"Out into that?" Nicholas asked, freezing at the dead hatch leading to the reactor. “Sheriff, are you insane?”

  “The ship’s dead, Nick. Waiting in here for those Relyeh to open this ship up like a sardine can is even more insane.” Hayden looked to where Preslan was already disconnecting the resonator from its housing, making it portable once more. "That still have charge?"

  "Internal battery should give us a few activations, even at full power,” Preslan replied, securing the unit's carrying harness to her chest. Hayden noticed her movements had a slight hesitation. Even she recognized the near futility of what they were about to attempt. “Without the ship's transmission array to amplify it, the range is maybe ten meters. Twenty at most."

  "Better than nothing."

  “Observation,” Max said. “While a point-zero-zero-zero-zero-one chance is still technically better than nothing, it is not by much. Hahahahaha. Hahaha. Haha.”

  The scraping overhead intensified, the Relyeh trying to slice their way through Foresight’s hardened shell, one claw swipe at a time. With the numbers they had to do the job, it wouldn't take them long to find a way in.

  "Lower deck, now," Hayden ordered.

  They moved quickly through Foresight's tilted interior, using the ladder more like a rope than stairs due to the ship's angle. Every sound from outside was amplified in the dead ship—scratching, tearing, and the wet slap of flesh against metal.

  The lower deck's equipment lockers had spilled their contents across the floor. EV helmets had rolled loose, along with medical supplies, ammunition, and weapons. Hayden grabbed one of the helmets, checking its seals before locking it into place on his armor's collar. His next breath came through the gear, no longer using the dwindling air that remained in Foresight. The others did the same, movements quick but not panicked. They'd all been through enough already to know that panic killed faster than any enemy.

  Through the helmet's visor, everything took on a slightly distorted quality. The emergency lighting became sharper, more defined, as the helmet's systems compensated for the low light. His breathing echoed in the enclosed space, a rhythmic reminder that at least the suit systems still functioned.

  Max approached the ramp controls, his head tilted at a peculiar angle. “Observation," he said. "Ramp mechanism shows significant damage. Manual override will be required. Observation. Vibrations through hull plating indicate approximately five hundred hostile organisms in immediate vicinity. Recommendation. Remain inside the armored shell. Hahahaha. Hahaha. Haha."

  "No alternatives, Max," Hayden said. "Get that ramp open."

  Max moved to the manual release, his synthetic hands gripping the emergency lever. Even with his enhanced strength, the mechanism resisted. Metal groaned in protest, damaged either from their violent landing or the creatures' assault on the hull. The ramp shuddered, dropped two inches, then stuck.

  Instantly, black claws thrust through the gap, scraping at the edges, trying to widen the opening. The sound was horrific—organic matter against metal, desperate and hungry. Hayden fired through the tiny gap, quickly emptying both revolvers, rewarded with hisses and screams as trife were blown apart, the claws vanishing from the opening momentarily.

  "Applying additional force," Max announced, adjusting his grip. He pulled harder. Something snapped inside the mechanism with a sound like breaking bone. The ramp dropped another foot, then jammed again.

  Now the gap was wide enough for the smaller trife to start forcing their way through. The first one's head appeared, jaw unhinging to reveal rows of teeth. Its body was wrong—elongated, joints bending in directions that violated anatomy, skin black and slick with some viscous coating.

  Nicholas's rifle spoke, a burst of energy that vaporized the creature's head. But two more were already pushing through, and behind them, dozens more pressed forward, a wall of writhing black flesh.

  Hayden had already reloaded, and he opened up again. Each shaped charge found its mark, detonating inside bodies and sending sprays of ichor across the deck. The trife behind the corpses pulled them out with abandon, clawing at one another to be the next to try to enter, only to become the next to die as Casey and Natalia joined the defense.

  "Max, get it all the way open!" Hayden shouted over the weapons fire. "We can't fight them through a bottleneck!"

  "Attempting compliance." Max gripped the mechanism with both hands and pulled with all his synthetic strength. The ramp shrieked in protest but began to descend. As it did, trife poured through the widening gap like water through a broken dam.

  The compartment became a killing field. Hayden's revolvers thundered, Max fired energy beams from his fists, and everyone else poured plasma bolts into the oncoming wave of horror. But they kept coming. Wave after wave of black bodies, climbing over their dead, pressing forward with mindless hunger. Hayden saw larger shapes moving behind them—xaxkluth with their writhing tentacles, mingling with hellions too large to squeeze into the ship.

  “I’m out!” Casey announced, picking up a fresh cell that had spilled onto the deck during the landing to replace her spent charge. She slapped it into place and resumed firing, but the brief pause had allowed the trife to get just that much closer.

  “Out!” Natalia cried, at the same time Nicholas called the same. Hayden fired the last round from each revolver, holstering one to reload the other, grabbing a speed loader from his bandolier and sliding the rounds home in less than a second. He repeated the process on the other side just as quickly.

  But the damage was done. The reloads cost them precious seconds, and Hayden had to kick out to push back a trife angling for Preslan, sending it tumbling into the demons behind it. They hissed and tossed it aside, desperate to reach the crew.

  “I knew the odds were bad,” Nicholas said. “But I thought we’d at least make it out of the ship.”

  Max stopped firing energy beams, his hand changing shape, becoming a blade that sliced into multiple trife. A pair of them lunged at Preslan, grabbing for the resonator. Hayden holstered a revolver and drew his microspear, cutting one down as Preslan punched the other, so hard she snapped its neck.

  There was no time to admire her strength. So many more trife were pouring onto the ship, and a xaxkluth was right behind them, its tentacles already stretching overhead into Foresight to reach them.

  "We're being overrun!" Nicholas shouted.

  Then, suddenly, every creature in sight was thrown backward.

  The force was tremendous, like an invisible hand sweeping across the battlefield. Every visible Relyeh both inside and outside the ship were sent sprawling. The entrance was clear, leaving only twitching corpses and spreading pools of ichor.

  "What the hell was that?" Casey asked, but Hayden was already moving.

  “If we’re lucky, it was the cavalry!” he replied. “Everyone out!"

  They charged down the ramp into whatever nightmare awaited outside. Hayden's boots hit the organic surface with a wet squelch. The flesh beneath gave slightly, like stepping on a massive tongue. The "ground" was ridged with what might have been veins or neural pathways, each one thick as a person's leg and pulsing with bioluminescent fluid that created a sickly green glow beneath the translucent surface membrane.

  The darkness was absolute beyond the small sphere of their helmet lights. But those beams revealed trife recovering from whatever had thrown them back, already turning toward the new targets. Behind them, larger shapes moved in the black.

  Weapons fire erupted from their left, plasma bolts and energy beams creating strobing illumination that turned the battlefield into a nightmare slideshow. Through the chaos, Hayden caught sight of familiar figures. As he’d hoped, Caleb and his team had found them and formed a defensive line a short distance away, their weapons firing continuously as they held back another wave of creatures. Penn's rifle swept left to right in controlled bursts, each shot dropping a target. Ham stood beside her, his grenade launcher reporting in deep thunks that sent explosive charges into the midst of the enemy, vaporizing clusters of demons with each discharge. Haruka fired with a more leisurely but equally deadly pace, picking off hellions as they tried to flank the position.

  "Sheriff!" Caleb's voice crackled through the helmet comm. “I’m glad we got here in time!”

  Before Hayden could respond, he spotted shapes dropping from the darkness above. The Rejects landed around them with unapologetic cool, their boots splashing in the organic muck that wept from Shub'Nigu's pores. Queenie came down first, a long blade in each hand. Gant hit next, his claws already extended, his small form coiled like a spring. The furry alien's ears were flat against his skull, his lips pulled back in a snarl. Benhil and Pik flanked them, the massive Trover's mechanical hand shaped into a powerful fist. Olus landed last, his rifle tracking smoothly across potential targets.

  "Imp's providing cover," Queenie said, and Hayden looked up to see Faust sweep in low overhead, its weapons firing into the attacking demons. The ship's belly guns swiveled independently, each one tracking different targets. "Figured you could use the help."

  "Appreciated," Hayden said.

  “I voted to stay safe on the Faust instead of jumping down into this insanity, but I was outvoted,” Benhil said.

  “Wait!” Pik said. “Since when do we get votes?”

  “You don’t,” Queenie snapped back. “Now get to work.”

  Pik grinned widely. “With pleasure, boss.”

  The Trover charged toward the nearest enemies with reckless abandon.

  Within moments, the battle turned immediate and brutal. Hayden's revolvers thundered, the shaped charge taking a trife in the chest, blowing it backward into two more. Through the strobing weapons fire, he caught glimpses of the Rejects engaging all around him. Queenie flowed past his right side, her blades leaving arcs of ichor in the air. A trife tried to grab her from behind, but she spun without looking, driving both blades backward through its torso, already moving before it fell.

  Gant darted between Hayden's legs, his claws raking deep grooves in a creature Hayden hadn't even seen approaching his blind spot. The furry alien bounded up onto a trife's shoulders, claws finding its eyes, then launched himself at another target, leaving the blinded creature to stumble into Casey's line of fire. Her plasma rifle whined, the energy bolt punching through its skull and continuing on to catch another trife in the shoulder, spinning it into the path of Nicholas's rifle burst.

  A massive impact to Hayden's left. Pik had grabbed a smaller xaxkluth by two of its tentacles. "It’s fragging time!" the Trover roared, muscles bunching as he pulled. The tentacles tore free with a sound like ripping wet canvas. The xaxkluth's remaining tentacles whipped toward Pik, but his mechanical hand was already coming down like a sledgehammer, crushing its central mass with such force that gore splattered across Shub’Nigu’s dark surface.

  Movement above, but there was no time to look. Hayden fired blind, trusting instinct. A hellion crashed down where he'd been standing, his shot having knocked it off trajectory. It rolled to its feet, golden eyes blazing, but Benhil's rifle caught it in the side of the head before it could lunge.

  Max swept past, his arm shaped into a shield that it used to bulldoze through a cluster of trife. "Observation," he said with unnatural calm while bisecting another creature with the shield's edge. "Enemy reinforcements approaching from multiple vectors. Current defensive position untenable." The metal plate swung in a devastating arc, taking the legs from another trife. "Recommendation. Tactical withdrawal advisable."

  “Withdraw to where?” Hayden growled, reloading as Max protected him.

  “Recommendation. Tahiti. Hahahaha. Hahaha. Haha.”

  A hellion burst through the mass of creatures, bounding over corpses with horrifying agility. Its path would take it straight to Natalia, who was tracking a different threat. Hayden swung both revolvers, leading the target. The first shaped charge caught it center mass, blowing a hole through its torso. It stumbled but kept coming. His second shot found its head, the charge detonating inside its skull. The creature's momentum carried it forward three more steps before it finally collapsed, sliding to a stop at Natalia's feet. She glanced down, then immediately returned to firing, dropping a trife that had been flanking Preslan.

  The pressure was building. Even with the help of Caleb and his team, and the Rejects, the sheer number of Relyeh was overwhelming. Hayden slammed another speedloader home, knowing he would run out of ammo soon. Through gaps in the combat, he saw the holes in Shub'Nigu's flesh dilating wider, disgorging more horrors. They were knocked off their feet as Caleb hit them with a telekinetic push from Iagorth’s moiety, buying them all another second of time.

  In a shitstorm like this, every second counted.

  As the newly arrived demons regained their feet, a sudden barrage of energy beams swept through the enemy from Hayden’s left in concentrated, coordinated fire that carved perfect lines through the mass of creatures. He glanced over his shoulders to confirm that the Cheni Intellects had arrived, hundreds of them advancing in perfect synchronization. Their weapons fired in controlled volleys, each burst calculated for maximum effect. Where chaos had reigned, suddenly there was a pattern, a rhythm of destruction that pushed the creatures back.

  Hayden watched as a xaxkluth's tentacle wrapped around one Intellect’s leg, yanking it off balance. The Intellect didn't cry out or show any sign of distress. It simply bent at an impossible angle, pressed its hand against the tentacle, and fired point-blank. The tentacle separated, and the Intellect returned to formation as if nothing had happened, ignoring the deep gouges the creature's teeth had left in its torso.

  More movement in his peripheral vision turned Hayden’s attention upward, just in time to see Inahri warriors falling through the pitch black, jump packs firing to slow their descent as they hit the surface. They landed firing, their weapons adding to the defenses. One touched down right beside Hayden, her rifle already tracking targets. Three trife rushed their position; her weapon thumped three times in rapid succession, each shot finding a skull. She offered him a quick grin before taking up position at his back, guarding his six.

  "We need to get deeper!" Hayden shouted into the comms. Through the strobing chaos, he spotted a cave mouth a hundred meters away. It was the nearest entrance, as good as any other. “Cave entrance a hundred meters ahead. Form up and follow me in!”

  “We’re here, Hayden,” Natalia replied, appearing on his flank with Preslan, still clutching the resonator, which appeared undamaged. Nicholas and Casey closed the gap between them on his other flank.

  “Right behind you, Sheriff,” Caleb answered. “Don’t wait up.”

  They pushed forward as a group, though in the darkness and confusion Hayden could only track most of the others by muzzle flashes and impacts. Gant bounced off his leg at one point, using him as a springboard to launch at a hellion, and he spotted Queenie and Pik putting the finishing moves on a larger xaxkluth.

  “Oh hell,” Benhil remarked over the comms, drawing Hayden’s attention toward the Reject. He had lowered his rifle slightly, pointing off to his left.

  Then Hayden felt the sharp vibrations, the surface rumbling beneath his feet. A massive tentacle erupted from the ground where Benhil was motioning, thick as a building and covered in eyes. It swept horizontally across the battlefield, covering hundreds of meters with one swing.

  “Down!” Hayden cried, grabbing Natalia as he threw himself flat, feeling the wind of its passage ruffle his duster. The rest of his team and the Rejects reacted quickly, avoiding the skyscraper-sized limb as it whipped past with unnatural speed.

  Many of the Intellects weren't so lucky. Dozens of them were crushed as the tentacle slapped the surface. Others had managed to grab on, and through the chaos he glimpsed them firing point-blank into the eyes until the tentacle pulled back.

  Hayden helped Natalia back to her feet. The battle continued to rage around them, but the cave lay just ahead, no longer spewing fresh demons into the fight. “This way!” he cried, urging them onward.

  "Through the creepy monster mouth?" Benhil said. “Shubbie’s the size of a fragging moon. How are we going to reach his quantum weenie before we all die?"

  "I don't know," Hayden admitted. "But we'd better figure it out fast."

  "That's the best plan I've ever heard!" Pik bellowed with typical enthusiasm.

  They covered the last twenty meters, reaching the entrance to the cave mouth. Hayden looked back at the hellscape where Intellects and Inahri were still locked in combat with too damn many Relyeh, visible only in strobing flashes of rifle fire.

  “I don’t remember any of this in our mission planning,” Benhil said, using the moment of relative safety to catch his breath.

  “Since when does anything we do go according to the mission planning?” Olus asked.

  “What do you say, Sheriff,” Queenie said. “Wanna go kill a world god?”

  “Pozz,” Hayden replied. “Cal, you coming?”

  As he asked, Caleb and his team materialized out of the darkness at a sprint, heading deeper into the cave. Orin was in the lead, bounding along on all fours.

  “Last one in is mega-xaxkluth food!” he announced. “It is true!”

  Hayden didn’t look for the source of the Jiba’ki’s concern. He and the others took Orin’s advice at face value, turning and joining them in their sprint down one of Shub’Nigu’s many throats.

  Into the belly of the beast.

  CHAPTER 19

  The combined forces sprinted deeper into the cave, their boots splashing through puddles of viscous fluid that had collected in the uneven floor. Hayden glanced back over his shoulder, catching the silhouette of the nightmare pursuing them. A xaxkluth like Orin had said, but far larger than any he’d ever seen before. It squeezed its bulk through the cave entrance. Its tentacles, each as thick as a bus, stretched forward, grasping for the fleeing group. The tips came within meters of the rearmost Inahri warrior before the cave's dimensions forced the creature to slow its advance.