Thus far, the gambit had worked. Three Marines now crouched behind a slab of stone pitched sharply up from the floor. Ridgeway was on point with Monster almost p.r.o.ne just behind him. Taz trailed Monster by several meters, spreading their line.

The last of the group was far behind, looking down from high ground. Several times already, her one-word directions had caused the advancing trio to freeze, hugging the shadows until the path ahead was clear of movement.

Ridgeway was glad to have the cover as he peered over the final crest, barely a meter tall, that separated the Marines from a sh.o.r.eline of humming machinery. He fired a pair of hand-signals at Monster and Taz, then eased his left leg over the low wall of stone. His belly and chest pressed flat against the crest as he slid over the obstacle.

"Hold it."

Ridgeway froze at Darcy's terse command, snarling at the d.a.m.ned poor timing. He was trapped in the open, too far advanced to pull back, yet an agonizing arm's length from the cover of a thermal inverter just ahead. Willing himself into stillness, Ridgeway called on his own chameleon to fuse his image with that of the surrounding rock. He hoped it would be enough.

Glancing back, Ridgeway saw Monster's gauntlet tighten on the grip of the Gatling.

Not a good sign.

A metallic clatter grew audible over the dull thrum that pervaded the Hive. The sound of a dozen kitchen knives tapped an oddly cyclic pattern across a hard, unyielding surface. As Ridgeway listened, the noise grew louder with every heartbeat.

Without warning, the curved shadow of the inverter sprouted waving appendages of darkness that swung erratically across the cave floor. One of the shadows stretched improbably, it's intangible length falling across Ridgeway's outstretched leg.

"Don't... move..." The sniper's measured words came as a hushed whisper in Ridgeway's head.

Teeth clenched, Ridgeway clung to the cold ridge of stone, his every muscle coiled. Ominous silence stretched on before the knife-edge clatter resumed. He couldn't tell if the sound was retreating or advancing.

Ridgeway braced for the shuddering wake of a railgun round that would have to pa.s.s just inches above his head. At that proximity, even the shockwave would be brutal. He hugged the stone until his brain registered the change. The snicker of steel receded.

"Clear."

Darcy's single word came as welcome as any Ridgeway could remember. He exhaled slowly and allowed his leading leg to finish its descent.

His boot met the floor with a wet plop and Ridgeway looked down at the silvery flow that coursed uphill. The splattered bits thrown aside by his footfall regathered, the clumps oozing forward to rejoin the column that marched relentlessly forward.

Nanites? Ridgeway squinted at the gritty quicksilver stream. Bits of debris floated along in the current. Not debris, he realized suddenly, but parts, carried to some destination like food hauled home by army ants.

His gaze tracked up and swept the area before him. Gutter-paths of silver and ember wound their way throughout the Hive, splitting like rivers into smaller and smaller tributaries. He swallowed a lump of unease that grew in his throat and advanced.

The Marine found concealment at the base of an industrial grade power inverter. He motioned for Taz and Monster to hold, then crabbed along the base of the truck-sized device, hugging the shadows. At the far edge of the inverter, Ridgeway peeked around the corner. Nothing moved. Ridgeway rattled off instructions as he scoured the way ahead.

"Monster, you're on the left, Taz, you've got the right. I'll take center. Steady sweep. We're looking for anything that could get us out of here so be ready to improvise. Darcy, you good on cover?"

"Like a blanket, Major."

"All right then. Stay low, stay fast. Don't engage anything you don't have to. We do this right and we're outta Dodge before the bad guys know we were here."

Taz nodded in affirmation, a m.u.f.fled but defiant "oorah!" under his breath. The two-note sound echoed on the Comm, the deeper rumble rising from Monster's chest.

"Oorah" Ridgeway mirrored the whispered battle-cry with suppressed ferocity as the Marines went to work.

With Monster and Taz on either flank, Ridgeway advanced into the maze of equipment dead ahead. He pa.s.sed one large column after another, machines plastered together like huge, freeform sculptures.

A stack of oddly-contoured cylinders caught Ridgeway's eye, not so much because of their shape as their considerable size. He edged closer and recognized them as spools of steel cable. Half a dozen were overturned and empty, while another handful lay heavily wound with twisted steel about the diameter of Ridgeway's thumb. A worn stencil on the side of the closest spool read "CABLE, 12MM" just below the faded red and black firebird emblem of Phoenix Metalworks.

"Guess this is where a lot of the c.r.a.p from the ship ended up," Ridgeway muttered as his finger flattened the label's peeled-up edge. The paper cracked into dry flakes and fell away.

A sharp hiss cut through the air to Ridgeway's immediate left. The Marine dropped to one knee behind a pile of worn power tools as the CAR snapped to his shoulder. Peering over his limited cover, he watched as steam vented from a large octagonal chamber. The walls were made of a translucent material, each pane framed in heavy metal. Something dark twitched inside.

A tremendous burst of high pressure gas flushed from within the tank as it blossomed open. Wet globs of metallic mud dripped from the swinging panels as they retracted.

Even before the hulking shape rose on a cl.u.s.ter of mechanical legs, Ridgeway recognized the Spider. Nanites ran off the creature in glistening streams. The monstrosity rocked its broad head from one side to the other, flexing its new jaw. The mandible yawned wide to reveal a sawtooth set of gleaming metal fangs.

Ridgeway's mind flashed back to the CryoSphere. He had seen the shattered jaw swing aimlessly on cords of muscle. If it had any teeth at the time, they were nothing like the conical daggers that now lined the powerful maw.

s.h.i.t, upgrades.

The dental work appeared to have been roughly plastered right on top of the old broken jaw. While improvised, the crudeness of the modification did nothing to diminish its apparent lethality.

The import of that capacity grew far more dire as the Spider flexed the length of its body. Orange light glinted off a heavy piston in the creature's rising forelimb. Ridgeway guessed that the powerful framework started out on an industrial backhoe. Where a heavy bucket would have normally capped the a.s.sembly, some sort of gas-driven pincer opened and closed. Ridgeway could see braided steel pneumatic lines that coiled from the forearm and disappeared somewhere in the armpit.

The threat of the hand vanished as Ridgeway tracked back to the forearm where a familiar silhouette caught his eye.

A Marine-issue Covalent a.s.sault Rifle sat fused atop the arm's steel framework. Wires webbed out from the receiver and trigger pack, instantly lost in the amalgam of electronics plastered along the limb. As unbelievable as it seemed, the tiny glow from the CAR's display confirmed that the rifle was live and ready to fire.

"Be advised," Ridgeway whispered tersely across the ComLink, "Hostiles now have covalent capacity, I say again, hostiles are covalent."

Ridgeway was thankful that Taz had the presence of mind to mute the stream of profanity that likely spilled from his lips. The Aussie would be just as certain as Ridgeway that the CAR was his own.

The insult, however dire, was meaningless compared with the hazard. The CAR represented a dramatic enhancement to the type of firepower the aliens had displayed thus far.

If the rest of them have beefed up, Ridgeway mulled grimly, the next dance is gonna be nasty.

Ridgeway settled even lower into the pile of power tools. Some were obviously destroyed, evidenced by shattered casings and mangled blades. Others were of more questionable utility. Ridgeway noted a rivet gun that looked workable, as well as a rail-type spike driver much like the one carried by Sixgun, though perhaps only a third of the size. Two chainsaws and a plasma torch likewise looked intact.

Dammit. Ridgeway realized that the Hive would be crammed with welders, drills and saws. Any one could prove a formidable weapon. As far as the aliens were concerned, the Hive was one big armory.

The Spider turned towards the rear of the Hive and lumbered off. Ridgeway's mind burned feverishly; the odds of contact rose with every moment. He needed a systematic approach.

"What have you got Darcy?"

"You saw what crawled out of the oven. If it'd moved a foot in your direction the son of a b.i.t.c.h would be sucking on hot plasma right now."

"Roger that," he replied, glad to know his cover remained tight. "It's the rest of the situation I'm worried about."

"You've got motion at Lima-One, Michael-Two headed deep and Romeo Two and Three," she reeled off, using a simple tic-tac-toe location grid. Left, middle and right, three rows deep.

Ridgeway nodded and followed the sniper's plot of hostiles on his TAC. One to the left, not far ahead of Monster. Another deep center and retreating, clearly the Spider. Multiple contacts spread along the mid-to-deep right. That meant one known and at least three new bogeys. Three wild cards.

"What are we looking at?"

"Lima-One is a big b.a.s.t.a.r.d, maybe a couple tons. Looks like six or seven heavy legs around a single-piece torso. No obvious weapons, I'd guess surveillance if it weren't for the size. You sure as h.e.l.l don't wanna let it step on you."

"I'll make a note of it." Ridgeway said dryly. Getting stomped was very low on his list of preferences. A new callsign flashed on the TAC: Bigfoot.

Darcy continued to reel off data. "Contacts at Romeo Five and Six are inconclusive. I've got vibro-acoustic and some moving shadows, but nothing has popped up long enough to give me a good look. They could be anything."

"Stay on it." Ridgeway grunted, knowing the last directive to be superfluous. Darcy would give him whatever she could see, the rest would be up to stealth and a bit of luck.

Too much traffic on the right, Ridgeway thought tersely, especially with two unknowns. He opted for the logical course and quietly opened a ComLink.

"We're going downtown. Form up on my point and hang close. Darcy, let me know if anything starts to drift our way."

The Marines fell into a loose wedge with Ridgeway in the front. Snaking his way into the growing forest of steel towers and b.a.s.t.a.r.dized equipment, Ridgeway led his squad into the depths of the Hive.

The team pa.s.sed yet another column of odd components fused one atop another like so many barnacles. Ant-lines of nanites coursed endlessly through cracks and crannies.

Monster growled, "Somebody needs to give these little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds a schematic."

Ridgeway spoke without turning his head. "What was that?"

Monster pointed toward the claptrap fusion of metals. "Looks like they just slap s.h.i.t together and start welding." He looked up and down the column, "you can't tell what the h.e.l.l this thing was to start with."

Ridgeway glanced at the dark, misshapen form and had to concur. Creative license was one thing but this had become abstract, form lost in function. Something Merlin had said scratched at Ridgeway's memory as he reached out to touch the column's lumpy surface.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!" The Aussie's voice snapped across the Com, but Taz was nowhere in sight. Ridgeway spun quickly and his muzzle carved through a wide arc as he and Monster went back to back. "Taz, where are you?"

"Thirty meters bearing one-ten Majah, and you'll never guess what I found."

Ridgeway looked at Monster in surprise as his heartbeat accelerated. "Tell me it's a way out."

"Fair d.i.n.k.u.m."

Ridgeway puzzled at the phrase but not at the tone. He bolted forward in a low crouch while Monster followed on his heels, back-pedaling with the Gatling held high. The two Marines covered the distance in seconds, rounding a battered blue thermopump to find Taz atop a flatbed barge some eight meters long.

"A skid?" Ridgeway felt the wind taken out of his sails. The gravitic haulers were a common sight on tarmacs and tank bunkers. "What good is a vehicle if we don't have a tunnel to drive through?"

The scarred dome of Taz's helmet rocked slightly to one side and drew back in faceless amazement. He placed one foot atop of the engine cowl and struck an oddly casual pose. "h.e.l.l Majah, this'll blow open the door we already got."

Ridgeway stood mute. He could see no weapons on the skid, no ordnance of any sort.

"All right, look," the Aussie's words poured out in a flood of energy, "We wire the skid with the detonex we have left and send it up to the blocked tunnel. Boom, we're outta here."

"Dammit Taz, don't you listen to anything?" Monster barked, his voice laced with fatigue, "There's at least fifteen meters of rock in that tunnel, maybe more. We don't have enough detonex to punch through that."

Taz slumped and wearily shook his head. Then he looked up, his words tightly clipped. "No s.h.i.t Gunny. I know how much rock we're looking at, and how much explosive we're packing. I'm not as b.l.o.o.d.y rock-stupid as you think."

Monster's frame pulled back in surprise as Taz snapped a rigid index finger. "One. You've got one last Detonex charge packed on your rig. Merlin put it there because you wanted to have backup charges for Cathedral. Now, one lousy charge can't scratch the b.l.o.o.d.y tunnel, but it can cut through d.a.m.n near a meter of steel."

Taz took a step closer as second finger snapped up. "Two. The steel containment vessel for the gravitic coil in this heap is substantially less than a meter thick."

Almost nose to nose with the towering sergeant, Taz added the third finger. "Three. The Marine Corps taught even stupid grunts like me that when a gravitic coil blows out, it goes off with a bang." Both hands came together then jumped apart, ten fingers splayed wide. "One h.e.l.l of a bang."

Ridgeway blinked twice as the light came on. "The skid isn't the delivery platform, it's the payload."

Monster closed the loop. "And the Det charge is the initiator."

Taz executed a short bow then folded his arms across his chest and huffed. "Crikey, and you say I'm the one that doesn't listen to briefings."

"Never again," Ridgeway chuckled, still taken aback by the clarity of Taz's thinking.

"Adapt and improvise," Monster muttered. "d.a.m.n, but there's a Marine in you after all." He reached a closed fist towards the Aussie, who punched the offered hand with his own.

"Too right."

The jovial moment lasted only a second. The three Marines knelt in the shadows as Monster turned to Ridgeway. "What do you think Major? It sounds like a plan to me."

Ridgeway was drawn to the idea on several levels, both from its simplicity and the fact that all of the necessary parts were now within the Marine's control. He watched the chronograph tick steadily on the TAC.

Decision time.

"It's a plan. Monster, give this thing a once-over before you turn the key, I don't want to draw a lot of attention if it isn't airworthy. Taz, you and I have watch."

"Roger that." With a quick nod Taz spun to the right and disappeared.

"Darcy, you listening?"

"Just trying to figure what we're gonna do for a gunslinger when Taz gets shipped off to engineering school."

Darcy's crack brought a scowling undercurrent of Aussie slang on the Com. A smirk creased Ridgeway's face, fueled by the irresistible energy of hope.

"We'll all chip in on his tuition when we get home. For the moment I want you to update Merlin and St.i.tch, have them prep for evac and be ready to go. We're not hanging around for tourist photos."

"Roger that."

Ridgeway turned to his left and looked as Monster burned through an abbreviated pre-flight. Externals looked solid, he noted in rapid appraisal, hopeful that the interior followed suit. Turning to his own task of securing Monster's flank, Ridgeway quietly slipped into the shadows.

He crept along a row of upright cylinders that ran like a fence line, crouched low as he moved. The muzzle of the CAR kept pace in a slow repeating arc as he moved past a break in the impromptu wall. Ridgeway entered the gap before his brain registered the anomaly.

Color intruded on the largely monochromatic world. Tinges of green overlapped the predominant orange hue that glinted from polished surfaces. Warily, Ridgeway stepped forward and peered around the corner.

The device sat on a low pedestal, roughly a meter square. Most of its volume was filled with small gla.s.s cylinders, each no more than ten centimeters in length. A dark green fluid swirled within each one, bathed in a light that radiated from the device's core.

What the h.e.l.l is that? A scowl played across Ridgeway's face as he edged closer to the rack. Gla.s.s tubes sealed with metal endcaps. Tiny diodes flickered incessantly throughout the ma.s.s of vials like distant stars on a clear night. A chill sense of foreboding slithered up Ridgeway's spine.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l is it, Majah?" Taz stood on the far side of the cube, giving voice to the natural question. His weapon was trained on the device.

"No idea." Ridgeway's measured reply was genuine. "But I've got a hunch it's bio."

"Bio?" Taz took a quick step back.

"Maybe." Ridgeway scanned his memory for anything that looked like the cube at his feet. "But I've only read about 'em, never seen one. I'm just guessing, but it looks like some kinda CBS, Cl.u.s.tered Biological Submunitions. Fleet's got 'em for long-term area denial. Little gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s loaded with UVX."

"Aw s.h.i.t, you mean that flesh-eating virus s.h.i.t?"