“Relax, my dear.” The old man’s voice paused in its repetitions for a moment. “You’re not alone. Get back to your real job. I’ll make sure those fools know who they’re shooting at.”

Susan swallowed, nodding. “Thank you.”

She wiped that part of her board with a gesture, bringing up the tactical display again. “Colonel, you’re coming down in a highly populated and contested region. Stand by. I’m putting you in touch with the local resistance commander.”

The gleaming silver shuttles were blazingly quick, appearing and vanishing in seconds at times, but behind them they left a legacy for those watching on the ground. At first it was easy to miss. A man-sized object at fifty thousand feet wasn’t something you spotted easily, but fifty of them flashing toward you at terminal velocity is something that’s easier to spot.

Colonel Reed led his team into the fight, coming down over the outskirts of Beijing, and the irony of his leading a group of soldiers to save that particular city wasn’t lost on him even slightly. There was an irony to the universe, he supposed.

They hit the brakes at under one thousand feet, using Priminae-enhanced counter-mass technology to swoop in like the airborne troops he had always wanted to be part of. Instead of merely caching part of the man’s mass from the universe, thus making him easier to maneuver in gravity wells, the Priminae version of the chutes actually warped space actively, turning his troops into supermen.

“Second Squad, take the right street. Stay low and stay fast. Watch out for Drasin bracketing fire!” he called, leading his squad down the left side street. They rushed through the tightly packed buildings of old Beijing, then exploded out into the massive skyrises of the new city center. Reed and his men led with their gravity rifles, tracking and firing almost before the Drasin realized they were there.

The high-velocity carbon crystal rounds slammed into the first line of drones, blowing them to shattered pieces as Reed’s team flashed by overhead. He couldn’t help grinning the whole damned time. Revenge was sweet, but revenge at Mach One, flying under your own power . . . or almost . . . that was just unbelievable.

“Colonel, a General Sian Hao is on the line.”

“General,” Reed said as he banked around and came in for a reasonably soft landing on the edge of an eighty-story building. He and his team settled there for a moment, getting their bearings and letting the tactical data catch up with them. “This is Colonel Reed, North American Confederacy Armed Forces. My team and I are here to help.”

“I am aware,” a gruff voice interjected, “and I thank you for the intervention. Even with you flyers from the Reagan, we were beginning to lose ground . . . and to lose ground now . . .”