Rhodes swam back to consciousness to a voice yelling in his ear. “Captain! Wake up!”

“I am awake,” Rhodes muttered.

“WAKE UP, CAPTAIN!!” Fisher roared.

Rhodes’s vision swam back into focus. Rio and Fisher hovered before his eyes, but Rhodes wasn’t flying through the air anymore.

Rio sat on the ground in the middle of a massive battle raging all around the ship. Emal and Legion soldiers traded gunfire and even used Rio as cover from each other.

Rhodes jolted forward in his seat. “What’s wrong?! Why are we on the ground, Rio?”

“He took damage,” Fisher replied. “The SAM is still operational, but the propulsion and weapons systems are offline. He can’t defend himself—and Rio’s interface with The Grid is down, too.”

Rhodes made up his mind immediately. “Stay here, Rio.”

“I can’t go anywhere!” Rio countered.

Rhodes didn’t listen. He pushed the cockpit cover open and sprang out into the battle. “Find me the rest of the battalion!” he yelled to Fisher.

“I have them! They’re pinned down the same way we are!”

“Are any of their Strikers still operational? They can’t all be down.”

“Dietz and Henshaw made it back to the beach. Oakes and Lauer are still airborne. They’re trying to fight their way through to help us, but they can’t descend. The Emal are holding them off.”

Rhodes took a split second to check his own version of The Grid. It still worked just fine. It showed him the battlefield as soon as he got out of the cockpit.

He sprang down into the thickest swarms of Emal and used his thermal cannons to carve his way through them.

He swiped down dozens of bodies until he worked his way over to Rhinehart and Coulter. The two men fought side by side against an overwhelming tide of aliens.

“Take off!” Rhodes yelled when he made it to them. “Use your boosters to get out of here!”

“I can’t!” Coulter replied. “My boosters aren’t working.”

“Take him, Rhinehart!” Rhodes ordered. “What are you waiting for?”

“The Grid isn’t working!” Rhinehart countered. “We’re stranded here—and we can’t get to Thackery and Fuentes, either.”

Rhodes double-checked The Grid and located Thackery and Fuentes a hundred yards away. They plastered their backs against a rock cliff trying to hold the Emal at bay.

Rhodes interfaced with Van and Koenig to find out what the problem was, but neither SAM returned any sign of malfunction.

Rhodes pursed his lips. So much for the SAMs giving the battalion useful information.

“Let’s go,” Rhodes ordered. “Back up and we’ll fight our way over there.”

That turned out to be harder than he expected. He, Rhinehart, and Coulter closed in a circle facing outward. They had to fire as fast as humanly possible to cut their way through the Emal horde.

Rhodes would have liked to fly away with both men, but Rhodes wouldn’t have been able to carry Rhinehart alone, let alone Rhinehart and Coulter together.

Rhodes didn’t want to leave without Thackery and Fuentes, either. They barely held their own as it was.

Rhodes, Rhinehart, and Coulter inched their way through the alien swarm and made it as far as the cliff. “What’s the problem?!” Rhodes yelled over the constant pound of gunfire. “Why don’t you leave?”

Thackery said something, but Rhodes didn’t catch it. She and Fuentes had to hammer the Emal with gunfire just as fast.

The Emal crowded closer no matter how many Rhodes killed. He gave it up. He would have to fly these people out one at a time if he had to.

He thought he might be able to carry Thackery and Fuentes at the same time. Rhinehart and Coulter would be the best able to defend themselves until Rhodes came back for them.

Rhodes got ready to turn around and tell them his decision, but at that moment, Oakes and Lauer streaked overhead laying down a carpet of Vipers.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The two Strikes pounded the Emal into next week and then both ships dropped out of the sky. They zoomed low to the ground and transformed into two different shapes.

Lauer’s Striker changed into the same kind of devouring monster Rhodes used in their flight simulation.

Lauer plowed through the Emal slashing and mauling in all directions. His scourge guns blasted out to the sides and he leveled dozens of Emal in his path.

Oakes turned himself into a different ground vehicle. His guns rotated back and forth slaughtering every Emal in sight. He drove so fast that he flattened most of them before they could fall to his guns.

The two vehicles wheeled in front of Rhodes and aimed their weapons outward. The Strikers rotated from right to left and opened a space around the battalion to hold the Emal at bay.

Rhodes rushed forward, but he couldn’t get to Lauer or Oakes while they were inside their Strikers.

They advanced deeper into the crowd and drove the Emal back. Rhodes, Rhinehart, and Coulter followed and added their gunfire to the two Strikers’ assault.

Rhodes’s party pivoted sideways to push the Emal toward the Aevod Gap. The surrounding Legion soldiers rushed forward to join in and the two flanks finally succeeded in forcing the Emal to retreat.

The aliens backed through the choke point, but they didn’t leave. They kept trying to force their way through. The soldiers couldn’t hold them from the ground.

Oakes contacted Rhodes through their interface. “We’ll hold them from the air. Get the others out of here.”

“I’ll try, but it won’t be easy without any aircraft.”

“I’ll contact Dietz and Henshaw to come and get you,” Oakes replied. “Just hold the Gap for a little longer.”

“You can do that better than I can, Lieutenant. Besides, if we leave, the Gap will fall anyway. We have to stick around.”

Oakes snarled through the interface. “I was afraid you were gonna say that.”

“Just hold it from the air. I’ll talk to the soldiers and see about reinforcing the Gap somehow. Maybe General Kaufman can send us up some more ships.”

“Good luck with that,” Oakes muttered.

Rhodes pretended not to hear him. Rhodes listened just long enough to hear Oakes call Dietz and Henshaw back.

Oakes and Lauer hovered in position over the Gap. They kept up a steady barrage on the Emal to take the pressure off the Legion platoons. That was the best anyone could do right now.

Rhodes strode through the area checking on his people. The cliffs surrounding the Gap formed steep walls to block this part of the mountains from the planes beyond.

The walls ended at a wide shelf right behind the gap. The three platoons packed onto this shelf just as tightly as the rest of the Legion force packed the beach.

A hundred gunmen held the Gap while the three platoons did their best to rotate their watch, tend their wounded, organize their meager remaining supplies, and hold the Emal from breaching the line anywhere else.

Rhodes went to check on Rhinehart and Coulter first. “What’s the malfunction with your boosters?” Rhodes asked Coulter.

“I’ll be damned if I know!” Coulter countered. “I didn’t even get hit. I don’t know what the hell went wrong with my Striker. It just shut down and down I went.”

Rhodes frowned. “Is your SAM still online?”

“I wouldn’t know. The ship doesn’t have power.”

“That’s impossible. Fisher said the SAMs run on a fusion generator that doesn’t lose power.”

Coulter waved him away. “Be my guest. See if you can get the damn thing running. I don’t understand this shit.”

Rhodes compressed his lips and turned to Rhinehart. “What about you? Did your Grid just shut down for no reason, too?”

“No, I definitely got hit and my Striker SAM went down. I don’t know what happened to my Grid. I was interfacing with both SAMs when it happened. I guess it’s gonna take some tenth-level genius to figure this out.”

“Magnificent,” Rhodes muttered. “We don’t have a tenth-level genius.”

“You still have your SAM,” Coulter pointed out. “Maybe he can figure it out.”

“My SAM isn’t a mechanic,” Rhodes countered.

“Neither am I. I was a pilot before this.”

Rhodes turned away. At least both men still had weapons which meant their fusion generators were still supplying their implants with power. That was better than nothing.

Rhinehart and Coulter went with him when he returned to Thackery and Fuentes. “What’s the problem with your boosters?” Rhodes asked. “Why didn’t you fly clear when you landed here?”

“Something went wrong with my power system,” Thackery replied. “My weapons still work, but the boosters are offline.”

“Did you get hit by Emal fire?”

“Nope. It just shut down for no reason.”

“So was your Striker still functional?”

She frowned at him. “Define, ‘functional’.”

Rhodes clenched his jaw to stop himself from answering. He distracted himself by turning to Fuentes. “What’s the problem, Rudy? What happened?”

“My Striker took laser fire, Sir. I crashed over there.”

“Was any part of your ship still operational?”

“No, Sir. It completely shut down—and I think the hull got crushed, too. I barely made it out. I wouldn’t have without Thackery covering me.”

“What about your boosters? Why aren’t they working?”

“Van says there’s a short in the system somewhere. It’s blocking power to the boosters, but not the rest of the weapons system.”

“Stellar,” Rhodes muttered. “Just stellar.”

“Can you get your SAM to interface with their SAMs and figure it out?” Coulter asked.

“I’m about to.” Rhodes interfaced with Fisher and brought up the other four SAMs.

“What’s this about a short in the system?” Rhodes asked Van. “Is it the same problem Rhinehart is experiencing?”

“I can’t tell anything about Rhinehart’s system,” she replied. “The interface is showing all his systems functioning normally.”

“They obviously aren’t if his boosters aren’t working,” Rhodes countered.

She cocked her head to one side. “Of course, Captain. You’re absolutely right. I should have thought of that.”

Rhodes turned to Murphy. “Why did Coulter’s power system shut down? You were interfacing with his Striker at the time.”

“Yes, I was, Captain,” Murphy replied. “I’m afraid I didn’t detect any malfunction.”

“Does any of you detect any malfunction—any malfunction at all?”

“I do,” Rocky replied, “but only because Zion got hit by the Emal lasers.”

“Zion is my Strike SAM,” Rhinehart explained.

Rhodes held up his hand, but at that moment, a bunch of Legion soldiers came over.

“Thank you so much for helping us!” one of the soldiers exclaimed. “We almost lost the Gap there before you showed up.”

Rhodes turned around….and his heart stopped when he came face to face with Lieutenant Zack Turley, Lieutenant Justin Upshaw, and Captain Tate Vernick.

End of Chapter 26.