The group resumed their run to the bridge. As they crossed it, Nicholas winced at the sight of Wash’s body, still slumped against the side of the crossing, his armor torn open, dried blood caking his cheeks. He noticed Caleb looking at the big man as well, a pained expression sliding across his face and quickly disappearing. The sergeant was too much of a professional to outwardly admit to the extent of his loss, but in that moment it was quite obvious how close he and Wash had been. And how much he wanted to stop and give the big man the proper burial he deserved. But like Nicholas, he knew they didn’t have a single second to spare.

  “Come on, everybody! Pick it up!” Caleb took Briar’s hand, pulling her along with him as he picked up speed.

  They reached the other side of the bridge before plasma bolts sizzled through the vegetation, forcing them to take cover. Nicholas pulled Yasmin behind a tree trunk, where they hunkered down and huddled close, plasma bolts zipping past or burying themselves in the tree, forcing them to hide their eyes from the flashes of energy and flying splinters.

  Max dumped Macey again, this time on the far side of a thorny bush, while Caleb and Briar ducked under the end of the bridge for protection.

  Maybe it was because of sheer emotional exhaustion, maybe it was because of anger over Gills’ death. Either way, Scott didn’t hide. Instead, he shouted as he charged toward the gunfire heading for the trees, daring the enemy troops to shoot solely at him. Plasma bolts whipped past him, melting leaves and twigs and singeing the side of his face, but he didn’t relent. Setting his rifle to stream, he returned fire as he ran. The superheated gas quickly lit the surrounding foliage on fire, and as smoke began billowing, Nicholas realized he had misjudged the teenager’s actions. He hadn’t mindlessly rushed forward. He had darted ahead to provide obfuscation, giving them a better chance to escape.

  Caleb and Briar were the first ones back on their feet, crouching as they moved laterally toward the spreading fire and smoke, Caleb making sure he didn’t move faster than Briar could handle.

  “You owe that kid a raise,” he shouted as they ran past Nicholas and Yasmin.

  “We aren’t paying him,” Nicholas said, pulling Yasmin out from behind the tree to follow in Caleb and Briar’s wake. “But we definitely owe him!”

  “Cooperation. We will cover you!” Max said, running up beside him, Dag on his heels. “Do not leave without us.”

  “We won’t!” Nicholas yelled without looking back.

  “I’m not a fan of that Max,” Macey said, catching up to them. “He’s dropped me on my arse twice in the last ten minutes. Some gentleman.”

  “Let’s go!” Nicholas said, ignoring her comments as the three of them joined Caleb, skirting the edge of the fire. He looked back to find that Max and Dag had disappeared, probably into the brush, and then followed the others into the unburned trees and foliage.

  Further ahead, Scott stepped out from behind a tree “How’s that for a distraction, Cap?” he asked, a sooty smile on his face, his singed cheek bright red.

  “Nice job, kid,” Caleb said, slapping him on the upper arm as he reached him.

  Shouts from the other side of the fire line told Nicholas that Dag and Max, with their enhanced AI speed, had circled around to attack the opposition from behind.

  They sprinted ahead, weaving in a tight single line through the trees. Although the tops of the Relyeh transports were visible through the trees where they’d landed in Foresight’s old LZ, no plasma bolts came at them.

  It had come down to a foot race. They were close to Caleb’s Foresight, but the Inahri were likely faster on foot than they were. It was all up to Max and Dag and how long the pair of AIs could keep the Inahri off their backs.

  They had to get to Foresight Two first.

  “Come on, we’re almost there.”

  “I’ll go on ahead and set up perimeter defense,” Caleb said. “Meet you there.” He squeezed Briar’s hand and gave her a small smile. “You can do this,” he told her.

  She nodded and released his hand. “Go!”

  He quickly disappeared into the undergrowth ahead, his combat armor allowing him to easily outrun the others, even though Nicholas pushed everybody harder.

  Seconds later, gunfire erupted ahead of them, somewhere between the Relyeh transports and their destination.

  “Cap, Sergeant Card says the Inahri are already at the site,” Scott said. “He’ll hold them off as long as he can.”

  Caleb’s single shots mixed with the scattered Inhahri plasma blasts. The shooting lasted for no more than five minutes, the Inahri fire dwindling as it quickly became apparent that Caleb was picking them off, one-by-one from whatever cover he had found, until the firing ceased.

  Nicholas and the others finally broke through the vegetation, entering the clearing where Foresight Two had landed. Lifeless Inhari littered the ground around it. Caleb was down on one knee at the bottom of the ship’s extended boarding ramp, rifle at the ready as he watched the perimeter for the appearance of more enemy troops.

  Plasma blasts suddenly whizzed in front of Nicholas and the others from the bushes off to their right, smacking into the starship’s port side. Caleb leaped off the boarding ramp and threw himself belly down in the dirt in front of it, waiting for a target to present itself.

  “Scott, Briar, Macey, on the ground!” Nicholas shouted, pointing to where Caleb was sprawled. All three rushed forward through the blasts, throwing themselves down in a line on either side of Caleb, while he and Yasmin ran beneath Foresight, dropping to their knees behind one of the landing skids, their pistols at the ready.

  “Wait till they show themselves!” Calab ordered, energy blasts continuing to emerge from the underbrush. Some struck the ground around the defenders, but most sparked harmlessly off the ship’s hull.

  Beneath him, Nicholas suddenly felt the ground tremble. What the hell? He stopped firing, watching the few clumps of tall grass in the clearing shake in response.

  Max and Dag ran through the treeline into the clearing, plasma blasts striking them. Like Foresight Two, the bolts did nothing but spark off their black alloy in a vibrant fireworks-like display.

  “Evacuation. Hahahaha. Haha—”

  Max’s laughter went mute as the ground exploded under his feet. The plasma blasts ceased as an alien tentacle twice the height of a human burst from a newly chewed tunnel. It wrapped itself around the Intellect, the open mouth of the beast it belonged to appearing and angling in to swallow Max whole. A separate tentacle emerged to wrap around Dag, holding the smaller bot tight despite his struggles to get free.

  “Scott!” Nicholas shouted. The kid looked back at him. When he waved the microspear, Scott nodded his understanding, leaped up, and raced to grab the spear from him.. “Don’t let it grab you!” Nicholas shouted after him.

  “Copy that!” Scott shouted back over his shoulder as he sprinted to where the alien and Max had fallen to the ground in a tussle. The Intellect’s blade hands had whacked off two of the creature’s tentacles, but two others were wrapped tightly around his torso and one was trying to tear off his right arm. Still another was slamming poor Dag over and over into the ground, while hundreds of the smaller squids began boiling from the tunnel. Caleb, Macey, and Briar opened fire on them.

  Nicholas pulled Yasmin up from her crouch behind the skid. “We have to get inside!”

  She nodded, running with him around the end of the ramp and up it. He pushed her through the hatch, sending her in the direction of the ladder leading up to engineering. He stopped to locate Scott, laying eyes on him just as the kid stabbed the microspear into one of the tentacles holding Max. The thing shrieked once, releasing both Max and Dag as it collapsed into a desiccated heap.

  “Appreciation,” Max said to Scott, his hands reshaping to let loose with two streams of blue energy. Like hosing water on a fire, he decimated the snapping little monsters, allowing the others on the ground behind them to cease fire and retreat to Foresight Two. “Go,” he told Scott. “You too, Dag.”

  The pair turned and ran for the ship. The squids suddenly quit boiling up through the hole as nearly a dozen Inarhi soldiers charged out of the forest and into the clearing, their plasma blasts sparking off both Max and Foresight Two.

  “Come on, Max!” Nicholas shouted as Scott and then Dag rushed up the ramp and into Foresight Two, enemy bolts still bouncing off the hull. Caleb crouched down beside him in the open hatch, the two of them holding the Inarhi back until the deck plate beneath his feet began to vibrate. Yasmin had started shunting power to the critical systems.

  He slapped the button to retract the ramp when Max was still ten yards from the ship. The Intellect leaped, landing on the retreating end of the ramp and racing up it into the ship’s hold.

  “Go!” Caleb shouted at Nicholas. “I’ve got this!”

  Nicholas nodded, leaving Caleb to batten the hatch once the ramp was inside. Max stayed as well, both he and Caleb firing unrelentingly through the open hatch until they could get it closed.

  Sprinting up the ladder into engineering, Nicholas found Yasmin still there, tapping on the terminal.

  “Tell me we have enough,” he shouted even as he ran forward toward the flight deck.

  “We have enough to power the shields for five minutes, fire one spine about a dozen times, and get into orbit.”

  “Good enough. Get to your seat.”

  Briar, Scott and Macey were strapping into their seats in the main compartment as he ran past them, heading for the flight deck. Dag had already crawled into his spot under Macey’s seat. Behind him, Jasmin dropped into a seat and began strapping in.

  Nicholas jumped into the pilot’s seat, the automated safety system locking him in place as he tapped furiously on the controls. The ship was in hibernation, not fully offline, and the feeds and other systems came online within a few seconds.

  Nicholas activated the ship’s comms. “All right, everybody, this is going to be a high G launch. Tighten up and hang on.”

  He didn’t wait for Caleb and Max to get up the ladder and strapped in. There was no time. Max and Dag could easily handle the G-forces, and in his combat armor, Caleb could take the higher Gs, while the armor also gave him the added strength to hang onto something.

  “Frank, patch me in to Jennifer.”

  The AI didn’t respond. Of course. “Dummy,” he chastised himself. This wasn’t his Foresight. The AI wasn’t Frank. It didn’t know who Jennifer was. Maybe Shepherd hadn’t even given it a nickname. “Foresight? Respond.”

  “Welcome, Captain Shepherd,” the system answered. “I am prepared to execute your directives.”

  Nicholas tapped on the command pad, bringing up the threat display. At the same time, he pushed power to the anti-gravity system, and the spaceship leaped off the ground like an eager racehorse, quickly gaining altitude. It took a moment for the neural network to reveal everything it picked up on sensors. When it did, it showed what looked like a swarm of angry crows chasing a lone hawk toward a massive condor lurking overhead.

  Koth. At the edge of Foresight Two’s sensor range. Waiting for his army of crows to kill the hawk.

  “Not today, asshole,” he whispered to himself, punching it, the Gs ramming them all back in their seats.

  Chapter 31

  As Foresight Two rocketed up and away from the planet’s surface, the threat projection remained crowded and intense, but a shift in Koth’s forces became immediately apparent. Nearly three-quarters of the alien starfighters broke off their engagement with Foresight One, making hard maneuvers to go after Foresight Two.

  “Foresight, scan for a secure comm channel, standard frequency,” Nicholas said as the ship punched into the cloud cover.

  “Confirmed. Channel located.”

  “Open channel.”

  “Channel open.”

  “Jennifer, do you copy?”

  “I copy, Captain Shepherd,” she replied. “I’m so glad to hear your voice. You’ve got a lot of bogies coming after you.”

  “I see them,” Nicholas said. “Where’s the Swarm?”

  “They docked with Foresight. I think they’re out of juice. What do we do now?”

  “Ultimately, we need to break free of the enemy forces and link up so we can transfer everyone back to Foresight. The power reserves on this one aren’t going to get us very far.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “To be determined. You’re doing a great job so far, Jen. What I need you to do right now is take advantage of the diversion. Hit as many of the enemy starfighters from behind as you can.”

  “Copy that.”

  Foresight Two broke through the undercast, its camera feeds all displaying enemy fighters closing in from every side. Damn, there were a lot of them. On the right flank, he spotted Foresight trailing some of the laggards, the spines lashing out and taking them from the fight. He would have been more excited by the quick win if they weren’t still vastly outnumbered.

  Even if they managed to get through the fighters, they would still have Koth’s mothership to deal with before they could reach orbit. The huge starship was visible high above, long and slender, like a pitch black cloud in the sky.

  Even so, he didn’t question his decision to use Foresight Two to make their escape. With so many Inahri soldiers landing and all of the starfighters to deal with, remaining on the ground would have been a guaranteed death sentence. At least up here, he didn’t have the soldiers to deal with and had taken some of the pressure of the air battle off Jennifer. Of course, in relieving some of the pressure on her, he had heaped a lot more on himself. He was responsible for both ships now and one mistake could get them all killed.

  On the other hand, he just might be the one element that could get them all out of this fight with their lives.

  Before the trife, he had participated in war games to test human pilots against AI. In simulations, the AI had taken it to some of the best pilots in the US military, winning ninety-eight percent of the engagements.

  The results changed when they switched to full-scale live maneuvers against AI piloted jets. AI had its benefits, but it simply didn’t possess the one human component to deal with the unpredictability of real-world conditions. Human pilots were willing to push their aircraft beyond the thresholds listed in the manual. AI simply didn’t possess that ability. Yasmin had spent hours trying to incorporate it into Frank’s systems without success. Had humans lost the live maneuvers in the war games or perhaps if Yasmin had succeeded in giving Frank fully human responses, it would have meant the end of all manned aircraft. Forever.

  He didn’t even want to think about that.

  “Max,” he said through the ships’ loudspeakers. “I need you on the flight deck.”

  He didn’t wait for the Intellect’s response before cutting the throttle and throwing the ship into a sharp change of vector, the evasive tactic sending dozens of enemy plasma bolts flashing past the hull. Checking the threat display, he chose a sharp ascent that pulled nearly a dozen alien fighters up through the atmosphere with him.

  A loud thud from the back of the ship nearly caused him to lose focus as he rolled Foresight Two back over before descending. Max slid through the door on his back, feet in the air.

  “Caution. I am not secure. Hahahaha. Hahaha. Haha.”

  “Get a grip, Max. Jennifer, I’m leading them in for you. Get ready.”

  “Copy that, Captain. I’m ready.”

  Nicholas hit the throttle and climbed hard, his Foresight shooting back up through the clouds, nearly throwing Max back off the flight deck. The Intellect grabbed the base of the co-pilot seat before planting a foot on the deck and magnetizing it to keep it there.

  Foresight One moved in from above as more enemy fighters angled toward him from the flanks, their plasma bolts zeroing in on Foresight Two. He didn’t try to evade the bolts, letting the armored hull catch the damage. The alloy was more than strong enough to absorb several hits before going critical. In the meantime, he wouldn’t need to waste energy on the shields.

  What they needed to do was clear the field of enemy fighters. And do it in short order since all of them were on his tail and closing fast. He pulled up hard.

  Looking at the grid, he saw that Jennifer was vectoring toward where Foresight Two would be when the enemy fighters flew into her sights. Not perfect since that put Foresight Two close to her line of fire, but considering she only had a few hours of actual flight time, he had no complaints.

  He cleared the clouds again, jamming the throttle forward for more speed. Shooting straight up, he gritted his teeth against the Gs as Jennifer’s Foresight swept in from the starboard side, spines open and charged. The alien fighters emerged from the clouds a few seconds behind him, and Jennifer opened up with the spines, gathering all the beams together into one solid wall of energy coming in so close behind him it singed his tail.

  Nearly fifteen Relyeh ships slammed into it, the stone-like material of their hulls shattering into clouds of smoke and debris that tumbled to the ground.

  “Woohoo!” Jennifer cried as her Foresight rocketed beneath Foresight Two. “That was awesome!”

  “It was pretty cool,” Nicholas admitted, glad he’d throttled up. “But we aren’t out of this furball yet.”

  He pushed Foresight Two into another sharp turn as plasma bolts streaked down at him from above, one shot managing to catch the corner of one of the forward cameras, leaving a scuff along its transparent outer shell. He added thrust again, jetting away as Max moved into position beside him.

  “Confirmation. You requested my presence on the flight deck.”

  “Back up,” Nicholas said. “You’re blocking the grid.”

  “Reparation,” Max said, retreating to the co-pilot’s seat and dropping into it.

  “Jennifer, stay on course for another five seconds and then reverse toward me. I’m going to drag them in again, you hit them hard like you did before.”