Then I see something terrifying.
On the second-largest island, about four klicks from the Ash Lord’s spire, ripWings rise from a large airfield to join the fray. Three squadrons, thirty-six aircraft. Nearly two hundred more ships fill the airfield. Long metal buildings that look like barracks glint from the neighboring islands. Hoverboats are already speeding across the water, carrying pilots to their aircraft.
Seeing our presence to the west, an enemy squadron detaches from the wing from the airfield and slowly banks around to block Colloway’s ships from attacking the rows of waiting ripWings on the ground. I glance up at his squadron of three. Warlock’s going to have to earn his reputation today. Already long-range missiles streak between the craft.
Sevro and I lock eyes through our faceplates.
We have to eliminate the pilots before they reach their ships or we’re all dead. I drop like a stone, Sevro on my tail, and land amongst my men. I signal them to follow me. We plunge into the water as the ripWings engage out over the sea. Railgun rounds eat into the water, but shatter on impact above us. We dive to twenty meters and head toward the islands like a school of metal sharks. Two torpedoes fall into the water and detonate, bucking us sideways.
Then, from the deep, I see something moving through the water toward us, a blur of metal no larger than a fist. It slams into one of the Howlers’ shells and detonates, vaporizing half his body. More metal swims toward us from the deep. Minefield. I shoot upward out of the water, my Howlers hot behind, the mines screaming after them. A lance of fire streaks down from a belly turret on the Nessus and cuts the mines out of the air. Good shot, Rhonna! I could kiss her.
We surface just off the bow of one of the hoverboats. More than a dozen of them race toward the airfield. Two have already landed. I burst over to one and land on the deck just before the command cabin. Through a glass partition, I see the female Blue pilot and half a dozen Orange and Green crewmembers. I switch to the railgun implanted into the left arm of the suit and fire into the command cabin just as the pilot lifts her hands in fear. Superheated metal makes pulp of the men. Throughout the bay, my Howlers in starShells leapfrog back and forth between the fleet of hovercraft, massacring the command cabins. Thraxa wades into one against pulseRifle fire and slams a Gray twenty meters into the air with her powerHammer. She disappears inside. Light flashes from the interior. Sevro floats above another, firing down onto it. I burst forward through the shattered command cabin into the passenger hold of my own hovercraft, where two dozen uniformed Blues in flight gear stare at me in terror. Some are no older than Rhonna.
I pull the trigger and make meat of men.
Evaporated blood fills the air with a rusty mist as fragments of bodies twitch on the floor.
By the time I make it out of the hovercraft, their fleet is a ruin of smoldering, sinking wrecks. Sevro has marshaled the Howlers on the airfield island. I skip over the water and land next to him. “There’s no bloody back door!” he says of the main island, popping his top. “Place is a porcupine.”
“We’ll have air superiority soon. Those frigates are pummeling them.”
“Apple’s boys can fly,” he says with a laugh. “You see Colloway? He slagged half a bloody squadron on his own.” We peer up and see black specks swirling around each other in the clouds above. They look so peaceful. So too does the beach. It faces out to sea away from the main island. Water laps against the feet of my starShell. Crabs skitter along the sand. And out in the bay, hulking wrecks of the hovercraft smolder and sink to the deep.
“Who is missing?” I ask.
“Grana and Vandros,” he says quietly. Eight of our twelve remain. I try to pull up a battlemap, but static still distorts the sensors. It’s infuriating how little of the battlefield I can see. But this is what Niobe teaches our children, what Sevro and I learned long ago: rely on tech and you’ll soon be dead as your batteries are.
“Doesn’t look like he’s going to try a shuttle escape,” I say.
“Course not. For once he overestimated us. Prolly thinks we have a whole fleet waiting for him to try and escape. Gonna make us dig him out.”
“We should wait for Apple’s forces to push inland on their side of the island,” Sevro says. Tongueless and Thraxa land together after scouting the coastline. Pebble and Weed watch the interior of the island where the airfields lie beyond white rock hills and olive trees. Alexandar joins them with several Howlers.
“Can’t wait,” I say. “Chances are they got a signal out before we destroyed the array. We’ll be dealing with reinforcements from the mainland soon.”
“Then let’s move our asses,” Sevro says.
The air’s a deadly place to be, so we move as a pack across the rocky island toward the coastline facing the main island, low to the ground, skipping thirty meters at a time. I send Tongueless, Alexandar, and Milia inland to demolish the ripWings on their landing pads. Plumes of fire rise over the hillsides from the airstrips before they rejoin us. In the sky we’ve had a drastic setback. The Nessus has lost its gun battle to the particle cannons on the Ash Lord’s main island and has been forced to retreat to a lower elevation to seek shelter. And another of Apollonius’s frigates has fallen from the sky.
Under the shelter of a ridgeline, Howlers help each other check their starShells as Sevro and I climb the ridge to look at the main island. A kilometer of open water separates the landmasses. Turrets line the rocky coast.
To our far right, Apollonius’s force has pushed in and landed troop carriers on the main island. Hundreds of mechanized soldiers storm the beachhead on grasshopper legs, supported by heavily armored spider tanks and the remains of his air force.
Into the teeth of death, the last legion of Valii-Rath charges.
The first wave is mowed down by cluster munitions fired by drones and gun batteries on the high cliffs. The ripWings drop bunker busters and big guns fall silent. Ash Legions, caught unaware, now pour out of subterranean barracks. I see a flash of armor in the sky as Apollonius, flanked by bodyguards, exits a troop carrier midair and falls for the bunkers in the cliffs. His holobanner glows in the sky above him, three times his own size: the raging head of a purple Minotaur, inviting all to come dance and die. He lands amongst a squad of Grays and decimates them.
Clang.
I’m kicked in the chest. Falling from the rock formation, I collide with the sand below and stare up at the sky, dazed. “Sniper!” Sevro shouts.
Sevro lands next to me. “Reap, where are you hit? Reap?”
“Oh, goryhell, he’s going to die!” Clown says.
“Shut up, asshole!” Sevro shoves him away.