She dialed the pulse duration regulator down to make the pulses last longer when she shot the pistol. "If the guys outside left guys on the roof, this’ll burn through any armor they might be wearing." Riva looked up at Kym hopefully. "Partners?"

Kym looked reluctant, but agreed when she heard the heavy thump of commandos dropping through the roof to the level above the lab. She nodded, then led Riva back to the corner of the room "What are they after?"

Riva shrugged. "They're Liao. They just want to trash the place."

Kym shook her head. "Think, Riva. If they wanted to destroy the NAIS, they would have dropped the 'Mechs onto the roof and let them blast their way through the building."

Riva shot a quick glance at her data terminal. "The library core ... Hell, the memory core for the whole NAIS!"

"Where?"

Riva pointed toward the floor. "The basement."

Gunfire erupted in the hallway outside the lab as security guards heading up met commandos on their way down. The door to the lab disintegrated in a cloud of glass shards and wooden splinters as the body of one guard flew through it. Bullets ripped an uneven line across the chalkboard as a Death Commando fired blindly into the room before entering.

Just as the Commando framed himself in the doorway, both Kym and Riva popped up from their hiding place. Kym triggered two bursts of needles. One glanced from the warrior's plasteel breastplate, but the second burst through the opening at his armpit. As he spun with the impact, Riva's laser pulsed a stream of ruby-red energy darts at him. Two ricocheted from the breastplate, but one of those hit the warrior under the jaw. The third bolt burned through the center of his chestplate, knocking him back into the hallway.

Another Death Commando tossed a spherical object into the room. Kym tackled Riva, knocking her back toward the wall as the plastic ball bounced once, then exploded in a flash of red fire and white smoke. The concussion grenade blew the lab's windows out and sent Riva's terminal sparking to the ground.

Riva felt the explosion like a punch in her stomach and a club against her head. Sharp pain shot from her ears inward, then an incessant ringing filled them. Her lungs burned as she fought to breathe, but she could only gasp like a fish out of water. Blood slowly leaked from her nose and tasted salty against her lips. Slumped against the wall, with Kym lying unconscious— or dead—across her legs and her pistol blown just out of reach, Riva fought against panic.

A Death Commando strode into the room through the smoke and stood above them. "Women! I should have known." He shook his head slowly, his helmet's mirrored faceplate and computer-modulated voice utterly devoid of emotion. "Henderson always said dames would be his death."

Riva lunged for her laser pistol, closing her right hand around its cool, plastic grip. She brought it up, but faster than she would have thought possible, the Death Commando swept forward. Using the muzzle of his autorifle, he batted the pistol out of line with his body even as her finger tightened on the trigger.

The bolt of coherent light sizzled through the air and struck the end of Banzai's watermelon. The beam burned through the green rind in a nano-second, then instantly converted the fruit's water-filled pulp to steam. The melon exploded with a muffled thump, spraying organic shrapnel all over the office. The melon's structural integrity destroyed, the tensometer's top plate slammed down, liquefying the rest of the melon and grinding it into the metal plate below. Suddenly, equipment on the far wall started a hideous wailing and a tape of Dr. Banzai's voice filled the room.

The Death Commando spun. The autorifle in his right hand lipped flame as he sprayed a full clip over the equipment making noise. Sparks flew from the machines as the bullets savaged them. Ejected shells flew in an arc from the rifle, then stopped when the breech snapped open, demanding again to be fed.

As the Death Commando dropped the spent clip and reached down to pull a fresh one from his belt, Riva tracked her pistol back in line with the Death Commando. Her finger tightened on the trigger as he filled her sights. The first bolt hit him on the inside the right thigh, blasting him back against a lab table. The second and third pulses of coherent light burned through his armor chestplate like an arc-welder's torch through cheap tin. The Liao Commando jerked convulsively, then pitched over dead.

Riva stared at his unmoving body and started to tremble. Lost in a maelstrom of fear, anger and revulsion, her thoughts ran wild. You’re in danger, Riva. Think! Think! Concentrate on something! You've got to get yourself and Kym out of here!

She heard Dr. Banzai's voice, strong and even, repeating the same message over and over again. Grabbing at the sound, she used it to fight her way back to sanity. What he was saying didn't matter at all, only that he sounded calm and normal in a situation that was anything but.

Riva rolled Kym over onto her back, then checked her for pulse and respiration. She's just unconscious, bleeding from the nose and ears.She grabbed Kym by the armpits and dragged her deeper into the room. Armed with both the Foxfire and the laser, Riva crept back to the dead Commando and stripped him of weapons and ammo. She intended to return to Kym, but bright lights and the whine of autocannon from outside brought her to the window. She stared out at the battle unfolding below and shook her head. "No, Doctor. I think you're wrong."

Banzai's taped voice again repeated its loop. "This was just an experiment. The watermelon was unimportant except that it shows that you should not touch something you do not understand. This was just an experiment, but next time you could ruin something real."

Riva narrowed her eyes. "No, Dr. Banzai, this time it's very real. It looks like the war has come to New Avalon."

42

New Avalon

Cruris March, Federated Suns

10 September 3029

Angry, Hanse Davion sat upright in bed. He glanced at the darkened screen of his holovid viewer, but forced himself to leave the remote control where it sat on his nightstand. No, Hanse, you’ll not watch that editorial again. No matter how often you view it, the words will not change. New Avalon Broadcasting has every right to say whatever they wanted—that's part of the game. I just received news that the sixth wave seized planets between the front and Sarna. The editorial ignored this success, but that's part of the game, too.

Though he was alone in his bedchamber, the Prince answered himself aloud. "It may be part of the game, dammit, but this is nothing short of a personal vendetta . . ." He threw back the bed clothes, and clad only in Mech Warrior shorts, slid from bed. "I refuse Karl Green's request to have his son posted in a non-combat area, which the boy didn't want anyway, and now Green uses his broadcasting company to attack the war as senseless aggression."

The Prince stared out through the curtains of his bedroom window at the lights of the New Avalon Institute of Science. Face it, Hanse, you resented his painting you as a man who has torn children from their mothers and husbands from their wives in a mad quest for power. He suggests that you are incapable of sympathizing with the common folk in your realm.... that you are an emotionless dictator. . . .

The Prince turned and stared back at his empty bed. Would he understand that I, too, have felt the separation and loss caused by the war. Would he believe that my one choice was to fight Liao in his own realm or to fight him in mine?