He got a chorus of acknowledgments. They were all down intact. The armor that the four Guardians wore was almost as good as the navy-issue marque.

“Four kilometers that way,” Morton said as they gathered together. “And thirty-two minutes left until the wormhole closes. How do you want to handle this?” The original hasty plan back in the Carbon Goose while they were suiting up was to creep up on Port Evergreen and sniper any exposed Starflyer agent, then hopefully disable the vehicles it was using before they went through the wormhole.

“Go in stealthed,” Alic said. “Take out those vehicles before they know what’s happening. It has to be in one of them.”

“No way, darling,” the Cat said. “We’re working with a badass timescale here. They know we’re here, we know they know, so we go in hot and burn the bastards down.”

“Do it,” Morton said. Once again he just set off, using the suit electromuscle to sprint hard over the land.

“One day, Morty,” the Cat said on a secure link, “we’re going to have to sort out that little ego problem of yours.”

She was level with him, then slowly pulling ahead. Morton settled for staying five meters behind her, and kept pace.

That was how the ten of them appeared on the top of the slope that led down to Port Evergreen: a line of potent electromagnetic and thermal points sliding up over the rocky horizon, unmistakable, making no attempt at concealment. They paused to assess the layout below, activating their weapons, then began the final advance down the incline.

“What is this?” the Cat sneered. “Fucking amateur night? Look at that positioning.”

Seventeen Starflyer agents were spread out in a kilometer-wide picket around the generator building. As soon as they sensed the invaders’ arrival they began to move like ants rushing to protect the nest. A dozen more hurried out of the vehicles waiting in front of the wormhole to reinforce the line. When the two sides were five hundred meters apart, they opened fire.

Plasma bolts and ion pulses slammed into Morton’s force field, ricocheting away without even straining it, their strobing brighter than any flash produced by the planet’s neutron star. The shots cast sharp, long shadows around him, swaying dizzyingly across the rock as they clashed and traversed.

“I’ll start on the right,” Rob said. “You guys keep going.” He dropped to his knee. The Starflyer agents were congregating into a pack directly ahead, with even more appearing from Port Evergreen to concentrate their firepower. Rob’s hyper-rifle rose smoothly out of its forearm sheath. The first shot cut clean through the Starflyer agent’s force field, armor, and body. Tatters of gore created a long splatter pattern on the rock.

The ease and violence of the kill shocked the other Starflyer agents. Their barrage waned for a moment, then shifted focus to target Rob.

“Little help here,” Rob said. The energy hammering against his force field was shaking him back across the rock. “Can’t get a good lock.”

“Never send a boy…” the Cat sighed. Her hyper-rifle deployed, and she took out two Starflyer agents. The rest of the pack immediately split apart with the proficiency of a dance troupe maneuver. They went for cover behind rock formations, or wormed their way along narrow clefts. Two scuttled into a pressurized hut, and resumed firing with a heavy-caliber plasma rifle. One of the Guardians was knocked back, force field alive with ruby flickers.

Alic’s particle lance swung up, and aligned on the hut. He fired. The hut detonated in a burst of silvery splinters and voracious white flame. A mushroom of black smoke boiled up into the dark sky.

“My, that’s a big one,” the Cat said. Her hyper-rifle blew a clump of boulders apart, exposing the Starflyer agent using them for cover. She fired again. “Can you hit the trucks with it?”

“This angle’s close to the generator,” Alic said. “Hang on, I’m going to circle around.”

“Ayub, Matthew, deploy around the generator,” Morton said. “Flush any hostiles out of there. We can’t afford to let them hold it.”

“I’m on it,” Ayub confirmed.

Two powerful plasma shots struck Jim Nwan from a new direction, punching him off his feet. “One of the shits is in a Carbon Goose,” he said and rolled over into a crouch. The rotary launcher on his arm let out a high-pitched whirr as the feed tube shook. Enhanced explosive mortars ripped through the Carbon Goose’s fuselage, then detonated. The giant plane disintegrated inside a huge gout of glaring electron-blue light.

“Vehicles on the move,” Matthew warned. The eight trucks were crawling forward, bunching together to combine their force fields. His sensors tracked a pair of human figures running in front of them. They went through the wormhole’s pressure curtain.

Alic’s particle lance struck the rear truck. Its force field held.

“Alic, flatten the rest of the place,” Morton said.

Another particle lance lashed out at the truck, with no effect. “The Starflyer’s in one of those trucks,” Alic said. “It has to be. We don’t have force fields that strong.”

“They’re going to go through,” Morton said. “When they do, everyone left here will try to kill the generator. Take out the huts and everything else they might shelter behind. Jim, you, too. Deny them any cover.”

“All right.”

The first truck was only a couple of meters from the wormhole, its engine revving loudly. Alic started shooting at the remaining huts, blasting them apart. Ayub and Matthew reached the generator building. There was a fast exchange of fire. Matthew released a swarm of sneekbots. Mortars whistled through the air above Port Evergreen. The second Carbon Goose exploded.

A large cylinder telescoped up out of a truck near the back of the line.

“That doesn’t look good,” the Cat warned. She fired five shots from her hyper-rifle, each one defeated by the truck’s force field as the cylinder calmly swung around inside the protective dome. “Rob, synchronize,” she yelled.

The cylinder was swinging toward the Cat. She jumped, the suit’s electromuscle powering her ten meters up into the night sky. A vivid white line scored through the air below her kicking feet, striking rock fifty meters away. The massive explosion sent a fountain of lava cascading over a huge area.

“Oh, shit,” Jim groaned. “Here we go. They’ve got real artillery.”

Morton was having trouble keeping current as events were playing out so fast. The weapon on the truck was swinging around, seeking out a new target. Three Starflyer agents stood in the door of the generator building, exchanging fire with Matthew. Someone came through the wormhole, wearing only an environment suit. Rob shot them with his hyper-rifle, sending body parts squelching back against the pressure curtain. Blood froze fast in Half Way’s atmosphere, falling to the ground in a shower of burgundy crystals. The lead truck revved hard, and lurched forward. Rob and the Cat had interfaced their hyper-rifles, and fired at the truck simultaneously. The force field flashed dangerous crimson as the twin energy beams struck it, then vanished through the wormhole.

“Bastard,” the Cat shrieked. “Morty, synchronize. Triple hit.”

The truck’s heavy-duty weapon fired again as Morton’s virtual hands flew over icons. Lava erupted where Jim had been standing. His armor suit curved gracefully through the air. Plasma pulses hit him at the top of the arc, sending him flailing backward through the sluggish jet of glowing molten rock.

Morton’s suit array interfaced with Rob and the Cat, putting his hyper-rifle under the Cat’s control. Two more trucks had slipped through the wormhole; the others were jostling for position, shoving forward.

“Which one?” the Cat demanded.

“Choose fast,” Rob replied. “Not the weapons truck.”

Morton watched targeting graphics zero in on the fifth truck. He would have gone for the one at the front, personally. The three hyper-rifles fired in unison. A scarlet corona burst across the truck’s force field. A particle lance streaked into it, and for an instant the truck was outlined in perfect clarity. It vaporized in an impressive plume of superheated gas and debris that soared above the rocky inlet. The remaining trucks rocked about wildly as the impulse pummeled their force fields. Another dashed through the wormhole.