A pair of rounds hit Washington, sparks flying from the front of the big man’s SOS when he was hit. He fell to his knees, putting a hand down and using it to try to pick himself back up. Four more blasts rocked him, and he tumbled to the floor and didn’t move.

  “Damn it!” Caleb cursed. He had to find another door. He had to give them another way out. He went for Kiaan again, only to find himself a target. He could barely see the rounds coming toward him save for the small distortion of air-like waves of heat. He dove aside, away from Kiaan, crossing the passage again and getting to his feet. “Dante!”

  He screamed to get her attention. She turned to look back at him, and he pointed to Kiaan. She flashed her thumb in her best Washington impression, running toward the stricken pilot.

  Enemy fire followed her, the Inahri becoming bolder as each of them fell. She fired back with the anti-Intellect weapon, knowing it wouldn’t hurt them but hoping they would evade it out of instinct. They didn’t, showing they knew exactly what the gun was. Dante was hit twice and fell to the floor a meter short of Kiaan.

  “No...” Caleb groaned. They were down. Hard. With Paige the only one still up, and she wasn’t going to last like this.

  Caleb’s heart felt like it was going to burst from his chest, and he struggled to stay calm. In all his years fighting the trife, he had never been in a situation as hopeless as this. He wanted to do something, but he was virtually helpless and at a loss at what to do about it.

  He knew what he didn’t want. To be a coward. To leave his team behind. He took a deep breath and started forward, dragging himself toward the enemy as Paige was hit three times and collapsed. A few rounds came at him, and he managed to swing his dead arm, catching it with his left hand and using it as a shield. He blocked the displaced air bursts with it, expecting the weapon to be ineffective against already inert, powerless alloy and finding he was right. He caught almost six rounds that way before one finally got past him and struck him in the chest. It sent a tingling sensation through his whole body, and he fell to his knees.

  He didn’t let that stop him. He kept moving, crawling toward the oncoming Inahri . He could almost see them clearly now. Their armor was bulkier than his, made of a different kind of alloy than both the city-ship and the Cerebus armor. It looked powerful but less agile, equally more and less technologically advanced than a Space Force SOS. The helmets were almost as wide as their shoulders, the transparency at the front large and tinted blue. He could see alien symbols reversed behind them, and the marks of each of his Guardians reflected in their HUDs.

  He could see faces too—male and female faces. They were human, though their bone structure seemed much more delicate, their forms smaller and lighter overall. Their eyes were large for their faces, noses broad and flat, mouths small and full. Human, but alien too. Nobody would mistake them for Earthers, just like nobody would mistake him for Inahri .

  They stopped shooting when he kept crawling. They stopped moving too. They formed a line a few meters away and waited while he covered the distance still between them. There was no way to win this fight, but he wasn’t going to show them any weakness.

  Their expressions remained serious. Their eyes were almost kind. He could sense the respect in them, along with the surprise. They obviously hadn’t expected him to keep coming.

  He came to a stop less than a meter away, looking up at them. He moved slowly, reaching up with his good hand and grabbing his helmet, twisting his neck to pull it away. He dropped it to the floor.

  “So,” he said. “Do you surrender?”

  Chapter 5

  “Move, move, move!” Governor Jackson Stone shouted, heart racing a million kilometers per hour as he watched the figures descending from the hilltop.

  The hangar lift was slow. Too damned slow. It had taken nearly five seconds to stop its downward momentum, and another five to start moving up again. They were lucky whoever or whatever had decimated the DDF soldiers on the ground hadn’t fired at them, but their luck wasn’t going to last forever. The enemy was advancing, charging down the hill in a group nearly a dozen strong, moving so fast it was as though they had rocket-powered boots.

  “Jackson?” Beth said beside him, her voice thick with fear.

  He glanced over at her. She should never have had to see the carnage they had all just witnessed. The bodies all over the ground, both intact and in pieces. His stomach churned at the thought, his eyes tearing with fear of his own.

  “Can’t this thing move any faster?” he shouted.

  He had a squad of soldiers around him—his personal bodyguards. They were supposed to be helping him head out of the ship. He was supposed to be one of the first to set foot on their new world. He had decided it was safe to do so. Days had passed without incident, and they had an entire armory of weapons and vehicles at their disposal. Enough to outfit an entire army.

  That’s what they were supposed to be. That’s what Space Force Command had planned for them. They were to be an army of genetically mutated super-soldiers, sent here to fight. Only things hadn’t happened that way. Things had gone wrong. Up until this very instant, he was grateful the Space Force plans had failed.

  Now, he wished for that army of super-soldiers. And he wished he were one of them.

  He hadn’t been able to protect his daughter, Orla. He wouldn’t be able to defend his wife. Not out here. He had made a mistake thinking it was safe. The drones had flown multiple sorties over the area where the enemy was approaching. They hadn’t seen a thing.

  How was that possible?

  “Lieutenant Hind, as soon as they get in range I want you to open fire,” he said, turning his attention to the ranking DDF officer on the lift with him.

  “Yes, sir,” Hind replied, forcing some strength into his voice.

  But Jackson could tell the man was scared. He could see his hands shaking, his rifle rattling in his grip. The rest of his guards were the same. It was one thing to defend him from unarmed civilians. It was another to have an alien army rushing their way.

  Jackson looked up. Their lift was finally approaching the hangar. They were only ten meters away. They were lucky it hadn’t descended further. If they could get back into the ship, if they could close the hangar blast doors, that would buy them some time. The enemy would need to find another entrance or take the time to penetrate this one. Everyone outside the city could retreat to Metro while they did. Then they could seal the entrances again, focus all of their firepower on a half-dozen doors, and wait.

  But for how long?

  “Who are they?” Beth asked. “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know,” Jackson replied.

  “They didn’t even try to negotiate. They didn’t even try to talk to us.”

  “Maybe they’re as scared of us as we are of them?” he offered, even though he didn’t believe it.

  Beth didn’t either. She put her head in her hand and sobbed. “I wish those damn Marines had never disturbed us. They should have let us stay in the city and be happy, the way we were before. Now, we’re all going to die.”

  Jackson put his arms around his wife. He was doing his best to navigate these treacherous waters. He had already lied about the Marines to the colony. He had set them up as the cause of all of their problems. It had kept the colonists on his side, which was good. But was he leading them to ruin? His father, his grandfather—they had been good leaders. They were respected and admired for their evenhandedness. He knew what the citizens whispered about him. The more he tried to control things, the less control he seemed to have.

  He was doing the best he knew how to do. That was all. Maybe it came across the wrong way at times. Maybe it required making hard decisions and hurting people. But his responsibility was to all twenty-six thousand people of Metro. He didn’t want to be the one who failed them.

  He didn’t want to be the one who got them all killed.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said, kissing his wife’s head. “We’ll get back to the city. We’ll be safe in there.”

  Hind and his guards started firing at the same moment he finished the sentence. The loud echoes of rifle-fire hurt his ears and made Beth wail in fear. Jackson forced himself to look out over the edge of the lift, down to the approaching enemy. He could see them more clearly now. They were humanoid, two arms and two legs and close to two meters tall. It looked like they were wearing body armor or an exosuit of some kind, matte black and bulky. They cradled weapons in their arms like the MK-12s his guards carried but nearly twice as thick and much boxier.

  The rounds hit the enemy’s armor, throwing up short sparks and bouncing harmlessly away. The squad of aliens stopped almost beneath the lift, looking up. They couldn’t jump thirty meters. They would have to find another way to get onto the ship.

  As long as they didn’t decide to blast the lift instead.

  “Cease fire,” he said. “Ceasefire.” The guards stopped shooting. “We’re wasting ammo. Hind, as soon as we get to the hangar, I want a full red alert. I want the blast doors closed and then everyone back to the city asap.”

  “Yes, Governor,” Hind replied.

  Jackson glanced up again. A few more seconds and they would be—

  Something hit the bottom of the lift. Jackson heard it before he felt it, a loud, whooshing hiss followed by shaking and heat. The mechanism groaned in response to the attack, followed by a pop and whine before the lift stopped ascending. The violent vibration knocked him to the ground and took one of his guards over the edge. He heard the man crying out on the way down.

  “Jackson!” Beth shouted. He looked up, finding her also dangling from the edge. He pushed himself up, scrambling to her. Hind got there first, grabbing her arms and pulling her up.

  A bolt of energy hit Hind from below, catching him in the chest, and burning through his body armor like it was nothing. It passed cleanly through his body and out his back, eliciting another scream from Beth as the Lieutenant tumbled from the lift to the ground.

  “Down! Stay down!” Jackson screamed as loud as he could. He wanted to crawl into a hole, pull it over his head and disappear. He couldn’t believe any of this was happening. Five minutes earlier he had been so full of hope.

  Now it was all gone.

  Beth was right. They were all going to die.

  “Governor!” Someone said from beside him. He looked to find Sergeant Urias waving him toward the back of the lift. They were only two meters now from the top.

  Jackson grabbed Beth’s arm. “Stay low,” he said, getting to his feet and crouching to pull her along behind him toward the sergeant.

  The lift shook again, hit a second time. The blast tearing off the edge of it, Fire licking up from below, the metal twisting and grinding in a deafening whine.

  Jackson stumbled forward, making it to Urias, who grabbed Beth’s other arm and tugged her forward. She screamed again as he grabbed her waist and practically threw her up onto the main deck, where a pair of soldiers caught her. A bolt hit one of them and he fell backwards. The other fell on top of Beth, protecting her from the continuing fire.

  Jackson rushed to Urias. “ We need to stay low,” he said. The sergeant nodded, cupping his hands, and giving Jackson a boost. He climbed onto the deck, staying as flat as he could. Urias came up right behind him.

  “Where the hell are the drones?” Jackson shouted at Urias. “We need a Dagger in the air, now!” He looked across the hangar. Stunned soldiers and engineers stared back at him. “Get the damned blast doors closed!” he screamed.

  The engineers sprang into action, rushing toward the manual controls near the front.

  “No, wait!” Jackson screamed, bringing them to a stop. If they went to the controls, the enemy would gun them down. “Back up. Forget it. We need to retreat.”

  He went to Beth, putting his arm around her waist and getting her on her feet. They ran bent over at the waist to keep the enemy from targeting them. The enemy seemed to know the lift was clear because they had stopped shooting at it.

  “Governor,” Urias said. “Johns is on his way to the secondary hangar. First Platoon is on their way from the city.”

  “Good, good,” Jackson said. Johns was one of their new pilots. He had decent scores on the simulator. “Did you tell First Platoon to bring plasma rifles?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s going to slow them down. Most of them are still in the armory.”

  “The Mark-twelves are practically useless against their armor.”

  He started across the floor with Beth at a fast jog. He could smell urine, and when he looked down, he saw the front of her dress was wet. He checked his pants. Somehow he had managed to keep himself under control.

  They made it to the inner blast doors. The engineers were already there with the rest of the soldiers. The whole area had gone quiet. Was the attack over? Had the enemy seen fit to give up after he and Beth had escaped?

  That seemed unlikely. But where the hell were they?

  “Governor, what’s happening?” one of the engineers asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’re being attacked,” he replied, quickly realizing the impact of his tone. “But it’s going to be okay.” They had made it this far. The enemy had the element of surprise, but once his defense forces recovered, they would at least be able to fight back.

  “Governor, Johns is in the air,” Urias said.

  “That was fast,” Jackson replied. He heard the fighter a moment later, screaming across the sky. For a moment, he was tempted to head to the ship’s bridge to monitor the situation directly. He didn’t want to get cut off from the city if things worsened again. He didn’t want to be trapped outside. He didn’t want his people trapped outside either. “Call the bridge and tell them to evacuate. I want everyone back in Metro. And I mean everyone.”

  “Yes, sir,” Urias replied. Jackson could see the sergeant’s lips moving when he switched to the combat armor’s internal comms.

  “Come on, dear,” he said to Beth. “We’re safe now. We’ll head back to Metro and lock down the city while the DDF takes care of this.”

  Now that he had a moment of calm to think, he remembered he had only seen twelve or so of the alien attackers. How could a dozen armored insurgents defeat his three hundred soldiers? Especially now that they had a fighter in the air.

  “Go, all of you,” he said to the engineers. “Back to the city. Hurry!”

  The engineers turned and ran.

  “Urias,” Jackson said, glancing at the sergeant again. His eyes landed on Urias’ faceplate just in time to see a bolt slam into it, piercing the transparency and obliterating the man’s face, right before he crumpled to the floor.

  Jackson turned his head back to the open blast doors.

  Three enemy soldiers stood at the edge of the hangar.

  Chapter 6

  Jackson raised his hands, showing them he was unarmed. There was nothing else for him to do. A glance at the rest of the hangar told him the other guards were already dead, gunned down in an instant by the aliens.

  “We come in peace,” he said. “We don’t want to fight you.”

  The enemy didn’t respond. They moved almost in unison, efficiently sweeping their rifles across the area and ensuring the hangar was clear. Jackson heard a rapid-fire whooshing noise from outside, and he glanced at the open doors to see the Dagger flash past, its front-mounted cannons belching fire. Then he heard a shriek like a human scream, followed by an explosion and a lower-pitched whine from the air, followed by a hard crash. He didn’t need to see the action to know the Dagger was gone.

  One of the aliens stepped forward and barked something in a language he couldn’t begin to understand. Jackson didn’t move, keeping his hands raised while tears streamed from his eyes. He clenched the muscles in his abdomen, desperate not to embarrass himself before he died.

  The lead alien spoke again, louder and more forcefully. He took a few more steps forward, leaving Jackson able to see past a blue-tinted faceplate.

  He stopped breathing, caught completely by surprise.

  The face behind it was human.

  The alien shifted its rifle as though it were taking aim.

  “Wait!” Jackson shouted.

  A pair of plasma bolts angled down at the alien from the hole in the roof of the hangar, hitting the alien in the side. The superheated gas dug into the metal, doing enough damage to get the attention of the enemy soldiers. They whirled on the position as one unit, raised their guns and firing three rounds. Three Deliverance Defense Force soldiers fell out of the hole.

  Jackson didn’t wait to get shot. He broke for Beth and his escape the moment the soldiers pivoted back to raise their guns at him. He grabbed her again and dashed away, knowing they only had seconds to put something, anything, between them and the enemy.

  He instinctively dove to the right, pushing Beth ahead of him as they fell against the wall, behind the small lip of the blast doors. Two bolts hit the floor where they had been a moment earlier, digging into the metal.

  Jackson put his arms around his wife. They would have seconds at best before the enemy came around the lip and finished them for good. It was too little, too late.

  “I love you,” he said, staring down into her eyes.

  She looked at him, too scared to speak. He held her tighter.

  A series of bolts launched from down the corridor and into the hangar, crossing them in a solid barrage. Jackson felt the heat of them as they passed and then watched the return fire head in the opposite direction. He saw one of his DDF soldiers fall, but then the two squads charging their way seemed to get the upper hand, pushing the aliens back.

  “We’re saved,” he said, looking into Beth’s eyes. “Come on.” He picked her up, staying tight against the bulkhead. The soldiers ran up to him, one of them staying behind while the others spread into the hangar.

  “Let’s get you out of here, sir,” the soldier said.

  Jackson passed Beth to the man, and the three of them started running the other direction. Jackson could hear the fighting in the hangar. His soldiers were dying. He didn’t need to see it to know it. They had charged into the hangar with no cover, and the more experienced enemy were quickly cutting them down. His people had guns and armor, but they had little to no training. They were dying bravely like soldiers, but they weren’t soldiers.