The thunderous sound grew louder. Michael looked up through the dense canopy but saw nothing.
It was Arlo who spotted the drone. He raised his assault rifle, but Les pushed down on the barrel and shook his head.
A drone not much bigger than Cricket flew over the trees, then out over the valley, trailing a purple exhaust plume. The circular body had an antenna on the crest of what looked like an insect head covered in spikes.
Michael motioned everyone down. They went to their bellies and hugged the trees for any concealment they could get.
The drone circled once, then hovered low over the water.
Shit, our tracks! Michael thought.
He aimed his laser rifle at the machine, but it continued south—away from their location, but back toward where they had buried Hector.
Les was quick to get the divers up. “On me,” he said.
They moved out of the trees at a run, toward the rocky incline leading out of the valley. Lena was limping still, enduring the pain.
Les slowed the pace up the narrow cleft out of the valley. Nearing the top, Michael moved his robotic finger to the laser rifle’s trigger guard, ready to let the bolts fly into the trees growing along the valley rim.
He saw no movement among the large trunks, which would provide excellent cover. He motioned the divers to hunker down behind him. Then he took off in a crouching run to the trees.
Picking his way around exposed roots, he took up position behind a huge trunk. An infrared scan of the jungle to his left revealed no sign of life, and his NVGs didn’t pick up any machines in that direction.
Then he looked eastward, to his right.
The terrain there was flat, as he had expected. What he didn’t expect to see was an airship on the ground.
He zoomed in on the faded ITC logo on the hull. “My God,” he whispered.
It was the ITC Victory, the airship that Captain Sean Rolo had flown here decades ago despite Captain Maria Ash’s warnings.
She had been right all along.
Michael finally understood why she had never flown beyond the shores of North America and had always chosen green-zone dives to keep them in the air. It was the reason the Hive became the last survivor of its kind.
Perhaps Captain Leon Jordan, despite his evil ways, was trying to keep the same truth a secret: that out here, there was nothing but death.
But it was finally time to face the future and end this war forever.
THIRTY-THREE
“We have to retreat!” Magnolia yelled.
Mac’s recon team fought their way around the silos, trying to escape. Several of his men laid down covering fire toward the machine guns on the tanker truck and a shipping container.
Magnolia had frozen during the ambush, but the adrenaline snapped her free of the shock.
She ran around a silo and fired off three bolts at the shipping container, peppering the side with glowing red-orange holes.
Ton and Victor ran over to help shield X. Bullets kicked up puffs of black ash, and one hit Ton’s shield, knocking him to the ground.
Rodger fired a burst at a silo and hit a skinwalker sniping at the fleeing Barracudas.
“Go, King Xavier!” Victor yelled. He helped pick up Ton, and the two men held their shields up as a protective wall.
“Move!” Magnolia shouted.
X ran with Ton and Victor while Magnolia took aim at another silo, where a new sniper had popped up. The rounds hit a Barracuda soldier standing next to Mac. Magnolia took the sniper down with a bolt, removing his leg at the knee.
They had set a perfect ambush, but how had they known?
She suppressed the burning question and took off after X. The only way to escape was back the way they had come in. Mac was already guiding the team that way.
X stopped at Felipe’s corpse and bent down despite Victor’s shouts to hurry. Magnolia felt X’s sorrow. The young Barracuda had fought with him and helped him kill Colonel Vargas, only to die here at the hands of even worse men.
She and Rodger caught up with X and his guards behind a wall. A helmet covered in what looked like bloody patches of skin emerged on an adjacent silo. She fired a bolt, and even through the blurry NVGs, she could see the top of the soldier’s head come off.
“Let’s go!” she shouted.
Ton and Victor held up their shields and darted with X between two silos as Rodger and Magnolia laid down another field of fire.
One of the enemy machine guns went silent, either to change ammo or because the gunner was out of action.
Four silos remained between X’s group and the relative safety of the shipping containers. Six Barracudas were already there, firing bursts downrange. Bullets whizzed past Magnolia, one actually grazing her leg armor.
She rounded a corner, taking cover with the others behind a silo. Bullets pounded the side she had just cleared. Mac ran toward them, waving his prosthetic hand.
Four skinwalkers darted into the corridor between Magnolia and X’s group and Mac. But instead of gunning the warrior down, the four men drew swords.
The old Barracuda did the same and charged.
Magnolia got up and ran after Ton and Victor, who were trying to keep up with X.
Bullets chased them, pinging off the silos and lancing into the dirt. She came up alongside X as he fired a flare at the four skinwalkers. It hit a man in the back, igniting the skin draped over his armor. Flailing and screaming, he burned.
Something hit Magnolia hard in the back, slamming her to the dirt.
“Mags!” Rodger yelled.
She looked up as X raised his spear arm and the captain’s sword. The three skinwalkers continued to slash and jab at Mac, who deflected their blows.
“Yo, fuck-face!” X yelled.
A skinwalker turned, brandishing his sword.
X slid, jabbing upward with his prosthetic spear. The blade crunched through the groin and deep into the abdominal cavity. He crumpled, and X got to his feet just as a skinwalker’s blade struck Mac’s prosthetic hand, breaking it in half like a twig.
Magnolia pushed herself up off the ground with Rodger’s help. He turned to fire at hostiles approaching on their six while Ton and Victor ran to help X.
But X didn’t need help. He jammed his spear through the helmet of the skinwalker who was about to finish Mac off with an axe. He tried to pull the spear out, but it was stuck in metal and bone.
The remaining skinwalker swung a cutlass, but X used the skewered man as a shield, turning him toward the blade. Mac grabbed the cutlass wielder by the shoulder and spun him around, then jammed a knife up under the man’s chin, through the hard palate and into the brain, with a crunch that Magnolia could hear.
“X!” she shouted.
He braced a foot against the skewered man’s head and finally yanked his bloody spear free.
“You hurt?” he asked.
She wasn’t sure what had hit her, but she didn’t feel any blood or pain.
The group fled with Mac, finding cover in a scrapyard of containers. After a half-minute’s rest, they ran back to the field with the wind turbines. Several Barracudas waited there, reloading their weapons.
Less than half the recon team remained—only five including Mac. He spoke in Spanish to his men. Magnolia picked up the name “Felipe.”
“I’m sorry,” X said. “He’s gone.”
Mac hesitated, then looked toward the turbines. “We can’t hold here,” he said. “We have to go back through the field. You go first, King Xavier. We’ll cover you.”
“No,” X said. “We’re all going.”
Bullets dinged against the containers, and voices called out in the distance.
Another parachute flare streaked into the sky.
“Once that fades, you go,” Mac said. He gripped a bloody sword. “Rhino told me to guard you with my life before he died, and that’s what I’m going to do.”