::Report:: He said mentally.

The squad leader was out of sight but heard his mental command.

::The portal is gone, sir. At least a dozen of our cyborgs are dead, and many more injured.::

::Right. Organize defensive positions as we can expect a counterattack. Hopefully, the beacon for the second portal was undamaged, and they can get it going soon. I am going to go and find the engineers and make sure they hide the portal location to avoid a recurrence of this attack.::

He left the cyborg commander to carry out the task of organizing the defense, and he ran over to get behind one of the knocked-out tanks. As he did, he began to hear things again, although only faintly. He was sure that the engineers were over that way somewhere, so he made his way in that direction as quickly as possible. Strangely there was no sign of a counterattack under cover of blowing up the portal. He had no sooner thought this than heard shots ring out, still strangely muffled.

Something caromed off the wall in front of him, and he flinched as dust and chips of stone hit him. He tightened his kinetic shield and felt something impact it, but then the shooting died away. Sounds were starting to sound normal as he finally found the engineers. They were setting up the beacon in the middle of an intersection.

“No, no!” He yelled. “Find somewhere out of sight, or they’ll destroy it as well.”

He marched over and faced the man in charge, who looked upset with being interrupted.

“Move the beacon somewhere else. They have missiles. We need to have it out of sight.”

The man finally shrugged.

“Okay. So where?”

Idiot, Toshiro thought to himself. He looked around the area. There was nowhere obvious to put it here, so he headed up the street away from where the other portal had been. Here we are, he thought as he found a small alley between two buildings. The alley led to a parking area that was out of sight due to being surrounded by buildings.

“Down here!” He yelled and trotted back out of the ally. “Put it down at the end of that ally, there’s room around the corner.”

The engineering leader came down the street and wandered into the alley. As the man walked back to where Toshiro waited, there was a sudden spray of gunshots. Toshiro threw up a shield.

“Quickly. Get the beacon down there and the portal open. We need reinforcements quickly!”

“Right, men. Let’s get the beacon set up down here.” The leader of the engineers waved to his men, at which point they hopped in their truck, turned it around, and drove into the ally.

Just as they disappeared into the alley, Toshiro’shield blocked some shots that had been aimed at him. He held the shield in place for five minutes, and then came the distinctive crackling sound of the portal forming. There was a lull in the shooting, and he fell back into the mouth of the alley a little to see what was happening. There were explosions and a lot of shooting from back where the first portal had connected, but he couldn’t see what was happening clearly from where he was.