Alien Landscapes 2 by Kevin J. Anderson Page A

understand what Arviq can do, or what will happen if he gets away from this place. You can’t just ignore him.” Then he looked over at Juliette again. He finally admitted to himself that she was beautiful.
    “Can you stop him?” Juliette said. “It would be to protect us.”
    “I will need my armor and my helmet if I’m going to do this right.”
    #
    At first the armor felt rough and strange, but rapidly Barto adopted it as a second skin. The protective covering belonged, as much a part of him as his bones and muscles.
    Looking at her soldier, Juliette wore a concerned expression, as if he had too easily stepped over the brink. Barto saw something unreadable deep within her brown eyes, a flush on her elfin face, as he picked up the helmet. He looked at her uncertainly one last time, then seated it firmly on his head. He pressed the side speakers against his ears, lowering the visor in place so that he looked at her through filters and scanning devices instead of his own eyes.
    Barto drew a deep breath, stretching his chest against the breastplate armor plate. He flexed his arms against the hard bicep plates, the forearm protections, the gauntlets. His torso was solid and impenetrable. His legs and back, shoulders, hips, everything could withstand the worst that Arviq threw against him.
    Barto was invincible.
    “I must stop him before he leaves,” he said. “He’ll report the location of this place to HQ.”
    Juliette hesitated, moved forward and then stopped, as if she wanted to embrace him but was afraid to. Barto was glad she didn’t. He didn’t want to get close to her, like this.
    The tall chaperone Gunnar stood beside her, his face grim, and he drew her back. “Let him go now, Juliette. He has a mission.”
    Barto turned and marched out of the room, summoning up his mental map of the underground civilian sanctuary. He would begin in Arviq’s quarters, where the point man had smashed his own room and broken loose. It would not be too difficult to pick up his former comrade’s trail. Barto knew how to track down a quarry.
    Leaving the other inhabitants behind, he followed the tunnels. Most of the civilians reacted with fear when they saw him now. They hid within their own quarters or clustered together in the communal halls, though only one unarmed soldier had gone on a rampage. It was all beyond their experience.
    All of these people cowered down here, helpless. And Barto was the only one who could protect them.
    Though Arviq had not been able to retrieve his armor or his weapons, Barto did not underestimate him. A properly trained soldier could fashion defensive materials out of just about anything.
    At the pried-open door, he stood motionless, assessing Arviq’s damaged room, saw how his comrade had wrenched open the barricade using a piece of the bedframe as a lever, how he had battered the walls with his bare hands. Barto saw blood, but knew that Arviq would pay no attention to such minor cuts and bruises. Not Arviq.
    Barto had seen him through much worse.
    One time on a reconnaissance and destruction mission, Barto and his point man had ventured into the crumbling ruins of what must have been an impossibly large building, now scarred, empty, and blasted. The structure had fallen into rubble with haphazard girders and broken glass protruding from poured stone walls.
    They had chased several Enemies into the wreckage. Their senses screamed that it was probably an ambush, but still the two soldiers had followed, weapons drawn, confident that they could defeat their opponents. He and Arviq separated and traveled along different passageways, using their scanners to pick up infrared footprint traces.
    Barto had proceeded cautiously, but Arviq, incensed and determined, charged through the darkened halls, knocking wreckage aside. Finally he had crashed down a rickety iron staircase that shattered into rust as he stepped on it. And he dropped through to the underlevels. . . .
    When Barto had found him later,