Description
Storm Over Warlock, Version 2
1. DISASTER
The Throg task force struck the Terran Survey camp a few minutes after
dawn, without warning, and with a deadly precision which argued that the
aliens had fully reconnoitered and prepared that attack. Eye-searing
lances of energy lashed back and forth across the base with methodical
accuracy. And a single cowering witness, flattened on a ledge in the
heights above, knew that when the last of those yellow-red bolts fell,
nothing human would be left alive down there. His teeth closed hard upon
the thick stuff of the sleeve covering his thin forearm, and in his
throat a scream of terror and rage was stillborn.
More than caution kept him pinned on that narrow shelf of rock. Watching
that holocaust below, Shann Lantee could not force himself to move. The
sheer ruthlessness of the Throg move-in left him momentarily weak. To
listen to a tale of Throgs in action, and to be an eye-witness to such
action, were two vastly different things. He shivered in spite of the
warmth of the Survey Corps uniform.
As yet he had sighted none of the aliens, only their plate-shaped
flyers. They would stay aloft until their long-range weapon cleared out
all opposition. But how had they been able to make such a complete
annihilation of the Terran force? The last report had placed the nearest
Throg nest at least two systems away from Warlock. And a patrol lane had
been drawn about the Circe system the minute that Survey had marked its
second planet ready for colonization. Somehow the beetles had slipped
through that supposedly tight cordon and would now consolidate their
gains with their usual speed at rooting. First an energy attack to
finish the small Terran force; then they would simply take over.
Product ID: 9781776782802
Sku: 9781776782802
