It grazed the top of his helmet and disappeared with a faint pop. He took one step backwards and toppled over the edge of the crater, trailing an arc of blood and brains. Lifeless, spreadeagled, he slid halfway to the bottom, shoveling dirt into the perfectly symmetrical hole where the bubble had chewed indiscriminately through plastic, hair, skin, bone, and brain.
“Everybody hold it. Platoon leaders, casualty report… check.. . check, check .. . check, check, check.. . check.
We have three deaders. Wouldn’t be any if you’d have kept low. So everybody grab dirt when you hear that thing go off. Team A, complete the rush.”
They completed the maneuver without incident. “OK. Team C, rush to where B. . . hold it! Down!”
Everybody was already hugging the ground. The bubbles slid by in a smooth arc about two meters off the ground. They went serenely over our heads and, except for one that made toothpicks out of a tree, disappeared in the distance.
“B, rush past A ten meters. C, take over B’s place. You B grenadiers, see if you can reach the Flower.”
Two grenades tore up the ground thirty or forty meters from the structure. In a good imitation of panic, it started belching out a continuous stream of bubbles-still, none coming lower than two meters off the ground. We kept hunched down and continued to advance.
Suddenly, a seam appeared in the building and widened to the size of a large door. Taurans came swarming out.
“Grenadiers, hold your fire. B team, laser fire to the left and right-keep’m bunched up. A and C, rush down the center.”
One Tauran died trying to run through a laser beam. The others stayed where they were.
In a suit, it’s pretty awkward to run and keep your head down at the same time. You have to go from side to side, like a skater getting started; otherwise you’ll be airborne. At least one person, somebody in A team, bounced too high and suffered the same fate as Chin.
I was feeling pretty fenced-in and trapped, with a wall of laser fire on each side and a low ceiling that meant death to touch. But in spite of myself, I felt happy, euphoric, finally getting the chance to kill some of those villainous baby-eaters. Knowing it was soyashit.
They weren’t fighting back, except for the rather ineffective bubbles (obviously not designed as an anti-personnel weapon), and they didn’t retreat back into the building, either. They milled around, about a hundred of them, and watched us get closer. A couple of grenades would caulk them all, but I guess Cortez was thinking about the prisoner.
“OK, when I say ‘go,’ we’re going to flank ’em. B team will hold fire.. . Second and fourth platoons to the right, sixth and seventh to the left. B team will move forward in line to box them in.
“Go!” We peeled off to the left As soon as the lasers stopped, the Taurans bolted, running in a group on a collision course with our flank.
“A team, down and fire! Don’t shoot until you’re sure of your aim-if you miss you might hit a friendly. ~And fer Chris’ sake save me one!”
It was a horrifying sight, that herd of monsters bearing down on us. They were running in great leaps-the bubbles avoiding them-and they all looked like the one we saw earlier, riding the broomstick; naked except for an almost transparent sphere around their whole bodies, that moved along with them. The right flank started firing, picking off individuals in the rear of the pack.
Suddenly a laser flared through the Taurans from the other side, somebody missing his mark. There was a horrible scream, and I looked down the line to see someone-I think it was Perry-writhing on the ground, right hand over the smoldering stump of his arm, seared off just below the elbow. Blood sprayed through his fingers, and the suit, its camouflage circuits scrambled, flickered black-white-jungle-desert-green-gray. I don’t know how long I stared- long enough for the medic to run over and start giving aid-but when I looked up the Taurans were almost on top of me.