"Testing."

  Orven's voice responded immediately, the Oridian words unintelligible, but from his tone, the acknowledgment clear. The older man had heard him.

  The system responded to intention. Like the doors that opened when you looked at them, like the command station that activated when you sat in it. The Maker technology sensed what you wanted and responded accordingly.

  Evan picked up a Maker pistol, turning it over in his hands. It was made of what visually looked like black plastic, lightweight and sized for easy handling, with a short barrel that ended in a grill and a power button positioned like a safety on a conventional pistol like his SIG. He had no idea what would happen when he squeezed the trigger.

  He was probably going to find out soon enough.

  He dropped the weapon into a magnetic holster designed specifically for it. He grabbed a rifle from the nearest rack, which he took as a larger, more powerful version of the handgun. The controls were intuitive enough: trigger, safety, what looked like a power adjustment near the stock.

  Orven and Faelen armed themselves with similar efficiency. Within moments, the four of them stood ready, a small squad equipped with ancient weaponry, preparing to defend against an overwhelming force.

  Evan led them back through the cargo bay toward the ramp. The massive door still stood open from the scavengers' earlier entry, cool air drifting in from the hollow tower beyond.

  The contact markers in his helmet display had grown more defined as he approached the ship's exterior. Twenty-three hostile signatures, arranged in a tightening perimeter around the tower. They were close now. Some of them were already inside the structure's outer walls, moving through the gaps and breaches that time had carved into the ancient stone.

  The first step onto the ramp felt significant in a way Evan hadn't expected. Metal beneath his boots, the Ascendant's ramp leading down toward the tower's stone floor. He descended carefully, rifle ready. His eyes scanned the shadows pooling between the scattered rubble even as the helmet's sensors painted those same shadows with tactical data.

  He paused at the base, looking out at the ancient walls rising around the Ascendant, the ragged opening far above where starlight filtered down through dust and time.

  One more step and his boots touched alien ground.

  The sensation registered somewhere deep, a primal recognition that he was standing on a world that wasn't Earth. The stone beneath his feet had been laid by hands that were human but not his species' ancestors. The air filtering through his suit's systems carried trace elements that had never touched an earthly atmosphere. The gravity was close to what he was used to—maybe slightly lighter—but even that subtle difference marked this place as fundamentally other.

  The ruins of an extinct civilization surrounded him. Walls that had once been smooth were now pitted and scarred by millennia of wind and dust. Pillars that had supported structures were long since collapsed. The hollow tower stretched up and up, a vertical tomb that had witnessed the death of everything it had been built to protect.

  A billion light years from home. Standing on the corpse of a world that had burned in wars fought while humanity was living in caves. Evan didn't have time to appreciate the moment. The contact markers in his display shifted, several of them accelerating toward the tower's base. Closing in.

  Orven and Faelen descended the ramp behind him, their boots striking stone with soft impacts. Myris followed, her rifle already raised, her helmet tracking the same sensor data that Evan was seeing. Faelen pointed toward a gap in the tower's base where rubble had collapsed to form a natural defensive position. Orven gestured toward another section where intact walls could provide cover.

  Evan understood the tactical thinking. Spread out. Establish overlapping fields of fire. Make the enemy pay for every meter of ground.

  He moved toward a fallen column that offered a clear sightline toward what the sensors indicated was the most likely approach. The stone was cold against his armored back as he settled into position, the rifle coming up to rest against the rubble in front of him.

  His helmet display showed the contacts converging. Eight signatures approaching from the east, moving in pairs. Six more from the north, their formation tighter, more disciplined. The rest holding position at the perimeter, probably establishing a cordon to prevent escape.

  Movement caught Evan's eye through a gap in the rubble. Shapes in the darkness beyond the tower's base, moving with the coordinated precision of trained soldiers. Their armor gleamed faintly in the starlight filtering down from above. Weapons held ready.

  The Umbral Empire's forces had arrived.

  39

  Evan pressed his back against the fallen column. His helmet display tracked the approaching contacts. Twelve through the main breach to his right, twelve from a gap on the far side of the tower, and the rest holding at the perimeter. The group to his right was closest, maybe forty meters out and closing.

  He glanced toward Orven's position behind the intact section of wall, then to where Faelen and Myris had settled into the rubble gap. The scavengers watched the same approaches, their rifles steady, their faceplates dark and unreadable.

  Evan raised his left hand, palm flat, then pushed it downward twice. Hold. Wait. The gesture wasn't exactly Marine hand signals, but the meaning should be universal enough. Orven's helmet tilted slightly in acknowledgment. Faelen shifted his weight but stayed low behind cover.

  Through the gaps in the rubble, Evan could see the Umbral soldiers more clearly now. Their armor was different from what he wore. Darker, more angular, with segmented plating that covered them from neck to boot. They moved in pairs, one advancing while the other covered. Professional. Disciplined. Their weapons swept the shadows with experienced efficiency.

  The lead pair reached a pile of debris near the tower's base and went to ground, establishing a firing position. The second pair moved up to flank them, finding cover behind a section of collapsed wall. They were setting up overlapping fields of fire, preparing to suppress anyone who tried to defend the ship.

  More movement behind them. The group from the far side entered through a different breach, their silhouettes visible against the faint starlight filtering into the tower. They spread out as they advanced, keeping enough distance between each soldier to make them harder to engage with a single burst.

  Evan's jaw tightened. They weren't charging in blindly. They were establishing a proper assault position, getting set before they made their push. Once they were dug in, dislodging them would be nearly impossible.

  Evan knew they had to hit them now, before they finished setting up. He raised his hand again, made a fist, then pointed two fingers toward the group on his right. Engage. His other hand came up with three fingers extended, then swept toward the far breach. Split targets.

  He didn't wait to see if they understood. His rifle came up, the stock settling against his shoulder. He focused on the nearest Umbral soldier—the one crouched behind the debris pile—his weapon tracking toward the Ascendant's ramp. Reading Evan's intention, understanding what he wanted to do, the helmet display responded, painting the target for him.

  A targeting reticle materialized right over the man's position, tracking his center mass. Evan squeezed the trigger. The rifle emitted a soft whine, barely louder than a whispered breath. But the effect was immediate.

  The air between Evan's position and the target shimmered, the same distortion he'd seen from the Ascendant's main guns compressed into a focused beam. The resonance wave struck the debris pile, and the stone simply came apart. Masonry that had held together for millennia fractured along invisible stress lines, chunks tumbling away as the material lost its structural integrity. The soldier's cover disintegrated around him, leaving him suddenly exposed, scrambling to find new cover.

  Evan fired again. The beam caught the Umbral before he could move. His armor cracked like an eggshell under pressure, fracture lines spreading across the chest plate in the instant before he collapsed. He didn't scream. Didn't stagger. Just went limp, his body folding as whatever the weapon did to matter did the same thing to flesh and bone. No blood. No gore. Just a man who had been alive one moment and wasn't the next.

  Evan stared at the result for a fraction of a second, his mind processing what he'd just witnessed. Operating on the same principles as the ship's main armament, the rifle destabilized matter at the molecular level, breaking apart whatever it touched. The first shot stripped away protection. The second delivered death.

  The targeting reticle was already tracking to the second Umbral in the pair. The man was moving, rolling away and taking up a new position behind the section of wall. His weapon came up. Evan fired. The stone shattered, fragments spraying outward. Evan fired again, before the man could react to his sudden exposure. Again, the whine. The shimmer. The crack of armor losing cohesion. And the soldier dropped without a sound.

  Orven joined the defense from across the tower's base, his rifle producing the same soft whine, the same lethal effect. An Umbral soldier near the far breach staggered as his cover disintegrated around him, and a second shot dropped him before he could find new shelter. Faelen and Myris opened up a heartbeat later, their fire converging on a pair of soldiers who had been advancing along the wall to Evan's left.

  The Umbral formation shattered. Soldiers who had been moving with coordinated precision suddenly found themselves under fire from multiple directions, their carefully chosen positions worthless against weapons that could destroy stone as easily as flesh. The pattern repeated across the tower's base. Cover destroyed. Soldier exposed. Soldier killed. Two more went down in rapid succession, their armor cracking, their bodies crumpling. The survivors broke for better positions, abandoning their carefully planned advance in favor of simple survival.

  Evan tracked a soldier sprinting toward a section of intact wall opposite his position. The man was fast, his movements desperate. Evan's first shot missed the moving target, the shimmer passing through empty air. He adjusted, led the target slightly, and fired at the wall the man was running toward. The stone disintegrated as the wave passed through it. The soldier stumbled, suddenly exposed, with nowhere left to hide. The reticle locked onto his center mass, and Evan squeezed the trigger. The man went down and didn't move again.

  The approach to his right had become a killing ground. Bodies lay among the rubble, their armor cracked and broken, their weapons scattered. The survivors had pulled back, retreating toward the breach they'd entered through, their disciplined advance transformed into a fighting withdrawal.

  From the far side of the tower, similar chaos erupted. Orven's position commanded a clear line of sight to that breach, and the old scavenger was using it ruthlessly. Every Umbral who tried to push through caught a resonance beam that turned their cover to dust, followed immediately by a second shot that turned their armor to scrap. Pinned behind whatever shelter they could find, unable to move forward without dying, the soldiers there had given up trying to advance entirely.

  Evan's heart pounded, adrenaline singing through his veins. They were winning. Against trained military forces, with superior numbers and orbital support, they were actually winning.

  Then the shooting stopped.

  The tactical display in his helmet showed the surviving contacts pulling back, retreating beyond the tower's outer walls, regrouping in the ruins beyond. Evan counted the markers—fourteen remaining from the original twenty-three. They'd killed nine soldiers in less than two minutes.

  But they hadn't broken them. The contacts weren't fleeing in disorder. They were reforming, establishing new positions, preparing for another push.

  Evan's breathing steadied as the immediate danger passed. He scanned his surroundings, checking on his unlikely allies. Orven was still behind his section of wall, his rifle trained on the far breach, his posture suggesting he hadn't taken any fire. Faelen and Myris had shifted positions during the engagement, moving to better cover. Both appeared uninjured.

  The respite wouldn't last. Evan knew it with the certainty of someone who had studied military tactics, who understood how professional soldiers responded to initial setbacks. The first assault had been a probe. They'd come in expecting to face a single defender, maybe two, armed with conventional weapons. Instead, they'd walked into an ambush by enemies wielding technology that made their armor worthless.

  Now they knew what they were dealing with. The next assault would be different.

  Evan projected his voice through the helmet's comm system. "Don't get comfortable. They'll be back."

  The Oridian response was unintelligible, but the tone suggested some level of understanding. Faelen rested with his back against his cover. Myris shifted to a new position that gave her a better angle on the wall to Evan's left. Orven simply waited, his attention never leaving the far breach.

  Minutes crawled past. The contact markers at the perimeter held their positions, neither advancing nor retreating. Regrouping. Planning. Learning from their dead.

  Then the edge of Evan's sensor display flickered.

  New signatures appeared at the boundary of the Ascendant's detection range, faint and uncertain through the interference of the tower's metal structure. Ships. Descending through the atmosphere, their profiles resolving into military transports as they dropped closer. One. Three. Five. The markers stabilized briefly before the interference scattered them again, but Evan had seen enough.

  Reinforcements. Sarxon's backup must have arrived.

  It had been at least ninety minutes since he'd returned to the Ascendant through the effigy and sent his request for help.

  Where the hell was the Null Guard?

  40

  Evan watched the display, tracking the transports' descent as best he could through the sensor noise. They were landing somewhere beyond the tower's walls, disgorging soldiers who would join the survivors of the first assault. The fourteen contacts at the perimeter began to multiply. Sixteen. Twenty. Twenty-five. More appearing every few seconds as the new arrivals linked up with the established cordon.

  Orven's voice crackled through the comm—a single word in Oridian, the tone grim. Evan didn't need a translation. The old scavenger had seen the same thing he was seeing.

  The contact markers began to move.

  Not a cautious probe this time. They advanced simultaneously from multiple directions, spreading out as they approached and entering through gaps—breaches in the ancient walls the Umbrals had found while awaiting reinforcements. Breaches that Evan hadn't known existed. The perimeter wasn't just tightening. It had been strengthened with fresh soldiers, not only making themselves stronger but harder to engage.

  Movement caught his eye behind him. Three soldiers emerged from a crack in the tower's foundation that Evan didn't know was there, their advance cautious but steady. His reticle tracked the lead man, but they broke apart, diving for cover before he could get a clean shot.

  Evan fired at the rubble pile the nearest soldier had chosen for shelter. The stone fractured and tumbled, but the man had already rolled to a new position, never staying still long enough to present a clear target. Evan's reticle struggled to lock onto him, the system responding to his intention but unable to predict where the soldier would be when the beam arrived.

  They'd learned. The Maker weapons were devastating but not unavoidable. A moving target could evade them. Cover was worthless, but speed and unpredictability weren't.

  More contacts appeared on Evan's right from the far side. From gaps and cracks that he hadn't even known were there. The Umbral forces were pouring in from every direction now, a coordinated assault from multiple angles that forced the defenders to split their attention. To choose which threat to engage while others closed in.

  Evan's rifle whined again and again, each shot finding cover to destroy or a living target to drop. It didn't matter. The tactical display was becoming cluttered with markers, the neat groupings of the initial assault dissolving into a chaotic swarm that pressed in from every direction.

  A beam sizzled past his head close enough that his helmet's sensors registered the energy discharge. The Umbrals were gaining enough of a foothold to finally shoot back. Evan spotted one zeroing in on him. He ducked back behind the column he'd been using for cover just as another shot sparked against the stone near his shoulder.

  Across the tower's base, Faelen was in trouble. Three soldiers had flanked his position, advancing in bounds, one moving while the others provided cover fire. The young scavenger was firing as fast as his rifle would cycle, but he couldn't track all three at once. One of them was getting close, maybe twenty meters out and closing.

  Evan found the advancing soldier's cover—a chunk of fallen pillar—in his reticle and fired. The stone broke apart, and before the man could react to his sudden exposure, Evan fired again. The soldier went down, but the other two were already moving, using their fallen comrade's sacrifice to close the distance.

  Myris's rifle whined twice in rapid succession—cover destroyed, soldier dropped—the soldier's leg giving out as the second beam tore through his armor's knee joint. The third soldier reached shelter behind a section of wall near Faelen's flank. He went to ground with his weapon tracking toward the young scavenger's position.

  Faelen was moving before Evan could shout a warning. Rolling out from cover, he came up in a new position, his rifle spitting shots that chewed apart the soldier's hiding spot piece by piece. The Umbral returned fire, and Evan saw Faelen flinch as the beam passed close enough to score his armor's shoulder plate.

  Evan fired at the remains of the wall. What was left of the stone shattered, but the soldier was already sprinting toward new shelter, moving with the desperate speed of someone who understood exactly how much danger he was in. Evan's reticle tracked him, led him, and he fired twice—the first shot destroying the rubble pile the man was running toward, the second catching him in the open before he could adjust.