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Ladies and gentleman please, bring your attention to me!

After keeping you all waiting for far too long, here's the excerpt from my current book project, working title Millennium.

Note that this is not a direct excerpt. Bits of dialogue have had descriptions of our characters added on for the sake of a better image to the reader. Some names may change before final version is complete. Several paragraphs were lengthened or edited to give a better introduction to the characters. Minor details or possibly the order of events may change slightly before completion.

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There was the hum of a tiny motor, a click of metal against metal. The helmet displays were dead... The soldier had no fear, however. It was beyond him to feel any emotion at all... his ears picked up the faintest sing of metal swinging through the air before the sickening, and yet somewhat satisfying thunk of transsteel reverberated through his skull...

"He's dead, Jim." Buzzed the shortcomm. James 'Wizard' Kriegg pulled his vibroaxe from the bulkhead with an unheard grunt. The helmet rocked back at the comment, and the other two present knew he was laughing. He docked the axe in it's scabbard and the hum died away.

"Just making sure." Wizard poked the side of the red helmet, and as it fell aside the severed head fell from within and rolled in a different direction.

"Admit it. You're just pissed because his rifle nicked your armor." Jasska 'Redhead' Florence patted her longtime comrade on the armored shoulder, pointing at a crack in the surface coating over MAGI's transsteel exoskeleton. Wizard shrugged her off, turning to the one who'd made the Terran pop culture quote.

"Just beyond the door is the objective. These guards fought hard to protect it, but didn't sound an alarm. I get the distinct feeling it's not even supposed to be here. The sooner we have it and are gone the better." 'Aegis' looked directly at both of them. His armor was was by far the least decorated, being a simplistic apparent design. They nodded and he cut the comm. Every transmission, every second they spent with idle chatter, was another chance for the enemy to detect their presence.

-||-

"This is White Ferret! We need immediate dustoff! Osprey to the base of the tree, ASAP!" Aegis shouted over the command channel. He closed it immediately, knowing the message would be relayed to their dropship. Small explosions sounded, his suit detected energy signatures. The bullets he couldn't stop at his current power level, but he spun around and 'caught' the beam of light in his hand. His charge meter crawled up at a snail's pace, so he realigned the cells in his armor's palm to simply reflect the beam back on it's own line. The weapon selfdestructed, taking several of the enemy jugernaughts with it.

Aegis, Wizard and Redhead proceeded down the corridor in a staggered column until they came to a door. Redhead took the front, mounting her pile hammer. Aegis and Wizard whirled around to fire a volley down the corridor, scattering their pursuers as Red struck the door with full force, punching through with the piston clamped to her right arm. She docked the weapon behind her and swung around with her rifle, letting reactive slugs ricochet down the corridor as Aegis and Wizard scraped through the busted door side-by-side. Aegis slammed part of the door across the gap and welded it in place to cover their rear. Another thirty seconds and they would be out.

There was a wrenching slam of metal on metal, and half of a Juggernaut's torso squeezed out under the piece of door, rifle in hand. It fired a single shot before a bolt of plasma from Wizard's own weapon burst it into flames. With him in the rear it was hard to notice as he staggered and fell down halfway to along the corridor. Red noticed first and swung around, leaping to a prone position and unloading the remainder of her clip into the gap above the door. Chains of explosions and screams of pain echoed through their noise filters.

"Where're you hit, Wiz?" Aegis dropped down to a knee and looked over his comrade's armor.

"Exact... same... damned... spot..." The place where there was once just a nick in his armor was now a hole punched completely through, deep crimson blood leaking out to the surface. "Plasma musta... redirected... the shot. Threat sensors didn't... pick it up. Didn't shield the weak point." Wiz looked at his displays, both in his helmet's HUD and his own neural mask. His heart was almost totally destroyed. Medical nanos could keep him alive for ten minutes at most... not enough time. He coughed and blood spattered the inside of his helmet. The jerking of his body carried through to his damaged armor, which was starting to slow it's reactions as every ounce of power went to the medical systems. "Finish... the mission."

"I'm not leaving you behind, James!" Aegis pressed NOVA's helmet to MAGI's, yelling it out. Comm or not Wizard would hear those words. Wiz shoved the container into Aegis's hands, leaning over to one side and falling over, then rolling into the prone position. He pulled up his plasma rifle and pulled the dial. Aegis grabbed Red by PYRO's pack and yanked her out of the way as Wiz discharged an entire canister of plasma into the corridor, partially melting the transsteel bulkheads.

"Go." He popped the canister, which was steaming, and replaced it with another from his pack.

"Wizard... Don't play hero." Red's mic cracked, and she shut it off. Her armor hid her tears well, but her voice would give it away. She hooked into his nanolink... and saw his vital signs. She sobbed, visible even through her armor.

"Go, guys. I'll be right behind you." Wiz discharged the second canister, this shot fully melting sections of the bulkhead, the corridor starting to resemble some sort of furnace.

"You better be, mate." Aegis kicked the armored foot next to him. It rolled limply aside with a clunk. His eyes were cold as he turned and ran, half dragging Red by the arm.

-||-

"Osprey on the ground, waiting between the roots." The dropship piolot, Katrina 'Shadow Kat' Farenheim, set her down bullseye on the exact coordinates of the drop zone. She was disturbed by the lack of comm traffic.

"This is White Ferret. We're climbing the rabbit hole. Be in your wings in fifteen seconds." Aegis's voice over the comm was a relief to her, and she clicked open the doors. Seventeen seconds later her load indicator jumped by nearly two and a half tons. A quick glance at the dock panel let her know two armor were checked in. Aegis himself, still wearing his bodysuit, slid into the copiolot's chair. "Take off now."

"I don't see MAGI docked. Where's Wizard?"

"His armor was damaged. Had to leave it behind. Take off, Lieutenant." Aegis's eyes were hard and cold. When he addressed you by rank, he meant business. Kat didn't argue any further and hit the boosters, climbing a few thousand feet before leveling off and going for a mild orbital climb. "Get some distance." Kat hit the boosters again, this time horizontal.

-

Wiz could feel his conciousness fading as he let loose another canister down the corridor. He knew he was at the end of his rope. He docked his rifle and rolled onto his side, opening a broad channel in his comm. His suit read the sub vocalized instructions exactly and opened up a music file from his playlist. A Terran group he was fond of, Audioslave. "Set it Off" started playing over the open comm, Wiz singing along as he slowly performed the overrides to open the various power relays in his suit.

-

Kat noticed comm traffic and went to key the open channel. Aegis warded her hand away, with a motion for her to keep flying, but she hit it anyways.

-

The song rolled on through, and then Wiz had to laugh at the next line. "Suddenly a shot, ripped into his heart ... He lay in need of some attention..."

-

Kat bit her lip before triggering her mic. "James? JAMES?!" She locked autopiolot, which slowed the craft slightly, and dove halfway down the steps. The hold was empty save for KAGE, PYRO, and NOVA... Red was still in her suit for the trip. She shot back up and gave a cold, hard stare at Aegis. She was just about to open up on him when the proximity alarm rang out. Two interceptors were closing on their tail. "s**t!"

-

"And then he played his card... going into shock." Wiz slowly ordered the last relay to be on a delay. He keyworded it to the next line... "And the last thing that he said was, Set this ******** off!"

-

Just before the interceptors fired their missiles, there was a massive plasma flare on the horizon. The blast of radiation screwed their sensors, and the missile salvo was wasted on the countryside. Kat cursed silently to herself just before she looked at her scanner, flipping it to the rear gun camera. She saw the flare and screamed in pain... just then gunfire raked the bow of her ship.

"No time for tears..." A sudden cold expression crossed her face and she fell into her seat, strapping in and grabbing the stick. She looked over at Aegis, who didn't need to be told twice. He hammered out the full manual override. Half the instrument panel went blank as the computers shut down. Kat slammed the throttle forward, punching past the detent that was labeled '100%'. Aegis had to continually punch in the override to prevent the safeties from coming back on.

"No time for tears..." With a roar that left multiple sonic booms in their wake the dropship and it's cargo blasted away from the interceptors at speeds the engineers only fantasized about. They quickly gave chase, gaining ground fast. Kat hit a switch on her board and one engine flipped over, thrusting her into a spin. She held it and shut down the other engine as she flipped the first back, hammering the throttle to blast past the interceptors. The boat creaked and groaned as she banked hard once past. The interceptors broke and split wide, trying to turn on afterburners to catch the exposed underbelly of the dropship. Just as a volley of gunfire burst from their noses Kat killed the throttle, the dropship falling with a sickening sensation. She switched on the gravity drive, which was meant only for orbital transit. Just before it shut down from non-overrideable safeties the concussion launched the ship in a high arc over the interceptors, giving Kat plenty of forward momentum to re-engage the main engine without stalling. "No time for tears..." She rocketed into a canyon, banking and swooping around rocky outcroppings and spires that filled it. The dropship creaked and groaned under strain never before imagined. She fired the maneuvering thrusters for additional speed. The proximity warning beeped and as the interceptors closed on her tail, the canyon was about to end abruptly. She flipped both engines to vertical and slammed on the thrusters, braking hard and breaking straight vertical. The interceptors had no option but to match the maneuver. The belly of the dropship scraped the sheer stone, and pieces fell to the canyon floor. The interceptors went into a high arc to make a full loop, and Kat pulled back the throttle to go into a belly drop, bringing the Lambda 2 mounted in the dropship's nose to bear. There was a hum beneath their feet, and a high-pitched hiss as plasma from the engines was piped to it.

"No time for tears..." Aegis took his free hand and groped at the fire controls, targeting the interceptors. He plotted the trajectories of their loops, and leading reticules appeared on the HUD. He didn't need them... their nose was down, the interceptors were side-by-side, just bringing their noses up. "NO TIME FOR TEARS!" At the same moment as their guns erupting to life with reactive shells, a bolt of plasma larger than either of them arced across the distance, detonating the reactive shells mid-flight, and vaporizing both enemy craft. Kat dropped the engines to straight down, accelerating their fall in a sickening fashion, pulling out of it at full throttle.

They broke the cloud layer in seconds, and were soon at escape velocity. Just as they exited the atmosphere the side-mounted plasma drives gave out, dying. Aegis stopped hammering in the override and the computers sprung to life with a thousand warnings and alerts, all of which he silenced. As they entered freefall the gravity drive kicked in, pushing them against the field of the planet toward the nearer of it's two moons.

Aegis unbuckled his harness and pushed himself over to Kat, who was huddled in her seat, not even looking at the controls. Tears streaked across her face and some even floated around her. There were sounds from the hold to indicate Red was dismounting from PYRO. Aegis reached into the ball that was one of his few friends and unbuckled her, taking her into his arms and embracing her gently. She cried into his shoulder as Red floated up into the cockpit. A flash of jealousy was quickly quelled, her concern for their friend forcing it down. Katrina needed Aegis more than she did.

"Shh... Kitty... there's time for tears now. Let them all out." He nudged the controls with his foot and the gravity drive fired once more, slowing their approach to the moon. There was no danger of reprisals, and even if there were they'd be dead before they reached the Millennium if it came. "There's time for tears..."