The carrier swept out of the mothership at last, and Grant got his first real view of the battlefield. The large, open s.p.a.ce of the shipyard was littered with the burnt, twisted wreckage of downed alien carriers. Although he knew what those vehicles carried, he tried not to think of the loss of life each one represented. That could come after the fight-if he made it that far. For now, they were just the opponent in a kill-or-be-killed game of life or death.

Scattered among the downed hulks, he saw undamaged craft land and discharge scores of Minith foot soldiers. Several turned their weapons on the human carriers now flying fifty feet above their heads. Most were rushing toward the mothership, intent on taking it and any humans left aboard. They would be disappointed to find her empty of life.

He bid the ship adieu and wished her well. She had served humankind well over the past few years and she would be missed. He then turned his attention to the battle that had already entered the streets ahead. The four lanes they had selected formed a straight line from the shipyard to the Minith leader's supposed location. By now, he could have easily been moved from there, but Grant was counting on the Minith's overconfidence to work in his favor. The Minith held humanity with such disregard, they would likely never consider that Grant's forces could make it that far.

Once again, Grant considered taking his twenty carriers of infantry straight to their target and bypa.s.sing the ground troops. Again, he disregarded that idea. He could not leave them to fend for themselves. If the advance forces were correct, the Minith were ma.s.sing their soldiers to the north and would not stand a chance without reinforcement from the soldiers in the carriers.

"Alpha One, come in."

"This is Alpha One, General."

"What are you seeing out there, Scott?"

"A lot more of the same, General. All fighters are down to pulse weapons," the pilot replied. Grant could hear the captain panting and grunting. Flying between those buildings, while putting effective fire on the enemy, took concentration. "So we have to fly lower to be effective... we're getting torched . . . two more crews are down... not sure how long this can last, General."

"Understood, Scott. Do the best you can. The reserve force is en route, and will be on the ground in five. In the meantime, can you send a couple of yours to the scout the north? I need to know what the enemy forces are like between us and the target. Over."

"Roger. Wait."

Grant listened as the captain ordered two of his pilots to break off their attacks and head north.

Two minutes later, as Grant's carrier entered the same street where t.i.tan and his Telgorans were fighting, he received word back from the two pilots. It was not good.

"Sir, there are Minith ground forces all over the place to the north and more are arriving every second. It looks like they're putting every one of their soldiers in our path."

"Estimate on the number?" Grant asked. His head dropped in antic.i.p.ation of the answer. Even with less than ninety minutes' notice, the Minith were responding much better than he had antic.i.p.ated.

"We estimate at least twenty thousand, General."

Twenty thousand?

The five-to-one odds he had estimated had just jumped to twenty-to-one. Even higher, considering the losses they had already sustained.

"At least half of those are in the area immediately surrounding the target's residence, General."

The gig was up, Grant knew. They could not hope to push through that many of the Minith. His mind reeled with possibilities and choices. As each one entered his mind, it was discounted.

Retreat to the mothership? Can't, the Minith have taken it by now. And even if we recaptured it, could it take off? And if it could, where would we go?

Send the reserve carriers ahead to the target? Too late for that. You should have done that twenty minutes ago when there was a chance of success, but you blew it.

Surrender and hope to save as many of your men and women as you can? Never. The Minith would kill us all anyway, so we might as well die fighting.

Keep pushing on? What else can we do? Reinforce those on the ground and push until we can't push any further.

Keep pushing on.

Grant opened a comm line to all forces.

"Listen up, everyone. A slight change of plans! I want us to concentrate all of our forces on only two streets. All forces proceeding along street one, work your way east and link up with the forces on street two. Then proceed north as planned. Similar order for all forces on street four. Work your way west and join with the forces on street three. Forces on streets two and three, keep pushing north. All reserve carriers, unload accordingly and support the push. It's going to get rough, folks, so fight hard and fight smart."

Grant received acknowledgement from the unit commanders regarding the new orders. He then ordered the pilot of his carrier to drop them near t.i.tan and the Telgorans. The alien team was already on street three.

"We're in for a fight, huh, General?"

Grant looked back at Sergeant Conway. He had forgotten he had company in the carrier.

"Yeah, Conway. We're in for a h.e.l.luva fight."

"Don't worry, General. We'll be watching your back when the s.h.i.t gets heavy."

Grant considered what waited to the north.

"It's not my back I'm worried about."

Thirty seconds later, the door swung open and the team exited the quiet coc.o.o.n of the carrier. As Grant expected, he was immediately a.s.saulted by the sights, sounds, and smells of battle. No matter how many times he joined a battle already in progress, the first thirty seconds on the ground always seemed a strange mix of the real and the surreal. The sudden, combined rush of adrenalin, fear, and awareness took his mind and body to a new level of consciousness-one he had forgotten he possessed until this moment.

After years of sleep, he was suddenly awake.

His first thought as his boots. .h.i.t the ground was, I'm on another planet. Again.

His second series of thought were, Move to the front of the carrier. Where's the action? What are the threats?

His feet carried him around the carrier and he surveyed his surroundings. He was in the middle of the wide, extraterrestrial street. Although the materials that made up the street and the surrounding buildings were somehow different, it was not all that much different from a street back on Earth. With one exception. It was buckled and broken from the artillery barrages that preceded the movement of his forces. He registered the explosions of additional artillery rounds a hundred meters to the front. The sound comforted him, and he knew without looking that the source of those explosions was still behind him.

Twenty meters to his front, he spied several of the orange-clad Telgorans. They were moving quickly to the north. Twenty meters ahead of them, through a thin cloud of smoke, Grant spied the lumbering forms of the two tanks a.s.signed to this street. Their turrets and automatic weapons were pointed ahead and firing regularly. An occasional pulse of dim red light reached out toward the tanks as the Minith returned fire.

A jet screamed overhead at a height of roughly fifty meters. It was heading north, toward the ma.s.s of Minith soldiers that waited.

On a secondary level of awareness, he recognized that Conway and her team were a.s.sembling to his sides and he somehow knew they were waiting for him to determine their next move. He did not keep them waiting.

Seeing no immediate threat from either of the buildings to their flanks, Grant angled toward the one on the right. When it was comfortably hugging their right flank, they proceeded north in single file along the broken street.

As the team moved, Grant's head was on a swivel, constantly checking his surroundings for threats. He observed the arrival of the other carriers and watched as the infantry offloaded and rushed to join the movement north. Always north.

Within minutes, the squad encountered their first intersection and Grant held up a fist, indicating a halt. He peered around the corner of the building and was greeted with an expected, pleasant view as forces from street four made their way toward his location. Several teams of tired infantry led the procession and, upon reaching the street where Grant waited, turned north and joined the forces of street three. Behind the infantry, he spied the artillery carrier and a single tank bringing up the rear.

Granted waited for the tank to arrive, and then jumped up on the vehicle and pounded on the hatch.

He was greeted by one of the crew.

"Where's the other tank?"

"Didn't make it, General. What you see here is what you get."

Grant offered a single nod and sent the tank on its way with a simple, "All right, troop. Carry on."

The last of the reserve units had arrived and were a.s.sembling in the middle of the street. Grant rushed to them and ignored a salute from the sergeant leading the group of twenty.

"Sergeant, all of our forces on this street are to your north. You and your team are our rear guard. Watch our a.s.ses for any Minith trying to get behind us. But be ready to engage enemy to the north. When we need you to move up to the front, you'll know. Questions?"

"Where are you going to be, General?"

Grant aimed a thumb back over his shoulder. "That way, soldier. Everyone is that way."

He clapped the sergeant on the back before gathering Conway and her team and rushing off again.

Grant continued to receive radio updates and issue orders to the pilots and ground commanders as he made his way to the front lines. He had lost communication with t.i.tan and the Telgorans, and struggled to reach them so he could alert them of the ma.s.ses of Minith waiting ahead.

When he did reach them five minutes later, t.i.tan, the Telgorans, and every other soldier, pilot, and driver already knew. Grant watched with dread as the flashes of red that represented Minith incoming fire grew from the occasional to the constant. They had reached the initial wall of the enemy, and their advance had slowed to a crawl.

The crawl quickly became a stall when two of their tanks were destroyed by a heavy concentration of Minith fire. The enemy had learned that their weapons, useless against the tanks when used singly, were very effective when grouped together.

The advancing infantry recognized the threat and redoubled their efforts to defend the final tank. But the result was inevitable. Scores of enemy weapons were successfully turned on the armored vehicle. When it exploded, the remaining wave of infantry and Telgoran dindin warriors were left naked and vulnerable.

The jet pilots did their best to make up for the loss of the armored ground units, but the battle had shifted. The same concentration of enemy weapons that took out the tanks now focused on the fast, but low-flying, carriers. His pilots were swatted from the sky with ease.

From a distance of forty meters behind the lead elements, Grant watched helplessly as the enemy quickly chewed up his forces. The reports he was receiving from the units on the next street over were no more positive. The numbers of Minith they faced were just as great.

Grant finally acknowledged it was now just a matter of when they would die, instead of if they would die.

His anger raged. Not at his forces, not at the Minith. But at himself. He should have sent the infantry carriers ahead to the governor's residence when he had the chance. His p.i.s.s-poor leadership and desire to give all his forces a fighting chance had done just the opposite. Instead of giving them a chance to survive, his decisions had doomed them all.

They had failed. He had failed.

"Come on, Conway," he yelled to the sergeant. She and her squad had protected him well while he struggled to pull out the victory. Now that victory was not a possibility, the only thing left to do was enter the fight. "Let's kick some Minith a.s.s."

Grant put his reengineered legs to work and sprinted for the front lines.

Becka Conway nodded and looked behind her. Her team was lagging, so she slowed briefly and allowed them to catch up.

She had wondered when the general would finally concede. She had to give him credit, though. His efforts had prolonged the fight, and had allowed the army to punish the aliens longer than she would have thought possible.

Another of the carriers was. .h.i.t, and exploded overhead. The sergeant looked up as a boiling cloud of fire and metal began raining down. Without thought, she dropped to the street and curled into a tight ball of fear and resignation.

So this is how it ends.

But it didn't end. The searing debris crashed around her with a wrenching whoosh of heat and sound. When the rain stopped, she looked up and found herself surrounded by burning pools of fire and twisted metal. A sear of pain bit at her right arm and she quickly beat out the flame that tried to eat through the sleeve of her jumpsuit.

Surprised to be alive, she jumped up and wound her way out of the maze of debris. Once free, she looked around and took stock. She immediately noticed Private Haas, the youngest member of the team, on his knees to her left. He was leaning against the building, looking shocked and frightened. His mouth hung open as he stared in dismay at the burning wreckage. She followed his gaze; saw what he saw.

"d.a.m.n."

Broken, burnt bodies were clearly visible amid the rubble. She tallied the numbers and accounted for the entire team.

"d.a.m.n."

The sergeant was trying to get her head around the loss when one of the blackened corpses raised an unrecognizable head and opened its eyes. Against the scorched black visage that remained, the two orbs seemed like large marbles of white. She watched in horror as the soldier looked around, found her, and locked onto her gaze. The depth of understanding, fear, and pleading in those eyes was infinite. Conway was filled with an overwhelming desire to take away her soldier's pain. But that was an empty desire, incapable of being fulfilled.

A tear escaped and Conway dropped to her knees. She had never felt so helpless. She was wondering what to do when a bullet ended the trooper's pleading.

Haas lowered his rifle and turned to look at his sergeant. Conway nodded. The private had done the right thing. He had done what she could not.

"Let's go, Haas." The sergeant shoved her feelings away and stood up. She repeated the general's words to her. "Let's kick some Minith a.s.s."

Without waiting for the private's response, she turned and ran toward the battle line. She spied the general ahead and angled toward him.

She fired her weapon at the alien targets in front of her as she ran. There were so many, she couldn't miss.

Patahbay had never known such glory or such pain. Every time a weapon took out one of the enemy, he rejoiced. Every time one of the Family fell silent, he ached.

Only a handful of the Family remained, along with the human called t.i.tan. The human had proven his loyalty and bravery. Time after time, he had protected one of them with his weapon and, on several occasions, with his hands. The Family reached shiale during the course of the battle. They bestowed Honor upon him and, although he could not share the ma.s.s mind, he was now one of them. Just like the general.

The human weapon was no longer working, so Patahbay wielded his staff. The agsel shaft felt right in his grip and he swung the heavy weapon in a blur toward the enemy standing before him. The alien was too slow to prevent the blow, and Patahbay rejoiced once more.

Before he could rejoice again, he felt the familiar tingle in his mind. The Waa were reaching out to the Family.

The Family accepted the instructions and turned away from the enemy. Patahbay located t.i.tan and the general and rushed toward them.

There was not much time.

Conway fought like the possessed. When Haas went down seconds after reaching the front line, she was left with only two goals-two thoughts. Protect her general and kill the Minith.

She was doing a remarkable job at both.

Then the startling sight of a Telgoran warrior racing in her direction caught her attention. It took her focus away from the fight for only a second. But that second was long enough.

When she turned to gape at the Telgoran, a Minith soldier stepped out from behind a pile of rubble and fired his weapon.

General Justice crumpled.

Patahbay saw the general fall, but did not slow. There was no time.

The human soldier nearest to the general fired her weapon, and the alien's dark purple blood splattered across the building behind him.

Patahbay rejoiced, scooped up the general, and continued running. He knew without looking that the remaining Family, including t.i.tan, would follow.

He also saw through the eyes of the Family behind them that the female soldier was giving chase.