When the army had asked him to volunteer for cyborgisation he had nodded numbly. They thought they were doing him a favour. He shook his head. I died when that mine ripped me apart in Beirut. It's just taken me a little while to know I was dead.

He laughed softly as he got up from the stump and gestured for the Greens to get moving. That was his answer. Keep moving. Never give up. Don't let the fear take over.

Man was twelve, same age as the girl soldier they had left unburied down the trail. He shook his head and tried not to think about it.

They lay on the rocks and looked down on a field of metal flowers. When the Soviets had started to build this power station it had been far from the frontline. The frontline had moved but the Russians had kept building.

This was what they had come to destroy. The dishes picked up power beamed down by the infra-red lasers of the Soviet solar power satellites. It was not to be allowed, quite literally soviet power in America's backyard.

Travis looked at it. The power station could return this area to stability, keep hospitals running, let civilisation return. For a brief second he entertained the fantasy of disobeying his orders. In the end it was not respect for regulations that decided him. It was the knowledge that the power station was doomed anyway.

It was too tempting a prize for the wandering bandit armies who picked at the bones of Central America. Sooner or later one of them would take it and, lacking the expertise to run it, would destroy it. Still it did have a certain beauty, as it glistened in the noon day sun. That night it would be smouldering wreckage.

Flowers of fire blossomed where the demo charges detonated. Thunder roared through the quiet night. Where the receivers had been were large craters.

In the distance from the east came the sound of helicopter gun ships.

Travis watched as Stef raced towards cover. He was the last to return from planting the explosives. He moved easily, in a half crouch, a slight smile was on his face. Suddenly he was cut down by a burst of bullets from out of the trees. His midriff exploded. His entrails were the same as any other man's.

At first Travis thought it was an autosniper, that they had missed one of the sentry devices. Then he heard the sounds of a firefight erupt too close. The bad feeling he had had when he watched the Sikorsky depart returned, intensified.

Carlo emerged from the trees bleeding from an arm wound. His blood was red. He stumbled over to where Travis lay. "They snuck up on us, Sarge," he said.

Travis was overwhelmed by a sense of unreality. "Impossible," he muttered.

Who could sneak up on greens?

A figure moved cautiously through the undergrowth. At first Travis thought it was Chad. He had the same green skin but the head was too large, the shoulders too muscular. As the figure's head scanned from side to side he made out a hammer and sickle tattoo on its forehead. It was joined by three other figures. They huddled close, exchanging words in Russian. He froze hoping they hadn't noticed him.

Cautiously he unclipped a grenade. One of the Soviets looked up. Travis held still. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs. The fear he lived with constantly clawed at him. He wanted to run and scream. A

noise attracted the enemies' attention.

The Russians had Greens too. This was important. The US was assumed to be five years ahead in bio-technology. Travis wondered briefly whether they had got them by independent research or industrial espionage. He decided it didn't matter. He lobbed the grenade.

One of the figures looked up just before impact, tried to throw himself flat as he shouted a warning. Travis let rip with his M-16. The Soviet Greens reeled and died. Gobbets of bloody flesh exploded across the clearing. They didn't scream. Not one of them screamed.

"Come on, Carlo," Travis shouted and headed towards the sound of gunfire.

He sprinted from tree to tree then threw himself on his stomach to worm his way round the edge of the clearing. He assumed Carlo was following.

Keep moving, he told himself, don't let the fear in your gut get control.

Bill-boy was pinned down by the bole of a giant tree. Three soviets kept up suppression fire while two snuck forward.

Why are they here? Travis wondered. Protecting the power station? Same reason as us, field tests? Carlo arrived in his patch of cover. In the distance he heard the whoosh and explosion of Chad's rocket launcher, caught sight of the bright muzzle flash of the Russian guns.

He pointed to one of the Russians who were suppressing Bill-boy. Carlo nodded. They opened fire. Two of the Russians died. The other one started to turn, bringing his weapon to bear on the sergeant. He was cut in two by near simultaneous bursts from Carlo and Travis.

One of the two who had been attempting to reach Bill-boy lay still in the clearing. Bill-boy popped up and shot him, then ducked back into cover as bullets from the right of the clearing thudded into the wood around him.

The night was filled by the roar of automatic weapons and the noise of approaching helicopters. Travis looked at Carlo. At some point the Green had slapped a fleshtone bandage on his arm. "Let's get gone," he said.

Bullets whined around him, impact knocked him over. Most had been glancing shots bouncing from his kevlar body armour. Carlo was not quite so lucky.

He lay nearby riddled with bullets.

Travis watched appalled as he began to move. "Get gone, Sarge, I'll cover you." Travis looked at his ruined face and shook his head. Travis heard footsteps and whirled. It was Bill-boy. His eyes held an insane glint.

"Got that last one, Sarge. Good fight."

Travis turned back to Carlo. Soon he would be dead and his body would decompose rapidly as special designed micro-organisms did their work.

Can't have the prototypes falling into enemy hands, he thought, not that it matters much now.

"Get gone, Sarge," croaked Carlo. Travis nodded. He looked towards Bill-boy who had just seemed to notice Carlo for the first time. The Green's face was transformed by fury. With his necklace of human teeth he looked suddenly wild and barbaric. The look he gave Travis made Travis back away.

"Let's go," Travis said. Bill-boy shook his head and spat at Travis's feet. They stared at each other for a long tense moment. Travis heard a scream. It sounded like Chad. Bill-boy wheeled and ran off into the night.

Travis was torn by indecision. A part of him wanted to stay and fight, to die along with the Greens, to end the fear and disgust he constantly felt.

Another part of him urged him to flee headlong into the night. He stood transfixed. His mind held a seething mass of conflicting impulses and thoughts, a maelstrom of emotion that could easily become either panic or unreasoning berserk fury. His senses were preternaturally keen. He could hear movement in the undergrowth around him.

Get control, he told himself. Take a deep breath. Take another one.

Think. The information on Soviet greens was too important, he had to get it back. By an effort of will he forced himself to move. He had found a reason to do it. It wasn't a good one but it would do. Tomorrow he could look for another. He wasn't going to give up.

It was a long time before the sounds of gunfire faded behind him.