Rhodes walked onto the loading dock at Fort Bastion—except that it wasn’t. It was the landing bay of the Masks’ ship—the prison ship.

  He surveyed his subordinates—both the human ones and the SAMs.

  Thackery was back with the battalion. No one said anything about her coming back. The battalion had been living in the barracks since her betrayal. She had been in Stonebridge up until last night.

  No one talked to her—about her betrayal or about anything else. Rhodes didn’t broach the subject.

  He didn’t broach the subject with anyone else, either. If any of his subordinates planned to pull another stunt like Thackery’s, finding out about it ahead of time wouldn’t change anything.

  Rhodes wouldn’t find out about it ahead of time because the culprit wouldn’t tell him about it ahead of time. Rhodes wouldn’t find out until the moment actually came.

  By then, he would either be able to do something about it or he wouldn’t. He had to go and make the best of it either way.

  He read the same sinking realization in all his subordinates. Lauer compressed his lips and scowled at everyone.

  That expression filled Rhodes with relief. Lauer was back—the Lauer that Rhodes first got to know at Coleridge Station. Lauer didn’t pretend to be happy about any of this. There was nothing to be happy about.

  Fuentes glared at everyone, too, but it was his old glare of hardened determination. Oakes and Rhinehart continually checked their comrades for the slightest sign of trouble.

  Oakes and Rhinehart kept shooting flinty glances at Fuentes, Coulter, and Thackery, but Oakes and Rhinehart didn’t shoot flinty glances at Dietz. No one did.

  Rhodes didn’t, either. He knew now with absolutely no doubt that Dietz wanted to get back to the Legion as much as the rest of them. He’d finally proven himself to everyone, especially Rhodes.

  Rhodes made a command decision not to evaluate the SAMs. It was too late for that.

  “Show us The Grid of the battlefield, Fisher,” Rhodes ordered.

  Fisher brought up The Grid so everyone could see it through the interface.

  The Masks and the Legion still battled over the same city the two armies had been fighting over when Thackery betrayed the battalion.

  “The Ero is still in orbit,” Fisher reported. “We can call in the Strikers as soon as we launch from here.”

  “We’re going to do this differently this time,” Rhodes ordered. “We’re going to separate so none of us can put the others in danger.”

  “That will make all of us more vulnerable to recapture,” Rhinehart pointed out.

  “It will also widen our footprint. The Masks would have to send out eight different ships to retake us. Besides, we’re more in danger from each other than we are from the Masks. Each of us operating individually will have a better chance of rendezvousing with our Strikers than we will separately. If anything goes wrong, none of us will be able to take out all the others.”

  He didn’t mention Thackery. No one even looked at her, but they all knew exactly who Rhodes was talking about.

  “As soon as we clear the landing bay, each of us will interface with the Ero and our own Striker SAM,” Rhodes went on. “Each of us will agree on the rendezvous coordinates with our own Striker. None of us will know anyone else’s rendezvous coordinates beforehand. We’ll all be on opposite sides of the battlefield where we can’t interfere with each other.”

  “What if one of us gets pinned down and can’t escape?” Coulter asked. “The rest of you could fly off to freedom and one person could get left behind.”

  “We’ll come back for you. We won’t leave anyone behind.” Rhodes pointed to everyone else in the battalion. “We all need to commit to that before we carry out this mission. Our mission is to take all eight of us out of Masks custody. We can’t leave even one person in Masks custody, not even someone who wants to stay behind. We can’t let the Masks use any of us against the Legion—which is exactly what they will do.”

  “Of course not,” Lauer muttered. “We can’t let them use us to kill any more soldiers.”

  “Definitely,” Rhinehart added. “We don’t leave anyone behind no matter who it is.”

  Rhodes turned to Fuentes and Thackery. “Do I make myself clear? If either of you have any second thoughts during the battle—or at any other time—we’ll come back and remove you even if we have to do it against your will. You won’t go back to the Masks.”

  Fuentes dipped his chin once. He didn’t break eye contact with Rhodes when Fuentes replied, “Yes, Sir. I understand.”

  “Alyssa?” Rhodes asked. “Do you understand?”

  She nodded down at the floor. “I won’t do anything. I’ll come over to the Legion.”

  “You better,” Rhinehart snapped.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  He didn’t say the rest of that threat—that he would kill her rather than let the Masks retake her.

  Rhodes didn’t intervene. The battalion had been amazingly forgiving toward her or at least less hostile than he expected. He didn’t expect them to just accept her back into their ranks the way they did.

  They gave her the silent treatment, but that was nothing they didn’t give Fuentes all the time, too.

  They didn’t give Thackery the silent treatment in a hostile, hateful way, either. They just went about their business as normal—as if they just didn’t have anything to say to her just now.

  They conducted themselves as if they might start talking to her about anything as soon as something came up to talk about. No one acted like her presence was anything to comment on.

  Rhodes made one last check on everyone present. Dietz kept a sharp eye on everyone. He didn’t let his guard down around anyone, including Rhodes.

  Dietz didn’t speak up. Rhodes took that to mean Dietz didn’t see anything concerning he needed to speak up about.

  Dietz must have come to the same conclusion Rhodes did. The battalion just had to throw down and let the chips fall where they may.

  Rhodes had already taken all the precautions he possibly could take. He couldn’t stand around second-guessing himself or he might really lose his nerve.

  He nodded to everyone and launched out of the landing bay. He already knew where to go.

  “I’m interfacing with Rio,” Fisher announced as soon as they cleared the hatch. “He’s on approach. All the Strikers are on their way in.”

  Rhodes ignited his boosters. “Separate and head to different parts of the city! Keep out of each other’s way until we make it back to the Ero!”

  “Yes, Sir!” Rhinehart called back and peeled off to the left.

  Rhodes expanded his view of The Grid. He couldn’t pay attention to the battle between the Masks and the Legion. He couldn’t make any difference to the outcome.

  His only chance to make a difference was to get the battalion away from the Masks. He had to do that now before everything else went south—again.

  He traced the Strikers dropping out of orbit. They parted in the high clouds and every Striker went off in a different direction.

  Rio put on speed closing on Rhodes’s position. “Thirty seconds to contact, Captain!” Rio told him. “The invasion ships are holding off on the east side. I got you! We’re all clear!”

  Rhodes rocketed higher above the city on an intercept course for the incoming Striker. The SAM was already opening the cockpit cover.

  Rio hurtled past Rhodes at blinding speed. An extending arm unfolded from the cockpit, snatched Rhodes out of the air, and pulled him into the seat.

  He didn’t feel a thing until the prongs locked into the back of his head and shoulders. He wilted into the seat in relief. “Thank you so much, Rio! You don’t know how good it is to be back.”

  “Hold on, Captain!” Rio told him. “We have to avoid a bunch of enemy invasion ships to get back to the Ero.”

  Rhodes opened his eyes and checked The Grid. “Rhinehart, Coulter, and Fuentes are away. So is Dietz.”

  “Elio is thirty seconds out from rendezvousing with Lauer,” Fisher reported. “Oakes is pinned down, but Enoch is moving in to help him out.”

  Rhodes surveyed the area. Oakes had picked a spot on the far northern side of the city to rendezvous with Enoch.

  Another air battle between Masks invasion ships and Legion Ravagers cut off Enoch from getting near Oakes. He had to shoot his way past the ships fighting all around him.

  He headed farther west. Enoch circled the city from the south to close on Oakes’s position. They would meet up soon enough and then Oakes would be free, too.

  “I don’t see Thackery anywhere.” Rhodes frowned at The Grid. “She isn’t showing up.”

  Her Striker SAM interfaced with Rio and Rhodes right at that moment.

  Stone had a small, round shriveled, wrinkled face of an old man. He reminded Rhodes of one of those old-fashioned apple dolls, but the SAM’s grey color really did make him look like a stone.

  “Alyssa isn’t showing up on The Grid, Captain,” Stone rasped.

  “I know, man. I’m trying to find her, too.”

  “I’m tracing her route from our launch coordinates,” Fisher replied. “She flew straight into town. She saw all of you heading for the perimeter, so she chose the center of town to rendezvous with Stone.”

  “She should still show up on The Grid even if she got into trouble,” Rhodes pointed out. “Circle back, Rio.”

  Rio banked in a steep curve, cut south, and then plunged into the city. He dropped low to the ground and wove between buildings.

  Rhodes could see the whole Grid from here, but he still didn’t see any sign of Thackery—or anyone else in the battalion. Elio and Enoch were already climbing for orbit with Oakes and Lauer on board.

  Rio dodged a few explosions from the ground. Dusters and Predators trying to support the platoons met their end when Masks ground troops fired on the ships.

  Rio plunged through the burning wreckage of a Duster, burst out the other side, and nearly collided with an invasion ship stationed right over three more platoons.

  The platoons locked in battle against a massive horde of Masks ground troops. Rhodes couldn’t even call it a battle.

  The Masks surrounded the platoons firing into the center. The soldiers wouldn’t survive much longer.

  “Holy crap!” Rio exclaimed and veered hard to the left, but he was flying too fast.

  Even with his sudden maneuver, he had to skim dangerously close to the invasion ship to avoid smashing into a million pieces on its giant hull.

  “Watch out, Rio!” Rhodes snapped. “You should have seen that!”

  “I was checking! It didn’t show up on The Grid.”

  Rhodes opened his mouth to answer—and stopped himself. Thackery didn’t show up on The Grid…and now this invasion ship didn’t show up on The Grid, either.

  That shouldn’t have been possible, but it was. There was no other explanation. Something must be interfering with The Grid.

  The Masks couldn’t control the battalion anymore. What better way to stop the battalion from escaping than by messing with the battalion’s ability to read The Grid?

  Rio blasted past the invasion ship heading farther out into open space. Rhodes started to search other parts of the city for any sign of Thackery….and then he saw her.

  She didn’t show up on The Grid. He only saw her by looking out his cockpit window.

  Hundreds of Masks surrounded her down on the ground. She kept trying to fire her boosters to launch away from the Masks, but they grabbed her and held her down.

  She made it a few feet off the pavement each time before they dragged her under all their numbers.

  She writhed in their grip, but she couldn’t break out. She couldn’t use The Grid to change her shape, either.

  Her head arched back and her face contorted in a grimace of terror, fury, and hopeless desperation. She couldn’t break away no matter how hard she tried.

  “I found her!” Rhodes called. “I’m sending you her coordinates, Stone, but do NOT go down there! Understand?”

  “But, Captain….”

  “Stay in the air! We can’t risk the Masks capturing one of you Strikers. I’ll get her out. Just stay here—both you and Rio. Cover me and be ready to take us on board as soon as I lift her off.”

  “If she can’t use her boosters, you probably won’t be able to, either,” Fisher pointed out.

  “We said we wouldn’t leave anyone behind and we won’t,” Rhodes countered. “Open the cockpit cover, Rio.”

  Rio compressed his lips in a very rare show of annoyance, but he did it anyway. The cover flew back and Rhodes launched himself out into the sky.

  End of Chapter 37.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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