The enemy, consumed with its successes, didn’t realize the nearest danger until Cando, Paul, and Chi opened fire. One lost his footing with the first hit and struggled to snap upright. The other two stumbled but acquitted themselves well, returning fire.

  Then they charged, no longer amused with the distraction from above. Chi thought they’d hold their ground or run away. These monsters showed no reservation; if anything, their battle cries suggested they were happy to see a true enemy. No doubt they recognized the Talon armor.

  Necks and knees. Agile footing. Double-tap where possible.

  Per her training, Chi maintained continuous fire but moved cat-like from the center, as Paul did on Cando’s other flank. Cando ran backward to draw in the enemy. They taught her this strategy for street fighting in small numbers: With favorable math, lure the enemy into a net. Switch targets as you move, keeping them off-balance. Crossfire will result in double-taps, where two or more blasts hit a vulnerable section of armor at once.

  She kept her feet agile enough to anticipate return fire, shifting her body so the pulses which found their target hit her chest plating, the strongest area for absorbing and deflecting fire.

  The first hits against her armor did not bother Chi.

  Just the opposite.

  They pissed her off.

  “Aargh!”

  She aimed for necks and knees and braced for her first kill in battle. Her adrenaline raced. She wanted these fuckers.

  Was it possible?

  Was she having fun?

  * * *

  Exeter attacked from the air, concentrating fire on a unit of five FGs who killed civilians even as they raced in a crisscross pattern through debris, under cover of trees and smoke, and allowed blasts to bounce off their armor without care.

  He missed his old Force Drum. In the weeks before his escape across the divide, Exeter reached peak efficiency at high strikes which blew off FG heads. The stomach-turning sight of decimated corpses in his first weeks as a soldier became points of pride in the last. Ryllen’s exhilaration at being an executioner rubbed off.

  He wanted to fight on his feet.

  I’m a Talon. I should be down there.

  Yet his focus remained airborne, taking and giving orders through Occip. The flying platoons made visual contact with most of the enemy, relaying their positions back to the ground forces and the ship captains. Occip showed him the entire battlefield inside the cordon which his people fashioned. He saw every advance, stalemate, and firefight. He saw new vehicle fires erupt in the streets and foolish Hokkis with light weapons try to take on the marauders.

  FGs died, but not fast enough. There were too few soldiers on the ground, and the enemy had dispersed from the outset, making it harder to surround their forces and take them out en masse.

  Ryllen would have pissed on aerial combat. Face the assholes head-on, he’d say. Smell their cudfrucking breath and cut their necks open. We’re immortal, X. Get in close. Make ‘em feel you. If they kill you, so what? Ten minutes, and you’ll come back for more.

  Exeter rarely delivered a blade beneath the neck collar with the same brutal accuracy as Ryllen, but the moments when we did?

  Animal. Beast. Monster.

  It felt necessary. All Exeter had to do was remember being a boy on Everdeen. All those times he turned over and closed his eyes, allowing the patron to penetrate. Wishing even then he had a knife close at hand. Just once.

  He gave orders to the platoon under his immediate command, and the ten of them swooped in on the unit of five FGs.

  “Form a halo twenty meters above them and spread continuous fire,” he said. “Atlee through Jurvos, aim for the necks. Lu through Xian, aim for the knees.”

  His people moved into formation and executed the orders to perfection. The enemy ran no more. They returned fire with a marksmanship Exeter expected. The Occip interface with the jetpack autosensors helped the Aeternans twist and twirl as Force Drum energy bypassed them. The effect, however, did not last long.

  Exeter wasn’t surprised when the FGs adapted, the tactical UI in their helmets predicting enemy movement and guiding their aim.

  “Remember your training,” he warned them. “If you’re hit, allow the autosensors to control your spin. Don’t fight it.”

  The first blue bolts hit chest plating and dissolved, but repeated impacts required Occip to distribute power from the jetpack to fortify the armor. Exeter knew this is where his people would meet trouble.

  Indeed, Xian fell after repeated hits, a massive hole cut through her stomach. She spun around lifeless before crashing into a burning vehicle. Jurvos went into a spin, fought it, and lost control. The enemy got a clean look at her jetpack. It exploded in a blue haze.

  Exeter saw the nearest ground forces two blocks away, engaged with an enemy bearing superior numbers. Even if those three Talons put down the FGs, they’d wouldn’t reach this position anytime soon.

  He refused to lose the majority of his platoon trying to hold these assholes in place. Exeter looked for other help. The next closest were three blocks – a unit of the Splinter Vanguard. He saw their golden armor from the air, just like what Ryllen wore during their brief encounter on Euphrates. Nothing seemed to slow them down. Perhaps if he put out a request for assistance, they’d come?

  He almost did, but the tide made a subtle shift.

  Two FGs fell to one knee but continued firing. A third stumbled as if exhausted. He took continuous hits to the neck; Occip detected a temperature rise in the collar.

  Fight like men. Eye to eye. Smell their breath.

  He gave new orders to his unit.

  “Corvallis, Nanuit. Knives. You’re with me.”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “We’re immortal. Fuck these assholes.”

  They swooped in against relentless fire. Only two made it to the ground alive.

  Exeter went for the neck.

  33

  A FTER FIVE KILLS, CHI RECOGNIZED the source of the electricity flowing through her. It wasn’t joy, adrenaline, or survival instinct that drove her to seek out more enemy. No, what carried the day was rage. Too much suppressed too long.

  In the early days after they captured Scylla, Chi listened to the Green Sun assassins-turned-crewmates explain their motivation for killing illegals. Regardless of their background, the young agents echoed a common thread: Our ancestors worked too hard to build The Lagos for us. The outsiders will tear down the order for our descendants. We can’t be the ones who let it fall apart.

  At the time, she thought their beliefs irrational, likely the product of brainwashing. They were malcontents, looking for adventure in all the wrong places.

  Now Chi understood.

  Order has to be maintained. Silence the invaders. Make sure none ever try again. Sacrifice may be necessary.

  It wasn’t irrational, after all. The key difference: This enemy wasn’t helpless. It would burn everything in its path if given the time. It had to be stopped. Here, now, forever.

  Chi wasn’t blind. She knew what The Lagos had become, especially among the elite households. The “order” established over centuries was bound to undergo massive change after these events. But pride in being Hokki? The love for these islands? Must that be sacrificed, even as they uprooted the past?

  All those years, Chi was quiet. She deferred to the order, conceded to her family’s shame after the reprisals and social refinery, and played the dutiful friend in a household where she was no more than a servant. She took as much rope as the Syungs allowed but never an extra centimeter.

  Rage.

  A beautiful tool to open heart and mind.

  Chi unleashed her entire reservoir.

  Two hours after the fight began, she felt fresh and undaunted. Latest reports said half the enemy continued to battle, but they no longer took the offensive. Pitched battles on ground and from the air tightened the noose. The Aeternans closed the cordon, which worked better than hoped. Enemy kills accelerated.

  The cordon worked too well in places, leading Swarm off the streets and into residential high-rises, where they began campaigns of terror knowing full well they had no escape route.

  Chi, Cando, and Paul joined forces with three Splinter Vanguard from the Charybdis and twelve Aeternans led by Exeter Woolsey. Everyone carried at least one Force Drum, collected off the bodies of the dead enemy. They gathered inside Simian Towers, a thirty-story residence where ten FGs entered moments ago. Terrified Hokkis screamed from balconies while others jumped. On the first three floors, fire broke out in several flats.

  What the FGs couldn’t do on the ground they chose to do inside, one level at a time.

  Cando assigned teams to different floors, trying to secure the high ground then work downward while other fighters engaged the FGs. The enemy that escaped upstairs? Cando hoped to grab them in a vise.

  “Identify yourselves to residents. They’ll be terrified, but make sure they understand you’re here to protect them and secure the building. If you suspect an FG is hiding inside a flat, don’t hesitate. If you discover the worst case, do your best to avoid collateral damage and call for assistance.”

  Chi imagined what she’d find. The monsters did not surprise her.

  Open doors – often blasted off their hinges – revealed bodies inside, sometimes found cowering in a corner.

  No mercy. Not even for the youngest.

  The sickening whoosh of Force Drum discharges echoed around the bend. The floor above, shouts blended with thumps like stone statues collapsing, and tremors echoed from doors blown open.

  They split into teams. The Vanguard, Paul, and four Aeternans took the stairwell to the third level, while Chi, Cando, Exeter and the remaining immortals raced to meet the carnage around the bend.

  They caught two FGs in the corridor between assaults. Blue energy projectiles crossed paths until the enemy busted in doors on either side of the hallway. Cando and Exeter took point, while Chi followed, flanked by Aeternans.

  Cando took one side, Exeter the other. Battle cries followed.

  Almost every flat had been invaded, although Chi didn’t see as many corpses on this end. These people weren’t hit first; perhaps most escaped off their balconies.

  Then Chi held up while the immortals advanced, ready to pounce. Something didn’t sit right. She turned around and looked at flat 285.

  The door was shut, with no sign of forced entry. It stood out from the neighbors. Why did these barbarians skip it when they’d been so surgical before and after?

  She turned the knob partway.

  Locked.

  She laid her helmet against the door and amped up the UI’s autosensors. She detected five heartbeats.

  “My name is Chi. I’m here to protect you from the invaders in green. I know you’re scared. Tell me if you’re safe. You don’t have to open the door.”

  Nothing. She understood if they were so terrified, they didn’t trust anyone.

  A meek female voice shouted from deep inside the flat.

  “W-we’re OK.”

  “Good. Stay there until we give the all-clear.”

  She told the UI to analyze each heartbeat. Three were racing, while two seemed at rest.

  It didn’t make sense. This one family was so lucky?

  Silence the invaders.

  Chi called upon her rage and blasted a hole through the lock. The door swung open.

  * * *

  Exeter lost three under his command when he launched a ground attack earlier. Two regenerated, but one lost both legs and tried to fight on until a point-blank bolt severed his head. The sacrifice was another among countless comrades who died around Exeter in five years fighting these savages. One more did not faze him. In fact, the victory over those five allowed him to refine his technique with a blade.

  He vowed to remember the fallen immortal then handed the extra Force Drums to his team. He gave them a twenty-second crash course on the basics and moved forward to the next objective.

  “That’s how to fight Swarm,” he told them. “Never pause. Always move straightaway to the next objective.”

  Through Occip, he implored Michael to order every Aeternan to take a more aggressive stance. “Overwhelm FGs on the ground and collect Force Drums to accelerate kills,” he said. Michael agreed, though not without hesitation. They both knew casualties would rise with the new strategy. “This is war,” he told Michael. “It can’t be helped.”

  For weeks, Exeter had wondered about the Minister’s commitment to going on offense outside the Aeternan system. Michael talked a big game but had not authorized combat for eight years, until the shaky mission on Euphrates. Other officers whispered about the alliance with Scylla, wondering if it was proof Michael didn’t believe the immortals could wage a successful campaign without help. Today’s mission, regardless of the final toll, would not change any minds.

  Perhaps it didn’t need to. They weren’t hiding anymore.

  Inside the Simian Towers, he took the flat to the right while Cando turned left. Exeter met his enemy’s fire before he crossed the threshold. His chest plate absorbed it, although the intense heat suggested a barrage might corrupt the synaptic interface.

  The FG retreated to a suite of bedrooms, but Exeter knew he wasn’t trying to hide or lay an ambush. No, he was searching for any last civilian kills before turning to face his pursuer.

  The bastards were quiet. They moved as if carried on wind. In five years, Exeter never heard an enemy’s words during battle. Only screams before the instant of death proved they had tongues.

  They didn’t need to communicate effectively so long as they had overwhelming numbers and a firm belief that a combat death elevated their status before Church and God.

  What simple, savage minds.

  Like this one, for example. He skirted across a hallway between bedrooms, looking for victims, not thinking to turn his weapon on Exeter, who had a clear shot. The FG grabbed at his neck collar and stumbled. By the time he found his footing, Exeter jumped him.

  The immortal’s knife still carried the blood of his earlier kills. Exeter lunged at the FG’s throat. Again and again, he delivered a rapid motion millimeters beneath the collar at its most vulnerable location. Ryllen taught him the technique a few months after Exeter earned his black armor but struggled with close-quarter combat. The first time Exeter killed the enemy this way, Ryllen vowed they’d celebrate after the battle ended and the units moved on.

  Yet the dayslong conflict pushed both sides to exhaustion, with fierce exchanges amid a field of corpses. Little food or water – only what the suit provided – carried the Talons to an eventual but fleeting victory. More than twenty thousand combined died on a plateau overlooking Long-Ma, Exeter among them.

  His first death and rebirth as an immortal.

  Afterward, before their unit was called away, Ryllen found a quiet spot among the ruins and made promises he couldn’t keep. Exeter knew what he wanted. Only many years later did he realize the mistake he made that night and all he surrendered to Ryllen.

  No more. No fucking more.

  Words of the kind, and many more, chased through his mind and off his lips as he cut deep into the enemy. Blood sprayed on his helmet.

  When Exeter dropped the dead soldier, he glanced inside the bedroom. There, on the far side, a closet door slid open. An elderly couple trembled in each other’s arms.

  Exeter sheathed his blade and waved to the Hokkis.

  “Stay inside a little longer. We’ll be done here soon.”

  They slid the door shut without a word.

  Exeter took a long, deep breath and moved on to the next objective.

  * * *

  Chi found all five heartbeats in the living room of a spacious flat. Green armor protected two of them.

  The FGs stood behind a family of three, all on their knees: Mother and her teen children. The boy’s face was bruised, and blood poured from the side of his head. One Force Drum pushed against the back of his skull. The girl cried, with straggling hair in her face. The other weapon lined up to blow her head off. Between them, mother looked at Chi with both a plea and a resignation of her fate. The woman’s dress had been ripped.

  Chi did not try to negotiate. The beasts had no intention of using the Hokkis as human shields or as leverage for their escape. They intended to make a final kill for their God.

  The FG behind the girl flicked his weapon at the mother and ignited a blue bolt. Her head exploded, blood and scalp spewing onto her children.

  The Swarm were worse than the Talons ever told Chi. Perhaps they didn’t think she’d be able to cope, or even understand the depths of cruelty pounded into these servants of the Crusade.

  Chi had no choice. The boy and girl were as good as dead.

  She charged the FGs while hitting them high with blue bolts.

  “Bastards!”

  They double-tapped her chest and then her neck collar as she lunged; Chi also drove bolts into their most vulnerable armor.

  Her chest pounded, and a sudden, unquenchable thirst clogged her throat as Chi leaped over the mother’s corpse. She made good on the target to her right, shattering his collar. The enemy dropped his weapon as he gagged, reaching instinctively for his neck.

  She grabbed her knife and came down hard, but her target grew much larger when the helmet retracted. She buried her blade in the man’s right eye. Chi lay on top of him, and for the first time saw the scorpion tattoo up close.

  The world fell on top of her before she rolled over. Two point-blank hits into her back started a collapse. She lost connection with the synaptic interface. Her hands tingled.

  The other FG stood over her like a conquering hero. He fired once, twice, three times. Her skin sizzled inside the helmet.

  Chi didn’t need rage anymore.

  The rest was tactical. Simple, fluid movements, exactly like her Talon brothers and sisters taught her.

  Her mind was clear. The past erased. The future irrelevant.

  Her hands found their targets, even as the armor cracked and the next bolt might carve a six-inch hole through her chest.