenever they got around to it—if I lived that long.

  The weapon I’d picked up was tricked out to be a sniper rifle at the moment. With a longer barrel and a superior scope mounted on top, it had a great deal of range but a much lower rate of fire.

  I stepped to the first landing and put my rifle over the edge of the railing. There was a narrow space between the switch-backs on the stairs that allowed me to sight downward twenty floors or so.

  Spotting a massed, shimmering movement of maroon, I decided to get into the game early. I hadn’t handled a snap-rifle fitted with a scope in a long time, but it still felt like home to me. I popped off shots and put down an attacker with each round. After a dozen or so hits, my helmet crackled.

  “Who’s up there with the snap-rifle?” Leeson demanded.

  “It’s McGill, sir,” I said.

  “Get down here, dammit. I need your heavy weapon on the front line.”

  “I’ve lost my 88—and it wouldn’t make it down twenty flights of stairs, anyway.”

  There was a stream of curses. Apparently, Leeson had forgotten in all the excitement that I’d come into this fight with a gun on a tripod.

  “All right,” he said. “No belcher, huh? Nothing more useless than a weaponeer without a weapon. Just keep popping them as they come up the stairs.”

  I was happy with those orders as I was still feeling a little woozy and didn’t feel like jogging down into the thick of it right now. Firing with steady accuracy, I managed to get about ten more before they wised up and started creeping with their backs close to the walls so I couldn’t get a good shot.

  There came a moment soon after that when quiet reigned below. I moved around the stairwell sighting from every angle, but I couldn’t so much as nail down a silvery shoe.

  “Sir?” I said over the platoon chat channel. “I don’t think they’re still coming up the stairs.”

  “Keep your positions, everyone. They’re up to something. I’m expecting a rush.”

  As I wasn’t doing much, I began slowly walking down the stairway, constantly scanning through my scope for new targets. I didn’t see any.

  When the Tau finally did make their move, it came as a surprise to all of us. Fortunately, it was less of a surprise for me as I was far above the rest of the troops.

  I was about five floors down from the roof when I heard a tremendous crashing sound. Puff-crete split and gouted dust up the stairwell. I barely got my visor closed in time before it powdered me all over like a donut.

  “Sir?” I said, hearing nothing but sporadic fire and the cries of the injured. “Adjunct Leeson? What’s going on?”

  “They brought the floor down. They took it right out from under us. We’re on a partially collapsed floor fighting in close quarters. What I can’t believe is the number of dead—they brought the ceiling down right on top of themselves!”

  I frowned at that. It was one thing to deal with a stand-up fight with a determined enemy, but these guys fought like armed lemmings. They didn’t care if a hundred of their troops died as long as they took a few of us with them.

  Once again, despite the dust and blood, I was left wondering why these people who were normally anything but self-sacrificing were willing to lay down their lives in droves in order to kill us.

  The fighting increased in volume as more Tau charged up the stairway. Given fresh targets and a shorter range, I managed to get into a good firing position. I knocked them down as fast as they came into sight.

  It wasn’t even fair. What amazed me most was how they kept coming. Deciding to create a barrier of bodies, I put them down one at a time on a certain landing about seven floors down. Soon the stairs were slick with blood, and the dead had to be heaved over the side of the railing just to make room for more Tau to climb upward—often on their hands and knees.

  How many did I kill? I don’t know. A hundred at least. Maybe it was twice that. Maybe more. My magazine was half-empty when it was all over, and a snap-rifle can hold upwards of a thousand tiny slivers of ammo.

  “Sir?” I asked, calling down into the quiet. “Adjunct Leeson?”

  “Leeson’s dead,” said a familiar voice. “This is Veteran Harris. I hate to admit it, McGill, but that was some fine shooting. I’m going to recommend to Graves that he bust you back down to the light units. You’ve missed your calling, son.”

  “Thanks, Vet.”

  “Don’t get a big head. Just cover us. We’re coming back up.”

  I heard tramping feet on the stairway. About a dozen members of the platoon reached my position. Many were bleeding, and all of them were covered in dust and sweat.

  “Did we push them back?” I asked Harris.

  “Shit no,” he said. “They’re just taking a little rest.”

  I frowned down into the dark, swirling dust.

  “Vet? Isn’t the armory itself down there—on those middle floors, I mean?”

  Harris glanced at me with an annoyed expression. “That might be, McGill. But I’m in charge, and I think our odds of survival and defending the roof are better from up here.”

  “But…we’re supposed to stop them from getting the weapons. Who cares about the roof?”

  Harris landed a heavy gauntlet on my shoulder and pushed me back into an alcove for an intense, private chat. The rest of the platoon’s survivors glanced at us, but they were content with watching for fresh attackers for the most part. They looked like they wanted nothing to do with this enemy anymore.

  “Now look,” Harris breathed into my face. He smelled like an armpit, and from the looks of things neither of us was very happy about it. “Don’t you go and screw all these soldiers by kicking this up to the centurion—or hell, the
primus.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it, Vet. I just thought our orders were to—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, boy? Stop thinking. And stop talking, too.”

  “I’m all over that.”

  Harris gave me a baleful stare. Then, he heaved a sigh.

  “Look McGill, I know you think you’re some kind of hero. You’ve got a complex and should seek professional help. But most of us in this outfit are just trying to make it to the end of the day without dying. Is that okay with you?”

  “It seems to me that our odds of survival would improve if the enemy was prevented from arming all of their troops.”

  Harris chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t you know how these things work yet? It doesn’t matter if you fight to the death on this funky pyramid or not. What matters is the simple fact that you, I, and all of Legion Varus can’t stop ten million crazies. Sometimes the best efforts of an individual, or even thousands of individuals, can’t change the outcome of a battle. This mission is hopeless. We’re on day four of this rebellion, and things aren’t improving—they’re getting worse every day.”

  “I don’t see how any of that changes our orders or our objectives,” I pointed out stubbornly.

  “It changes them because it’s hopeless. When a fight is hopeless, there’s nothing in my contract that says I have to die over and over again for nothing.”

  “Actually—” I began, but he cut me off with a chopping motion of his hand.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked, looking down over the stair rail.

  In truth, I had heard something. It had been a low hum followed by a…a ripping sound.

  “Upstairs!” shouted Harris. “Everyone, upstairs!”

  They hastened to obey, but it was too late for a few of them.

  Somehow, the enemy had gotten up to the level below us. They’d torn through the supports and collapsed the level. I realized now that the ripping sounds were the firing of their lightning bolt weapons into masonry.

  The last eight of us beat a retreat up two floors, almost to the hatch that led out onto the roof. They caught up with us there, and we turned like treed cats. We fought Tau that rushed after us with their bare hands extended and shaped into claws.

  I ripped my sniper barrel off, dropped it, and flipped the snap-rifle to full auto. I sprayed the charging mob, and a few of them fired bolts back at me. My eyes stopped working when a hit splashed right into the stairway over my head and the flash blinded me. I didn’t take my finger off my weapon, however. I kept it down until the chamber rattled itself dry, showering accelerated tiny bullets into the mass of the enemy I knew was right in front of me.

  When my vision came back, another figure hulked near.

  “Sargon?” I asked. “I thought you must be dead.”

  “Can’t happen,” he said, smiling grimly. “I already died once on this tour, and that’s my firm limit.”

  I looked downward at the stairway opposite our position. A hole had been blown through it. Sargon patted his belcher.

  “It occurred to me that the stairway was just a few centimeters of puff-crete. A focused beam right at their feet broke through. They can have a fun time crossing that hole.”

  Nodding in appreciation, I slapped his shoulder. “I wish I’d thought of that,” I said. “I’m sure if I’d had my belcher, I would have.”

  “No,” he said seriously. “No way. You’re too damned dumb.”

  We retreated farther upward and soon found ourselves at the hatchway to the roof. Cautiously, we opened it. As one of the last survivors of my platoon I wasn’t sure quite what I’d expected to see when we spilled out onto the roof, but it wasn’t what we met up with.

  There were reinforcements landing. Legion troops—hundreds of them. There were sane-looking Tau government troops as well. The help had come in skimmers. Each team swooped in and rushed off their skimmers a few seconds after they touched down. Then each of the skimmers zoomed away making room for the next landing vehicle.

  Best of all, there were bio people in the mix. I staggered forward with Harris on one flank and Sargon on the other. A pair of bios—both women with concerned faces—rushed to us and began working on wounds we barely knew we had.

  I was surprised to see Anne among them. She cupped my face, smiled, and pulled a chunk of masonry out of my cheek that looked like a flint arrowhead.

  Smiling back, I sunk to my knees.

  “I think I’ve got a concussion,” I said, but I don’t think she heard me. Perhaps the landing craft were too loud or my mouth was full of mush—I wasn’t sure which it was.

  Oh well, I thought, lying on my back and eyeing the stars peeping through vast black polymer sheets that made up the artificial sky above. She’d figure it out. That was her job.

  Mine was done.

  -22-

  Waking up, I half-expected to find myself coming out of the revival machine. But it wasn’t my next body’s time to live—not yet.

  Somehow I’d been transported back to headquarters. I was on the bio deck—a region we called “blue deck” whether it was on a ship or a station like this.

  There were tubes running in and out of my arm, my ass, my nose and God knew what else. I’m no medical wizard, but I figured this was a bad sign.

  Some kind of alarm must have alerted Anne because she popped into my curtained little tent the minute I woke up.

  “Hi Anne,” I said, forcing a smile. “Are we having that date tonight?”

  She ran her hands and a dozen instruments over me. There was obvious concern on her face.

  “We really should have recycled you,” she said in a voice like a whisper. “You don’t know the pressure I faced.”

  My smile faded. “Pressure? From who? Why?”

  “From my own staff, mostly.”

  She must have caught the look on my face because she shook her head and tried to explain. “It’s not anything personal, James. It’s a matter of resources. Your body is like a car. At some point, it’s easier to crush you down and make a new McGill than it is to repair you. This body you’re running on—well, you crossed that line.”

  “You’re saying I was totaled? I didn’t think it was that bad.”

  “Cranial split—did you know the orbit of your left eye was cracked?”

  I frowned, thinking. “It was hard to see for a bit.”

  She shook her head. “A half-dozen puncture wounds from shrapnel, blood loss, broken rib, left lung partially collapsed.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “My side hurt a lot. Still does. But you’ve got to overlook something like that in combat as long as you can.”

  Anne sucked in a deep breath and stopped fussing over me. She straightened her back and pursed her lips. “You’ll live, but you’ll hurt for a while. We had to do partial regrows and flesh-sprays all over the place. Try not to move your face around too much—you’ll tear up the new skin.”

  “Hey,” I said, calling after her as she bustled away to the next patient in line. “What about our date?”

  Anne tossed me a frosty glance.

  “You’d better talk that over with your girlfriend first,” she said, then stalked away. I could tell by her walk she was pissed off even if her voice had sounded neutral.

  I let my head flop back down onto my pillow. That was a mistake which I regretted immediately. A shower of painful lights went off inside my brain.

  Natasha had gotten to Anne. Damn. That was the trouble with dating inside your own unit. The ladies were always upset about it no matter what kind of bullshit they fed you about not caring what you did. They never seemed to understand that I just wasn’t a one-girl kind of guy. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever.

  A few hours later, I managed to get to my feet and crawl off blue deck. Anne tried to stop me, but I was done listening to her. The battle was still raging outside, and I didn’t want to end it sitting in a bed on plastic sheets.

  I found Leeson on the bottom floor forming up the survivors of our unit. Look
ing around, I didn’t see any other officers.

  “Sir?” I asked. “Where’s Graves? Or Adjunct Toro?”

  He gave me a sour look. “They’re in the queue to be revived,” he said. “But that will take a while. Imperator Turov has decided, in her infinite wisdom, that only officers of units that survived their last post should run their units.”

  “What? That’s crazy.”

  Leeson chuckled. “You can go tell her that. Her corvette arrived a few hours ago. She’s on the top floor of this stack of hamster cages. I’m sure she’ll be excited to indulge your every criticism.”

  I knew damned well Turov would rather see me permed than to talk strategy with me, so I shut up.

  Carlos was up and around, and he began following me as usual. As was also his custom, he wasn’t keeping quiet.

  “This is bullshit,” he said for about the seventeenth time since he’d found me. “We’re supposed to go out there and fight and die all over again while serving under the biggest chicken officer in the unit?”

  “I can’t go along with that,” I said. “Just because Leeson survived our last engagement doesn’t make him a chicken.”

  “Yeah? Well, maybe you’ve got a point. He was smarter than you or me. He made it off that roof alive somehow.”

  “I did too,” I said. “After you died in the bunker, Leeson led us into the building. There was a vicious fight, and we barely held the armory until we were relieved by reinforcements from headquarters.”

  Squinting in disbelief, Carlos peered into my face. He saw the bright scarlet wounds that were healing there. Nu-skin had been sprayed liberally over my cheeks, but anyone who’d seen serious wounding before could recognize the aftermath.

  “I’ll be damned! James McGill survived a fight—and I didn’t. Well played, sir. Well played.”

  I didn’t quite know what he thought I’d done so well, but I’m not one to shrink from praise, well-deserved or not.

  “Now you know why I wear the extra stripes,” I told him.

  Carlos’ face darkened again. I could tell he’d gone from admiration to wanting to punch me in less than a second. Before it could turn into a full-blown squabble, however, Leeson walked up to us and slammed his hands on our shoulders.