“There,” he said. “We use the chaos to pick off anyone coming outside; then we enter the outpost to mop up any survivors.”
“Got it.”
“Good luck, Mags.”
“You too.”
The two men left, and Magnolia unslung Rodger’s assault rifle. She rested it against the wall, then laid out the magazines.
Getting on one knee, she trained her laser rifle at the silos that X and Victor crept toward. The skinwalkers had spread out on the tops. They must have night-vision goggles, because none were using flashlights.
X and Victor neared the area where the Barracudas had been ambushed. Blood from fallen soldiers darkened the soil. Spotting the area where Felipe fell, she aimed at the skinwalker who had killed him. Flaps of bloody skin draped the sides of his helmet. Magnolia noticed the dark tattoos on the patches.
He was wearing Felipe’s face and scalp.
“Bye-bye, ass wart,” she whispered.
A bolt flashed through his mouth and out the back of his head. He crumpled to the silo roof, out of view. Seconds later, she dropped another skinwalker with a bolt through the chest. She could see through the glowing orange hole in his middle as he teetered and fell.
The other three soldiers seemed oblivious.
She used the lag time to take off a third skinwalker’s arm at the elbow. Before he could cry out, his head slid off and rolled against the severed forearm.
The fourth guard turned, looking around wildly as he raised his rifle. Magnolia took his hand off, then blew through his helmet with a second bolt.
Seeing his comrade drop, the fifth and final soldier swung his rifle toward her. She vaporized his chest armor before he could squeeze the trigger.
Victor and X had advanced toward the first patrol of four skinwalkers. The men all carried rifles and had bows slung over their backs.
X took up position behind a low concrete wall and pulled the other half of Rhino’s spear from the sheath over his back.
Victor stood with drawn cutlass, hugging the wall of an adjacent silo. Even from here, Magnolia could see that the blood had soaked through the bandage on his arm.
The skinwalker patrol marched toward the ambush until the leader, a hulking man sporting a human jaw on his helmet, stopped and held up a hand. He looked up at a corpse hanging its head and arm over the edge of a roof.
Magnolia aimed right at the jaw on the bulky skinwalker as he raised an arm. Before she could pull the trigger, X materialized from behind a concrete wall. With a swift jab, his prosthetic spear pierced the man’s helmet. With his left hand, he drove the other half of the spear into another soldier’s chest.
Victor had flanked, bringing his cutlass down on the back of a neck, severing head from spine. By the time the fourth soldier knew what was happening, both X and Victor had stabbed him twice.
He dropped to the ground, and X finished him off with a spear through the eye slot.
The patrol was dispatched in less than a minute, and Magnolia hadn’t even fired a bolt.
The king and Victor took off for the final patrol outside the fences.
Gunfire cracked in the distance. Magnolia looked back toward the wind turbines. The noise seemed to be coming from that direction.
Rodger… Miles…
More shots popped toward the beach west of the compound—where the other Barracuda team had gone to flank the outpost. Trying not to think about what was happening out there, she focused on finding the last patrol.
X and Victor ran down the dirt road, following streaks of blood toward the fences and the area where she had last seen the other patrol.
She moved to another window but still didn’t see the four warriors.
Where the hell did they go?
Magnolia went back to the window where she had rested her assault rifle. Using her night-vision monocular, she combed the ground, finally spotting boot prints.
She followed them to a silo, where they vanished from view. Panning left, she finally saw part of a soldier. Just an arm and back of the helmet of a man who had stopped behind the silo.
X and Victor were walking right toward the skinwalker patrol.
If she didn’t do something, they would be the ones ambushed.
She aimed at the exposed helmet, but the angle was tricky. And even if she made the shot, there were still three more.
Acting quickly, she swung the barrel to X and Victor and sent a bolt across their path.
They both retreated and looked up at her position. She pointed at the location of the patrol. X nodded and started to flank with Victor, each moving around one side of the silo. She kept her rifle barrel aimed at the still-exposed helmet of the soldier standing sentry.
The distant pop of gunshots came again, but it was more sporadic. Voices drifted in the lull.
Magnolia took her visor away from the scope for a moment, looking east, toward the field with the wind turbines. It took a moment of scanning to see movement. Figures marched across the ash-covered field. The ITC slaves were returning with their masters.
Shit, shit…
She panned back to X and Victor. Both men were inching around the silo from opposite sides, preparing to strike the final patrol.
The voices of the skinwalkers guarding the workers grew louder, but neither of her friends seemed to notice.
Again she moved her night-vision monocular to the slavers. She counted six. They were heading right for the refinery. She couldn’t take them all out before being spotted.
When she turned back, X and Victor had moved around the silo. A scream rang out, then a gunshot. Metal clanked on metal.
She tried to get a shot but saw only a blur of armor.
A skinwalker flew backward, limp, already dead. She still couldn’t get a clear shot, and the slaver soldiers were about to reach the refinery.
“Come on, X,” she whispered.
Zooming in, she saw another skinwalker hit the ground. Someone grabbed his boots and dragged him out of view. Victor emerged and did the same with the other dead men.
X waved up to her and then set off with Victor. Side by side, they ran for the fence and disappeared around a shipping container.
Magnolia slung her rifle and set off to join them when a footfall made her freeze. With no time to unsling her rifle, she unsheathed one of her crescent blades.
Whirling, she raised it, only to have it smacked away. Her blade flew across the room, clanking against a wall.
A hand grabbed her around the neck and lifted her off the ground. She kicked at armored legs as she stared at the helmet of a massive skinwalker holding an axe.
Several more soldiers in bulky armor adorned with bloody skin flanked the warrior. He squeezed tighter, cutting off her airway.
She kicked and grabbed his wrist, but nothing worked. The man held her up higher, and she saw the horn on top of his helmet.
It was the last thing she saw before the red border of her vision encroached, turning everything dark.
Les had abandoned the idea of hiding and ran through the jungle with the other divers, not even trying to cut down the barbed branches and spiky blades in his path. Laser bolts singed the air, raining bark and leaves down from the canopy.
He was trying to put all the distance he could between his team and the machines.
Lasers punched into tree trunks, bursting out the other side in bright streaks that seemed to reach infinity. An artillery shell whistled overhead and streaked into the jungle, exploding in a brilliant orange glow. Leaves and branches fell blazing to the ground.
Another shell sheared the top off a tree to his left. The blast shot out hundreds of little splinters that punched into his armor, leaving spikes like the bristles on a caterpillar. Pain lanced down his arm where one of the slivers jabbed through an interstice between armor plates.