There were none. The S-3 turned over the briefing to the Assistant S-3 who ran through the movement lanes, phaselines and other nitpicky details of the attack. He studiously ignored the portion on artillery support; there was none for the simple reason that it didn't work. He also ignored resupply and postassault consolidation. This was an all or nothing attack. There would be no resupply and if it failed there would be no need for reconsolidation.

Bill tuned that out as he tried to quiet his own fears. He had written down the instructions on how to set the bomb, but if the artass had made a mistake it was going to be a lousy time to find out right in front of the gate. So far it had only been Mreee and Nitch on this gate, but that didn't mean that the Titcher might not show up at any time. They were racing against a series of deadlines, some of them unknown and unknowable. He glanced at his watch again. Five hours.

Finally the briefing was over and the various officers filed out of the large tent, some of them joking halfheartedly. They all knew that they were going into a gauntlet from which most of their forces, their soldiers, their children, would not return.

"Dr. Weaver?" a lieutenant colonel said as they were leaving. "Lieutenant Colonel John Forsythe, I'm the battalion commander from the One-Oh-One. You're with me." He was a tall officer with a clean-cut lookand a square jaw. He looked like Hollywood's idea of an airborne battalion commander.

"We'll meet you at the assembly area, sir," Miller interjected. "We've got some special materials we need to assemble and we have our own transportation. It was in the movement supplement."

"All right," the colonel said, nonplussed. "Be there on time."

"We're the timing, Colonel," Bill said. "The whole thing starts when we're ready." He glanced at his watch. "Five hours."

"Understood," the colonel said, clearlynot understanding. "Just be there."

"We will, sir," Miller replied. "With bells on."

As it turned out it took just over four hours until all the units were in position and Colonel Forsythe found out what the "special materials" were.

"What the fuck, pardon my French, is that?" the colonel asked, looking up at the kneeling mecha-suit.

After the first Wyverns had worked out so successfully, Bill had convinced Columbia to fast-track construction of the Mark II. The Mark II had a bit more fluidity, less of a tendency to disco at just the wrong moment and the stylish face had been removed. The whole upper half had, in fact, been significantly lowered and the armor had been modified into reflective glacis ridges. The suits were also camouflage covered and, in the case of the nine that the SEALs were now suiting up in, covered further in a special camouflage netting that would break up their outlines.

"It's a Mark Two Wyvern armored combat mecha," Bill responded. He was now wearing the skin-tight black coveralls that were necessary to properly "fit" the Wyvern and he ran his hands over the suit proprietarily. "The Mark Twos are armored about like a Bradley and can carry some serious firepower.

They also are going to be better armor for the ardune."

"The what?" the colonel asked.

"The gate closing device," Bill replied, glancing at the light violet box. It had been carefully placed on the back of the truck that had carried the Wyvern to their assembly area and his eyes, and those of most of the SEALs, were never far from it. The blue charging bar on the top now within a smidgeon of reading full. Bill's Wyvern had been hastily modified with a metal box to carry it and he had carefully ensured that the Wyvern finger systems were dexterous enough to key the arming system. He hadn't had the guts to actually key the full sequence, though. "The SEALs and I will let you carry the assault up to the gate but if you get bogged, we're going to go through on rock and roll. The ardunewill be placed on the other side of the gate, and itwill be triggered, one way or another."

"I want your people to understand something," the colonel said. "I know they're SEALs. I know they're the best of the best. I know that the mission is important. But you don't go untilI say you go, understood?"

"Yes," Bill replied. "The flip side being that when it is time to go, you let slip the hounds."

"I will," the colonel said. "But I let them slip. My assault, I'm in command. You're just supernumeraries until we get up to the gate. You're in line between Bravo and Charlie company, right ahead of my section.

Get suited up, Doctor." Bill nodded and stepped into the suit. Once fitted, the Wyverns were relatively easy to take on and off.

He simply put his hands in the controls, settled his feet into their holders and pressed a button. The front closed and he was ready to fight. With one small exception.

Miller came over carrying both his own and the doctor's weapons. Miller had insisted on another 30mm but the doctor had opted for a .50 caliber Gatling gun. The Mreee and the Nitch were not as hard targets as the Titcher units and Bill felt that the gun, which was the first Gatling gun accessorized with a semiauto selector switch, was more in keeping with the threat. Miller's philosophy, on the other hand, had not changed. More firepower is better firepower.

Bill picked up the big gun in one hand and waited until the command master chief had hooked up the feed tube and checked the connections. Then he keyed the external speaker and raised one hand in a half salute.

"Ready when you are, Colonel," Bill said.

"Maybe I should think about putting you on point," the colonel replied, then hefted his own M-4.

"Okay!" he said, raising his voice. "Let's roll out!"

"This is Juliet Five-Four," the commander of the 35th Brigade said over the command net. He was half whispering despite the rumble from the command Bradley he was in. "Our advance scouts have the Nitch lines in sight. Ready to initiate."

"Juliet Five-Four, this is Sierra One-one," Task Force Command said. "Stand by. We're awaiting word from the Lima Eight-Six units that they're in place."

"Fucking One-Oh-One," the colonel bitched. "They think they're so hot shit and here we sit waiting on them."

"I dunno, sir," his S-3 opined. "Them ridges are a bastard. I hunt in country like this and making that movement, stealthily, in three hours? I would have been awfully surprised."

It had been a total bastard of a march.

The distance wasn't far, no more than three miles in a direct line, but they hadn't taken a direct line. The guide from the Kentucky unit was a short, broad young sergeant, dark hair covered by a floppy "boonie"

cap and a dark growth of beard apparent in a five o'clock shadow. He had led them up and down hills, across streams and along knife-edge ridgelines, never in one direction for very long.

Bill was glad that the Mark II had more maneuverability, otherwise the march would have been impossible. It was necessary at times for the mechas to walk one foot in front of the other, something impossible with the Mark I. And while they were not holding up the advance, they definitely didn't feel slowed by the soldiers in front of them; it was all the clumsy mechas could do to keep up with the pace.

But the unit had stopped, all of the soldiers dropping to a squat and facing outward for threats as the colonel held the radio and talked to someone.

Bill kicked in his external directional mike and shamelessly eavesdropped as the Kentucky scout came back down the line and squatted by the battalion commander. "Honest to God, sir," the scout said. "They wasn't there five hours ago."

"Picket," Miller said over the radio. The SEALs had been training with the essentially effortless suits for two weeks and he'd learned some of the ins and outs, too. Like the directional mike. "The Mreee have a picket up on our line of march."

"What do we do?" Bill asked as the colonel shook his head and looked at his map.

"Take it out," Miller replied, stepping forward in a crouch. "Excuse me, Colonel."

"Yes, Master Chief," the colonel said, clearly annoyed.

"Sir, taking out sentries is our specialty," Miller pointed out, ignoring the fact that the colonel had missed the "command" part.

"I don't think that, despite your wonderful camouflage job, you can exactly sneak up on these Mreee,"

the colonel said, sarcastically. The suits were well camouflaged, visually, but even with the enhancements they were as noisy as a platoon of regular infantry.

"I wasn't planning on using the suit, sir," the SEAL said, politely. He turned and made a series of hand gestures towards the other SEALs, who were down on their knees and elbows to reduce their visibility.

One of the suits sat up and kneeled, opening along the front. The SEAL within stepped out and around the suit, opening up a side-panel on the ammunition storage box. From it he extracted a silenced M-4, a black balaclava, a combat harness and a camouflage "ghillie" suit made, like those over the suits, of netting strung with soft colored cloth. In a moment he was suited up and soft footed over to Miller's position. Bill noticed that he was wearing what appeared to be dyed black moccasins.

"Russell is our team sniper, sir," the command master chief said. "The wind is towards us. He can take down the picket and no one the wiser."

The colonel looked at the two SEALs and shook his head.

"Sorry, Chief," the colonel said. "I should have known you weren't an idiot. Go."

Russell looked at the scout and then gestured with his chin towards the front of the battalion.

Bill dialed up the directional mike and followed them out of sight. He could hear the scout moving quietly through the underbrush along the ridgeline, but not a sound from the sniper despite the encumbering camouflage. He waited what seemed an interminable period and then heard two muted cracks, something like firecrackers that had been placed under a jar.

"They're down," the colonel said. "They didn't appear to have a radio or any other communications devices."

Bill wondered about that, thinking about the Adar and their implants. But the Mreee really did seem to be a relatively low-tech race that had somehow acquired a set of high tech implements. The battalion started moving again but the suits had to wait while Russell made his way back. The SEAL quickly trotted into view, though, and stowed his dismount gear, suited up and they were on their way.

As they passed the two Mreee bodies, Weaver wondered what they had thought, sent to an alien landby their allies? Their masters? Set up on a hilltop that was unlike anything from their home world. What were they thinking? Were they hoping to go home, alive, to their mates? To their littermates? Or were they looking forward to killing the humans?

He also wondered what the soldiers thought at a time like this. He had never even considered joining the military; he had nothing against it but science had been his passion since an early age. What was Russell feeling? Did he have any feelings about killing the child-sized felinoids at all?

He remembered the expression on the SEAL's face as the balaclava had been taken off and he stowed his gear. Cold, clear, professionally interested in getting his gear away and back on track as swiftly and efficiently as possible. What drove these human killing machines?

Bosons made more sense.

The sun had set and away from city lights there was limited visibility. All the troopers of the 101st, though, had flip-down monoculars on their helmets and the reduced lighting seemed to affect them not at all. The suits, of course, had night vision systems and they could see, if not as clearly as day then clearly enough. They even had thermal imaging systems and Bill flipped them on to get a look at how it felt in a real mission. The soldiers ahead of him were white ghosts and the overall impression was, if anything, worse than with the night vision systems. He quickly switched back.

The battalion reached its first phaseline, Highway 541, and spread out to either side, probing for Mreee sentries. They found none. The lone picket on the hilltop seemed to be the only force the Mreee had out on this wing. As soon as everyone was in position, the colonel sent the code word and the whole battalion, plus the mecha, swiftly crossed the road and settled into the woods on the far side. They were within a mile or so of the gate and still seemed to have been undetected.

The colonel spoke into his radio and then waved the battalion down; now was the time to wait. Bill turned up his external audio to listen to the night. There was the sound of an owl, unaware that the planet had been invaded by aliens, calling forlornly for a mate. A cough. A slight rattle of equipment from down the line. Then, in the distance, a sound of firing that rose to a crescendo, quickly. A shattering explosion.

Then, more firing, closer.

The colonel still waited, monitoring his radio. Bill looked at his suit clock and noted that the bomb should have fully cooked by now; it had taken that long to get into position. But there was only one ridge between them and the gate. The firing to the south and the west was joined by more to the north and there was a brief flash of actinic fire to the south that lit the crouched infantry for a moment like day.

Finally the colonel stood up, saying something on his radio. There was a rustle from either side as the battalion began to move up the steep slope.

Still, as they moved, nothing. Then, from the north, there came the sound of a fusillade of shots and a ball of plasma lit the air.

Contact.

Bill switched over to thermal imagery and could see ghostlike images at the top of the ridge. There were several of them in view and even as he drew a bead on one with the laser mount on the Gatling gun, a ball of plasma flew through the air and impacted near the line of infantrymen, throwing two them to the ground to roll in agony at instant third-degree burns.

Bill closed his finger on the firing mechanism, rolling the fire through the figures on the ridgeline. One ofthem seemed to separate into two and another flew backwards. He could hear firing on either side of him, now, loud, but the audio sensors quickly dialed down. The figures on the ridgeline had disappeared.

He could hear shouting and realized that it was he who was doing it, bellowing in rage as he tried to force the mecha up the steep slope. The ridge got steeper towards the top; a short bluff was apparent. Bill realized he could never get the suit up and over it and looked around for somewhere he could climb up.

Suddenly, he felt himself lifted up and half thrown onto the top. He stumbled onto his face and then lay prone, moving forward on knee and elbow wheels to clear the spot he had been lifted up on. Another suit landed next to him and his systems automatically designated it as Seaman First Class Sanson.

Bill was right in the area that he had fired at and he saw, for the first time clearly, the effects of the Gatling gun. Two forms, their images fading with their internal heat, were on the ground. Three, really, because one of them had been cut in half by the fire from the gun. He started to heave but suppressed it with a mighty effort; it wouldn't kill him in the suit or damage the electronics, but it would have been damned messy.

He slid forward, looking to either side and seeing human forms running across the top of the ridge. He pulled up a location map and they were within a few hundred yards, no more, of the gate. He pulled himself upwards then ducked as a ball of plasma flew through the air. More firing was apparent from the area of the gate and Bill popped his head up for just a moment to get a look. He didn't know how many Mreee and Nitch had been passed through the gate, or how many had been moved up close to their intended assault point, or how many had been drawn off by the earlier attacks. But based on the images in the valley, most of them were still down there. His thermal imagery system couldn't separate them out.

Plasma rounds were impacting all along the ridgeline, now, as the forces around the gate realized they were being flanked. Bill heard screams to either side and realized that there was no way to get in view of the fire and survive. On the other hand, there were so many targets down in the valley it would be hard to miss. So he raised the Gatling gun up over the lip of the ridge and fired it without looking.

The other mecha had joined him and were doing the same thing. Most of them had Gatling guns with two 25mms and the chief's 30mm. Miller was one of the few not firing. He was lying on his side, apparently peacefully watching the scene and occasionally reaching behind him and lobbing something overhand into the valley.

"Having fun, Chief?" Bill asked, watching his ammunition counter. The Gatling was going through rounds at an alarming rate. He decided that when he was down to one quarter of his ammo load, he would stop firing.

"Loads," Miller replied. "Made up some improvised explosive devices while we were waiting. Bouncing Betties on a timer. Thought it was an appropriate time to expend them."

"We could use some fire support," Bill said through gritted teeth. Holding the gun overhead and firing it, even with the mecha's powered support, was not easy. One of the SEALs screamed and flopped backwards, his arms blown off by a plasma round. The scream was surprise rather than pain since the area that had been hit didn't vent into the suit and his "real" arms were down in the body.

"Saving it for something worthwhile," the chief replied.

Bill dropped his weapon and snaked forward, taking a quick look over the edge.

Where there had been bodies too numerous to count there were now . . . bodies too numerous to count.

But most of them weren't moving. Some were, however, and plasma fire was still dropping on the lines,some of it damned close to the position the mecha had taken. But now fire from the infantry on either side, with the plasma somewhat suppressed, was beginning to get the upper hand. Bill saw a line of tracers lazily float down the hillside, missing their intended target high, then correct into the moving form of one of the giant spiders. It collapsed. The infantry medium machine guns had been set up along the lip of the hollow and now were steadily eliminating the resistance.

He brought the big Gatling gun up and started searching for targets as the rest of the mecha pushed forward on either side and did the same. Even Miller leaned over the lip and started sending individual rounds downrange. Seeing that he couldn't detect if they hit or not he switched to full auto and stroked the trigger, sending burst after burst, almost every one including a tracer, into the carnage in the hollow.

The lines of explosions were easily detected by the thermal imaging scope, brief, bright, dots of white heat that gradually faded in the cool night air. Sometimes they left behind cooling bodies as well.

"I think it's time to go," Bill said.

"Roger," Miller replied, tersely. "Switch to the battalion command freq."

It took Bill a moment to fumble for the sheet of paper that had the information, read it by the dim redlight in the suit and switch his frequency. By the time he did, the argument was in full swing.

" . . . don't care, Uniform Two-Four," a voice Bill didn't recognize said. "We're still encountering resistance. Until it's suppressed stay in position."

"Theyare suppressed, Major," the SEAL said, tightly. "We need to get this box in position,now , before they can regroup or reinforce!"

"Where's the colonel?" Bill asked.

"Lima Eight-Six Bravo is unavailable," the new voice said. "This is Lima Four-Five; I'm in command."

"Colonel Forsythe bought it," Miller said. "Major White was the battalion XO, he's in command, now."

"Have you ever heard the term communications security, Uniform Two-Four?" the officer said, clearly furious.

"This is an encrypted link, Major." Miller sighed. "And our opponents have shown no sign of having intercept capability. And we don't have time to diddle around with codes. We need to move, sir, right the fuck now."

"I am in charge of this operation, Uni . . . Mi . . ." the major spluttered. "You will move when I tell you to move and not one moment before."

"Major, for God's sake," Miller said, nearly shouted. "Take not counsel of your fears. We need tomove !".

"That's what you SEALs thought in Panama, right?" the major snarled back. "Well this is a hell of a lot more important than making sure Noriega missed his plane. And we willnot move until we have full control of the situation! This is Lima Four-Five, out!"

"Switch back to SEAL net," Miller said. "This is whoever the fuck I am leaving the net." Bill punched the numbers in for the other frequency, which he remembered, and keyed the mike.

"What do we do, Miller?" he asked. He was down to one quarter ammo and had stopped firing. Miller was still sending the occasional burst into the hollow. Only an occasional burst of plasma, poorly aimed, was returned.

"Miller?" Bill asked as the silence lengthened. "Hey, am I on the right freq?"

"Yes," a voice answered. It was one of the SEALs, but he didn't recognize the voice. "Keep the chatter down."

"Miller!" Bill said, half afraid, half furious.