“I’m on the line,” First Sergeant Powell said. “They’re not going anywhere, Two-Gun.”
As if in answer, there was a bellowing roar from down the corridor.
“These guys again,” Berg muttered.
The bellow could only have come from a rhino-tank — a rhinoceros sized and generally shaped organic tank capable of firing a plasma blast that could destroy a main battle tank. Its frontal armor was proof against any portable weapon the Marines had at their disposal and there were very few ways to get around that.
“Lieutenant,” the first sergeant said, “if you’d like a suggestion on how to take one out…”
“Been there, done that, First Sergeant,” Berg snarled. “This is not the time!”
Rhino-tanks were invulnerable on their front; even their eyes were deep-set in armored sockets smaller than the diameter of most bullets. But just after they fired their plasma balls, they tended to roar in what sounded to human ears like triumph.
If a suit could survive the plasma, a rare situation, a Marine could get one shot at the rhino. If he could recover fast enough from being in the near blast radius of the plasma. If he could effectively target a still small spot with all the damage his armor was going to have taken, including overload of all systems from EMP at the very least. If he wasn’t baked to a crisp.
Berg had done it. Once. But it had taken using pistols, since his machine-gun ammunition had chain-exploded from the heat of the plasma. And it had very nearly killed him. And he didn’t have his pistols.
But there were a couple of other ways to kill one. None of them particularly safe, mind you, but…
“Slap a limpet on?” Berg asked.
The rhino’s primary armoring was to the front. If a Marine could get a sufficiently powerful explosive onto the rear of its abdomen, it would take one out.
The problem was getting to the rear of its abdomen.
“Can we get somebody up to the door?” Powell asked seriously. Clearly the junior officer was not in the mood for humor. “Get it as it comes through?”
“Maybe,” Berg said, looking at the layout of the remaining platoon. As he watched, Dupras’s suit went offline. “If I’ve got anybody left!”
“Lurch, Corwin, on me,” the first sergeant said. “You keep their heads down, Lieutenant. I’ll take care of that rhino. My turn, Two-Gun.”
“Good luck, Top.”
The fire from the thorn-throwers had started to slack off. That wasn’t a good sign. It meant they were getting out of the way for the rhino-tank.
“For what we are about to receive,” Berg muttered over the platoon freq.
“Say again, sir?” Staff Sergeant Carr asked.
“An old prayer, Staff Sergeant,” the lieutenant replied as the snout of the tank came around the last corner. It wasn’t moving fast. The term that came to mind was “ominous.” “An old prayer, the Marine’s Prayer. You’ve never heard it?”
“No, sir,” the senior NCO said. He had many more years than Bergstresser in the Corps, despite Berg being prior service, so he was a little surprised the most junior lieutenant knew a Marine prayer he didn’t.
“It’s pretty simple, really,” Berg said, staying on the platoon frequency as the rhino-tank got lined up, spotted the enemy and started to charge its plasma horns. “It goes: For what we are about to receive, may we truly be thankful. Platoon, DOWN!”
The plasma blast filled the compartment with overwelming sound and heat. The wall had an opening, the same width as the corridor leading to it, directly in front of the corridor. The rhino-tank had targeted the starboard corner of the wall, where it had detected enemies sheltering.
Normally, the powerful plasma bolt would have blasted a wall to smithereens and destroyed anything behind it or around it.
In this case, the plasma released its titanic energy mostly in the immediate area, the wall effortlessly resisting its immense thermal and quantum power and shrugging off the blast.
That didn’t mean the Marines were safe. The plasma bolt was simply too powerful for that. Staff Sergeant Carr and Sergeant Bae were holding down the two corners of the wall. The plasma opened up Staff Sergeant Carr’s armor like a firecracker in a tin can, vaporizing the Marine senior NCO’s body. The blast only penetrated Bae’s armor, but the rush of stripped atoms turned him to a blackened hulk in a bare nanosecond.
Even Marines farther away weren’t safe. Ducksworth’s interior temperature rose to an astonishing two thousand degrees, giving the lance corporal just enough time to howl in agony before he began burning to death in his own personal crematorium. Lance Corporal Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Dancer, Prancer, Donder or Vixen, take your pick, was struck by the machine-gun from Sergeant Bae’s suit, which punched through his armor, fortunately killing him before the heat could really register.
Lieutenant Bergstresser shook his head to clear it and immediately checked his readouts. His suit was functional, incredibly enough.
But he no longer had a platoon.
The only suits reading as functional were Eakins’s and Gunnery Sergeant Juda’s. Eakins’s vitals indicated that he was out; unconscious, in a coma, it wasn’t clear.
“Gunny?” Berg croaked.
“Here,” Juda replied. “Here, sir. Grapp.”
“Well, you know the Blade motto,” Berg said. “ ‘It’s just us.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” Gunny Juda said, more forcefully. “Two items: Third Platoon now reports a rhino on the other corridor. And ours is advancing. Orders?”
“Yeah,” Berg croaked. “Keep your head down and hope Top can take it out.”
First Sergeant Powell had positioned his team well clear of the door. They’d been outside the blast radius of the plasma ball, but their armor was still hot as Hades.
“When it emerges, we’re going to have to move like lightning,” Powell said. “You can stop these things from moving with a couple of Wyverns if you give it your all. You two make sure it can’t turn this way. I’ll slap on the limpet.”
He waited for the beast to emerge, sure in his heart that they were all going to die. But the noncombat personnel were sheltering at the far end of the compartment, the same place the Nitch commander had made his last stand. If the rhino-tanks got through, there was no way in hell that they’d survive. And the entire battle would be for nothing.
He waited, patiently, then impatiently, then in annoyance.
“Top?” Lurch asked. “You’d usually hear them by now.”
“I know,” the first sergeant said. “Damnit. Where is the damned thing?”
“Third Platoon reports their’s has stopped,” Corwin said. “It just sat down.”
“That doesn’t sound right…”
Eric was tired of waiting, too. He didn’t want to give the rhino-tank another target, but he also was wondering what the Dreen were up to.
He finally popped up a sensor to get a look. Hopefully the rhino wouldn’t even notice the hair-thin wand.
The tank was stopped halfway between the last fork and compartment. It was trying to drag itself forward with its front claws, but since its rear was down it wasn’t getting very far. It tried to fire its plasma-horns again but the green glow faded and then popped out of existence.
As Berg watched, wondering what could have happened to it, it lay down completely and rolled over on its side.
Then he could see the malfunction; the rear of the rhino was a mass of purple spiders.
The spiders had found an opening where humans hadn’t, one that virtually every major organism possessed, and infested the body of the tank. Berg shook his head as the massive fighting-machine shuddered in agony and blood began pouring out of its beaklike maw. Finally, the thing gave a heaving sigh and was still. Mostly still. The body continued to ripple as the space-spiders fought over every last edible scrap.