Rhodes blasted out of Rio’s cockpit, fired his boosters, and angled downward in a death dive for the city streets.

  Thackery floundered there trying in every possible way to free herself from the Masks’ grip.

  Too many of them piled on top of her. Dozens of hands hauled her down before their mechanized bodies closed in a tide with her underneath them.

  Rhodes didn’t slow down. He sped up.

  He only adjusted his angle of approach to come at the Masks from the side instead of directly above.

  He opened fire on them with every weapon in his arsenal, but he couldn’t count on it staying that way.

  The Masks interfered with Thackery using The Grid. They somehow stopped any of the Strikers from locating her.

  The Masks also stopped Rio from seeing that invasion ship. Rhodes didn’t trust them to leave him armed once he got near Thackery.

  He would have one chance at this. He planned to make it count.

  He swooped low over the battle and gunned his boosters to their fastest speed. He came in so fast the Masks didn’t see him. They were too busy fighting the Legion platoons and recapturing Thackery.

  He swiveled his weapons forward, unloaded a dozen Vipers in rapid succession, and smashed through the Masks’ horde.

  Bodies soared out of his path. He took a split second to alter his grid lines as wide as they would go.

  He didn’t try to take any fancy shape. He plowed his way through the Masks and collided full force with Thackery.

  He surrounded her in his grid lines. His speed carried both of them through the horde.

  The instant Rhodes made contact with her, he lost The Grid, too. He instantly switched back into his normal shape.

  He scrambled to wrap his arms around her to keep carrying her as far away from the Masks as possible.

  Even then, the force and momentum of the collision stripped him and Thackery apart. She flew out of his hands and they both somersaulted a dozen yards into a side street.

  Rhodes’s assault disrupted the Masks just enough for the platoons to make their move. They rushed the Masks, opened fire, and the battle swept sideways into a different street.

  Rhodes picked himself up. The Masks had to keep backing away under the Legion’s counterassault. No one came around to bother Rhodes and Thackery.

  He spun around to check on her. She lay sprawled on the ground, but she was already propping herself on her arms to sit up. “You okay?” Rhodes gasped. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know….” she stammered. “I was flying along interfacing with Stone…..and then The Grid cut out. My boosters died and I fell down over there—right into the Masks.”

  Rhodes picked her up the rest of the way. “Never mind. We’re getting out of here.”

  “How? Can you interface with the Strikers?”

  “No. The Masks took out The Grid for me, too. I can’t communicate with Fisher, either.”

  “How do we get out of here, then?”

  “The Strikers know where we are. They had our coordinates. Come on. We have to find a spot for them to lift us off.”

  He took her arm and led her farther away from the battle. The silence in Rhodes’s head was becoming eerie without Fisher or any of the other SAMs or battalion members.

  Was this what it felt like to be human? Did every other human alive live in this silence?

  He knew they did. He’d lived that way all his life before he entered the Battalion 1 project.

  Now it unnerved him more than anything else that happened while he’d been the Masks’ prisoner.

  The drugs and The Grid made it less obvious when he’d been living at Stonebridge without Fisher in his head all the time. Normal human life felt good there.

  Now it felt creepy and frightening. He had to get Fisher back.

  He and Thackery covered five blocks and entered a part of the city not involved in the battle. It had been involved in the battle, though. The destroyed ruins of buildings made traveling more difficult.

  Rhodes would have given anything to use his boosters to fly over this wreckage, but he just had to climb over like a normal person.

  Thackery followed him. They made it to another street until Rhodes spotted a park ahead. The Strikers would be able to land there—if they found Rhodes and Thackery at all.

  He picked up his pace heading for the park. He wanted to hurry up and get there.

  Thackery hustled up behind him and grabbed his arm. “Captain….thank you….for coming back for me. I didn’t think you would.”

  “I told you I would. I told you we wouldn’t leave anyone behind. Did you think I just blew that out of my ass?”

  She shuffled her feet. “Just….thank you. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. Just get on board with this battalion from now on. That’s all I ask. That’s all I’ve ever asked of any of you.”

  She looked away. “I will.”

  He didn’t answer. He still didn’t trust her further than he could throw her.

  He turned away, but he still didn’t see the Strikers overhead. Why couldn’t Rio and Stone locate Rhodes and Thackery? The Strikers should have been able to scan the city for the battalion’s implants.

  Thackery read his mind. “Where are they?”

  “I’m not sure. Let’s fall back to the other side of the city. The Legion is stationed there. If anything happens, we can fall in with the platoons. They’ll take us back to the Legion.”

  He set off walking one block after another. Walking felt strange and agonizingly slow. Did people really travel like this? How primitive.

  The noise of battle came from multiple sides. He couldn’t tell where the Masks and Legion were fighting. He was blind without The Grid.

  He kept jumping at the sound of gunfire. He didn’t even know if he would be able to use his weapons.

  Thackery followed him every step of the way. She didn’t do anything to cause him problems, but that meant nothing.

  She would show her colors once they got near the Legion. Nothing meant a thing until then.

  He did his best not to suspect her of getting herself caught by the Masks. He replayed her facial expression again and again—the way she looked up in terror and desperation as the Masks dragged her down. That was no act.

  The Masks shutting down The Grid was no act, either. They wouldn’t have done that if she’d been cooperating. They wouldn’t have hidden her to stop Rhodes and the Strikers from finding and rescuing her.

  He pushed those thoughts out of his mind when he got closer to the southern edge of the city. Fusion blasts went off every few seconds coming from the south, the southwest, and the southeast.

  Fusion blasts didn’t tell him anything, though. The Masks used Legion fusion weapons, too.

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  He glanced at the sky again for any sign of Rio, but at that moment, two matching crowds of soldiers converged from the west and the east.

  They rushed inward on Rhodes and Thackery, but the soldiers didn’t see the two comrades beforehand any more than Rhodes and Thackery saw the soldiers.

  The soldiers flooded past on their way south—toward the Legion’s rear line. The soldiers were falling back.

  At the same instant, another wave of Masks burst out of the streets coming from the north. They opened fire on the platoons with Rhodes and Thackery caught right in the middle.

  Rhodes spun around to face the Masks, raised his weapons to open fire…..and nothing happened. His weapons didn’t work. He was completely defenseless.

  Fusion blasts erupted past him from both directions. The platoons’ Jackhammers leveled dozens of Masks and the Masks’ rifles dropped soldiers all around Rhodes.

  He couldn’t let the Masks kill any more soldiers. He reacted without thinking, dove in front of the soldiers, and stormed toward the Masks.

  He couldn’t shoot at them, so he made himself as big a target as possible.

  He held out one slim trace of hope that the Masks might hold their fire because they didn’t want to damage him.

  No such luck. They bombarded him with shots. The Masks’ gunfire pounded him in the chest and made him stagger back into the Legion ranks.

  Thackery sprang over to him. “Captain!!” she yelled before the Masks opened fire on her, too.

  She spun in a circle and hit the ground. Gunfire erupted on both sides again and fusion shots whizzed back and forth over her head.

  The Masks didn’t try so hard to avoid hitting Rhodes. Were they actually targeting him? He couldn’t tell if they were or he just happened to get caught in their way.

  Another brutal spray of gunshots hammered him all over his body. He jerked and spasmed under the assault, and without thinking about it first, he aimed his laser at the Masks.

  His mind shut down. He didn’t remember that his weapons were offline. He just had to do something—anything.

  He fired, and this time, his laser switched on.

  The Masks’ gunfire tossed him back and forth in all directions so badly that he couldn’t aim. His laser swiped across the battlefield and he cut down fifty Masks without thinking.

  At that instant, The Grid burst to life in front of his eyes. Fisher flashed into view and the rest of the battalion connected through the interface.

  “Hold on, Captain!” Rhinehart called. “We’re coming in! We’re on approach! Just hold them there for a few seconds longer.”

  Rhodes had never heard a sweeter sound in his life. He dragged his vision into focus just enough to pass his laser across the Masks’ ranks again.

  The thrill of being able to kill his enemies took over. He fired his other laser and roared at the Masks. He stalked toward them carving his way up the street.

  The platoons fell farther behind him as they retreated toward the south. Rhodes didn’t notice them. Nothing mattered but destroying as many of these cocksuckers as he could.

  He bared his teeth at them. He actually hated them more for retreating. He wanted them to stand their ground where he could cut their bodies to pieces.

  He felt no guilt at all about seeing them topple onto the pavement. He laughed in sick glee when he saw their dismembered limbs trying to move around without being attached to any body.

  He got so consumed with wreaking his vengeance on them that he didn’t see the Strikers until they raced up behind him.

  They laid down dozens of shots on the remaining Masks. Stone extended a bunch of boneless tentacles from his underside, snatched Thackery off the ground, and hurtled upward with her on his way to rendezvous with the Ero.

  Rhodes never stopped shooting. He didn’t want the Strikers to interfere, now that he finally got to inflict some damage on the Masks.

  Elio, Zion, and Enoch raced between the buildings hounding the Masks toward the north. Dozens of explosions went off over there as the Strikers drove the Masks out of the city and into the wilderness.

  Rio, Coulter’s Striker, Aries, and Dietz’s Striker, Baron, swiveled in front of Rhodes. Aries and Baron stood guard with their weapons trained northward while Rio descended to land in front of Rhodes.

  Another flood of relief contracted his heart when he climbed into the cockpit. The cover closed with him inside. He was going to be all right. He was on his way back to the Ero, the Legion, and everything else he knew.

  He would never be a prisoner of the Masks again. He would never suffer the torment of their lab or the mind-numbing hopelessness of Stonebridge.

  Rio launched. The other two Strikers fell in on either side of him. Coulter kept shooting appraising glances in all directions, but no one came out to bother the Strikers.

  Dietz grinned at Rhodes through the interface. “You made it, Sir.”

  Irrepressible laughter bubbled out of Rhodes’s soul. “Yeah, Sergeant. I made it.”

  Rhodes checked The Grid just to make sure the three Strikers had a clear shot to return to the Ero.

  Elio, Enoch, and Zion were still driving the Masks out of town. All the Legion platoons had retreated south out of the battle zone. The Masks couldn’t get past the Strikers to re-engage.

  Rhodes opened his mouth to give the order for Dietz and Coulter to launch. Rhodes turned Rio’s nose to the skies when, without warning, three invasion ships raced out of the west.

  They’d been locked in battle against the Legion Ravagers. Now the invasion ships broke away, turned tail, and put on speed to intercept the Strikers.

  “Get into orbit!” Rhodes ordered. “Get back to the Ero no matter what!”

  “What about….?” Coulter asked.

  A brutal concussion of fusion fire cut him off. The shot smashed into Aries from the side, ripped the Striker out of position, and hurled it across Baron’s path.

  Dietz yanked the ship out of the way just in time. “Whoa!”

  “Get out of here, Dietz!” Rhodes bellowed again. “Run for it!”

  Dietz started to turn Baron away. Aries couldn’t correct.

  The invasion ships plowed almost on top of the three Strikers and unloaded in all directions.

  Rhodes swiveled Rio around to return fire, but not even all three Strikers working together would be able to stand up to three invasion ships.

  The Ravagers barreled in just then to re-engage the invasion ships, but the Ravagers’ arrival only made the area more dangerous for Rhodes and his men.

  A Ravager and an invasion ship both fired at the same time. Their shots met in the center and exploded in a massive outburst of fire and energy.

  The concussion caught Aries a second time and then a bone-crushing impact hit Rio from somewhere. Rhodes didn’t see it in time before the blow smacked Rio back down onto the pavement with punishing force.

  Rhodes jolted in his seat hard enough to pull him away from the prongs and then another epic smash hit Rio from directly above. The second blow knocked Rhodes out cold.

  He came to his senses lying in a capsule somewhere. He wasn’t standing in a Masks conversion station anymore.

  It felt strange to be lying down with the capsule cover closed over his face, but at least Fisher was back.

  “Good morning, Captain,” Fisher began in his smooth, diplomatic tone.

  Rhodes groaned. “Is it morning or are you just saying that?”

  Fisher chuckled. “It’s actually the middle of the night. I’ll send a message to Dr. Osborne that you’re awake.”

  Rhodes’s eyes snapped open. “Osborne?”

  “You’re on the Ero. Rio brought you back.”

  Rhodes collapsed in shaky relief. “Thank God he made it.”

  “He took damage, but he’s been repaired by now. You were a different story. You’ve been in a conversion cycle for three days. We weren’t sure you would make it. You went through serious withdrawals from the drugs.”

  “Then I’m equally grateful I slept through it.” Rhodes unlocked from the prongs and tapped the capsule’s internal controls to open the cover. “Did everyone else get through the withdrawals all right? I guess Dietz didn’t go through them at all, did he?”

  Fisher didn’t answer because Rhodes was already sitting up. Dr. Osborne and Dr. Trudeau rushed into the lab right then. Rhodes was in their lab on the Ero.

  “You shouldn’t have woken up so soon!” Dr. Osborne was still putting on his glasses. He hadn’t bothered to tie his tie and his sport jacket had gotten bunched up under his lab coat in his haste to put it on. “I checked your systems last night. They still hadn’t fully regulated after the withdrawals. You still have some of the drugs in your system.”

  “I feel okay,” Rhodes replied. “I just feel a little weak from the conversion cycle, but it’s been worse. I’m just glad to be out of there.”

  Osborne went over to his banks of equipment. Trudeau fiddled with the controls on the side of Rhodes’s capsule.

  “These readings are the same as they were last night,” Trudeau announced. “Your neural core and brainwave patterns still aren’t back to what they were when you left.”

  “It might take a while for you to fully recover.” Dr. Osborne came over and used some device to peer into Rhodes’s eye implant. “Are you reading The Grid normally?”

  “Everything looks the same. Fisher looks the same, but I can’t interface with the rest of the battalion.”

  “Your interface is offline for now,” Trudeau told him. “We deactivated the interface while you go through recovery. We thought the interface might make it more difficult for everyone, including the SAMs. We want to simplify your brainwaves. The interface might overcomplicate things.”

  Rhodes nodded. “At least tell me the others made it through the recovery process all right. Are they still in conversion cycles? Is anyone else awake?”

  “Thackery is still in recovery,” Osborne replied. “She’s taking the longest. The drugs seem to have affected her the worst.”

  Rhodes looked away. He didn’t want to talk about Thackery.

  “Fuentes, Rhinehart, and Oakes are all out of recovery,” Trudeau went on. “They’re in the capsule hold.”

  “What about Dietz, Coulter, and Lauer?” Rhodes asked. “Did the drugs affect Dietz at all? They didn’t seem to while we were in Masks custody.”

  The two doctors exchanged glances.

  “What’s wrong?” Rhodes blurted out. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  “We lost contact with Dietz, Coulter, and Lauer,” Fisher told him. “They all got shot down on the battlefield. We haven’t been able to retrieve any of them. Their Strikers are missing, too.”

  “How is that possible?” Rhodes demanded. “You should be able to interface with any of them.”

  “We don’t know how it’s possible. We don’t even know if the six of them might have gotten recaptured. No one knows anything.”

  Rhodes pushed himself off the capsule. “I’m going down there to get them.”

  “You can’t go anywhere in your condition…..” Dr. Osborne protested.

  “Watch me,” Rhodes snapped over his shoulder.

  The two doctors hustled after him. “You need at least two more weeks of recovery. I can’t clear you for duty until you….”

  “I don’t give a shit what you do. Are you seriously telling me three of my guys and their Strikers have been down on that planet for three days while I’ve been sound asleep?”

  “That’s correct, Captain,” Fisher murmured.

  “You should have told me right away. You never should have let me sleep for so long.”

  “You were going through withdrawals,” Trudeau pointed out.

  “Who the hell cares?!” Rhodes fired back. “I’ve been going through withdrawals for weeks. You should have sent me back the same day.”

  “Your injuries were too severe,” Fisher told him. “You wouldn’t have stayed conscious long enough to find them.”

  Rhodes could hate the two doctors for doing this to him, but he couldn’t stay mad at Fisher. “Bring me up a Grid layout of the Ero and show me where Rio is. Get the rest of the battalion down there on the double. We’re going out there to get our people. Come on. Let’s move.”

  End of Book 3. Stay tuned for Book 4 coming on Monday.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

  I post new chapters of The Battalion 1 series on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday PST.

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