He whistled, the sound audible only to him, as his HUD enhanced and magnified the scene of destruction for him.

“Goddamn,” he muttered, switching to a thermal overlay.

For a moment, his HUD just went white as the temperature overloaded its initial settings, but in a second, the computer adapted and altered the sensitivity of the sensors until it could differentiate through the rapidly dispersing heat of the explosion.

“Oh shit,” he breathed a few moments later. “Oh shit.”

There were still moving heat sources in there.

“Major,” he accessed the command channel, “we’ve got a problem.”

Brinks cursed. “How many?”

“About seventy percent of them survived, sir.”

“Jesus Christ,” the major cursed. “What the hell are these things?”

The words went out over the command channel and to all the members of the impromptu war council.

Savoy answered, “They’re obviously adapted to a different environment than this, sir. I’m guessing that the TBs just didn’t have enough heat to cook ’em, and the chemicals apparently aren’t harmful to them, either.”

“But the concussion should have been enough to rip them apart, anyway!” Sergeant Rogers objected over the line. “Nothing gets up after a blast like that!”

“Underground, you might be right, Sarge,” Savoy told him. “But out in the open, even with the tandem controlled blasts…Apparently, there’s at least one thing that can get up.”

“I’m with Sav,” Bermont said after a moment, frowning over the HUD. “I saw what that laser rifle could do…If that can’t cook these things, they’re not going to be burned by a little explosion. We ripped a few of them up with the concussion, but the ones that survived that weren’t affected by the other components of the TB.”

Brinks growled. “All right. We still have to clear them out. Suggestions?”

“Major,” Bermont said, “I think we’re just gonna have to get down and dirty with these guys. I don’t see any slick trick that’ll take ’em out.”

“He’s right, Major,” Sergeant Rogers replied.

Brinks nodded slowly, almost unwillingly, and though he wasn’t opposed to the idea, he’d rather not risk his men that much. “All right…Go to it.”

“Yes, sir,” the chorus came back.

“Report coming back from Major Brinks, sir,” Waters said as Weston turned around.

“How are the teams doing?”

“Not badly, sir.” Waters frowned. “Some injuries, only one that looks serious. The major is requesting that we deploy carnivores so he can re-task his chutes for squad deployment.”

Weston nodded. “Do it.”

Launching carnivores during the firefight wouldn’t have been possible, given that the drones required either the Odyssey or a shuttle to control them, and all of the above had been quite busy at the time. Now it was feasible, so he’d give the major whatever he could.

“What’s his progress?”

“Unknown at this time.” Waters shook his head. “They’ve eliminated some of the ground troops the enemy vessel launched, but they aren’t certain of total numbers.”