Chapter Nine: Ominous Signs and Hard Times

"I knew I'd see you in here again before long, Colonel."

Once we made it back to the island, Matthew and Heat were quick to escort me to the makeshift medtent set up within the 8th Engineer Battalion's lines. I'd protested that I didn't need the help, that I'd injured my arm and not one of my legs and could still walk, but that hadn't helped my case much. Heat insisted he had to see me to a medic or face the wrath of Willis if he brought back his wife harmed. Matthew was just straight-up worried about me. So they waited outside the tent now while Corpsman Michael Reynolds tended to my wound.

I snorted at his words. "Yeah. God forbid I leave the house without a bandage, right?" I winced as something the medic dabbed onto my arm sent pain spiraling upward to my shoulder. "Maybe…Porter's right to keep such a close eye on me all the time."

Doc Reynolds briefly grinned as he finished cleaning up the wound, his blue eyes bright. "That he is, ma'am. He knows you as well as I do by now. We've both been under your command for a long time."

He bandaged up the injury then, threw away the sterile cloths he'd used to clean my arm with, now bloody, then tossed in his gloves as well. Finally, he released a sigh as he ran a hand through his cropped black hair.

"Well, that's it from me, Colonel. You can put your uniform jacket and armor back on now. If you need something for the pain later, let me know. If not, try to be back tomorrow morning and I'll switch out the bandages for you. It should heal up just fine."

"Okay," I said. I raised an eyebrow at him. "You're sure nothing you gave me just now is…going to interfere with what I'm already taking?"

"No, ma'am. You're all clear this time. Promise."

"All right. Thanks, Doc."

"Anytime, ma'am." He gave me a pointed look. "You're lucky that bullet just grazed you, though. Try to be more careful next time."

"I know," I answered glumly. "I'm sure my husband isn't going to be too happy with me."

Reynolds made a coughing sound as he took a quick glance outside the tent then. "Uh-oh. Don't look now."

"He's here?" I asked, surprised.

"Yup." The medic flashed me another grin. "Good luck, Colonel."

Then Reynolds was gone and Willis appeared inside the tent, all concern.

"Natalie, what happened? Are you okay?"

I didn't put my jacket back on over my T-shirt just yet, but sat there holding onto my bandaged wound instead. It still hurt. "Well, like I told your brother, Will. I've had worse. Bullet just grazed me, nothing too bad." I winced a second time. "Hurts like a son of a bitch, though."

Willis frowned as he stood in front of the cot I was sitting on, dressed in his flightsuit and gripping his helmet in one hand. His eyes drifted over to my jacket, draped over the other half of the cot where I wasn't seated, and he saw the hole the bullet had ripped into the left sleeve. Then he turned back to me.

"I told you to be careful when you went over there, honey."

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry. I made a dumb mistake."

My husband let out a sigh then and crouched down before me to press his forehead against mine. "I hate seeing you like this, Coop."

I let my good arm move up to touch the side of his short hair. "It's bound to happen at times, Will. You know it comes with the job."

"Yeah, but it happens a lot with you. Remember what I said when we went to go look for my brother at the outpost? About you trying to take it easy?"

"Yeah."

He pulled back a bit to look into my eyes as he slid a hand across my cheek. "Then please do, Cooper."

Now that we were alone, he pressed his lips gently against mine, and I kissed him back without a second thought. Even the harsh pain of my wound seemed to dull for a moment. But all too soon, we were thrust back into reality – in a very big way.

An explosion suddenly rocked the ground hard outside the tent, sending Willis tumbling into me on the cot. I let out a harsh hiss through my teeth as my hurt arm took the brunt of it and instinctively grabbed hold of the bandaged wound. Willis got up as soon as the ground stopped shaking and quickly gave me an apologetic look.

"Christ, Natalie, I'm sorry. Is it bad?"

"A little," I said through clenched teeth. "But I'm…more concerned about what the hell that was."

"I'll go take a look."

"No. Not by yourself. Wait for me."

Willis turned back and waggled his eyebrows at me. "Is that an order?"

I shoved playfully at his chest, unable to help the slight smile that formed on my face despite the situation – and the pain. "I can make it one if you choose to ignore it. Help me up."

My husband extended his hand at me and I took it. He pulled me up to my feet, then handed me my jacket to put on.

"Better hurry, Colonel," he said.

I snorted. "Yeah. Thanks, honey."

I finished putting on my jacket over my T-shirt fast, then quickly strapped my torso armor back on. Beside me, I saw Willis do the same over his flightsuit. It seemed he'd chosen to stay groundside for this engagement now that he was already here.

"No time to fly back up," he explained to me as he shoved on his helmet. "Besides, I'd like to see our new enemy from up close. And make sure you're safe."

I nodded as I put on my own helmet. "Fair enough. Let's move then, Major."

We stepped out of the tent with weapons raised, unsure of what we'd find. Willis was gripping his SMG tight in his hands, while I had both my DMR and my pistol back since Matthew had reclaimed his MA5D on the return trip. Still, walking out into the chaos – even fully armed – was jarring.

Case in point was the enemy grenade that went sailing over our heads.

My husband and I both hit the deck in an instant and covered our heads, fully expecting another detonation to engulf us and shower our position with shards of hot metal. But it turned out the Prometheans' device didn't do that. Instead, I watched as a ring of yellow-orange light encircled the explosive as it was suspended in the air, and then the light suddenly burst inward.

When we rose carefully to our feet, I was faintly surprised to find we were both still intact. I was puzzled for a moment until it hit me. I glanced over at Willis.

"EMP charge?" he asked me, clearly having the same idea.

I shrugged. "Makes sense for robots, right?"

"Yep. Looks like my helmet's systems are rebooting."

"Mine, too."

"There you go, then, Coop."

"Will! Natalie! Over here!"

The shout came from our right, and we both turned at the same time. Several meters ahead of us on our flank were Matthew, Heat, and Staff Sergeant Porter and his squad, ready to cover me. I grinned momentarily at our good fortune and sprinted over to their position.

As we moved, I heard a male voice flood the COM channel. It was a hail to Willis from one of his pilots.

"Major Hawk, this is Earwig!" the voice said, no doubt using his callsign. "We just saw those new robot things show up! Orders, sir?"

Willis keyed his COM back fast. "Form up tight and stay close overhead!" my husband answered as we ran. "I'm stuck on the ground for now along with Captain Heat, and it looks like the Prometheans've managed to penetrate our lines again. I don't see an opening for you to provide cover fire where you won't also hit us, so just standby and watch our six for now, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir!"

By the time we reached the others, my bandaged left arm was throbbing from holding up the weight of my DMR. I tried my best to block it out and focused instead on the task at hand – finding out what the hell was going on, and how the Prometheans had managed to bypass our perimeter again without warning.

"Okay," I said over the sound of weapons' fire and the battle going on all around us. "Who can tell me what the fuck just happened? Where did these bastards come from?"

Matthew Hawk was the first to reply. "No clue, Nat! One second we were standing there waiting for you to come out, next we heard an explosion and they were on us!"

"Shit," I muttered under my breath. I motioned for my aide to cover me then as I got on the horn to Major Shawn Harris, the 8th Engineers' new battalion commander in my stead. "Shawn, this is Lieutenant Colonel Cooper. Want to fill me in on the situation?"

There was a brief delay before I heard his answer over the radio. "Yes, ma'am! I just spoke with the Marines you had posted outside the ruins, Colonel. They said there wasn't a hint of activity and then, all of a sudden, a bunch of those AI motherfuckers jumped out. They leapt over the men posted there and sort of…teleported behind our lines, ma'am."

"Jesus," I breathed. "All right, got it, Harris."

"Orders, ma'am?"

"Yeah," I said, gripping my DMR tighter. "Let's drive these bastards out."

I cut the connection then and swore under my breath a second time. Willis glanced over at me with raised eyebrows.

"What?"

"They came from out of the ruins," I replied.

"Huh? How – ?"

But I didn't have time to respond right now. I got moving then with Staff Sergeant Porter hot on my heels and jumped into the fray, making sure I turned some robots into sparking scrap metal in the fight, too.

"Let's go, Marines!" I yelled to the scattered men around me. "Pick up the fire! We need to clear the perimeter, now! Push them back!"

The sounds of battle only grew louder then as machine guns barked to life along the lines, and the combined noise of rifles, shotguns, and SMGs suddenly increased. A few frag grenades went sailing toward the center as well, where the highest concentration of Prometheans were, and they managed to blow up two dogs, a Knight, and three drones in the big blast. Meanwhile, my teeth rattled inside my helmet at the close explosion as debris bounced off my armor, but thankfully nothing serious hit me or my companions. As soon as the smoke cleared, I went down on one knee where I stood and fired off a quick burst from my DMR.

Remembering what I'd learned from our previous two encounters with these guys – though brief – I systematically targeted the drones first while Staff Sergeant Porter took out the Crawlers gunning for us with his SAW. In the meantime, the others concentrated their fire on the Knights at my command. It was a good tactic that served us well – especially when Willis and Matt both crouched down beside me and added their bullets to the cause, too.

My clip was spent after I shot down a fifth drone out of the sky, its center suddenly exploding into a light rain of sparks and metal above its Knight. I noticed then that the occasional shield of light that popped up around the tall AI-bot fizzled out then, while the thing's secondary drone raced to cover it again. I turned to Willis as I reloaded.

"Will, the drone!" I shouted.

"On it!" my husband replied.

He stood up for a moment amid the hail of gunfire and light rounds and brought his SMG up, then fired off a long burst that brought the second Watcher crashing down from above beside its twin. At last exposed, the Knight let out another spray of fire itself, then teleported out.

"Fuck!" I heard Porter shout nearby. "I had him!"

"It's okay, Josh," I said to him over the COM. "It'll show up again. Marines, keep your eyes peeled!"

Acknowledgment lights winked green across my HUD…

…And then the Knight suddenly reappeared right in front of us, hollow eyes blazing with light, and something that looked an awful lot like a purple light blade was in its hands.

The Knight was suddenly standing just before Willis.

"No!" I screamed, and without even thinking about it, I ditched my gun and lunged.

I hadn't seen Matthew do the same beside me but he did, and together we went crashing into the robot. A few bullets bounced off its chestplate, luckily missing both my brother-in-law and I, and we brought the Promethean down. The thing struggled against our surprise attack and the lead rounds, its blade still out, and it swept out its arm once, hoping to catch us and slice us in half. It didn't.

Dubious as to whether or not my combat knife would work against this guy, I brought my pistol out instead, lightning quick, and shot round after round pointblank into its son-of-a-bitch face until sparks flew.

One more long burst of fire did it.

I didn't notice that Staff Sergeant Porter had come up beside the thing's head until it was dead. The Knight hadn't even finished dropping to the ground when it disintegrated into a thousand light fragments, as they'd done before, and disappeared. When we could see again, only its weapon remained.

I sat there on the ground in a kind of daze, breathing hard along with Matthew and Porter. I didn't even notice the sharp ache of my wound until Willis ran up in front of us.

"Holy shit," he said, his hazel eyes wide with astonishment and worry. "Jesus, Cooper. Matt, you okay?"

"Yeah, big bro," Matthew replied as he started to get up, albeit slowly. "I'm…good to go."

"Natalie?"

I winced for the third time since landing back on the island. "Yeah, Will. I'm not…dead quite yet."

Seeing that we were more or less fine, my husband's face went from panicked alarm to deep anger in a second. "Never do that again. Either of you. Understand?" His expression abruptly softened and he looked down at his boots. "I couldn't handle it if something happened to my family because of me."

"Same…here," I said from the dirt. My eyes suddenly stung, and I wiped at them with my sleeve. "That Knight…he was gunning for you, Willis. I thought he was going to stab you. It freaked me out."

Willis knelt down in front of me and cupped a hand around the back of my helmet. He was smiling faintly now, but I could still see the hurt in his eyes.

"Even so, you're crazy, Cooper. But I love you."

"I love you, too," I answered.

Again he held out his hand for me, and I grabbed onto it. Once I was back on my feet, I put my sidearm away and searched for my discarded rifle, holding onto my bandaged arm as I did so to will the pain away. It didn't work, but I found my DMR among the debris and picked it up.

It was only when I brought my weapon to bear again that I realized that the fight was suddenly over. I glanced at Willis.

"Where…?"

"Don't know. The rest of them were either killed or bugged out," he said. Then he gave me a questioning look of his own. "Want to tell me what you meant earlier?"

I screwed up my face, drawing a blank. All the adrenaline of the past several minutes had taken it out of me. "About what?"

"About them being from the ruins." Now that the danger had passed, my husband let out a sigh as he cradled his submachine in his hands, barrel pointed low. "Something's down there, isn't it, Coop?"

I sighed too as I remembered. The gig was up. "Yeah. We found a large chamber down there, a roomful of portals." I looked out into the distance, at the after-effects of the fight, unable to meet his gaze. "And we have no idea how many there might be, which are active, or where they might go. Or what we can do to button them back up."