Most soldiers were trained to cover their heads and stay flat under artillery bombardment, but Spartans weren’t most soldiers.
	John kept his head up, cocking it to one side so he could watch for strike patterns through the clear half of his faceplate. Soil and flame jetted skyward in solid curtains, sponge trees and club mosses erupted into pillars of fire, concussion waves pounded his armor like forge hammers, and still the booming grew more ferocious. The ground quaked and the undergrowth vanished in winks of blinding heat-flash, the air growing so thick with smoke and mud it was hard to see the vase-shaped brilliance of fresh impacts. His onboard computer would keep monitoring his visuals, using millisecond-long spikes of light intensity to plot plasma strikes and infer the enemy barrage plan.
	Linda’s status light changed from green to yellow; then her voice, almost lost to the roar of the barrage, came over TEAMCOM: “Moving!”
	John knew her computer had projected a hit on her position and was now guiding her to a safer location. Still, his gut clenched. Plasma rounds incinerated everything within a twenty-meter radius of the strike, with an even larger secondary damage ring. The concussion wave alone increased the mortality risk of a maneuvering infantry soldier tenfold. Linda would be okay in her Mjolnir armor unless she happened to run directly under an incoming strike—but in a barrage this heavy, the chances of that happening were high. Close to fifty percent, according to his onboard computer.
	...
	Linda’s status light returned to green, and he felt his gut untangle. She had reached a new position—presumably one that her onboard computer projected would be safe from a direct hit.