"Charles! Do you still have a line open to the dropships?"

"Yeah, but fat lot of good its gonna do us under fire like this!" shouted Horner. "Ain't no way those pilots are dumb enough to bring them flying coffins into this shitstorm!"

"Tell them if they don't want to be shot by court-martial they'll come!"

"I'll pass that onm but I'm telling you those flyboys ain't that dumb."

"Just do it!"

Arcturus opened a link to the surviving Wraith pilot and issued her fresh orders. Thus far she had kept her altitude high to avoid any more missiles, but that was going to have to change if they were going to get out of this mess. Next he cycled through the comm channels until he hit upon Duke's.

"Edmund!" he said. "This is Mengsk."

"Where the hell are you?" demanded Duke. "We're getting slaughtered here!"

Quickly Arcturus outlined his plan to the besieged captain, who didn't like it, but was at least savvy enough to realize that it was the only way he was going to see another dawn.

"Okay, Mengsk, we'll do it your way. Duke out."

With his orders issued, Arcturus turned back to his marines and said. "When I give the word, we're going to move forward and form a corridor between us and Captain Duke. We'll babysit him back out of the complex so the dropships can pick us up. Got it?"

They got it, and he could see a fire ignite in their eyes at the thought of hitting back at these Kel-Morians. His earpiece chimed with a shrill buzz and he turned away from the battle.

"Everyone! Incoming!"

A sudden sonic boom announced the arrival of the Wraith as it roared overhead on a strafing run. A streaming cascade of laser fire tore through the middle of the camp n a storm of high-energy bolts, ripping through dozens of the green-armored soldiers and exploding amongst the trucks carrying the barrels of vespene gas.

One of the trucks detonated in a storm of razor-sharp fragments and spraying gas. Fires ripped through the enemy ranks and the shooting ceased as men burned and died. A thunderous salvo of air - bursting missiles hammered the enemy ranks, and bodies flew through the air as billowing pillars of smoke and flame erupted skyward.

"Now!" shouted Arcturus, and his marines broke from cover to rush toward Duke's stronghold. With Arcturus leading the way, they formed a cordon of soldiers with gauss rifles blazing to keep the survivors' heads down. Arcturus saw an enemy soldier pick himself up from the ground, and shot him through the head with a burst of Impaler spikes.

More soldiers were climbing to their feet. Wraiths lacked a real punch when engaging ground targets, but the shock and noise of the attack had given them some breathing room. Duke and his men were pouring from the wrecked stronghold to join them, and under the covering fire of the few surviving goliaths, the Confederate force began to retreat from the ambush.

Something exploded next to Arcturus and he was slammed into the ground. His rifle spun away and warning lights flashed on the HUD of his visor. A long crack appeared in the plasteel, and the acrid, rotten-egg smell of sulfur clogged his nostrils.

He pushed himself to his knees, and felt a series of ringing hammer blows on his side. He fell back, seeing a pair of green-armored soldiers advancing toward him. They were good, disciplined soldiers and walked their spikes into him, keeping him pinned with the weight of fire. More red icons flashed up on his visor, warning of imminent armor penetration.

Then one of the enemy soldiers fell, his faceplate a mask of red where a stream of Impaler rounds had punched through in one sustained burst. Arcturus looked up to see Chun Leung standing over him, Mayumi pressed light into his shoulder as he calmly aimed at the second soldier and put him down with another fiendishly aimed stream of spikes.

With the immediate threat neutralized, Leung slung his beloved rifle over his shoulder and offered Arcturus his hand.

"With respect, sir, this probably isn't a good time to be having a lie-down."

Arcturus wanted to laugh at the absurdity of this remark, but accepted Leung's hand and hauled himself to his feet. An explosion burst nearby, and no sooner had Arcturus gained his feet than he saw a strange look enter Chun Leung's eyes.

A froth of blood sprayed the inside of the man's visor.

" Leung!" cried Arcturusm now seeing the plate-sized piece of shrapnel embedded in the back of Leung's helmet. As Chun Leung dropped to his knees, he held his rifle out to Arcturus.

"Look after her," said Leung, and pitched over dead.

Arcturus walched Leung's helmet fill with blood, obscuring the man's features, horrified at the sudden, random nature of his death. He clutched Mayumi tightly to his chest, and with a final glance at Chun Leung's body, turned and ran after his retreating men.

"Captain Mengsk!" shouted a voice in his ear. "This is Lieutenant Wang in Wraith One Fox Three. Over."

"What is it, Lieutenant?" replied Arcturus, running backward and firing Leung's gauss rifle into the regrouping enemy.

"Your dropships are inbound, but you better get your asses moving. I'm picking up a hell of a lot of incoming contacts on your location. Ground and aerial units. Big stuff, too, battlecruiser-sized. Looks like these guys are playing for keeps."

"Understood," said Arcturus. "Can you give us any more cover?"

"I've got fuel and ammo for one more pass," said Lieutenant Wang.

"Then that will have to do. Mengsk out.”

Arcturus found himself next to Edmund Duke, the man looking more angry than exhausted by the day's events. Duke looked over at him, glaring in unreasoning bitterness.

"You took your damn time!" was all he said.

Arcturus bit back an angry retort as the last of the goliaths finally toppled, its missiles cooking off In the heat of the explosion and skittering across the ice as they were released from exploding launchers. A vulture smashed into the ice after raking fire from a valley of Impalers blew out its engine. The hover-cycle exploded into a thousand pieces as it hit the ice and its pilot bounced across the rocks, every limb in his body broken.

Arcturus hoped it wasn't the same pilot who'd helped them earlier.

The mining complex was ablaze from end to end and Arcturus was amazed the whole place hadn't gone up in one enormous explosion. Looking at the towering glacier above complex, he saw dark shapes against the midnight blue of the sky.

Starships. Impossibly huge behemoths of neosteel descending from the skies on fiery jets like avenging angels. A fleet of ships was coming in over the glacier and Arcturus knew that the conflict between the Confederacy and the Kel-Morlans had moved on from skirmishes and raids. This was something much, much bigger.

He caught up to the survivors of the attack as the howling, lurching forms of their dropships swooped down into the crater, their pilots braving the storm of enemy fire and the elements to rescue their men.

"Angels on our shoulders," said Arcturus, running toward yhe ramps of the dropships.

Arcturus stepped from the reeking, red-lit dropship almost as soon as it touched down on the gridded landing platform of Camp Hastings. Marines staggered from the bloody, smoky interiors to be met by medics and triage attendants. One dropship had crashed during the extraction, but as Arcturus looked along the line of survivors, he was disappointed to see that Duke hadn't been aboard it.

The camp was in an uproar, as though someone had run an electric current through the entire staff. Arcturus ripped off his helmet and took a deep breath. Even the foul smell of the air here wasn't as bad as that of the blood and sweat inside his helmet.

Chuck Horner. Yancy Gray, and Dia de Santo marched down the ramp to stand next to him. Horner looked at the rifle Arcturus carried.