“No use in staying here and watching the show,” Steve said, nodding toward the hatch. His red armor added so much bulk to his already-big frame. Holding the plasma rifle, he looked more formidable than ever. “This ain’t what we’re looking for.”

“He’s right.” Shane opened the cabinet with rifles in it, the reason they’d stopped in this chamber. “Swap your weapon with one of these.”

He retrieved a plasma rifle from the rack and replaced it with his empty one. As soon as he took hold of the new gun, a horizontal bar showed up on the charge gauge in his helmet.

“These babies are live,” Liam said after taking his weapon. “Now it’s time to get even.”

Holding the fully charged plasma gun in his hands brought to mind images of the holes it could sear through flesh and bone, the lives it could take. It was the deadliest weapon he’d ever held and, inevitably, he’d have to kill with it. He swallowed the metallic taste in his mouth and watched his team swap out their rifles. After glancing both ways to be sure it was clear, he slipped out of the chamber. He signaled for them to follow and continued climbing into the ship.

Looking down at the weapon as he walked, he came to terms with what had to be done. He desperately wanted revenge, but he couldn’t stand the idea of killing again. One moment of hesitation at the wrong time, and it would be his friends who’d be getting killed. A question struck him that made him feel even sicker. Was he more worried about taking the lives of those who’d destroyed his, or afraid he might enjoy it?

“Heads up,” Steve whispered.

Two Anunnaki, wearing the white jumpsuits of engineers, came down the passageway toward them. As he’d been taught in the simulations, Shane immediately adopted an air of confidence, pulling his shoulders back and walking as tall as he could. His friends fell in a line behind him so they could pass the aliens. Sweat beaded on his brow, and the armor blasted him with a puff of cool air. His breathing seemed to roar inside the helmet, though he tried to stay calm and have faith in his disguise. He marched toward the engineers, hoping they’d ignore his team.

When they drew close, the Anunnaki’s eyes widened. They stepped to the side and stopped, putting their right fists over their hearts and bowing their heads as Shane and his friends passed.

The disguise worked brilliantly. Cool relief flooding through him, Shane dared a glance over his shoulder and saw the engineers hurrying down the passageway, like they didn’t want to be under the scrutiny of the soldiers for any longer than necessary.

“That was easy,” Laura whispered.

“Yeah, but it’s gonna get a whole lot harder,” Shane warned, not wanting anyone to get cocky.

Another hatch appeared on the right.

“This should be the one,” Shane whispered, holding his breath and stepping aside so Laura could enter the access code.

The door leapt open, revealing a long passageway. It was narrower than the one they’d been climbing, with metal ribs spaced every twenty feet and the ceiling curving overhead.

“This looks like it,” Liam said eagerly, pushing his way past Shane into the passageway.

“Reminds me of the tunnel under Atlanta where I whooped that ass,” Steve teased, nudging him. When the pressure was on, he never failed to interject a dose of humor.

“Yeah, those were some good times,” he replied with a tense chuckle. “But I’m pretty sure I was the one doing the whooping.” Although Shane wasn’t keen on remembering the nightmare they’d been through in Atlanta at this time, he did respect what Steve was trying to do.

Glancing up and down the main corridor, Shane ushered his friends into the passageway. He worried their chances of being discovered doubled with each passing second and was amazed they’d come this far without problems. The hatch closed, and they headed toward the engineering compartment.

“I wonder how the other teams are doing?” Laura said, her voice pitched with anxiety.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Shane replied promptly, unable to keep the concern out of his voice. “We just have to hope they’re on schedule.”

Thinking of the timing issue once again, he suddenly felt like the plan was too ridiculous to work. It seemed impossible for seven teams spread across the globe to hit seven targets at about the same time with no communication between them. There was no choice but to have faith. They passed the point of no return as soon as they mounted the ramp leading into this wretched ship.

The access tunnel rose upward. In spite of the armor assisting their movement, they were huffing by the time they came to the next hatch. They were all in peak physical condition, but he reckoned the stress caused them to breathe too shallow. This hatch carried the strange warning symbol he remembered, indicating it was a blast door into the reactor chamber. He exhaled some tension and rallied his courage.

“This is it,” he said, looking at his friends. “Once we get inside, we have to go straight to the reactor control panel. Laura, you stay with me. You guys distract any engineers near it. Don’t act aggressive. They may not suspect us until it’s too late.”

“Quarterback sneak,” Steve mused.

“Exactly.”

“Hey,” Laura said, laughing nervously. He couldn’t see her face, but it sounded like she was trembling. “I am not a ball.”

In the wake of a chuckle, he thought of Tracy. She’d fought alongside him in every conflict since the world went to shit. She was always cool in these situations and wolverine-vicious when it came to a fight. But she was also a born leader, which was what it would take to get the teens organized once they were released from Anunnaki control. Whether he liked it or not, she was right where she needed to be.

“Put it here,” Shane said, sticking his gloved hand out, palm down.

Steve put his hand on top, and the rest followed.

“We are one,” he said, channeling Coach Rice. “The individual can be crushed, but the team is indestructible.”

“Go team,” Steve added, a growl in his voice.

They broke, and Shane nodded for Laura to input the code into the screen next to the door. The thick hatch slid into the wall, and a low roar poured through the opening.

“Let’s do this,” Jake said with forced enthusiasm.

They stepped through the hatch into the massive chamber. It was shaped like a pill standing on its end, a cylinder with a curved top and bottom. The reactor core, a column of bright white light, stood before him. It operated at near-full capacity, providing power for the control of the slave soldiers and for the resource extraction processes happening through the Great Pyramid under the ship. The excess of power would send the core well beyond Earth’s atmosphere before it exploded. Shane looked left and found the main control panel. About thirty engineers were scattered around the reactor compartment. It was less than he had to deal with in any of the simulations.

His confidence soared—this might be way easier than expected. He made a beeline for the control panel, Laura beside him. The engineers were preoccupied with their jobs, and no one seemed to notice the Shock Troops marching into their space. Stepping onto the elevated platform, he drew the attention of the engineer working at the control panel. Looking over his shoulder, his eyes grew wide at Shane’s approach. He leapt to his feet, put his fist over his chest, and bowed his head.

The alien would sound the alarm if they tried to touch the control panel. There was no other choice. Before the engineer could stand upright, he drove the butt of his plasma rifle down on his skull. A splatter of blood defacing the back of his white jumpsuit, the engineer was flattened onto the floor. Shane hadn’t intended to kill unless there was no other choice, but the adrenaline and the amplified strength the suit gave him caused him to strike too hard.

Stepping over the body, he knew he’d better get used to taking lives again. He was about to help execute everyone in this chamber.

Laura sat down at the controls and pulled off her gloves. She rested her hands over the backlit surface, and they immediately started dancing across the screen. Long and complex sequences of codes flowed through her fingers like she’d done this a thousand times.

Shane knew the gist of what she was doing but had lost some of the details provided in the neural upload. If she failed, he had to hope someone else on his team retained everything. Sweat ran down his face into his eyes, and he realized he was panting like he was running a marathon. He took a deep breath of the cool air the suit blew in his face and tried to relax. This was going to work. He’d get everyone out alive.

Glancing up, he saw the other engineers approaching, confused looks on their faces.

“Just finished the first stage,” Laura said, confidence growing in her voice.

Five metallic clanks came in quick succession from the domed ceiling high overhead. It was the upper hatch, through which the explosion would be directed. Above the reactor chamber, a thick ring around the coliseum floor was rising to the peak of the golden pyramid. It would form a barrel designed to project the blast out and not destroy the rest of the ship. Shane had an intimate knowledge of what was going to happen to the reactor. What he couldn’t predict was how fast the Anunnaki would react. Warning lights flashed, and an alarm sounded.

The shouting engineers rushed toward the reactor control station, waving their hands. Laura looked up from her work.

“We got them,” Shane shouted. “Stay focused!”

He stood next to her, Steve on the other side. The lightning thwack of a plasma rifle firing made him look over at Jake. Two engineers with charred holes in their bodies collapsed to the floor.

He expected to feel sorry for them and get angry with the Aussie for shooting too soon, but he felt a surge of rage and sensed the same anger growing in his friends. Liam fired the next shot, and the engineers fled.

“Second stage completed—two more series to input,” Laura reported. Her hands flew over the control screen even faster.

The ship Kelly, Jules, and the Australians attacked was smaller. They should’ve made it to the reactor controls by now. Perhaps they’d already destroyed it and were joining the fight for control of the ship.

“Better hurry up,” Steve shouted to Laura. “This just got real!”

Anunnaki soldiers spilled into the reactor compartment, genuine Shock Troops leading them.

“I finished stage three, we’re almost there!”

Brilliant pulses from a plasma rifle passed between Shane’s shoulder and Laura’s elbow, melting through the guardrail on the other side of the control panel. He cringed, expecting the next shot to sear through his skull. He turned his rifle on the soldier who’d fired at him and dropped him to the floor.

A yelp came from his left, and one of his friends fell at Shane’s feet. Firing on the charging enemy, he couldn’t look down to see who it was.

“Liam!” Jake shouted, answering the question.

“Damn it,” Shane snarled, taking aim at the closest Shock Troop. He and Liam had become good friends over the last month, and it tore him up that the cheerful Australian now lay dead at his feet. He couldn’t lose anyone else. They had to finish so he could get his team out of here. Anunnaki soldiers kept spilling into the compartment, and they were closing in.

Glancing over his shoulder while firing, he saw Laura was working as fast as humanly possible. But it didn’t seem fast enough. He was afraid to accept it, but it was starting to look like there was no way they’d make it out alive, whether they destroyed the reactor or not. He suddenly felt cold in spite of his nervous sweats, and then a debilitating realization coursed through him. They were all meant to die from the beginning. The rebels had hinted at the fact enough times, but he’d always believed they’d find a way to make it. It wasn’t his imminent death that grieved him. It was Kelly’s. Keeping her safe had been his singular motivation since all this started. He’d failed her. Damn the rebels. He wouldn’t have backed out if he knew this was a suicide mission, but he would’ve done everything in his power to keep her from going, regardless of whether it made her hate him or not.

Laura screamed. Shane spun right and fired a shot at an Anunnaki soldier who’d slipped around the reactor core so close it had to be cooking him. Killed by the blast, the alien fell off the platform into the column of light. His body was burned so fast it looked like a shadow for an instant, and then it was gone.

Shane turned to Laura. She was moaning in agony, and everything below her left elbow was gone. The plasma shot was so hot that it cauterized the wound, so she wasn’t bleeding.

“Get up, let someone else take over,” he yelled urgently, reaching to help her.

“No,” she groaned, sounding like she might pass out. “I’m almost done.”

The armor’s first aid system must have delivered a dose of some heavy-duty painkillers. The stub of her arm hung beside her, and she kept her head faced forward, her visor focused on the controls. Her remaining hand continued its dance across the screen, though not quite as fast as before.

Any doubt he had about the reason the rebels chose her vanished, though he feared she might succumb to her injuries before she finished. He had to leave her to it. It would take too long to relay where she was to one of the others, and he wasn’t sure any of them could do what she was doing anyway.

“Done,” she shouted.

“Let’s go!”

Keeping his gun leveled at the enemy and firing, he put his other hand around her good arm to help her stand. Laura shrugged him off and grabbed her weapon.

“Where?” Maurice yelled desperately.

A blast of white light hit him in the chest. It melted through his armor and flesh, and came out of the other side without shifting his body off its balance. He stood motionless for a second, a hole the size of a baseball through him and his gun still aimed at his assassin. Already too dead to pull the trigger, the gentle preacher’s son collapsed to the floor.

“Maurice!” Steve shouted.

Overcome with a flash of anger, Shane swung his weapon toward the soldier who’d shot his friend and fired. Steve reached down and grabbed Maurice’s limp arm, dragging him back with them. Worried he’d get shot, he almost yelled for his friend to leave the body. But what if Maurice wasn’t quite dead? Dr. Blain could patch up just about anything, could bring the gentle kid back from the edge if he still clung to life. He suddenly felt guilty for leaving Liam behind at the reactor controls, but the enemy was between them and the Aussie now.

The Anunnaki charged with a ferocity that made him think they might believe he and his friends were part of the rebellion they had so viciously crushed. Shane pulled the trigger down and held it, plasma bursts erupting from his rifle so close together they looked like one solid beam. There was no place for cover, no place for them to hide from his enraged reprisal. Ten of the enemy dropped to the floor, smoking holes through their bodies. Twenty more stepped in to replace them. The charge indicator for his weapon was dropping fast. The reactor core glowed brighter, and his visor became shaded to keep it from blinding him. Even if the enemy didn’t kill the rest of the team, the reactor explosion soon would.

Laura was in trouble. The red helmet covered her face and its mechanical muscles made it possible to fight to her last breath, but she stumbled, and he guessed she was barely hanging on. He had to do something. Continuing to fire his weapon, he stole a glance around the chamber. The enemy was almost surrounding them, blocking all exits he remembered using during the simulations. A line of small, round hatches on the bulkhead to their right was all they could get to.

“The escape pods,” he yelled.

“They won’t work… ” Jake replied, pausing to fire a shot, “… on the planet’s surface.” His voice was ripe with anger and grief.

He was right. The pods were designed for escaping from a ship flying in a planet’s atmosphere or in space. They could be killed if they used them, but death was certain if they didn’t try.

“No choice!” Shane yelled firmly, determined to get someone out alive.

Slipping his free arm around her waist, he steadied Laura, and they backed toward the hatches. Even though she had to be in a world of hurt, her aim was impeccable. Every shot met with alien flesh before finding a home in the thick walls encasing the reactor.

“You took everything from me!” she screamed with agony in Anunnaki and shot the two who were closest to her through their chests.

She resisted him, as if wanting to pull out of his grasp and charge the enemy instead of escaping. Knowing she might be losing it, he tugged at her to encourage her along. She relented, seeming too weak to struggle free. Continuing with him toward the bulkhead, she fired her weapon with lethal results the entire way.

The alarm warned the end was near, the rhythm of its threatening notes becoming faster. Some Anunnaki soldiers retreated, shouting frantically as they pushed their way through the hatches that led out of the chamber. A few of the Shock Troops persisted, advancing on Shane and his friends.

The team made it to the escape pods, and Shane grabbed a handle on the first one he came to and jerked it down. The five-foot in diameter hatch opened, and he pushed Laura through it.

“Get in!” he yelled to the rest.

Steve took another shot, killing one of the three Anunnaki left. Then he hoisted Maurice’s limp body up and into the escape pod. The second Anunnaki gave up and raced toward the closing hatch where his comrades had fled. Shane took a couple of wild shots at the last Anunnaki, who ran toward him like she’d decided there was a better chance of survival joining his team in the escape pod. Or she was determined to go with them just so she could kill them all. There was no way she’d make it—she was too far away. Spinning around, he dove into the pod after Jake.

“Here we go,” Steve shouted, sitting up at the controls.

The controls to the hatch had been hit by a plasma blast, and it couldn’t be closed. He braced himself for the pod’s launch, wrapping his arms around a seat near the back.

At the exact moment the pod detached from the reactor chamber and accelerated toward the surface of the ship, a blinding light poured from the reactor’s core. It lifted the last Shock Troop, slamming her through the open hatch and over Shane’s head. A white-hot fireball filled the passenger compartment, and even through the protection of his armor, he could feel the heat of the explosion. It threatened to cook him like a lobster in its shell.

The pod shot out of the ship into the air, and the fire was sucked out of the rear hatch. Shane’s eyes were glued to the fireball erupting through the golden pyramid’s hull after them, afraid it would catch the tiny craft and burn them all to a crisp.

After rising up away from the ship for a long instant, the pod tumbled. His body slammed against the floor, ceiling, and walls, the craft trying to buck him out. In one of his airborne moments, he saw two of the passengers slide past him in flashes of red. The centripetal force flung them out of the open rear hatch, and then smashed him down onto the metal floor.