He broke out of the moment. It didn’t matter. They had to get out of there.

  He ran to the cockpit and threw himself into the pilot’s seat. He had no way to warn Washington to hang on. He hoped the big Marine would understand when the ADC started moving.

  Something hit the front of the carrier, a trife face appearing in the small viewport. Caleb and the demon looked at one another, and then it started slapping its claws against the transparency, the sharp edges making indents against the hardened plasti-glass.

  It vanished a moment later, thrown away from the ADC. A second trife appeared, facing away from the vehicle at a third trife. It grabbed the second trife, lifting it and slashing its head from its body, and then looking back Cal’s way.

  That one was Hal, which meant Flores was Flores. He smiled in response before throwing the throttle all the way forward.

  The ADC jumped ahead, bouncing hard over a root and into the brush. He checked the vehicle’s sensor grid. After things had been quiet for so long, the whole area was now a sea of red marks.

  Had the trife spent the last two days following them?

  Caleb watched the terrain ahead, cutting the ADC to the left to avoid a tree, then back to the right as they bounced over another set of roots, smashing into a larger bush, digging it up and dragging it. With most of his view blocked, he did his best to peer through narrow, leafy branches, navigating more by feel and desperate not to hit a tree.

  The ADC hit twenty kilometers per hour, recklessly fast considering the terrain. The shooting let up slightly, but Caleb could see on the display that the trife were keeping pace. How had they managed to avoid detection before, but were visible to the sensors now? It seemed intentional. Had Hal done something to the systems? Had it kept the demons close on purpose? It claimed to hate the trife as much as he did. Was that all a lie? Did it know who had sent the trife to Earth? Was there another, more sinister reason it was leading them south?

  Again, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t stop now to have that discussion, and he couldn’t trust anything the Axon AI said anyway. They had to keep moving forward. They had to escape and survive. That was the only option. It had always been the only option.

  “Sarge, I’m out!” Flores shouted from the back of the carrier.

  “Roger!” he shouted back. “Get Wash fresh mags.”

  “Roger!” She stood and made her way to their small store of magazines, struggling to stay steady enough to grab them.

  Outside, the shooting stopped. Washington was out of ammo too.

  Caleb risked a glance over his shoulder as the big Marine dropped through the hatch. He dropped his guns and pulled the hatch closed behind him, locking Hal out. Breathing hard, he slumped into one of the seats.

  “We aren’t out of this yet, Private,” Caleb barked.

  Washington perked up instantly, bending over to retrieve an MK-12. Flores handed a magazine out to him.

  The ADC reached a small clearing in the vegetation, a flat streak of dirt twenty meters across leading back into the jungle. Caleb pushed the throttle harder, hoping to gain a little extra speed.

  He never saw the depression in the middle of the clearing, or the creek flowing through it. Not until the ADC had already cleared the bank.

  “Shit!” Caleb said as the water ran up and over the viewport. The ADC came to a quick stop, throwing both Washington and Flores back to the deck. Caleb flew forward into the dashboard. Somehow, he managed to keep the throttle open, but the wheels spun, with nothing but mud to grab onto. “Guardians, grab your gear. We’re out of here.”

  He swung out of the seat and ran to the back. The SOS was heavy on him now, the ruined battery drained and dead. He unclasped it, quickly shedding the second skin as he moved, while Flores and Washington grabbed their guns.

  Something clanked onto the top of the ADC. The hatches were closed and sealed. They were safe inside.

  For now.

  “Now what?” Flores asked.

  Chapter 44

  “Want to go again?” Jia asked, motioning to the cards on the small folding table.

  “No, I’m out,” Sam replied. “If this were strip poker, I’d be butt-naked right now.”

  “There are worse things,” Liam said.

  Sam whipped her head around to glare at him. She should have known better than to make a comment like that with the former guard around. The last two days hadn’t proven him to be any less of a creep than the first.

  “Shut the hell up, Liam,” Jia said, emphasizing his name. “If you were in the game, you’d be worse than naked.”

  “How can you be worse than naked?” Liam asked.

  “Come on over, and I’ll show you.”

  “Okay, both of you cool it,” Sam said. “And keep it down. There’s something in the air that’s making me uneasy.” It was the reason she didn’t want to play any more poker. True, she already owed Jia two food chits, but she had a stash of unused credits in her account. She could have kept losing for a week.

  The Marshals were gathered outside the transport, settled beneath the corner of the camouflage netting that hopefully hid the ship from outside view. They had collected a few rocks to sit on, and found the folding table inside the transport’s hold, along with the deck of cards. Five of the Marshals played cards or slept while the other three handled watch positions around them, hiding behind the rocks and keeping their attention focused on the jungle below.

  There had been no sign of the Guardians. No sights. No sounds. After two days, Sam was growing more concerned that either Caleb had changed directions or hadn’t made it through the dense, alien landscape. The only thing she knew for sure was that he hadn’t returned to the Deliverance. Either she or Kiaan checked in with the ship every three hours, making sure they weren’t out there for nothing.

  Sam wasn’t happy with the situation on the Deliverance. According to Deputy Klahanie, Governor Stone was rushing through every step of the process, too eager to get the colony moved from the belly of the starship to the cleared area outside. They had spent too long in a can, and it was obvious there was no threat on the planet. At least, that’s what Stone was telling people. Three whole days had passed, the drones had covered hundreds of kilometers in every direction, and there was still no evidence of anything with human-level or greater intelligence living on the planet.

  Idiot. Hundreds of kilometers were nothing on a planet. The drones hadn’t even made it over the mountains yet. There was no way to know what was out there, except Sergeant Card hadn’t wandered off for nothing. The Governor was proving himself reckless, gambling with the lives of the colonists, and for all they knew the overall survival of the human race. All because he was impatient.

  The largest seal had been uncovered, and they were close to breaking the code Harry had put in place to keep the Governor’s identification codes from unlocking it. Once they were into that part of the ship’s mainframe, they could unseal all of the doors and have much easier access in and out of Metro. They could bring the loaders and builders in and start dismantling the city to transport it outside.

  Too soon. It was just too damn soon.

  She stifled a sigh. Most of the Marshals—Steven, Kiaan, Jia, Paige and Jack—were on her side. Liam, Smith, and Aziz had all come from the Governor’s militia and were completely loyal to him. They agreed with everything Stone said or did regardless of what the outcome of the decision might be. There wasn’t anything inherently wrong with that. In some ways, Sam wished she could be as loyal to him as they were.

  But she knew the truth.

  “Colonel Dante,” Paige said.

  Sam broke out of her thoughts. “What is it, Private?”

  “Can you see the jungle floor from your position, ma’am?”

  Sam was behind the transport, out of sight of the greenery below. “Negative.”

  “You should take a look, Colonel.”

  “Roger.”

  She took one step toward the front of the transport before she heard the first distant crack, quickly followed up by dozens more.

  Was that gunfire?

  She ran to the front of the transport, looking down into the jungle. She could see flashes of light barely breaking through the trees, and she checked her ATCS. The computer estimated the range at five kilometers.

  That wasn’t far at all.

  “Marshals, this is a red alert. I repeat, this is a red alert. Gear up. Let’s go.”

  It had to be the Guardians. Who else would be out there with machine guns? She turned back to the soldiers around the table.

  “Helmets on, Marshals,” she said to them. “We’ve got a target.”

  The Marshals sprang into action, putting on their helmets and grabbing for their rifles. The sound of gunfire continued below them, remaining steady.

  “Is it a good idea to go down there, Colonel?” Liam asked. “They aren’t shooting at each other.”

  Sam couldn’t say she wanted to go down there because Caleb might need help. She wasn’t sure how she was going to manage that conflict just yet. One thing at a time.

  “Whatever they are shooting at isn’t human,” she replied. “It’s better to catch it off guard than wait for it to come to us.”

  “But if it does our job and kills the Guardians for us, isn’t that a good thing?” Liam pressed.

  Sam clenched her jaw. “Not if it kills us too,” she replied through her teeth. “We’re going down there. That’s not up for discussion.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Liam said, right at the edge of disrespect. “Don’t you think one of us should stay with the transport?”

  “Yes,” Sam agreed. “Marshal Four, you’re with the transport.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Steven replied.

  “Marshal Eight, stay in position and keep an eye on things.”

  “Affirmative,” Paige said.

  “The rest of you, meet up at the marked coordinates.” Sam set the marker through the ATCS, which synced it across their network. Then she grabbed her MK-12 from her back and headed away from the transport, toward the gentler slope leading into the jungle. Liam, Smith, and Jia followed her, while Steven and Kiian stayed behind.

  The Marshals all reached the marker at the same time, forming up around Sam. The sound of gunfire was still echoing out from the trees, though it had diminished slightly.

  “I want Card and the Guardians alive,” she said.

  “What?” Liam replied. “Those aren’t the orders I heard Governor Stone give us.”

  “I said I want them alive,” she repeated. “I know what Governor Stone said, but we’re not the judge or the executioners. They deserve to have their voices heard before we gun them down.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Smith said. “They’re traitors to the colony. They brought us here to die. Screw them.”

  “That’s one side of the story,” Sam said. “But maybe Sergeant Card has a different take on how things went down. Nobody’s given him a chance to speak.”

  “He left the city with an alien after it murdered almost a dozen of my people,” Liam hissed. “How can you not judge that?”

  “We don’t have time to argue this right now. Governor Stone put me in charge, damn it. The way you keep questioning my orders, it makes me wonder who the real traitor is.”

  “I know who the real traitor is,” Liam said, looking over at Smith.

  Ali’s face burned. “You have two choices, Marshal Three. Hand your rifle over to Marshall Two and go wait in the transport, or shut the hell up and follow my orders.” She glared at Liam, furious.

  Liam didn’t react right away. “Acknowledged,” he said at last, keeping his grip on his gun.

  “Watch yourself, Three,” Jia said. “Don’t try any bullshit. I’ve got my eye on you.”

  Liam didn’t respond. Sam didn’t completely trust him either, but what else could she do? They needed all the help they could get. Would he try something in the middle of a firefight with an unknown enemy? She had to believe he wasn’t that stupid.

  She led the Marshals down the slope at a run, dropping toward the jungle below. The gunfire had lasted a few minutes, but now it faded away into silence, the planet going silent once more.

  “I think we’re too late,” Steven said in response to the sudden stillness.

  “Who do you think won?” Jia said.

  Sam slowed them down to a walk while she looked at her HUD. She hadn’t expected the fight to end like that. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Marshal Eight, do you see anything?”

  “Negative,” Paige replied. “It’s gone dark.”

  Sam swallowed her fear that the Guardians had lost. “We have to get a visual on the bodies at a minimum and try to collect them if we can. Governor Stone will want proof they’re dead.”

  “Maybe we can wait a couple of hours?” Smith suggested. “Give whatever killed them a chance to move away.”

  Sam didn’t want to give up on Caleb, but how long could they survive without weapons? He had that replacement arm, but even so the odds weren’t in his favor. Maybe Smith was right. Maybe it would be better to wait.

  She didn’t know the right thing to do. She was a sheriff, not a Marine. She was playing at being military. Hell, all of them were. The only ones with any real experience were down there, likely dead, because Governor Stone and Metro had turned their backs on them.

  “Colonel,” Kiaan said over the comms. “Transport sensors are picking up movement ahead of you. Something’s coming your way. A lot of somethings.”

  The decision had already been made for her.

  Chapter 45

  “What do we have left?” Caleb asked. He was standing in the back of the ADC with Washington and Flores gathered around the small stockpile of remaining ammunition.

  “Six magazines for the MK-12s,” Flores said. “Three cells for the P-50s. Mine is almost fully charged.”

  Washington held his hand up, spreading his fingers to indicate the charge level on his plasma rifle. About a quarter.

  Caleb checked his gun. He had less than that. He unslung the rifle and released the cell, taking one of the fully charged cartridges and snapping it back into place.

  There was a constant echo of scratching above them, the sound of trife feet and claws on the top of the ADC, frantically trying to get in. They could see the demons through the birds-eye of the punchless drone, which Flores had set to circle the area high enough to be out of reach.

  The ADC was mired in the mud of the river, the water level high enough to ensure they remained there but low enough that the top of the vehicle stayed dry. Worse, these trife didn’t seem to have the same dislike of water the trife on Earth did. They waded into the creek to reach the carrier, climbing onto and around it, scraping, clawing and scratching to get inside. They were focused on their purpose, eager to open up the armored vehicle to get at the humans inside.

  It was a mess. There was no arguing that. One they would have no choice but to fight their way out of, and they didn’t have a lot of firepower left to accomplish it. While Caleb had expected some resistance on the path to wherever it was they were going, he hadn’t expected this. There were at least a hundred trife outside, probably more. The supply seemed almost endless from the vantage point of the drone, the mess of black forms almost completely enveloping both the carrier and the creek banks, spreading out in both directions.

  Where had they all come from, and was there an end to them? There had been billions of trife covering the Earth. Were there nearly as many here? Had they merely traded one infested planet for another?

  “There’s only one way out,” he said, pointing to the hatch. “I’ll take point and lead with a plasma stream. If we can back them off the carrier, we might at least be able to open a little breathing room.”

  “Until we’re out of ammo,” Flores said. “You brought me back from the dead for this?”

  “You weren’t dead,” Caleb said. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Great. Just great.” She shook her head. “I think this can is going to be our tomb.”

  “No. We’re going to get out of here. Don’t forget about Hal. It’s out there somewhere.”

  Flores laughed. “Hal probably abandoned us. We’re a good distraction while it continues on ahead.”

  “Then we’ll do it ourselves. Come on, Private. We’re Marines. We don’t give up.”

  Flores locked eyes with Caleb. They both knew her history. She nodded. “Right. Well, I think I should take point. You don’t even have an SOS.”

  “But I do have this,” Caleb said, waving his replacement arm. He shook his plasma rifle. “And I have this.”

  “And you’re a badass, right Sarge?” Flores said.

  “I’m a survivor. We all are. And we’re getting out of this.”

  “Your resolve is contagious.” Flores checked her rifle. “I’m ready.”

  “Wash?” Caleb asked.

  Washington flashed his thumb.

  “All right. Stay tight near the ladder, hold your fire until I’m clear, and then come up as fast as you can. Wash, take the left and rear, Flores the right. I’ll hit the front.”

  “Roger.”

  Caleb reached for the locking mechanism on the hatch. The demons would be on it the moment he clicked it open. They were already on it.

  “Ready, Guardians?” he asked.

  They shifted their rifles. They were ready.

  His fingers tensed on the lock.

  “Oh, shit. Sarge, look.”

  Caleb looked back at her, and then at the display. The drone’s camera was picking up movement further south, and more than that…

  “Are those muzzle flashes?” Flores said, pointing at the bursts.

  “They are,” Caleb said. “I hope they’re ours.”

  Washington tapped on his shoulder and shook his head.

  “I know,” Caleb said. Whoever was out there and coming their way probably came from Metro. Which meant there was a good chance they weren’t friendly. “Flores, can you get into their comm channel? They probably don’t know how to secure it.”