Shapcott felt their departure from the assault ship as a dizzying drop down the ramp, a sickening crunch as the front tires dug into the sand of Besar Beach, and a moment of floating ambivalence while the light armored vehicle swam through the breakers and up onto the sand.

Twelve movie screens glowed in the body of the LAV. Lieutenant Hannon seemed capable of following the action on all of them at once. To Shapcott the world outside was a confused inferno of burning vehicles, secondary explosions, mammoth, rumbling tanks firing at Christ-knew-what, and satanic-looking flying machines that pirouetted through the sky like giant mechanical dragonflies, spitting fire and thunder at distant, unseen enemies. Even inside the LAV, with his ears protected by the “smart gel” lining of his bulky helmet, he still thought the sound of battle was painfully loud.

He was strapped into a large, admittedly very comfortable chair. But the violent stop-and-go motion of the armored vehicle still threw him around unnervingly. They seemed to speed everywhere, swerving and stopping frequently. At one point the automatic cannon on their own turret fired for a few seconds. Shapcott noticed the movie screens light up as something detonated somewhere.

“Nice shooting, Maryanne,” said Hannon.

But Shapcott never figured out what they had just shot.

After fifteen minutes the bedlam and madness of the beachhead subsided. They bounced over one last rough section of ground and then swung onto a smooth surface.

Hannon spoke into the tiny, wire-thin microphone that emerged from his helmet. “All units, all units, this is the Biffmeister. We’re on the road. Let’s roll, chickadees.”

“Go go go!” Hannon yelled.

The armored doors of the LAV sprang open and the six-man crew leapt out into the night. Captain Tom Shapcott leapt with them. Instantly, Hannon flew back into him, knocking him to his knees.

Shapcott tried to help the fellow to his feet, but right away he recognized the feeling of dead weight. That unnerved him. He’d been assured that the body armor would protect them, and not just by Hannon. He’d spoken to sailors on the Astoria who had gone on about the virtual impossibility of killing a man who was protected by the battlesuits these people wore.

But as he scrambled out from under Hannon’s inert form, he saw that the lieutenant had died from a shot to the face. His jaw and half his nose were gone, and a gluey mess of shattered bone and brain tissue was oozing out of the massive wound.

“Up you get, Captain.”