Chapter 9

The forest vibrated with a loud thumping as if thousands of those old Russian heavy lift cargo helicopters were chopping the air right above the canopy.

Still hearing Maureen's screams of distress in his head, John rushed through a maze of broken trees and flattened bushes. Small branches and twigs whipped and scratched his face and bare arms. They tore at his clothes as he pushed through creepers and vines blocking his path.

Something caught his right foot and he tumbled in a web of vines and branches. As he used his knife to free himself, a massive shadow darkened the forest. John raised his eyes to the sky. An alien ship hovered high above him in a surreal purple fog thick with dust and pollen.

Sweat trickled through his brows. Cutting his way through all this mess was taking too much time.

Retching and spitting all the grit out of his lungs, he stared all around him for an easier route. But there wasn't one, not on the ground at least. His wife and kids needed cover now, and to provide cover, he needed a clear line of fire to what was going on by the trench.

On his right, the imposing black ship that had crushed the Fortuna stood like a cliff.

John rapidly plotted a course through the bushes to climb on the hull using the chaos of the terrain to his advantage. And a few minutes later, he was standing on an isolated branch that dangled toward an entanglement of trees and shrubs resting against the black hull of the alien ship.

He stepped forward. The branch bent dangerously.

As he stretched one hand toward a creeper four feet away, he glanced at the ground fifty feet down and shuddered. The snapped trunks were like poles and spikes waiting to impale him.

The branch cracked. Dammit. He looked at the hull, fifteen feet to his left. He wouldn't trust his burning muscles to make the jump, not with that tiger trap below.

A six feet jump to the next clump of broken trees then.

John moved back to a more solid part of the branch when a rustle beneath him caught his attention.

He looked down again and cursed.

Long black snakes were swarming under the leaves.

Don't move! A voice in his mind warned him, a chilling echo from a vivid nightmare.

It wasn't snakes. It was cables spreading from the ship into the forest. Unlike the crashed one he'd explored with Maureen, back on the planet just after the attack on the Resolute, this ship disturbingly felt like a sentient being.

The ground around the alien vessel was off limit.

His eyes on the few vines and smaller branches he could grasp at if the branch snapped under his weight, he readjusted the sling of his rifle, took a deep breath, then lurched forward.

There was a sharp crack. John launched himself and grabbed a creeper.

As the branch crashed to the ground, his momentum carried him to his destination. But as he bulldozed through the leaves and small branches, a thicker one hit him in the gut. Pain soared and the creeper he held on snapped.

John plummeted four or five feet before he crashed across a large branch that knocked the wind out of him. He skidded and caught himself with one hand, grunting as the rough bark dug into the fresh scar on his palm. He looked down and shuddered. Between the spiky trunks, the cables sniffed the air like cobras ready to strike.

His heart thundering in his chest, John hauled himself up, crawled toward the main trunk and collapsed against a solid knot of branches. Cold shivers ran down his spine. Panting heavily, he checked his left side where the branch had poked him and winced. He was gushing blood. Quickly, he retrieved his first-aid kit in his bag, disinfected the wound, and poured a blood-clotting agent. He hissed at the burning pain as he next applied an antimicrobial compressed gauze and wrapped a compression bandage around his abdomen.

Both in the sky and in his head, the thumping became more intense.

Paradox had warned that more ships were coming. And Maureen and the kids were counting on him.

Clenching his jaw tightly, John returned everything into his bag, hauled himself to his feet, and resumed the final leg to the hull.

A few minutes later, he cleared the trees and stepped on the black, sleek surface.

John gasped for breath as the ambiant pressure increased again.

Dozens of ships descended against the purple sky, electric blue waves sparkling under their bellies.

He had covered two thirds of the hundred yards to the front of the ship before his legs buckled. Cursing, he flattened himself on his stomach and crawled to the front of the ship. When he got there, the scene was so chaotic that it took him a moment to shake off the terror it instilled in him.

Dwarfed by its attacker, the already badly damaged Jupiter was taking a wall of fire from an alien ship that had landed right where their ship had been fifteen minutes ago. Of the latter, there was no sign. Hope seized him that his family had fled the battlefield and was safe. But why would the robots still fire at the remaining Jupiter then?

John shoved his bag in front of him for aim support and protection, and activated his comlink. "Maureen, are you still there?"

In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Paradox's fireball fight against at least three other robots on his side of the trench.

"Yes! Where are you?"

John didn't answer. The crosshairs had just turned red on a target at the bottom of the attacking alien ship.

Without hesitation, he squeezed off two rounds at the robot. The killer machine stepped back and turned its head in his direction. John immediately took advantage of the move and shot its face until the red dots turned dark and the robot collapsed, permanently or temporarily, he had no idea, but at least this one was out of commission for now.

Another robot moved away from the Jupiter's attack line and fired in his direction.

John shut it down with four square shots in the face. They didn't know what they were facing and he'd caught them off guard.

As the second robot died, John saw a bright red ray slicing the air from a third vector through his scope. It bounced off the hull two feet to his right, missing him but not leaving much room if the machines adjusted their aim. He fired at the third robot, then a fourth while more rays came his way from slightly different angles.

He reactivated his comlink and kept on shooting while he talked.

"Maureen! I've attracted their attention but I won't be able to hold them off for long. Can you take off?"

"We're working on it."

A ray burnt the air less than a foot above his head. Why hadn't he packed his helmet?

"Who's piloting our ship? Are the kids safe?"

He could have smuggled more munitions too, he thought, retrieving the second and last clip for his rifle.

"They're with Don and Mark. I told them to fly away, they had no choice, that ship was about to land on them!"

Her voice, shaking with sobs, was raw with a terror and a panic that John understood all too well. There was nothing more terrifying than being under heavy fire, even for hardened soldiers.

He quickly wiped his nose in his shoulder and blinked the tears away from his eyes. "It's okay, Maureen. You did the right thing. I'm sure they're safe. Now you need to focus on repairing the ship you're in. Grant and Cynthia are there with you?"

Please say they are... he prayed as he resumed shooting.

A fireball flew his way. This time, close enough that he felt the burn near his left ear.

"Yes, they are."

"Great. That's great! All three of you, you're the best engineers in any galaxy. Fix that ship, okay? I'll buy you as much time as I can."

John terminated the link without saying the usual last three words that punctuated their communications. They would have felt too much like his official last words. His wife needed to focus and so did he. To each his task, as always, no matter the team, the job, or the galaxy. That he could do.

Under ongoing fire, John reloaded his rifle, crawled four feet to his left, and realigned his line of fire.

He'd shot down two more robots when he felt something wrap around his left ankle.

At once, he twisted on his side, took his knife out of the thigh holder, and sliced the cable. A detonation exploded, but the stunning effect in the outdoors was less impressive and didn't incapacitate him. His ears ringing, John rolled back to his belly and terminated a sixth machine while thinking fast where to move now that his position was compromised.

At least the wall of fire that had pummelled the damaged Jupiter had greatly reduced and now he could see that Maureen was not defenseless. From inside the Jupiter, a robot was spitting fireballs back at its fellows. If he wanted to move, it was now or never.

A metallic, screeching noise behind him chilled his blood.

As John rolled to face a robot, a ray of fire burnt his right shoulder. Yelling, he fired at the killer machine while dozens of cables slithered toward him. He was cornered on the edge of the ship. The robot toppled back into the jungle and he fired bursts of ammo at the cables.

It was like a storm of concussion grenades had exploded around him.

The purple sky and the dark hull switched places then spun at a frightening speed.

John hit the ground before he even registered that he had fallen off the ship.

He stayed on his back, blinking at the shadows flying in the sky, surprised to be still alive and even more to be still conscious, although by a thread.

Had Maureen fixed the Jupiter? Had one of the shadows he'd seen in the sky been them flying away?

John forced his shaking left arm to the level of his face and activated the share-my-location app. He tapped on Maureen's picture and waited.

Failed to localize blinked on the screen.

His arm flopped down by his side as pain and despair overtook him for a second.

It's not like the app had been reliable on this planet anyway, he told himself, grasping for each straw of hope that they would survive because Maureen and the kids were the only reason he would force his shattered body to keep fighting.

His hand clutching on his rifle, he rolled on his stomach and started crawling on the web of entangled vines and branches that had cushionned his fall. He needed to find cover. That bush growing behind this ditch would do, he thought, identifying a low position where he could hide and wait for a few minutes, the time for his body to recuperate a little. Where was Paradox? He wasn't far from here last time he'd seen him. Regroup. Reassess. Redeploy.

Something rustled a few feet to his left. A cable pierced through the leaf-covered ground and snaked toward him. John pulled back quickly and froze, guessing that the thing had some kind of movement detector. After a few long seconds, the cable retracted. He heaved a deep sigh and slowly resumed crawling.

He'd reached the bush when the sound of fast footsteps and snapping twigs made him spin to his right. His eyes widened. Harris was stumbling her way straight toward him, fireballs flying around her.

Still furious with her, he considered letting the robot take care of her. But against his gut impulse, as she reached his position, he extended his arm and swept her legs. A fire ray missed her head by an inch and hit the trunk just behind John, sending a sharp shower of splinters flying around them.

As Harris hit the ground hard next to the cables, the robot appeared dead center in his crosshairs. John shot it, but his aim was way off.

"Give me your rifle!" Harris barked as another burning ray hit the ground a mere foot in front of them. Hot dirt splashed in John's eyes. As he blinked and spat, Harris grabbed the barrel of his rifle and tried to snatch it from him. He knocked the rifle butt against her jaw, sending her flying, and fired a barrage of bullets at the robot. Its face turned dark but carried by his momentum, the dead robot tumbled toward him and missed him by an inch as it plowed the ground and crashed through the trees behind them.

Shaking and dizzy, John stayed down on his back, trying to catch his breath. But Harris was crawling again toward his rifle by his right leg. As she reached above his knees, he locked his legs around her chest, twisted her body as he pushed himself up and crushed her diaphragm under his weight.

"Make a move like that again and I'll kill you!" he growled, digging the canon of his rfle into her neck.

"You're in the middle of a goddamn seizure! Give me your rifle or we'll both get killed!"

Seizure or not, John wouldn't trust her with a bottle-opener. His finger twitching dangerously on the trigger, he jerked away and kicked her in the ribs. She rolled back a few feet, gasping as she pushed herself on all four, holding her side. Her expression of pain and surprise suddenly turned to one of hate and rage.

As she lurched toward him again, he saw a bright red light reflecting on her hand. It took him a split second to understand that she was holding his knife and that the robot he'd shot wasn't dead.

John threw himself on his back and fired at both threats in an arc.

Bullets sliced Harris's body and her face morphed into a grotesque grimace. But like the robot earlier, her brute force and vicious determination kept her on an attack trajectory. John gasped as she crashed on top of him and he felt the icy cold blade of his knife piercing into his belly.

Warm droplets of blood splattered on his face as she spit at him with each ragged breath. "We die together," she smirked.

John cringed in horror as Harris forced her bloody lips on his mouth.