As the first echelon approached the edge of the city, collapsing crude concrete bunkers with single-shot penetrators or the jackhammer effect of concentrated chain gun fire, attack helicopters roared overhead, autocannon and rocket pods working the increasingly target-poor environment. Rather than swooping and turning to rake at the enemy in their normal "bird of prey" routine, however, they swept right on over the town and out toward the open prison compound.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Mitchell and McLeod dashed forward, following the pathfinder beacons that overlay the real-world landscape in their powered goggles. Seventy thousand feet above them, a Big Eye drone tracked the SAS men via biolocator chips implanted in their necks, checking their progress against a hastily programmed software model of the killing ground around the prison camp.

The model had been adapted from a tourist holomap that the Distributed Combat Intelligence found within the personal files of a sailor on board HMAS Ipswich. Fleetnet was a treasure trove of such data-previously unremarkable, but now proving to be of tremendous tactical importance.

Neither Mitchell nor McLeod had time to waste thinking about such things. They were racing across open ground, sucking in great drafts of foul-smelling air, their legs pumping like pistons. Cascades of tac net overlay turned the world into a shifting mosaic of computer-generated imagery. Arrunta gunships whirled overhead, identified as friendlies by the bright blue rectangles that floated around them and turned green a second before long streaks of fire spat out of nose-mounted autocannon.

The stream of fire destroyed a small wooden cabin, which had been designated by a red flashing box, but which now turned gray and inert.

As they ran, this was their whole world, a mandala of electronic projections designed to make sense of the murderous insanity swirling around them. Both men knew that the other members of their section were very close, perhaps near enough to call out and be heard. But in reality, they were utterly alone, with one goal, to reach the bunker ahead, outlined in flashing red, before the time hack in the bottom left-hand corner of their goggles reached zero.

They had thirty-three seconds.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Mitchell's personal weapon coughed three times, killing a sentry who rose up without warning from a pile of dead bodies.

Thirty-one seconds.

They both leapt a tangle of barbed wire. As Mitchell sailed clear of the obstacle, the vision of a dead child passed over his eyes, like reflected text on a computer screen. The body bloated. Skin blackened and split. A filthy teddy bear clutched in the dark claw of a tiny hand.

Twenty-nine seconds.

The earth trembled underfoot as an immense explosion destroyed an ammunition dump two klicks away. Data flashed on their Heads-Up Displays and was gone before the aftershock had dissipated.

Twenty-six seconds.

They were almost at the bunker entrance. Another sentry.

McLeod fired first. Three hypervelocity caseless ceramic bullets smacked into the man, shattering his breastbone, releasing tendrils of nanonic razor teeth inside his chest, which in turn released an airborne wave of gore as the augmented rounds tore his upper torso to pieces.

Twenty-four seconds.

Mitchell fired into the yawning black entrance of the bunker. A flash-bang.

Their goggles briefly dimmed against the blinding light. Momentum and memory carried them forward until vision was restored. But just for a second, and then they were inside the bunker, and the small constricted space was rendered in the lime-green glow of low-light amplification.

Twenty-two seconds.

"Get down! Get Down!" Mitchell shouted.

Women and children screamed.

Howled.

Screeched and cried like trapped and dying animals.

Two Japanese soldiers flailed about with fists and clubs. One died as his head disintegrated. The other flew backwards into the sandbagged wall, a giant smoking hole where his heart had once beaten.

The SAS men switched to single shots now.

Twenty seconds.

"Get down on the fucking floor, now!"

Mitchell counted eight enemy soldiers. Still blind. He and McLeod picked them off, one by one.

Seventeen seconds left.

"Right. Get up. Get out. Run toward the light. Go-go-go!"

He had to push some of the women to get them started.

Two children, small girls of indeterminate age, had gone fetal in a corner. McLeod picked them both up as Mitchell put another round into an enemy soldier who tried to push himself up off the dirt floor.

Fifteen seconds.

Mitchell left first, weapon at the ready. Two other section members had joined them to hurry the civilians away.

"Move! Move! Over here!"

Fourteen seconds.

McLeod appeared. Somebody helped him with one little girl.

They all began to run through the firestorm and digital turmoil toward a slit trench.

Nine seconds.

McLeod dropped down in time to see another trooper cut the throat of a guard who had been hiding on the floor of the trench.

Eight seconds.

They made it with time to spare.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three…

Hellfire rockets destroyed the bunker three seconds early.

He was shaking. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't stop the deep body tremors that had seized him as the fury of the barbarian war machine fell upon his command.

General Masaharu Homma knew profound shame. He had failed his men and his emperor. He had expected to hold out for at least a week, but had lasted less than an hour.

Less than an hour.

He stood, trembling, in the open window on the second floor of the building where he had hoped to make his last stand. He still would, but he understood now what a futile gesture it would be. He wished that a stray round or a sniper would relieve him of his disgrace. The demonic noise of pitched battle had fallen back to the sound of scattered, pitiable skirmishes, most of which ended the same way: with that peculiar ripping snarl of a barbarian's rifle as it snuffed out another life.

He could hear the dull chop of their wingless aircraft. The sound seemed to swirl everywhere around him. And now he understood that the high-pitched whine belonged to their tanks.

There wasn't much of his command left. Some of the staff officers had barricaded themselves in on the lower floors and piled up a sizable cache of rifles and grenades. Somebody had even salvaged a Type 97 antitank rifle from somewhere. There were a handful of reports from Luzon and Singapore that it was the only thing short of cannon fire that could punch through the mysterious padded armor worn by the Emergence barbarians. Perhaps they might take one or two with them.

Most likely they would all die in some bizarre cataclysm, such as the firebomb that had annihilated Wakuda's company down by the riverbank.

As he stood at the window, peering into the harsh tropical light, two of the eight-wheeled armored cars rumbled into the street. The turrets traversed with a humming sound he could hear even over the noise of small-scale fighting. The long barrels came to a halt when they had lined up on his building.

So this was it.

Homma unbuttoned the flap on his holster and stepped out onto the little balcony. He raised his pistol to squeeze off six shots. The officers and orderlies on the floor below and in the offices to either side of his opened up with small arms. The antitank rifle sounded with a much deeper boom, and he was sure he saw the round strike the angled glacis plate of the lead vehicle. An extra-long spark streaked off the camouflage paint.

The turret guns erupted, and he was immediately thrown to his feet as the entire building seemed to shudder backwards under the impact. Plaster fell from the ceiling, and windows shattered. The noise was deafening, and painful. It filled the whole world, forcing him to drop his sidearm and jam his hands over his ears.