He gritted his teeth and plucked it out, only to trip over a root and fall flat on his stomach.
“Captain!”
Michael waved from what looked like a drop-off in the jungle. He ran over to Les, yelling something that Les couldn’t make out over the ringing in his ears.
Smoke whirled around them as flames lapped upward, igniting the dry bark of towering trees. Embers fell like flakes of burning snow.
Les turned to see Edgar helping Lena through the labyrinthine foliage. They took off for the area Michael had waved from, but Arlo and Sofia were nowhere in sight.
Another flurry of laser bolts strobed through the forest, slicing through everything in their path. He had a feeling the two young divers were already cut to pieces by the bolts.
He pushed at the ground but hesitated when he saw pulsating light through the trees. Michael started moving, then froze.
Bumping off his NVGs gave Les a clearer view.
A platoon of orange visors strode into the forest, looking like old-world soldiers. But these soldiers would not show mercy. They would not take prisoners or lay down their weapons if surrounded. They would fight to the end and kill to the very last machine.
They had one purpose: to end humanity.
Bolts sprayed from their guns. Branches fell, and a monstrous tree split at the crotch, both halves knocking down many of their neighbors.
“Let’s go!” Michael said. “Stay low.”
Les pushed himself up on his knees, trying to stay close to the ground as he crawled. A cracking sound came from the advancing army, and he got his first view of one of the beetle tanks.
The six segmented legs were taller than the defectors, probably even taller than Les. The turret rotated with at least six long tubular weapons. He got only a glimpse before the tubes opened fire, raking through the forest.
As the machines and tanks entered the jungle, the barrage from the distant cannons stopped. Les started moving in a crouch, listening to the mechanical joints of the tanks as they strode into the forest.
A figure came running from about halfway between Les and the machines. Dozens of bolts cut overhead, and he held a breath as the Hell Diver zigged and zagged, ducking under branches and darting between two trees.
“Help!” the diver screamed.
Les could hear the nasal voice over the ringing in his ears. It was Arlo, and here he came, screaming and diving to the ground between Les and Michael. He rolled onto his back, gasping.
“What the hell do we do?” Arlo yelled.
“Stay down and follow me,” Michael said. “There’s some protection behind those trees.”
“Where is Sofia?” Les shouted.
Arlo shook his head. “She fell…”
“Come on!” Michael commanded. He started crawling under the spray of bolts, and Les and Arlo followed. They moved around a tree, and Michael got up to lay down covering fire.
“No!” Les said. “That’ll tell them where we are.”
Michael nodded and pulled something off his vest. “Get down; then run.”
The final EMP grenade. He pushed a button and lobbed it at the wave of approaching robot infantry.
Les shook Arlo, who lay trembling on the ground.
“Run when I tell you,” Les said.
Arlo managed a nod.
Michael raised his rifle again, his back to the tree, and sneaked a glance.
“Go now!” he shouted.
Les grabbed Arlo and pulled him up, and they ran together, zigzagging as low as they could go. The stream of laser bolts had all but stopped.
Edgar fired his sniper rifle from a prone position between two trees just ahead.
Les and Arlo made it to the drop-off Michael had found earlier. Unable to stop, Arlo yelped as he tumbled down the side. Les tried to grab him but almost went over with him.
Digging his boots into the dirt, Les watched helplessly as Arlo pitchpoled right past Lena and banged into a tree twenty feet below.
Lena went after Arlo, and Les turned to help Edgar.
“Where’s Tin?” Les yelled.
Edgar took his shot, then pointed.
Following Edgar’s finger, Les saw a figure advancing toward the machines disabled by the EMP grenade, firing laser bolts so they would never walk again.
The blast had taken down half of them, but others advanced through the curtain of smoke.
Michael fired calculated shots, destroying several of the machines.
“We have to help!” Les said. He got up, but Edgar yanked him back down.
“You nuts, Cap?” he asked.
Chest heaving, Les watched in horror as Michael fought his way deeper into enemy territory. But it wasn’t simply the urge to kill that was driving the commander mad. Les saw where Michael was heading.
Sofia was slouched against a tree, holding her shoulder. The armor glowed red where a bolt had singed the plate.
A crack from Edgar’s rifle refocused Les. Another machine went down from an armor-piercing round to the skull. Les aimed his laser rifle at the defectors closing in on Michael. He had gotten to Sofia and reached down to help her up.
Two defectors burst through the bushes to the right of the tree. Edgar took one down, and Michael reached up with his robotic hand and slapped the other machine’s laser muzzle away. Then he punched it in the chest with his robotic hand, breaking the exoskeleton and shattering the battery.
The machine toppled to the ground.
Les fired more bolts into the machines trying to flank the two divers. Several went down from well-aimed shots, but more came. Les had no idea how Michael and Sofia could make it to the drop-off without being cut down.
There had to be at least twenty more machines in the jungle, plus the two tanks pushing their way through burning trees.
Les and Edgar fired over and over, doing their best to help. The staccato crack of automatic gunfire joined the din, and in his peripheral vision Les saw Lena pull out another magazine and palm it into her assault rifle.
Return fire kicked up dirt in front of the rock and then found the boulder. The three divers hunkered down under the flurry of lasers.
“What do we do now?” Edgar asked.
Bolts pounded the rock and blew limbs off trees as Les crawled around the boulder to sneak a look.
Michael and Sofia were trapped behind a massive tree. Ten or more orange visors homed in, unleashing an onslaught of bolts into the tree.
The lasers broke through like a chainsaw until it cracked in the middle.
“Michael!” Les shouted.
Michael gripped his laser rifle to his chest and looked at the boulder. Then he waved at Les, motioning for him to retreat.
“We have to go, or we’re all going to die,” Edgar said.
Lena crawled backward as bits of rocks pattered down, mixing with the bark and foliage from the trees.
Edgar grabbed Les, but Les pulled out of his grip.
“I can’t leave them,” he said. He reached into his vest and pulled out the device containing the virus. “Take this, and complete the mission with Lena and Arlo if I don’t make it.”
“Sir, you…”
A bolt flashed by their helmets, cutting Edgar off. Then came what sounded like multiple shells screaming through the sky. Both men looked up as detonations filled the night.
Rockets descended like destroying angels from the clouds, ripping into the jungle canopy and making the ground rumble.
Les got up as defectors cartwheeled through the air like thrown rag dolls. An entire infantry column vanished in a wave of fire.
“run!” he yelled to Michael.
Michael was already on his feet, helping Sofia up.
Les and Edgar fell back into firing positions to cover their retreat.