“Sister, there’s no such thing today,” Jax corrected, rising to his feet. “Tonight, you fight or you die.”

  Sister Monroe’s jaw dropped open. She tried to say something, working it up and down, but nothing came out.

  “We’ll need to get these gates closed and set a watch,” I instructed Enoch. I looked at Jax. “They have enough tools in their workshops to make a small armament. Not sure we have the time.”

  “We have to have the time,” Jax pointed out, already heading off to see what he could do.

  “This place is crip for being defensible, but we may be able to create a few surprises for them once they enter,” Angel said. “I’ll need some volunteers.”

  “Jax will need people to help him with the weapons as well,” I said, looking out into the crowd. “Volunteers?”

  The prisoners we helped free who were present raised their hands. With both the prisoners we brought and the settlers, we had somewhere close to one hundred and fifty people in the settlement. We’d be lucky if half lived through the night.

  A few of the settlers raised their hands, shock still sinking in.

  “Enoch, see what you can do,” I told him. “I’m going to close the gates.”

  At the sound of his name, Enoch seemed to snap out of a trance.

  He nodded quickly then moved to address his people.

  I left him to it.

  “These people aren’t fighters, Daniel,” X cautioned inside my head. “You know what the Voy can do. You only stand toe to toe with them because of your enhancements.”

  “I know,” I said through gritted teeth as I approached the settlement’s open gates. “But we can’t run. That’s what they want. It’ll be easier to kill us out in the open at night. The best chance these people have is to stay here and survive until morning.”

  “How many do you think they’ll bring?” X asked, trying to do the math. “A hundred? A thousand?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, moving my mind from the things I didn’t have an answer for to those that I did.

  The gates were three stories high and made from multiple pieces of white rock all lined together. Each column was just narrower than the width of my shoulders. The rock gates would hold unless the Voy brought in explosives.

  I moved over to the right side of the open gate. I put my shoulder into it and began to shove it closed. The gate squeaked and groaned like it had never been closed before.

  “The gates have remained open since the settlement was founded,” Eli said, jogging up to me. “It’s our choice to welcome any traveler that comes our way.”

  “Yeah, well what does your religion teach about aliens?” I asked.

  “Pretty silent about that topic.” Eli shrugged. “Here let me help.”

  Together, we pressed the gate forward. Inch by inch, the old hinges protested, but move they did.

  Sister Monroe, then Enoch appeared next to us, aiding in closing the gates. More and more of the settlers joined, pitching in to close the gates for the first time in the history of the settlement.

  Other settlers I didn’t know started to move the opposite gate shut. Together we forced the large doors closed and secured them in place with a huge metal locking mechanism.

  “It’s a start,” I said.

  “I have our people helping Jax and Angel,” Enoch reported, composing himself. “We’ll make it. The good Lord didn’t orchestrate this for us to die tonight. He fights on our side.”

  “I sure hope so,” I said. “We could use all the help we can get. I’m going to check on Jax. See if you can lend Angel a hand.”

  Enoch nodded and rounded up his people.

  I was jogging back toward the workshop when I heard a faint shout. It was the Hessian. I changed course, moving to the rear of the settlement to where the three holes in the ground acted as prison cells.

  “Hey, hey, somebody!” the girl yelled. “Hey, what’s going on out there?”

  “I heard you yelling last night,” I said to her, already thinking about what we should do with her. Leaving her in the hole during the attack seemed both right and wrong at the same time. It was probably one of the safest places she could be, but we needed all the help we could get. “The yelling helped, right?”

  “Yeah, it was a freaking joy,” she sneered. “What were those shots? I heard the sound of a blaster going off.”

  “Aliens attacking the settlement,” I said.

  “Yeah, okay.” The girl snorted.

  I could practically see her eyes roll.

  “Seriously, can you get me out of here? I’m clean now, I swear. Last night really set me straight,” she begged.

  “I’m not sure a single night sees you straight from stim,” I answered.

  I sensed movement behind me to my left.

  Enoch approached with a heavy ring of keys.

  “It doesn’t seem right to keep her locked in there if this is going to be our last night—if we are going to fight through the night.” Enoch caught himself. “If they were to get to her, she would have no chance.”

  “Father Enoch?” the girl asked. “Is that you? Come on, you can let me out now. It smells weird in here. I promise I won’t try to steal anything else or start any more fires.”

  I nodded toward Enoch’s inquiring eyes.

  He knelt down to unlock the bolt holding the circular door closed.

  The grate opened on a hinge. Enoch reached in to help out a tall girl who couldn’t be out of her late teenage years. She was pretty with long silvery white hair that had to be dyed.

  She was skinny, sickly so, the effects of too much stim. Tattoos covered the exposed parts of her arms and came up onto her neck. She had a nose ring and multiple ear piercings. Another ring in her lip and a final one in her eyebrow.

  “Thanks, thank you,” she said, blinking toward me.

  “If you think about running, you should know we weren’t kidding about those aliens,” I told her. “You wouldn’t make it far. Supply ship comes tomorrow morning.”

  “Seriously, you can drop the whole alien thing,” she said as we moved from the rear of the settlement toward the workshop. “I’m not buying it. And I won’t run. I can hang out until tomorrow morning and then get a ride back to the city. I—”

  As fate would have it, two of the freed prisoners were carrying the corpse of the Voy Angel had shot. Whether they were going to burn it or try and freeze it like the other one I didn’t know.

  The Hessian stopped in her tracks. She rubbed her eyes like that was going to help.

  “Man, I’m tripping so hard,” she said. “Maybe I’m not over that stim yet.”

  “I told you,” I said. “Aliens are going to attack the settlement tonight. This is your chance to make up for what you’ve done and survive in the process.”

  The girl looked at me and then at Enoch.

  “With your penance already paid in the cell and if you agreed to help,” Enoch proposed. “We could see about reducing the charges against you. If you promise to stay off the stim, that is.”

  The Hessian just nodded, trying to figure out what she thought.

  “I’ll leave you two to figure out the details,” I said, moving on toward Jax and the workshop.

  Loud ringing and banging came from the building.

  I entered to see Jax pounding at steel with the help of a dozen or so freed prisoners and settlers. The place looked more like a forge than a workshop at the moment.

  Heat radiated from the benches as tools were used to cut steel and fashion bladed weapons.

  Jax caught my eye and motioned me over.

  “It’s not much, but it’ll have to do until we can secure some of the Voy weapons to use against them,” Jax said. “We can fashion spears, knives, and swords from the steel-cutting equipment they have, but anything projectile will be tricky. I might be able to get a few crossbows working.”

  “We’ll get weapons for them when it all starts,” I agreed with him. “We’ll make it work.”

  “Angel and your abilities will be useful,” Jax said with serious thought. “I might have to break out mine tonight. If I do, I’ll need you and Angel to talk me down.”

  The way he said it, the darkness in his voice told me there was so much more to him than met the eye.

  I had to ask. “I don’t remember what your ability is. How did what Immortal Corp do to us affect you?”

  Jax paused. I could see a muscle twitch in his jaw line.

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to be reminded,” Jax said. “Come on, you can help us get these spears set up. Angel had a plan to use them in a trap.”

  Eighteen

  The speed at which the recently freed prisoners worked spurred on that of their counterparts inside the settlement. They understood exactly what was on the line, having been prisoners of the Voy--some like Rose, for years.

  The settlers latched on to this frantic need to prepare. I wasn’t going to tell them everything was going to be okay. Sometimes fear could be a motivator. Right now, it was the driving force behind getting the settlement transitioned into a fortress.

  The cold hard truth was that this place was never meant to withstand an attack. With defenses on the walls, it was less a matter of if the Voy were going to break through the walls and more of when.

  To combat our weakness, Angel was preparing traps around the inside of the settlement. With the lack of any explosives, we had to stick to electric wires, flammable liquids, and good old-fashioned spike traps.

  The spike traps were set up more to maim than to do any real lasting damage, but if we could hobble the Voy, it would make it easier for any one of us to take them out for good.

  The idea was the three of us Pack Protocol members would each watch a wall with the bulk of everyone else protecting the fourth and final wall. We could rotate as needed and provide support where the fighting would be the heaviest.

  I found myself at the front gates with Rose, the Hessian girl, and a handful of settlers when the sun lowered behind the dunes.

  On the inside of the settlement walls, a catwalk allowed us to see out into the Martian landscape. I held my MK II with my knife and axe in my belt. Rose held on to her blaster. The Hessian girl, along with the others, had spears and a mix of clubs and swords.

  I could be sure most of them had never wielded a weapon before in their lives.

  Behind us on the ground were a series of spike traps dug by Angel and the Way settlers. We knew exactly where they were. When we’d have to retreat from the wall, we would be safe while the Voy hopefully fell behind us.

  “You should really give me that hand cannon of yours.” The Hessian girl looked over at me from my left. She eyed my weapon, wiping sweat from her brow despite the lack of heat. “I mean, you’re probably better with hand-to-hand fighting anyway, right? What are you, some kind of super-soldier or something?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I told her, eyeing the droplets of sweat rolling off her brow. “Still coming off the stim? You should get some water in you, maybe some food.”

  “Threw up all the food.” She grimaced as if she could still taste the act. “Got some water in me. Thanks, Dad.”

  “I’m not old enough to be your dad,” I told her, mildly offended.

  “Well, stop caring so much,” she snapped.

  “We’re all in this together,” Rose said from my right. “Now more than ever, we’re all in this together. He’s just trying to help.”

  “Right,” the Hessian girl sneered, rolling her eyes. “You’re acting like you know anything about me. I see how you eat your food, how you walk. Don’t think I don’t know you come from money.”

  “My money or lack thereof means nothing here,” Rose said without sounding offended.

  “Spoken like someone who has money,” the Hessian girl scoffed.

  “What’s your name?” Rose asked her.

  “Oh, now you care?” the girl spat.

  “You’re always so angry,” I told her with a raised eyebrow.

  “So deal with it,” the girl snarled.

  “Oh, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing,” I said, leaning in toward her. “Anger is great fuel. You’ll need it tonight if you’re going to live to see the morning. Use that, draw from that when the killing starts.”

  The girl melted in front of me. She swallowed hard, her dilated eyes, huge.

  “Cryx, my name’s Cryx,” she whispered more than spoke.

  “Daniel, eleven o’clock, two hundred meters,” X said out loud. “Do you see them?”

  I blinked, concentrating on using my night vision courtesy of X. It was just dark enough now to make seeing anything past a few meters sketchy.

  “What was that voice, some kind of AI you have?” Cryx asked.

  I ignored her. All my attention was where X had instructed. I narrowed my eyes, even craning my neck forward to try and make out anything in the darkness. The night vision made everything look like it had a hue of gold light around it.

  Then, past the dunes, I saw them. Voy in six columns marched forward. They didn’t seem to be trying to hide their approach in the slightest. They knew exactly how many we were and our lack of weapons.

  It seemed the Voy scout Angel caught had only been one of many. They were sure they could beat us, and easily at that. There were no tactics to speak of here, just a straight assault.

  “What do you see?” Rose whispered. “How many?”

  I couldn’t be sure, but if I had to guess, I’d put their number at double, maybe even triple our own.

  “Enough to make it a fight,” I said out loud. There were others on the wall leaning in to hear my answer. I wasn’t going to steal what hope they had left by giving them an honest answer.

  This is going to be a long night, I thought, mentally preparing myself for what was going to come. It’s going to be a really long night.

  “I have incoming on the main gate,” I said out loud.

  Courtesy of X, I had been linked to Angel, Jax, and Enoch via our comm units. Angel and Jax had their own earpieces, and lucky for us, Angel had a spare in case hers died that she had given to Enoch. Enoch watched the rear wall along with the bulk of our forces.

  “Let’s leave a small defense team at each wall and bring the rest to the front,” Angel directed. “Be mindful of the traps just inside the walls.”

  “On my way,” Jax answered.

  “How do I talk into this thing?” Enoch asked. “Can you hear me?”

  “We can hear you,” Angel said, trying to hide her frustration. “You just have to press your finger to your ear and talk.”

  “Oh, right,” Enoch said. “I’m heading over with everyone but five members. If they see anything approach the rear wall, they’ll light the alert torch.”

  Enoch had come up with the idea that each wall should have a powerful spotlight. Since there were only four communication devices amongst us, a wall could use the spotlight to signal they were in trouble. The bright torches would be a beacon to converge upon.

  “We’ll be outnumbered about two to one,” X said inside of my ear. “If they get inside the walls, our chances of survival diminish drastically. You need to get weapons in the hands of the defenders.”

  “Roger that,” I said to X.

  The Voy approached so brazenly, so sure of themselves, it made me hate them even more.

  They came in their rows of six wide. They wore the armor I had seen them in before. The helmets along with the cloaks and armor-plated chest pieces. They carried swords in sheaths by their side and rifles in the top two of their four hands.

  One of the Voy stood apart from the rest with a deep purple cloak and no helmet. He looked up at the wall and shrieked something, yelling in his hard clicks and ticks.

  The Voy army lifted their heads into the night and screamed. The sound sent a chill down my spine, not necessarily of fear but of anticipation for what was to come.

  The moment was super-charged like a dam ready to burst.

  I knew exactly what they were doing. Apparently, it was the same no matter what species you were a part of. Since the beginning of mankind, warriors had used battle cries, posturing, and even armor and helmets to strike fear into their opponents.

  I looked up and down the wall. Most of the defenders looked on, wide-eyed. A few were shaking. To my surprise, Rose seemed like the only one besides me ready for the fight.

  The older woman curled her lip.

  “I’m not going back. I’m not going back,” she repeated under her breath.

  “Just in time for the pre-game show,” Jax said as he and Angel joined me on the wall.

  The Voy were working themselves into a frenzy. Their leader shouted something, then they screamed something back after a brief pause and so on and so on it went.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Angel warned, looking from her right to left. “The settlers look like they’re going to break at any minute. The freed prisoners aren’t far behind.”

  I wasn’t much for motivational speeches. But at that moment, it didn’t seem like it was about me; instead, it was time to help the others out. A guy three people down from Rose pissed in his pants. Another was shaking so hard, I thought he was going to hurt himself before the fight even started.

  I couldn’t blame them. We were facing down aliens. Maybe I was able to move on past that and accept it as our new reality because I had time to soak in the fact. Maybe it had something to do with who I was. I saw a problem and I dealt with it.

  Before I could open my mouth and try and provide some kind of rousing speech, Enoch’s voice cut through the cold night air.

  “Defenders of the Way, hear me now!” Enoch shouted at the top of his lungs. I hadn’t given the man enough credit. When he wanted to raise his voice, he could really bring up the volume.

  All eyes turned to Enoch, who stood on the wall to my left.

  “We may not all believe the same way, but your lack of belief does not sway my own,” Enoch began. “We are all here for a reason. Our paths have led us to this point. To be the first bastion of humanity’s hope against forces that would snuff out our light. But we are not alone. Warriors have come to stand with us!”

  Eyes turned to take in me, Angel, and Jax. Jax even took a bow.

 

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