He ducked behind a boulder and propped up his rifle. Michael fired a beat later, opening up with calculated single bolts.
An orange visor went down, fading out, but the other two headed right for the airship. Les aimed at the head of one just as they returned fire at Michael.
He pulled the trigger, but his aim was slightly off, going high. The shots did the trick in attracting the droid. In an abrupt mechanical motion, it turned and strode in his direction.
Les kept steady, lining up the crosshairs on the robot’s chest, aiming for the battery unit.
Bolts flashed, slamming into the rock and sandblasting his face shield. Les fired again, burst after burst into the metal exoskeleton, but none penetrated.
The robot kept coming. Lasers pounded the boulder.
Les hunkered down as low as possible, chest heaving.
The other defector sprayed the hull of the airship, but Les couldn’t see Michael, nor did he see return fire.
Shit, shit, shit!
Les buried his fear and prepared to get up and fire, but something felt wrong, as if these were the last seconds of his life. He knew that if he exposed himself now, he would die.
Then he heard the crack of automatic weapons.
Not one. Bursts from two. Then a third.
The defector approaching the airship went down. In a brief lull in the storm, black armored figures funneled out of the ship. One reached down to help someone off the ground.
More laser bolts flashed in their direction. The defector had turned its rifle away from the boulder and onto the divers.
Les crept around the side of the rock, laying down his assault rifle and grabbing his blaster. With the weapon in hand, he got up and ran toward the defector firing on the Hell Divers.
It turned toward him as he aimed the weapon into the mouth of the machine.
“For Trey,” Les said as he pulled the trigger.
THIRTY-FIVE
X hid with Magnolia and Rodger in a thicket at the edge of the beach. The distant sounds of gunfire had faded away, confirming the obvious: Mac and his team were all dead or in captivity.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. The skinwalkers weren’t supposed to have anyone in the refinery. He had seen the damn footage himself. He felt sick.
A few feet away from him, Ton and Victor watched the forest for pursuing hostiles. Both men were wounded. Ton had a bullet wound to the shoulder, and Victor had a through-and-through to the upper arm.
Magnolia lay beside Rodger and tried to keep him from moaning and giving away their position. It was just a matter of time before the skinwalkers found them here.
They hadn’t just ambushed his team. They had also attacked Shadow and Renegade. X lifted the binos, afraid to look.
Smoke wafted away from Shadow, but Renegade was gone, sunk by the submarines.
The skinwalkers had gotten the best of X twice now. Horn had ambushed him at his home and now at the outpost. And now Miles was dead, caught in the crossfire of a war X couldn’t stop.
“Miles, my sweet boy,” he mumbled.
He pushed up his visor and vomited onto the sand. Then he sobbed like a child.
Magnolia moved over and put a hand on his back. “I’m so sorry, X,” she said.
Rodger writhed in pain, and she returned to his side. The land mine had turned his right foot to mush, and his legs had suffered major trauma. If not for his armor, he would have lost them both. The dressing Magnolia had applied below the tourniquet was already bright red.
“We’ve got to get him aboard Shadow,” Magnolia said.
Using his spear as a brace, X pushed himself up. He couldn’t grieve for Miles right now, not until Rodger was safe and X had his revenge. Until they all had their revenge.
El Pulpo, Carmela, and their bastard son had taken too much from the sky people. X was going to make Horn and his mother suffer.
Across the green view of the ocean, Shadow sailed farther out to sea. On the deck stood a man wearing an orange cape. X zoomed in with the binos—it was indeed General Forge.
As long as the man was alive, they had a chance.
“Men,” Victor said.
Magnolia and X both spun about, X with his blaster, Magnolia shouldering her laser rifle. But Victor was pointing at the water.
X followed his line of sight, seeing nothing in the waves.
Victor kept pointing. “See. I see men.”
“Where?” Even with his night vision on, X didn’t see anything beyond the breakers but endless whitecaps.
Over the surf came a noise. Barking.
X lowered his blaster and walked out onto the sand.
“King, no,” Victor said.
“X, get back here!” Magnolia said.
X staggered out farther down the sloping sand toward the pounding waves. Were his ears playing tricks on him?
The barking came again and halted, and he strained to see the outline of a craft moving in the water.
“Miles?” X whispered. He stared in disbelief at what had materialized into a rubber boat. Not one but three, all carrying soldiers.
And a dog.
Miles leaped out into the surf and swam toward the beach. X ran out into the tide, battling the massive waves to get to his best friend.
“Miles!” he yelled.
A wave brought Miles right toward X. He wanted to grab the dog, but it was too dangerous while the spear remained attached to his stump.
Miles came ashore with the next wave. X wanted to hug the dog and hold him tight, but now wasn’t the time.
The three rubber craft beached, and militia soldiers and Cazadores jumped out. With them were Imulah and another scribe, bandaged and bleeding.
The soldiers pulled the boats up the beach, then grabbed gear and weapons.
“I took care of him like you said, sir!” a voice called out.
X spotted the soldier he had told to look after his dog. Brett something… He wanted to hug the guy, but he was too busy hugging the dog. Brett ran over, panting.
“Thank you,” X said. “I owe you, man.”
“We need medics,” Magnolia said. Brett turned and motioned toward the militia soldiers. Two of them ran over with packs. Another walked over to Ton and Victor, who were still watching the jungle for hostiles.
Victor waved the medic away.
“Fine,” he grunted.
“We need men to hold security along this tree line,” X said to Brett, pointing with his spear.
He counted ten militia soldiers and twelve Cazadores. Several wore the Barracuda logo on their armored chests. He didn’t want to tell them what had happened to Colonel Mac and Felipe, but he had no choice.
“Any of you Cazadores speak English?” X asked.
“I do, King Xavier,” said a man in full armor. He walked over, holding a long rifle with a scope.
“What’s your name?” X asked.
“Willis.”
X explained what had happened, and the soldier interpreted for the other Barracudas. Several lowered their heads, clearly distraught, but they put aside their grief and fanned out with their weapons.
Brett got down on a knee, still trying to catch his breath.
“What the hell happened out there?” Magnolia asked.
“Fucking subs. General Forge took one out with cannon, but Shadow got hit by multiple rockets, and Renegade took one to the starboard hull.”
“They must have seen us coming somehow,” said a female militia soldier. She had a see-through visor, and X recognized her freckled face.
Libby was just nineteen and had gone from school on the Hive to farmwork on a Cazador rig, and now to fighting.
“We barely escaped,” she said.