Tombstone

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We were pinned down, bracketed by fire from two directions. Somebody screwed up; somebody really screwed the hell up. Now we had to clean up the mess. Now we had to get out of here alive.

I had no idea how we were going to manage that, though. I was crouched behind a slight ridge, and I'd swear I could feel the hyper-velocity rounds streaming by a centimeter over my back. That's nonsense, of course. My armor was sealed tight, and I couldn't feel anything but the cool metal on my slick, sweat-soaked skin. The first thing I felt from outside would tell me my suit was breached, and that would mean I had a few seconds left to live.

Tombstone was one of the most miserable hells where men have ever tried to live, and you could pass the time trying to count all the ways the planet could kill you. Heat, radiation, poisonous atmosphere – take your pick. Tombstone wasn't its real name, of course, but that's what the locals have been calling it since 85% of the first colonization party died in less than a month. The place was a nightmare, but the elements in the planet's crust were worth a king's ransom, so men were here to exploit that wealth. And we were here to defend it.

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