He swung his rifle around to his back where it snapped to the bulge of the power supply. Then he crouched down, getting his hands under the ammo truck and lifting. The powered armor made him strong, but it was still a strain to lift the heavy vehicle, and more of a strain to keep it balanced. He managed to get it positioned over his head, and he started walking it toward the gate.

  Trife were breaking over the wall as he carried the truck, a few dozen clearing his area and breaking toward the city. He regretted losing the people they would kill, but they would lose a lot more if he didn’t take drastic action.

  He made it to the gate and threw the truck down behind the rows of bars, hitting the barrier with a loud clang. The trife barely reacted. They were so intent on cutting through the bars they hardly noticed. A number of the crossbars were already sliced through and a few of the demons were attempting to squeeze through the gaps.

  Nathan grabbed his rifle again as he backed away. He switched to the secondary trigger, still retreating.

  Then he pulled it.

  A soft thunk and a dark round ball shot from the lower barrel of the gun, hitting the truck a moment later. It didn’t rebound, instead sticking there, a small LED quickly flashing red.

  Nathan pulled the trigger again, and the ball exploded out of the muzzle.

  Firing his jets. he was already leaping skyward, arcing for the top of the wall when it detonated. The explosion set off the rifle rounds inside the truck and blew all of the trife back from the gate.

  Scores of trife hands reached wildly through the twisted bars and around the smoking remains of the truck. Hundreds of trife were killed immediately and more continued to fall as slugs slammed down into them from above, finally cutting a hole in the slick.

  Nathan didn’t stop there. He ran across the wall, his prosthetic arm outstretched, gathering up as many trife coming over the wall as he could. He let them bite down on his metal arm and dragged them to the opposite edge of the wall. There, he pulled them down with him as he leaped into the vacated hole.

  “For Edenrise!” he shouted into his comm, hoping to inspire his people. He hit the ground hard, crushing the trife he had gathered beneath his armor as he rolled over and back to his feet. He started shooting those still moving, turning in a wide semi-circle, his slugs cutting down dozens of demons with each round and keeping the gate clear.

  He couldn’t hold the horde at bay forever. When he ran out of ammo, it would be all over, at least for him. But if he could buy enough time for the reserves to arrive, maybe they would have a chance.

  He kept shooting, cutting down swaths of trife as the seconds ticked past. It didn’t take long for his rifle to run dry, and when it did he turned it in his grip, holding it like a club. The trife charged at him hundreds thick. He began swinging his weapon, smashing into them and batting them away. Dozens fell to his assault, but he couldn’t keep them back forever. They grabbed his legs and jumped on his back, slashing and clawing at his hardened armor, their claws struggling to break through the Other’s material. He grabbed them, crushing their bodies in his powerful hands, fighting to stay upright as they continued to swarm over him.

  Suddenly, he was off his feet and on his back. His armored weight and that of the trife coming down on top of him crushed the demons at his back. For an instant before they engulfed him, he caught sight of the dropship coming over for another strafing run. And then all he saw was biting teeth and slashing claws.

  28

  Caleb

  “They can’t hold much longer,” Caleb said.

  Over half the trife are destroyed. It is an impressive display.

  “A wasted effort if they all die. They deserve better.”

  What can we do? We are only one human.

  “You saw the shield. They have a QDM. Tell me we can’t use that somehow.”

  We could use it, but we’ll never reach it.

  Caleb refused to believe that.

  You can refuse all you want. It doesn’t change the truth.

  It was just like Ishek to be negative. It was the aspect of the symbiote Caleb was most glad he hadn’t inherited. He had never given up on a chance to save human lives before. Not as a Marine Raider, not as Search and Rescue, not as a Guardian on the Deliverance…

  And not now.

  He had spent the last thirty minutes waiting at the base of a small hill outside of town for the trife army to arrive. He had stopped there to marvel at the tall spire rising out of the center of the city as if a god had planted a spear in it. The blue tinge to the air around the city and the displacement of the energy shield protecting it. He had expected to find something more advanced and secure than the random villages and settlements he had encountered so far, but this was so much more than that.

  Whoever had built the city had somehow come into possession of a quantum dimensional modulator, an energy unit capable of producing a near infinite supply of power through a link to an alternate dimension. It was an Axon invention, the power generator they used for all their energy needs. The aliens were so advanced they produced the complex devices like trinkets, putting them in every ship they made regardless of the precise power requirements. Even so, the units weren’t common outside of Axon control. That someone here had discovered one and even more importantly figured out how to put it to use was impressive, and it provided Caleb a measure of hope that just because centuries had passed since Earth was overrun, it didn’t mean humankind had given up.

  It didn’t mean the planet was lost.

  It was in trouble though. The massive attack had led the shields to fail, leaving the defense to a line of men and women standing on a makeshift barrier and doing their best to hold back a rising tide. He respected their courage. He had seen plenty of Marines he thought were tougher than nails break at the sight of a handful of trife, nevermind nearly sixty thousand.

  “If I get us to the modulator, can you end the fight with it?” Caleb asked.

  No guarantees, but the possibility exists.

  Caleb rose from his hiding place. He had already spotted the armor he had encountered earlier standing on the wall blowing the hell out of the enemy. Watching it work, he was confident it wasn’t a robot, but either the leader of the city or perhaps their top military officer as he had stood in one of the hardest spots to defend and had already dispatched some of the soldiers around it to stall a trife flanking maneuver.

  It’s a ruse.

  Ishek was convinced the flank was a trick and the attack would regain the center. Maybe the Relyeh Advocate was right. Caleb didn’t care. He only had one mission now.

  Get to the modulator. Save the city.

  He found the armor again, holding the center almost alone. He glanced up when he heard the dropship arrive overhead, static for a moment while he watched it blast the trife with plasma cannons. He would have given anything for a craft like that when he was running search and rescue through war zones during the initial trife invasion. Would they have even lost the war if they’d had weapons like that back then?

  Yes.

  “Shut up,” Caleb said. He activated the Skin’s projection, changing his outward appearance back into the trife he had scanned. Maybe Ishek was right about that too. Again, it didn’t matter. They couldn’t change the past.

  He sprinted down the slope toward the rear of the enemy lines. Within seconds of reaching the slick, he began pushing his way through, drawing angry hisses from the demons around him. He climbed onto one’s shoulders and stomped across them as though they were a living road. Some of them grabbed at him, trying to pull him down, but he hurried over them too quickly for them to get hold of him, his stamina increased by the chemicals Ishek pumped into his body.

  He made it halfway to the front inside of thirty seconds, dropping back to the ground among the demons. He paused with them when he heard the dropship’s thrusters increasing in volume, signaling the craft was returning. The Skin gave its position on his HUD. It was coming right for him, preparing to strafe the line.

  Wouldn’t that be ironic after everything you’ve been through? Gunned down by friendly fire.

  Sometimes Caleb regretted his bond to the Advocate. This was one of those times.

  I kept you alive when you would have died. Don’t forget that.

  Caleb had done the same for Ishek. The Advocate shouldn’t forget that either.

  Completely different circumstances.

  Caleb smiled, recalling those circumstances. Only for a moment. The dropship was swooping in, plasma spewing from its cannons. The trife ahead of him were being blasted into the air, burned and torn apart. He didn’t want to suffer the same fate.

  He crouched, ready to move in any direction. The plasma blasts descended. He broke right, leaping and pushing off the side of a trife, slamming into a second, rolling away from him and springing forward. A plasma bolt hit the ground a few meters away, causing the trife there to scream and die. He felt the heat of the gas wash over him, along with a strong whiff of burning flesh. The force knocked him down, but didn’t pierce the skin.

  A loud crackling rumble followed—the sound of the armor’s rifle rapid-firing. Caleb was closer than he thought. Closer than he wanted to be. He turned toward the origin of the noise as slugs began cutting through the nearby trife, tearing the aliens in half as they sliced past him. Caleb threw himself down, staying low while the barrage continued, tearing the trife nearby apart.

  It only lasted a few seconds. The gun ran out of ammunition, and the trife immediately began to close in. Caleb heard the armor moving, and then the cracking of bones and the pounding of flesh. Claws and teeth scraped metal. Caleb got back to his feet, trying to join the press of trife bodies as it moved in on the armored soldier.

  The man went down under a pile of trife. Dozens of the demons stayed with him, slashing and biting, while the rest continued through the damaged gates and into the city.

  Caleb glanced up. The creatures were beginning to make progress on the walls as well, the soldiers defending them falling at an increasing pace. They had put up a good fight, a brave fight, but the end was coming.

  It’s too late. We can’t save them. We need to leave this place.

  Even if that were true, they couldn’t leave the QDM to fall into Relyeh possession. The trife army would triple in size within weeks with access to that much energy.

  Good point.

  Caleb checked the Skin’s power supply. Judicious use over the last few months had minimized the drain—it still held seventy percent of its stored energy—but he didn’t need to conserve it anymore. There was a QDM only a few kilometers away. The Axon power source could recharge his Skin in seconds.

  It still won’t be enough to stop the assault.

  But it might help him save some of the people, starting with the one in the armor.

  He activated the Skin’s weapon systems, charging them at full power. The action caused the projection to fall away, immediately alerting the trife to an enemy in their midst. The group closest to him hissed and changed direction, leaping at him with slashing claws.

  He threw his hands out, the energy flowing from every nodule of the Skin. The nearest wave of trife was thrown back, a hundred or more killed in the blast that immediately drained ten percent of the power supply but also gave Caleb seconds to reach the armored warrior.

  He sprinted forward, grabbing the trife that turned to stop him. Each time his hand touched one of them a shot of energy raced through his palm and into their bodies, killing them nearly instantly. He barrelled through the immediate crowd of trife like a linebacker, shoving the demons aside, jumping over them, and finally making it to the pile. He hesitated a moment, hoping the mech’s armor would absorb the blast before sending a shockwave of energy through the trife.

  Dozens of the trife died on top of the soldier’s armor, leaving him buried. Caleb checked his HUD. He had drained nearly twenty-five percent of his power in a dozen seconds. Ishek was right. He couldn’t stop the assault on his own even with the Skin. It was powerful, but it was intended to be worn by an Axon Intellect with a much larger secondary power supply.

  “Marine!” he shouted, hoping the person in the armor could hear him. “Get up. Let’s move!”

  He turned to grab an oncoming trife, throwing it aside. He kicked another and blasted energy at a third, fourth and fifth.

  “Marine!” he shouted again. “The city needs you!”

  He glanced back at the pile of dead trife. Had his attack inadvertently killed the Marine? Had the trife gotten to him first?

  Then the pile began to shift. A dozen dead alien corpses were pushed aside as the armored soldier pushed himself up, first to a knee and then to his full height, towering over Caleb. The armor was badly scratched and gouged, and a deep crack ran along the dark visor, but it was still intact.

  They stared at one another for a moment.

  “Who are you?” the armored man said, his voice choppy through a single, damaged external speaker.

  “Sergeant Caleb Card, United States Space Force Marines. Get me to that spire, and I might be able to help you save your city.”

  29

  Caleb

  The armored man regarded Caleb. “General Stacker,” he said. “I’m sorry for trying to kill you before, but...”

  Stacker? Wasn’t he—?

  Of course Ishek knew who General Stacker was to Caleb. The Advocate could read his mind. One of the most respected officers in the military during the original trife invasion. The government had tried to get him to leave Earth on one of the generation ships. He had refused to go. He refused to believe Earth was lost. He refused to stop fighting.

  But that Stacker would currently be over two hundred years old. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t the original General Stacker.

  It didn’t matter right now. They had to survive the onslaught first. Then he would worry about the man’s true identity.

  “Understood,” Caleb replied, not paying particular attention to his apology. “We can save apologies for later, sir. Right now, we need to get to the spire.” He spun around, putting his hands together and launching an energy blast into the trife there, killing four of them.

  “Follow me,” Stacker said. He started running toward the city gates, following the trife. Gunshots rang out in the distance as a secondary city defense began shooting at the incoming demons.

  Caleb sprinted behind Stacker, impressed by the speed and agility of his powered armor. They plowed through the trife, coming up on them from behind and staying away from the others at the rear. Stacker grabbed any of the demons he was able to reach on the way past, crushing them in powerful hands and leaving corpses behind.

  They reached the damaged gates. So many trife were pouring through, and so many corpses littered the area it had created a jam on the other side. Gunfire sounded close by, and entire lines of trife dropped in front of them, the shooters on the wall refocusing on their path ahead. Stacker had to be communicating with them, sending them orders to help clear the way.

  “Ish, can the Skin get into Stacker’s comms?”

  I have tried. The encryption is improved from your conventional systems. I would almost call it Axon-hardened.

  So Stacker knew something about the Axon and had developed hack-resistant comms.

  It certainly appears that way.

  They made it to the other side of the gate. Stacker plowed through the trife, kicking and shoving bodies out of the way to continue toward the spire. Soldiers were coming down off the walls, forming up on their position to defend. They were a ragged, tired looking bunch, some of them covered in the blood of trife and their dead comrades. It was hard to believe the battle had only been in progress for as little as ten minutes.

  Caleb!

  Ishek’s cry caused Caleb to stumble and nearly fall, the sudden pressure in his head almost overwhelming. He slowed slightly, recovering just in time to bat away a trife that had made it through their defenses.

  We have a problem. A big problem. Tell Stacker if he can to get his people out of here, he needs to do it now.

  “What’s going on?”

  Now, Caleb!

  Caleb opened his mouth to shout out to Stacker. At the same time, all of the trife seemed to freeze at once. Even the air around them seemed to freeze, the atmosphere signalling that something was very wrong. The soldiers stopped shooting moments later, nearly every living thing on the battlefield coming to a stop. The trife lifted their heads, looking back the way they had come.

  Caleb looked back too. It was hard to see past the trife. There was something out there. Something in the distance. Something rumbling and groaning in an alien staccato that made his spine shiver.

  “General,” he said, echoing Ishek. “If you can get your people out of here, you need to do it now. Right now!”

  The trife suddenly started moving again. They charged forward, catching the soldiers by surprise. Only it seemed the battle was suddenly over. The trife no longer paused to attack the humans. They rushed past them, hissing and screaming in fear. Desperate to escape.

  Escape from what?

  Xaxkluth.

  The word meant nothing to Caleb, but it seemed to have plenty of meaning for Ishek. The Advocate was afraid, frightened in a way sixty thousand trife had been unable to scare him. Caleb could have looked into the Relyeh’s mind for the reason, but he was sure he didn’t want to know right now.

  “The spire,” Stacker said. “Hurry!”

  Caleb and Stacker, joined the fleeing horde of both trife and humans. Everyone was on the move now, fleeing the walls and the unseen horror approaching from outside the city. They could still hear the groans, deep and loud, like a monster rising from the depths of the ocean.

  Caleb sped up, getting close enough to Stacker to hear him shouting orders inside his helmet.

  “All units, retreat to the naval yard. I repeat, retreat to the naval yard. Board the nearest ship. You have three minutes before we cut the ships loose.”