Peter Hamilton - Fallen Fragon

Kibbo screamed again, his bucking lifting him off the ground. The rest of the platoon circled around, not knowing what to do. The Skin's AS and medical systems couldn't even stabilize him. The wild motions stopped suddenly. His helmet's emergency disposal valves opened. Blood poured out.

"Jesus!"

The Skins lurched back, fearful that any of the crimson fluid should splash against them.

"Was that the birds?" Nic asked. "Did they do that?"

"No way, man," Amersy said. "How could they?"

Lawrence risked a quick look around. The air was full of hundreds of fast-spinning birds, a sparkling river that hurtled through the sky. They'd formed a complete ring around the platoon.

"These are the people whose granddaddies invented Skin," Nic said. "If anyone knows how to shut us down, it's them."

"Shoot them," Ntoko ordered. "Carbines out; give me a circular formation, ten-degree overlap. Move."

They were firing as they rose to their feet hosing the bullets at the thick dazzling stipple gyrating around them. The birds broke apart, soaring higher in a scintillating plume. Targeting individual birds was impossible at that distance.

Foster screamed at the same time his telemetry grid flashed its alert. He toppled over, limbs jerking about. The rest of them automatically dived for cover.

"They're killing us," Jones cried. "We're fucking dead. Dead!"

Foster's agonized gurgling was filling the general communication link.

"Lawrence, incendiary grenades," Ntoko said. "We're going to start using this goddamn environment to our advantage. Range two hundred and fifty meters, semicircular pattern. You take north."

"Got it, Sarge." He rolled onto his back and angled the grenade launcher toward north, moving the muzzle until the targeting graphics confirmed he'd ranged ground zero. He began firing. The dull thud of the grenades was audible through his Skin helmet. Ntoko was firing in the opposite direction. Faint smoke trails appeared in the air, forming wide arches that radiated out from the huddled-up platoon.

The first grenade detonated. It was like the dawn of a blue-dwarf sun. A halo of fierce light rose out of the tigergrass. Designed for operation in a normal atmosphere, the incendiaries were burning far hotter than usual in the abundant oxygen. The undergrowth ignited immediately.

Lawrence kept firing, moving the launcher around in precise increments. The brilliant detonations merged swiftly into a solid wall of crackling light. Flames burned a vivid blue, consuming even the living vegetation. Sap sizzled and evaporated before the onslaught, leaving withered blades that burst alight instantly.

It took less than a minute before they were completely surrounded by flame. The circle began to burn inward relentlessly, though Lawrence's sensors could just see another, wider, ring burning outward.

"Use the rest of the grenades," Ntoko said. "I'm not risking the manufacturer's heat-proof guarantee on these ammo bags."

"Right." Lawrence waited until he'd fired all the incendiaries, then switched to fragmentation, using a random dispersal pattern. When he finished, he unslung the bag and threw it and the launcher away toward the advancing inferno.

The birds had all gone, zooming high over the rampaging flames. Foster lay dead on the ground, blood soaking into the soil as it dripped from his open disposal valve.

"Now we'll see," Ntoko growled.

"How do we get out of this?" Jones asked. His voice was panicky. "There's no way through the flame."

"That's the idea," Ntoko said. "You've got to believe in your Skin, my friend. This flame burns so fast it'll be past us in a couple of seconds."

"Oh, Jesus fucking wept, Sarge!"

"Just hold your place."

Lawrence nearly laughed. He'd worked it out just before he started firing. The time to object was long past. They'd all have to ride it out now.

His Skin's audio sensors were relaying the fierce roar produced by the flames. It grew steadily louder. They were approaching at a phenomenal rate as they consumed the tigergrass. His briefing had included strong warnings about fire in this atmosphere, but he'd never imagined anything this potent. There were screams now, rising above the background roar. A new-native charged past the platoon. He was bipedal, with arms that reached down to his knees. There was a long mane of ginger hair streaming out from his spine as he ran, already singed and smoldering. Lawrence caught sight of a narrow bandoleer, with some kind of cylindrical electronic modules slotted into hoops.

The terrified new-native saw the platoon and immediately altered course, more from fear than sense.

"You can run, asshole," Ntoko yelled after him, "but you can't hide."

Two more new-natives rushed past. One of them was a husky quadruped with some kind of canine DNA in its genetic makeup. Lawrence watched as it sprinted at the wall of flame sweeping in toward them. It jumped. He couldn't believe anything that big could get so far off the ground. Even with its muscular limbs it didn't get high enough. The ferocious blue flames speared into its underbelly, excoriating its tough amber hide. Raw splits opened into its blackening flesh, spewing out steaming fluid. It howled in agony as its entire epidermal layer ignited spontaneously. Death must have struck with blissful speed. It was silent and motionless as it struck the ground in the middle of the conflagration.

"Holy shit," Ntoko whispered. The flames were barely fifty meters away and closing fast. They were stabbing up seven to eight meters into the air.

Lawrence's display was already issuing heat cautions. His carapace was turning white to reflect the massive infrared input. He slowly stood to face the flames, seeing the rest of the platoon follow his lead and climb to their feet. Sensors had to bring two layers of filters online to combat the glare of hellish light given off by the flames.

He ordered the visual sensors off altogether in some crazy effort to make the horror go away. That didn't work: the darkness was even more unnerving. His indigo display grid hung in the middle of nothingness. The digits recording external temperature blurred as if they'd begun to count milliseconds instead. He brought the sensors back online. The flames were ten meters away.

A couple of the platoon were murmuring prayers. He wished he knew how to join in. The temperature warnings were now so ridiculous they were laughable.

All around him the tigergrass was withering, vapor effervescing out of every blade as it smoldered and blackened.

Then the grass burst into flame around his legs. The main tsunami of fire hit, nearly knocking him down again. Something gripped his Skin and started shaking him; it was like being trapped in a slow-motion explosion.

He could see nothing. No discrimination program could possibly make sense of the incandescent chaos buffeting against him. All he knew was the one display grid reporting his Skin status. Every thermal indicator was leaping toward overload. Yet here he was, perfectly comfortable at the center of the fury. He held his breath, tensing every muscle against imminent death, then forced himself to breathe out and inhale calmly. Nothing he could do would make the slightest difference. It was all down to technology, and just how much of a safety margin had been built into his Skin.

His hand went to the base of his throat, covering the lump that was his pendant Patterns began to appear around him, faint shadows that purled within the intolerable light, then slowly began to darken. It was as if water were sluicing down a muddy window, producing streaked images of what lay outside.

Flames shrank away, revealing a land that was completely black. Spiky root clumps of incinerated tigergrass mottled the baked soil, puffing out streamers of grubby blue smoke. A dense rain of ash fell, flakes settling gently on every surface, including Skin.