Stephanos’s finger snapped the firing stud shut, and the recessed missile rack dropped its final two birds from the limited space within the Archangel fighter, and his last two Havoc missiles screamed silently away.

On the ground, amidst the towering city around him, Deacon hissed in victory as the soldier drone went down, its leg shattered in a dozen places by the burst from the squad’s MX-112 rifles. They didn’t pause to evaluate it; Corporal Deacon merely took a step forward and put another burst into the drone center mass while the other two fired as they moved, targeting the other enemy units.

Deacon held the rifle high as he stepped in, eyeing the downed target briefly, then hit it again when it twitched.

“Stop moving and die, you dumb bastard,” he muttered, glancing over for the others in his squad.

A short distance away, the two troopers who he had with him caught one of the other drones in a blistering cross fire, the MX-112 auto-rifles spitting fire as they dropped the drone hard.

At close range, the MX-112 rifle wasn’t at its most effective, but he was glad to see that it was enough.

He froze when his armor’s HUD threw up a warning light from his eight o’clock, and he instantly threw himself hard to his left as a sizzling stream of energy fried the rubble behind him to a crackling sludge.

Deacon hit the ground, rolling, noting somewhere in his peripheral mind that the local cop had thrown herself to one side as well and came up firing.

This time the target was about fifty meters away, just outside the point-blank range for the MX-112.

The magnetic accelerator spit out the first of a ten-round burst, its muzzle velocity over three thousand meters per second. The round cracked the sound barrier instantly, punctuating the whine of the rifle with the snap of a sonic boom, and crossed the fifty-meter gap on momentum alone.

Then, just before slamming into its target, the round ignited a second-stage booster and began to accelerate again.

The overall effect at fifty meters wasn’t much more effective than a ballistic round, but the ignited mini-rocket slammed into the drone with enough force to shatter its armor and penetrate through to its interior before the onboard explosives detonated.

The remaining ten rounds struck less than a second later.

As the drone dropped, a hissing and smoking fluid pouring out of its cracked shell, Deacon straightened up, slowly turning, with his rifle ready, as he surveyed the immediate area.

“Area clear.”

“We lost track of the groups when they slipped into the city proper, sir.”

In the darkened room of the command center, Admiral Tanner turned on his heel, his eyes glancing up to the threat board as he addressed the technician. “Trajectories?”

“Analyzed.” The technician handed him a crystal data plaque.

The admiral glowered down at the information, noting that the landing locations for the Drasin matched up with the projected approach of the group that had fallen from the unidentified ship’s shuttle.