He switched on his helmet light, ducked down and crawled up the pile of rubble, poking his head over to the top and giving the tunnel a sweep.

“All cl… ” he said just as the Posleen popped out of a hide. He didn’t even have time to finish before the heavy duty plasma gun took off his head.

Julio had followed the general more or less automatically, but he hadn’t been able to keep up with either the general or his security detail. The Hammers were chosen from the cream of the 11^th and Julio knew he wasn’t on their level.

But he did hop in the hole, trying to avoid the still incoming fire as much as anything, just in time to see one of the Hammers turned into a barbeque. Plasma was incredibly hot stuff and when it entered a suit, the interior turned into an oven. Julio hadn’t been around long enough to be present when such a suit was opened, but he’d seen pictures. Whoever the guy was, he was just deep baked and fried to a crisp. Besides having his head sheered off, of course.

Julio vomited into his helmet and dropped into a crouch. The suit, though, had been designed to handle that, designed in fact by the short figure up against the wall. The semi-biotic undergel created a pocket to catch the regurgitant, sealed it away to prevent aspiration and pumped air when Julio reactively inhaled. Half-noticed, a small quantity of undergel swept into his open mouth and cleaned it out. A half a morning of ACS transition training was concerned with just that. The soldiers were fed a hearty breakfast, suited up, given time to half digest, and then their suits fed them a nausea-inducing drug. Repeatedly.

It’s important, knowing deep in your bones that no matter what happens, the suit won’t let you drown in your own puke.

He was cut off from his own section, which was trying to open up a similar bunker about thirty yards away. And he sure as hell didn’t want to go out into that fire again. He wasn’t, in fact, sure what to do.