The commander jumped away, heading to round up his men, and Eric glanced over to where four others were standing.

“You have a real plan, Cap?” Janet asked him as she knelt behind an abandoned car, looking over the hood and the cement carrier to the city beyond.

“We’re not going to try mixing it up in close with these things, not until I know just how good a shot our new friends really are,” Eric said, getting a chuckle out of his four comrades. “But I think we’ll over jump the fight and come back at them.”

“Double pincer,” Ronald nodded. “Not bad, jarhead. Not bad.”

“Shall we stop talking about it,” Alexander suggested, “and just make it happen then?”

“Right,” Eric nodded. “On the bounce. Go.”

The five armored soldiers leapt clear from the expressway, landing on a nearby building before they hopped off again, splitting the battleground and circling around. Behind them the larger armored force began to get into action themselves, hopping in slower and less flamboyant moves as they headed north to their assigned positions.

Major Curran, Seventh Platoon, was in a bit of a bind.

Actually, that was probably the understatement of the century. He’d stupidly led his platoon into an ambush, more focused on clearing the damned cars from the road so they could get to their assigned positions than in keeping an eye peeled for enemy movement. The first hint they had of trouble was when the rear tank went up like a fireball, closing the door behind them, and three enemy stalkers appeared from an alley ahead of them.

He didn’t know what else to call the spider-like things. They were utterly alien enough to send chills down his spine as they stalked toward his team. He’d ordered the lead tank to open fire as the next two split the difference and pulled up on either side so they could get a clean shot apiece.

The first round of return fire had bolstered morale, sending one of the stalkers to the ground, where it twitched but didn’t show any sign of getting back into the action. Return fire scorched the street, slicing the offending tank in two, right down the middle, lengthwise. Curran watched it slump inward on itself before the munitions blew, rocking the armor he was riding.

“Keep firing!”

The two heavy main battle tanks rocked with every shot, rolling back on their suspensions as their cannons roared. The alien spiders were fast movers, however, and the devil itself to track in the tight confines of the city. Curran knew that out in the open they’d have hit every round dead on, but in the city he’d swear that his tanks were causing more damage than the damned enemy!

“Major! Up on the building!”