“What for?” Jaime asked, sounding disgusted. “It doesn’t look like they’re doing much good for themselves…”

“That’s what for,” Sean snapped. “We’re going to pull them out if we have to…Then we’ll hit these bastards with thermobarics, if all else fails.”

“On top of a skyscraper?” Russell objected. “No offense, Sean, but are you nuts?”

Jaime snickered, but Sean just rolled his eyes. “Have you checked this thing out?”

He tapped his armored boot on the rooftop.

“It’s like obsidian or something…” Sean shook his head. “A thermobaric pressure wave won’t do fuck to all this…But I’ll bet it knocks those bastards off their feet.”

“If it doesn’t, I wanna go home,” Russell whined. “All right, let’s do this.”

“Hang on a second!” Jaime muttered. “Are you sure? I don’t want to start collapsing the entire city here.”

“Trust me, Curtis,” Sean said calmly. “Me and Savoy are already running the numbers, but it’s looking like this city could take a multimegaton nuke and come out in decent shape.”

The slim trooper shook her head. “It’s the boss’s call…”

“Yep, so don’t worry about it,” Bermont said, looking around. “All right, we’ve got to get moving. Ready?”

“Ready!”

“On the bounce,” Sean grinned, using an old phrase long embraced by troopers in powered armor, though no one really seemed to remember why. A few people insisted it had to do with some old sci-fi novel. Sean doubted it, but he’d seen stupider reasons for traditions.

For whatever reason, it fitted the situation as the three soldiers judged their position and then leapt from the rooftop toward the carefully marked landing zones on their HUDs.

CHAPTER 21

COMMANDER ROBERTS SWUNG himself over the threshold, in the null gravity of the auxiliary bridge, letting his momentum propel him.

Compared to the main bridge, this room was at least twice the size and just as well equipped, mostly because it was the primary control center of the Odyssey in the original plans. When the artificial-gravity generators fell by the wayside due to their enormous power requirements, the bridge moved to the second cylindrical habitat, and this room had been turned into its backup.

“Commander.” A lieutenant didn’t bother to come to attention or even salute as he approached, entirely for practical purposes since standing at attention in zero-g was about as effective as equipping firefighters with flamethrowers.

Instead, the young man reached up as Roberts sailed past and hooked his hand, swinging the commander down into the command chair.

“Much obliged, Lieutenant,” Roberts said calmly as he looked around.

The bridge was built into the top of the Odyssey’s control tower, which was more egotism than anything else, but provided a magnificent view on three sides through the transparent armor around them.

However, in battle, having transparent sections in your wall was contraindicated—if you were in to making understatements.