My ankle made the decision for me. More time was better than getting caught in a kill zone.

  I took the covered route. The buildings here were more intact, their walls still standing even if the roofs had collapsed. I passed through empty apartments where skeletons sat at tables, frozen in their final moments.

  A toxic pool blocked the street ahead, its surface a sickly green that bubbled. I skirted around it, hugging a wall, my Geiger counter clicked faster as I passed. The radiation spike was brief but noticeable.

  Behind me, maybe two blocks back, I heard rubble shifting. Could someone be following on foot?

  I ducked into a doorway, pulse rifle ready. My breathing was too loud. I forced it to slow and be controlled.

  Then a shape appeared at the end of the street. It was one of the Philips, his phasor tracked across the ruins.

  He was fifty feet away. I could take the shot, but the pulse rifle’s report would surely bring the others. I decided it was better to let him pass and stay hidden.

  The Philip stopped, his hairy head tilted as he studied something on the ground. I bet those were my tracks visible in the dust and debris.

  He raised his phasor, aiming at my doorway. I could see he wore tinted shades. I had no doubt that was a targeting system linked to his phasor.

  “I can see your shadow, Bayard,” he called out. “The sun is behind you, projecting it into the street. That’s very careless for a Marine.”

  Damn it.

  “Come out and we’ll make this quick,” he said. “Philip A-3 wants you alive, but he’ll settle for your corpse if necessary.”

  I stayed silent, calculating angles. The doorway was narrow. If I moved fast—

  A phasor beam punched through the wall six inches to my left. He was firing half blind, working on the shadow’s position. The next shot would be closer.

  I burst from the doorway, diving and rolling despite my ankle’s protest. The Philip fired where I’d been, then adjusted, the next beam showed he was tracking my movement.

  I came up shooting. The pulse beam caught him in the shoulder, spinning him. His return fire went wide.

  I fired again, center mass. He went down hard, his phasor skittering across the pavement.

  I hobbled toward him, keeping my rifle trained on him. He was still breathing, but the chest wound was bad. He looked up at me with those too-human eyes.

  “Philip… A-3… will kill you,” he wheezed. “You… destroyed… his life.”

  “Screw him,” I said.

  “You don’t understand.” Blood bubbled at his lips. “Five years he’s been planning. The Mu massacre was just the beginning.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  But his eyes had gone glassy. He was dead.

  I heard the distinctive hum of anti-grav belts converging on my position. The pulse rifle fire would have drawn them, but I was sure he’d already called them to him.

  I grabbed the dead Philip’s phasor. It was always good to have a backup weapon. Then I started moving again, faster now despite the ankle. The obelisk wasn’t far.

  Five minutes later, I emerged onto a wider boulevard. The ruins here were more spread out, less vertical cover. Ahead, maybe half a mile, I could see a structure rising above the surrounding wreckage.

  It was the obelisk, aka, the Dead Tower.

  It looked like the other obelisks I’d seen: black stone, smooth sides, maybe eighty feet tall with the red pyramidion or capstone on top. But this one had scorch marks and damage on it. Chunks were missing from its surface. I guess the Togs had called it the Dead Tower for a reason.

  Movement above made me look up.

  The two Philips were diving toward me, phasors already firing.

  I activated the anti-grav belt and shot upward, barely avoiding the first volley. The belt’s charge indicator dropped to 17%. I couldn’t keep this up much longer.

  The two Philips split, probably trying to flank me.

  I activated my weak shield generator—the one I’d been charging in the pack earlier. The flickering shimmer appeared just as one of them fired. His beam hit the shield and scattered, but I felt the generator heating up. It wasn’t going to last much longer.

  The other fired from my left. The shield flickered worse than ever, weakened. I figured one more shot and it would collapse.

  Then I did something they probably didn’t expect. I deactivated my anti-grav belt and dropped.

  For a heart-stopping second I was in free fall, the wind screaming past. Both Philips adjusted their aim downward.

  Then I reactivated the belt, killing my downward momentum. The sudden stop nearly made me black out, but I managed to level off and shoot forward, using a burst of speed to race toward a partially collapsed tower.

  Phasor fire chased me. My shield finally gave out with a pathetic flicker.

  I made it into the tower’s hollow interior as beams carved chunks from the entrance. Inside was a maze of collapsed floors and twisted support beams. Bad for flying, perfect for hiding.

  I landed hard on a tilted floor, my ankle nearly giving out. I caught myself against a wall, breathing hard as sweat dripped from my face.

  I heard Philip shouting orders. “He’s in the tower, ground floor, east side. We’ll flush him out.”

  I checked my anti-grav belt and didn’t think I had enough left for another aerial fight. I had to make it to the obelisk on foot.

  The tower had multiple exits. I picked one that faced northeast and hobbled toward it, moving as quietly as my injured ankle allowed.

  Outside, the ruins stretched toward the obelisk. I could see it clearly now. I’d covered more ground with my last flight than I’d realized. It was maybe three hundred yards away across relatively open ground.

  I then heard the distinctive shimmer and hum of teleportation.

  The Philips appeared on the plaza’s cracked pavement and turned to look back at the tower where I was hiding. Even from this distance, I could see one of them grin.

  “Come on, Bayard!” he shouted. “I’m waiting for you! Let’s finish what we started in the Chaunt System!”

  I sagged against the tower’s wall, my ankle throbbing, my anti-grav belt nearly dead, and Philip A-3 standing between me and my only way home.

  Now I had to figure out how to get past him, or die trying.

  -45-

  The plaza surrounding the obelisk was a killing ground.

  I could see that from three hundred yards away, crouched behind the ruins of what might have been a transit station. The plaza was wide open—maybe two hundred feet of cracked pavement with nowhere to hide. The obelisk stood in the center, its black stone surface scarred and pitted but still imposing.

  Philip A-3 stood at the tower’s base with his remaining companion. Both had phasors ready, scanning the ruins around the plaza. They knew I was coming. They were waiting, and for some reason, they didn’t seem to fear my pulse rifle.

  My ankle throbbed. My anti-grav belt was almost dead weight on my hips. The pulse rifle felt heavy in my hands, and I had one phasor as backup.

  Why didn’t they fear my pulse rifle? Each wore an EVA suit, although not the helmets. That didn’t make sense, did it? Did I detect a shimmer around each of them? Maybe Philip had picked up his own shield generators. That made the most sense. Why hadn’t the third one had a shield, though? Were there only two?

  I studied the plaza. The pavement was littered with debris: chunks of concrete, rusted vehicle shells and scattered rubble.

  “Bayard!” Philip shouted. He must have a voice amplifier. “I know you’re out there! I can smell your desperation from here!”

  I stayed silent, watching.

  “Five years!” Philip said, his voice rising. “Five years I’ve been planning this! Do you have any idea what you cost me in the Chaunt System? My career, my status, my future—all gone because you stranded my people on Chaunt Three!”

  That wasn’t how I remembered it. Those had been Accelerationists. Philip A-3 had claimed to be a Traditionalist. What had changed since then?

  The companion Philip scanned the ruins with his phasor, methodically checking each possible hiding spot.

  “My Original wanted me executed for what happened,” Philip said. “He blamed me for the Accelerationist failure and gross loss of life, as he called their exile on Chaunt Three. He didn’t see that I’d brought the Traditionalists victory. He’s an old fool, but he has the power. I barely escaped with my life. Since then, it’s been five years living in shadows, scraping by, nursing my hatred for you.”

  I shifted position, moving to a different vantage point. The companion Philip’s head snapped toward my old position, but I was already gone.

  “Then I realized something,” Philip shouted with his amplified voice. “Killing you quickly would be too merciful. You needed to suffer as I’d suffered. You needed to lose everything like I lost everything.”

  I reached down and pulled up a chunk of rubble, and hurled it toward the plaza’s east side. It clattered across pavement.

  The companion Philip spun, firing at the sound. His phasor beam carved a smoking line across the plaza.

  “I’m truly sorry that I didn’t have a hand in killing your wife. That was all Omilcar’s doing. Know, however, that the Tsargol Plain massacre was just the beginning. I brought Saddoth advisors to train the Ophidian primitives. I taught them how to set the trap at Tsargol. I learned how your Pterodactyl Riders fell from the sky like broken toys.”

  My hands tightened on the pulse rifle. Thousands of men, he’d orchestrated their deaths.

  “And after you die here,” Philip said, “I’m going to finish what I started. Sky Island will burn. Your three cities will fall. Everyone you tried to save will die knowing you failed them.”

  I shrugged off the backpack, put away the dead shield generator and took out the third one I’d been charging for a short time. Would this one hold a charge better? I would find out soon. Once ready, I hefted the backpack onto my shoulders.

  Okay, buddy boy; you wanted me. Here I was.

  I activated the shield generator, hoping—yes, it hummed to life around me. Then I stepped into the plaza.

  “There he is!” the companion Philip shouted.

  Both phasors fired immediately. The beams hit my shield and scattered. I felt the generator heating up against my belt as I ran, hobbling on my bad ankle, heading for an overturned transport.

  Another volley struck. My shield flickered and weakened. I was frankly surprised it had lasted this long.

  I dove behind a transport as the next beams scorched the pavement where I’d been. My shoulder hit the rusted metal hard enough to leave a bruise, I thought.

  I caught my breath and checked my weapons. The pulse rifle was ready, so was the backup phasor.

  The companion Philip was moving, trying to flank me around the transport. I could hear his boots scraping on concrete.

  I rolled left and came up shooting with the pulse rifle. The beam hit the companion square in the chest and scattered off a shimmer around him. He had a shield, too. That was no good, but it explained their confidence.

  Philip A-3 stepped out from behind the obelisk, his phasor aimed at me. “Are you surprised, Bayard? These shields are far better than your ancient junk.”

  I fired at him. The pulse beam hit his shield and dissipated harmlessly.

  “You’re finished,” Philip said, grinning. “Those Tellus shields drain fast under fire. Ours don’t. We can stand here all day while you—”

  I activated my anti-grav belt. This was my last trick. I’d saved just enough to close distances fast. Yeah, the pulse rifle didn’t dent their shield and I was thinking a phasor wouldn’t either, not unless it had prolonged fire. I had one ace card then, and I was throwing it down now.

  The last charge kicked in and I flew at the companion Philip. He started to raise his phasor but I was already on him, drawing the baan as I came.

  I’d spent months in a pterodactyl saddle, learning to strike from the air. The blue plasma blade hummed to life and I brought it down in a vicious arc as I passed him.

  The baan carved through his shield as if it wasn’t there. It kept going into hairy flesh as well. The companion’s head toppled from his shoulders, neatly sliced from it.

  His EVA-covered body collapsed, with blood fountaining from the open neck.

  Philip A-3 screamed with rage and opened fire at me.

  His beam hammered my shield so it flickered and then collapsed as I dove for cover behind rubble. The shield had lasted long enough, and I was grateful.

  My anti-grav belt sputtered and died. I hit the ground hard, my bad ankle taking the impact. The pain was white-hot agony. I couldn’t suppress the scream that tore from my throat.

  I scrambled behind the rubble, panting, my ankle throbbing with each heartbeat.

  “You killed him!” Philip’s voice was shrill with fury. “You killed my last companion!”

  I pressed against the rubble. My shoulder was smoking where a beam had grazed me. The pack had taken some of the fire, protecting my back.

  Philip’s anti-grav belt hummed. It sounded like he was rising into the air, getting altitude.

  I had the pulse rifle, the backup phasor, and the baan. But Philip had a working shield and mobility. If I tried to shoot it out from here, he’d win.

  Phasor fire carved chunks from my cover. Philip was circling above, no doubt trying to get a clean angle.

  “I heard you scream, Bayard,” Philip shouted. “You’re wounded. This is over.”

  I looked at the obelisk in the distance. Philip was between it and me, floating thirty feet up.

  Then Philip started descending, his anti-grav bringing him down slowly. He was grinning, confident. He must have thought his phasor fire had done real damage and that I was bleeding out behind the rubble. He must have wanted to watch me die and get his rocks off over it. Too much hatred could be bad for logical combat decisions. This seemed like it could be one of those times.

  “Come out and die quickly,” Philip called, still descending. “Or hide and die slowly. It’s your choice.”

  He was at twenty feet now, coming down too fast, in my opinion. He seemed too confident and too eager.

  I gripped the baan’s hilt and waited.

  He was at fifteen feet, ten feet.

  Now!

  I burst from cover and charged straight at the descending Philip.

  He fired. I brought the baan up, angling the plasma blade. It was all I had for defense.

  The phasor beam hit the blade’s energy field and deflected. Heat seared my hand holding the hilt. I felt burning across my chest where the deflected beam scorched my leather jacket.

  But I kept running, kept the blade up as a shield.

  Philip fired again, his eyes widening as he realized his mistake. There was another deflection. More heat scorching my hands and chest.

  He was five feet up, trying to rise again, but not fast enough. “No! You can’t do this to—”

  I roared, “You miscalculated, asshole!”

  I drove the baan forward with everything I had left.

  The plasma blade punched through Philip’s superior shield and buried itself in his chest.

  Philip A-3’s mouth opened but no sound came out. His phasor fell from his hand.

  His anti-grav failed and he dropped, crumpling onto the plaza pavement. The baan was still in his chest, the blue blade crackling.

  I pulled the blade free and deactivated it. Philip shuddered once and went still.

  I stood there panting and sweating. My hands were blistered from the deflected phasor fire. My chest had burn marks in a diagonal pattern where beams had scorched through. Blood was seeping from small wounds.

  But I was alive, and Philip A-3 was dead.

  I looked at the obelisk. It was near.

  I started shuffling toward it, each step agony. My ankle screamed with every bit of weight I put on it. My burned hands throbbed. My chest felt like someone had dragged hot coals across it. I was bleeding from the small wounds. They were warm and wet against my skin. My vision swam. Was that blood loss or shock, or the radiation poisoning finally catching up with me? My legs were shaking and every breath hurt. I reached out with my blistered hand and touched the smooth black stone of the obelisk.

  Traveler, a voice said in my head. You have returned.

  “Yeah,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “I need to go home to Sky Island on Mu.”

  You are injured. Can you survive the transfer in your condition?

  “Have to,” I said. “People are counting on me.”

  Very well, Traveler, prepare for transfer.

  I sagged against the obelisk, using it to hold myself upright. My burned hands left blood smears on the ancient stone.

  A red beam speared out from the pyramidion and engulfed me. The world began to stretch and elongate.

  I was going home at bloody last.

  The last thing I saw was Philip A-3’s body lying on the cracked pavement of the plaza, his face frozen in shock.

  Then Tellus disappeared, and I was surely traveling through the void between worlds, hoping that Mu’s ziggurat would heal me the way it always had before. Hoping I’d make it home alive.

  -46-

  I sucked in the clean air of Mu as my lungs expanded without the metallic taste of Tellus coating my throat. My skin felt cool instead of feverish. The throbbing ache in my formerly twisted ankle had vanished. Even the burns across my chest from Philip’s deflected phasor fire were gone.

  I was in the small stone room atop Sky Island’s ziggurat. At least, I hoped so. I pushed open the door and walked out. I was indeed on Sky Island, with the ancient block buildings nearby.

  I was home.

  I began climbing down the ziggurat steps as others ran to greet me. The heavy backpack was still on my shoulders, filled with ten shield generators, the charger and pulse rifle, power cells. The baan hung from my belt, although the pulse rifle hadn’t made it through transfer. The obelisk system for Mu must have rejected the high-tech rifle. It seemed that Omilcar had been correct about that.