Running under active artillery fire in an empty pocket was the ultimate crucible of combat medicine.
The lower trench was forty meters from the Titan Mole’s prow. A jagged, six-meter-deep fissure in the dark rock bedrock carved by the Brood-Mother’s first ground-shaking blast wave. Inside that trench, partially buried beneath twenty tons of shattered stone and smoking void-melted rock waste, lay Specialist Jacob Torres, Sergeant O’Neil, and Brutus, the largest of the five military Iron-Tusk Mastiffs.
Overhead, the Brood-Mother’s backup bio-star-fire batteries continued their ear-splitting bombardment. High-energy violet star-fire bolts struck the rim of the trench every three seconds, throwing clouds of blazing bright glass and spark-charged dust into the airless deep gap.
Arthur Vance didn’t run across the open ground on foot. He rode the living castle.
“Titus, mobile trauma deployment!” Arthur ordered, standing atop the tortoise’s broad neck collar. His boots magnetically was locked into the custom harness brackets. “Advance at four knots! Keep the dorsal shield angled forty-five degrees to deflect the splash!”
Titus rumbled in affirmation. The Melted rock-Bastion moved forward like an armored siege ram, his four pillar legs crushing shattered dark rock beneath his iron-hard claws. His massive, sloping back shell absorbed the falling void-star-fire rounds, the azure pressure-sparking armor scales venting thousands of blasts of heat of moving and heat energy harmlessly into the bedrock.
