Three years ago Stone traveled into hostile territory to rescue Nina and her team, for reasons she did not understand. But now-tonight-she did understand that Trevor trusted her to take out the base's defenses, to the point that he essentially placed his life in her hands.

  Yes, she would complete the mission. No one-human or alien-would stand in her way.

  Nevertheless, she scurried through the enemy's hallways with a silenced pistol ranking as her most lethal weapon. If things came to a firefight, she stood at a serious disadvantage. Then again, if a firefight erupted before she breached the main computer room her mission would fail.

  Captain Nina Forest came to a stretch of corridor where an ancient wall-mounted security camera swung on a motorized swivel. She pressed against the wall and hurried under the device, timing her movement so as to be below the camera's arc of vision as it panned…

  …Trevor led the two dozen soldiers of the strike team from the mountain slope onto the rolling, grassy hills surrounding the generator complex. With the cover of the mountainside behind, the time had come to take advantage of Omar Nehru's hard work in studying and adapting Chaktaw battle ponchos.

  "Suits on," he radioed.

  One by one the soldiers touched small units mounted on their belts. The chameleon mesh on the suits powered up and adjusted to match the ambient colors around the wearers. In this case, the gray suits changed to a pattern of brown and faded gold in reflection of the dipping and rising field they crossed. The soldiers did not turn invisible- not truly-but only the keenest eyes could depict their moving silhouettes against the background…

  …To Nina's left, a thin hall stretched twenty yards to a 'T'. At that 'T' waited a wall of tall glass windows and a corresponding glass door. Behind those windows and that door stood a forest of Cray Supercomputers controlling the network of security sensors around the exterior of the base.

  While the place hosted only a small garrison of Cooperative soldiers, a protective shield of automated turrets could rip apart any ground force.

  Nina spied two humans with side arms standing in front of those glass windows, one a short bald black man, the other taller with curly dark hair. The two shared words over something written on the bald black man's clipboard.

  She also noticed a shadow stretching from around the corner, indicating a third person-human or otherwise-waiting in the wings. She also knew that at least two technicians worked inside the computer room.

  Nina momentarily closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath. She exhaled that breath in a softly-whispered battle cry no louder than her heart beat…the cry of a dark wolf: "awwwooooo."

  She turned the corner and ran full speed, her ponytail wavered behind like a rippling streamer. The two men in front of the glass windows pulled their eyes from the clipboard to see a woman in black BDUs charging.

  Nina leapt and drove a flying sidekick into the bald black man's chest, sending the clipboard off in one direction and the man hard into the glass behind. His head whiplashed against the window, causing a crack and sending him into a state of unconsciousness before his body hit the floor.

  Nina landed where that man had stood a split second before and turned on the taller, curly-haired guy. Even as she moved to deal with him her eyes identified the shadow: a silver-faced Witiko officer armed with one of the aliens' standard-issue rifles, a weapon resembling a cross between a long rifle and a Gatling gun.

  While her eyes identified the Witiko, Nina kicked the curly-haired man's knee before he could draw his pistol. As he crumpled she drove a hammer fist to the soft spot at the back of his skull. He fell unconscious.

  The motion of her hammer-fist carried through to her utility belt after hitting the man's head. In the blink of an eye, she grabbed a sharp throwing star from that belt and reversed the motion of her arm in a graceful arc. The shiny, deadly star lodged in the Witiko's throat at the same moment he brought his rifle to bear.

  Captain Forest wasted no time. She pulled her silenced pistol from a thigh rig and fired a circle of shots into the glass. Next, she un-slung the small but heavy satchel around her shoulder and flung it against the center of the circle she had cut in the glass with her bullets. That weakened slab fell inwards and the satchel tumbled into the computer room. The two shocked technicians scrambled for cover; Nina dropped to the floor and covered her head.

  The charge exploded not with shrapnel but a blast of sound, flash, and concussion. Several banks of the Cray computers toppled like dominoes. What remained of the glass wall shattered. One of the technicians-a woman in brown coveralls-flew against the far wall and suffered a fatal head injury. The second tech-an older man-rolled across the floor and came to rest a few paces from the primary upload console, known to Nina Forest as the mission objective.

  She walked into the computer room with her eyes fixed on the CD drive at the upload console. Her shoes cracked and snapped over broken glass.

  The older technician lay flat on his face, moaning and wiggling. Nina casually popped one round into the back of his skull with a dull thwump.

  She knelt in front of the upload console, pulled a disk from her belt, and slipped it into the drive. A moment later a monitor confirmed UPLOADING FILE BRUTUS. EXE…

  …Midnight duty in the Operations Tower meant two less technicians and a junior officer running the show instead of a senior one. What did not change, however, was that that officer would be a Witiko Skytroop officer.

  Human specialists manned the bank of monitors at the front of the tower, using the electronic devices to search for potential threats that could then be dealt with via automated turrets and computer-controlled anti-air missiles.

  "Sir," one of the specialists called for the officer on duty. "Something is wrong."

  The Witiko hurried to the man's position and glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, the perimeter infrared system flickered then went dead. The same occurred at the radar station, visual monitoring station, and motion detector console.

  "Check with the computer room."

  "Sir," another technician shouted. "There's no answer from the computer room."

  The Witiko officer ordered, "Send a security team down there," as he grabbed a red phone from a bank of telephones along the wall. That line called directly to the main gate…

  …With the virus fully uploaded, Nina pulled the CD from the console and snapped it in two. Her mission complete, she walked toward the smashed glass at the front of the computer room. She heard the sound of running boots; shadows flickered from a side passage.

  She held her pistol in one hand, took a breath, then ran forward. She jumped through the smashed plate glass and hit the marble floor, sliding across like a baseball player diving head first into home plate.

  Eight California Cooperative security personnel approached with assault rifles raised. As she slid, Nina fired from her silenced pistol, hitting one of the men in the forehead, another in the leg. Both dropped, one would never get up.

  Her bold maneuver surprised the enemy. Nina took advantage of that surprise, rolling around a corner then standing. When on her feet, she raced away retracing her steps from earlier. As she fled, she used her free hand to reach to her pack and grasp the collapsed frame of her 'little buddy.'

  Without looking, she tossed it into the air at the same time releasing a spring. The unit tumbled end over end. As it did, three short legs flipped open. The metallic device landed upright on the marble floor, standing two feet tall on three legs. At its top, a round orb and a short barrel.

  The security personnel pursued around the corner.

  The 'little buddy' wobbled side to side emitting an electronic whop whop wh o p and fired small energy bolts to cover Nina's escape. Those bolts hit kneecaps and bellies knocking more men to the ground with third degree burns and forcing others to retreat…

  …At the main gate a human sentry answered the buzzing phone in the guard shack while two more heavily armed men strolled along where the road entered the complex.

  The sentry sighed as he raised the receiver to his ear. The voice on the other end-a Witiko voice-spoke in a monotone dialect, "We are experiencing sensor failure. Have you seen anything unusual at your post?"

  The sentry turned his attention away from the gate and threw his eyes toward the control tower fifty yards away and fifty feet in the air. He focused on the tinted windows there as if trying to make eye contact with the officer to whom he spoke.

  "No. Everything is clear down here."

  Behind him, the night itself appeared to move but neither of the patrolling guards took notice until a line of strangely dressed commandos materialized at the gate. The pair of armed sentries could do nothing other than raise their hands in surrender.

  The man at the guard shack hung up the telephone with an air of disgust, only to turn and face a gun barrel pointed directly at his eyes.

  One of the strangely dressed commandos raised a Javelin rocket launcher and fired. The missile slammed into the Operations Tower. Glass and bodies fell, a cloud of smoke billowed out.

  After a moment, three objects came from the tower flying out through the debris cloud: Witiko Skytroops.

  Two did not make it far. Sniper rounds from Oliver Maddock and Carl Bly hit the moving targets. They dropped like dead birds.

  The third Witiko officer pushed his booster pack to full throttle and arched toward the south of the base, avoiding carbine rounds from the strike team. He landed on the wall of the building Imperial Intelligence had identified as 'the pen' and fired the slaver device mounted on his arm into that open-roofed building.

  Something big roared…

  …Trevor removed his mask and hood as he strolled through the main gate of the complex. His team spread through the facility to secure the relatively small garrison; a task made simple now that the sensors and automated defenses did not function.

  The whole place radiated a smell of metal and electricity burning. All controlled, of course, but the Witiko knew much about electronics and rocketry. Trevor felt certain that-like the chameleon suits-captured Cooperative equipment could be assimilated.

  Yet despite all the high tech gadgets and captured technology, he knew the victory they won that night came not from wizardry but the skill and reflexes of Nina Forest.

  As much as it might cause him pain, he hoped to catch sight of Nina. To tell her…to give her his congratulations on a job well done.

  To his left-the south-one of the Eagles came in low over the fence now that the defenses of the base had fallen. It moved slow in support of the commando team with the energy turrets beneath the nose cone swinging from side to side in search of targets. The other ships would arrive soon as well, to provide tactical air support and surveillance.

  Regardless, the operation proceeded without a hitch. So much so that Trevor allowed himself to whisper, "Well, that was easy."

  The ground shook. Trevor turned to his left. The thing-the giant-marched into the parking lot from around the corner of a building to the south; thirty feet tall and seemingly made of boulders strung together by red tendons. Its two big legs plodded hard on the paved lot between the main gate and the cluster of buildings. On top of its wide shoulders sat a round rock of a head with two eyes glowing like searchlights and a circular orifice that could swallow a compact car whole.

  Trevor noted a Witiko Skytroop hovering over the shoulder of the thing. Suddenly he regretted removing his hood and helmet as the Witiko recognized humanity's champion.

  The walking mountain-thing stepped forward and punched-literally punched with one of its two hands of stone-the hovering Eagle air ship. That craft flat spun over Trevor's head with engines roaring. The rear landing gear dragged into the fence tearing it down before the ship itself skidded into a grassy slope beyond.

  The Witiko's monster moved in ten-yard strides toward Trevor who ran for his life.

  Ignoring the annoying sting of rifle fire, the creature pursued, sensing an opportunity to strike a heavy blow to humanity's Empire.

  Stone bolted to the north, sprinting across the parking lot around a black-painted military Humvee with a California Cooperative insignia two seconds before one of the monster's feet squashed that vehicle.

  Trevor's hand found the chameleon generator button and switched it on. He felt the camouflage of the suit power up. The mesh covering flickered and morphed into tones of gray and black to blend with the pavement and shadows of the complex.

  The creature's eyes, however, swept the ground like the searchlights they appeared to be. The cones of light found Trevor easily enough. Trevor ran faster, whipping around the corner of the northern-most building and bolting to his left-. He stopped. Trevor stood alongside the tanks, pumps, and cisterns of a fuel station. The ground shook again. A shadow turned the corner, following Trevor. He heard the hissing of the Witiko officer's jetpack. Trevor pulled two grenades from pouches on his battle suit and yanked off the pins.

  Glowing cones of light from the beast's eyes swept the pavement in search of its quarry. A massive rock-like oval foot pounded down.

  Trevor tossed the grenades. One rattled against a small cistern, the other between two fuel pumps. Then he ran again. His legs pumped hard and he eyed a green dumpster sitting in a lonely alcove near a pair of doors marked "Cafeteria."

  The gigantic rock-thing passed the fuel depot just as the grenades detonated. One blasted the fuel pumps, sending a streak of burning liquid up like a geyser. The second explosion ignited the fumes inside the cistern.

  Trevor dove behind the dumpster and covered his head.

  A stormy inferno engulfed the rock-creature, scorching its stony plating and igniting the red tendons between those plates. Its round mouth expanded wide and it bellowed so hard a gust of wind roared over the rooftops. The flames slipped beneath its exoskeleton and torched tender parts.

  Scraps of metal from the tanks and pumps dropped around the dumpster. A wave of heat covered the entire area.

  When Trevor emerged, he found flames consuming the entire beast. The giant screamed as it cooked alive.

  Just as Trevor realized he had survived another against-odds encounter, the creature toppled forward, forcing him to run for his life once again. A moment later the beast crashed into the building above the dumpster.

  He stopped running and watched the surreal sight of the motionless, burning monster. Its Witiko master hovered overhead, stymied by the sudden change in fortune but only for a moment; he presented an easy target for Oliver Maddock's sniper rifle. The silvery goon fell from the sky into the burning pile.

  Trevor, half amused and half aghast, walked backwards away from the destruction, trying to escape the foul smell of burning monster-flesh as well as the waves of intense heat emanating from the pyre.

  His ass-end bumped into something fleshy. Before he realized that he had bumped into another person, that other person sent him head over feet in a judo flip. Trevor landed hard on the concrete looking up at the silenced end of a pistol barrel…and two blue eyes under blonde hair. Nina's hard expression turned to shock as she realized whom she had flipped and pointed a gun at. Her jaw unhinged. "Oh shit," she muttered and holstered the weapon. Trevor, still on the ground, gazed at her. "Um, Captain Forest. Well done."

  She helped him to his feet, then also helped him brush debris off his battle suit. Swells of heat blew around them from the mass of burning creature.

  "I'm sorry. I mean, I'm sorry, sir."

  She frantically tried to dust him off as if dusting him off could also dust away the embarrassment. He grabbed her hands and stopped the dusting..

  Soldiers from the strike team hurried around the bonfire to come to the aid of their leader.

  "I mean it," he said. "You're the best, you know."

  Trevor realized he still held her hands. He let them go, nodded, and retrieved his rifle from the ground. And while he no longer held her hands, he held her attention for a while longer.

  6. Brothers in Arms

  The Witiko Stealth Field Generator at Beale went dark on March 27 ^ th.

  The next day, the garrison at Callahan surrendered without a shot to a small force from General McAllister's Mechanized division. Many of those Cooperative turncoats accepted advisory positions in Stonewall's ranks while the rest simply went home.

  More Californians followed the Callahan example. Over the next ten days, coastal defenses along the northwest shoreline at Crescent City and Trinidad Head either sat out the balance of the war or actively assisted The Empire's advance from the north.

  Without the advantage of the stealth field, Cooperative jets lost control of the skies north of San Francisco. Two dreadnoughts-the Chrysaor and the Excalibur — with their compliment of air superiority fighters, fighter-bombers, and support craft cut in from Oregon and Nevada. Witiko Stingray cruisers engaged in hit and run attacks but failed to stem the advance.

  On April 5 ^ th, after enduring constant air bombardment and facing the threat of two inbound dreadnoughts, the defenders at Weed slipped away on Interstate 5, hoping to re-form to the south at Shasta Lake.

  Imperial Apaches and A-10s chased the retreating columns, finding and destroying almost every ground vehicle. That destruction came at a high price as Stingrays knocked four choppers and two Warthogs from the sky.

  On April 12 ^ th elements of General Tom Prescott's 2 ^ nd Corp., crossed from Arizona into Southern California along Interstates 40 and 10 covered by General William Hoth's Philippan.

  A massive air battle inside the dead zone of The Cooperative's southern Stealth Field Generator just outside of Barstow ensued a day after the new front opened. The Philippan suffered nearly fifty crew killed when a California F-16 scored a direct hit on a crowded flight deck. However, the stoic General Hoth-serving as Captain aboard the ship-showed his customary resolve and pushed forward despite holes in the Philippan's superstructure and shrinking reserves of heat-seeking anti-air missiles.

  His fortitude bore fruit on April 15 ^ th when the Pennsylvania 1 ^ st Armored Division blasted through well-manned ramparts east of Newberry Springs and rushed the Stealth Generator at the old Marine Corp Logistics base.