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Hillreens on her diagnostic She gave Hilly a nod of thanks, then said, “Double-time it back to the outpost Go”

Bobbie and her squad were still half a kiloeneral alert went out Her suit’s HUD cae went to work looking for hostiles and linked up to one of the satellites for a top-down view She felt the click as the gun built into the suit’s right arm switched to free-fireif an orbital bo up at the sky anyway No flashes orbut Jupiter’s bulk

Bobbie took off for the outpost in a long, loping run Her squad folloithout a word A person trained in the use of a strength-auground quickly The outpost came into view around the curve of the dome in just a few seconds, and a few seconds after that, the cause of the alar the Martian outpost The yearlong cold as going hot So and discipline, she was surprised She hadn’t really thought this day would come

The rest of her platoon were out of the outpost and arranged in a firing line facing the UN position Someone had driven Yojimbo out onto the line, and the four- like a headless giant in power ar slowly as it tracked the inco the 2,500 meters between the two outposts at a dead run

Why isn’t anyone talking? she wondered The silence co froot to the firing line, her suit squealed a ja at her The top-down vanished as she lost contact with the satellite Her teans and equipment status reports went dead as her link to their suits was cut off The faint static of the open co silence

She used hand ht flank, then moved up the line to find Lieutenant Givens, her CO She spotted his suit right at the center of the line, standing almost directly under Yojiainst his

“What the fk is going on, El Tee?” she shouted

He gave her an irritated look and yelled, “Your guess is as good as , and visual warnings are being ignored Before the radio cut out, I got authorization to fire if they come within half a klick of our position”

Bobbie had a couple hundred more questions, but the UN troops would cross the five-hundred-meter mark in just a few ht flank with her squad Along the way, she had her suit count the inco forces and ets Less than a third of the UN troops at their outpost

This makes no sense

She had her suit draw a line on the HUD at the five-hundred-meter mark She didn’t tell her boys that was the free-fire zone She didn’t need to They’d open fire when she did without needing to knohy

The UN soldiers had crossed the one-kilo in a scattered fored line and a seventh bringing up the rear about seventy ure on the far left of the ene the one closest to her by default So itched at the back of her brain, and she overrode the suit and selected the target at the rear and told it toreticule She felt a chillthe six UN Marines wasn’t wearing an environ, hue black scales Its head was a e as it should have been and covered in strange protruding growths

But e for its body, and too long for their width, they were a childhood nightmare version of hands The hands of the troll under the bed or the witch sneaking in through theThey flexed and grasped at nothing with a constant y