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. Thought you might just be the hero of the hour takin em on all by yourself? Back off, Cutter, Littlefield said sharply. The lieutenant wants a word with this kid right now.Alley!You keep up the suppressing fire.Ekart, Xiang, start fragging this hole right now! Bernelli, you set acharge.When you ve finished with them, Idon t want the Zerg eventhinkingof putting a hole here again!Soon as you can, get your butts over to the Admin Office.Keep an eye out.If there s one spore holethere s bound to be more and I don t want any of them tappin me on the shoulder.Clear? The squad nodded their consent as they rained death down the hole at their feet. Cutter, keep an eye on these whelps and get them back to me in one piece. Damn it, Sarge! Cutter protested. I haven t killed a thing all day! Littlefield seemed to consider the Firebat Marine for a moment.There was sadness in his eyes but hisvoice was solid and clear. You ll have plenty lined up for you before the day s out, Cutter.I ll needthose men.Get them back to me, clear? Clear, sir, Cutter sniffed. Glass-clear. Littlefield turned to Ardo. On the quick, Marine! Let s go! Sergeant Littlefield wasted no time and had bounded several steps ahead of Ardo before the youngerMarine caught on.Littlefield ran through the alleys of Oasis while Ardo tried desperately to keep up.Thecreep was still underfoot.Ardo expected at any moment to crash once more through the brittle crust andtumble into a worse situation than before.Much as he feared that, there was something deep inside himthat feared disobeying the sergeant s orders even more.The tactical channel did not give him a clear picture of what was going on, but what he understood didnot sound good. Holy shit, man! They re not stoppin ! Keep fraggin em, man! Iam,man! I m nearly out. Stand back, you ladies! Time to light me some Zerg! Cutter,Ardo thought as he ducked down another alley, trying desperately to keep up with Littlefield.Oasis had been a small outpost.There was little to offer here other than the work, which the wells andmultiple pumping stations provided.Homes were largely of the modular variety, each showing the verytemporary nature of their construction.The central district of the settlement had a small number of shops,which served the locals.At least, theyusedto serve the locals.The creep had extended itself down the length of the centralsection of the town.There must be a bloom around here somewhere,Ardo thought, but he was havingtrouble keeping up with Littlefield through the maze of haphazardly placed buildings and had little time tothink about it. .it s shifting, Sergeant! The creep is starting to move! Well, find the bloom.We find that and we can take it all out. I ve been looking.It just ain t here. We ll make a high pass over the main street again.Maybe we missed it. The four Vulture hover-cycles screamed overheadjust as the central administration building came intoview.It was not difficult to find.Three stories high, it towered over all the other occupied buildings in thesettlement.A gaping, ragged hole had been torn in one side of the building, its external metal wall peeledback; whether by an explosion or some unthinkably powerful hands, Ardo did not care to speculate.He was so astonished at the sight that he nearly ran directly into Sergeant Littlefield, who had stoppedabruptly short of the admin building.The older man looked into the eyes of the panting Ardo, who nowstood confused before him, and then keyed his transmitter to Squad Member Select.His words were forArdo alone. Son, you re in a lot of trouble, but don t sweat it.Just take it like a Marine and I think things are goingto be okay.Understand? Ardo nodded even though he knew it was a lie.He was having trouble understanding much of anythingat the moment. Sir, yes, sir! Littlefield smiled. Well, there isn t much they can do to you out here that the job won t do for them.Bepolite, don t talk back to Breanne, and I think you may just live to rejoin my squad.She s waiting for youup in Operations. Littlefield gave Ardo s battle armor a quick glance, then smiled. I wish we had time to hose you off first,son! You re gonna smell just awful for the lieutenant. ***You would have thought they would have at least removed the dead,Ardo thought, as he steppedinto the Operations Room. Operations was at the top of the three-story central building in the complex.Its windows, now vacant ofall but the smallest shards of glass, looked out over the settlement.The building had probably been thelast stand of the colonists, and when the fight was over there was nobody left to bury the dead.That had been several days ago.The Confederacy Marines had given the Zerg a pretty good pastingwhen they reached Scenic.Intel called it an extermination and believed that only a minimal force ofZerg remained in Oasis.Still, no one in command had thought it necessary to come back to the pumpingsettlement and honor the valiant fallen.After all, theyweredead.The Operations Room itself had seen considerable damage.Several Marines from Second Squad wereworking to shore up the gaping holes in the outer wall.The sporadic light from their hand welders playeda ghastly blue-white pall across the grizzly scene.In the center of the room, the lieutenant leaned over themap table, her back toward them.Her battle armor helmet was off, sitting to one side as she tried toconcentrate on the readout in front of her.Ardo could still hear her on the tactical channel. Third Squad continue north toward the tower and then fall back toward Operations. I ve got movement over here! Something s coming! Shut up, man! We ve all got movement
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