There are husks everywhere. Like insects pouring from a nest, they clamber over the broken landscape, thick between us and the gashes in the ship’s side that will let us inside the Daedalus. My knees nearly give as a wave of nausea pushes its way up my throat—if I thought fear was losing its hold on me, I was wrong.
My mind jumps to the shield Gideon built, tucked inside Flynn’s vest. It might protect us from becoming one of them, but it won’t protect us from being ripped apart. Not once they see us. Did Gideon and Tarver emerge from beneath the ground in the hours since I left him, to find this same sight before them?
“How the hell are we going to do this?” Jubilee murmurs, echoing my thoughts.
“We need a diversion.” Flynn’s voice is heavy, as exhausted and heartsick as I feel, at the sight of this impossible task. “I could—”
“No.” Her voice is a slamming door, cutting off the idea before it’s born.
But the truth is, neither she nor I has a better idea, or any other idea. We’ll be swarmed before we make it a quarter of the way to the wreck.
I watch, my throat dry, heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my temples, as a fresh wave of husks crest the top of a broken building to our left, starting the climb down the other side into the newly created valley below. They’re led by a blond woman, hair caught back in a ponytail, balancing herself with one hand as she grasps something black and rectangular in the other.
Then I look again. She’s not moving properly. Or rather, she is moving properly, not in the loose-limbed shuffle of the husks. She’s scrambling down, and others are cresting the hill behind her, sliding down through the debris on her tail.
Oh my God.
Recognition hits me in the gut, familiarity sliding into focus in one breathtaking instant.
It’s Mae.
Gideon’s friend is at the head of the group, and as I make a strangled, wordless sound, batting one hand against Jubilee to draw her attention, Mae lifts her hand and fires a Taser at the nearest husk. It drops like a stone.
“Who the hell is that?” Jubilee whispers, going perfectly still.
But before I can answer, a new group crests the ridge, and Flynn’s gasping. “Sanjana’s here!”
The scientist’s dead cybernetic hand is bound across her chest in a tight sling, and she’s using her good hand to fire her Taser. All around her are bedraggled figures in LaRoux Industries uniforms, merging with Mae’s crowd—they’re forcing back the husks, dropping them one by one.
“Damn, Flynn, that’s Mori.” Jubilee’s animated now, and the same energy—the same hope—is surging through me. From the other side of the valley come Mori and at least twenty-five of her black-clad ex-soldiers, scrambling over the ruins to take on the husks. It’s like the first ray of light shining into a darkened prison cell—the hope I thought was gone infuses me, straightening my back and lifting my head as Mori drops a black-eyed husk in the remnants of a business suit. Taser at the ready once more, she lifts her head to scan the remains of LaRoux Headquarters, eyes on the horizon.
“She’s looking for us.” The words burst out in the instant I realize it, and I’m scrambling forward. “They know we’re here—they’re clearing us a path. Let’s go.”
We plunge forward together, debris giving way under our feet as we half run, half fall toward the rapidly clearing courtyard below. Mori bellows a command in a voice worthy of a battleground, and the soldiers surge toward us. Up close I can see some hold palm pads in one hand, some have them strapped to their belts, and others have the square shape of them pressing through their clothes—Sanjana’s taught them how to rig shields. Enough to keep their minds safe, as long as their batteries last.
“We’ll hold them as long as we can, Captain,” Mori calls as we hit level ground.
“How the hell did you get here?” Jubilee swallows up the distance between her and her former corporal in a few long strides.