“Yes, sir.”

  3

  Aeron

  It wasn’t particularly hard for a squad of former Centurions to create a diversion. All it took was a minimum of coordination and a sprinkle of acting ability.

  The men all left Ghost’s together, going out the front door laughing, arms around one another’s shoulders, big smiles on their faces. There were two small military transports parked in the strand in front of Ghost’s, light vehicles with armored sides for the MPs to hide behind while they waited for something to happen.

  The MPs expected orders from the Judici who had gone inside and hadn’t gotten any yet. They hadn’t heard gunshots through the noise-resistant glass face of the block, and nobody had told them to stop anyone coming out of the building. When the former Centurions emerged with Aeron among them, the MPs smiled knowingly at the display of brotherly drunken affection but otherwise remained fixed in place, still awaiting their orders.

  Aeron stayed at the back of the squad, doing his part to keep the ruse going by laughing and cursing, shoving the guy in front of him and getting into a quick, faux tussle. They went down the few steps to the split, moving at an angle to the MPs. All they had to do was make it down the street and Aeron could break away and head for the loop. Briar had called in the Code Nineteen so that the second team would be waiting for his arrival. He just needed to make it to Dome Twelve without getting caught.

  They were nearly to the MPs when one of them got impatient and stepped out in front of the boisterous squad. He raised his hands, signalling the squad to stop, but they pointed and laughed at him instead, only quieting down and coming to a stop as they reached him.

  “Can I help you, brother?” Ferguson asked. He was the leader of the group, small and muscular. He had an eight tattooed on his wrist—the mark of a foreman on a distant mining rig. The MP noticed it right away but wasn’t surprised. This part of Praeton belonged to the Recs.

  “What was happening inside before you left?” the MP asked.

  “Party time,” Ferguson replied loudly, turning to the others who laughed with him.

  “Did you see the three Judici enter?” the MP said, loudly enough to overcome the laughter.

  “Yup. I love those black suits they wear. So sexy. Did you brothers see the one on the left? Whoo boy.” He smiled at the MP. “You saw her, right?”

  The MP wasn’t impressed. “How many patrons are still inside?”

  Ferguson shrugged. “Wasn’t paying attention. I got my boys right here. We’re headed across town to the Roll for some of that synthetic sushi. You know, I heard General Haeri has his own fish tank in his office. With real fish. Did you know that?”

  The MP shook his head. “No, I hadn’t heard about any fish. Someone did tell me he has a dog.”

  “A dog?” Aeron said. “There aren’t any dogs on Proxima.”

  “There aren’t any fish, neither,” Ferguson said.

  They all laughed again.

  The MP shook his head. “All right, move along.”

  “What’s going on up there anyways?” Ferguson asked as he passed the MP. “First time I’ve seen even a single Judicus in C-Dict in what? Ten years?”

  “That’s classified.”

  “Yeah. Of course. Well, good luck with it, whatever it is,” Ferguson threw back over this shoulder. “Come on boys.”

  The squad started moving out again. They had taken a few steps when someone near the door to Ghost’s shouted, “Stop them!”

  Aeron spun around, his eyes landing on the female Judicus Ferguson had mentioned. Khoron-infected, she had taken a trio of bullets to her body that had missed the parasite inside. Her shirt was stained with blood, but she was upright and aiming the MPs at them.

  “Shit,” Ferguson said, glancing at Aeron. “We’ve got this, sir. Good luck saving the planet. Come on boys.”

  The MP next to them reached for his sidearm. Ferguson hit him with a quick hook to the jaw that knocked him flat. He immediately went for the MP’s gun. The other members of the group shouted and charged the two transports, two of them falling right away as stunners smacked into their chests.

  “Sir, let’s move,” Fox said.

  Aeron was already running, headed away from the fight toward one of the splits. The Judicus noticed him right away, breaking from her position on an intercept course.

  Aeron held his ion blaster and the microspear, keeping them close as he navigated toward the split. A last glance back showed the Rec squad was done; every last man shot with stunners in a matter of seconds.

  In a race like this every second counted double. They had bought him time.

  He and Fox made it to the split, getting around the corner just as the stunners began hitting the wall beside them. They continued sprinting down the narrow alley between the two blocks, splashing through puddles of manufactured rain. Fox was barely straining at Aeron’s back to keep up with him, his clone genetics making him a perfect physical specimen. Aeron had made sure to keep himself in good shape, but even so, he knew the former Centurion could outpace him without trying.

  So could the Judicus. She rounded the corner ahead of the MPs, opening fire. Aeron’s clothes were impervious to stunners, and after seeing him get hit in Ghost’s, she knew it. She switched to live rounds, her aim good enough to bypass Fox and scrape past Aeron’s shoulder tearing the overcoat he had borrowed from Ferguson.

  He stopped running, spinning around. Fox nearly crashed into him, dodging him at the last moment to slide to a stop behind him.

  The Judicus smiled as she slowed her approach. The MPs filed in behind her at the end of the split. “It was a nice try, General,” she said. “But you’re only human.”

  Aeron didn’t respond. He stared at her, clutching the microspear.

  She noticed the weapon in his hand.

  “That won’t help you this time. And no drones are coming to save you. Gorman received your Code Nineteen, and to be honest, we were tempted to let you make it to your rendezvous point in Dome Nine. But Krake missed his window, and Wyte is reconfiguring the assets. You’re a loose end that needs to be tied up.”

  “Spoken almost like a real human,” Aeron said, glancing at Fox, who nodded slightly. “It’s too bad, really.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know how long you’ve been watching me, but you ought to know by now. I have contingencies for everything.”

  “Even for this?”

  “Always be ready,” Aeron said at the same time the fingernail-sized explosive Fox had dropped detonated between them and the Judicus, filling the split with a wall of smoke and fire.

  The Judicus went through it. She didn’t care that it lit her clothes on fire or badly burned her body. The parasite inside would be in pain but safe, able to detach from the body before it died. She had her gun up, ready to shoot a fleeing target.

  Only Aeron wasn’t fleeing. Not just yet. He had expected the outcome and was waiting for her as she burst through the fire. A quick motion and he drove the microspear into her, holding it there, staring into her eyes long enough to singe his hand in the flames engulfing her. He winced as he pulled the weapon out and she dropped to the ground.

  “Gorman?” Fox surmised.

  “Compromised,” Aeron confirmed. “Another unfortunate casualty. We haven’t prepared this long to be outsmarted so easily. Let’s go.”

  Aeron made it to the end of the split, racing across the strand to the next. He heard sirens from the other side of the block, the MPs trying to get past the flames to catch up. The best and worst thing about Praeton’s domes were the odd layouts of the main strands, some narrow splits, others hastily expanded over the years as the settlement grew faster than anyone had calculated. For anyone unfamiliar with a specific dome, the mix of mismatched streets and the hodge-podge of buildings made it easy to become lost. At the same time, for someone who knew the layouts of the domes by memory, it made it easy to get others lost before they even realized it..

  In other words, Aeron and Fox had a good lead, and there was no chance the MPs were going to catch them.

  Not today anyway.

  4

  Nathan

  General Nathan Stacker watched Sheriff Duke and Colonel Card step through the portal, visible as they crossed instantly to the other side and stood there looking back at him from who knew how many light-years away. They were making a basic assumption that their destination was Proxima, and judging by the look of the room they stood in it was probably true. Still, there was no way to be truly sure. Vyte expected them to come, and while their chance at success was low, it was high enough for the Axon to take ulterior action to make certain the interlink remained in his hands.

  Could it have also tasked Hanson with redirecting the portal to another location?

  He was going to suggest they give Hayden and Caleb a minute to explore their side of the portal before closing it. But then the device shut down on its own, the distant location blinking away as quickly as it had appeared. Nathan found himself looking through the dark alloy frame at the vegetation and rusted metal of the giant sphere in which they stood.

  “General,” Isaac said through the comm. “We need to go now! Two minutes to contact.”

  “Roger,” Nathan growled back in frustration, crouching and scooping up Krake’s corpse. “On our way. Centurions, let’s move.”

  “Hesitation,” Max said. “General, standby.”

  The Intellect knelt beside the portal, entering commands faster than Nathan’s eyes could track.

  “We don’t have all day, Max,” Nathan replied.

  “Understanding. Compliance.” The projection vanished and the portal began folding in on itself, condensing into a cube the size of the Axon’s head. Max picked it up and tucked it under his arm. “Completion. Hahahaha. Haha.”

  The dropship touched down a hundred meters away, amidst the corpses of the hundreds of reapers who had died during the ambush. Nathan tried not to think about how small his team had suddenly become as he led the squad across the field. Hayden and Caleb had gone to Proxima. Rico, Drake and Lucius were dead. Bennett had turned traitor before Nathan filled him with holes. Only Jesse and Spot remained, plus the strange Axon Intellect who had so far managed to toe the line between his loyalty to his race and his weird friendship with Sheriff Duke.

  So far. Those were the operative words. He didn’t yet trust the Intellect to the point Hayden did. He doubted he ever would.

  They made it to the dropship inside of a minute. Dumping Krake on the floor, he hit the controls to close the hatch. “Jump seats,” he barked, ordering the Centurions to prepare for quick evacuation. As they hurried from the hold to the seats on the upper deck, he headed for the machine to free himself from his powered armor. “Max, you too.”

  The Intellect had stayed behind. “I’ll wait for you, General. I don’t require buckles to stay rooted.”

  Nathan didn’t argue. He didn’t have time anyway. He was pressed tighter into the machine as the Parabellum rose quickly from the ground.

  “Hold on!” Isaac called out over the comm.

  The craft lurched to the side. Max slipped a step before adjusting, using his electromagnetic force to hold himself to the floor. The dropship shook slightly, a loud bang sounding from beyond the hull.

  “Ike, what the hell was that?” Nathan asked.

  “We’re taking fire from the enemy ships.,” Isaac replied. “Still too far out to be accurate, but it's testing my newest skill.”

  “Just don’t let anything hit us,” Nathan replied.

  “Doing my best, sir.”

  “I think Vyte knows Krake isn’t coming home,” Max said. “I don’t think he’s happy about it. Hahaha. Haha.”

  The machine’s robotic arms lifted Nathan’s helmet away, followed by the rest of his armor. Another blast shook the dropship, and he stumbled out of the can, underclothes soaked in sweat. Max caught him, and he realized why the Intellect had remained behind. Max recognized he would struggle with the inertia before he did.

  They headed for the stairs together, climbing up and into the bow of the craft. Jesse and Spot were strapped in among the many empty seats. Spot looked nervous. Jesse had her head back and eyes closed as if she were on a pleasure cruise.

  “Bridge,” Nathan said, keeping a grip on Max. The Intellect helped him to it, remaining stuck to the floor of the craft despite Isaac’s evasive maneuvers.

  They entered the bridge, and Nathan threw himself into the command chair and grabbed the harness, pulling it down and snapping it in place.

  “I’ll recover Krake and attempt to access his cortex,” Max said, heading back off the bridge without waiting for a reply.

  Isaac’s hands were active across the control surface, guiding the ship higher into the air, headed east toward the mountains.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” Nathan said.

  “Sir, I didn’t think we had established a way to go yet.”

  “True enough,” Nathan replied. He had promised Hayden he would find the interlink and get it back. He needed the results of Max’s work on Krake to do that. In the meantime, they were left to fly without a clear direction other than the best way to fly to stay alive. “Are the enemy craft giving chase?”

  Issac looked at the sensor readings on his display. It showed half a dozen enemy ships already in the atmosphere and descending rapidly toward the city they had just evacuated. There was no indication any of the ships were going to chase them.

  So far.

  “Undetermined, General,” Isaac said. “But I don’t think we’re in the clear. Best estimates from the ship’s computer show their acceleration and maximum velocities dwarf ours.”

  “Agreed. Stay tight to the ground. Don’t give them a chance to get a clear shot. Get us over the mountains and find somewhere safe to land.”

  “Land, sir?”

  “I’m guessing it’s easier for them to track us when we’re burning a ton of energy. A Centurion dropship in flight stands out like a sore thumb on Earth.”

  “Roger that. General,” Isaac said. “There are a lot of ships out there.”

  Nathan zoomed his situation map out, showing new targets as they registered. Two ships were still headed for Seattle. Another nine were dropping nearby, and nearly a dozen more appeared on the map as they came into sensor range.

  “I’m sure there are a lot more coming,” he replied. “They aren’t here just for us. They’re here to claim the planet.”

  Isaac looked back at him, face pale. Of course the Marine had already known that, but the reality of the situation was easier to speculate on than actually witness.

  The invasion force had arrived.

  5

  Isaac

  The Parabellum passed over the forested foothills and snow-capped peaks of tall mountains, flying as low as the dropship’s computer and Isaac’s ability allowed. On the eastern slopes, a thinner covering of pines replaced the thick blanket of evergreens on the western slopes. To the northeast, lay another smaller mountain range, while rolling grassland split by the silver ribbon of a river dominated the southeast. And farther east, the green turned to brown desert.

  He could see old settlements below. Centuries-old towns long abandoned and roads half-buried by dust.

  Where to now, he wondered, watching the situation map on the terminal in front of him, the path ahead secondary in the peripheral. The Relyeh ships were here, their descent through the thermosphere making their outer shields glow on the screen as they entered the atmosphere. One thing Isaac was certain about, they were larger than he expected. Fifty to seventy meters long at least, over three times the size of the Parabellum.

  And there were a lot of them.

  This initial group was only the vanguard. The numbers continued to build as the seconds passed. Thirty became fifty. Fifty became one hundred. And they weren’t solely focused on the former United States, Canada and Mexico. This was a scene Isaac knew was in the process of being duplicated around the world. He didn’t want to think about what was inside the ships. He didn’t want to guess what would happen to humanity when they finally touched down.

  He was trying to keep the Parabellum away from them. He was trying to avoid conflict and get the remainder of the Centurions to safety. There wouldn’t be anywhere safe soon enough, and he could tell by Nathan’s face that they all needed time to recover from the last assault.

  He needed time too. Time to absorb the shock and sadness of everything that had happened, and everything that was still happening. He had initially wanted to come back to Earth with the hope of helping Sheriff Duke expand the United Western Territories and provide more safety to more and more survivors. But now the UWT was gone, the survivors in hiding, the enemy coming to the surface. Rico was gone—a loss he felt deep in his gut. They had become such fast friends, free and easy with one another. It was hard to accept she was lost already. And she wasn’t alone. Drake, Lucius, Able, Natalia. The list was almost endless, and he knew—if he spent too much time thinking about it—he would succumb to the grief.

  He turned his hand on the control surface, pitching the dropship into a descent that followed the slope of the mountains down into the low inland. He scanned the situation map again, waiting for the moment when the Relyeh ships decided he was worth shooting out of the sky. It almost bothered him that they hadn’t tried. It made him feel as if they weren’t worth the effort.

  And maybe they weren’t. If Max couldn’t pick the location of the interlink out of Krake’s dead brain they would be flying blind and out of options.

  It scared Isaac to think the entire fate of humankind might rest on a dead Axon.

  Then again, Sheriff Duke and Caleb Card had gone through the portal to unlock the information Valentine had hidden in Card’s head. With it they were supposed to be able to figure out how to kill these bastards, and he had to hold onto that tiny sliver of hope for survival. Like Card, Sheriff Duke and the General, he couldn’t give up.