My Heads-Up Display showed the charge on my Mass Accelerator Cannon at full. I slid a magazine in. Three hundred rounds of pure pain. I tested the MAC's interface. No problems. Sensors and comm. all green. I slapped each piece of armour, part of my ritual before combat.

"Why are we doing this again?"

Sellepo whined about everything. He really hated combat. I don't think I'd call him a coward, I think it had more to do with plain laziness.

The sergeant smacked Sellepo's helmet. "Cut that shit. We do this because we're told to do this. Sound off."

Trejo gave the thumbs up. "Comm. go."

N'Dano flipped on her monocular display. "Systems go."

I slapped the MAC. "Weapons one go."

Sellepo slapped his MAC. "Weapons two go."

Lee still fidgeted with the laser range finders on her helmet. "Uh, yeah, heavy weapons go."

The sergeant took out a stim-stick and started sucking on it. "Okay, so we go in and secure the site. Don't get sloppy. If any of you lazy some-bidches read your briefing, you'll know they've emptied out the armouries. They've got MACs, lazes, nerve agents, the lot. You be ready to suit up the first amber signal we get. You hear me?"

Everyone grunted in unison. The sergeant took that as a yes.

About that time, the whole bay started shaking. I hated direct insertion. A nice, lazy course on a Helecav interplanetary was more my style. Didn't have much choice, though, we rode down in whatever they packed us in. Command probably using a Helecav for a single squad a waste of resources. Who was I to argue?

With no windows, the only reason I knew we had hit atmosphere was the vibration. The temperature started to rise, too.

"Pipers in place," Trejo said.

The pilotless drones would circle the area, waiting for Lee to designate the targets. Those nasty little Pipers were really hard to get a lock on, and forget radar or heat. They also carried just about every kind of weapon the Unity could figure out, even a dirty old tactical nuke. 'Course, if you had to call for a nuke, you were already pretty much dead.

"One minute," Trejo said, just before the red light flashed its one-minute warning.

Fast insertion. That couldn't be good.

That thought had just entered my head when everything started shifting left and then right. The landing craft had gone to evasives, which meant ground fire, maybe even missiles. Any moment I expected the side of the craft to just blow open, and command hadn't issued anti-grav harnesses for the drop. Perfect.

The flashing red light became a flashing green light.

"Landfall." Trejo had to shout over the sound of the engines and the screeching and groaning of wrenching metal.

I had always thought landing craft got the name because they landed rather than just rammed into a planet. Still, we walked away from it. From the outside, the marks and scorches of hits and near hits covered the craft. It hadn't taken too much punishment to lift-off. Almost as soon we disembarked, it darted up into the sky.

We stood in the centre of an intersection. It looked like pretty much any other city I had seen, you know, buildings, streetlights, roads. Only thing that made this place different was the lack of people. I didn't see anyone. We moved out of the open and huddled against a wall.

I had expected the sound of weapons, maybe screaming. Nothing. I watched the landing craft flee for the safety of orbit. Nothing rose up to meet it from the city, not AA, not missiles, nothing. Contrails criss-crossed the clear sky. No clouds. Not yet. If a missile or something else lethal hit one of the landing craft, there'd be something like a cloud to mark that blank face.

"Flies are on-line," N'Dano said. She glanced over at the sergeant. "No targets yet."

No targets? That didn't make sense. Someone had shot up the landing craft. I swallowed. What if the enemy had found a way to counter a Fly's surveillance devices? I mean, those things could see through walls, detect heat, heck, I'd even heard of one designating a target based on body odour. If the enemy could fool the Flies, we could walk into a whole pile of hell and not know it until people started dying.

"Wonderful." The sergeant gestured to Sellepo. "You've got point."

Sellepo's eyes narrowed and his thin features scrunched into a frown, but he didn't say anything. He started off. If he got point, I got rear. The sergeant followed ten metres behind Sellepo, then went Lee, Trejo, N'Dano and, finally, me. My HUD showed nothing, which meant the Flies saw nothing. No targets.

We kept to the side of the road, staggered on different sides. I had to keep checking behind, hoping that if the Flies had problems, the MAC's own sensors and targeting systems wouldn't. I started to sweat. The buzz of the MAC's engine usually reassured me, but that time it sounded exceptionally loud. I considered turning it off, maybe unplugging it from the powercells, but when the shit hit, I didn't want to wait three minutes for it to power-up.

N'Dano's voice, barely a whisper, came from my earplug. "Still nothing."

They were out there. I mean, of course they were out there, that's why we were here. I usually didn't get worried. I had seen combat before, a few times. When you got scared, that's when you got aced. I had never gone into combat blind, though. I didn't like it.

"I think I got contact," Sellepo said over the comm. system.

"You think?" asked the sergeant.

"I got movement, I know I got movement, but the Fly's not showing anything."

I heard the sergeant curse quietly. "Trejo, get C and C. Let them know we're blind and may have made contact, but can't confirm."

Everyone stopped. I swept the buildings around me. The MAC didn't pick anything up and I didn't see anything. Could they have evacuated the whole city when they heard we were coming? It wouldn't be the first time. Still, from the report I had seen, intelligence had expected civilians.

Yeah, intelligence.

"C-n-C advises to react to assumed contact as true contact until whatever is interfering with the Flies is terminated," Trejo said.

"You heard them," the sergeant said. "Sellepo, you need heavy weapons?"

"Nah, it's some kind of store. Stand-by."

The MAC is a noisy beast when it lets loose. The magnetic accelerator engine makes this really high whine when in use. Then you've got the sonic booms of the ammunition, but that's only when it's firing in your direction, which you really, really don't want. Usually there's also the sound of property damage. I glanced. Sellepo fired at something around the corner from the building he used for cover, so I couldn't see the target, but I could hear the cracks and cries of the brick and masonry, as well as the resounding gonging of ammo hitting metal. The MAC quieted.

"Oh yeah, there's someone in there," Sellepo said. "Hang on a moment."

He let loose again.

"That's done it," he said. "There's something . . . oh shit."

That's all he said before his body shredded. Pieces flew off of it, equipment exploded, the wall he stood beside pretty much disintegrated, and I could hear the distinctive sound of a MAC engine. The enemy sure as hell had gotten into the armoury.

"Lee, vaporize the next block," the sergeant said, not a hint of emotion.

"Cover your ears," Lee said.

The ground shook. Glass shattered. A huge cloud of debris, fire and smoke rose from beyond the building Sellepo had used for cover. It only lasted a minute, at the most, but it felt like a year in hell during an earthquake.

"Give me a laser pulse," the sergeant said. "Precautions."

"Flash," I said to my computer. My visor polarized and I turned away. I could still note the momentary massive increase in illumination.

"Pulse complete," N'Dano said.

"Weapons two," the sergeant said. "You've got point."

I jogged, crouched low, to the position where Sellepo had stood. Any enemy in the area should have been blinded. I saw no movement. I didn't see much of anything. There may have been a store there at one time, but for fifty metres east and south of my position I only saw ruins. I actually didn't see any bodies, but that wasn't surprising, considering they could either lie under the rubble or had been blown to pieces.

I continued east, hugging whatever cover I could, sweeping the road and buildings with the MAC. Get those Flies on-line, I prayed. I heard a crack, a short, sharp explosion, like the sound of a firearm. I heard a groan in my earplug and looked back. N'Dano lay, face down. Nobody moved. The sergeant had his binoculars out and was searching the buildings. He must have seen something because he aimed with his assault weapon--a scaled-down MAC--and fired three rounds. This seemed to satisfy him and he went to check on N'Dano. I heard him curse in my earplug.

"Trejo, you're tasked to systems as well as comm." The sergeant took N'Dano's weapon and her computer, about the size of my canteen. "Keep moving. I'll take the rear position."

Two steps more, then I froze. I could feel eyes on me. Something. I quickly swept the roof with my MAC.

"Sniper." I all but yelled it.

He got a shot off before I fired. In the target of the HUD, I saw his head explode. Clean kill. I looked back. Trejo slouched against the side of a building. Blood covered his helmet and the wall. The sergeant got to him.

"Shit." The sergeant waved me over. "Trejo's down." I reached the sergeant. He handed my Trejo's computer. "You're comm. now. Take his weapons as well."

I wanted to argue, wanted to complain, but seeing Trejo's eyes--were they filled with blood?--I couldn't. I attached his computer to my belt and linked it to my own network. I slung his PAW--he carried the same kind of personal assault weapon as the sergeant--and moved back to point.

Three of us. We hadn't been planetside ten minutes and half of us were dead. As comm. I got to listen to the open combat channel. We weren't alone. Every squad had taken heavy casualties. They had been ready for us. Sure, we were highly trained and had the best weapons available, but without the Flies, we were blind. If they were willing to trade at one to one, or even five to one, we were dead. There were too many of them.

"All squads, read CnC." I stopped and held up my hand for the others to do the same. "Find defensible position and hole up until situation with Flies can be resolved. Repeat, bunker up and hold."

"Sarge, command wants us to find a defensible position and hold until they fix the problem with the Flies is fixed."

"About damn time," the sergeant said. He considered the buildings around us with his binoculars. "We've got a good, high position, looks solid, twenty metres and to the north."

I looked and saw the building the sergeant referred to. "I got it. Paddington?"

"Yeah, maybe it was a store or something," the sergeant said. "Let's go."

I moved, and I moved as fast and as low as I could. I got to the door and barrelled through, MAC up, ready to fire. It was a store, a department store it looked like, but no inventory. All the shelves and racks were bare."

Lee and the sergeant followed me in. The sergeant pointed to the stairs.

"High ground. Let's move, but move slow and careful. Watch for traps."

I nodded and started out. We couldn't count on the Flies, but our personal systems seemed to work fine. I set everything for the highest sensitivity. I'd get a lot of false positives, but that was better than missing something. Each step I took, I got an alarm about possible movement or possible trap. It took us almost half an hour to reach the fifth floor that way, but no one complained. If they had have, I would have invited them to take point.

"We'll make our stand here," the sergeant said. "Set up a perimeter of Watchdogs, especially by the windows, but do your best not to show yourself. Stay off the roof. Their satellites are down, but if they can screw with the Flies, they might be able to cut into our network and use it against us."

Lee and I both nodded. I took out the four Watchdogs I carried, small, camera-like devices that had most of the surveillance package the Flies carried. Since the enemy had somehow neutralized the Flies, I didn't have much hope for the Watchdogs. The big difference would be that the Watchdogs worked on a closed network. If the enemy had cut into the Fly network, they wouldn't be able to do the same with the Watchdogs.

While we set up the Watchdogs, the sergeant scanned the other buildings through his binoculars. He stayed well back from the windows, hiding as best he could. We gathered together, near the stairs, when everything was set up.

"Looks safe," the sergeant said. "I don't see any activity out there. If they didn't see us come in, we're in a good position. Even if they did, unless they bring the building down around us, we're defensible. I haven't seen any evidence of heavy weapons, so I think we're good."

I chewed on a ration. Not tasty, it filled the stomach. I wondered if there might be food around, in the store somewhere. Maybe the sergeant could read minds.

"Until we have to, we aren't going hunting." The sergeant looked directly at me. "Even if we found something, we don't have the proper equipment to verify that it hadn't been tampered with. We might note organic poisons and manufactured toxics, but not prions or something even trickier." He glanced toward the windows. "Might as well get some sleep if you can. I figure they'll send us out tonight, with or without the Flies. I'll take first watch."

Sleep? Sometimes I really wondered if the sergeant were human. Sleep? After three of my squad just got killed? Not even certain the Watchdogs would warn of us approaching enemies?

Strangely enough, I did nod off. Curled up against the wall, well away from the stairs and the windows but staring at the sergeant's back, I did drift off. I awoke disoriented. It always happened to me when I slept during the day. I couldn't figure out where I was or when. It took me a few minutes to remember everything that had happened. I checked the time. I had only been out for an hour and a half. Lee sat at watch, and I could hear the sergeant pacing around.

I went to sit with Lee. She had her helmet off. She wore her hair really, really short, but it looked good on her. Slight, she still had muscular frame. While I might beat her arm-wrestling, she could hump as much shit as the next guy.

"Nothing?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Nothing." She rubbed her head. "Seems like everyone took an ass-kicking. CnC is thinking of sending gunships and armour, though I don't know what good that will do if we don't know where to hit them."

"Things'll get straightened out," the sergeant said as he strode up. "Intelligence is on this Fly problem."

Lee gave me that look which said what grunts everywhere thought: intelligence my ass.

"Until then, we sit tight." The sergeant gestured at the pile of weapons we had, the PAWs from our fallen comrades. "Scavenge batteries, whatever from those weapons. We can destroy them before we pull out."

It made sense. Why carry the extra weight? It also gave us something to do. All the ammo and parts for the PAW and the MAC were interchangeable, so everything was useful.

In the midst of our work, we got the call. Command wanted the squads to rendezvous and gave us coordinates. The sergeant didn't like it. I saw him frown as he listened. His eyes narrowed.

"That doesn't make any sense." He shook his head. He switched on his mic. "CnC read Gamma One. Request confirmation with password."

No response came. The sergeant looked at his, his dark eyes flashing with suspicion. "I repeat, CnC read Gamma One. Request confirmation with password."

Nothing. "All squads read Gamma One. Suspect enemy has compromised network. Repeat, suspect enemy has compromised network."

"I don't know whether that got through, Sarge," Lee said. "The whole comm. network is dead."

"The other squads'll figure it out, won't they?" I asked.

"I hope so." The sergeant glanced at our surroundings. "But if the network has been compromised, they might have a fix on our transmissions. It's even more secure, but who's to say they haven't cracked our transponder codes."

"Then they'd know exactly where we are," I said.

The sergeant nodded. "Switch your transponders to passive. CnC won't know our location, but neither will the enemy. As long as the transponders are on passive, they'll let our side know who we are if we're targeted. And let's get moving. Pack up the Watchdogs and everything else. Any stripped weapon we leave behind. Anything still functional, we pack out."

It took us ten minutes to get ready, then we took the stairs down again. If I had felt tense on the way up, I was actually scared on the way down. They knew where we were; they had cracked our communications and could have been listening to us the entire time. How much had they learned? How much did they know?

We took the back door, though anyone knowing we were inside would likely cover all the exits. I had the pleasure of going out first. The buildings lining the alleyway all but blocked the dim sunlight. Crouched against the wall, I scanned the surrounding windows and rooftops. Nothing. I gave the all clear and the sergeant and Lee stepped out.

The sergeant pointed along another small alley. "We head north, away from our original target and away from the coordinates the false CnC issued."

We moved quickly but carefully. I remembered the map. I believed the sergeant was aiming for a small park with a lake. Might be a good place to get a dustoff and get back in orbit. I was all for that.

The sky lit up and the ground shook. We heard the explosions a few moments later. I had seen orbital bombardments, but never from planetside. It scared the crap out of me. For a second, the world lit up, as though the sun had come out. The tremors, not as strong as a nearby heavy weapons barrage, but enough to make me hold onto the wall for support, came soon after. Finally, the sound reached us, like thunder and crashing waves and burning.

The comm. network crackled to life. "All squads read CnC." I stopped, gesturing for the others to do so as well. I could see by the look of concentration and suspicion that the sergeant listened to the command channel as well. "Networks secured. Flies on-line. Reinforcements deployed. Stand-by to receive encoded password alpha. After receiving password alpha, consider password alpha compromised and switch to password beta. Confirm."

The password came over as nose, but the comm. system cleaned it up. After he heard it, the sergeant nodded to me. "Gamma squad confirmed," I said.

The sergeant glanced back the way we came, then forward, along our line of advance. "We'll make for the same target, but we'll circle around, come from the north instead of the west."

The sky lit up again. More shaking and thunder. The sergeant glanced up. "I don't know what we'll find when we get there."

Almost as soon as we continued our advance, the Flies came on-line. We paused and did a quick sweep. Targets lined our planned route. They were scattered targets nearby, but the sergeant planned a nice, easy route around them. We would avoid contact until we reached our target. The map also noted the other units. Armoured squads had entered the city, and along with Pipers, Dragoon gunships circled the city, awaiting requests to destroy.

We moved quickly, no longer fearing ambush, the Flies keeping us up to date on target movement. It looked like the enemy planned to regroup as well, though target icons regularly disappeared as squads, armour or the gunships came upon them.

The skies lit up again, but this time it was a cloud of fire rather than orbital weapons.

"All squads read CnC. Nukes have been used. Repeat, nukes have been used. Canmore destroyed. Support craft are moving off to safe distance. Repeat, support craft moving off to safe distance. Command transferred to Alpha squad and Captain Bey."

We stood there, in silence, watching as the nuclear star disappeared. That had been the Canmore, a capital ship with almost a thousand-man crew. They all died so quickly, vaporised for the most part.

"Son of a bitch," said Lee, quietly.

"Well, that upped the stakes." The sergeant looked around. "Doesn't change our situation. We'll continue as planned. If we had more muscle, well, maybe."

We started forward again. The gunships screeched overhead, firing their larger MACs and missiles. It looked to me like they no longer played a support position but had become hunters. Target icons disappeared quickly.

We reached a main road, having threaded through sidestreets and alleys to avoid contact. Our destination came into view as we emptied onto the road. A television station. I couldn't believe we were attacking a television station.

"Let's just bomb the mother," Lee said.

"Hold on a second." I had noted a lot of new targets appearing around the TV building. "Damn, they've got armour. Where were they hiding it?"

"Under the building, I'll bet," the sergeant said. "Let me have a look."

"Call in a strike," I said.

"Some-bidch," the sergeant said. "Do it, Lee. Level the mother."

"I can't," Lee said. "Someone's jamming us."

Suddenly, almost as soon as Lee had said it, the display from the Flies disappeared. We were in a dead zone. Possibly in more ways than one.

We came under fire. Heavy fire. The sergeant caught one right in the face. The impact threw him back, knocking Lee back into the alley. I sprinted. Maybe I should have ducked back into the alley, but training kicked in. Move forward, even when outnumbered. The enemy rarely expects it. The fact that the fire didn't track me at first seemed to attest to this. The targeting systems on the MAC were still live, and I returned fire. Inaccurate, as I jostled the MAC while I ran, but all I wanted was for them to duck. I found another alley, on the other side of the street, and dove into it.

"Lee, are you okay?" The comm. network was dead. The jamming, of course.

I looked. I could see Lee. She didn't look happy. She gestured that she was going to backtrack. Good idea. If she could get clear of the jamming, she could call in some support. I couldn't just sit there, though. Before we lost contact with the Flies, I had noted infantry and armour. They might be coming for me.

I ran heedless of the danger, at top speed, through the alley. I glanced down the first intersection I reached--a small side street--but kept moving. The next street, an alley, I turned south. I planned to get behind the building. I hoped they would assume I had retreated. Do what they don't expect.

I heard heavy guns firing. Whose guns they were, I couldn't say for certain. Explosions, debris and smoke rose up from the area I had just left, the alley I had hidden in. That gave me my answer. But they were firing blind. I guessed their jamming affected whatever surveillance drones they might have had.

Running flat out, I passed one or two intersections. I figured I was almost at the building, so at the next intersection I slowing. I peeked around, holding the MAC near the ground so I didn't have to expose my head. The targeting systems showed me everything I needed. The place looked like an anthill, with all the infantry and the bulk of armour moving to get under cover. They expected the shit to hit, they just didn't know when. If we didn't get a strike in fast, we'd miss a lot of targets. And what about Lee? What if she ran into one of those tanks, all on her own?

A tall mast of dishes and antennae rose from the top of the building, which wasn't particularly tall. I took a gamble. I wasn't a systems man, I didn't know much, but I figured it was worth a shot. I had to show myself. I swung around the corner, staying low, kneeling, and took careful aim. Someone on their side opened up, but didn't have my range or a good acquisition. I let loose, pulsing on auto, tearing the crap out of the mast's foundation. The incoming fire was getting heavier. I kept at it. I couldn't go full auto, or the MAC would jump around too much to be accurate. I had to drop that mast. I noted armour coming into position.

The mast fell.

I ducked back into the alley and ran. Sweat drenched my whole body and my legs felt like lead. Fear made me move. My comm. system crackled to life.

"TV Building source of jamming," Lee said over the comm. system. "Heavy ordnance. Immediate strike requested."

She gave the coordinates. I kept running. What if they decided to use a nuke?

The pressure wave of a nearby hit threw me to the ground. The MAC dug into my gut. I rolled, gasping, coughing, trying to breath. A second hit smashed the building to my left, raining debris down on me. Something hit my leg. I wanted to scream, but bit down on that.

I thought it was over, I thought their artillery had my range, or a building had fallen in on me. The ground shook, the sky roared, dust covered my eyes. I lay there, in silence, for a minute or two, still trying to breath.

I heard my name over the comm. "You still alive?" Lee asked.

"I think I need a medic." I tried to move my leg. "Yeah, I need a medic."

"I've got your transponder," Lee said. "I'm on my way. I'll request a corpsman. What happened to the jamming?"

"I think I got it." I laughed, choking as I did. Blood came up. "Oh shit."

I couldn't focus and spots started to float in my vision. I thought I saw Lee.

"I think it got me too," I said.