The quarry was an inferno of shrieking shrapnel and flying salt dust. From the upper cliffs, four corporate hired blades were raining heavy fire-powder rounds down onto the quarry floor, their automatic rifles chewing into the rocks and spitting showers of blinding white sparks across the salt beds. High above the rim, a hidden mortar position thumped rhythmically: THUMP... THUMP.
A mortar shell blew up forty yards to the left. It sent a bone-shaking blast wave rippling through the quarry basin that showered Ronald and his pinned cadets in hot, sulfuric rock splinters.
“Incoming!” Ronald screamed, covering the head of his convulsing Granite Bison with his bare arms.
Suddenly, the roar of an overloaded two-stroke diesel engine tore through the northern entrance of the quarry.
A heavy tactical tractor sled came careening down the gravel embankment, kicking up a rooster-tail of white salt dust. Behind the wheel sat Toby Mallow. It screamed at the top of his lungs, his flight goggles strapped tight over his eyes. Lashed to the heavy steel cargo bed of the sled was Titus. He looked around with slow, heavy, slow curiosity as the vehicle slid thirty feet across the quarry floor before grinding to a halt directly between the pinned cadets and the mercenary firing line.
