He followed them past Ashland until they came to some elevated rail tracks that had been dynamited and sealed. They turned south away from the demarcation line; the street sign read Ravenswood. Then, he noticed that the two men grew cautious. Though trying to appear natural as they carefully moved through the mass of people camped there, they continually changed their positions relative to each other, casually circling each other as if in animated conversation. All the while they scanned the area.

Kyle cursed. Until that point he'd been able to follow them by walking in the cleared area, away from the people. Now, the two cyber-soldiers were moving directly through the throng, forcing him to do the same. And though the people couldn't see him or hear him, they'd certainly feel him as he passed. Kyle would have to risk casting a third spell.

Fortunately, Vathoss and the other trooper were walking slowly, giving Kyle the extra time he needed. He marshaled me energy carefully; the fact that he was still sustaining the other two spells made casting this one extremely difficult. But when he'd completed it, feeling only a slight weakening from the strain, he floated upward, high enough to pass over the camped refugees.

He glided forward to within a half-dozen meters of the two troopers, who had relaxed their vigilance, satisfied that no one was following. After another four or five blocks, they passed Ravenswood's intersection with Addison and the angled Lincoln Avenue, and continued on for another half-block. Then Vathoss paused and casually finished his cigarette, which he tossed into the street, using the pretext to look around. Meanwhile the other trooper climbed the short stairs of what looked like it had been a small warehouse or perhaps self-storage company. Vathoss followed him up the stairs onto the short loading dock, then the pair pushed aside one of the large double doors and went in.

Kyle willed himself up onto the platform and then dropped the levitation spell. The door they'd gone through had yielded too easily to the troopers' touch to be locked. If they were keeping at least one major exit clear and unlocked in case they needed to make a quick exit, Kyle would use it to his advantage.

Stepping up to the door, he reached out carefully and grasped the handle. With only the slightest tug it slid aside noiselessly, the sound absorbed by his still active silence spell. Quickly, he darted through and scanned the area. It was a small-crate or large-package handling area. Seeing no one about, he slid the door shut. Had anyone been around, Kyle would have left the door open to make the guard wonder how it had done so on its-own.

There were two doors leading out of the darker area. One accessed an office, the other apparently opened into a larger storage or handling area. He moved toward the door.

Before going through, Kyle waited and listened, but heard nothing he could identify through the silence spell. Beyond the open door was semidarkness; only the faintest light leaked through from distant windows.

As Kyle stepped through the door, movement to his left immediately attracted his attention. He turned and began to duck reflexively as a matte-black weapon pivoted toward him, the flat plate of its main sensory array covered in dark mesh.

Kyle raised his hands and shouted for it not to shoot, but the machine heard nothing past the silence spell. And even if it did, it knew its target wasn't carrying the right transponder chip and hadn't given the right verbal override. All it knew was what its sensors told it.

It fired.

"That was pretty fraggin' stupid," Anne Ravenheart said as she leaned over Kyle and adjusted the bandage on his side. His wound was now only minor; she'd healed most of it within moments of the hypervelocity autofire burst tearing into him, but enough wound and soreness remained to remind him of how close it had been. "Lucky for you the fire-control system on that sentry gun is fragged."

"Yeah," said Kyle, grinning slightly as he pulled himself up into a more comfortable position. "My lucky day."

Ravenheart's eyes narrowed. "Damn straight. That weapon fires six rounds of armor-piercing discarding-sabot ammunition per fire command with barely any recoil. You are lucky.”

Kyle nodded and motioned for her to let up on the lecture. "I know, I know. I'm sorry I sneaked up on you."

"Why the frag did you?" she demanded. "Why didn't you flag Vathoss down on the street?"

"Caution… paranoia," Kyle told her. "These aren't the most stable of times, in case you hadn't noticed. I didn't know if he was still with you or out on his own."

"Fair enough," she said, then stood, offering him a hand to rise to his feet. He took it, and stood up alongside her. She looked like drek, her skin pale and drawn, her normally bright eyes dulled with fatigue, the body armor under-padding she wore over a T-shirt and shorts battered and stained. Seeing him take it all in, she managed a smile.

"Life in the field," she said, turning to lead him into a different part of the room, out from among the piles of stored boxes where she'd laid him down. There, casually seated around a jumbled pile of arms, armor, and supplies were five other Knight Errant troopers. Kyle paused and half-turned toward Ravenheart. "Don't tell me this is all that survived," he whispered.

She looked over at them, and men back at him, matching his gaze. There was a coldness there that he hoped was an effort to block out me pain of having lost so many. "No," she whispered back. "About two dozen were medivacced, and I have another three guarding this building and another four out reconning the city."

“Twelve," Kyle said.

"Thirteen. Don't forget me." Then her voice became even softer. "Lucky thirteen."

They started walking again, and Kyle resumed his normal conversational tone. "Can you tell me what happened?"

She shrugged. "We got crammed, pure and straight."

The other five troopers looked up at their approach, and a few of them, especially Vathoss, shifted angrily at the remark. “Too fraggin' many of them," she went on. "And they got smart just when we got lazy."

Kyle said nothing, but watched the body language of the five troopers. He could tell they'd heard this before, and he wasn't sure if the controlled anger they showed had to do with memories of the massacre or if it was directed at Ravenheart herself.

"Were you in the command van?" she asked Kyle.

"That's the last place I remember being," he told her. "I saw a giant, screeching beetle tearing the roof off like it was opening a can of soup, and then nothing. I woke up beaten to drek behind a dumpster."

She nodded. "Do you know if Soaring Owl got out?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea. He was in the van with me, but I don't remember seeing him at all. Did you search the wreckage?"

Ravenheart nodded again. "We"-she motioned to the other five-"were pinned down for most of a day near the hive. We heard choppers that night, but couldn't get free because of all the fraggin' bugs. We couldn't even raise anybody on the secure channels.

"By the time we got clear, me emergency pickup had come and gone. We searched around the vehicles some, picked up a few stragglers, and then moved out." She grinned and shrugged. "I guess we missed you."

"Somewhat understandable," he said. "I hear I was pretty close to buying it."

"Before we moved out, we swept the area, cleaned out any critical gear, and moved out to an in-city safehouse."

"Here?"

"No." She shook her head. "Closer to the Shattergraves, and actually not far from where the nest was."

"Were you able to get in touch with anyone?"

She eyed him suspiciously.

"I presume there was a communication rig in the safehouse," he said.