They clattered across the distance whilst entangled in a fugue disturbance. The ground was solid as reality, but the air and movement had made a strange and viscous harmony which suffused those fleeting moments of existence with something surreal.


    It was halfway to the support line, where the surroundings were darkest, when a light that was purple, blue and white washed over the cramped horizon and made a temporary sun. Twilight to high noon in seconds, and then the vertiginous descent into darkness.


    They had just reached the first vehicles of the APC column when a cloud of dust rose in the distance and the earth resumed its violent quaking; a many-edged plane of stone broke off from the left-side wall and toppled into the churning earth, and their eardrums were blasted to oblivion by the resonant blast of the ensuing destruction.


    It seemed that that was the end of it. They forged onward, keeping the dark line of APCs to their left, and eventually they saw the line dogleg across their path, so that the APC-line cut perpendicular to their direction of movement.


    The quaking restarted. The ground shook with such violence that Betelgeuse nigh lost his balance. He turned reflexively in the direction of sound and saw, out there where they had come from—out there about the front line—a curious orange brightness materializing and growing with terrible speed.


    The whole space started to fill with light as the rock face beneath their feet flexed and heaved and trembled itself to pieces. Steam and smog were ejected into the air and the line of Plasma Leopards, briefly backlit against fire and brightness, was swallowed by the encroaching wall of light.


    The men and women of First Company took to their heels. The ground was collapsing underneath its own weight and behind them several APCs started to buck and turn and crash into each other and then fall into the river of molten lava that was accelerating toward them and consuming everything in its path.


    The endless crack of breaking stone had struck a sudden increase in decibels. Betelgeuse was sprinting full tilt, and his lungs, as usual, were beginning to fail him when Douglas was there beside him and locking his remaining elbow around his arm. Voke took his other arm and together they probed the limits of Betelgeuse'' physical stamina, just barely managing to keep up with the rest of First Company; and finally, as they reached the line of idling APCs, they fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs and, turning, saw the lucent river of broiling lava arrest its expansion a mere fifty meters away.


    Above Pyriphlegethon a cosmos of swirling gas coiled snakelike into mythical shapes plucked from the deepest pits of Man''s subconscious.


    look at that


    "Does he have an intuition for these things or is he secretly a goddamn Silver?" Voke scoffed, reaching a hand out to a coughing Betelgeuse still struggling to catch his breath.


    hundreds


    Massive boulders were falling a great height from the ceiling, slamming into the lava a kilometer or more away from the support line and making splendorous light shows of the steaming droplets. The colossal rain of boulders came hard and fast, shaking the earth savagely and damming up the moat of lava and preventing any further traversal of the tunnel-way.


    The lives of thousands of soldiers, snuffed out in mere minutes. The immensity of that revelation was dawning and Betelgeuse could hear Voke muttering silent prayers to God; but because all of the bodies had been consumed by fire and stone, and because he could see none of the death actually occur, Betelgeuse found that all of it hardly affected him at all.


    ''Was that really it?'' he asked himself, but no clear answer was forthcoming.


    "Subaltern Cacliocos. I see your company managed to make it," a powerful voice cut through the company comms-link, stabbing through their exhaustion and fatigue.


    RABID


    TAF


    "... Subaltern Cacliocos," Cacliocos nodded emotionlessly.


    look at him


    Douglas


    247-B


    Rolf,


    "I took the decision myself. We received no orders that the line should be held," Cacliocos declared, meeting Sergeant Granger''s gaze. Betelgeuse could see out of the corner of his eye Entuban shifting uneasily from foot to foot.


    She must have heard Douglas'' outburst.


    NYMPHOCHROMIEQUACKSHIT


    They sent the Ash brigade down with the Jegorichians,SISSYEdith


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ''INCELBLACKZIT


    MONKEY


    Sirthose PLPs


    "And you would be right," Hrodwulf returned, grinning, casting his own surreptitious glances at Betelgeuse, Voke and Douglas.


    "... If I may be permitted, what is your basis for subsuming them under your command, sir?"


    authority."


    "According to the Green Book, of course," he added as an afterthought, his young features becoming thoughtful.


    in fear? No, that didn''t sound very like Cacliocos…


    that


    three battalions


    gnarly-looking casualties


    myself


    He''s trying to bait Hrodwulf into saying something obviously beyond the scope of his powers and trap him with blackbox evidence,


    "Norma?" Hrodwulf called, and a dull tone sounded through the company comms-link.


    "TAF Corporal First Class Norma Myrmec speaking. Sir," She addressed Cacliocos, "Sergeant Khvalynsky and Subaltern Franklin are MIA. We don''t hold out any hope that any of them survived. As for Sergeant Grangers decision to commandeer the PLPs, it was an emergency, and as you know we currently have no means of contacting command line, given that the enemy''s jammers are still operational and effective. It is Sergeant Hrodwulf''s assessment that the emergency situation persists."


    "It is, indeed," Hrodwulf confirmed, his eyes neither moving nor blinking.


    "LTC Pilix? He followed the support line, didn''t he? Where is he?" Cacliocos growled. Betelgeuse could sense frustration growing in the officer''s tone.


    en route


    LTC Pilixyou


    "Well, not in so many words. But it is the effect of his actions, yes?" Hrodwulf countered gruffly. "I have half a mind to commandeer your unit as well, Cacliocos, if you do not arrest this line of questioning right this moment. But I much rather you cooperate with me. We have more important things to worry about."


    "Why, I will see you try—"


    Silence


    Cacliocos fell silent and remained like this for a long while and the remnants of the TAF First Brigade shifted silently where they stood, some of them lowering themselves to sitting positions. None of them appeared higher in rank than Sergeant Granger, noted Betelgeuse.


    The perennial issue of war. Good officers die with their men, and only the cunning survive. And of us survivorswhether Jegorichian or Ash grade none were considered very valuable by command line, it appears,None of us were valuable enough to save.


    "Sir," Betelgeuse rasped through section comms-link, his voice hoarse from the long day''s myriad exertions. He addressed Cacliocos, who had yet to drop from the comms-link, "Sergeant Granger is talking about resources. It is the most immediate concern. We don''t know how much oxygen, fuel and food Captain Crowley left us."


    "Don''t Blink. He has good point." Betelgeuse saw Entuban''s head nodding toward him, funneling his private aside through the same comms-link.


    Cacliocos gave no indication that he heard, did not so much as change his expression in any discernible way.


    But seconds later he nodded and raised his bloodstained palm and the temporary alliance was sealed with another firm handshake. Hrodwulf''s grin split his face in two and the sharpness of his canines were showing, and Douglas was looking at Betelgeuse with an expression that communicated a keen discomfort.


    "Excellent," Hrodwulf sounded. "Come into the tentages. We must do a stock-take immediately. Oxygen stores have priority. We need to know how much of it we have."


    "Entuban, we need all this sorted out ASAP," Cacliocos instructed, stepping with Hrodwulf into shadow and then passing between the idling APCs and disappearing into the sudden movement of soldiers back to support line.


    In the commotion, Thete had slipped away from the forward group and came before Section Five.


    What do you think?


    nothing good can come of this


    No choice.


    When he started moving, Douglas, Voke and Thete came with him, and he walked toward a motionless figure who looked as if she were languishing crouched under an APC wheel. Atop her helmet was stamped the single chevron of a Private, and her gaze was locked to Betelgeuse, and he saw that it was indeed Edith. As he closed the distance he found her face lined with exhaustion and premature age. Her button-nose twitched reflexively and her eyes were filled with a grimness that had not been there before. She hadn''t kept particularly well, Betelgeuse thought.


    He passed her and she rose and fell into lockstep with Voke, and then all of them stepped through into support line.


    square


    "So, uh, when can I start blinking again?" Douglas sounded, and Betelgeuse supposed he had the Chimerae to thank for Entuban being too far away to receive the transmission.