“I mean. Yeah, I’m good at that part of it. The fighting, I mean. But. Well. I…” She trailed off. Her face was pale and tears began to form at the base of her eyes. “You integrated me into your unit. I’m not one of your Vultures.”

  “You are now,” Caleb said, unsure of the source of her distress. “You’ve earned your place, even if you came in because other Marines died.”

  “A lot of other Marines. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve to be here. I don’t deserve to be alive.”

  “What does deserving have to do with it? I’ve seen more than my share of people who deserved a lot better fate drop dead from the trife virus or have their face ripped off by their claws. Just look at Washington. Do you think he deserved his injuries?”

  Flores glanced at Washington. “He seems like a really good guy on top of being a badass Marine. I’m not good, Sarge.”

  “What is this about, Mariana?” Caleb asked. “Something that happened on Earth, right?”

  She nodded.

  “If you want to confess, then confess. But either way, I’ll tell you that whatever happened on Earth happened on Earth. It’s literally ancient history. Who you are here and now, how you handle yourself in this place, that’s what defines you in my book.”

  She met his eyes again, her lips trembling. She swallowed hard.

  “I was in Chicago during the Bear Offensive,” she said. “Assigned to the Forty-First.”

  Caleb had heard of the Bear Offensive, though he had been working a search and rescue mission in Houston at the time. It was one of the largest assaults on the trife the military had attempted.

  It had ended in complete failure.

  “Not many people got out of Chicago,” he said.

  “No. It was insane, Sarge. Intelligence estimated the trife population at four thousand. They sent ten thousand of us into the city to eradicate them and find their nest. We were well-equipped; we were well-briefed. We were so ready to burn all of those assholes.” She paused, shaking her head. “Except intelligence got it wrong. Big surprise, right? There weren’t four thousand trife. There were forty-thousand. We were outnumbered from the start. Overwhelmed. We fought. We fought damn hard. We even managed to push the buggers back toward the lake. But that was mistake number two.”

  “Trife hate water.”

  “They’re okay with rain, but they don’t like to be submerged. We blew the river crossings on the way out and cut their numbers by two-thirds. It didn’t matter by then. Pushing them back caused them to ricochet hard. I can still see them in my head. A slick of trife a thousand thick rolling down the street toward my squad. Air cover sinking rockets into them and blowing away dozens at a clip. But they kept coming like it was nothing.” She paused again, getting to the meaty part of her story.

  “What happened?” Caleb asked.

  “I had two options. Sacrifice myself to slow the advance and save two hundred fellow Marines or break orders and run. I’ll let you guess which option I picked.”

  The tears were streaming from her eyes, the pain of her failure hanging heavy between them. Caleb stared at her, struggling not to lose his respect for the warrior he had seen. It was as awful a mistake as any Marine could make. One that under different circumstances, he would never be able to forgive.

  But she didn’t have to tell him, and it wasn’t fair for him to say the past was dead if he wasn’t going to let it be. She wanted his forgiveness. His absolution from her failure. She’d probably beaten herself up over it a thousand times already.

  “You already know you screwed up,” he said, putting his human hand on one of hers. “You feel it deep in your soul. The remorse. The embarrassment. The worthlessness.” His words only made her tears come quicker, but that was okay. “I can’t fix that for you. What I can tell you is that isn’t the Private Mariana Flores sitting across from me. You’ve been ready to sacrifice yourself for us multiple times, without hesitation. You made that mistake once. I’m confident you won’t make it again.”

  She nodded gently. “That’s right. I won’t. But you know what bothers me about that, Sarge?”

  “What?”

  “Is the reason I won’t because I’ve changed, or is it because I know I’m already dying?” She smiled sadly, putting her hand to her chest, right on top of the poison. “But you already know, don’t you?”

  “Yes. The stuff that David gave you seems to have side-effects. Doctor Rathbone said it was poison she wasn’t able to treat.”

  “When Governor Stone grabbed me and dragged me up on that stage, it brought back the memory of what I had done. The fear was the same. The desire to run. At the same time, I figured I was getting what I deserved. I always assumed that’s how it worked. Then I passed out, and when I woke up, you and the big lug were there. Now that the stim’s worn off completely, I can feel it like a throbbing burn between my breasts. I don’t know how I know it’s killing me, but I know it’s killing me.”

  “Riley created it. She may be able to fix it.”

  “Riley? Thanks, but no thanks, Sarge. Even if we find her, I’m not letting that psychopath near me. I’d rather die.”

  “Ultimately, that’s not your decision to make. I need you.”

  Flores smiled. “That’s sweet, Sarge. Thanks for the pep talk. I won’t lie and say I feel better because of it, but I do feel a weight lifted because I told you. I promise I won’t let you down.”

  “I know you won’t.”

  “I’m going to try to get a little sleep. You should too.”

  “Somebody has to keep an eye on our strange bedfellow.”

  “You know, it can probably hear everything we just said.”

  “Probably.”

  “Glorified C-3PO. That’s all it is.”

  Caleb smiled. “Agreed.”

  Flores wiped her tears and then closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the chair. Caleb stood and turned back toward the front. It was just him and the alien intelligence.

  Something slammed into the ADC.

  Chapter 34

  The impact threw Caleb sideways, his feet leaving the ground and his body falling past the nearest seat into the row of displays against the bulkhead. His replacement arm hit one of the displays, the glass beneath it cracking and sparking. He bounced off and grabbed a chair with his other hand to regain his balance.

  Washington and Flores were equally affected, the surprise violent motion sending them tumbling from their chairs. They hit the pilot stations and then the floor, coming to rest on their hands and knees in a sudden panic.

  “What the hell?” Caleb shouted, charging to the front of the ADC. “Hal?”

  The ADC had come to a total stop. The intelligence was standing, its hands off the dashboard. It turned to look at him at the same time the ADC shook again.

  The impact was less violent this time, but still enough to throw Caleb sideways. He held tight to the pilot’s chair, leaning down to look outside.

  “Do not be alarmed, Sarge,” Hal said.

  “Don’t be alarmed? What’s going on?” The ADC shook a third time, and Caleb thought he heard something bounce off its armored top.

  “This should interest you,” it replied. “Open the back.”

  “I’m not opening the back.”

  “You will miss it.”

  “Miss what?”

  “Open the back.”

  Caleb hurried to the back of the ADC, tapping the control to lower the rear hatch. It clunked and began rotating away from the vehicle, a soft rumbling entering the vehicle.

  “What are you doing?” Flores asked.

  Caleb wasn’t sure. For all he knew, Hal was causing them to hallucinate and would convince him to walk away from the ADC and get lost in the jungle. But what good would that do the AI now? It claimed it required their help. It had made it clear that it was willing to follow his orders to get it.

  For now, anyway.

  The door continued to descend. It was halfway down when something large and blue charged across his field of view next to it.

  “What was that?” Flores said.

  Caleb advanced, leaning his head out and looking to the right.

  A guttural reverberation caused him to duck back into the ADC, right before another blue creature charged past, giving him a good look at the animal. Eight thick legs, rippled skin, a long neck and a broad head. It reminded him of a cross between a giraffe and an elephant. Or maybe two elephants. It thundered past, tearing through brush, vine and low-hanging branches to enlarge the hole the other creatures had already created.

  “Whoa!” Flores said, getting up and joining Caleb. Washington followed a moment later, as a third and fourth creature charged past.

  The ADC shook again. Caleb stuck his head out and looked up. One of the beasts had jumped onto the top of the vehicle, taking the high road to get past it. The creature jumped off on the other side, remaining with the herd.

  “You were seeking life forms,” Hal said. “This herd is too thick to pass through, so you might as well sit here and observe.”

  Caleb watched the creatures pass with a big smile on his face. Washington and Flores were equally awed, and they marveled as the herd continued its migration around them.

  “Where did they come from?” Flores asked. “I feel like I’m on Pandora.”

  They watched the creatures pass in fascination for another minute. It was incredible to see a new life form on a new world. So incredible that Caleb nearly forgot his training and the importance of situational awareness.

  “There was no migration path here before,” he realized as another of the beasts rumbled through. The ADC shook again, inadvertently struck by a passing creature. “And those things are big to be hanging out in a jungle.” He turned and looked back at Hal. “Don’t you think?”

  Hal’s outward expression was flat, but it froze as though Caleb had confused its programming. “Close the door,” it said.

  Caleb was already reaching for the toggle.

  Something dropped onto the ramp directly in front of him, flexing its legs to absorb the impact, and redirecting the energy to lunge at his arm. Claws scraped the metal, sending sparks along the surface and yanking him off-balance, pulling him from the hatch control.

  It was a xenotrife, but not a xenotrife they were familiar with. It was bigger, more muscular, and much uglier. Its thick black flesh seemed to be infused with the dark Axon alloy, almost randomly dispersed to form a partial exoskeleton.

  It moved fast, turning away from Caleb and slashing at Washington, who somehow managed to fall back out of its reach.

  Hal did…something to the trife. It hissed and came to a stop, its head swiveling toward the AI. The momentary freeze gave Caleb time to recover. He reached out and grabbed the trife in his replacement hand, squeezing its neck.

  It didn’t snap.

  Alloy apparently ran through the creature’s spine, making it able to withstand the crushing pressure. The trife seemed to break out of the trance Hal had put it in, twisting in Caleb’s grip and raking its claws across his chest.

  The claws dug into the combat armor, leaving deep scores. Caleb tossed it sideways out of the ADC, right before another of the large fleeing creatures knocked into the vehicle. Everyone inside scrambled to find purchase, while the trife regained its footing and bunched itself, lunging back at them.

  The roar of the MK-12 firing from inside the ADC was deafening. The rounds went in a straight line up from the trife’s abdomen to its head, finding spaces in the alloy and punching through.

  It fell dead in front of them.

  “Shit,” Caleb said. “Hal, get us out of here.”

  “We can’t move,” Hal replied. “We might be pushed into a position we can’t get out of.”

  “I think that already happened,” Flores said.

  Hal pivoted toward the front of the ADC, choosing not to argue.

  The trife were hunting the large blue creatures, and the large blue creatures were doing their best to escape. There were so many of the beasts. How many trife were behind them?

  And what kind of trife were these? Where had they come from? Had the scientists been right all along? Was this the source of the attack on Earth? Did that mean the Axon were responsible? Did it mean Hal was lying to them?

  Or did it mean the Relyeh were already here?

  “Wash, get suited up. Flores, grab your gear. Hal, belay your order.”

  The AI stopped and turned around. Washington and Flores were already moving to follow orders, even though Caleb was sure they didn’t understand them.

  “Sarge?” Hal asked.

  “We don’t know what else is out here, and we can’t let these trife go after the Deliverance. We need to make sure they stay with the herd, and if they don’t they follow us. Hal, what did you do to that one?”

  “I generated a waveform similar to the one I used to control the hybrid trife on your ship. It altered the unit’s processing, but it did not respond to commands.”

  “It slowed the thing down,” Caleb said. “Good enough for now. Can you use the ADC to amplify the signal?”

  “I may be able to modify a drone. But you will need to keep me clear while I work.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Chapter 35

  There was nothing safe about leaving the armored carcass of the drone carrier to modify one of the roof-mounted drones. While the passing of the eight-legged animals was becoming less dense, it meant the things chasing them were drawing nearer, and likely in higher numbers.

  Caleb couldn’t imagine such a mass exodus of the blue creatures taking place because of a handful of trife. He was operating under the assumption that there were hundreds of the demons tailing the animals, and he could picture them swarming one of the enormous creatures and pulling it down, similar to how ants would defend their colony from a larger predator.

  Only the blue beasts weren’t the predators. The animals were prey to the trife. For sport or food? It wasn’t immediately apparent, but the reason didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that the demons were on Essex in the first place.

  The Deliverance had spent two hundred thirty-six years crossing forty-two light years of space to escape the xenotrife. They had landed on a planet that already had its own problems with the things.

  It was as disheartening a truth as Caleb could imagine, and at the same time, it was his duty not to let that truth affect his performance as a Guardian and a Marine. Coming to this planet was a mistake centuries in the making. Command had given the people of the Deliverance the middle finger from day one. This wasn’t the story of a colony reaching a new world and settling in. This was a story of survival for the colony. Or death.

  But if he had proven anything for himself, it was that he was a survivor. And he was determined to make the colony survivors as well.

  They had closed the rear hatch into the ADC and were using the top hatch again for entry and exit. Caleb and Washington were perched beside the last drone launcher in the line, pressed tight against the folded wings of the machine and facing opposite directions. Their knees were planted for an easy pivot and their P-50s were raised, ready to fire.

  The stronger frame of the first trife suggested this version was more resistant to conventional ballistics, but the superheated gas of the plasma rifles would hopefully find the spaces around the thicker skin to do some damage. The downside was that they had a lot more rounds for the MK-12s than they did cells for the P-50s, which was going to limit their overall effectiveness over time.

  Hal was kneeling beside the drone. Caleb had offered it the drone repair kit, but it had declined. Instead, it had opened Sho’s palms as before, the metal tendrils reshaping themselves to act as a screwdriver and ratchet to remove the panel protecting the machine’s belly. It was currently working inside the guts of the drone, completely still as if its entire self had shifted to the task at hand.

  “Flores, anything?” Caleb asked. Flores was in the front of the ADC, monitoring the sensors.

  “Negative, Sarge. Between the giraffiphants and the cover, all I’ve got is a sea of red. The sensors weren’t calibrated for this environment.”

  “Understood, but keep trying to pick it apart and be ready to launch the drone.”

  “Roger.”

  Caleb swept the surroundings, watching his HUD mark the different items in his field of view. He had already cleared the giraffiphants as threats, and the ATCS already understood the trife as trife, despite the differences between Earth’s version and these. He made sure to look up too, at the branches high above them, in search of the demons. There had been no contact so far. If they were here, they were staying after their original target. But he knew how quickly things could change.

  “Hal, eta?” he asked.

  “Soon,” the AI replied curtly.

  Another giraffiphant raced past the ADC, its front-left foreleg clipping the corner. The force pushed the carrier slightly, and Caleb grabbed the drone’s wing for balance while the creature charged across the now-trampled foliage. The passing had left the area somewhat clear, giving him almost ten meters of clear line of sight between large trunks the animals couldn’t displace. It was the one benefit to their surprise crossing. He kept swiveling his head back and forth, waiting for the demons to arrive.

  He didn’t have to wait much longer. He heard a loud grumbling snort to his left and turned to see a giraffiphant emerge from the darkness, at least a dozen trife covering its back. They were clawing at its thick skin, trying to get through it, hissing loudly to one another.

  His HUD picked up movement behind the creature, a second group of trife trailing the beast. They were a short distance ahead of another giraffiphant, and he watched the marks on his HUD spread apart in a flanking maneuver, preparing to assault the creature.

  Caleb returned his attention to the first group of trife. He had a soft spot for animals, especially ones in a situation like this. He had to convince himself to hold his fire and not draw attention to the ADC. It wouldn’t help to save one more stricken giraffiphant if it led to the end of the Guardians.