“Stop scaring the new guy,” muttered Cruz.
“Don’t worry about me.” Caine wiped sweat, flicked a shower of it into the dust as he crawled behind Trevor. “I’m about as scared as I can get.”
Stosh was remarkably cheery. “Guess we’ll see about that.”
“Major, my real GPS is working now.” O’Garran frowned at the unit. “Although God knows how.”
“Bet they seeded this part of low earth orbit with station-keeping geosync-emulators as soon as the Arat Kur lost orbital control,” Opal speculated. “What’s the good word, Miles? Do we have Riordan’s telemetry, now?”
O’Garran nodded, poked his head out the rear floor door of the largely shattered HQ building, evidently blasted by the last of a long daisy chain of demo charges that had started out beyond the walls of the compound. He squinted across a broad tree-framed esplanade and pointed. “One hundred forty meters that way. My best-guess map puts him in that old garden shed you can just see over there.”
Opal came erect out of her crouch. “That’s where we just heard a shitstorm of fire.”
“That’s right, ma’am. And there’s another problem on the way.” He handed her his binoculars, pointed to the northeast. She looked.
At least a dozen Hkh’Rkh were flanking the tool shed the long way around, staying off the esplanade and behind a facing row of low buildings. One was carrying a ponderous coil gun eminently capable of cutting the shed into tin strips. Shit.
Before Opal was fully aware of it, she was giving orders. “Little Guy, set up squad two as the base of fire to cover our advance across the open ground toward the shed. Squad one is splitting into three fire teams: number one with me, number two with you, number three with the squad’s senior remaining NCO. Running leapfrog advance. Propellant mixes at the hottest and grenades—”
“Major?”
“What?”
“That’s what I want to ask you: what? As in, what the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I—we—are going to rescue Cain—Mr. Riordan.”
“Major, all due respect—because I know you’re bulletproof—but that’s almost one hundred forty meters of open ground.”
“Which we can cross before those Hkh’Rkh get that coil gun in position to hit the shed, if we move now.”
“Seems like we could be sticking our necks way out on this one. We could take a lot of fire.”
“Why? Have they seen us yet? Do you see any other forces?”
“Well—”
“Right. Me neither. The bad guys who are still hitting that shed are probably just a light pinning force with regular assault rifles, keeping our guys pinned down while those other Sloths bring up their one big piece of artillery to finish off the humans they’ve trapped.”
O’Garran looked out at the esplanade, saw the Hkh’Rkh disappear behind the building that would screen them from being seen by the humans in the shed, but which would also screen the tunnel rats from being seen by them. “Seems right, but there’s a lot we don’t know.”
“Little Guy, there’s always a lot we don’t know. That’s where luck and boldness come in.” Opal looked at the Chinese fire team behind her. They were alert, terribly afraid, even more terribly committed. “On me. Run when I run. Drop when I drop. Got it?”
One of them nodded. The other two looked at him.
O’Garran looked at the hedges and arbors framing both the north and south edges of the esplanade. “Ma’am, I just don’t know about—”
Poor Little Guy. Such an old lady. She didn’t hear the rest of O’Garran’s tactical reservations. She was out the door and into the swirling dust, with one sharp phrase tossed over her shoulder:
“Cover me!”
Trevor had extraordinary eyes. “I’ve got movement, back by the Arat Kur HQ.”
It took Caine a moment to see it. A small group, running directly toward them. Humans, from their size and their gait. Then they dropped, and a second group of four persons appeared running behind them, moving about twenty meters beyond the first group before dropping. Then a third was visible—
“Looks like reinforcements,” commented Trevor, sounding like he was trying to control a surge of ecstasy and relief.
It did indeed look like reinforcements. And as the first group moved up and ran beyond the third, now no more than fifty meters away, it also looked like they were being led by a woman. A woman who looked remarkably like—
Caine stood: shit. “Opal!”
Trevor’s mind locked up. Opal? Where? Ohmigod—“Jesus, what the hell is she doing here—?” Which is a bullshit question because you know the answer: she’s here to save Caine’s sorry ass.
And she was coming across the open ground too fast, too directly, not sending scouts into the arbor she was paralleling. Jesus Christ, Opal. Get down, get under some cover!
Caine’s shout matched his thoughts. “GET DOWN! COVER!”
Opal heard a voice roaring at her from the shed. That’s Caine! But—
He’s calling for cover. He probably needs covering fire. Shit. They must be rushing him from the rear! We’ve gotta flank the shed, get around it to draw down on the bastards—
She didn’t wait for the third team to advance past her. “Follow me!” she shouted, and rolled up into a sprint toward the concealment of the south arbor.
Trevor saw Opal jump up to lead the first group in an off-sequence advance—and saw her go down just as quickly, suddenly obscured by a blood-red mist.
Caine barely heard the thunder-splitting drill of the coil gun which the Hkh’Rkh had evidently positioned in the south arbor.
He thought as he moved. Out the door, selector switch on the grenade tube to full automatic, pull the arming distance back to zero: contact detonation.
The first step carried him out the doorway, with good momentum.
I’m out of time.
His second step became a forward roll. The supersonic crackle of more coil gun projectiles sped over and past him. He rolled to a stop, facing in the direction of the fire and, with a slight sideways jog of the gun, squeezed the trigger. The three grenades arced into the south arbor’s clutter of bushes and trees with a rapid foomfoomfoom.
The three answering explosions were a bit more ragged. Some rounds hit a harder surface than others. But they erupted as a rough row of smoky orange flashes—one followed almost immediately by a short, loud sputter of similar blasts: secondary explosions. Someone’s ammo had gone up. That buys me one second, maybe two—
Riordan yanked a smoke grenade off his web gear, nulled the fusing timer, heaved it a third of the distance to Opal. It was fuming and pluming as it left his hand. Then a quick roll to the left, and another grenade, thrown farther along that same trajectory—just as the splintering cracks of coil gun rounds started spatting overhead again.