Sandstorm

6:10 P.M.

OMAHA HEARDthe cry from Captain al-Haffi, in Arabic. “Pull back to the stairs! All forces retreat to the exit.”

Omaha crouched with Coral, Danny, and Clay. They had taken up a position inside the courtyard of the palace. A grenade blasted twenty yards away. They all pressed against the wall.

“We have to go,” Clay said.

“I’d love to,” Omaha said. “Just tell that to the two men around the corner.”

They were pinned down in here. They had been for the last minute. Moments ago, Omaha and Clay had run into the courtyard from one direction, Danny and Coral from the other. Both teams chased by commandos. Now all four were pinned down.

A standoff.

Only Cassandra’s soldiers had an advantage: sophisticated scopes that seemed to track their every move.

“We should pull back into the palace,” Coral said, slapping a fresh magazine into her pistol. “We’d have a better chance of losing them.”

Omaha nodded. They made a dash for the palace entrance.

“What about Captain al-Haffi and the others?” Clay asked as they ducked inside. “They might leave without us.”

Omaha crouched on one knee, gun pointed toward the courtyard. Coral took his flank, Danny and Clay behind them.

“Leave where?” Omaha asked. “I’d rather take my chances out here than in the cramped stairwell. At least here we have some elbow-”

The shot pinged off the wall by his ear. Glass shattered, needling the side of his face. “Damn…”

More bullets chewed. Omaha dropped flat next to Coral. Danny and Clay retreated into the far room. The only reason Omaha was still alive was that the iron-and-glass statue of the palm holding the sphere in the courtyard’s center had blocked a direct shot into the entrance.

Across the courtyard, one of the commandos ran into view, angling to the side, a grenade launcher on his shoulder, pointed at the door of the palace. Bullets continued to pepper, suppression fire for the artillery soldier. A gutsy move. Something had lit a fire under Cassandra’s team in the last few minutes.

Coral twisted around and aimed her pistol at the man with the grenade launcher. She was too slow.

The gods above were not.

From the roof, a dazzling bolt of energy struck the ground near the man, crackling for a half a breath, searing the retinas. It was not true lightning, just an arc of energy between the roof and floor. It did not blast a crater. It did not even knock the man down.

It did much worse.

The glass under the man instantly transmogrified from solid to liquid, changing states in one breath. The soldier fell into the pool, up to his neck. The scream that burst from his mouth was a sound only heard in the deepest pit of hell, the scream of a man burned alive.

It cut short after an instant.

The man’s head fell backward, steam rising from his mouth.

Dead.

The glass was solid again.

The suppression fire died with the man. Others had witnessed it.

In the distance, the fighting continued, echoing with rifle blasts-but here no one moved. Omaha raised his gaze. The roof was on fire, filling the dome. Other bolts jumped between ceiling and floor. Somewhere across the way another scream erupted, a twin to the one heard here.

“It’s happening again,” Coral said.

Omaha stared at the dead man, buried in glass. He knew what she meant.

Fiery death had returned to Ubar.