“We will win this night!” Enoch screamed as tears of intensity welled in his eyes. “We must win this fight not for ourselves but to warn those in the cities. We will find a way. We must find a way. Tonight, we do not fight alone. We fight together and the Lord of the Way is with us!”

  Settlers and the freed prisoners alike looked at one another, nodding in agreement. I’d say they were far from eager to fight, but at least Enoch’s words had kept them from running.

  “What do you say we do something crazy and give them heroes to cheer for?” Jax asked with a grim look.

  “You sound like you’re going to do something stupid,” Angel mused, looking over at him.

  “You know me,” Jax said, glancing down over the wall. He turned his eyes to me. “Danny?”

  “They can’t kill our spirit,” I said, remembering the Pack protocol mantra. “Let’s show them what true terror looks like.”

  Nineteen

  Jumping over the wall into the open wasn’t the smartest idea. I got that. And if I forgot, X was there to remind me.

  “Daniel,” X said. “I understand the value in being a symbol for these people to rally behind, but putting yourself in the open decreases the likelihood of survival by a significant amount.”

  “I know,” I said, rolling my head around my shoulders while I mentally prepared myself for what I knew needed to be done. “But right now, it’s the best hand we have to play.”

  Jax went first, leaping off the wall to come to a crouched landing position three stories down. Angel went next.

  “Our champions!” Enoch shouted to the defenders on the wall. “Will you not rally behind them!?”

  A shout from our own side went up to contest the noise the Voy were making with their screeches and clicks.

  I planted a foot on the wall and propelled myself forward. I came to a hard landing beside Jax and Angel. The former was taking off his shirt. He had left his weapons behind on the wall.

  “We’ll bring you back,” Angel told him. “It’s what needs to be done right now.”

  Jax clenched his jaw but nodded in agreement.

  I still had no idea what I was about to witness, but I understood it was something Jax didn’t want to do. He stood rigid, hands clenched at his sides. His focus remained solely on the Voy in front of him.

  We were probably within range of each other’s weapons, but neither side moved to engage. Not yet. The Voy were still roaring their blood-curdling screams into the night air. Enoch was still leading the cheers from the wall.

  “I’m going to go invisible when it starts,” Angel told us. “I can do the most damage that way. If we can somehow get the weapons of the fallen Voy to the defenders on the wall—”

  “Let us do that,” Enoch interjected via the comms. “I’ll coordinate runners to get over the wall, grab the weapons and get back.”

  We all understood how dangerous that job would be but Enoch was right. The three of us would have our hands full taking on the bulk of the Voy. It was insane. Whatever Jax could do I hoped would even the playing field, but I had my doubts even he would be able to turn the odds in our favor.

  The lead Voy in the purple tunic withdrew his sword from its sheath. He clicked something with finality in his voice. As one, the Voy charged our position.

  A guttural roar more animal than man came from Jax. I looked over, not believing what I was seeing. Jax’s eyes were blood red, not just his pupils, but the entirety of his eyes.

  He even looked like he had grown a size or two. His arms were larger, more muscular, and his teeth had fangs.

  It was horrible and awe-inspiring at the same moment. Unlucky for me, that moment passed in a blink of an eye. Jax took off, sprinting to meet the enemy, Angel a half step later.

  “Get behind Jax!” Angel shouted to me as she ran. “He’s our shield in this form.”

  I ran to obey. If the Voy were taken by surprise at Jax’s change, they didn’t falter. A volley of lasers peppered our location as we ran forward. Anyone who has ever shot a weapon while running understands that accuracy becomes a problem. This fact was also true for the Voy.

  The rounds that did land spattered across Jax without any real damage done. There was so much I wanted to know about his ability and so many more questions on my mind at the time. I understood this was not the place for either.

  The red laser rounds came in closer and more frequently as we closed the gap. Jax outpaced us as his muscular legs ate up the ground between our two forces faster than Angel and I could run.

  Angel was right in front of me one minute and gone the next. Activating her camouflage ability was something truly amazing. For the longest time, I thought I was a freak. Five years on the moon with no memory and this insane healing ability and I thought I was the only one.

  Now I was running into battle behind an invisible woman and a rage monster. It was the first time I was the most normal one in the bunch.

  I heard Jax slam into the front lines of the Voy before I saw it. He hit them dead center like some kind of human battering ram. Screams from the Voy, not in frenzy, but of pain now filled the air.

  I could hear bones snap and metal rend as Jax went to work without any other weapons than his bare hands. The animalistic sounds Jax made, the way he tore through them was horrifying. I understood now why he never had wanted to do this, to be this version of himself.

  Jax cut through the middle of their lines, leaving the wings of the Voy free to try and engage him or move forward toward the settlement. The Voy moved forward.

  I took the left, trusting Angel would take the right.

  MK II in hand, I went to work dodging to the side and rolling where I needed to get out of the way of the enemy rounds. That act was pointless. There were simply too many of them and too many weapons aimed at me for me to hope to dodge them all.

  I took a round in the right thigh and another in my chest plate. I ran diagonally, trying to give them a hard target while still moving forward. I pumped rounds into their number, aiming for their faces. Even if their helmets could deter a round from my MK II they weren’t going to be happy about it.

  My point was proven when I double-tapped a pair of targets. My tungsten steel rounds struck them in the helmets so hard, that even though they didn’t penetrate the alien metal at this distance, they did enough to send one to the ground unconscious. The other dropped its weapon, clawing at its helmet as the steel bolt dented the helmet inward into one of its many eyes.

  Pain tore at my left shoulder as another round struck me there. Something fell at my feet. I looked down just in time to see a red blinking light cease beeping altogether.

  I had just enough time to think, Son of a—

  The alien explosive detonated, sending me hurtling through the air. I landed in a heap a few meters away from the point of impact. I was still trying to get my bearings. My ears rang, blood pooled into my eyes.

  I gasped for breath, trying to figure out where on the battlefield I had been thrown. When I understood where I was, I saw the Voy to my right. Apparently, they had orders to take the settlement first and deal with us only as an obstacle.

  While we had taken on the brunt of their attack, the Voy were trickling in toward the wall and the defenders. I was still struggling to my feet when a Voy took notice of me. It stalked toward me, aiming its weapon at my head.

  A thin cut opened across its neck a moment later. It coughed, sputtered, then fell to its knees, trying to stem the flow of blood seeping out of its throat.

  Angel appeared from behind the dying Voy.

  “Stop messing around,” she barked, not offering a helping hand. “Get up.”

  She was invisible and a second later. No doubt, headed back into the fight.

  “Great pep talk,” I murmured, pushing myself to my feet.

  I scanned the battlefield. Jax was still in the middle of the Voy, throwing haymakers with fists that were as large as my face. A few dozen of the aliens had surrounded him. They cut at him with their blades and hosed him with weapons fire, but to my amazement, Jax was invulnerable to their weapons.

  I would have loved to watch the fight unfold. Unfortunately, I had to kill a few dozen Voy before this could all be over.

  Despite our best attempts, the three of us, no matter how augmented we were, were not able to stop the Voy from reaching the settlement. We had hindered the bulk of their army, but enemy soldiers were already assaulting the walls.

  Worse was that Enoch’s plan to have a few runners sprinting around the battlefield grabbing weapons to take back to our own was failing miserably.

  The gates had been opened to let a handful of the bravest settlers and freed prisoners out then closed again. I saw Eli, Rose, Cryx, Sister Monroe, and a handful of others sprinting around the battlefield gathering what weapons they could, then heading back to the walls.

  The only problem now was that the gates were closed, the scavengers could try and throw the weapons over the wall, but three stories up was going to be difficult, even for Eli, who was physically the strongest among them.

  On top of that, the Voy had reached the walls of the settlement. The three-story white stone slabs that would be impossible for humans to scale were only a nuisance for the Voy.

  The alien soldiers fired their weapons into the stone wall, making hand and foot holds in the structure.

  I rose to my feet, entering the fight again. Despite my recent run-in with the alien explosive, I had managed to hold on to my MK II. I moved to check my charge pack.

  “I’ve been counting,” X said in my head. “You have four rounds left. Make them count.”

  “X,” I said with a grim smile. “I’ve missed you.”

  Whatever X was about to say next was interrupted by a woman’s scream.

  I pivoted in time to see a Voy with its sword through Rose’s gut. Blood poured out of the older woman’s mouth as the alien lifted her off her feet. Cryx cowered behind Rose with an alien rifle in her hands.

  I brought my Mk II to bear on the alien, sending a pair of shots that slammed into the back of its skull. It stumbled.

  Cryx found the trigger on the alien rifle and let the Voy in front of her have it at point-blank range.

  A series of rounds at such close proximity left a gaping hole where the alien’s face had once been. The Voy fell to the ground with Rose on top of it.

  I sprinted over to Cryx and Rose. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sister Monroe and Eli running to the side of the settlement. Eli heaved the weapon up to the wall to waiting defenders.

  “We’re getting some of the weapons now,” Enoch relayed over the comms. “I don’t know how much longer we can hold them. They’re climbing the wall.”

  I wish I could have cloned myself in that situation. But I had to deal with what was in front of me at the moment. Rose lay in Cryx’s arms, bleeding out.

  Twenty

  I skidded to a halt beside them.

  “Why—why would you do that?” Cryx asked as hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “You didn’t have to do that. You don’t even know me.”

  “But I do,” Rose said with a tired smile. Blood leaked down the corners of her mouth. Her eyes began to glaze over. She looked at me and pressed something into my hand. “For you and Cryx. A new start.”

  She was gone.

  “No, wait, no, we have to get her back behind the wall.” Cryx was hysterical. “We have bandages and medi—”

  “She’s gone,” I said, rising to my feet. I put the bloody chip Rose had pressed into my hand in my pocket. “Let’s go. We can’t have you out here anymore. It’s not safe. I guess it never was.”

  Cryx looked numb. I grabbed her by the arm. I pushed her toward where Sister Monroe fed Eli weapons. He heaved them up over the wall to the waiting hands of the defenders.

  The two of them were the last ones alive of those who had tried to run out and gather weapons to give our side a chance.

  Cryx and I ran over to them, picking up what fallen weapons we could along the way. By the time we got there, I had three more rifles and Cryx carried four in her arms.

  “It’s not enough,” Sister Monroe said as Eli and I hurled the weapons over the wall. “We need more. We have to go out and get more.”

  “She’s right. With these, that makes only thirteen we were able to get,” Eli said. “We need to go out again and get more of them.”

  “No time,” I told them. “You three need to get back inside the wall.”

  “How?” Cryx asked.

  She had a point. We were on the left side of the settlement just around the corner of the main wall where the Voy assaulted the gates. A quick look told me the walls defended by Enoch and the bulk of the settlers and freed prisoners was in the process of being overrun.

  We wouldn’t be getting through that way.

  Jax was still raging around the field of battle, tearing any Voy dumb enough to get close to him in half.

  Angel was nowhere to be seen.

  “What’s going on?” Angel said, appearing right beside me.

  “Holy crip!” Sister Monroe blurted, covering her mouth as soon as the curse word flew out.

  I had to admit I almost peed myself too. Angel was as quiet as the trained assassin she was created to be.

  “The walls are falling,” I told her. “We need to get inside.”

  “Stand back,” Angel said, taking out her silenced blaster. She strategically placed a group of foot and handholds into the rock fence in front of us just like the Voy had at the front.

  I should have thought about that myself. Not that the last two rounds in my MK II would have gotten us far up the wall.

  “Come on, let’s go.” Angel prodded them forward. “We’re out of time.”

  Cryx went first followed by Sister Monroe and Eli. I looked back to where Jax roared into the night. He must have gotten farther and farther away. Even with my night vision, I couldn’t see him. He was lost behind a dune or around the opposite side of the settlement.

  “Jax?” I asked.

  Angel shook her head, a haunted glimmer in her eye.

  “He’s no good to us right now,” Angel said, climbing the wall. “He’s lost to the blood rage.”

  I understood there was a lot I wasn’t getting at the moment. But all my questions would have to wait. Screaming was heard from the wall above. The Voy had ascended the front gates despite the best laid plans of the defenders.

  “Your best bet now is to get them behind the traps and make use of the weapons you gathered from the Voy,” X said inside my head. “Tell them to retreat inside the settlement and let the Voy fall on the traps.”

  I grunted an understanding as I pulled myself over the ledge. It wasn’t like I had to sound the retreat. The defenders who remained on their feet were fleeing the wall in terror.

  The Voy had ascended and were making quick work of any of those too slow in their retreat.

  “We can’t—we can’t hold them,” Enoch gasped.

  I could hear the pain in his voice. It was clear he was injured to some degree.

  “Get back, behind the traps,” Angel shouted. “Retreat!”

  The yells filled the night air as the Voy clicked and screeched their cries of premature victory. The catwalk inside the wall was slick with blood. The fluid belonged to a few Voy but mostly the defenders on the wall.

  Bodies littered the ground on both sides of the wall.

  I jumped down off the catwalk onto the inside of the settlement. A short sprint brought me to where Angel had taken command of setting up a rough barricade. A long waist-high wall of white rock had been dragged in to use as cover.

  The idea was that we would remain in plain sight and let the Voy charge us, falling into the traps while we laid into them with their own weapons.

  Right now, the Voy were opening the gates for the rest of their number to gain entrance into the settlement.

  “We need everyone watching the other walls here now,” Angel yelled at three settlers who looked on wide-eyed at the approaching Voy. “Look at me and focus!”

  Angel screamed these words, slapping one of the men who seemed lost somewhere between shock and confusion.

  “Go, get them here now and tell each wall to bring their fuel with them,” Angel instructed.

  I saw Enoch sitting behind the defensive barrier that was erected. He held a right hand to his stomach where a Voy round had caught him. A woman I didn’t know tended to him.

  “Everyone with a weapon, I need you ready to fire!” Angel shouted to the few defenders who remained. There had to be forty still on their feet with no more than thirteen Voy rifles between them.

  “I’ll hold here,” I told Angel, catching on to her plan. “When the fuel comes, you’ll be the best suited to disperse it amongst them.”

  “Roger that,” Angel said to me, extending a fist. “Hold the line. Buy me ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes is an eternity,” I remarked, only half teasing.

  “You can do it,” Angel said, going invisible once more. “We’re the best.”

  A few of the Voy were trading pot shots with our impromptu barricade. They were doing it more to keep our heads down than actually wanting to hit us. Their strategy was becoming clear. They’d use longer distance weapons fire in an attempt to keep our heads down while they rushed in close, giving them a chance to use their blades as well as their blasters.

  “Heads low!” I yelled down the line. “Hold your fire! Not yet!”

  The scared faces looked back at me, complying with my order. They still looked terrified. They were holding on, but only on by their fingertips.

  I took a peek over the edge of the barricade. The gates were wide open now. The Voy were forming ranks again. Unbeknownst to them, right in front of the traps Angel had lain. We just had to hold them for a few minutes.

  When the Voy charged this time, there was no excited war chant, no clicks and screeches in unison. The same leader in the purple robe led them. His own blood caked the left side of his face.

  They had misjudged us so far. This was not the easy victory they had assumed before. They were ready this time, prepared for a battle. Lucky for us, we had the traps waiting for them.

 

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