Corporal Deacon rolled his eyes but only nodded tersely in response as the three of them spread out.

“Wait! What are you doing?” someone called.

Deacon glanced back, looking at the local cop who’d been tagging along with them. “Relax, stay low.”

Constable Tsari didn’t have much to say in response to that, so she did as she was told and hugged closely to the wreckage as the three soldiers spread out.

There was no traditional three count; the three of them didn’t need one in this case. Their linked systems shared a few million calculations, estimated the location of the enemy from indirect heat sources, and flashed a green light on their HUDs.

Together, they rose up, weapons leveling as they brought them snug to their shoulders and squeezed the triggers. The air was immediately filled with the whining of the capacitors discharging in rapid-fire sequence and the roar of their bullets going supersonic, letting a hundred of the lethal little killers fill the air.

The Drasin reacted almost as fast, two of them jumping for height, their tough outer carapaces somehow letting them dig their mandible-like claws into the obsidian-smooth material of the surrounding buildings as they moved to bring their weapons to bear.

The other three spun around, weapon mandibles coming up, only to be chewed to shreds as the heavy rounds struck home. Each of the three caught the bullets originally intended for five as the guidance systems in each round redirected them away from the two escapees.

Even as those three Drasin fell, the two that had escaped opened fire and the sizzling beams slammed into the fallen wall, one of them tracking fast enough to catch Lieutenant Mackay as he twisted aside.

Flames and nauseous gases erupted from the armor as he fell, the material being vaporized by the extreme heat and force of the blast.

As Mackay hit the ground, Steward and Deacon raised their rifles, threw themselves aside, rolled in the air, and fired.

The weapons made their unique whine-crack once more, sending dozens of hefty killers upward in the reflex shots as the two troopers hit the ground hard and slid to a stop.

Neither of them had aimed particularly well, but it didn’t really matter, because as the bullets leapt forward, their eager little forward sensors detected the heat of the Drasin drones above them almost before they even left the barrels of their rifles. The hardwired nano-circuitry took a moment to glimpse at the few lines of onboard software, just to confirm the target parameters. They happily raced off in search of the warmth they were designed to seek.

Less than a tenth of a second after the weapons fired, the Drasin drones were torn apart and fell to the ground.

Sergeant Steward ended his slide with a reverse shoulder roll and came back up to his feet, his rifle seeking out any other targets around them as he shouted over the tac-net, “Deac! Check on him!”

“You got it, Sarge!” Deacon said, already on the move.