[i]Prologue:[/i] Somewhere a child was screaming. Movement in the willows and tall grass on the other side of the river meant the hoppers were creeping in. When they got to the muddy banks they’d have to leave the ground and hop like bugs, advance by fire. We’d take them in the air. Hell was about to break loose and a little kid would be right in the middle of it. Someone had to get him out of here. From my position underneath the thermo blanket and behind a broken section of a concrete foundation I tried to catch Sergeant Dale’s attention. Tac Net was busted. They pulled all mesh security back to base trying to repulse an attack from nodes no one could find. We were lotech now, visual signals and laser guided ordinance. Dale couldn’t be reached. He was all about down-range, his finger already on his trigger. Through his face shield I could see his lips pulled back from gritting teeth. He wasn’t blinking. Someone needs to get that kid out of here I whispered to Tailor under the blanket with me. They made their first hop. Hell was upon us. Each hop took half of them into the air at a time. Metal locusts, a meter and half long with weapon-pod heads. Their first salvo was searching fire. Invisible beams filled the air with shards of slagged concrete, smoke, and heat. I was happy about that. I’d rather face lasers than kinetic ordinance. They make a mess, the smoke, heat and fires are our concealment. Of course, on the flip side, they don’t have to reload. I waited to move till I heard the whip-crack of a beam strike the wall to my left then popped up right were it had been. My rifle put a bracket right in front of the head of a falling bug. I adjusted for a wing hit, stroked the trigger and saw sparks fly. Then it was duck and scramble drawing fire. Second wave would be in the air. Tailor’s turn. It took them three hops to reach the grade below our position, about what we’d figured. We took wing shots if we could. Locusts are tough, and all kinds of redundant, except in the wings. Fire scramble, fire scramble, fire scramble. By the third hop it was more of a general melee than a carefully timed ambush. We spent our ammo like we spent our pay; you can’t take it with you when you go. Casualties were bad, as guys scrambling for cover got bunched up and took concentrated fire. Our fire had fucked up their advance enough that their arrival at the bottom of the slope was staggered. Two of the spotters waited for them to mass before signaling Gunny Ellis to trip the mines. The remaining spotter, Jason, was running to the rear wildly screaming; Blow it! Fucking blow it now! when a beam from a late hopper took him in the back of the knee and he tumbled trailing ribbons of blood through the air. Too many of the Locusts were already in flight when the blast hit. Most of them got through and hopped right over us into second platoon’s position. From there things got up close and personal. Tailor was about fifteen meters to my left, behind good cover, with his MG over the wall shooting down at the ones we’d injured and the ones we’d winged crawling out of the willows. He screamed to ask if I was done taking a shit and might be able to help him out. I decided second platoon could do their own job and joined him. I’d lost the lead to my smart link the day before and no wireless meant I had to pop up over the wall to shoot. Tailor had radar on his machinegun and he was calling o’clock’s to me as I bounced up and down like a spring to acquire and fire. Active camo’ on the Locust made them hard to spot at a glance. I had to resort to fused seeker grenades from the under-barrel launcher and hope for an indirect hit. Each time I popped up there were more targets and each time they were closer. The wall Tailor was firing from was hot enough to glow in places. The plan had been for us to move to the rear under cover from second platoon once Gunny blew the slope. Most of first and third had already joined the fight back there and, by the sound, the battle was moving rearward. Fire from our line was thinning, most of Sergeant Dale was still in the last place I’d seen him slowly leaking into the dirt. We needed to move. I told Tailor, he looked around and agreed, but suggested we flank to the south and called the move down the line. Diets heard, stopped firing and stood up. He slung his rifle dusted himself off, smiled, and began to amble over like he was on his way to mess. I was too fucking flummoxed to even scream. Tailor was moving to tackle him when the beam took Diets in the neck right below the rim of his helmet. With his next step he just crumpled to the ground. The smile never left his face. I turned back to the wall and started shooting for vengeance. There’s no satisfaction in killing a machine. I might have gone over but Tailor was bellowing like a bull; On me, On me! Move out! Five of us gathered and followed Tailor, scrambling south and west through a row of quaint houses on fire. Second platoon, with the remnants of first and third were making a tactical withdrawal. As we’d flanked south to meet up with them it took a while and we had to cross several streets before we were back in contact. Somehow, our birds had managed to keep their Hunter-Killers off our asses so far. But that was where our luck ran out. We were just in visual range of elements of third platoon and had started picking off the bugs to their east when the Locusts delivered their real weapon. Meyers moved forward to take advantage of a corner, about two meters away from the carcass of a dead bug. It made a loud pop-hiss sound, it’s abdomen split open, and this gray shit came boiling out. It flowed across the ground toward Meyers like it was alive. He made this funny Oook sound and tripped over his feet as he tried to jump out of his crouch and run backward. The gray shit flowed right over his foot as he kicked and crawled backward on his ass. Then he just went crazy. It’s eating me! It’s eating me! He began to bat at the goop with his hands. He kicked his foot but that just tossed the plates of his leg armor free exposing an already skeletal and dissolving lower limb. Writhing, making this shrill keening sound he clutched at his sidearm but his gloves and fingers were already gone. All around us we were hearing; pop-hiss, and more cries of men dying slowly. Newman, wide eyed, his face the color of ashes, bolted. I looked at Tailor. His face was a death grimace full of hate. He looked like Sergeant Dale had before the attack. He unloaded a long burst from his MG into Meyers squirming body, then looked me right in the eyes. Fuck ‘em! he growled from between his teeth. Then he turned, brought his weapon to his shoulder and continued pouring fire into the bugs that were bearing down on us from third’s position. Harding had his knife out, he was watching the goop flow over Meyer’s corpse. Are you fucking stupid? I yelled at him. Tailor was right; Let’s fuck ‘em! I resumed firing. The platoons to our front were all but overrun, no longer trying for a tactical withdrawal, we were withdrawing but probably flanked and I was reloading when I heard the thunder behind me. Within a second the thunder had reached a head splitting crescendo and three of our flyboy’s passed over, wing-on-wing at rooftop level. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Each of the three left a trail of disks floating almost lazily in the air behind them, right over the company’s position. Tailor looked back at me, grinning wildly from ear to ear. He had just enough time to yell; COVER! I threw myself at the ground opened my jaw till it cracked and pushed all the air out of my lungs. I was sitting astride Tailor’s back. His helmet was off and he had a ragged, gaping wound in his neck. I could see bones. I had my knife in my left hand, the tip in the wound and I was trying to hit the pommel with the heel of my right. Something was wrong with my head. I couldn’t see out of my left eye. There wasn’t much blood but the tip of my knife kept slipping. It was hard to get it lined up right. I was so tired. Sometimes the world would tilt and bob around me; black smoke, black ground, Harding’s helmet with his face looking out. The knife kept slipping. I was so tired, but there was something in here Tailor wanted me to get. My head felt wrong. There was a weird sound, made it hard to concentrate. Carefully I set the point against the bone and struck. The bone cracked and it was there, dark green in a pink and red hole. It was hard to see. Harding was grinning at me for being clumsy. I put my knife in the hole and pried hard. The bone opened up. I reached in and grabbed it. Dark green, yellow letters. USMC V-TAC; some numbers; Tailor, David. It slipped out of my hand. Damn it! I can’t concentrate with that fucking sound! Somewhere a child was screaming. Will someone, please, get that fucking kid out of here!