The sergeant blinked. Looked at the ring of Insectoids. Looked back at Geron. "Sir, should we pursue the—"
"If you can fight your way through that—"
Geron jerked his bleeding arm toward the advancing wall of chitin and mandibles, splattering the sergeant's chest plate, red.
"—then by all means, be my guest."
The sergeant looked at the Insectoids again.
The Insectoids looked back.
One of them made a sound like a hydraulic press being fed a steel girder.
"Moving the wounded now, sir," the sergeant said quickly, and turned to organize the evacuation.
Geron drew his sidearm with his right hand. His left hung at his side, still dripping.
The Insectoids charged.
The clearing erupted.
Pulse fire lit the canopy in staccato bursts of blue-white, casting the iron-bark trunks into sharp, stuttering relief.
Chitin cracked and splintered under concentrated fire, but the Lowborns were built for attrition; either they absorbed or shrugged off the shots.
