Evie crouched down amid the tangle of thick forest growth on the edge of the beach. The ocean rushed before her, the tang of salt heavy on the air. It almost felt normal, like the invasion had never happened. But when she peered through the greenery, she saw the places where the sand had melted from plasma blasts, chunks of blackened glass rising like sculptures out of the familiar landscape.

Owen ran through those sculptures now, rain misting across his armor. He carried a red light in his left hand. The detonator.

“He’s at the marker,” said Dorian. “Move out.”

The marker was one of those scorched sand sculptures, a light affixed to its surface. Evie jumped to her feet and followed Dorian as he threaded toward a nearby shelter entrance. It was weatherworn and overgrown, and the door creaked in protest when he dragged it open. But it was there, just like he’d promised.

“Remember it’s going to be a ten-minute run to the service tunnel,” Dorian said. “They’ve got this timed out so that it’ll be clear of any scouts. No showing off, Victor!”

Evie glanced over her shoulder as she darted into the stairwell. Owen was still barreling toward them, the detonator glowing red in his palm.

“Shut up, Dorian,” Victor said.

Evie turned forward again and made her way down the stairs, right behind Dorian. Their footsteps clattered against the walls, and the overwhelming mustiness of rotting vegetation filled the air. Her backpack pressed heavy on her shoulders, the two skinners tucked away inside their protective cases. She tried not to think about them. Instead, she focused on the timer blinking steadily in front of her right eye. It was frozen at ten minutes.

A clank from above. Owen had made it to the shelter.

“Here it comes,” Victor said breathlessly.

And then there was a sound like the sky tearing itself in half, and the ground moved, as if the tunnel were a starship jerking up out of gravity. Dust and stone showered down over the walkway. Evie was flung against the moldy tunnel wall, the dampness seeping into her clothes. Everything vibrated.

Up in the right corner of her HUD, the clock was counting down.

“Move!” Owen’s voice echoed behind them. “They’ll be scouring this area any moment now!”

Evie peeled herself away from the wall and started jogging. The tunnel was still shaking from the aftershocks of the explosion, and she found it difficult to keep her balance. Dust floated through the shadows, clinging to her skin.

But she kept running, following the flat, dark lump of Dorian’s backpack up ahead. Two minutes until their scheduled arrival. She only hoped the explosion and the two diversionary squads would clear out the drilling space enough for them to get the job done.

They wove through the tunnels, still and quiet now that they were farther away from the explosion. The grating was slick with moss and knots of tangled grasses that had been washed into the tunnel during the flooding a month ago. At least there was no sign of the Covenant.

Five minutes left. Dorian veered sharply to the right, taking them into a narrow service tunnel that was supposed to connect with the tunnels Victor and Saskia had explored the day before.

Over the metallic clamor of their footsteps, Evie thought she heard voices. She slowed, reaching for her pistol. Victor slammed into her.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“I hear something—”

“It’s coming from the surface,” Owen said, bringing up the rear. “They’re fighting overhead. I can hear better than you. Keep moving.”

Evie nodded, took off again. He was right, she realized. The faint strains of gunfire and screaming drifted down through the tunnel ceiling.

Two minutes left.

“We’re almost there!” Dorian called out.

“Looks like a dead end!” Victor called back—Dorian was leading them straight into a wall.

“It’s not a damned dead end,” Dorian grumbled, and as if to prove it, he picked up his pace, barreling straight toward the wall, his arms stretched out in front of him.

He slammed into it and it swung open, revealing another narrow tunnel.

“See?” he shouted as he slowed, leading them inside. A doorway loomed up ahead. “This is it. Victor, you should recognize this place.”

Thirty seconds left.

“Yeah,” Victor said begrudgingly. “I do. But we aren’t there yet. We still have to get to the drill site.”

“He’s right,” Owen said. “Keep moving.”

And they did, scurrying single file down the tunnel. When they arrived at the exit, Dorian stopped and turned around. Evie thought his face looked pale.

0:00 blinked the countdown on her HUD.

“You know what you’re supposed to do,” Owen said, and Evie turned around, along with Victor and Saskia. He stood a few paces away, holding his gun at his chest. “I’m going out there first. Let’s hope Green and Blue cleared it out for us. But be prepared if they didn’t.”

Evie glanced sideways at Victor, but after all his complaining, he only responded with an expression of grim determination.

“Let’s get this done as quickly as possible,” Owen said. “Dorian.”

There was a long pause, a moment of inhaled breath. Then Dorian pushed open the entrance door.

Muggy heat wafted into the tunnel. Owen nudged himself to the front of the line, ducking out into the closet first. Dorian went next. Then Saskia. Evie. Victor brought up the rear. They stepped into a moldering old bedroom, weapons raised and trained on what was ahead. Clouds of smoke drifted up near the ceiling, and Evie caught the scent of expelled plasma. But the world was quiet. No rifle blasts, no harsh squawking of the Covenant language.

Owen crawled out the open window, disappearing into the growth outside. The others followed, moving in tandem, the way they had during training. The rain had stopped, and the sun peered out from behind the gray clouds, turning the world to steam. Evie wiped the sweat from her forehead and followed behind Saskia as they wove through the tangled, overgrown path. A garden, she remembered. This had been a garden, gone to seed when the tourists left Brume-sur-Mer for wealthier destinations.

“They’ve shut off the drill,” Victor whispered into her ear. “I can’t hear it.”

She nodded. That should be a good sign, then. Took all their minimal resources to deal with the more immediate threat of the two squads. Still, she gripped the handle on her pistol so tight her knuckles bleached, and she kept sweeping her gaze over the greenery, looking for a rustle of movement, a flash of Covenant armor.

Nothing.

The plasma scent grew stronger. It reminded Evie of melted metal, of chemicals burning in the science lab at school. She caught sight of something big and silver and glittering through the web of flowering bushes, and her breath caught.

“Get down!” Owen roared just as a white plasma bolt blasted overhead.

Evie hit the ground hard, rolling immediately into the bushes, scanning the garden to find the source of the shot. Owen’s rifle fire shredded the leaves. More plasma bolts scorched through the garden, leaving charred vegetation in their wake. Evie spotted a flash of pale light, and finally she saw it: a Jackal, firing off its plasma rifle from behind an energy shield. She pushed herself up to sitting and fired off a round of shots from her pistol, trying to aim in from the side.

She must have been successful; the Jackal howled and whipped its body toward her, the plasma bolts streaking through the trees. She dove back down and crawled more deeply into the vegetation. Where were the others?

A blast from a rifle. Saskia, shooting from Evie’s left. The Jackal shrieked and whirled around again, firing rapidly in Saskia’s direction. But its movement gave Evie a clear shot of its armored back. She aimed her pistol at the narrow wedge of flesh beneath its quills. She took a deep breath. Fired.

The Jackal dropped forward, dark blood splattering over the leaves.

Evie slunk back, let out a long breath of relief.

“No time to rest!” Owen yelled. “Someone’s going to hear that. Keep moving!”

Evie pushed herself up from the ground, her clothes and backpack streaked with mud. The others emerged too, stepping out cautiously from the growth.

“Nice shooting,” Saskia said.

Evie smiled. Three months ago, Saskia had shot a Jackal to save Evie’s life. “Just returning the favor.”

They rushed forward, hacking through the damp growth, clearing a path until suddenly there was no more growth at all, but rather a vast sunken clearing, the earth scorched black, a huge four-legged structure stretching up toward the sky. Not a structure, Evie reminded herself—it was a Scarab, a massive vehicle that had left a path of destruction as it crawled through the old neighborhood. Now it squatted above the dig site, a stationary energy shield shimmering around the entire city block, preventing any entrance.

“Commander didn’t mention this in his briefing,” Owen said quietly. “But it is strange to see a Scarab used like this. They normally level cities, with that cannon turned on buildings and streets. We need to go unnoticed for this plan to work.”

It was bigger than the Locust they had taken out last time. More fortified. But there were ventilation shafts—weak spots. The right amount of firepower could take it down.

Once they got through the shield.

“The skinners should be powerful enough to overload the energy field,” Owen said. “Then the chain reaction should knock out the Scarab as well. But we’re going to have to use all of them. Hurry. There are probably other scouts in the area.”

Evie and the others scattered, running around the perimeter of the drill. Evie could feel the heat from the energy shield, a different heat from the air’s thick swelter. It was more mechanical. Less human.

She pulled her backpack around front, her hands shaking. Lifted the first of the explosives out, unlocked its case, nestled it into the ground next to the shield. She started to do the same with the second one. Eight skinners going off at once. It had to work.

Plasma fire exploded from somewhere off to her left; she yelped and dropped the second explosive, and the whole world went still. But it didn’t set off. Evie breathed a long sigh of relief and hunched down lower. She could hear Owen returning fire. She reached over, activated both of the explosives. Then she grabbed her pistol and ran back toward the old tourist house. Someone was up ahead of her—Dorian. He fired into the trees just as a green plasma bolt streaked past Evie’s head.

“Watch out!” he called. “Grunts!”

She still couldn’t see them, but she fired in the direction the plasma bolt had come. Something squawked in anger. More plasma fire, setting the tree leaves to smolder. Then Owen came crashing through the greenery, laying down a hailstorm of bullets. Saskia and Victor were right behind him.

“Get inside!” Victor shouted. “There’s more of them coming! We’ve got to blow the bombs now!”

Evie nodded and scrambled through the empty window. Dorian was leaning up against the tunnel entrance, breathing heavily, his hair soaked with sweat. He had pulled out the detonator. “We shouldn’t go underground,” he said. “Not with all those explosives going off at once.”

“Will we be safe here?” Evie asked.

“We should,” Saskia said, crawling through the window. “We placed them so that the blasts are shaped inward toward the shield. But—”

Plasma burned through the wood of the house, centimeters from her head. Saskia shrieked and dove inside. Victor whipped around, firing into the garden.

“Get inside!” Dorian bellowed. “So we can set these things off!”

“What about Owen?” Saskia said. She already held the detonator loosely in her hand, her eyes wide. Victor swung himself up through the window, firing his rifle over his shoulder.

“He’s on his way,” he said.

And then there he was, a gleaming streak of metal against the greenery.

“Blow it to hell!” he ordered through his helmet’s comm. “Now!”

Evie looked up at Dorian. At Saskia. At Victor. Their detonators glowed red.

“Now!” Owen shouted again.

Evie closed her eyes and pressed her thumb into the indentation.

She heard the sound of exactly one of her inhaled breaths.

Then the roaring came. A wave of furnace heat. Owen dove through the window of the house as the walls trembled and cracked. The ground lurched, and Evie flew into the closet, landing hard on the floor. The ground groaned beneath her. The floorboards cracked.

“Those tunnels are caving in,” Dorian whispered.

No, she realized, with a shout—it was just her ears ringing hard from the explosion.

Evie got shakily to her feet. She flung open the door to the service tunnel. The steps were still there, everything coated in dust. But the ceiling was lower. The metal was dented, distorted.

“Did we get it?” Victor asked. He sounded a million kilometers away.

“Waiting on visual confirmation,” Owen said.

“Is it safe to go down there?” Evie asked, nodding at the tunnel entrance.

“Do we have a choice?” Dorian asked.

“Surveillance team said we got it,” Owen said. “The Scarab’s been taken out.”

Relief flushed through Evie, and exhilaration overpowered her exhaustion. But then she smelled smoke, heard a roar like the ocean that she thought was her damaged eardrums but was really, she realized, a fire. Distantly, there came a strange, alien wail. An alarm system, its inhuman baying calling the Covenant to action.

“Take the tunnels,” Owen said. “It’s worth the risk. We’re going to run headfirst into the Covenant if we take the surface streets.”

Evie didn’t doubt that. She glanced at Dorian. A flicker of panic passed between them.

“Let’s go,” he said, heading down the stairs. A plume of dust swallowed him, and Evie took a deep breath before stepping into it. Even with the helmet, her eyes immediately stung with tears, and she blinked rapidly, focusing her gaze not on the thick white dust in front of her but on the readings on HUD, on Dorian’s bio-signs. With her damaged hearing and the heavy dust, the readings were the only sound pulling into the tunnels. The rest of the world felt muffled and claustrophobic.

Then a low, sharp screech cut through the silence. The dust billowed, clearing briefly, and Evie saw Dorian crouching up ahead, a large sheet of metal from the tunnel’s ceiling dangling at an angle above him.

“We’ve got to hurry!” His voice came through on the helmet’s comm system. “This whole thing could collapse.”

The dust was closing in around him again. Evie dove forward, the particles burning the back of her throat, the inside of her nose. “Saskia?” she said into her comm. “Victor? Are you okay? Owen?”

“I’m fine,” Saskia said.

“I’m clear,” Victor said. “Keep moving. The dust is starting to settle. I’ve got a visual.”

“Clear,” said Owen. “And Victor’s right. Keep moving.”

Evie crept forward through the slow-falling dust. It settled in jagged, unnatural shapes—the distorted metal that had once lined the tunnel keeping it secure. The ceiling dropped dangerously low, metal hanging in shredded stalactites that reflected the light from Evie’s helmet back into her eyes. Evie wound through them, her gaze on Dorian’s back.

A crash behind her; a scream on her comm. Evie and Dorian both froze, and Evie whirled around into another blinding cloud of dust.

“Saskia,” Dorian said, rushing up beside her. “Saskia, are you okay?”

“The ceiling dropped,” Owen said over the comm. “Dorian, Evie, keep moving. Saskia—”

“I’m clear. A piece of the ceiling almost hit me. I’m fine. Keep going.”

The dust was clearing again, and Evie saw Saskia pulling herself up. A shard of metal jammed out of the ground beside her. “We’re almost there,” Dorian said, grabbing at Evie’s hand. “Come on.”

They moved on, the tunnel groaning and shrieking around them. The walls shifted centimeter by centimeter, kicking up new showers of debris and dust—so much dust, thick and choking like smoke.

“There,” Dorian said. “We’re almost there.”

Evie could barely see anything in front of her. Dorian was little more than a dark blur moving across the shadows of the tunnel. Her helmet light could barely penetrate the dust. Or maybe it was so coated it was useless.

Dorian let out a shout. There was the horrifying screech of metal against metal. But it wasn’t the ceiling collapsing. It was the exit, grinding open, revealing a wash of lemony sunlight and clear, clean air.

Evie bounded forward, back into the surface world.