Pasted

"Staff Sergeant!" Andersen yelled, firing from a barrel past Jilan's. "Hammer!" Avery snapped focus back to the alien's barricade. Both sets of
barrels had shifted when the Tiara bucked. Some of the foam-filled canisters had tipped and rolled down the walkway, confounding the gold-armored alien's first charge. A steady stream of fire from
the recruits had kept it pinned near the control center. But now it was coming—hammer in both paws, low across its waist—flanked by four of the gray-skinned aliens, each wielding an explosive
shard.
 Avery knew the armored alien would be too difficult to take one-on-one. And even if they concentrated their fire, he doubted they could stop it. Which was why, right after the alien made its initial charge, Avery had come up with another plan. 
 “Forsell!” he bellowed. "Now!"
While Avery lay down covering fire, Forsell hefted one of the aliens' glowing energy cores over his barrel—a two-handed sideways fling, just like he was back on his family farm and hurling bags of
soybeans into his father's hauler. The core landed ten meters in front of the gold-armored alien, and the vortex of blue energy inside its clear walls flared as it rolled forward. But it didn't explode on impact as Avery had hoped. 
 It took a burst from his M7 to set it
off, but by then the gold-armored alien had already leapt over the core and the explosion missed it completely. But Forsell's effort wasn't a total loss. The explosion hit the four gray-skinned aliens full force, blowing them off the walkway.
Spiny forearms flailing, they plummeted to the bottom of the Tiara. None survived the fall.-Chpt.22
 “Commander! Move!" Avery shouted as the armored alien landed, hammer high above its head. Jilan leapt away as it smashed her barrel, spewing yellow foam. Avery emptied his M7's into the alien's left side, but the high-velocity rounds simply sparked off its energy shield.-Chpt.22