L'Guan turned to Captain S'Nar. "Signal Commander L'Wrona 'Away All Boats,' please, Captain. And stand by gunnery crews." His outer calm was in sharp contrast to his feelings. L'Guan hated sending men off to their deaths.
For political expediency, he was an Imperial-"Restore the Empire, restore our strength!" Secretly he loathed the movement and its leaders: jowly councilors, fascistic brother officers, unctuous politicos.
The Admiral had become a soldier because he was poor, and the only way up for a poor boy with smarts had been the Fleet. He'd worked hard, done well and risen slowly; they all had risen slowly till the S'Cotar came. When the war started, he'd been a commander with five ships that should have been scrap centuries before. Carefully hoarding his resources, L'Guan had distinguished himself in those first days by fighting sparingly, retreating slowly and buying time. Others-classmates, many-had died gallantly, throwing their lives away in suicide runs on the vastly superior S'Cotar fleets. Some few had broken and run.
One thing had led to another and now here he was, sending a lot of hard-nosed kids off to die because it really was the only way to win, to finally end it and take his men home. Most of his men.
L'Wrona received the attack order aboard one of the fifty assault boats orbiting between the fleet and lunar surface. "Take her in," he ordered the pilot. The stubby little craft banked, dropping toward the moon's dark side. Forty-nine other boats followed in W formation. After five thousand years the Imperial Guard, led by its hereditary Lord-Captain, was going into battle again. As the engines whined higher, L'Wrona recalled his briefing by the Admiral.
"So that's it, Commander. I'm risking the entire Commando to end this war. You're clear on your orders?" L'Guan's image filled Implacable''s bridge screen.
"Yes, sir. Leading the Fleet Commando, I'm to assault a Class One Imperial Citadel, fight my way down two miles to POCSYM's Central Control area and secure it. I'm then to quickly repair any damage done to vital systems by S'Cotar sabotage and activate the biofab destruct sequence, thus killing the S'Cotar and winning the war.
"Also," he continued in the same sardonic tone, "should anything go wrong-how could it, though?-there are no reserves to save us.
"Lastly, no one has mentioned our returning."
"At least you have no illusions, Commander My-Lord-Cap-tain," said the Admiral with a humorless grin. "POCSYM will get you through the shield, keeping it open for us to give you some surface cover. After that you're on your own. I'm sending over a briefing scan, furnished by POCSYM. It shows the way to his area, defenses, probable ambush points. It's very thorough."
"Thank you, Admiral."
"I knew your father, the late Margrave," continued L'Guan after a moment's hesitation. ' 'We served together as ensigns- God!-thirty years ago, during the A'Rem 'police action.'"
L'Wrona nodded, a melancholy smile tugging at his lips. "He spoke of you often, sir. And of his days on the old Steadfast under Captain B'Tul."
"What a tub she was, L'Wrona!" He smiled broadly, old memories briefly wiping away his worries. "Worst destroyer in a fleet of derelicts. And B'Tul, that old martinet! Your father and I once let a F'Norian stinkbird loose in his cabin. What an uproar! Had us at battlestations for two days." His smile faded.
"I was grieved when I heard of his death, Commander," he added simply, the old hurt in his eyes not visible in the screen.
"He died well, sir," said L'Wrona with quiet pride. "Leading the counterattack on a S'Cotar bridgehead. He was cut down from behind by transmutes appearing as Planetary Guardsmen."
"That was a black day for all of us. You held the U'Tria port, I recall, long enough for survivors to escape."
"They didn't clear the atmosphere, Admiral. Enemy interceptors were everywhere." The younger man's face was expressionless.
"May we all do better today. The command is yours, Commander My Lord Captain L'Wrona," L'Guan said formally, saluting. "Bring them hell."
A sharp jolt broke the Commander's reverie. "Ground defenses have opened up." The pilot's voice sounded thinly over the commnet.
"It would have been better if you'd stayed behind," said L'Wrona, turning to the three figures strapped next to him in the boat's crash webbing. The rest of the boat's contingent were similarly suspended, a nest of warsuited spiders. The assault boats had no room for such frills as gravity generators or g-chairs.
"John's down there," said Zahava, tightening a strap. "But I do agree that Bill and Andre shouldn't be here-they're too old."
"I'm not too old," Sutherland said, his glare filtered out by the helmet's tint. "I jog two miles every morning. Besides, if I live through this, I can go on the lecture circuit, write my own ticket.'' Another sharp jolt interrupted him, swinging the passengers in their webs. "If I live through this," he repeated less certainly.
"I admit I'm too old," said Bakunin, hanging next to Sutherland. "I should be in my modest office at Three Dhzershinsky Square-it has a view of the Lubyanka-reading reports and ogling my secretary's legs."
"Then why the hell are you here?" Sutherland asked peevishly, the boat's evasive maneuvers beginning to affect his stomach. "The Order of Lenin?"
"The order of Comrade General Branovsky, Bill. Recall that we're the only Terrans allowed aboard the Fleet, pending a formal exchange of ambassadors…"
Sutherland gave a derisive snort. "The secret selection squabble at the UN could go on forever. Maybe we should ask POCSYM to build us a Terran ambassador acceptable to all Terrans!
"I'm sorry. You were saying?"
"That I'm here both to show the hammer-and-sickle and to keep an eye on you. The head of my Directorate told me, explicitly, what would become of me if you, capitalist lackey, went without me anywhere in the Fleet. The General's a Stalinist with a gift for vivid imagery. Thus we've toured a score of ships together and are now embarked on this pleasant excursion."
Another near hit shook the boat.
"Missile," noted L'Wrona, calmly checking his blaster.
"Two minutes to target, Commander," the pilot called. "We're through the shield. I have the landing zone in sight."
"Attention, all boats," said L'Wrona. "Two minutes to target. Subcommanders, get your sections in position on the double. We've got to follow through on Fleet's salvo, overcome any outside resistance and enter the citadel before the enemy rallies.
"Good luck.
"And you three," he added to the Terrans, "stay close to me."
Deep within the citadel lay Defense Control, nestled behind ten-foot walls of battlesteel, accessible only by teleport or transport. Tier upon tier of consoles filled the bowl-shaped room, screens flickering above them.
Gaun-Sharick arrived, answering an urgent summons.
They appear to be enemy scout craft, Glorious, reported the Watch Leader, antennae wavering uncertainly. But that formation is unknown to us.
Commando attack craft, replied Gaun-Sharick, watching a telltale. The ion emission patterns are the same. And that's an Imperial assault formation. Note the double prongs. Idiots.
Sound the alert. Reinforce our warriors in POCSYM's area. Signal all batteries to open fire.
The alarm went out, orders and responses flashing back and forth. Unwelcomed responses.
Impedance on all command-control circuits, Glorious. We cannot fire.
POCSYM. It was a dry curse. Shield status?
Maximum.
Start recircuiting missile batteries nearest Sector Red Twelve. They'll be trying for POCSYM's area.
New orders were issued. Nearer the surface, in hardened defense clusters, technicians began the laborious task of recalibrating scores of shipbuster batteries.
Have no concern, Glorious. The shield will stop them. If they tarry too long before retreating, we will have enough firepower to destroy them.
Perhaps. Carry on, Watch Leader. I'm going to Barracks Cluster Blue Thirty to oversee the reinforcing of Red Twelve.
Nothing happened. Gaun-Sharick remained where he was, unmoving. Then his thoughts came to every S'Cotar in the citadel.
Do not be alarmed. Some of our special ability is temporarily blocked. We of Command will soon remove the impediment.
Swarm Leaders, Blue Thirty, move your forces into Red Twelve. Use the old tube system. A human assault force is trying to reach POCSYM's Central Control. Kill them.
Surface Guard, Red Twelve, deploy.
Missiles firing in Red Twelve, Glorious. The Watch Leader's tentacles flew over his console. Counter jamming now. Telekinesis will be restored soon.
On thousands o? channels, in ever-changing codes, creator and created fought.
The boats landed close to each other, churning up the dust in the small lunar valley. The webbing automatically retracted, the bulkheads dropping away. All but engines and pilot modules lay open to the vacuum.
"Deploy," barked L'Wrona, leading the rush to the nearest cover. In three minutes the one thousand men of his command were in position, a long, thin line of silver-suited figures extending along the base of a ridge.
L'Wrona signaled the advance. Reaching the ridge's crest in a series of practiced, graceful leaps, the troopers threw themselves prone in the ancient dust. Awkward, bounding at first in every direction, the three Terrans eventually reached the top, their bodies still uncertain in the light lunar gravity.
Below the humans lay a large box canyon. Suited figures with too many limbs moved from the far end, emerging from an entrance in the farthest wall. As the humans watched, more warriors poured into the canyon, leaping to take up positions on the flanking ridges-one of which now had human tenants.
"Hot time in the ol' town tonight," a voice murmured.
"Mr. Sutherland, your communicator's open," said L'Wrona. "Admiral, we're in position."
"Acknowledged," came L'Guan's voice. "Commencing fire."
Those who looked up saw a brilliant beam of red flash down from space. Stayed by an invisible hand, it halted a mile above the canyon. Hesitating briefly, the S'Cotar continued their advance, still unaware of the commandos.
More beams joined the first, forming a great cone of energy whose focal point began to glow-red, crimson, finally cherry. Too late the biofabs turned, scurrying back toward the
In a soundless blast of showering rock, the fusion beams won through, becoming a hundred dancing spears that touched the S'Cotar surface guard, then vanished.
Nothing moved in the canyon.
L'Wrona stood, a lone silver man shining in silhouette against the rising Earth's soft pastels. Lying in the dust, Sutherland watched as the Commander raised the long-barreled blaster above his head. Despite his helmet's darkened glass, Bill had to squint against the fierce golden reflection from the inlay just below the weapon's safety: crossed swords beneath a five-pointed star, a device soft-burnished by the hands of the Margraves of U'Tria.
A young Daniel come to judgment, thought Sutherland even as L'Wrona cried, "Assault!" his voice long, wavering. It sounded to Bill more like an invocation than an order.
Gaining the canyon floor in a few long leaps, the humans passed the S'Cotar's ashes, heading for the gate. At a hundred yards, L'Wrona halted his command with raised pistol. "Admiral, the gate, please."
A quick red lancet bored through the thick battlesteel, leaving behind a smoldering hole. Beyond stretched an empty corridor, most of its lighting still functioning.
A scream whirled the troopers about. Not all the biofabs had died in the bombardment. A hidden squad had sprung up, surprising the rear guard. Three men died before the massive return fire swept the warriors away.
L'Wrona turned back to the entrance. Blaster leveled, he warily entered the citadel.
There were no side corridors, the commandos found as they advanced; just the main one, leading to a very large elevator. "Ship lift," observed L'Wrona. "Too small for anything the S'Cotar have. Imperial Survey probably used it last. Let's see if it works." He pushed the call button.
The elevator arrived quickly, mammoth doors sliding noiselessly open. It was empty. The blasters raised to greet it slowly lowered.
"V'Arta," said the Commander, "remain here with your section to cover our withdrawal." His friend nodded, then began organizing the hundred men of C Section into a defense ring around the lift.
"H'Nar," said Zahava, laying a restraining hand on L'Wrona's shoulder, "how do you know the elevator isn't booby-trapped?''
"I don't," he said, stepping into the elevator. The first section trooped in past him. "I count on the S'Cotar's arrogance. They'd never have thought we could penetrate their home base. Time is short, Zahava. Coming?" The Terrans boarded.
The descent was rapid, uneventful, the levels flashing by on the big overhead indicator-levels marked not in S'Cotar, but in a large, unical script Zahava found she understood. "High K'Ronarin," L'Wrona explained. "The mother tongue of us all. K'Raoda thinks your own Indo-European root language one of its descendants."
"There are over two hundred levels so far!" exclaimed Bakunin.
"It was an Imperial Citadel, Colonel, not a granary," said the Commander.
"Positions," he ordered as the lift began to slow. "This should be POCSYM's level."
The commandos fell into three ranks-prone, kneeling, standing-and took careful aim as the elevator stopped. The shooting started even before the doors opened. Blue and red bolts sizzled past each other, tearing into the opposing ranks. Blasters whining, men screaming, biofabs hissing, the cloying stench of burnt flesh and everywhere the light: the beautiful killing light from the weapons, the rippling, rainbow aura of warsuits failing.
Bill had believed nothing could be as bad as that last battle under Goose Hill. He was wrong. This was an interminable moment of hell, a battle tableau from the art of Bosch or Floris.
L'Wrona brought them out of it, leading a charge into the biofabs, firing and clubbing with his pistol, stabbing with his knife. Short and vicious, the fight ended with the few surviving S'Cotar breaking for the safety of a cross-corridor. None made it.
"Without these warsuits, they'd be feasting on our corpses now," L'Wrona commented to Zahava as the humans regrouped and evacuated their wounded. The remainder of their force had now joined them.
"Do they really eat… us?" she asked, skeptical.
The K'Ronarin gazed for a moment at the heaped biofab remains, then led Zahava by the hand to one particular body. A well-aimed shot had ended the warrior's life, shattering its abdominal sack and deepening the viscous green slime covering the floor. Rolling the corpse over with his foot, L'Wrona pointed at a string of withered objects strung about the shorf neck. Zahava leaned closer, peering.
"Baby's feet!" she gasped, recoiling.
"Human infants are especially prized as a delicacy by the S'Cotar," said the officer, turning and walking away. "The necklace is a symbol of wealth and status. Maybe that was the commander of our reception party.
"Let's get moving before they counterattack.
"Section leaders, move your sections out on the double."
The golden, hovering sphere wavered twice before blinking out for good. D'Trelna spoke hopefully into his communicator. "POCSYM?"
"… jam… cations… right… next…"
"Great. We've lost our guide," said John, looking down the long empty corridor. He counted fifteen cross-corridors in just the next half mile.
"D'Trelna to L'Wrona. Do you receive?"
Static filled the commnet.
"Jamming all right," grunted the Captain. "Sounded like POCSYM said 'next right.'"
The next right led down a narrow, curving corridor that ended at a door marked in the cursive S'Cotar script.
"Can you read that?" asked the Terran.
"'Spare Parts'… No." D'Trelna's brow wrinkled in concentration. "'Food Storage.' Maybe." He shook his head.
"Sorry I asked. Shall we take a look?"
John leading, they burst through the door. It was pitch-black inside. And cold. Very, very cold.
"Must be food storage," whispered the K'Ronarin. "Something wrong with the light activator? Ah!" he exclaimed as brilliant light flooded the room.
As long as he lived, John never forgot the shock of Greg Farnesworth's dead blue eyes staring into his own, inches away. His friend's naked corpse hung head down from the ceiling, wires through its feet running up to a simple block-and-tackle system. Dazedly, John stepped back, looking about the "storage" room.
Cindy's body-the Cindy Greg had never known-hung to the geologist's right. Behind them were Fred Langston's and over a hundred other corpses, all hanging like cattle in a slaughterhouse. Only Greg's cause of death was apparent: the hideous stomach wound from the Nasqa raid.
"Why?" John managed, finding his voice. His breath hung steaming in the frigid air. "Why take his body-anyone's body-and bring it here?"
Less shaken, D'Trelna noticed it first. "They've all been brainstripped," he said with quiet horror. Now John saw it: the craniums had been neatly removed and the brains scooped out.
Harrison had survived much of war's meanness: Indochina with its napalmed children; nameless, massacred villages; pungi-staked GIs. He'd been with the South Africans when they'd raided across their border, an observer powerless in the face of infanticide, gang rape and throat slitting. John thought himself inured to man's bestiality. But this was a higher order of evil, an alien horror of unknown purpose. Choking back a throatful of bile, he turned to D'Trelna. "Why brainstrip them? Why save the bodies?"
"First, how," said the Captain. "POCSYM just transports the entire Institute staff here one quiet afternoon, instantly replacing them with S'Cotar transmutes. Like that." He snapped a blunt finger.
"How'd you know they were from the Institute, J'Quel?" John asked softly. The K'Ronarin smiled to find himself staring down the wide bore of the Terran's blaster.
"You may just survive this war, my friend." He nodded approvingly.
"On the way here, you explained that the guise Gaun-Sharick took on the catwalk was that of the Leurre Institute's Director. When I saw the same face hanging from that meat hook over there, I drew the logical conclusion.
"Now"-he smiled-"would you mind pointing that blaster elsewhere? The M-Eleven-A has a notoriously delicate trigger, and your S'Cotar alarm is not signaling."
"Sorry." Grinning sheepishly, he lowered the muzzle.
"Bah! You're just developing the right sort of reflexes.
"About the Institute, though, John. Why did POCSYM put a S'Cotar Nest on Terra? Any speculation?"
John stamped his feet, trying to warm them. "I think he put it there so we Terrans would discover the S'Cotar. The events at the Institute and Goose Cove were as carefully orchestrated as the attack on your Confederation. It required less resources', but had to be timed with your arrival in this system." He paused. "Could POCSYM have planted the clues in your Archives that led you here?"
"Possible. Archives is a vast, decentralized sprawl of a city, run by computers and a handful of academics. Yes, it's very possible."
"But why brainstrip the corpses, J'Quel. What use could the S'Cotar have for human brains?"
They both saw it at the same instant. "POCSYM!"
"Of course!" D'Trelna shouted, slamming his palm with a fist. "The S'Cotar didn't take them. Revenge wasn't the last mindslaver."
"Damn right," growled John. "No wonder he's been able to keep going for all these centuries. His central components are infinitely renewable. And the corpses are saved-"
"As a treat for his creatures," finished the Captain. "Let's get out of here. My balls are frostbitten and I think I'm going to be sick." The officer turned toward the door.
"J'Quel, wait." Fanning the blaster wide, John fired into a stack of boxes. A second later the corpsicle room was filling with greasy smoke. Sullen orange flames began licking up the wall.
"Requiescatinpace, you poor bastards," said the Terran as the door slid shut behind them. He stopped dead. "But they really can't, can they?"
"Not while their minds are in thrall to POCSYM," D'Trelna said as they retraced their steps down the passageway.
"Then the only way to free them is to destroy POCSYM." John carefully scanned the intersection.
"Yes. And POCSYM will be destroyed, John, my word on it.
"Now what?" asked the Captain, looking down the deserted corridor.
"Keep going in the direction we were headed when we lost contact with POCSYM. It stands to reason that the control area is off a main passageway. We know we're on the right level. So…" He waved his blaster down the gray expanse of corridor.
"So we continue." D'Trelna sighed. "I'd travel easier in a warsuit."
"Courage, Captain, courage," said John, slapping the older man on the back, some of his natural buoyancy recovered.
"Cunning and guile will win the day for us yet." He took off at a brisk trot.
"Let's hope Cunning and Guile get here soon," grumbled Implacable's skipper, forcing his bulk after the other's slender, receding form.
L'Wrona picked himself up from the cold alloy of the passageway. Waving his pistol, he signaled the battered advance section to follow him through the carnage. He picked his way through the blasted corpses of the S'Cotar ambush force, mingled with the bodies of many-too many-of his men. Dropping back between the quick-trotting double file of commandos, he let his point squad take the lead.
"Feeling better?" he asked of a figure, slighter than most, keeping pace with the column. It was further distinguished by an ugly burn hole through its left arm.
"Yes, thank you, H'Nar," Zahava said drowsily. "The automedic's pumped me so full of painkillers I feel like I'm flying."
The attack, first since the lift, had been expected, even overdue. The length of time it had taken the biofabs to mount even minimal resistance to the assault had lent POCSYM some badly needed credibility. Perhaps the computer really had sealed the enemy from the humans' route of march. L'Wrona only hoped that D'Trelna and Harrison were finding it easy going to the rendezvous. The troopers' attack should have pulled every S'Cotar left in the sealed area into the counterattacks. But there'd been no contact with either the two men or Fleet since the commandos had penetrated the Citadel.
"The painkillers will wear off in a few hours, then all you'll want to do is sleep," said the Commander. "Sure you don't want to change your mind, go back to the boats with the rest of the wounded?"
"No way," the Israeli said firmly. "Although I don't think, I'll take the point again."
She'd been leading the column when the biofabs hit from two side corridors. It had taken ten minutes of fierce hand-to-hand fighting before the ambush was overcome. The only survivor of the point squad, Zahava had led the final charge-this despite her wound.
"Still intact?" L'Wrona asked the two men protectively flanking Zahava. Like her own, their armor bore no rank, just the commando shoulder badge. Their winded condition was audible over the commnet.
"Physically, aren't we, Andre?" panted Sutherland.
"So far," the Russian grunted, blast rifle held ready at high-port, eyes suspiciously sweeping the side corridors as they trotted past. "I'd like more than that mendacious machine's word that these passageways are 'relatively secure.'"
"We've neither the time nor the force to secure them, gentlemen," said the starship officer. "All we can do is throw a squad down them as we approach, then pull it back after we pass. We can't get mired down in these labyrinthine halls. Everything depends on our reaching that control facility. Everything," he repeated grimly.
"Frankly," said Sutherland, hefting his rifle, "I preferred the reception aboard Vigilant. Give me canapes to carnage any day."
"You're a living symbol of capitalist decadence, Sutherland." Bakunin snorted contemptuously.
"You're hardly a paragon of socialist self-sacrifice, Colonel," retorted the CIA officer. "As we were changing into these warsuits, I noted your uniform. 'Chalmers of Savile Row.' Very nice."
"We all must make minor accommodations to the march of the dialectic," Bakunin said, unruffled.
It was then that the main counterattack materialized, literally, in the column's center.
Figures seemingly K'Ronarin, down to the last detail of insignia and equipment, appeared with blasters firing. Pandemonium threatened as the troopers tried to tell friend from foe in the ferocity of a head-on firefight.
The guard spheres saved them from the certain death of a rout. Their small, floating presence forgotten until now, they poured a steady, accurate fire into the transmute shock troops. Enjoying only the illusion of warsuits, the biofabs died. Seconds later the guard spheres self-destructed, settling to the floor in a sigh of melting circuitry.
"General assault from the side corridors!" crackled the commnet.
L'Wrona, with the Terrans, whirled to see a mass of biofab warriors overrun the squad holding the nearest intersection- an action being repeated the length of the column.
"Push them back! Do not pursue beyond the blast doors," ordered the Commander.
Rallying, the commandos sent a wall of flame into the bio-fabs, breaking their attack. Only at two points did the S'Cotar penetrate the column, breaches quickly sealed with biofab bodies.
Victory wasn't cheap, though.
Sutherland and Bakunin had joined a subsection attacking down a side corridor. The American, rifle empty, was laying into the warriors with his commando knife. Beside him, Bakunin flailed about with his rifle butt. The fighting was close, fierce and now in the humans' favor.
Suddenly the surviving biofabs broke for the safety of the next intersection. As they reached it, the great armored blast doors trundled shut in their faces.
"Nice guys!" Bill shouted to the Russian above the din. '"Stand or die!'"
The S'Cotar died-a desperate, hopeless charge. A few survived the blaster fire to throw themselves into the troopers' ranks. They, too, died. But not soon enough.
Sutherland had just slipped another chargepac into his rifle when the suicide wave hit. He shot the first few insectoids, then went down under three more. In seconds, Zahava and Bakunin had blasted the last S'Cotar from atop their friend.
"Let's go, Bill," Bakunin said, wearily extending a hand.
There was only a hoarse whisper in response. "Got me this time, Andre."
Only then did they see where the knife had torn a gaping hole in his stomach. Crimson blood flowed, mingling with the biofabs' green lifestuff.
"Hang on, we'll get you back to the boats," said Bakunin, removing Bill's helmet as Zahava called for a medic.
"Forget it," Bill whispered, face serene from the auto-medic's drugs. "Funny, isn't it, Tovarich Colonel? Think you've seen it all
… spent final years pushing paper, then retire to-" A great cough racked his body. Blood dribbled from his mouth. "…cottage. What happens?" He smiled, more rictus than grin. "You end up fighting bug-eyed monsters with a KGB and some starship troopers." He coughed again, not as deeply.
Arriving with a medic and two stretcher-bearing commandos, L'Wrona overheard the last of Sutherland's eulogy. "You're not going to die!" he snapped. "You're going back with the wounded and into a medical regenerator. Then you're going to get well. Fast. Because there's a courier ship on the way with our new Ambassador. And the death of a Terran national under my protection would cast a definite pall over the treaty talks."
"You can't spare any more men to take out casualties," countered Bill weakly from the stretcher.
"I don't care if I have to storm that control area alone," L'Wrona snapped, eyes smoldering. "We always take out our wounded.
"Take him away. Safe trip."
Sutherland waved limply as his bearers joined a long line of similarly burdened soldiers. Zahava, L'Wrona and Bakunin watched as they disappeared around the corridor.
"Nor do we leave our dead for carrion eaters," said the ' Commander. "Give me a hand. You know what to do."
They'd watched before, after the other battles, as the troopers had set their dead comrades' weapons to delayed-destruct, placing them beneath the crossed arms of the fallen. This time they helped. It didn't take long.
"Move out!" L'Wrona ordered.
As his men double-timed by, he stood alone, saluting his dead for a long moment before joining the column.
The small, shrill explosions and pure white light raced toward the enemy, a sense of benediction in their wake.
Stephen Ames Berry
The Biofab War