–

Joe covered his mike. "How do you know?"

Bond tapped her visor, doing the same. "Manticoran Marine issue. All of our people are on my HUD. I saw them both get eaten."

"We have got to get some of those."

"Bond, copy Team One is dead. What is the situation there?" Dragon demanded.

"Can only see it when lightning flashes, but Gomer's term fits! It's a croc, but it appears to be at least fifty meter long!" The wind howled, and for a moment the curtains of rain swept aside, showing the monster addressing the door again. "Gomer engaged with his weapon, but the rounds did no damage I can see from here! It's returning to the slaughterhouse!"

"This is Kilo-Actual, I've got Ten with me; we have heavy ammo, DU and mini-missile, and satchel charges. Team Three, Team Two, stay where you are, we'll come to you." Carmody chipped in.

"Unless you have something that will take out a shuttle with one shot, it's not going to help." Bond replied.

Dragon leaned forward. "Carmody, state your intentions."

"We're going to consolidate, see if concentrated heavy fire's good enough! If it isn't, I'll fucking feed it five kilos of duodec!"

Dragon's voice was grim. "That's suicide; Gomer showed us the Betsies aren't heavy enough. We're not losing any more tonight. We have tribarrels and plasma carbines-"

Bond broke in. "With all due respect, Central, all a tri-barrel's gonna do is piss her off unless you can get a gunboat out here! It'd be like trying to kill a man with a handful of sewing needles!" Thunder rolled, and lightning slashed. "Plasma carbines'll look real pretty out here in the storm, but you'd have better luck trying to get her to bite down on the power cell than you will shooting at her with one! It's raining just a little bit out here, you know?" Bond took a deep breath. "We need direct-fire anti-armor! If we have to use satchel charges - " she chopped herself off; technically, these were her seniors she was talking to, did she want another court?

"Bond's right. Carmody, consolidate your people and reload; I'm activating Zeus."

Dragon spun to his comm officer. "Get me the Palace. Use the override if you need to; I need to speak to Berry." He pulled his comm out and thumbed a preset combination, sending activation codes across the city to a select few. "Be hell to pay, we roll armor out of cover and she doesn't know about it first."

–

–

Rebecca Duvalier sat at her desk. Reports, reports, reports. Even in electronic form, the Navy floated not on water or gravity, but on paperwork. She had the best and worst of both worlds on this assignment. Detached squadron is good, lord of all she surveyed. But with an access point for the bean counters of the Admiralty to get hold of her, so someone back in Manticore had decided that three armed merchant cruisers should logically have time for a full inventory of everything aboard.

She scratched Irene's head sourly. Next they'd want her to line up the O2 molecules aboard and inspect them as well. Right now she was wishing for a distraction, maybe a nice dumb pirate attack, anything-

Her annunciator went off, and she grabbed Irene before she could add ten pages of cat typing. "Captain here."

"Ma'am," The communications rating of the watch sounded diffident. "We're coming around within line of sight of Beacon, They've just sounded all their alarms, civil and military. If I didn't know better, I'd say they have been invaded."

Duvalier blessed whatever deity had broken the monotony. "I will come up. This I have to see."

By the time she had reached the Bridge, the situation was a bit clearer, but not much. The civilian alert systems for Beacon had lit like a Christmas tree, but all coms so far were on short range, so they weren't getting anything. But the Torch warships in line of sight had come up like bees ready to swarm.

"Pretty much incoherent down there, ma'am. We're in their military commo net, but this is police-civilian. Don't-" The chief tapped a button. "Signal for us from HMS Generous."

Rebecca nodded, touching her acceptance button. "Captain Duvalier here, Generous."

"Captain Steuben here, ma'am." He was a solidly built competent looking man. She had looked up his record though, and the man she saw didn't match someone sent into exile by the admiralty. "Sending data to you now. There seems to be an animal incursion going on."

She blinked. "A what?"

Instead of replying, he played a recording. "Can only see it when lightning flashes, but Gomer's term fits! It's a croc, but it appears to be at least fifty meter long!" A woman's voice came across the channel. It had to be a throat mike, from the last weather report for the capitol. She looked at the com center.

"Where is he getting this?" She mused

"Reads as Regulator 1 feed. The Beacon city constabulary are called the Regulators, so we're getting what their command is getting."

She nodded. "I see what you mean, Captain." As she spoke to him, three more windows came up. Each was marked as a Manticoran Destroyer. "Have you all been apprised of the situation?"

"Some local animal got hungry and their defenses didn't stop it." the window marked PARKER, HMS DESCANT flashed. "Can't see anything we can do from here." From his tone and look, he was irritated that his sleep was being disturbed.

"I have someone who does think we can do something, Ma'am." Steuben calmly retorted. From the sudden look of dyspepsia of Parker's face, it seemed the subject had already been brought up among his own squadron.

"With all due respect Captain Steuben, your Master Chief Kelso is insane. I wouldn't suggest sending the Condor I have into that nightmare, and he says he can do it with a Skyhawk?"

"That is quite enough, Mr. Parker." Duvalier snapped. The man gave her a look like she'd taken away his puppy. "Captain, what does your chief Kelso think he can do?"

"He's got our pinnaces tuned to perfection. He's been lead Cox on every training drop we've done in way too long."

"Be that as it may, neither of us can order someone to commit suicide."

"Order? Ma'am the Chief has a squad of Marines and a flight crew who have volunteered. That below is bad, but he's flown into worse. I've seen him do it. And come back."

"Then why haven't you just let him go?" Rebecca asked confused.

"Because as our friend Mr. Parker pointed out; quite loudly and on the record, I may be the squadron commander, but you are senior officer on station."

Ah. She looked at the quadrant of the screen from Descant. "Mr Parker, a squadron commander does not need the permission of his station commander to deploy a small craft, even in these circumstances, though that senior officer can order them to return if she deems fit. Captain Steuben, what will he try to deploy? Landing I admit, is going to be a problem from what I can see."

"A squad is almost in battle armor. What he's going to do is bring the one thing they don't seem to have; some infantry anti-tank missiles." He waved. "They won't be affected by the weather."

"They already have both Sollie and Peep hardware down there, they don't need to have you just give them something else-"

"Parker!" Duvalier looked at the image. "I have been known to allow discussion, but screaming arguments I have no time for. Do you have anything relevant to add?"

"The Captain has already given away several mill-"

"I said relevant. Not what he has done before, something to do with this specific situation." Her voice had gone cold and cutting. Parker merely shook his head. "Then you may return to your duties."

Bond thought furiously. Ever since Earth's Second World War, armor and weapons had gone back and forth in effectiveness. By the end of WWII, armor had become too heavy for a weapon small enough for a man to carry to even dent a tank, let alone kill it. The military of the age had switched to heavier crew operated anti-tank guns, but even they had been outstripped by the end of that conflict. Then man-launched rockets gave the infantry teeth again. It had gone back and forth from there - layered armor meeting directed plasma penetration meeting active deflagration charges meeting multi-charge head projectiles meeting active point-defenses meeting 'swarm' missiles meeting phased-energy defenses. And so on and so forth.

The modern impeller-drive anti-tank missiles were the current end-step of those ancient weapons, but targeting in this weather would be next to impossible. Radar was no longer used in ground-based war, at least not in direct-fire modes - it was suicide, one might as well light a flare to warn of the shot. Laser, even IR, was useless in this weather. Passive launch, let the missile find it's target? No pre-pack targeting profile existed for something like this. Direct fire wouldn't be effective either; you'd have to be only meters from the target, the missile wouldn't have time to hit it's stride - in fact, it'd likely still be in it's post-launch RATO mode when it hit. Zero possibility of air-support either; direct-fire air support in a hurricane was inviting the wrath of Ares for the insanity of trying it. Then it hit her.

"Hunting weapons."

"What? Joe looked at her as if she had suggested a knife and fork. "We've got those advanced mini missile rounds for the Roy's-"

She waved her hand. "The Sollies tried those almost a thousand years ago! They're too environmental; the rain outside will screw them up, not to mention the wind!" As if she summoned it, a wall of rain swept across them, greying out the world for a moment. "We need heavy direct-fire kinetic energy to kill the target. Do you think that -" she waved as the giant croc which was now trying to shove her body into the slaughterhouse, "-has got heavier armor than a Tri-Rex?"

"Across her back, damn right I do." Joe retorted. "You've never seen a Tri-Rex, or you wouldn't be asking that! Where're you going with this, Bond?"

"Hunting rifles, the ones the hired hunts use! They're our best bet in this weather!"

Joe grinned manaically as he caught her drift. "You don't shoot a Tri-Rex in the back; you shoot it in the side! Come on!"

She looked at him as if he'd grown another head. "Where are we going?"

"We're on that first date, and since I hear every woman loves to, we're going shopping!" He replied, then he put on a business-like voice. "Kilo Command, Team Two, we're about two blocks from Browning and Zedd's factory. We're getting some heavier firepower. Call ahead for us?"

–

Dragon found himself wanting to laugh."First date - " he snorted, and gestured at the comm officer to make the call. Of all the - the com panel beside him sounded, and he hit the accept button without looking. "Dragon; go."

A furious face appearing to be all of sixteen years old, complete with zits, stared at him. "Who in the hells do you think you are, breakink in on this line? Are you the one who activated the storm sirens?" The accent was heavily germanic; the very young man was from somewhere in the Andy worlds.

Dragon's temper snarled. "I am Georgi Tepes; I head the Regulators. The sirens are on to warn the populace to stay off the streets. I need to speak to Queen Berry immediately."

If anything, the face became even more flushed. "Der Regulators? Der Regulators!" he literally spat on the floor. "Mercenaries, no better than pirates! Ve knows you, how dares you -"

Georgi literally snarled, and his lip curled back, revealing a fang. The young man involuntarily took a step back from his viewscreen, revealing that he was a Lieutenant second in the palace guard. "I and mine have been guarding this place since before you were weaned, du kleines schweinchen, and tonight we are dying for it as well. I need Berry, and you will get her for me, or I will meet you - "

"I'm here." A female voice behind the young man said, and Berry stepped into the pickup, Hugh Arai behind her. "Dragon, right? I'm Berry." She glanced at the lieutenant as she stepped past him, a cold and measuring look. "Gerhardt, Commander Bond is assigned to the Regulators as liaison; if he's on the line, and she isn't, then it's an emergency, and she's likely in the field. Hugh, get rid of him; I want his boss here now." She turned to the pickup as the lieutenant slunk away. "I wondered why the storm sirens were sounding only in the Quarter. What do you need?"

Dragon bowed. "Your Mousety. We have what can only be called a megacroc in the streets down by the seawall. It's attacking the Slaughterhouse. I'm uploading the sitrep to you as we speak." The screens all across the room updated, and everyone in Palace Command gaped at the level of organization revealed. "It's fifty meters long, and nothing my people in the field have at present will stop it. I've already lost two men."

Berry recovered quickly. "I'll alert Palace Security, we can assist - we have powered armor. It'll take a little while for them to get there; they can't jump far in these winds. Fifty meters long, you said? Are you sure?"

"So your Commander Bond informed me." Georgi replied drily. "However, her team is moving to get something more... persuasive. In the meantime, I have a back-up which you need to know about, for all our sakes."

–

Master Chief Ragnar Kelso made the last check, and signaled "Small Change requests permission to undock at this time." He was a man of an age with the First Lord. First generation prolong, his skin suit had ten hash marks representing thirty Manticoran years, over fifty T years of service. He ran his hand through his thinning hair, grinning at the terrified ensign who was in the copilot seat.

"Pinnace G1, you are cleared to undock." The boatbay ensign would cool down soon enough, so Kelso didn't react to the correction.

The umbilical connections detached, and he hit the thrusters even as they retracted. Aiming the nose down, he saw the swirling mass of clouds that obscured his target. Sergeant Lightman came forward. "We're all strapped in, chief."

"Obviously you are not all strapped in, since you are standing here." Kelos commented as they cleared the perimeter of her own wedge, and the pinnace shot into a meteoric approach. "Why didn't Girch take this drop?"

"I flipped her for it. Can't let first squad have all the fun."

"Well go sit down and strap in. This is going to be a little bumpy." His co pilot mumbled something.

"Could you repeat that, Ms Easterbrook?"

"I said a little bumpy!" Natalya Easterbook gestured toward the storm ahead of them. "Flying into a category two hurricane in a pinnace! What kind of madman are you?"

"I'm descended from the Irish, ma'am. All Irish are known to be mad." He replied levelly. "But I must point out two corrections. They aren't sure if that is a category two, or a mild three. And if I am mad, what kind of madman sits in the copilot seat?"

"The exec told me I could sit it out. But I haven't done anything but simulated marine combat drops, and I need to do an actual one to get my qualification."

"Yes, I know." He commented, switching the nose up a bit higher. "First rule with the marines. They believe hard training is good training. So that means when they have old mother nature give them something like that," He nodded toward the nightmare ahead, "they say, thank you mama!

"And she made her first 'combat' drop the same way you are doing it. The flight engineer can do everything but fly the bird, so that's covered. What you're going to do is simple. You are going to put your hands on the yoke, and follow through with me with every motion needed from when we enter the storm until we put this puppy on the ground. As long as you are not interfering, you get a check mark on your final. If you hear a buzz, you're doing it wrong, and we'll discuss that back aboard. Don't feel too bad if that's all you get, bad weather flying is not always necessary. If I say 'disengage', you will let go of the yoke, and start handling switches instead. It won't be a bad mark, just that I need you to cover making sure we don't bend the bird. Clear?"

"Uh, yes, Chief."

"At the moment, Ms Easterbrook, I am your Instructor Pilot. So that is aye aye sir."

"Aye aye, sir." The shuttle rattled, and he gave her another manic grin.

"Now the fun begins."

–

Joe looked back. Bond had muttered something under her breath as they ran as best they could through the howling wind and rain. "What was that?"

"I said I don't like shopping!"

"So?"

" 'Every woman loves it'." She repeated angrily. "I. Am. Not. Every. Woman!"

"I know that." Joe grinned. Damn, she's hot when she's hot...

"So you say. Where the hell is this place?"

"Right here." He moved to a small door, drawing out a small device, and set it against the lock. "It helps to have been a breaking and entering specialist once upon a time..." He muttered as the lock interface clicked green, and pushed the door open. He felt around, and found the light switch. Near the door was a steel wire interior enclosure where they now stood. Beyond it looked like any store room for a factory that made guns. "So, I'll just open-"

"You do and I'll have to shoot you, son." A raspy voice replied from over head. Bond looked, seeing what looked like a man's head behind a beam and something like a rifle; the end of the barrel was emitting a targeting laser, venomously clear in her vision.

"Is that you, Lem?" Joe asked.

"Yeah. But who are you?"

"Joe Winters, and this is my partner Jane Bond. We're Regulators? Central should've called to tell you we were coming?"

The laser cut off, and the rifle lifted. It's an ancient GE multi-laser, by God! "They did; I just wasn't expecting you to let yourselves in. Doing a little midnight requisitioning?"

"We need your biggest hunting rifles. We got a situation out there," he jerked his thumb at the door they had entered. "A croc big enough to eat a tank in two bites, and nothing we've got will even slow the bitch down."

There was a sigh, then the interior cage door buzzed, and Joe pushed it open, waving Bond through. "What you need is back on Aisle 37. I'll meet you there."

They doubled down the aisle ahead of them, looking around for the sign, and heading that way. Bond was struck by how ridiculous it was; like one of those game shows where a contestant had to do all of their shopping in ten minutes. They turned the corner, and she skidded to a stop. Three gleaming ebon rifles were there in a locked rack. They were huge, at least two meters long, with a huge old fashioned magazine opening in front of the pistol grip, and a type-three power cell slot in the now standard bullpup position. She couldn't help herself; she sighed in appreciation.

"Like 'em, do you?" She looked back. Lem was an old man. If he didn't have prolong, she'd have estimated in his mid to late 60s. Of course with prolong he would be well over a hundred. He walked past. "They named this model the Arnie. Semi automatic, weighs 25 kilos, and has a bipod because frankly no human can hold it on target without it. Ammunition is 30mm by 173 in a six round box magazine. 670 gram cartridge, 378 gram projectile, armor piercing fragmenting - it'll do the job on your croc. Muzzle brake to redirect gasses away from the operator's visual field, and inertial compensating recoil buffer in the stock." He unlocked first the case, then the bin below it, and looked at her with a grin. "Take your shoulder clean off without them. How many you need, Joe?"

"Better take them all." He looked at Bond, one hand gently running over the stock, who had a look that suggested if the weapon could cook, she would be thinking of matrimony. "Don't like shopping, eh?" She gave him a minatory look.

"They're too heavy to carry day-to-day..." Bond said wistfully.

"Not to worry." He thumbed his com unit. "We need a vehicle at the BZ warehouse. Got us some big ass guns to move."

"Roger that." came Carmody's voice. 'Front or back?"

"Back, please, Kilo Actual." Bond answered, slotting a power cell into the stock.

Lem shrugged. "You fire 'em, you bought them - but I know you're good for 'em. So, while you're loading magazines, Joe, I'll bring up the specs on a croc for Ms Bond here. Because once you start shooting, it's going to be 'Kitty bar the door' if you don't kill it quick."

–

The air traffic control center for Beacon was almost silent. Each of the settlements had their own because none of them were close enough to each other to share one, and placing a manned station in the back of beyond to save money had been a losing proposition when the local wildlife thought it was just a meal delivery. Instead all of them handed off to the space based primary controlled from Nightlight, which handed them off either to the ships they were docking with, or the next settlement on their course at need.

But even with everything grounded, someone had to be here, and the seven or eight people were reading, lounging, and a couple, truth to be told, were napping. Jasper Pickering flinched as his headset came to life. "Beacon Control, this is Pinnace Small Change. How do you read, over?" He sat up, hands coming down on the keyboard. "Beacon Control, this is Pinnace Small Change. Come in please."

Small Change? Wait, the pilots and coxswains of the small craft from HMS Generous tended to use satirical names. This one linked to the bum on the street asking for 'small change'. "Small Change, this is Beacon Control. Read you five by. What can we do for you here?"

"Beacon Control, we are on hot approach. ETA five minutes."

"You're what?" He flipped the mute switch. "Radar, we have a pinnace on a hot approach! Why didn't you notice it? For that matter someone contact Nightlight! Why didn't they tell us!" The man at the console by the radar station shoved the man who had been sleeping in that chair out of the way, transferring his headset to the station.

"Pinnace at five thousand meters, heading 265 degrees and descending. Speed, holy shit, speed Mach two!"

Pickering flipped back to sound. "Small Change we are under a hurricane here!"

"Oh is that what that swirly stuff is." The pilot sounded amused. "Be advised, we are coming in hot with a squad to assist your people with that critter."

"You are not going to land on my runway in this hell!" Then he mentally ran back over the conversation. "What critter?"

"Take too long to explain. Now four minutes, five seconds."

Pickering cursed, and slammed the emergency alarm. All along the runways the lights flashed on, and crash crews staggered up getting dressed. Not that it would help; the pinnace would either be a in smoking crater or spread across half the damn city long before they reached their vehicles.

–

Lascombe staggered to a stop, pounding on the door before him. No answer. He pounded again. Then it opened, and he pulled it completely open, shoving past the man standing there.

"Dave? Damn, you -"

"The Shilka, I need the Shilka!" The man pointed, and Lascombe took off at a run. "Call the others!"

When the Dollarydes had rented what was now the brewery, the Regulators had been forced to move the anti-air vehicle they had inherited from the Overseers from where it had been stored in the building. Based on and named after the ancient Shilka ZSU 23 air-defense weapon of the Old Earth of two millennia previously, the dull brown vehicle Lascombe climbed up on was far more than a carbon copy. The engine delivered better than three times the horsepower, making her capable of over 180 kilometers per hour, the practical limit of her suspension system.

The weapons were of the same caliber as the hunting rifles even then being taken from the Browning and Zed manufactory, and were manufactured from the same battle steel, but with a much more effective cooling system than it's namesake had ever enjoyed. They would not go runaway nor deform from the heat even if they fired them all day at full RPM. The Regulators had trained and then deputized people who had some experience with military ordinance, but they were 'off the books', so no one would know they were part of Dragon's organization. Lascombe had been the gunner for this one; he had originally ridden along because he thought it would be fun. Now it was anything but fun, it was war, and this was by far the best gun he had available to him. He skidded to a stop beside the 30 tonne vehicle, and climbed into the turret with the other man trailing behind him.

That man, Robert Conner cursed, then climbed after. He found Lascombe dragging back the charging handle on the second 30mm cannon. "What the hell is going on, Dave? How did you get here so fast?"

"What do you mean, how did I get here so fast? I ran like hell! What're you doing here?" Lascombe asked as he racked the third gun. The ammo hopper already in place, the bolt fell home, stripping off the first round and feeding it smoothly. On the status board, the third gun status went flashing green.

"It was my turn to babysit. The first-stage activation only came in a couple minutes ago! What's going on? Why're the sirens sounding - the storm wasn't supposed to be that bad..." Robert asked.

"Some huge croc ate one of my DV tanks at the slaughterhouse! It'll eat them all if we don't stop her, or worse, It'll start knocking buildings over!"

"Eee-yaahh..." Robert had never seen a croc big enough to consider a DV tank more than a family picnic. So the idea that one was large enough to eat more than one was a hard stretch, although he had heard stories... But they had the activation signal, and they were here in case a tri-rex or something attacked the city. This sounded like 'or something', alright... and Dave Lascombe was generally pretty level headed. He dropped into the driver's position and thumbed the engine start. Compressors whined, and then the turbine turned, and turned, and turned... and howled to life.

–

Dragon watched the screen as Carmody pulled up to the back of B+Z. "We need to leave her occupied until we get these weapons passed out, and sited." Bond said to Carmody.

Carmody nodded. "I know that, Bond. All Teams, if she moves away from the slaughterhouse, keep eyes on her, but do not engage. We're only going to get one try at this."

"What, so she can find her next snack?" Max from Team Two asked.

"There's no one in the warehouses this time of night; it'll take her time to get to the residentials." Carmody replied patiently. "If we got time to get it right, we take the time; buildings can be rebuilt. That thing isn't eating any more of us. Besides, we got support coming."

"Copy that." Max replied.

"Central, this is Palace Security Armor Squad One, Sergeant Zori speaking. We are six powered armored suits, two with plasma rifles, for what good they'll do in this muck. We are online and inbound. Where do you want us?"

"Squad one, we have you on the board." Dragon acknowledged. "We've got crews headed to our Shilkas but they're not to them yet. Kilo Command and Team Two are re-weaponing at the B+Z facility. We need time. You receiving our feed?"

"That's an affirmative, Central, we have your feed in our HUDs. We may not kill this thing, but we can definitely buy you some time." Zori paused as she landed. "What the hell is a Shilka?"

"Heavy weapons platform, ought to turn this damned thing into hamburger - but they'll have an over-penetration problem, so we need to keep the thing down here where we have backstops!"

Georgi grimaced at the thought of what the media was going to do to him and to Berry if this went badly. "Engage at your discretion. Be advised it has ten meters at least of reach with it's tongue, and if this thing is like the average croc, it can get up to fifty kilometers per hour in pursuit."

"Copy that." came the laconic reply. Over-penetration problem?

–

Zori skidded to a stop, her tribarrel coming up, and ripped off a hundred rounds. Against a human enemy she would have set the few survivors of an enemy company to flight, but a hundred 4mm rounds didn't even seem to bother this thing. Zori took a leap straight upward, risky in this kind of weather, as the creature charged under her. The winds took her into the side of the building, and then she bounced down the length of her target's back before throwing herself away from it's flailing tail. That saved her from injury as the thing spun again, tail whipping thru the space she had been in, and reversed back toward the slaughterhouse.

"Oh this is fun." She groaned, scrambling to her feet. "All units! It's attracted to our jump jets!"

–

She roared with fury. Something nearby had screamed, and she had charged toward it. Then pinpricks of pain had ripped her muzzle, and one of them had nearly struck her left eye. Something had bounced crazily down her back, but when she spun, she didn't see it.

–

A small craft capable of reaching orbit has had a two stage system for achieving that goal for almost two thousand years, all of it not only mature tech, but almost antique tech that man on Earth back at the start of spaceflight would have immediately understood. The first stage if going up, was an air breathing jet turbine, and when it flew too high to draw in sufficient oxygen, they shifted to self contained oxygen and the same hydrogen fuel, reversing that order on the way down. A lot of the process was automated; the altimeter sensed their altitude, and switched accordingly. But as they approached the atmosphere on this drop, Kelso tapped a few buttons on the console before him. There was no difference in the engine's whine, and Natalya was going to comment.

"We don't want the turbines FODing out." Kelso commented. "We can fly in just about anything, but let the engines suck in a ton or more of water, and it can cause problems."

"But you don't use the thruster mains in atmosphere." She protested weakly. "We might hit a high Mach number over a settled area-"

"What settled area?" He interrupted. Even with the pinnace rattling like they were caught in a dice cup, his voice was calm. "We can fly just about anywhere over the planet and have to work to hit one. Chief, blast windows." There was a muttered reply, and the shields that protected against enemy fire, or a sudden depressurization slid up, and they were in a rattling metal box with no way to see out.

"Sir,"

"We're not going to see anything out there but rain and more rain." He replied. "Not to mention if we have a close pass by lightning, we'll be blinded." He replied. "Watch your radar screen." She looked down, and saw the hazy view of what was below them. Too much of the air between was lurid with red splotches, storm cells large enough or rough enough to tear them apart. "The trick is to thread the needle. Red is bad." The pinnace rattled harder, then it became almost constant. With no visual references, she was suddenly swallowing to avoid nausea.

"I remember a shuttle accident back when I was, oh five or six. A cargo shuttle slammed into a hill near Landing, and took out a residential neighborhood. They wanted to call it pilot error, but it was finally determined that the flight crew was temporarily blinded by a lightning flash. The pilots were both on the controls, and they began fighting over it." He glanced over. "When you're suddenly struck blind, people also lose their sense of where they are. One of them thought they were descending too fast, the other thought they were climbing. Each pushed that way, so boom, they're working against each other." Now she could hear some of the storm's fury through the skin and insulation.

The flight was arrowing in over the continent, and at what looked way too fast; close to Mach one with only about fifty kilometers to Beacon. Worse yet, the winds were shifting more and more as the storm moved north at a steady fifty kilometers an hour. "Ignore the air speed." Kelso commented. "In a case like this you have to remember the wind speed. We're bucking over a hundred kilometer head winds."

"How do you even know what to do?" She wailed.

"A lot of it is still more art than science. You have to feel what you can push, and know that if you're wrong, they'll use a dustpan and sweep you up afterward. Feel that? We hit a pocket of slow air in there." She hadn't felt anything!

–

The vehicle screeched to a halt, and Carmody leaped out, followed by Joe. Bond grabbed a rifle, slapping Joe's hands aside. "Grab our ammo! Team Two!" Max ran up, and she handed the heavy weapon to him, then slapped the backpack with loaded magazines into his partner's hands. Carmody pointed. "That building, second floor, move it!" and Team Two ran. Team Ten stepped up and she handed out the second, as Carmody pointed out another building two hundred meters away, but on the first floor. That team charged off as she shouldered the rifle and found her partner. "You got lead! Get the door!" She screamed, picking up the weapon. He grinned like a maniac, charging toward their own perch. Behind them, Carmody backed the truck into the alley and turned his attention to the installed command comm.

Joe didn't slow as he approached the solid durnwood door; instead he drew and fired his Betsy, smashing the lock before he hit the door like a Superball player running defense. He didn't stop there, but led the way up the stairs, blowing open the door at the top as well. Bond shoved past him, puffing, and ran toward the parapet. She popped out the bipod, set it against the wall, and lifted it into position. She held out her hand, and Joe pulled out a magazine, slamming it into her hand. She made sure it was the right way, and slapped it home. In the sight, all telltales went green. "Team Three, in position!"

"All Dragon snipers, listen up!"

She heard as she dropped the bolt into battery. She took several deep breaths calming her breathing, as Carmody relayed what she had told him. "Crocs have heavy skulls. Do not, I repeat, do not shoot at her head if it's a level shot - it'll bounce off the bone. If it's head is down on the deck, you have a viable shot Team Two. If we can get it to raise it's head, you will have a shot into the belly, Team Ten. But the best shot is from the flank for the heart. Aim just behind the foreleg, and hopefully you'll hit either the main heart or one of the major blood vessels. But if you get a shot, duck, because you likely won't kill it right away, and if it gets to you, you're dinner. So all teams, be ready to fire to distract it off whoever shot last."

Bond looked around; the storm was easing a bit, and visibility was better, but there was no sign of the damned thing! She looked around. "Where the hell is it?"

"This is Zori, Bond! It's right behind us! You ask, and we deliver!"

–

Zoe Martin glared at Lascombe as she slid thru the hatch. "I heard what's happening. You're buying, and I'm a whiskey girl." She snarled, taking the Comm/Systems operator position. "Central, Wolf One, callsign Lobo, we are online, status green! Shaking hands now!" Lascombe finished strapping into the commander's seat and flipped on his HUD. The engine screamed, and Connor hollered over the comm "Lascombe, you forgot the door!"

Lascombe snarled and slammed his hand down on the master safety. "I got 'em!"

Martin realized what was going to happen as the gun systems flashed orange. "Wait, you stupid son of a bi-"

Team seven spun in shock as all of the upper windows in the warehouse behind them blew out. At the same moment, the heavy door disintegrated as half a dozen hi-ex rounds (and two AP, but no one noticed) hit the hinge side of the door and simply blew it away. Then Lobo slammed into and through the other door (now unsupported) and rolled out.

"Jesus Christ in Heaven!" Jose, Team 7 leader whispered. Then he hit his com. "Central! Shilka One is rolling!"

–

In Palace Command and in orbit, eyes narrowed as Lobo's status box popped up on their screens.

–

The threat alarms screamed. "Air search radar!" the chief at the weapons board shouted. "We've been painted big time!" Natalya heard the scream of the buzzer as she pulled back hard to generate a miss. Her controls were not actuated, so the craft did not flip end for end.

Kelso glanced at the threat screen idly. "Now that's something very interesting." He tapped his com button. "Beacon, be advised, someone down there has activated an anti aircraft system. ETA now one minute."

Natalya moaned when suddenly the thrusters died as they passed about the ten kilometer mark at only about 200 meters altitude. Without the engine, it wouldn't take long for the speed to bleed off, then they'd be in God's hands. "Open your eyes, Easterbrook. I am about to perform magic, and you have to watch to see it." Unbidden, she did so. Airspeed was dropping like a bad stock market, and they were still closing. When they hit 130 kilometers per hour, they'd be held up only by the wind! She watched in horrid fascination as they dropped below 200, 150- The contragravs kicked in, and she dropped the last ten meters into a slamming stop.

"Marines! Go go go!" Kelso hit a set of switches, the systems powering down. He picked up a pad from between the seats. Easterbrook was gasping. "How did you know the wind would slow you down fast enough?"

"Try doing anything for over forty years, Ensign. Head's back there."

"Don't need the head, Chief." He cocked an eyebrow. "How did I do?"

He brought up the flight plan with a series of red markers. "You had a red carat to follow, but you were overcorrecting..."

You have to visualize the scene. A force two hurricane, with winds running at over 130 KPH. Visibility? You wish you had visibility most of the time. Three pairs of brave people scattered to form a kill box about 200 meters across. An armored fighting vehicle charging at almost 100 KPH from one direction, and from the opposite side half a dozen people playing tag with something spawned by a nightmare.

Bond saw the first suit, running flat out along the street. It turned, and an actinic ball of plasma, crackling and decohering by the millisecond with the rain impacting it, went downrange before the suit turned and kept running. "All right snipers, wait for my order." She snapped.

"Just give the word!" Max replied. There was only a click from Team Ten.

Another suit, this one merely running came past, then suddenly threw itself out of the firelane as it's operator realized what was coming the other way, radar lashing ahead like the baleful gaze of one of Ares' own. Behind it, not able to apprehend or comprehend it's situation, charged the furious monster. Bond took a deep breath, let half of it out, and said, "Word."

Two rifles spoke. Team Ten's round went slightly astray from the wind, and hit her in the flank just in front of her rear leg, missing her egg sac by less than a meter as it did bad, bad things to her abdomen. Team Two's shot missed the sweet spot and tore into her lungs. Even with the damage they had done, she was barely slowed down.

–

Bond recorded the hits. The beast pulled back, turning, and she fired. The round caught her behind the front leg, missing the heart, but hitting what would be the aorta in a smaller beast. She coughingly roared, spewing blood, staggering, and raised her head, looking for her enemy as the Shilka came into view. Bond saw the turret decline slightly - "Oh Christ! Clear the street-!"

Armor squad one was already clear, their suits' AIs well able to predict what the archaic vehicle was about to do. As the creature surged forward, already badly wounded, the four guns ripped. Six rounds from each gun cored into and through her chest cavity, obliterating her main heart, her lungs, and her stomach. Unable to make a sound, she collapsed, mortally wounded. Her rear leg kicked for purchase, her last instinct raising her rear quarter even as she slipped into black oblivion.

–

Bond came down the stairs a lot slower than she had gone up them. Joe had taken the weight of the Arnie, but the mixture of adrenaline and fatigue made her feel she'd had a full night already.

The other members of the Regulator teams, along with the Palace security squad were congratulating her, and she accepted in silence. Down the street, the crew of the Shilka were high-fiving and dancing like maniacs in front of their vehicle. "Someone bring those idiots down here." She asked.

Zori bounced down to where they were, and the vehicle drove over to where the Regulators stood. The crew just looked like a bunch who had just gotten out of bed, but had big grins. Carmody asked their names, and took them down. One man was bouncing on his toes saying over and over, "I got her!"

Bond wanted to rip the little moron's head open with the post-engagement adrenaline still coursing through her. But it suddenly struck her as funny. "You got her, right?" The man's head bounced up and down in a yes. "Good." She drew her fighting knife, flipped it and held it out. "Then you get to clean her. Have fun."

As Lascombe stared at the knife, then at something with skin thick enough it wouldn't even gouge it, everyone jumped as there was a pattering beneath the behemoth's tail. Everyone walked over, staring at what looked like several hundred ovoid objects that had been forced out in her last act.

"Eggs?" Someone asked.

"Great, that's all we need."

–

"Marines! Go go go!" The squad was carrying not only a loaded launch tube, but an additional unloaded one and a case of missiles hastily strapped to the back of their suits. Only slight larger around than the average human man's forearm and about the same length, there were a dozen to a case.

Immediately the first marine was blown off her feet by the still raging winds. "Remember the wind, you pukes!" Lightman shouted because he'd forgotten to say it before. With the wind they were running in a zig zag, the wind shoving them east, and having to run at an angle to even come close to a straight line.

They were just at the edge of the landing strip when a pair in the leathers of the Regulators came up, waving them into shelter from the howling winds. "The croc is dead."

"It is? Lightman asked. "What did they do, nuke it before we arrived?"

The guy laughed. "Nah. Just application of a little good old fashioned firepower. Hunting rifles and the Shilka."

"What's a Shilka?"

"Mox Nix. Tell you later." He looked at the missile launchers they were all carrying. "But if you want to help, we can use some serious firepower down by Harvest Gate 2."

–

Dragon stood back from the screen. "Have the reports on my desk in the morning. Your Mousety, thank you for the assist. Carmody, make sure to get the names of the people in the powered armor; they're invited to the dining-in. Oh, and in the morning, I want to see the crew of that Shilka, and Ms. Bond. Separately."

Berry grinned. "You are most welcome, my Lord Dragon. Good night." She disconnected.

He stalked out of the room. Maggie, Central's comms officer made sure he was gone, then hit the all stations alert. "All right guys, I won the pool. He blushed when Berry told him he was exposed!"

In his quarters, Georgi stopped dead. Lord Dragon?