"To those who took them, I have a proposition for you. I am willing to negotiate for their safe return. The data recorder from a derelict Valkyrie contains information I believe you want. Information I now possess."

  Soren could practically feel the shock radiating off his bridge crew. He was taking a monumental gamble here, laying his cards on the table for all to see. But he had to believe it would pay off.

  "Bring me the crew alive, and I will hand over the recorder, no questions asked. You have my word. Captain Strickland out."

  The silence on the bridge was deafening. Soren could feel every eye on him and could sense the tension crackling in the air.

  "Send it," he said quietly. “And repeat it for the next hour. If the Komodo is nearby, they’re bound to hear it.”

  Samira nodded, pressing a button on her console. The message, the plea, the gambit streamed out into the void, spreading across the stars in a desperate bid for a response.

  Soren settled into his command chair, his posture rigid, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen as the minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Each second felt like an eternity.

  As the first hour of waiting dragged into the second, the bridge crew went about their duties with a forced air of normalcy, the tension palpable. Soren could feel the weight of his decision pressing down on him, the doubt and second-guesses creeping in at the edges of his mind.

  Soren clenched his jaw, rested his elbow on his chair and dropped his forehead into his upturned palm. He couldn't think like that. He had to believe that someone had heard his message, that even now, they were considering his offer, weighing their options.

  He had to believe that Dana was still out there, still waiting for him.

  Two hours passed without a response. Without even a hint of acknowledgment.

  Soren felt his heart sinking, despair clawing at his gut. He had gambled everything on this moment, put all his chips on the table...and had come up empty.

  But even as despair threatened to engulf him, a tiny spark of hope refused to be extinguished. Maybe they were just being cautious. Maybe they needed more time to consider.

  Or maybe, just maybe, they weren't out there at all. Maybe the trail had gone cold, leaving them grasping at shadows.

  Slowly, feeling the weight of every gaze upon him, Soren rose from his chair. “Jack, you have the conn,” he said softly.

  “I have the conn,” Jack replied, meeting Soren’s gaze. “If you need⁠—”

  “I just need some rest,” he replied. “And time to think. I'll be in my quarters. Notify me immediately if anything changes."

  With that, he strode from the bridge, his footsteps echoing in the sudden stillness. He had been prepared to give the enemy exactly what they wanted, only to be met with silence. The only way that made sense was if the enemy wasn’t in the Wolf system.

  But in that case, where were they?

  CHAPTER 36

  Alex Strickland crouched motionless on a thick branch high in Jungle’s dense jungle canopy, his mottled green and brown fatigues blending seamlessly with the foliage around him. Below, the rest of Scorpion squad was spread out in strategic positions, invisible to the untrained eye. They had been in the area for hours—watching, waiting.

  A week had passed since their narrow escape from the captured base and settlement. A week of putting their extensive survival training to grueling use, of melting into the humid, primal wilderness of the jungle. They had fashioned crude shelters from massive leaves and vines, foraged for edible plants and set snares for small game. All the while, they rotated watch, monitoring the movements of the invaders who now controlled their home.

  It galled Alex to see how quickly the enemy had moved in, replacing the Marines at Fort Brix and allowing the civilian operations at Hut to resume, albeit under constant guard. Hover drones constantly buzzed over the domes like angry hornets, and power-armored patrols stalked the perimeters, weapons ready. The message was clear; any hint of resistance would be met with ruthless force.

  But the Scorpions were nothing if not patient. They bided their time, counting the enemy's numbers and learning their patterns and routines. Recon teams ventured into the jungle regularly, searching for any sign of the elusive Marines. Alex and his team tested them a few times, carefully revealing their presence before melting away and gauging their response.

  To Alex's surprise, the enemy followed textbook Marine protocols in their operations, even though they clearly weren’t Federation of United Planets Marines. Not that he was complaining. It made them predictable.

  And predictability was a weakness he fully intended to exploit.

  He watched as Diego, positioned on the jungle floor below, raised his rifle and fired a single shot into the canopy a short distance away. The report echoed through the trees, a sharp crack that sent birds erupting from the branches in startled flight.

  Immediately, Diego turned and ran, his movements exaggerated, his gait awkward. He stumbled, his hand flying to his leg as if in pain, and he collapsed to the ground with a cry that was only half-feigned.

  The drones came moments later, the hum of their motors loud in the sudden quiet. They zipped beneath Alex's branch, sensors probing, searching for the source of the shot.

  Diego looked up at them, his face a mask of panic. "Go!" He shouted, his voice hoarse with urgency. "Leave me! Get out of here!"

  A few drones surged forward, intent on pursuing the imagined Scorpions. But the others remained, hovering menacingly over Diego's prone form.

  With a snarl of defiance, Diego snatched up his rifle and fired, the shot taking one of the drones square in its center mass. It erupted in a shower of sparks and shrapnel, careening wildly before crashing to the forest floor.

  Diego tried to rise, favoring his "injured" leg. He collapsed again, his rifle falling from his grip as he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender as the power-armored troopers arrived moments later. Crashing through the undergrowth with a cacophony of snapping branches, they advanced on Diego, weapons raised, focusing solely on their captured prey.

  It was the moment Alex had been waiting for.

  He let out a low, trilling whistle, the sound barely audible over the jungle noise. But to the Scorpions, it was a signal as clear as a shout.

  They descended on the enemy like wraiths, their forms camouflaged with mud and wet leaves, rendering them invisible to infrared. In their hands they held garrotes fashioned from the thorny vines that snaked through the canopy, nature's gift turned into a deadly tool.

  They struck with silent precision, the vines wrapping around throats, the wicked thorns biting into flesh. The troopers struggled, their powered armor useless against this primitive but brutally effective weapon.

  Alex had saved the last for himself. As the final trooper passed beneath his branch, he leaped, a length of stretchy vine tied around his waist. He plummeted towards his target, the vine pulling taut at the last second, turning his fall into a pendulous arc. He snapped his thorny garrote around the trooper's neck at the bottom of his swing. His momentum carried him up and over the enemy, the sudden, violent wrench neatly slicing through flesh and vital arteries.

  Pulled back by the elastic vine, Alex sprang upwards, waiting until momentum brought him back down again, close to the jungle floor. With Malik’s switchblade, he sliced through his bungee-like vine, flipping himself over and landing gracefully on his feet. A light stumble left him on a knee in front of his unit.

  “So close,” Malik said. “I give you a seven.”

  “Seven?” Jackson replied. “That’s unsat, man. You get a nine from me, boss-man.”

  “Nine and a half,” Zoe said.

  "Grab their weapons and ammo," Alex ordered, his voice low and urgent despite their good humor. “Reinforcements won’t be far behind. We need to move." He paused before smirking. “Zoe, you get a gold star. Malik, you’re on my shit list.”

  The others grinned at the same time they jumped back into action, stripping the fallen troopers of their rifles and magazines with practiced efficiency. The remaining drones, drawn by the commotion, zipped into view, only to be met by a hail of precisely aimed shots.

  In seconds, it was over. The enemy lay dead, their drones reduced to smoking wreckage. Alex scanned the surrounding jungle, his senses straining for any sign of reinforcements. He could hear them stomping through the brush, coming their way.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  Like ghosts, they vanished into the undergrowth as if they had never been there. Only the bodies, the bloody, thorny vines, and the spent shell casings remained, a macabre scene that would greet the enemy reinforcements when they arrived.

  As they moved through the jungle, putting distance between themselves and the ambush site, Alex's mind raced. This had been a small victory, a single skirmish in a much larger war. But it had proven that the enemy, for all their advanced technology and rigid discipline, were not invincible. They had weaknesses. They made mistakes. And the Scorpions, with their cunning, adaptability, and unbreakable will, were uniquely positioned to exploit those flaws.

  They made their way back to their camp in a roundabout manner, ensuring the enemy reconnaissance had faded well into the background before circling back to their small base of operations. Positioned between Fort Brix and Hut, they were hunkered down far enough from a water source to avoid detection but close enough to have easy access.

  “Malik, Sarah, you’re on trap detail,” Alex said, sending them out to see if they had caught any small animals in their handcrafted devices.

  “On it, Gunny,” Sarah replied. With a constant flow of medicine and fresh bandages, Sarah’s wounds had nearly healed. While her arm had temporarily lost some of its flexibility and strength, she was healed enough to rejoin the fight and hadn’t shown any signs of trouble taking down her assigned enemy fighter.

  She and Malik turned away from the camp, departing in opposite directions to check the traps.

  “That was so awesome,” Diego said, settling down beneath their camouflaged lean-tos. “Y’all are total badasses.”

  “We know,” Jackson said, dropping beside him.

  “You weren’t so bad yourself, Diego,” Zoe said. “Oh, my leg. My leg.” She laughed softly. So did the others.

  “It’s a good start,” Alex said. “We have enough rifles for all of us, and a few spare magazines each.”

  “Plus sidearms,” Zoe said, holding up her just acquired handgun. “Now we just need to score some power armor.”

  “Power armor is too slow to get off a tango,” Alex countered. “We’ll get them when we take the fort.”

  “And when will that be?” Jackson asked. “Tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think we’re there just yet. This is only the beginning.”

  “We can’t delay too long, Gunny,” Zoe said. “The enemy ships are due back in two weeks. If we’re going to give them a Scorpion-style welcome, we have exactly that long to take out these ground forces.”

  “I know,” Alex agreed. “Like I said, improving our ordnance is a good start, but it’s only the start. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. Sit tight, I’ll go into more detail when Sarah and Malik get back.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. The pair returned to camp within a few minutes of one another, each carrying a small, scaly carcass.

  “Jungle chicken,” Malik announced, holding up his dead lizard.

  The alien lizards weren't much, but they would provide some much-needed protein. They handed their catches off to Jackson, who took the switchblade from Alex and eagerly set about skinning and gutting them. Having grown up hunting in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, it came easy to him.

  “All right, Scorpions,” Alex said while Jackson worked. “Today’s warmup was a resounding success, and I’m proud of all of you for getting it done. Tomorrow, the real game begins.”

  “What’s the name of the game, Gunny?” Sarah asked.

  “I call it, kill all the bad guys on our planet.”

  “Not very original,” Jackson complained, dropping the lizard’s entrails into the hole he’d dug to bury them. After all, the last thing they wanted was some unwanted animal visiting to gobble them up in the dead of night.

  “But accurate,” Malik countered. “I like this game already. How do we play?”

  “We need to get back into Hut without the enemy knowing we’ve gone back into Hut.”

  Zoe frowned. "Hut? But it's crawling with tangoes. How are we supposed to get in there without them knowing?”

  “And why do we want to go back there?” Sarah asked.

  “I’ll go in reverse order. If we want to take back the fort, we're going to need the support of the civilians. We need to get them on our side, and we need to convince them to fight. Showing up back there, armed with the enemy’s weapons, they’ll see that we aren’t just hiding in the jungle. We’ve been fighting back. We’re succeeding. And they can, too. As for the first question, we’re going to hit the dam. Take out their forces there, and go in the same way we got out. Through the maintenance tunnels.”

  “But they’ll be sure to have guards posted at the substation,” Diego said. “The moment they stop reporting in, they’ll know we’re inside.”

  “Incorrect,” Jackson said as he finished skinning the second lizard. “We counted all the enemy forces. They stopped posting at the substation three days ago, sticking to the perimeter instead. They control the dam, and I bet they’ve welded the emergency exits shut, so they don’t think we can get in that way without them knowing.”

  “Because we can’t,” Zoe said. “No offense, Gunny, but won’t killing the bad guys at the dam clue them in?”

  “Yes. That’s why we need to take out their comms array before we go on the offensive,” Alex replied. “Just like in the simulation.”

  “In the simulation, we had our armor and explosives,” Sarah said.

  “So not just like the simulation,” Alex corrected. “We have to be a lot more subtle and inventive. But we’re Scorpions. This should be a walk in the park.”

  “Or a stroll through a jungle,” Malik joked.

  “By the time Fort Brix realizes they’ve lost communication with the units at the dam, we’ll be inside Hut. Of course, they’ll search the place for us, but we’re going to convince them we’re still out here.”

  “How?” Zoe asked.

  “One of us will still be out here,” Alex answered. “I’m looking for a volunteer.”

  “I’ll do it,” Diego said.

  “Anyone other than you. I need you inside. You know the settlement better than we do, and I need you to convince your girlfriend to let us hide at her place when we get there.”

  “You want me to put her in danger?”

  “She’s already in danger. If you don’t believe that, then we have no shot of convincing the civilians they need to put up a fight.”

  “Oh, I believe it. I just meant more direct danger.”

  “I’ll do it,” Sarah said. “My arm’s improving, but I’m still a liability compared to the rest of you. I can misdirect the enemy, make them think we’re all still out here.”

  Alex nodded. “You’ve got the job, Two. Thank you for volunteering.”

  “Just don’t get killed in there and leave me by my lonesome.”

  “Copy that. Step three. We start spreading⁠—”

  A sudden rustle in the undergrowth interrupted him, and froze them all in place. In an instant, the newly acquired rifles were in their hands, safeties off, fingers on the triggers. They silently moved out from under their shelter, blending into the foliage, ready to face whatever threat had found them.

  Hearts pounding, hardly daring to breathe, they watched as an enemy patrol crunched past, their power armor whirring. For a tense moment, it seemed as though the soldiers would turn and spot the telltale signs of the camp. But they continued on, oblivious, the sound of their passage fading into the distance.

  Slowly, cautiously, the Scorpions emerged from their hiding spots. Alex let out a slow breath, the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. "That was too close," he muttered. "We need to be more careful. If they find us before we're ready..."

  He didn't need to finish the thought. They all knew the stakes.

  “Step three, we start spreading discontent among the civilians. We need to be careful though, because it’ll only take one snitch to screw us over.”

  “I can’t believe someone would warn the bad guys about us after what they did at Miyaki’s,” Jackson said, cutting both carcasses into enough pieces for everyone.

  “People will do stupid things when they’re afraid,” Alex explained.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Jackson replied, wrapping each portion of meat in a leaf and passing them out.

  “Step four,” Alex continued, pulling the leaf back to expose a bit of the uncooked meat. ”Once we have the civilians riled up, we use them as a diversion while we go after the real prize. Of course, the devil is in the details. We’ll go over that in the morning. Now, eat up and get some rest. Zoe, you have first watch.”

  “Copy that, Gunny,” Zoe replied, unwrapping her piece of lizard and biting into the moist, chewy meat. She made a face as she chewed and swallowed, almost gagging on it as it went down.

  “C’mon, Zee. It’s not that bad.” Jackson chuckled, chewing his first bite and then swallowing without difficulty. “I’m actually starting to develop a taste for it.”

  “Yuk. For all we know, this meat is full of trichinella. We start expelling bodily fluids from both ends, I’ll be sure to remind you how much you liked it.”

  After that, everybody looked suspiciously at their uncooked dinner, but they needed the nutrition, so they choked it down and then settled in for a few precious hours of sleep.

  Alex remained awake however, his mind churning with plans and contingencies. Somewhere out there, an enemy fleet was doing who knew what, with a plan to return soon. It was a doomsday clock ticking inexorably towards zero.

  But here, at this moment, he had his squad. His mission. And a burning desire to see it through, no matter the cost.