The transport crawler shuddered as its heavy solid-rubber tires rolled over the buckled spreading plates of Gate Seven’s southern inner courtyard.
A heavy pall of oily diesel smoke, crushed concrete dust. The sharp, vinegar sting of boiled away sulfur hung thick in the freezing morning air. Above them, the three-hundred-foot silver-steel blast walls of Gate Seven loomed like an artificial cliff face, scarred and blackened by thousands of acid-burning bio-mortar impacts. Every four seconds, the deck plates beneath their boots shook with the deep, bone-shaking thunder of tiny railgun batteries firing from the high low roof walls into the churning dust storm beyond.
Arthur Vance climbed down from the transport’s running board.
His left arm remained tightly bound against his ribs with sterile field gauze, his shoulder throbbing with a steady, dull ache where the stitching had settled into bruised muscle. In his right hand, he gripped the matte-black receiver of his ARC-7 Mag-Carbine, its power cell showing a steady ninety-two percent charge.
Behind him, Grimm bounded off the truck bed with a soft thud of black glass-sheathed paws. The dire-hound shook his dark coat. It shook off a cloud of yellow road grit, before moving smoothly to Arthur’s left side. His amber eyes instantly locked onto the chaos of the courtyard. On the truck cab’s antenna rail, Pip landed with a sharp snap of his golden primaries, his crest feathers raised in alert, high-strung needles.
