Star Corps(142)
“Fuck that!” Warhurst yelled into his mike. He was firing his laser rifle in quick, steady pulses, burning down the charging Frogs one after another, and still they kept coming. “The Annies are all over the fucking pyramid! Dust the whole area! Now!”
There was a brief hesitation. “Roger that, Suribachi. Dragons deployed in close support. Keep your heads down!”
He didn’t answer. The wall of Ahannu hit the western arc of the Marine perimeter first, then the north, god-warriors leaping high above the line and coming down behind and among the struggling Marines.
Suddenly, the fight was a swirling hand-to-hand melee at knife-fighting range, as the Marines at the edge of the pit battled for survival.
Lance Corporal Garroway
Pyramid of the Eye
New Sumer, Ishtar
1657 hours ALT
An Ahannu god-warrior hit Garroway full-on, knocking him backward. He dropped his laser but was able to hold the writhing Frog off long enough to drag his combat knife from its sheath on his chest and plunge it up to the hilt into the being’s throat. He turned the blade and slashed to the side, and the Ahannu’s head flopped back, gape-mouthed, in a spray of pale blood. Garroway rolled to the side, scooping up his laser in his left hand, clutching the bloody knife in his right. He was shoulder-to-shoulder with Garvey as a dozen Ahannu closed on them from all sides. More god-warriors were emerging from inside the crater, clambering up out of the shadows of a small tunnel. Damn it, they were everywhere, and the Marine line had dissolved into tiny and isolated teams of squad mates fighting hand-to-hand.
More Marines were falling as impossible numbers overwhelmed technology, swords and lances piercing armor joints. Sergeant Couch vanished beneath a thrashing pile of Ahannu warriors. Tomlin’s plasma gun fell silent as the Marine gunner was torn to pieces. Half the assault force at least was down now, and the rest would be dead in seconds.
Garroway raised his laser and triggered it as an enemy warrior rushed him; the weapon gave a crackling hiss and failed as status lights on his helmet display warned of power failure, overheating, a ruptured coolant coil, and a burned-out feed coupling. Pivoting sharply, he brought the 2120’s butt up and around sharply, connecting with the side of the Frog’s head. He felt rather than heard the satisfying crunch as the skull caved in.
He swung again, taking down an Ahannu waving a wickedly curved sword. And again…and again…
“John!…”
Four Frogs swarmed onto Garvey, knocking him down. Razor-tipped lances and swords plunged, seeking the flexible joints between hard-shelled carbon-polylaminate sections, at shoulders, neck, hips, and waist. Garvey shrieked….
Garroway swung his rifle level, like a baseball bat, connecting with one of the Ahannu and knocking it away from his friend. Something struck him hard in the left arm, spinning him back and away. “Gravy!” he shouted. “Hang on!”
Garroway tried to swing his rifle again and found his left arm heavy, numb…he couldn’t move it. Awkwardly one-handed, he tried swinging the battered weapon and saw it shatter against the breastplate of a looming Ahannu troll. He dropped the weapon, reached for his knife…and realized he’d dropped it somewhere in the last few seconds. Screwing his face into his best boot-camp war mask, he screamed a Marine battle cry as he charged the towering creature. “Ooh-rah!”
He collided with the thing and drove it back, toppling it over. It vented a throaty, hissing grunt and twisted, knocking him aside like a discarded rag doll. It stood then, over two meters tall even when stooped forward, its golden eyes deeply recessed in heavy bony orbits that gave it a hulking, Neanderthal look as it raised a two-meter club edged with razor-sharp shards of volcanic glass.
“Duck and cover, Marines!” Captain Warhurst’s voice yelled over the tactical channel. “Everybody down and freeze!”
Garroway was already down and unable to move. The troll shrieked, its club raised high….
And then the sky flashed, brighter than Earth’s sun. The troll stood transfixed for an instant as flesh and armor dissolved in searing white flame.
Somehow, Garroway managed to roll to the left as the burning carcass crumpled and fell forward, landing on the spot he’d occupied an instant before. All around him other Ahannu were burning…burning…falling, running, shrieking and burning, as fiery death exploded from the sky.
Take something flammable—fertilizer will do—in finely powdered form. Disperse it in air and ignite it. The result is a fuel-air explosive, or FAE, a weapon first developed two centuries before, occasionally referred to as a “poor man’s nuke,” or as a “daisy cutter” for its ability to quickly clear large areas of forest.