He had no lingering doubt they were human. But it was more than that. They were equipped like he might have expected Pathfinder’s Guardians to be outfitted. Had he inadvertently found the descendants of the ship’s survivors? Or rather, had they found him?

  If that was the case, why the hell were they trying so hard to kill him?

  I don’t know whether we should surrender or attack, he said silently to Ishek.

  Our mission is to find Pathfinder. If these soldiers are from the ship, then your mission is complete. However, based on the violence with which they hit the shelter, I do not believe they will accept your surrender. It may be because of me they believe you are a threat and not someone they should negotiate with.

  I can’t prove they’re from Pathfinder. It just seems that way based on their gear. But you’re probably right about negotiation. They could have surrounded us and forced us out of the shelter. They probably thought the bomb would be enough to kill us in our sleep.

  Which wasn’t very nice.

  No, it definitely wasn’t.

  Caleb…I—

  Don’t even think about it.

  But I hunnggerrrr.

  Forget it, Ish. I’m going to disable them and get them to talk.

  Injury creates more fear than death. Especially when the vulture is circling.

  I hate when you say that.

  I know.

  Ishek’s chuckle lingered in his mind as he shifted forward, bringing himself to a crouch beside the tent as the lead soldier reached the battered shelter, his rifle trained on it. Two others pushed into the vines on the other side of it, the other two remaining further back in defensive positions. They would be the most challenging part of what came next.

  Ish, power me up.

  You’ve asked for that a lot lately. You risk burning out.

  Now isn’t the time to argue.

  Caleb felt the tingle run through his body as Ishek forced him to produce more adrenaline, adding his own mix of sense-enhancing chemicals to the mix. Breathing in deeply, Caleb made his plan and set himself, preparing to spring into action.

  The two soldiers circling around to the other side of the tent paused at the front next to where it was lodged against the barrel-belly.

  “The flap’s open,” he heard, picking up the speaker’s voice, tinged with a bit of a British accent, through the leader’s internal helmet speaker. These soldiers had to be from Pathfinder. But if so, why would they be so intent on killing him? He was on their side. Hell, he had come to help them.

  “The creature survived?” one of the other soldiers commented.

  Creature? Do they mean me?

  Ishek sounded offended.

  What if they mean me? Caleb replied.

  One of the two at the flap, a woman, leaned forward, pushing it open with the muzzle of her rifle while activating a spotlight on her armor. Knowing they would be more alert as soon as they realized he was missing, Caleb made his move.

  He continued around the tent, finding the leader about to follow the others around the other side of the tent. With the man facing away from him, he had surprise and his knowledge of his opponent’s armor as an advantage. He rushed forward, a quick flick of his wrist slicing the claws of one club through the connector linking the leader’s helmet to his armor. With the other, he pulled the magnetic attachment to the man’s power pack free of his armor.

  Just as he attempted to turn around, Caleb kicked him in the back of his right knee, bringing him down on the other one. He dropped both clubs and ripped the man’s helmet off. A kick to his temple laid him out, unconscious.

  The two on the other side of the tent whirled around and leveled their rifles at him. Caleb ducked to snatch up his clubs as they fired their rounds passing over his head.

  He whirled, ruining their aim again as he swung both clubs, not only knocking their rifles out of their hands but managing to damage the encasements and the delicate rails inside. He could see the female’s wide eyes behind her faceplate as she froze, knowing her gun would likely blow up in her face.

  Yesssss.

  The other soldier fired. His gun sparked and smoked an instant before it exploded. He cried out when it blew his hand off and sent a jagged piece of the casing through his faceplate and straight into an eye to penetrate his brain. Caleb tossed his clubs down. Before the dead man hit the ground and the woman could move out of his way, he had her wrapped up in his arms, his left around her throat, the other one across her torso, bringing her back tight to his chest. He held her there, knowing her last two comrades, one now on each side of them, couldn’t get a clean shot at him. One of them tried anyway, the slug whizzing past his head.

  That was a little too close for comfort.

  Caleb reached up and removed her helmet. Her eyes were on fire as she glared back over her shoulder at him, confirming once and for all that he was fighting other humans. His people.

  “I’m not your enemy,” he ground out, his face near her ear. “Why are you people fighting me?” he asked, looking back and forth between the two men, their rifles still aimed at him.

  “Demon bastard,” she assailed, struggling to free herself. When that didn’t work to her advantage, she tried dropping through his hold. With his superior size and grip, Caleb held onto her. She finally gave up the fight, turned her head toward each of the two shooters and gave one distinct jerk of her head.

  Cal—

  Ishek’s warning came too late. The shooters did what Caleb considered the unthinkable. They opened fire, their rounds passing through the woman’s armor and into her body. He dropped her dead weight, bullets chasing him from both sides as he dove for the man closest to him, the one between him and the tree line. All but one of their bullets missed him, the round punching through his armor’s overlay. His underlay stopped it short of biting into his shoulder. The rest of the slugs dug into the ground around him as he rolled onto his feet and went for his target. The other man stopped firing at Caleb then, either out of ammo or afraid he’d hit his own man.

  Cal grabbed the rifle from the hands of the man in front of him and twisted it out of his hands, bashing his faceplate in with the stock. Blood splattered inside his helmet, his nose breaking as he dropped to the ground, clutching his shattered faceplate.

  Hearing the man behind him run toward him, Caleb ducked low, the man’s rifle swinging by his head in a near miss. Turning, Caleb swung his captured rifle into the man’s knee, right at the soft spot between the armor plates,hoping to break the man’s kneecap. He figured he’d done just that when the soldier screamed and dropped to the clearing floor. Caleb dropped the rifle and pounced on his back, quickly wrapping an arm around his throat in a tight chokehold. He didn’t let go until the man stopped struggling, unconscious from oxygen deprivation.

  Three down, two to go. The fear is so tasty.

  Ishek was giddy on the terror. Breathing heavily, Caleb was anything but. He couldn’t make sense as to why these people were willing to kill one another just to kill him, while he didn’t want to hurt them at all.

  At this point, he wasn’t sure he had a choice. They’d taken Ham, hopefully to protect him. But what would they do when he told them that his captain was a comrade, not a slave to a khoron? Would they kill him too? Had they killed him already?

  Caleb rose to his feet.

  “Die, demon.”

  The voice came from behind him. He went absolutely still and then slowly raised his hands, slowly turning around to face the two men standing there, rifles trained on him. One was the rear guard, the other the last man that had gone around to the open tent flap.

  “You really don’t want to kill me. Believe it or not, I am your only hope.”

  The soldier laughed. “Not likely. You’re about to die, demon.”

  “You killed your fellow soldier to get to me. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  These soldiers are from Pathfinder, it’s been over a hundred years since they passed through the wormhole. Who knows what might have happened to change them?

  When the man who’d spoken to him seemed to hesitate, the other spoke. “Quit palavering with the asshole, Larkin! Kill him!”

  Still, he hesitated.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” The other soldier stepped around the one he’d called Larkin and once again raised his rifle.

  There are only two options remaining.

  Ishek was right. And he didn’t like either option. Run away, or be prepared to kill. He chose the only option he could accept. He dove behind the tent, bullets whizzing past the side of the tent. If he’d continued to stand there, they would have dug into his armor instead of blazing past into the jungle.

  The gunfire stopped, offering a welcome lull in the action. However, Caleb was aware he was running out of time. Ishek’s boost was fading, and neither soldier he’d knocked out would stay that way forever. There was also a strong possibility the two still standing had called for backup.

  He made up his mind, his final decision only possible because of his bond to Ishek. Circling the tent, he locked eyes on the leader’s discarded rifle. There was no guarantee he would survive the next ten seconds. But if anything happened to Ham and he didn’t fight like hell to help him, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself anyway.

  He threw himself out from cover, diving toward the downed soldier and his rifle. The two soldiers immediately spotted him, turning to open fire. Obviously trying not to hit their commander, their carefully placed slugs chewed up the dirt around him. He scooped up the gun and dove onto his stomach, rolling the leader on his side for cover in front of him. Rounds whistled over his head, and he shot back, knowing exactly where to aim. He needed only a dozen rounds to silence the two remaining soldiers for good.

  With the area clear, he lowered his rifle, more saddened than satisfied by the outcome. He had no problem killing Relyeh. This was different. Only their eagerness to kill him, their willingness to kill one another to do it, had freed his conscience to do the otherwise unconscionable.

  He kept the rifle, maglocking it to his back before returning to the squad leader, picking up his helmet and seizing him by a plate on his armored shoulder. He dragged him to the tree and left him, returning to the other surviving soldier to bring him over, too. When he arrived, the man’s eyes were open, looking up at Caleb.

  “Demon bastard,” he said. “You’ll get nothing from me.”

  Before Caleb could respond, the man bit down on something in his mouth. He began choking, foam bubbling from his mouth as he toppled over and died.

  Well, that was unexpected.

  Caleb stared down at the man, realizing he needed to get back to the leader to stop him from committing suicide, too. Rushing the short distance back to the tree, he froze when he reached the man.

  He was already too late.

  CHAPTER 24

  Caleb stared at the dead soldier, shocked and confused. Shooting the woman soldier to get to him had been one thing. Killing themselves to prevent him from questioning them reached a whole other level. The soldiers had made it painfully clear they considered him an enemy. A demon bastard, as one of them put it. Because of Ishek? Or for another reason?

  He had no way to know, because none of them had been willing to listen to reason. They had refused to see him as anything other than an evil being, with such intensity that it almost left him feeling like he really was evil. If the squad’s actions had told him anything else, it was likely reinforcements were already on the way, called in the moment they had realized he wasn’t in the shelter. He didn’t know how long it might take for them to arrive. A few minutes at least. He didn’t want to waste a second lingering around here.

  First, he claimed the dead commander’s sidearm—a conventional firearm with a fifteen round magazine and a rounded, futuristic frame. He stuck it to his hip before returning to the commander’s battery pack, discarded on the jungle floor. He quickly turned it over and laid down with his back to it, trying to lock it into place on his armor. The connectors weren’t the same style, their location a hair different, making the pack unusable with his armor. As much as he wanted power for his SCACS, he wanted the overlay’s protection even more. It had saved him from severe injury or death a couple of times already.

  Moving on from the commander to the two shooters, a quick search uncovered a replacement battery and two extra magazines for the railgun he had picked up. One of the soldiers also carried a knife, which he was happy to snap to his left thigh, opposite the sidearm. Re-armed, he began searching for the mule.

  Caught in the initial blast, it had been thrown into the vines nearly twenty meters away, all four legs either twisted out of alignment or completely sheared off. Its featureless face was melted, but at least the hardened pack was still sealed and intact. He opened it to retrieve only the greatest necessities—a full water pouch and a handful of MREs. He would miss having the comfortable shelter at night, but having discovered there were humans on the planet, he held out hope he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life living in the jungle.

  Finishing up at the site within a couple of minutes, he headed in the direction from which it seemed the soldiers had approached, picking carefully through the thicket, the fire having died out enough for the darkness to creep back in. Arriving so quickly, there was no way the soldiers could have been on foot. They had to have a ride around her somewhere, but it might be camouflage. Difficult to locate.

  He had to try.

  It was clear from the attack that the enemy wouldn’t allow him anytime to rest, especially now that he’d inadvertently killed an entire squad of their soldiers. It was going to be difficult for him to convince them he wasn’t a demon, even if he did carry a khoron in his armpit. Even so, he had to know what happened to Ham. He had to find him, no matter what. Once he found them, he would try again to talk to the people who had him. But if they still wouldn’t listen…

  All bets are off.

  “Exactly,” Caleb agreed. He paused, a thought slipping into his mind. “It’s a good thing the soldiers didn’t hit us with that disruption attack a second time.”

  Yes. It is…fortunate.

  Ishek’s hesitation and tense mental tone didn’t sit well with Caleb. “They did hit us with it, didn’t they?”

  Before I respond, consider that we would be dead right now otherwise.

  Caleb winced in response to the admission. “Who did you sync with?”

  I’m uncertain. A powerful Relyeh, for sure. But not an ancient. She asked me who I was because she didn’t know me. I didn’t reply. I only needed a few seconds. And I proved my theory correct.

  “Great. I feel so much better about it now. At least your theory is correct, and will remain correct when the enemy horde comes looking for us.”

  I did what I had to do to save our lives. You could at least show a modicum of appreciation.

  “You’re right,” Caleb agreed. “For now, you kept us standing. We can worry about the consequences later.”

  He continued backtracking through the jungle, his eyes steadily adjusting to the lack of ambient light. Ishek helped him out, too, somehow altering his chemical composition to slightly improve his night vision, which in turn enabled him to move faster through the jungle. Ten minutes and nearly a full kilometer later, he came upon a corridor cleared of the jungle’s vegetation. Nearly twice as wide as the path he had chased Ham’s abductor along, it stretched in both directions, running perpendicular to the nearby mountains. Jogging along it, it didn’t take him long to spot the soldiers’ transportation.

  The hovercraft rested with its undercarriage on the ground. A simple armored rectangular shape from the rear, a sealed hatch occupied most of the vehicle’s backside, while a weapon’s turret that was either remote controlled or automated was visible on top. Though Caleb didn’t believe anyone had remained on board, he carefully approached the vehicle by leaving the road and sneaking up on it from the flank. The roundabout approach through the jungle took him longer than coming at the vehicle head on, but it allowed him to locate the forward boarding hatch, hidden from the front by the gun turret and to get a better look at the viewports along the vehicle’s side.

  Anti-gravity technology had just been invented at the time of the Relyeh invasion of Earth. The first models of hoverbikes were being released, and the military had started placing orders for combat vehicles that could essentially ignore minefields and IEDs planted in the dirt. It might have been a pretty exciting time for the planet, technology-wise, if things hadn’t gone completely sideways. As it was, in the years of war that followed, only a small number of hovercraft had ever been produced. He was certain this one had to be from that era.

  The head of a bulldog had been freshly painted on the front quarter panel of the APC, above a faded Union Jack. An identifier that confirmed it had come from Pathfinder was nearly scratched off beneath the flag. The iconography left Caleb excited, confused, and saddened. He was so close to finding the missing generation ship that he was looking at one of the vehicles loaded onto the ship back on Earth over two centuries earlier. At the same time, he feared the condition he would find the colony in.

  Returning the railgun to his back, he drew the sidearm he had lifted from the squad leader. He didn’t think anyone was still on board the APC, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Avoiding the viewports, he boarded the vehicle at the stern, advancing between the blowers to the forward hatch, where he opened a small panel beside the hatch to reveal the manual entry pad. Since the APC had come from Pathfinder, it was most likely running the same operating system as the military gear built for the other generation ships.

  Which meant he knew the passcode.

  He typed it in, positioning himself to swing his pistol into the hatch as soon as it began to move aside. Rushing into the vehicle, he quickly swung around to check and confirm that the back storage area was clear before heading forward through the empty seating in the main bay to the driver’s compartment. He found it empty as well. Returning the pistol to his side, he pulled the railgun from his back and set it down on the floor before sitting in the driver’s seat and flipping the power on. The display in front of him and the screen to the right of the yoke immediately came to life. Night vision cameras feeding the display allowed him to see much further along the road, both forward and aft, leaving him only mildly surprised when he spotted a second APC approaching from the rear.