“I’m hit,” George announced, his voice so level I didn’t think he was wounded. I spared a glance to his smoking pod, which was drifting well off course. It was probably for the best, considering what waited for us below.

  One Gilded at least. Probably more.

  I ripped off my mask and tossed it away, looking down at the rapidly approaching ground. At two miles up, I didn’t need oxygen to breathe, but I was strapped onto a cannonball, my arms too restrained to play. I had subconsciously managed to use chaos energy without assistance on two occasions. Could I do it now to save my life?

  I didn’t have time to try. Fighting overwhelming fear, I did what had to be the next best thing by wrapping my hand around the bar over my waist and pressing the release. I wasn’t even sure the restraints would give until something behind me clicked, releasing me. My guitar strapped tight to my abs, I spread my arms and rotated forward, falling free of the pod. My descent slowed enough for the pod to fall away beneath me, leaving me clear to free-fall.

  A loud bang above me prompted me to look up, a shiver skittering down my spine. The fragments of Dropship Beta had continued upward past us, reaching the altitude of Delta to hang there like a minefield. The dropship ran through the intended kill zone, the impacts enough to leave it smoking heavily as it adjusted vectors, trying to escape.

  I could only hope they’d make it as my attention returned to the ground. With my pod falling like a rock past the others, toward the center of the battle, I didn’t have much time to save myself. I saw Sheri look over at me as I fell past her, her face pale, her eyes wide. I could imagine the horror she felt, thinking I was going to free-fall straight into the rocks below.

  I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to control every instinct I had to panic as I retrieved the pick magnetized to the top of the neck. I tucked my hands in, taking a moment to turn the volume of my guitar’s internal amp all the way up before settling my fingers on the strings.

  Looking down, I couldn’t see the Gilded among the other units spread across the terrain. Maybe I didn’t need to. Right now, I was an atomic bomb about to go off.

  Free Fallin’ would have been a relevant way to go, but it just didn’t have the right kinetic energy. Maybe I leaned too hard on Metallica in general, but One just felt apropos. I went right to the machine gun power chords, the amp pushing the music so hard I could hear it echoing across the sky. I found the chaos energy in it, sucking it in like a Hoover, so forcefully my construct burned my chest.

  I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel here. I just needed a bigger wheel.

  Time seemed to stand still. Beyond the music and the resonance of chaos, a silence fell over me. I came to a stop, standing in the air with my hands on the guitar, hanging there as the Royal Marines and my crew plummeted past me.

  The Gilded on the ground had pushed the dropship’s debris up into us.

  I pushed back.

  CHAPTER 21

  The force of my push created a gale that ripped out in a half-sphere in front of me and the Marines. The sudden blast of air was powerful enough to create a ripple in the atmosphere and a roar like a hundred trains barreling down the tracks. It slammed into the ground beneath us, residual waves migrating out into the rocky terrain in front and on both our flanks. A massive plume of dirt, dust, and debris flew up and out in every direction.

  Enemy vehicles lifted off the ground, tumbling end over end like tossed toys. Likewise, infantry flew around as if they were rag-dolls, dislodged boulders crushing whatever happened to be in their path. The instant dust storm created a curtain of polluted air that choked off the enemy forces and disrupted their sensors. It left them blind to our final approach and to the Royal Marine units already on the ground.

  “Yeeeeeeee-haaawwwww!” Having made it safely to the ground after the hit to his drop pod, George shouted his approval, the Marines and the rest of Team Hondo cheering along with him. Apparently, they had all forgotten I didn’t have a parachute. They seemed to think I was Superman or Galaxy Man, and would somehow escape the rest of the fall unharmed.

  They weren’t wrong.

  I kept playing, pushing again, this time more gently, using the counter-force of gravity to slow my descent like I had a few times before. But never from this high. The only difference was how long I would need to hold the action. Within seconds, my velocity decreased, and the Marine pods I had skydived past again overtook me, drifting to the surface under the cover of the dust cloud. The drop pods used pre-programmed target points to bring the riders to the ground. Unaffected by the dust, as long as they were undamaged, they would each hit their mark with nearly pinpoint accuracy.

  Along with the rest of Delta’s ground assault team, Sheri vanished into the brownish cloud below me. For a moment, I was alone in the air, drifting slowly down like Tanooki Mario. Then I too reached the unnatural cloud of dust and debris.

  Suddenly, I was worried that I didn’t have a helmet to protect my eyes and that the particles might clog up my guitar, but I quickly learned I needn’t have fostered that concern. The push, as it reached the ground with a loud boom, created a swirling updraft that carried the dirt outward in a spiraling vortex. It surrounded me as I drifted downward, falling slowly enough to give me just enough time to swap push for enhance.

  Feeling every bit the superhero rock star, I held my guitar up out of the way. Spreading my legs flexing my knees, and dropping my free hand, I hit the ground in a perfect three-point landing. It was just too bad there wasn’t enough visibility for anyone else to see it.

  The enemy resumed their attack, firing blindly into the thick cover. I ducked low, the hot energy blasts zipping past me, the heat unimaginable. Not only that, I was burning up inside. Between the sigibellum, the transit, and the massive push, I had brought myself to the edge of my limits before we’d even reached the enemy facility. I wasn’t sorry for going all-out. There was no doubt in my mind we would’ve fulfilled Emerald’s prophecy otherwise.

  Thuds and rumbles behind me signaled the Marine mechs were moving forward, rushing to overcome the infantry and take the lead in the fight. Their powerful plasma and ions sliced through the blowing dirt overhead, thunderous booms echoing from a klick or more in front of me. The entrance to the Sashkur installation would be less than two kilometers away, though the terrain to get there wouldn’t be the friendliest.

  “Ben, are you there?” Sheri asked over the comms, her voice quivering with worry. “Tell me you made it down. Please.”

  “I made it down, sis,” I replied, wiping a thick layer of sweat from my forehead before swinging my guitar back into position and lowering the volume so I wouldn’t be an easy target. I started back at the beginning of One, playing at a less frantic pace to go with the change in momentum. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Fat chance. Where are you? I can’t see anything in this mess.”

  “My transponder is active,” I said. “You can find me on the grid.”

  A Marine appeared out of the dust. I knew it was Emerald by the way she quickly danced in front of me, catching an energy blast off the thick chest plate of her combat armor. She spun around, shaking her head. “Two seconds, and I already saved your life,” she said.

  “I’m surrounded by reflect,” I pointed out.

  “Whatever, Boo. Next time, I’ll let the blast hit you.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  She laughed. “No, I won’t. You’re too cute for me to let someone shoot you. Anywho, we should get moving. We’re going to miss all the fun.”

  To prove her point, a giant mechanized foot stomped down a few meters away, barely visible through the dust. The mech raced forward, returning fire through the haze as it left us behind.

  “Captain,” Matt said, breaking through the comms. “We’re safe inside Prestige and mostly unharmed, except for a few offline shield nodes. T-minus twenty seconds to exit. Good hunting down there. We’ll see you on the other side.”

  “Nice work,” I replied. “We’re on the ground and advancing on the installation. We’ll be back on Head Case telling stories about this over beers in no time.”

  “Copy that. I’m holding you to those beers.”

  I glanced up, hoping to get a glimpse of Prestige before the ship went into hyperspace. Of course, the dust was too thick to see anything. At least Matt had made it out alive. Now it was up to me and as many others as possible to do the same.

  “Captain,” Major Nori said on the comms. “All available units have reached the drop zone. We’re at seventy percent initial asset supply on the mechs, a little over fifty-percent on infantry. This is the most brutal drop I’ve ever participated in, but every Marine who didn’t make it died a hero, and it’s up to us to finish the job. You put a nice dent into the defenses with that sonic boom, Captain.”

  I grinned. “Copy that, Major. I’m glad I could help. Keep your Marines alert for the Gilded who attacked us. If they encounter them, they’re to mark them on the network but not engage. They’ll just be throwing their lives away.”

  “Wilco, Captain.” He went silent on the channel, having to switch to another frequency to order his Marines forward.

  Quasar, Sheri and George moved out of the dust, joining Emerald and me. A few seconds later, Ki found her way to us.

  “Any sign of Narayan, Ixy and Shaq?” I asked them.

  “Narayan didn’t make it,” Ki replied. “The Litter is gone, except for me.” My heart sank at the news, but there was no time now for condolences or mourning.

  “My two favorite aliens aren’t wearing transponders,” Emerald said. “I think I saw them disappear into the cloud. They must have landed safely.”

  Another mech walked past us, vanishing into the gloom ahead. Most of the enemy fire no longer reached our position, the defenders busy with the advancing Marines.

  “Can we go now?” Emerald whined.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go. Stick close, I’ll keep a barrier ahead of us.”

  “You already look like you’re on fire,” Quasar said. “Maybe you should trust the Blues to keep us safe.”

  I played for a few more seconds before tailing off. “Maybe you’re right.”

  We jogged forward, following the sound of battle—the exchange of energy and the resulting screams—picking our way around the sharp rocks and moving from cover to cover. The dust was thinning, allowing me to see further ahead. A Marine mech had settled fifty feet in front of us, ducked down behind a thick slab of stone and firing rockets toward targets painted by the infantry. Explosions followed a few seconds later and then a larger blast as one of the enemy vehicles detonated. Armored Marines swarmed around the mech, scaling ten feet of rock and opening fire on an enemy I couldn’t see.

  We were still thirty feet away from the mech when the front line of armored Marines ran back down the incline, the trailers launched backward through the air. They crashed into the mech’s legs or slammed into the hard ground, rolling to a stop just ahead of us. They gathered themselves slowly, pushing to their hands and knees, their helmets turning toward me.

  “Captain,” Nori said over the comm. “The wizards are on the field just ahead of your position.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” I replied, pulling my guitar back into place. Before I could begin playing again, the mech in front of us fired rockets at the archons, only to have them pushed back. The detonations, when they hit, blew the top half of the machine apart. Debris flew toward us.

  “Down!” Quasar shouted, and we all hit the dirt as hot metal shot overhead. Two of the Marines in front of us were hit, the shrapnel punching through their armor and killing them instantly.

  “I want to go home!” Sheri cried, her fantasies of a glorious adventure in another galaxy shattered by the violence. I didn’t blame her for her moment of weakness. A big part of me felt the same way. Blorb’s escape from Atlas was one thing. This was next level horrible.

  I jumped back to my feet, sliding my hands across the strings of my guitar, not playing anything specific. Just making noise. The music was never the catalyst. It was just a gateway for me to make the connection, and right now I was too scared and angry to concentrate on anything other than pure chaos.

  I activated my construct just in time as the wreckage of the mech suddenly shot backwards without warning, the legs flipping end over end. I pushed it up and over us, sending it smashing into a rock formation in our wake.

  “Zar, Em, cover our flanks!” I ordered, using the experience I had gained practicing with Kat in Head Case’s gym. “We need to surround them. Ki, round up those Marines and get them in position with you. Sheri, George, take cover. If you see an opportunity to shoot, take it, but do not engage an archon.”

  Everyone leaped up, except Sheri. Off to my right, she remained curled in a ball on the dirt in total panic. It killed me to see her like that. “Sher, you need to get up! You can’t stay here. Get behind cover, at least.”

  “I want to go home,” she repeated. “I’m sorry. I don’t belong here.”

  “It’s okay. Just find some cover for now.”

  “I can’t move.”

  Screaming ahead stole my attention. “Shit, Sher. I can’t stay with you. People are dying.”

  “I know. Forget about me. Just go.”

  “Ben, I’ve got her!” Emerald cried, returning to our position. “There are enough Marines to cover the flanks, but you need to get out there. Now!” She crouched beside Sheri, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Sher, I’m going to pick you up in a fireman’s carry and get you somewhere safe, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Emerald looked up at me. I nodded and left her with Sheri, sprinting toward the rocky incline ahead. When I reached it, I pushed myself up and over, landing at the edge of a short break in the rock formations. I was still nearly a kilometer away from the installation entrance.

  A second destroyed mech smoldered on my right. Dead and dying Marines spread out on my left. Two corpsmen worked furiously in what looked like futile efforts to save a couple of them. Further away, the battle still raged, with constant flashes lighting up the remains of the dissipating dust cloud while explosions echoed off the hard surfaces. Our forces were making headway on reaching the Sashkur facility, but not without way too many casualties. All of them to rescue one man, because it was what I wanted. Somehow, I had to make retrieving David count for something.

  Right now, I had to worry about the two Gilded standing on the rocks at the far end of the break. Dressed like a pair of cyberpunk mages, with long hooded coats and plenty of catalyst jewelry, their eyes were locked on me, their shadowed faces grim.

  I had lost track of Zar, Ki, and the others while I was distracted by Sheri, but I knew they would be nearby while remaining out of sight. They were experienced enough to know not to start shooting at the archons. They knew what the sigiltech rings and bracelets they wore meant and that they both probably had sigils etched into their skin as well. Maybe even something of David’s that we hadn’t yet seen. The thought unnerved me a little, and I fought against the fresh wave of fear, followed by sudden inspiration. My hands shifted on my guitar, and I started to play.

  Eye of the Tiger. The thrill of the fight.

  I activated both absorb and separate, combining them into a shield as two rings on the fingers of the archons flashed brightly. I sensed whatever they tried to use on me as it crashed against my barrier, where it was held and broken apart. The action created a weird feedback that pushed more energy into my construct, convincing me they had launched the expected sigil-based assault. I figured if David had made them new sigils, it would be the first thing they tried to use.

  Their attack failing, I targeted them both with the energy they had given me, pushing and pulling in a pulse matched to the rhythm of my playing. They tried to counterattack, but one of them couldn’t keep up and fell from the rock, landing in the open space in front of me. He barely had time to lift his head before a sharp crack echoed across the field and a bullet hole appeared between his eyes. The shooter had to be Quasar. As far as I knew, she was the only one carrying a sniper rifle.

  The other archon had staved off my attack, using a sigil that seemed to negate it completely. Ki tried to take him from the flank, but he held out his free hand, rings glowing. Capturing the sudden barrage, he flung it back toward me. I quickly reflected it, sending it into the nearby rocks.

  I charged him, and he pushed me, shoving me back a step. I returned the push, easily overcoming his effort. He fought me, negating the action before it knocked him off his feet. Attacks from both sides hit the rock where he’d stood before jumping down. Landing in a crouch, he came up with one of his rings glowing. His reflect slammed into me, again knocking me back. I fell to a knee, missing a few notes of the song and allowing the archon to press his attack. Another one of his rings lit up, launching red lightning my way. I barely managed to dampen it, reducing its strength so it stabbed ineffectively into my armor. The archon nodded at me in a sign of respect. I nodded back. We stared one another down, each of us trying to decide whether to attack or defend, and what sigil to use next.

  A second crack echoed, Quasar’s round making the decision for my opponent. He reflected it, sending it into the rocks, the momentary distraction enough for me to enhance my legs and lunge at him, getting too close for him to use a defensive sigil. He surprised me, dropping into a combat stance and grabbing me, turning and physically throwing me up against the rocks behind me. He reached for my forehead, images of calmed-to-death springing immediately to mind.

  Before he could make contact, his eyes widened in surprise as something tugged him backward. He hit the ground, Ixy looming over him like death warmed over. She stabbed his hands with her forelimbs, pinning them to the ground before spooling webbing into his mouth to prevent him from uttering a focus word. Shaq slid off her back to the archon’s neck, biting down and killing him instantly.

  I straightened up, smiling at the pair. “You two always come through for me.”