Final Assault Read Free Page B

and energy that impacted on a small village deep in the Amazon basin.
    Flashing silver in the tropical sun, five K'Ronarin shuttles had swept in low off the river, Mark 44 turrets strafing the burning, blasted ruins. With a faint whine of n-gravs, the craft had settled into the clearing between the village and a swamp. Before the landing struts had even touched the ground, the raiders were leaping out, running for the village, M32 rifles in hand, S'Rel and Sutherland in the lead.
    The survivors huddled at the other end of the clearing, a pathetic group of ragged, terrified children clutching their frightened mothers; a few old men, watching the American Rangers and the K'Ronarin commandos impassively, through eyes that had seen too much, and one very fat man, shirtless but wearing a big straw hat. Behind them, smoke drifted lazily from the ruins of their homes out over the broad brown stretch of the Amazon.
    S'Rel had halted his force about forty meters from the survivors, waiting as the fat man walked over to them.
    "Why?" said the fat man, halting in front of him and Sutherland, hands spread dramatically, eyes shifting between the two of them.
    Blaster leveled, S'Rel had said nothing, merely pulled the trigger. The weapon shrilled, sending a fierce red beam punching through that great gut—a gut that resolved into a slender green thorax as the S'Cotar died.
    The tall insectoid was still falling when the firefight broke out—the illusion of huddled refugees rippling, dissolving into a tight formation of blaster-armed, bulbous-eyed bugs that opened fire with trained precision, indigo-blue bolts slamming into the human line, a withering fire that would have wiped out the human force had the thin silver miracle of their warsuits not absorbed the fusion bolts, converting them to brief bursts of multicolored lightning that crackled up and down the warsuits for an instant, then were gone.
    The return fire was just as accurate as the S'Cotars' but deadly. Unprotected by warsuits, the bugs died, the few survivors scattering for the swamps as the humans charged.
    "Shit," said Sutherland, the target between his sights suddenly shrouded in black mists —the wind had shifted inland, bringing the smoke from the village in over the clearing.
    "They can't get far," said S'Rel, kicking the firelight's first casualty. "Their transmute's dead." The corpse was thinner, taller than the rest, a six-legged horror that lay face down in the mud, tentacles still clutching a blastrifle. Like the dead warriors behind it, it had mandibles. Unlike theirs, its weren't serrated— they were long, thin, hiding the almost microscopic probes that slid out from them and into the brains of its victims, slowly absorbing their memories, their personas, until the transmute could perfectly assume their lives.
    Telepathic, telekinetic, and dead, thought
    Sutherland, looking down at the S'Cotar. Thank God.
    "Bill, take your Rangers through the village, then circle into the swamp from the east," said S'Rel as the air cleared. "I'll take my group and go straight in from here. We should catch any survivors between us."
    As Sutherland went looking for the Ranger commander, S'Rel spoke into his communicator. A moment later the shuttles rose, moving slowly at treetop level into the swamp.
    Three hours and they'd killed three S'Cotar —and almost lost S'Rel.
    "What was that reptile again?" asked S'Rel, turning from the window.
    "An anaconda," said Sutherland. "Largest snake on the planet."
    Hearing splashing and a muted cry for help, Sutherland had hurried through the brackish, waist-deep water, blastrifle above his head. The sounds of the struggle stopped for an instant, then resumed, louder than before, as he penetrated the thick mangrove swamp, emerging into a shallower area where the trees were fewer.
    Eyes bulging, face contorted, the K'Ron-arin was up to his waist in the muddy water, his free hand just keeping the tree-thick, olive-colored coils of the great snake