“Good call, boss man!” Brute called over the tac-net as Stephanos slid into position between him and Racer.

“Thanks, Brute,” Steph said, checking his HUD. “Where’s the big boy?”

Across the few meters that separated them, Stephanos could see Brute nod his head in the distance. “Looks like he wants to play with the Cap, boss man.”

“Dammit!” Steph snarled. “Roll call!”

“Archangel Squadron reports that the enemy cruiser has slipped past them, Captain,” Waters said grimly. “Commander Michaels intends to intercept.”

“Belay that,” Weston told him, looking at the course projections. “Tell him to take a least-time return course. The Archangels can get here an hour ahead of them. We’ll meet him together.”

“Aye, sir,” Waters replied, keying into the channel.

“Sir.” Lamont turned. “We don’t have the lower flight deck at the moment, sir. Rescue crews are still pulling survivors out of there, and there’s an eighteen-meter slash right up the trap.”

Weston grimaced. “The upper deck?”

“Clear, sir…but it’s meant for the SAR shuttles and—”

“I know what it’s meant for, Ensign,” he barked, turning back to Waters. “Tell the Angels that they’ll have to come in softly. We don’t have any traps for them.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“And tell Samuels to get her ass out there to pick up any survivors of the engagement!” he said, pulling his console close again as he started tallying up what they’d lost against what the last ship in the system still had.

“Aye, Captain.”

Major Brinks and Ithan Chans touched down on the roof of the tallest skyscraper the major could find, and he immediately cut the lines and let his chute float up and away on its own.

His HUD and suit computer collated the feeds from all the free chutes, using them much like the carnivore drones to provide real-time intel from the local hot spots.

Unlike the carnivore drones, though, the chutes were neither particularly stealthy, nor were they nearly as good at gathering the intel as the drones.

But they were what he had, and he had a lot of them.

“If you can get a hold of anyone in charge,” Brinks told Milla as he crouched by the lip of the roof and looked down over the battle scene about a kilometer away, “do it now.”

With that, he turned his focus on the fight below.

Lt. Sean Bermont and his team landed “on the bounce,” right in the middle of a firefight between three humans and one of the drones.

The drone twitched in their direction, causing the three to scatter as its weapon drew a line of fire in the obsidian roof of the building, their own guns firing in return.

Bermont rolled under the cover that the locals were using and glanced in their direction as they stared back. For a people under attack, they weren’t exactly as jumpy as he’d have expected.