As each grenade detonated, it cleared a spherical area of smoke, chalk, and dust. Then the grey-white haze rushed in, obscuring the view once more.
Feeling ashamed of herself, Kira ran after Nielsen. She saw the first officer pick up a pair of downed Marines and sprint back toward the inner part of the temple. Kira spotted another wounded Marine, only this one still in his exo. She slid to a stop next to him and hit the quick-release latches on the side of the machine.
The front casing popped open, and the man fell out, coughing blood. “Let’s go,” said Kira, slipping his arm over her shoulders.
Half carrying him, she hurried toward the doorway to the sanctum. Nielsen had already dropped off her casualties and was returning to the open.
A numbing impact hit Kira on the right side, causing her to fall to one knee. She glanced down and immediately wished she hadn’t: the black fibers along her ribs were blown out like a spray of needles. Blood, muscle, and bone were visible scattered between.
Even as she looked, the fibers knitted together as they began to close over the wound.
She gasped and pushed against the floor with legs that had lost all feeling, trying to continue moving forward. One step, two steps, and then she was walking again with the man’s weight still heavy on her shoulder.
As she cleared the doorway, Falconi took the man off her.
Kira immediately turned to head back out, but Falconi caught her by the arm. “Don’t be stupid!” he said.
She shook him off and headed deeper into the clouds, looking for the last few Marines. Outside the temple, more explosions, more gunfire. If not for the Soft Blade, Kira doubted she would have been able to think or function amid the noise. Each blast was a concussion strong enough to feel in her bones, and the objects around her blurred from the force of the blows. The noise seemed to be increasing too.
Where are they? She couldn’t see any Jellies through the mess of smoke, only twisted, incomprehensible shapes thrashing in the murk.
“SJAMs incoming,” barked Koyich. “Hit the deck!”
Kira dropped flat, covering her head.
A half second later, four separate explosions struck the streets surrounding the plaza, lighting up the area with a hellish blaze. The ground rippled and smacked Kira in the cheek, causing her teeth to clack together with painful force.
“Status,” said Koyich. “Get me eyes on hostiles.”
“Looks like we took out most of ’em,” said Hawes, “but can’t tell for sure. Waiting for a better view.”
The explosions had only added to the swirling clouds, thickening them to the point where it was nearly pitch-black in the plaza.
Kira listened; she no longer heard gunfire nor the sounds of moving Jellies. As the wind began to clear the air, she risked poking her head up and looking around.
Clang! Across the exposed antechamber of the temple, Nielsen staggered back, a large dent in the front of her power armor. She fired her arm-mounted machine gun several times into the haze, and Kira heard the splatter of bullets hitting flesh.
Down the clogged streets, she saw dozens more heat-spots approaching. More Jellies.
Trig came running out of the temple’s inner sanctum, heading for Nielsen. As he skidded to a stop beside her, Koyich said, “That’s all the help we can expect from the Ilmorra. We’ll be lucky if they don’t go after her for setting off those SJAMs. Get everyone inside. Make it fast!”
There were still four Marines on the ground. Kira started toward the nearest one.
One of the Jellies’ white drones flew into view around the edge of the temple’s broken façade, while at the same time, a large, tentacled squid climbed over the mounded rubble, a pair of blasters held by its twisting limbs.
Kira scrabbled for her weapon but couldn’t find it. Where was it? Had she dropped it? There wasn’t enough time, no time, no time—
Trig jumped in front of Nielsen, firing his blaster and his rifle at the same time. His face was contorted, and he was screaming over the radio: “Yaaaah! Come on, you fucker! Eat it!”
The white, orb-shaped drone spun as bullets slammed into it, and then it sparked and tumbled to the ground. Behind it, the squid flinched, raised a tentacle holding a long, bar-shaped railgun.
The Soft Blade pulsed outward as it struggled to attack. Out of habit, Kira resisted, unwilling to let go, unwilling to trust the xeno—Bang.
The sound from the Jelly’s weapon was short and sharp. It cut through the commotion like auditory punctuation. Startling silence followed. Trig’s guns ceased firing as his armor locked up, and then he slowly toppled backward, a statue falling.
Centered on the front of his visor was a finger-sized hole, and frozen on his face, a look of terrible surprise.
“No!” Falconi shouted.
Shock paralyzed Kira for a moment, and then horrified understanding spurred her back into action. Too slow. She relaxed her hold on the Soft Blade and reached out with it, intending to loose the xeno and tear the Jelly to shreds.
Before she could, a woman in a skinsuit ran in front of the squid, waving a piece of white cloth. “Wait! Stop! Stop! We come in peace!”
Kira froze, unable to process what she was seeing.
As the stranger clambered into the temple, the gold sheen of her visor cleared to reveal a hard, lined face.
For a moment, Kira saw only a collection of unfamiliar features. Then her perspective shifted, and the planet seemed to tilt underneath her. “You!” she said.
“Navárez,” said Major Tschetter.
2.
More Jellies gathered around the broken front of the temple, but for some reason they didn’t shoot, so Kira ignored them as she rushed to Trig’s side.
Falconi and the squad’s medic were only a step behind. The medic removed Trig’s helmet with practiced speed, and pooled blood poured out across the tessellated floor in bright crimson streaks.
The kid was still conscious, his white-rimmed eyes darting around with a panicked look. A bullet had hit him near the base of his neck, ripping apart the arteries. Blood pumped out at a frightening rate, each spurt weaker than the last. His mouth worked, but no words came forth, only a horrible bubbling sound—the desperate gasps of a drowning swimmer.
My fault, Kira berated herself. She should have acted faster. She should have trusted the xeno. If only she hadn’t been so focused on control, she would have been able to protect the kid.
From a pocket, the medic produced an oxygen mask that he fixed over Trig’s mouth. Then he took a canister of medifoam, pressed the nozzle into the center of the wound, and sprayed.
Trig’s eyes rolled back, and his breathing stuttered. His arms began to quiver.
The medic stood. “He needs cryo. Unless you can get the Ilmorra here in the next few minutes, he’s dead.” As he spoke, Nielsen got back to her feet, holding a hand against the dent in her chestplate. He pointed a finger at her. “Need help?”
“I’ll survive,” she said.
With that, the medic hurried past to the Marines waiting for his attention.
“Can’t we—” Kira started to say to Koyich.
“The Ilmorra is already on her way.”
Kira looked to the sky. After a few seconds, she heard the distinctive rumble of an approaching rocket. “Where should—”
A trio of laser beams, each beam equal to the output from a dozen handheld blasters, stabbed upward from somewhere beyond the outskirts of the city. A second later, a burning star plummeted through the shelf of clouds: the Ilmorra, trailing blue shock diamonds and a line of white exhaust. The shuttle vanished behind the flank of the nearest mountain, and a blinding flash illuminated the valley, sending shadows streaming eastward from the base of the buildings.