leader disintegrated abruptly in an explosion of flame and smoke and the pieces dispersed in all directions. Chesney felt a fragment of something ping off his helmet. Somebody in Section A had been thrown back in the air to pull his anchorline taut and was clutching at his stomach. The second drone exploded and produced another rain of fragments but two more were already past the line.
"Section A get the first of those two!" Chesney yelled. "Section C take the next. B, regroup at the line."
"Section A reassigning, sir," came a reply. "Our controller's been hit."
"Section B. Get it!" Chesney shouted.
One of the two drones was stopped almost immediately, having already taken some punishment. The other had gained distance before the defenders could reorganize and flew on into the automatic rifle fire of the backup team. It emitted a puff of blue smoke and cut out, then continued moving in a straight line until it collided with the side of the shaft and rebounded to drift slowly away, at the same time tumbling drunkenly end over end.
Undeterred, the survivors converged into the hail of bullets from the shaft while the tenacious cannon and beam-throwers wheeled and dived around