Page 169 (1/2)

“Ow,” I say They helpround pierced the starShell but was stopped by the pulseArs of the suit won’t respond Pebble and Weed help me activate the ejection port The mech splinters apart and I crawl out, still dazed from the shot There’s a dent in my pulseArmor

“Where’s Thraxa?” Sevro looks around

“Here,” she says, rushing up

“Still got that baby nuke?” he asks, his face enraged

“Yes, sir”

“Give it”

She unholsters the nuke launcher from the back of her ar his heleline He hovers a half second in the air and fires The sravity claiainst the ridgeline He saunters over without a sht The earth shudders A blast wave of sand and debris roars over our heads and huge waves crash against the island In the distance, the black distortion surrounding the Ash Lord’s island flickers and disappears, revealing the horizon

I cliaton missile has caused to the island’s coastline S the sky A horrible wound has been carved into the Ash Lord’s island The mushroom cloud blossoms And above it, deeper inland where the white fortress of the Ash Lord towers upon the high peaks, sunlight catches on iron men

Finally, the Golds have come to war

I unfurl my razor and look to my Howlers “For the Republic”

I SOAR WITH THE HOWLERS into the wake of the nuclear blast, skinned in mechanized armor, smeared with char and blood, aimed like a driven spear toward the tower of the Ash Lord The killsquad of armored Golds races to meet us They are nearly twenty in nuio XIII Dracones—dragoons His elite bodyguards and extere who liquidated Reds on Mars by the millions and dropped the nuclear ordnance that destroyed New Thebes, and who dumped my men captured on the battlefield out the back of transport ships three kilometers up

They must all die

Fire and mini-missiles streak between the war parties Shields flash and armor buckles as life is ripped frost the Golds None drop fro too

A Howler’s body is blown to bits in front of h their ranks Using Thraxa’s starShell to shield me in my thinner personal armor, I fly in her shadow and raise ht and true

And then, just shy of the speed of sound, the tar parties of ether like squadrons of fallen angels A horror of ines Milia spears a Gold through his head with her razor, then is cut in two by a passing sword Her body divides and spins doithout a sound I block the same man’s blade aimed at Thraxa’s head as he rips past us The force nu into their ranks I launch off Thraxa’s flank and gore the chest of a Gold as we slaether I twist myself at the last second so his blade nicks off my helmet Without the starShell’s protection, I feel the wheeze of ainst the force of our bodies colliding My vision wavers and we tumble