Beginning Part-17

Without a word further, the combat programmer was off at a scramble. Revitz wiped spittle from his mouth with a gory hand, and immediately started retching again. Heaving uncontrollably, he followed. For a time, a short time, the deadly beams and thunderous shells didn’t seem nearly so important.
Then he was empty, and terror was a cold taste of copper and brass that burned the back of his throat and broiled his stomach. Wethers went down into a trench and stayed down. The lieutenant dropped into the darkness of the ditch, and landed directly on top of the combat programmer.
“Keep going! Keep going!” someone screamed hysterically. Dimly, he realized the terrified, girlish voice was his own.
Wethers kicked him away and scrambled up against the forward wall of the trench. “You keep going, if you want! I’m staying right here for a minute, sir!”
Revitz staggered to his knees, and was raising the butt of his weapon to bring it down hard on Wethers’ right cheek, when the sky above the westerly wall went brilliant and a wave of flame rolled over their position. The entire western perimeter had ignited and was burning.
“Slag charge!” shouted the corporal by way of explanation. “Gods awful shit! It’s worse than napalm!”