He was hanging literally shoulder-to-shoulder with Corporal Womicki and a sergeant from First Platoon named Couch. He could hear a retching sound over the squad tactical net and knew someone was being sick inside his helmet, with its sound-activated mike. He tried not to think about that.
“Hey, the Marine Corps is great,” he heard Dunne say as the retching subsided. “First-class accommodations all the way!”
“Cut the chatter, people,” Master Sergeant Barnes said. “Jennings! Cut your damned mike so we all don’t have to listen to you and your breakfast!”
The Dragonfly went nose high and started to climb sharply. Garroway wished he could tap into the net for a camera feed to his helmet display…then thought better of it. There were some things he might be happier not seeing.
“Okay, people,” Captain Warhurst’s voice said over the tactical channel. “I can see the objective…range, another two hundred meters. No sign of bad guys on the top.”
Garroway heard a loud clang from somewhere forward and above him and realized they were being shot at. There were bad guys down there, and they knew the Marines were coming.
“I think the gunwalkers drew off some of the pyramid defenders,” Warhurst went on, his running commentary oddly comforting. Garroway closed his eyes and focused on the captain’s words. “I see two…three humans on the south steps, halfway up. There are some Annies inside the Chamber of the Eye on the west side. I can see them peering out at us.”
Garroway felt momentarily weightless as the Dragonfly began descending. Looking down past his feet, he saw the gleaming white stone of the pyramid’s south slope fifty meters below, coming up fast….
The Pyramid of the Eye had a broad, open, truncated peak fifteen meters across, with a small temple or sky observatory, a dome-topped building rising from the center. Despite the obstruction, there was plenty of room for the TAV-S to set down, but the operational plan called for a quick drop-and-go so the Dragonfly was free to become a ground-support asset as soon as the Marine assault force hit the pyramid roof.
“Twenty seconds, Marines,” Warhurst called. “Remember. Keep your knees loose. Don’t lock ’em. Fifteen seconds…we’re at thirty meters…get ready. Five seconds…four…three…two…release!”
Garroway stabbed at the quick-release buckle on his waist and felt the suspension harness open around him. He dropped, a dead weight, falling perhaps three meters to the stone surface of the upper platform of the pyramid. His armor took the shock of the landing, cushioning him as he fell into a loose-kneed tumble-and-roll.
He came out of the roll with his laser rifle at the ready, bracing himself on his elbows as he scanned the pyramid roof. The twenty-four Marines had dropped in a ragged double row on the south side of the upper tier. The Dragonfly hovered just overhead, its thrusters shrieking as the pilot gunned it into a swift climb away from the drop zone.
“On your feet, Marines!” Warhurst yelled. “Perimeter defense!”
Hot wind swirled clouds of dust about them as the Dragonfly gained altitude. Garroway leaned forward into the blast and started moving. He heard shouts and the snap of laser fire but could see no targets ahead of him.
To his right, five meters away, was the small domed structure at the center of the pyramid’s peak, a kind of cupola with four arched, wide-open entryways facing the four quarters of the compass.
And then he saw the large, hulking figures spilling out of the building. “Trolls!” he yelled, bringing his 2120 to his shoulder. “Trolls at three-six-zero!”
There were a lot of the creatures, and they all appeared armed with massive gauss weapons at least two meters long.
“Fire at will!” Warhurst yelled…and the Battle of the Pyramid began in earnest.
24
27 JUNE 2148
Lance Corporal Garroway
Pyramid of the Eye
New Sumer, Ishtar
1612 hours ALT
“Let’s go, Marines! Take ’em down!”
Garroway triggered his 2120, sending a burst of rapidly pulsed laser fire through the tangle of Ahannu trolls spilling from the domed building. Overhead, the Dragonfly circled, banking hard, bringing its chin Gatling to bear on the threat. The trolls were still falling into a ragged line, aiming their weapons together in a fair re-creation of a musket firing line from the eighteenth or nineteenth century on Earth, when the deadly scythes of coherent light sliced through them in bloody execution.
Firing as he moved, Garroway jogged across the stone platform, while the enemy line—what was left of it—dissolved and rolled back. Parts of the domed building flared into an incandescent spray of molten stone as Sergeant Tomlin, the assault team’s plasma gunner, turned his weapon on the archway. Scattering beneath the onslaught, Ahannu troll-warriors shrieked and burned in the deadly cross fire between air and ground, and the central building collapsed in smoking ruin.