Hands immediately reached down to help up. As he stood, leaving the rifle behind and his upper arm throbbing in pain, Kyle saw that his bus had turned away from the second bus and was beginning to accelerate. Kyle stumbled forward and practically collapsed against the safety cage that protected the drive.

"What are you doing?" Kyle yelled at Vathoss. "What about Quess?"

The sergeant shook his head, cursing. "I can't push him! Some of the fraggin' bugs are jammed up in his wheels!" Kyle leaned down to look back toward the second bus as a group of ants, apparently unable or unwilling to run after the moving buses, turned on the unmoving one. Kyle rushed to the back of his bus, pulling a powerful spell to mind. He cast it, and it lanced out in a series of white-green bands that wove into a loose web and flashed over a group of rushing bugs. They lurched to a halt, pinned to the ground beneath the web of energy, and then began to attack the strands that held them.

He realized that he had not heard a message from Quess in nearly a minute, but a quick check of the heads-up display projected on the inside of his helmet faceshield showed that only the command circuit, the channel to Ravenheart, was active. Using her remote command ability, she had, for some reason, locked him out of the channels the other-

The rear windows exploded inward, showering Kyle in a spray of rapidly fragmenting safety glass. A black and brown roach, Kyle's height and twice his width, thrust itself through the broken window. Its front legs dug into the metal and plastic, as its long antennae whipped nearly two meters into the bus. Kyle was knocked back onto the floor, landing flat on his back.

The roach, reeking of something foul, pulled itself forward, and dug one of its front legs into Kyle's abdomen, pressing down sharply against his-body armor. Its mouth clicked open and shut as it leaned down toward him. Kyle kicked up with his right leg, wincing against the pain in his abdomen and shoulder, catching the creature in the soft, wet part just below its mouth. The roach yanked back, letting up on the pressure and Kyle rolled to one side. Just as he did, a wild burst of automatic weapons from inside the bus tore into the bug. Kyle looked up and saw a man, his eyes huge and mouth wide, holding down the trigger of the assault rifle. Stray rounds tore into the rear of the bus, clipping the bug and another passenger.

The roach thrust forward, whipping a feeler across the man's face, leaving a long, bloody cut. The man spun away, the gun still firing wildly across the side windows, blowing them out. Most of the roach was in the bus, its legs braced, pushing and tearing at the screaming passengers. It reached the man and slashed into him with his front legs, then bringing him toward its mouth. Kyle heard a loud crunch and the man's body began to jerk even more.

The bug was less than a meter away, and Kyle reached out with his hand and a spell and touched its sleek body. The roach jerked, and Kyle released the spell. The roach's body began to darken in an area radiating outward from where Kyle's hand was, and the creature began to thrash, its long spiny legs tearing into the side of the bus and the passengers.

Blood and ichor burst from the weakened body of the creature as it began to screech. The bus lurched again, and Kyle heard the distinct crash of metal against metal, and then the bus bounced harshly across what Kyle took to be the railroad tracks paralleling the street. The bug twisted away from Kyle, turning to one side, but Kyle's hand was already sinking into the weakened, liquefying skin, down onto the creature's underbelly.

One of the roach's thrashing legs caught him in the head, knocking him to one side. Dazed, Kyle curled and tried to roll away as the thing hit him again, tearing into his body armor.

The bus turned, tilting radically to the right as it bounced off the tracks. The engine surged again, but Kyle also heard what sounded like plastiglass cracking at the front of the bus. The screams got louder as the roach righted itself, drenched in a spray of blood from someone's leg.

Kyle tried to clear his vision as another spiny leg shot down at him. Before it could get him, he twisted aside and the leg tore through the plastic seat next to him. He released another spell, directly into the roach's looming underside. The force of the spell lifted the bug and slammed it against the roof of the bus, arcs of power rippling around. Single-shot gunfire sounded from the front of the bus, and as Kyle tried to pull himself to his feet, the ground outside, back toward the plant, was illumined in a red-orange glow, quickly followed by an explosion and a Shockwave. The second bus, still where Vathoss' push had left it, blew open in a flash of light and fire.

The bug dropped down to the deck of the bus, its legs flailing out again. The bus hit another series of bumps, and Kyle was knocked back onto the floor. The roach screeched and came at him, pinning him to the partially shattered rear seat Kyle pulled the combat knife from his boot sheath and stabbed it upward into the bug's lower body with all his strength. The bus bounced again, but this time its motion helped him, slamming the rear of the bug's body harder onto the blade.

One hand on the blade, one hand now on top of the creature's jerking back, Kyle cast another spell, wincing as a wave of hot red pain washed over him. Power arced between his hands, cutting the insect spirit's body like a band saw. Kyle and the rear of the bus were bathed in a sudden wash of ichor, but then the creature's form began to unravel, its energy returning to astral space as it died. The bus jerked, and Kyle was knocked to his right as it struck on that side, sending up a shower of sparks and sheared plastic and metal.

A single, loud tone sounded in Kyle's headset. The bus continued on, smashing heavily into something. Kyle sprawled forward screaming, "GET DOWN! GET DOWN!" as he tried to grab anyone and everyone near him and pull them down to the bus' deck.

There was a light behind them. Unstoppable and searing, it burned bright white, bathing everything, even the shadows, in the blazing light of the sun. Heat washed over them, and then the bus was pushed forward, twisting, turning on its side. As he spun, the bus flipping, Kyle could see back toward the plant just for a second.

The light was blinding, but it was dampened and dimmed by the cracking shield of green-purple energy that contained it for the briefest moment. There was a point of light inside the dome of energy, surging, straining against it. The sky lit with a second sun.

The bus rolled, and Kyle was slammed against the side as another wave of light, this one laced with purple, washed over the bus. There was pain everywhere in his body as the bus slid on its side and slammed into something far harder than itself.

The light dimmed, and there was no other noise, no other Shockwave, only a powerful rush of wind back toward the power plant.

The bus stopped, tilted, and then settled. People cried and screamed. Some began to fight to get out. Kyle struggled with them, his right arm virtually useless.

It was dark again outside, and warm. Warmer than it had been. A red-white glow lit parts of the surrounding buildings and the now shattered roadway and abutment that had apparently shielded them from most of the blast. Kyle staggered a few steps out onto the road and looked back. He could dimly make out a plume of black smoke that rose into the air, lit from below by a terrible fire. He knew where he was-he was at the point where the 90/94 interstate crossed Cermak Road. They hadn't gotten clear; he was within the blast radius. But he was alive. He was alive.

He turned, barely able to keep himself from falling over. His bus, almost unrecognizable now, lay on its side, slammed into the front of a building. Far beyond it, on the bridge that crossed the south branch of the Chicago River, he could see the first bus, twisted and bent and crammed into the metal supports of the bridge. There were people milling, stunned, near each vehicle. There were no bugs to be seen.