In the Imulsion cloud, visibility dropped to twenty feet or less.
Gabe, sure he’d been the first in and thus carrying no doubt that only the enemy would be in front of him, rushed the first human shape he saw. He had his Lancer’s bayonet buried all the way to the poor bastard’s gut before he even saw the man’s surprised eyes behind the fogged-up cover of his gas mask.
Gabe yanked the blade free, tearing the mask off even as the Gorasni slumped over, gurgling as he hit the dirt. He wanted nothing more than to put that mask on, as his lungs already burned from the acrid air.
Before Gabe could pull the mask on, though, something swung at his head. He ducked and rolled, twisting as he came back to his feet and lunging with his Lancer. The guerilla before him shifted to avoid the jab, then slashed with his machete. Must have run out of ammo, Gabe thought, as he sidestepped the blade, aimed, and fired from the hip into the man’s abdomen. The poor bastard’s guts blew out of his lower back and sprayed across a fern.
He crumpled. Gabe moved on. He’d been in the cloud barely ten seconds and already he felt the Imulsion sting in his lungs and eyes. Worse, he’d lost the others. Blair was nowhere to be seen, or any other Gear for that matter.
Despite the harsh dose of reality she’d given him, Gabe couldn’t help himself. He tried once more, coughing as he spoke. “Wyatt, report. What is your status?”
Silence answered him.
“Sorotki, do you read me?”
This time he did get a reply, though it was distant and punctuated by hisses of static. “—leaking fuel. Need to turn around and try to make Vectes.”
Gabe grimaced. That was not what he’d hoped to hear. “Did you save a hunter?”
“One torp left, sir, but it doesn’t matter. Firing linkage is toast. I can’t help you.”
Gabe took a breath, and let it out. “How many combat missions have you flown, Sorotki?”
A hesitation. “One,” he replied. “This one.”
Gabe ran a hand down his face. He couldn’t do it. How could he ask someone so young to do this? There was no choice, though.
“Well, Sorotki, you’ve got a chance here to make yourself into a legend. How’s that sound?”
“To be honest,” he replied, a nervous laugh under his words, “I’d rather be back in Vectes with a glass of beer.”
“We all would, son.” Gabe smiled. “But we’ve got a job to do.”
“I’m not sure what I can do.”
Gabe told Sorotki the plan.
Then he waited. And waited.
After a pause, from shock or simply an inability to transmit, the pilot finally replied.
“You’re insane,” he said.
“I know, Sorotki. But it’s our only chance. Will you do it—”
A UIR soldier came howling out of the haze and tackled him. A solid takedown, driving him into the sandy muck and forcing the wind from his lungs. Gabe used the momentum, though, and kicked upward as they landed, vaulting her over him and sending her cartwheeling into the oblivion of the cloud. She vanished, lips curled back in a snarl as she went.
Rolling onto his stomach, Gabe pushed to stand up, brandishing the bayonet on his Lancer, ready for all comers—but no one came. He took a tentative step toward where the woman had just disappeared, and realized he had no idea which way that had been. In the process of being tackled, then rolling over and standing, he’d become disoriented.
“Sorotki?” Gabe tried. “Please confirm your orders.”
Nothing.
“Wyatt?! Blair!?”
Still nothing. He gave up. Interference, he told himself. The alternative explanation was too terrible to contemplate.
“Blair!?” he tried again, shouting this time.
“Here!”
But the word seemed to come from everywhere. At least she was still alive.
He had to find her. Warn her in case Sorotki had the fuel and the guts to do what Gabe had asked. Gabe moved north, farther up Gatka Ridge. Half a mile distant the massive spire loomed, lit from the glow of Imulsion and fire from below like some demonic fang out of anyone’s worst nightmare.
Gabe coughed as he jogged. The luminescent golden haze swirled, completely enveloping him. It reeked like a blend of sulfur and gasoline, and made his throat itch. He’d heard stories—horrible stories—of the effects Imulsion had on those who worked around it for long periods. But those people only got the occasional whiff of the stuff. This was like being in a damned steam bath. He had to do something about it. Casting about, Gabe spotted a fallen enemy nearby and took the gas mask from him. He pulled it on, and tightened the strap.
Fighting raged all around him. Grunts and screams, sporadic gunfire, and beneath it all the moaning agony of the wounded. Spot fires raged in the trees, casting flickering shadows in the choking haze.
He started forward, jogging, glad of the relief the mask provided. Already the burning sensation in his lungs had abated.
A screech behind him. Gabe tried to turn, but too late. The snarling Gorasni woman from before came flying out of the trees and tackled him again, this time by crashing into his upper back and throwing her arms around his neck. Her hands clawed at his neck and face, tearing the gas mask away. Gabe’s feet, in soft sand, were thrown out from under him. He went down face first into the fine powdery stuff, his body driven in by her weight and the force of her assault.
Sand filled his mouth and nose. His eyes immediately began to sting again from the aerosolized Imulsion in the air all around him.
Something punched his side. Once, twice, and then a third time. She was stabbing him, he realized, but the tip of her blade kept finding armor. It was only a matter of time before the blade would find a gap, though, so he did the only thing he could think to do. His Snub pistol was still in its holster. Gabe yanked it free and twisted his arm around as if about to shoot himself in the head. But he angled his hand back just a bit farther than that.
The woman saw the gun, swung her machete up and around.
Gabe fired.
There came a strange snapping noise, and for a second neither of them moved. Gabe twisted around and saw her outstretched hand, the blade still in it. Only, half the blade was gone. She’d tried to block his shot with it, a move of pure instinct that might have worked if she’d been holding a block of carbon weave or pure steel. The blade had done nothing at all to stop the bullet. It had gone right through, shattered her gas mask next, then bored into her left eye socket.
She toppled sideways.
Gabe pushed himself up from the sand, coughing out wads of the gritty stuff. It clung to his teeth and coated his throat. He needed water, but had lost his canteen. The sand was, at least, preferable to the nauseating acrid haze of Imulsion.
He glanced around for his gas mask, found it, then threw it into the trees after seeing the cracked casing. The Gorasni soldier’s was useless, too, after he’d put a round through it.
Gabe supposed breathing some Imulsion was just about the least of his concerns right now, and gave up.
“Squad leaders, report,” he said into the comm.
Fighting raged across the island. If any of them heard him, they were too busy to reply.