Gabe continued north, his mind racing.
Sorotki had gone silent, never confirming Gabe’s order. Wyatt was MIA, or worse.
From the sounds of battle raging across the island, there were a decent number of Gears still on their feet, but something about the tone of those skirmishes worried him. The intensity had dropped. Or maybe he’d just gotten too far from the action.
Someone came rushing around the tree in front of Gabe and swung their Lancer at him.
Lancer?
Gabe ducked under the weapon, dove to one side, and held up a hand.
“Friendly, friendly!”
Blair stared down at him. Her face was coated in dust and grime. Probably some blood, too, though he couldn’t tell if it was hers or the enemy’s. Certainly a lot of it dripped from the blade of her Lancer’s bayonet. A murderous insanity gleamed in her large eyes.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Me? Speak for yourself,” he said. “Tried to raise you, to raise anyone… but no one replied.”
She reached out and helped him to his feet. Then she twisted him and studied the back of his armor.
“Your comm is off, idiot.”
“That’s Lieutenant Colonel Idiot, to you.”
Blair punched his shoulder.
“Must have been when that Gorasni was trying to carve my kidneys out with her machete,” he said. “No wonder everyone stopped replying.”
Blair glanced around, suddenly alert. “Where’s this Gorasni now?”
“Dead,” he replied.
“Well, great,” she said. “We can marvel at your prowess later. Test your comm.”
“Can you hear me?” he said, activating the mic.
Blair shook her head. “Are you reading me?”
Gabe could. He nodded. “Transmitter must be shot.”
“Guess that puts me in charge!”
“I suppose it does. Listen, we need to get everyone back. South side of the ridge. Now.”
“Why?”
“No time, just do it.” He didn’t know if Sorotki would come through, but if there was even the slightest chance…
Blair was already off and running, back toward the center of Gatka Ridge. “LC located. His comm is down,” she said into her own radio. “All squads rally at the south end of Gatka Ridge. I repeat, south end!”
Gabe was heartened to hear several affirmatives come back. Despite everything, his Gears weren’t defeated. Not yet anyway. He followed Blair. Or tried to. She’d rushed headlong into the yellowish glowing haze, quickly becoming a shadow. With no other option, Gabe moved in the direction she’d gone, stowing his Lancer in favor of his MX8 pistol in one hand and the machete in the other.
He soon found himself weaving through a maze of boulders and smaller rocks that were scattered across the damp soil. Ferns had been uprooted by grenade blasts, and several trees were aflame. Weaving through the mess, he hoped against hope that he wouldn’t see the outstretched hand of a Gear sticking out from one of those fires.
Thinking of the dead and fallen reminded him of Wyatt. He realized suddenly that he’d built a wall in his mind, ever since losing contact with his brother when the Corvas had targeted his beacon and unleashed a barrage of Hunter-class torpedoes on those ships. They’d missed their target, yes, but where had Wyatt been when they did? Swimming away? Back on his fishing boat amongst all those enemy ships?
This wasn’t the time to think about it. Gabe gritted his teeth and quickly erected that mental wall again. Deep down, he knew the truth. Wyatt must be gone. He would have to accept that, but acceptance could come later. And grief, too. There was always time for grief. Too much, really.
Fighting still raged around him, but it seemed to be dwindling. Somewhere behind him the guns of the enemy frigates started firing again, but their targets were distant, as he heard no explosions or even the whine of their shells sailing overhead. Whatever they were shooting at, it wasn’t on Gatka Ridge, or anywhere else on the island. Gabe had an idea what that might mean, but didn’t want to get his hopes up.
Movement on his right, from the direction of the spire.
“Blair?”
No, he realized. Not Blair.
A group of UIR foot soldiers, equipped with Gnashers and wearing gas masks. They must have realized their enemies were moving toward the southern end of the ridge, and from the way they were running it was clear they thought the rout was on. These soldiers were bloodthirsty, almost gleeful, as they stormed toward their fleeing foe.
Then they saw Gabe. A lieutenant, and all alone.
He couldn’t see their faces due to the masks, but Gabe knew that each of them was grinning from ear to ear at their luck.
C’mon Sorotki, Gabe thought, if you’re going to come through for me, do it now, before they all come out of their barricades and hunt us down.
He knew instantly that he needed to get in close, or those shotguns would tear him to shreds. So Gabe rushed straight toward the enemy at a full sprint. Rammed his shoulder into the lead guerilla, powering through the man and slicing the one behind him across the jaw with the blade of his machete, cutting the gas mask in two in the process. The man screamed and twisted as he fell, pulling Gabe’s machete away. He landed atop his comrade whom Gabe had driven to the dirt with his shoulder.
Stopping meant death, so Gabe forgot about the blade and kept running. The next soldier was bringing his gun up, firing before he really knew what was happening. The shot slapped into the dirt between them, and before the man could adjust his aim and get another off, Gabe had lifted his MX8 and shot him in the throat.
The fourth was ready, though. He dropped to the ground as Gabe fired, sliding into Gabe’s ankle and sending him sprawling. Shit, he’s fast! Gabe tumbled in the mud. The dirt tasted of ash and Imulsion, just about the worst combination he could imagine.
Coming to his feet unsteadily, Gabe turned in time to see this last enemy approach.
“Well, well,” the man said in a thickly accented voice, pulling down his gas mask so that it rested around his neck.
“You again,” Gabe replied. It was the bald officer he’d seen twice before. “Thought maybe my sniper got you on that frigate.”
“And I thought you’d been at the helm of the fishing boat.” He spat, then grinned. It was a smile Gabe did not return. Instead, he swung his MX8 Snub up and fired. But as he squeezed the trigger his opponent knocked the gun from his hand with a sharp crack across his wrist with the heavy barrel casing of a Booshka grenade launcher, wielded like a club. Gabe’s pistol still fired, but the shot went wide and the weapon clattered off a nearby boulder. It landed in the mud, ten feet away.
He was weaponless now, and the other man knew it.
“Nice trick, by the way,” the enemy said as he circled Gabe, savoring the moment. “Using those fishing boats. Would have worked, too, except for one mistake.”
“What mistake was that?”
“Expecting me to believe that the COG would sit on their hands for twenty hours when there was an Imulsion source to be won.” He grinned, baring his teeth. With a sudden jab, too quick for Gabe to dodge, he lashed out with the Booshka, hitting Gabe just below the sternum and driving him to a knee. The blow left him gasping, torturing his already stinging lungs.
From behind Gabe came the sound of anti-aircraft guns roaring at the sky.
The enemy went on, gloating now. “The COG is too desperate for Imulsion to wait so long. So I ignored Ciprian’s message. And here you are, a feeble force that’s already failed. The Imulsion is ours, Gear. The war will be ours, too—”
A sudden roar filled the air. The howling engine of Sorotki’s Corva, diving out of the sky from the south, moving at full speed, flak exploding all around it. And behind it, just a few hundred feet above, the tiny square of a parachute.
The kid had followed orders after all.
The UIR officer turned to see what was going on. Gabe would have pressed this advantage, but the best he could manage was to find his footing again. He stood swaying, watching the scene before him unfold as the chopper roared down.
The Corva slammed into a spot just above the middle of the four-hundred-foot-tall spire, a place where the rock narrowed and was riddled with several ancient fractures. A place that Davis had told Gabe about when she’d climbed to her sniper roost what seemed like a lifetime ago.
Sorotki’s aim could not have been better.
The impact detonated the one remaining Hunter-class torpedo aboard, as well as what little fuel the aircraft still carried. The result was a massive fireball. The rock beneath Gabe shook as the whole island reverberated from the blast.
But this explosion was nothing compared to what followed. Gabe’s gambit had worked.
He watched in fascination and horror as the massive rock feature cracked in half, and the top two hundred feet began to tilt like a tree being felled for lumber. Only instead of a log of wood, this was a few thousand tons of rock.
The massive chunk of stone split in half as it fell, then seemed to shatter into a hundred boulders each the size of a large home, but that did nothing to change the result. Knifespire smashed into the ground, not just in front of the Cathedral, but in a line stretching due south for almost seventy yards. It shook the earth as if the planet were tearing itself apart, pulverizing anything beneath it. The UIR soldiers, their guns and equipment, but most of all the cave that held the Imulsion source.
“No…” Gabe’s opponent whispered. He was rooted in place, watching helplessly as his prize was buried.
It was then that the shrapnel began to rain down. Gabe and his opponent both dove for cover as chunks of smoldering rock the size of bricks began to hammer into the ridge all around them. Some larger chunks hit the ground and exploded, or smashed into trees, snapping them like twigs.
A rush of air roared out from under the falling rock and, as Gabe had also hoped, the cloud of Imulsion gas clinging to the ground was thrust off Gatka Ridge and out over the sea, where it quickly started to dissipate.
Blair was saying something in Gabe’s ear, but he couldn’t afford to be distracted now. The gist was clear enough: Gatka Ridge was clear, and much of the enemy force had been pulverized by the fallen mountain. She was ordering the Gears to advance.
Gabe smiled. Couldn’t help it.
“And that’s your mistake, Gorasni,” he said. “Your leaders, and mine, might be happy to fight over Imulsion, but me? Personally, I can’t stand the stuff.”
The enemy whirled on Gabe, a sneer of rage distorting his face. The battle around them seemed to melt away.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?!” he shouted, spit flying from his lips out of absolute anger.
“Yep,” Gabe said. “It’ll take years to clear that pile of rock. Not something either side could pull off in wartime, I think. So Knifespire’s off the playing field again, just like the rest of these islands.”
A long, long moment passed as the enemy officer stared at Gabriel Diaz, and in that time his shock and anger crystallized into something worse. Resolve.
Without taking his eyes off Gabe, he activated his own comm. “The ridge is clear,” he said. “Scorch it. Every… last… inch.” Then he switched the device off, narrowing his gaze.
From the east, out at sea, the battleship opened fire once more. Her massive deck guns lit up the night and, seconds later, Gatka Ridge began to boil and shudder under a thunderous barrage.
The man renewed his hold on the Booshka. One hand on the grip, the other curled around the midsection where a cartridge of grenades should have been. He held the bulky weapon expertly, as if it weighed nothing more than a stick.
A sudden blur of movement as he stepped in and jabbed.
Gabe dodged, made to counterattack with a backhanded punch. The enemy anticipated this and lurched away, but Gabe’s blow had been a feint. Instead he went for the man’s leg, pulling a small knife from its holster on the Gorasni’s calf.
They squared off again. The fact that Gabe was now armed only served to amplify the gleam in his opponent’s eyes. The bastard was enjoying this. He smiled as he flexed his fingers on the grenade launcher.
Gabe went in low, slashing at the legs. The blade found only air as his enemy leapt backward. He brought his own weapon down, but dodging Gabe’s knife had drained the energy from the attack. The barrel of the grenade launcher still hit Gabe’s shoulder hard enough to send a spike of pain all down his arm and across his collar, though.
Gabe twisted away, switched the knife into his left hand, and plunged it into the enemy’s gut all the way to the hilt.
The man did not make a sound. He simply lurched away, so fast the handle of the knife slipped from Gabe’s grasp. Gabe was too surprised to take advantage of the situation, and could only watch as his opponent moved two steps back and glanced down at the hilt protruding from his stomach.
Without so much as wincing, the man grabbed the blade and pulled it smoothly free. Blood trickled thickly from the wound, but it must have hit only muscle because no pain whatsoever showed on the UIR officer’s face.
He flicked the blade once. Blood splattered into the dirt between them.
“You’ll pay for that,” he said, still grinning.
“We’ll see—” Gabe started.
The man’s wrist flicked again. Toward Gabe. The knife flew, spinning once in the air as it crossed the distance between them with incredible speed. Gabe had no time to duck away, or even to blink. He managed only to turn his head slightly, saving his eye. The blade bit deep, slicing through his cheek and scraping off the bone beneath.
Hot blood gushed across Gabe’s face.
His opponent rushed in. Two long strides put him in striking distance again. Free of the knife, he’d flipped the Booshka around and now held it like a spear, the stock aimed at Gabe’s face.
The butt of the weapon slammed into Gabe’s throat, forcing him backward, and he almost tripped again. His hands went to his neck, trying to somehow stop the pain. His mouth opened and closed as he gulped for air like a fish out of water. His cheek throbbed from the knife wound.
Still smiling, his opponent jabbed again. The stomach this time. Gabe dropped to his knees, unable to stop himself. He doubled over, his body at once trying to pull in a breath and force out the air—as well as the contents of his stomach. The pain tore through him, and his body’s battle to breathe made it a thousand times worse. The worst pain he’d ever experienced…
Until the enemy kicked him in the stomach.
The force of it filled Gabe’s vision with stars and sent him tumbling onto his back. He lay in the dirt, staring up at the smoky sky. Coughed, and blood fountained out of him. It splashed down into his face, his eyes, so that he writhed from the sting of it. He would have wiped the blood away if his body would just fucking cooperate.
The bald man laughed. Slung his Booshka and picked up the pistol Gabe had dropped. He turned it over in his hand, admiring it.
Then he kicked Gabe onto his side and placed one booted foot on the side of Gabe’s head. Gradually he put his weight on that foot, pressing Gabe into the gritty soil.
“It’s over,” he said casually. “Imulsion or not, I’ve won.”
Gabe could only lie there. The words almost didn’t matter at this point. He was fading, and found it suddenly hard to care about this man, Imulsion, or the war. He cared only for his Gears, hiding on Gatka Ridge as hell rained down on them. The soil beneath Gabe shook over and over as the shelling pulverized the island.
And he cared about—
“Gabe?” a voice in his ear said.
Wyatt’s voice.
Gabe lay there, too stunned to react. Wyatt? He must be imagining it.
“Gabe, come in.”
His brother was still out there, somewhere. Far away, with any luck.
“Gabe, I’m aboard the enemy battleship. Found the fuel tanks, Gabe.”
No…
“Remember Plan B, brother? You said I’d know what to do. I’m going to do it.”
“No, Wyatt,” Gabe muttered. The words came out as a groan. His tormentor laughed.
Of course, Gabe’s transmitter was fried. He couldn’t tell Wyatt to stop if he wanted to. But the part that hurt the most was the seed of hope that had formed in some wretched part of his mind. The part that still wanted to do his duty, to win.
“Wyatt, stop,” Gabe muttered. “Leave.”
“What’s that?” the Gorasni asked, leaning over Gabe. “Famous last words?”
“Gabe,” Wyatt said, and then coughed. He’s wounded, Gabe realized. The voice was weak, and not from a poor connection. “Gabe, I know you said I had nothing to prove to you. That I didn’t owe you anything. You or Oscar. And you know what? That’s what I love most about you two. You never, not once, made me feel as if I did.”
Gabe’s eyes welled with tears. His opponent chuckled dryly at this, and pressed his foot down even harder.
If Gabe could have moved, he would have grabbed the man by the throat and strangled the life out of him. But he couldn’t lift a finger. His body had shut down, the only movement it allowed were the convulsions of his stomach and the shuddering, pathetic gulps for air. His head felt like it was about to split like a melon.
“Goodbye, brother. Give my best to Oscar, will you? I hope this turns the tide.”
And as was Wyatt’s way, the explosion followed instantly. No waiting. No hesitation. He just did the job, and moved on. Beyond the pale, this time.
The first boom was not unlike the firing of the deck guns. Except that it went on much longer. Even with one ear pressed into the dirt, and the other covered by the enemy’s boot, Gabe still heard the whoomp as the fuel tank blew.
It was the second explosion, though, that caught the Gorasni’s attention. Lying there, Gabe thought it might be even louder than the sound the mountain had made when it fell. The whole world around him bloomed white hot for an instant, and then faded. Despite being half a mile away and protected by the island, Gabe felt the heat of the blast all across his body.
The battleship’s ammunition room must have gone up.
A series of tertiary blasts crashed across the landscape. This was something Gabe had expected—planned for, even. By sending in his Corvas, the enemy frigates would close ranks around their lead ship. When it exploded so catastrophically, the shockwave and barrage of shrapnel took these support vessels out, too.
Gabe knew it to be the case at once. His rival took only a second longer to understand what had just happened. And when he did, he staggered backward. Not much. Not even a step. But it was enough.
Despite the pain, despite the lack of breath, Gabe knew this was his chance. Likely the last he’d get. He had to find the strength to use it. He had to use the gift Wyatt had given him.
And that single thought of his brother’s name created one final explosion. An explosion of rage and strength Gabe didn’t know he had left.
With one sputtering cough he twisted. The weight on his head, lessened but still there, kept him pinned, but he could move his legs now. His left he brought up and coiled around the Gorasni’s torso. His right he bent as far as he could, then kicked, hard. Not at the groin, but an even more painful target: the knife wound in the Gorasni’s midsection.
A bellowing howl of agony rushed from the bastard’s mouth as he fell backward.
Another figure emerged from the dust and smoke.
Sorotki. Gabe had never met the man, but he knew it to be him the instant he saw him. The cords of the pilot’s parachute still dangled from his back, tangling around his legs. He shambled forward.
The pilot’s face was a mess of scrapes, but there was a grim determination in his eyes. He went not for the enemy on the ground, but for Gabe, and for one brief second Gabe thought Sorotki meant to kill him out of sheer confusion.
Instead, Sorotki reached out, put his hands under Gabe’s body, and lifted. One last burst of strength had Gabe back on shaky feet. One last effort, then Sorotki collapsed into the mud, passed out cold.
Gabe had time to think. He stumbled toward the enemy officer, who was already on his knees and starting to scramble forward once more.
Gabe’s foot kicked a lump of metal. A Snub pistol. He knelt, grasped the weapon, and lifted it just in time to press it against the forehead of the oncoming Gorasni.
Even as the man tackled him, the weapon discharged from the sheer force of the jarring impact. The last thing Gabe saw before he passed out was a spray of red mist mingling with the smoky air.
When he came to, Gabe’s first thought was that he’d been captured.
Dirt and sand scraped beneath him as someone slowly dragged him by the neckline of his armor through the jungle. When he tilted his head he expected to see some Gorasni regular pulling him, but instead he saw Sorotki.
“Thought you’d left,” Gabe mumbled. “Disobeyed or been shot down—”
The man glanced down. He slowed his pace and knelt. Gabe saw they were both in equally bad shape.
“Rough landing?” Gabe asked him.
Sorotki chuckled, dryly. Spat some blood into the dirt. His upper lip was badly swollen, a gash across it. “I almost did leave,” he admitted. “What you asked… it was insane. It worked, though. You were right, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Yeah,” Gabe nodded at him, “it was insane. But it was the only way.”
“How’d you know the mountain would come down like that?”
Gabe would have shrugged if he could summon the energy. “A guess. My sniper, Davis, mentioned stress fractures in the rock. I guess everything has a weak spot.”
The pilot offered him a grim smile of acknowledgement. Then he started pulling Gabe again, glancing off into the distance.
“They’re landing reinforcements,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“Already?” Gabe asked, shocked despite himself. “We need to regroup with the others. Find a place to hide out and defend ourselves.” He pushed the pilot’s hand away and rolled over. First coming to his knees, and then, after a few long seconds of dizziness, to his feet.
“Not them,” Sorotki said. “Our reinforcements.”
Gabe stared at him for a second, and then turned south. Sorotki had dragged him all the way to the low end of Gatka Ridge, where it sloped suddenly down to the water.
As Gabe watched, a small armada of COG vessels were pushing ashore to the exhausted shouts of gratefulness coming from the wounded and battered Gears waiting for them on the beach.
One Gear in particular, Corporal Blair, seemed to sense she was being watched. She turned and looked up. Her face lit up with relief when she saw Gabe. The expression vanished when she realized the state he was in, though, and by the time Gabe’s knees gave out and he collapsed once more, Blair was rushing toward him, shouting for a medic, with Gian at her side.
Blair reached him first. “We were just getting a team together to come back for you. Are you okay?”
Gabe reached for her shoulder, missed, and staggered. The world around him began to spin. “You know,” he said to her, “these islands, they were supposed to be a reward posting.”
And then he hit the sand, and darkness fell over him.