On the general frequency: “Everybody — topside! Right now!” I palmed the button that would cycle and open the airlock and tunnel that led from Administration to the surface.

“What the hell, Will—”

“Earthquake!” How long? “Move!”

Hilleboe and Charlie were right behind me. The cat was sitting on my desk, licking himself unconcernedly I had an irrational impulse to put him inside my suit, which was the way he’d been carried from the ship to the base, but knew he wouldn’t tolerate more than a few minutes of it. Then I had the more reasonable impulse to simply vaporize him with my laser-finger, but by then the door was closed and we were swarming up the ladder. All the way up, and for some time afterward, I was haunted by the image of that helpless animal, trapped under tons of rubble, dying slowly as the air hissed away.

“Safer in the ditches?” Charlie said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Never been in an earthquake.” Maybe the walls of the ditch would close up and crush us.

I was surprised at how dark it was on the surface. S Doradus had almost set; the monitors had compensated for the low light level.

An enemy laser raked across the clearing to our left, making a quick shower of sparks when it flicked by a gigawatt mounting. We hadn’t been seen yet. We all decided yes, it would be safer in the ditches, and made it to the nearest one in three strides.

There were four men and women in the ditch, one of them badly wounded or dead. We scrambled down the ledge and I turned up my image amplifier to log two, to inspect our ditch mates. We were lucky; one was a grenadier and they also had a rocket launcher. I could just make out the names on their helmets. We were in Brill’s ditch, but she hadn’t noticed us yet. She was at the opposite end, cautiously peering over the edge, directing two squads in a flanking movement. When they were safely in position, she ducked back down. “Is that you, Major?”

“That’s right,” I said cautiously. I wondered whether any of the people in the ditch were among the ones after my scalp.

“What’s this about an earthquake?”

She had been told about the cruiser being destroyed, but not about the other drone. I explained in as few words as possible.

“Nobody’s come out of the airlock,” she said. “Not yet. I guess they all went into the stasis field.”

“Yeah, they were just as close to one as the other.” Maybe some of them were still down below, hadn’t taken my warning seriously. I chinned the general frequency to check, and then all hell broke loose.

The ground dropped away and then flexed back up; slammed us so hard that we were airborne, tumbling out of the ditch. We flew several meters, going high enough to see the pattern of bright orange and yellow ovals, the craters where nova bombs had been stopped. I landed on my feet but the ground was shifting and slithering so much that it was impossible to stay upright.

With a basso grinding I could feel through my suit, the cleared area above our base crumbled and fell in. Part of the stasis field’s underside was exposed when the ground subsided; it settled to its new level with aloof grace.

Well, minus one cat. I hoped everybody else had time and sense enough to get under the dome.

A figure came staggering out of the ditch nearest to me and I realized with a start that it wasn’t human. At that range, my laser burned a hole straight through his helmet; he took two steps and fell over backward. Another helmet peered over the edge of the ditch. I sheared the top of it off before he could raise his weapon.

I couldn’t get my bearings. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the stasis dome, and it looked the same from any angle. The gigawatt lasers were all buried, but one of them had switched on, a brilliant flickering searchlight that illuminated a swirling cloud of vaporized rock.

Obviously, though, I was in enemy territory. I started across the trembling ground toward the dome.

I couldn’t raise any platoon leaders. All of them but Brill were probably inside the dome. I did get Hilleboe and Charlie; told Hilleboe to go inside the dome and roust everybody out. If the next wave also had 128, we were going to need everybody.

The tremors died down and I found my way into a “friendly” ditch — the cooks’ ditch, in fact, since the only people there were Orban and Rudkoski.

“Looks like you’ll have to start from scratch again, Private.”

“That’s all right, sir. Liver needed a rest.”

I got a beep from Hilleboe and chinned her on. “Sir … there were only ten people there. The rest didn’t make it.”

“They stayed behind?” Seemed like they’d had plenty of time.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Never mind. Get me a count, how many people we have, all totaled.” I tried the platoon leaders’ frequency again and it was still silent.

The three of us watched for enemy laser fire for a couple of minutes, but there was none. Probably waiting for reinforcements.

Hilleboe called back. “I only get fifty-three, sir. Some may be unconscious.”

“All right. Have them sit tight until—” Then the second wave showed up, the troop carriers roaring over the horizon with their jets pointed our way, decelerating. “Get some rockets on those bastards!” Hilleboe yelled to everyone in particular. But nobody had managed to stay attached to a rocket launcher while he was being tossed around. No grenade launchers, either, and the range was too far for the hand lasers to do any damage.

These carriers were four or five times the size of the ones in the first wave. One of them grounded about a kilometer in front of us, barely stopping long enough to disgorge its troops. Of which there were over 50, probably 64-times 8 made 512. No way we could hold them back.

“Everybody listen, this is Major Mandella.” I tried to keep my voice even and quiet. “We’re going to retreat back into the dome, quickly but in an orderly way. I know we’re scattered all over hell. If you belong to the second or fourth platoon, stay put for a minute and give covering fire while the first and third platoons, and support, fall back.

“First and third and support, fall back to about half your present distance from the dome, then take cover and defend the second and fourth as they come back. They’ll go to the edge of the dome and cover you while you come back the rest of the way.” I shouldn’t have said “retreat”; that word wasn’t in the book. Retrograde action.

There was a lot more retrograde than action. Eight or nine people were firing, and all the rest were in full flight. Rudkoski and Orban had vanished. I took a few carefully aimed shots, to no great effect, then ran down to the other end of the ditch, climbed out and headed for the dome.

The Taurans started firing rockets, but most of them seemed to be going too high. I saw two of us get blown away before I got to my halfway point; found a nice big rock and hid behind it. I peeked out and decided that only two or three of the Taurans were close enough to be even remotely possible laser targets, and the better part of valor would be in not drawing unnecessary attention to myself. I ran the rest of the way to the edge of the field and stopped to return fire. After a couple of shots, I realized that I was just making myself a target; as far as I could see there was only one other person who was still running toward the dome.

A rocket zipped by, so close I could have touched it. I flexed my knees and kicked, and entered the dome in a rather undignified posture.