He had blamed the only soldiers they had for their predicament. He had forced them out. And then he had sent Dante and a team to try to kill them.

  What the hell had he done?

  The main blast doors to the city were already swinging closed ahead of them. Made of thick steel, it would take some work for the enemy to break through, though Jackson knew they would sooner or later. He was more concerned with the fact that they were too far away to get in before they sealed.

  “This way,” the soldier guiding them said, leading them down another corridor. They broke parallel to the city, taking the passage fifty meters before rendezvousing with another squad from First Platoon.

  “Governor,” the squad leader said. “It’s good you’re safe, sir. We’re sealing all the entrances to the city, save for one like you ordered. This way.”

  The sergeant and his squad surrounded Jackson and his wife as they ran down another corridor to the stairs and began to climb.

  “What’s happening at the hangar?” Jackson asked.

  “They’re gone,” the sergeant replied. “Whatever is out there, they know how to fight. Better than we do.”

  “They’re human,” Jackson said.

  “What?” the sergeant said. “That’s impossible.”

  “I looked one of them right in the eye. They’re a little strange looking, but they’re definitely the same species. Either that or evolution is a lot less random than science assumed. He tried to talk to me, but it sounded like gibberish.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are the people evacuating the outer portion of the ship?”

  “Yes, sir. The rest of the troops are gearing up and assembling. We’re getting the defenses ready as we speak.”

  “Is the bridge locked down?”

  “Yes, sir. Deputy Klahanie reports the terminals are securely locked. Blast doors are closed and sealed. Your identification chip and the backup password are the only two ways to get back in without destroying everything inside.”

  “Who has the password?”

  “Right now, only the deputy.”

  “Good. I’ll make sure he knows to keep it that way once we’re safe.”

  “We’re almost there, Governor,” the sergeant said.

  “Sarge, we’ve got company,” one of the soldiers said. “Coming up fast.”

  “Get them out of here!” the sergeant barked. “Defensive line, plasma set to stream. These bastards aren’t getting through.”

  “Affirmative, Sarge!”

  The original soldier led Jackson and his wife away again, while the rest of the squad turned and brought their P-50s to bear, switching them to stream mode. If they all fired the weapons at once, they would create an impenetrable inferno.

  Jackson continued down the corridor, glancing behind them. He saw the first alien come around the corner, and then the squad opened fire. The alien vanished in a cloud of superhot gas, only to appear a moment later, inside the defensive line. The armored soldier kicked one of the guards, grabbed another by the head and broke his neck. He picked up a third by the armor and smashed him into the wall, punched a fourth hard enough to lay him out, and grabbed the fifth, holding him up while he picked up a P-50 and fired it point blank into the guard. Then his head turned toward Jackson.

  “How far?” Jackson asked.

  “Not far,” the soldier replied. They turned the corner, running ten meters and turning again. The blast door was another ten meters ahead. Nearly fifty soldiers were positioned behind it, weapons ready. “Go!” the soldier yelled, pushing Jackson forward. He took Beth’s hand and dragged her toward the blast door.

  A few seconds later, he heard the soldier behind them scream. Then the defenses started shooting, sending bolts of plasma whizzing past their heads. They made it to the hatch, each of them pulled past their group.

  The hatch now was only a few seconds from sliding closed and sealing. Three more steps and they slipped through the narrow opening. Jackson looked back. The enemy had cleared the corridor, deciding not to face the brunt of the defenses. Behind him, the hatch slammed closed.

  They had made it.

  All of the strength drained from Jackson, and he fell to his knees, leaning over. He suddenly felt sick. He coughed and vomited on the floor, tears streaming from his eyes. Beth slumped to the floor ahead of him, crossing her legs and putting her head in her hands.

  “Governor,” Colonel Ross said, hurrying over to him. Jackson had known Ross for a long time. He had been the head of his security detail.

  “Ross. Are all the hatches sealed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about the secondary hangar? The Daggers?”

  “It’s sealed, sir. But I don’t know how long that will hold them back.”

  “Why didn’t the drones see the enemy coming? We had eyes in the sky. How did we miss them?”

  “I don’t know, Governor.”

  Jackson leaned back on his knees. “Help me up.”

  Ross took his arm and helped him get to his feet. His body was weak. Exhausted. He used the colonel for balance while he made his way to Beth.

  “Beth, honey. We made it.” She didn’t look up at him. She didn’t react to him at all. “Beth?”

  Nothing.

  “I think she’s in shock,” Ross said.

  “Get Rathbone out here, immediately,” Jackson said. “She needs treatment and care.”

  “Yes, Governor.”

  “Beth, can you hear me?” Jackson asked.

  She didn’t respond. Her head stayed in her hands, covering her face.

  Jackson drew in a somber breath. How could everything have gone so wrong, so fast? He ran his hand across his eyes, rubbing them. He had to think. The enemy was right outside, and as long as they remained there, this whole thing was far from over.

  “Have one of your people take Beth to the hospital,” he said to Ross. “Let’s head to the mansion. We need to try to keep up with their position inside.”

  “Yes, Governor,” Ross replied. He said something into his comm and a pair of soldiers came over. They each took one of Beth ‘s arms and gently lifted her to her feet. She didn’t resist.

  Jackson turned away. He hated to leave her like that, but he had an entire city to think about, and right now they were in serious trouble. He glanced at the hatch. At least they had a few minutes to breathe and regroup.

  Only they didn’t have a few minutes. They had less than a handful of seconds. The hatch surprisingly began to rise again, revealing too many armored feet at the bottom that became too many enemy soldiers.

  First Platoon never had a chance. Nine aliens burst into the access corridor, a wave of death that washed over the DDF soldiers before they had a chance to think about shooting. The aliens were clean and efficient killers, and Jackson stood fixed in place, frozen in shock, motionless while his people died in front of him.

  The same alien from the hangar moved ahead of the group. Jackson raised his hands a second time. The leader tried to speak to him again. Jackson shook his head. He didn’t understand. The alien thrust his gun forward, pointing it at Jackson and waiting a few seconds. Then he smoothly swung it to his side, attaching it to his armor. He pointed at Jackson. Then he pointed at himself as if to say, “you’re mine.”

  Jackson didn’t try to argue. He didn’t try to resist. There was no point. It would only get him killed. The sealed hatch had been useless. The security cracked in seconds. The rest of the locks on the ship would fall just as easily.

  In barely an hour, the colony had gone from freedom to imprisonment.

  Chapter 7

  When Caleb came to he was propped up on a padded bench seat in the front of the Inahri transport. An Inahri woman was positioned on his right, and two men were across a narrow aisle. Another man and woman were further back on the seat, facing away from him.

  His hands were bound by a pair of bracelets that he couldn’t pull more than a dozen centimeters from one another before meeting futile resistance, even with the strength of his replacement arm. His head hurt. His eyes were a little blurry.

  But he was still alive. That was a good sign.

  He didn’t speak. He took in the rest of his surroundings. To his left, the back of a pilot’s seat and the viewport out of the transport from the cockpit. Through it, he could see the edge of the mountain range they had crossed over.

  Southeast. They were headed southeast. How far had they gone? How much farther did they have to go?

  The pilot was facing away from him. His head was small and narrow and speckled with a dusting of fine hair. He had his hands up in front of him which he appeared to be using to control the ship, his fingers tapping slightly and his palms changing planes in sync with the transport. A band around the back of his head suggested he had goggles over his eyes.

  Caleb faced straight again. The Inahri men across from him had noticed he was awake. When he looked at them, they looked back. They didn’t speak, and their expressions didn’t change.

  He glanced to his right again, past the rest of the Inahri , realizing that the rest of his Guardians were on the transport with them. They were shoved into the rear of the craft on the floor, pressed together in a small cargo space and still unconscious.

  Why had they given him special treatment? Because he had attacked them?

  The woman beside him noticed the men, and then she pivoted on the seat so she could look at him. Caleb drew back when he saw her face. It was so alien, and at the same time so human.

  Her eyes were too big, her nose too small, her cheekbones too delicate, and her lips too full and red. She had cropped reddish-blonde hair and an olive complexion. She reminded him of the way advertisers distorted models in magazines, elongating this, shrinking that, and trying to make the most perfect, beautiful woman, instead arriving at something that didn’t exist.

  The face he looked at now fell somewhere in the uncanny valley between the two extremes and looking at it unnerved him.

  “I don’t suppose you speak Earth English?” he said with a smile, trying to appear friendly.

  The Inahri had to know the Guardian Intellect was gone. They had to know the city-ship was theirs again for the taking. Did they know it didn’t have an energy unit? Did they know the Earthers did? How could they?

  But if they were that interested in the city, why had they left already? He couldn’t believe that he and the Guardians were enough of a prize.

  She smiled back at him, and responded in a tongue he couldn’t understand either. It sounded like Chinese spoken with a thick French accent.

  Caleb shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re saying. And you don’t know what I’m saying either.” He forced a laugh.

  She laughed at that. Maybe English just sounded amusing to them. Then she looked at her companions and said something. They all laughed.

  At least they were capable of laughter. They couldn’t be all bad, then. Could they?

  Caleb pointed to his people in the back of the transport, and then at himself. “Mine.”

  She raised a light eyebrow at that. He repeated the process a few more times, but she didn’t seem to get it.

  This was going to be impossible.

  He looked the other way, back out the forward viewport. The ship was rising over the edge of the mountains, revealing the jungle and river valley on the right. He craned his neck, trying to find the Deliverance in the distance. He couldn’t. They had to be too far south.

  He would have checked the time on his HUD, but his SOS was offline, and he didn’t have his helmet anyway. None of the Guardians did. The headgear was piled beside them, along with their rifles.

  He put his head back against the side of the transport and closed his eyes. Everything was happening too damn fast, and none of it made much sense. He hoped the Deliverance was still safe. For all the Guardian’s words about how the Inahri had destroyed the Axon, they didn’t seem irrationally violent. Maybe they had just been pissed about being used?

  In a lot of ways, they were no different than the people of Metro.

  He opened his eyes again when he felt a hand on his replacement. The woman beside him was running her fingers along it, and looking questioningly at him. He couldn’t even say hello. How was he going to explain a prosthetic made from an alien alloy he shouldn’t have access to?

  He pointed at her arm, and then slowly reached over and tapped her armor. She seemed tentative about him touching her, but she had five armed soldiers with her.

  She nodded in understanding. If that’s what it was. He had told her the arm was armor, but that wasn’t true. It was the best he could do.

  The woman removed her hand and looked up out of the front transparency, and then she snapped something to the pilot. He replied quickly, affirming her direction, and then the transport turned fully south.

  She was in charge. He had already guessed, but her orders confirmed it.

  “Caleb,” Caleb said, getting her attention again. He pointed at himself. “Caleb.” He did it a few more times.

  “Caleb?” she said slowly, as though forming the word was painful.

  Caleb nodded. “Yes. Caleb.”

  The other soldiers grunted humorously. She smiled. “Caleb.”

  He pointed at her. She stared at his finger while he repeated the motion a few more times. He assumed she had a pronounceable name, not an equation like the Axon Intellects.

  “Za Tsi,” she said, pointing at herself. “Za Tsi.”

  Caleb smiled. “Za Tsi.”

  She nodded. “Chi.”

  Was that yes? He figured it probably was.

  “Za Tsi,” he said again.

  “Caleb,” she said.

  They smiled at one another. He was developing some kind of rapport with the Inahri woman. He was still alive.

  Definitely a good start.

  He opened his mouth, pointing to it. “Hungry.” He wasn’t hungry, but it was the next thing he could think of to establish some small measure of communication. “Hungry.”

  She let him repeat the motion a few times. Then she leaned over, pressing on the bottom of the bench. A drawer slid open, revealing a small, dry square. She picked it up and held it out to him.

  He took it. “Food?” he asked. She stared at him. He pointed at it. “Food.”

  “Food,” she said. “Yinai.”

  “Yinai. Food.”

  She laughed, so he laughed. Then he put to his mouth and took a bite. It tasted as dry as it looked, only it melted in his mouth after a second, becoming soft and slightly sweet. He chewed and swallowed. Not bad at all.

  “Mmmm,” he said.

  Za Tsi laughed again, her eyes lighting up in approval. The light faded as quickly as it appeared, her entire expression suddenly turning dark. For an instant, Caleb wondered if he had offended her. Then she started yelling at the pilot, leaning and reaching across him and putting his face right next to hers. She smelled sweet and clean. He didn’t expect that.

  She grabbed a small device and put it to his stomach. As soon as she did, he felt like he was being pressed down into the bench.

  Then the transport made a soft hissing noise and began to fall from the sky.

  Chapter 8

  The motion of the descent was unsettling in a way Caleb had never experienced. He had jumped out of airplanes plenty of times. He had been on a C-130 that stalled and almost ditched in the Pacific. This wasn’t that. This was faster, harder, and smoother than anything he’d ever felt, and his body had no idea what to think of it.

  The Inahri craft sank toward the edge of the mountains and the top line of the jungle canopy alongside. He felt a light pressure against his abdomen where Za Tsi had positioned the unique device, and he felt a sensation of dropping, but it wasn’t close to the g-force he was expecting from the sudden dive. He looked back at the Guardians still unconscious in the rear. They were shoved back against the wall, the movement pushing hard on them. He looked at Za Tsi. She seemed unconcerned by their fate.

  “What’s happening?” he asked, turning back to the viewport just in time to see something blue flash past them and hit the trees, igniting them instantly. “Oh. Shit.”

  He didn’t need an answer now. They were being attacked. By who and what?

  Not a Dagger. The fighters didn’t have a weapon like that. Another alien? There was some question about whether or not the Relyeh had ever arrived on Essex. But he didn’t get the impression the Relyeh used energy weapons either.

  The transport banked hard right. Caleb barely felt it in the traditional sense, but he could see how the others shifted, their bodies feeling the strain even if their minds weren’t able to connect the action.

  “You’re hurting them,” he said, pointing at them.

  Za Tsi glanced back at the others, and then at him. She didn’t seem to understand what he meant.

  “G-forces? You obviously know what they are, since you made these things.” He grabbed the device on his lap. She snatched his hand and yanked it away. She didn’t want him to turn it off. He pointed at the Guardians again, and then at himself, making an angry face. “They’re mine, and you’re hurting them.”

  The transport changed direction again, hissing louder as it ascended into a nearly vertical climb. Washington fell on top of Dante, likely suffocating her beneath his mass.

  “Damn it!” Caleb shouted. “You’re going to kill them!”

  His anger caused the two soldiers opposite him to start reaching for something, but Za Tsi snapped something to them, and they straightened up. Then she looked at Caleb, pointing at him and then at the Guardians, and then toward the viewport. The transport was out of its climb and diving again. Caleb looked in time to see a dark shape flash past, and white bolts fire from their craft. The bolts missed the attacking ship, sinking into the jungle and starting small fires where they hit.