Captain Vernick and Lieutenant Upshaw approached Rhodes behind the Legion fortifications. “How would you like to throw yourselves in front of an enemy weapon again?” Vernick asked.

“Is that the way you ask all the girls out?” Rhodes asked.

Vernick laughed. “Only the really special ones. The brass is ordering us to assault the aliens and drive them back across the planes to get their base ships away from the city.”

“That sounds like it came straight out of General Kaufman’s mouth.”

Vernick made a face. “I’m too low on the ladder to think about whose mouth it came out of. We have to assault the aliens….”

“Which is a suicide mission,” Upshaw interrupted.

“Unless you soften them up for us first,” Vernick finished. He pointed out at the planes. “We saw the way they flocked around you. They’re fascinated by you for some reason. You could come at them from the side—over there. Once they turn toward you, we’ll assault from this side.”

“Like you did on Ohait,” Upshaw finished.

Rhodes squinted at the sky. “It will be dark soon….”

“That’s why we want you to go—if you’re willing,” Vernick explained. “The Emal can see in the dark. If we assault them head on, they’ll see us coming. If you assault them from the side, they’ll be paying attention to you. They won’t see us until it’s too late…..See?” Vernick frowned. “Can you see in the dark?”

Rhodes had to think for a split second. He definitely saw in the dark during that Luluna training session.

Most of the seeing he did during that session was just using The Grid to tell where he was. Once the shooting started, the explosions gave enough light to see.

“Yes, we can,” he replied. “All right. We’ll do it. We’ll wait for full dark. Then we’ll flank the aliens over there, assault them, and draw them away so you can strike.”

“Thanks, man,” Vernick replied.

Rhodes waited for them to leave. “Was there something else?”

“We’re eating dinner over there. Do you want to join us? You’re more than welcome.”

Rhodes cast a glance toward the soldiers gathering in clusters farther down the line. “We probably shouldn’t. We don’t eat, so our presence would probably just make everyone uncomfortable.”

“You staying over here by yourselves makes everyone uncomfortable,” Upshaw pointed out. “They think you’re too good for us.”

Rhodes made a face. “Just remind them of how they acted on Ohait. That should be enough to explain why we don’t think we’re welcome. I appreciate the invitation. I would like nothing better than to share a meal with you two. Them? I’ll skip it.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Vernick replied.

“I’m sure you two and Lieutenant Turley are the only people here who are sorry about it. It’s better if we keep our distance. Thank you again for the invitation. It means a lot. We’ll get ready for the assault.”

“How will we know when to strike?” Upshaw asked.

“One of us will fire a Viper into the air to signal you. That should be enough.”

“All right,” Vernick replied. “I don’t like it, but we can do it your way.”

“Thank you again. Hopefully, we’ll see each other after the assault and we’ll all ride out of here to fight another day.”

Vernick cracked a grin. “You always were a dreamer. Let us know if you need anything.”

The two officers walked away and Rhodes returned to his soldiers. They all overheard the conversation through the interface.

“That was nice of them,” Henshaw remarked.

“It was nice of them,” Rhodes corrected. “It wasn’t nice of the rest of the platoons who didn’t ask.”

“You’re right, Sir,” Lauer murmured. “It’s better if we keep our distance. We aren’t them anymore.”

“No one is more aware of that than they are.” Rhodes sat down with the others to wait.

The sun went down. The Emal kept up their bombardment of the city’s buildings, but the aliens didn’t advance any further—not yet.

“What do you think they’re waiting for?” Oakes asked.

“Who the hell knows what’s going on in their minds?” Lauer countered. “Who the hell knows why they do anything?”

“It would be nice to know what they want and why they’re doing all this,” Henshaw remarked. “What if we get over there to flank them and they attack the platoons instead? The Emal might completely ignore us. Then the platoons would be exposed because we wouldn’t be here to protect them.”

“Us being here wouldn’t protect the platoons,” Lauer told her. “We won’t make any difference to this war. We learned that a long time ago if we learned anything from fighting the Emal. They’ll win and we’ll fall back to give them the territory they want. The Legion can’t do anything except maybe hope to slow them down a little.”

“Then why is the Legion fighting this war?” she asked. “Why waste all the resources and soldiers’ lives? Why not just evacuate the territory the Emal want and let them take it?”

“You explain that to your old man and see what he says.”

That ended the conversation. Rhodes spent the rest of the evening thinking about Dietz and what to do about him.

Rhodes considered how he could find out if Dietz did anything underhanded during that last battle. Fisher said the SAMs recorded everything the battalion did.

If that was true, Rhodes should be able to go back through the data and find out what Dietz had been doing, where he’d been, whether he even fought the Emal, and the circumstances under which Dietz fell back to the beach.

Did Dietz fight the Emal at all? Was that the reason his adrenaline levels didn’t cause him to malfunction the way everyone else did?

The sun went down and the planet fell into darkness. The noise of countless Emal voices drifted across the planes coming from the east.

“I guess now we know what they’re waiting for,” Coulter remarked. “They can see in the dark. They must be waiting to play their advantage.”

“Just keep your adrenaline levels down and try to stay calm,” Rhodes ordered. “Think of this as a simulation like the one on Luluna.”

“We’ll have to keep an eye on each other,” Rhinehart suggested. “If someone goes down, one of us can pull them out.”

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“Good idea,” Rhodes replied. “Let’s go—and keep quiet.”

He checked in with Vernick, told the captain he was leaving, and the battalion tiptoed out of hiding.

The Legion position covered a long line of terrain surrounding the city from north to south. The Emal did the same, but most of the base ships concentrated in the middle on a direct line between Thaklia and the cities farther east.

“How far are we going?” Coulter asked through the interface.

“This should be far enough.” Rhodes halted a few miles south of their starting place. The battalion hunkered behind the platoons’ southernmost fortifications.

Rhodes couldn’t see the Emal from here, but The Grid showed him all he needed to know.

The Emal must have been gearing up for a night assault, too. Their numbers concentrated closer to their base ships. They would be able to break the Legion position and get inside the city.

Distant booms rumbled across the landscape. The base ships fired into the city and buildings exploded in the darkness. They didn’t make any flashes of light to show where the two armies were facing off against each other.

“How do you want to do this, Sir?” Oakes asked.

“Let’s crawl along the ground the way we did before. We can draw level with the Emal and attack from the side.”

“How do you want us to attack?” Thackery asked.

“Once we get into position, we’ll need to make ourselves as big and as visible as possible. Use Vipers and lasers. They’re more visible. Don’t worry so much about killing tons of Emal. Just draw their attention to that side of the battlefield and bring them in to assault us.”

“Good deal,” Lauer replied and he transformed instantly.

Grid lines covered his body and then they all folded in on each other on the ground. They vanished and left the long, thin, snaking whip slithering along the ground.

The rest of the battalion did the same thing. Rhodes checked on Dietz, but he did it, too. He didn’t pull any dirty tricks—yet.

Rhodes really needed to get rid of that asshole, but he couldn’t do it now. Rhodes changed his shape and the battalion crawled out onto the open fields.

The noise coming from the Emal got louder. They didn’t even try to hide what they were doing.

Distant yells of men shouting floated from the Legion side. It sounded like the platoons were getting ready for an assault, too, but it mostly sounded like the Emal’s noise was alerting the platoons that the Emal were about to strike.

Anyone listening might mistake that sound for the platoons preparing to defend themselves. Maybe in some alternate universe the Emal might not realize the platoons were planning a strike of their own.

Rhodes couldn’t think about that. He picked up speed and measured The Grid to find out where he was in relation to the Emal.

He should have spent the time deciding what he would turn himself into when he got there. He decided instead to just improvise. That always seemed to work in the past.

The tension built to the breaking point. The noise firing back and forth from both sides set Rhodes’s nerves on edge.

If the Emal attacked first before the battalion got into position to spring their diversion, this whole maneuver would be dead in the water.

He covered the last five hundred yards and made one last check of The Grid. Lauer got the jump on everyone by leaving first. He outpaced everyone and drew level with the Emal line.

He didn’t wait for his comrades to catch up with him. He snaked between the Emal’s legs to a position right in the middle of their ranks.

Then Lauer exploded to many times his normal size. He erupted into a gargantuan shape. The grid lines covered him and reformed into a massive alien.

The thing towered twenty feet tall with long, whipping arms and a laser spurting from each one. Horns sprouted from the creature’s shaggy head and a million teeth stuck out of its huge mouth.

Somehow or other, Lauer made the monster glow from the inside. Reddish-orange and yellow light beamed through the alien’s outer skin. It couldn’t be more visible if it tried.

It threw back its head and let out a thunderous roar of fury before it smashed its tentacle arms down on the ground.

The creature stomped three steps forward. The ground shook under its weight.

It started slashing and swiping its lasers everywhere, but it mostly just hammered its mighty arms into the ground to squash any Emal who got in their way.

The Emal definitely did not see that coming. They sprang away shrieking and jabbering trying to escape from the monster. They took way too long to make up their minds to attack it.

They must have decided that they still had the advantage of numbers since there was only one of this thing.

The Emal flooded Lauer trying to surround him. They fired their laser rifles at him and he spun around roaring and flailing his arms in all directions.

They took the opportunity of him turning his back to swarm him from behind, climbed on top of him, and more lasers covered him all over.

His deafening bellows set off a chain reaction in the rest of the battalion. They raced straight for him, plunged into the Emal ranks, and everyone turned into matching alien monsters. Rhodes couldn’t think of anything more distracting than that.

He blasted out of his skin, let the grid lines take over, and he expanded. His arms extended and more appendages sprouted from his sides and back.

He roared at the enemy and stomped and smashed his way through them. More of these alien monsters materialized out of the darkness. Their glow showed Rhodes and the Emal exactly where everyone was.

The Emal surrounded the battalion trying to swarm everyone in hundreds of bodies. Dozens of laser rifles went off all around Rhodes.

He even felt Emal climbing on top of him, perching on his shoulders where he couldn’t hit them, and firing their lasers down at him from above.

Their laser rifles couldn’t damage him. He roared again, thrashed to his highest height, and whipped his arms across his back to crush the Emal. Their bodies fell, but more Emal flooded to the spot from all sides.

He barely remembered to fire a Viper into the air to signal the platoons to launch their assault.

The missile coiled into the night sky and a groundswell of noise floated across the planes coming from the west.

Rhodes couldn’t see anything over there and he didn’t have time to check The Grid. He had to keep fighting the Emal to stop them from overrunning him.

He kept his head just enough not to let his adrenaline take over. Fisher pivoted The Grid in front of Rhodes’ eyes to show him where the Emal were, which ones were climbing on top of him, and where to hit them to knock them away.

Explosions went off somewhere in the distance. Lasers and Jackhammer fire lit up the darkness farther north. The platoons were assaulting the Emal line. The diversion worked.

At that moment, one of the base ships stopped shooting at the city, swiveled south, and fired its massive laser straight at Lauer.

The shot smashed him in the head and he crumbled under a wave of Emal. The grid lines transformed him back into a man and he collapsed unconscious on the ground.

“Lauer!!” Rhodes bellowed in his extra-loud alien voice. Lauer didn’t respond.

Rhodes had to flounder out of his battle fog to interface with Wild. “How bad are Lauer’s injuries?” Rhodes asked.

The skull jittered right and left. “They’re flanking to the south. They’re flanking to the south. They’re flanking to the south.”

“Wild!!” Rhodes snapped.

“They’re flanking to the south. They’re flanking to the south.”

Rhodes checked The Grid and tried to stomp his way over to Lauer’s body. He lay face down on the ground. Rhodes couldn’t see Lauer’s face.

Rhodes got halfway there before two more base ships fired south at the alien intruders, too. Rhodes dodged one of the shots before it took him out.

The laser hit Oakes instead, hit him somewhere in the chest, and he went down, too.

Dash vanished off the interface and the link went dead. Rhodes couldn’t even pick up Oakes on The Grid anymore.

Something about being this big, enraged monster took over Rhodes’s mind. He roared in fury, slammed dozens of Emal out of the way, and stormed over to Lauer.

Rhodes spotted Oakes lying on the ground twenty feet away. Without The Grid, Rhodes had to rely on his normal sight to keep track of where Oakes was.

Rhodes saw Oakes moving, but that was all. Rhodes couldn’t tell from here how badly injured Oakes might be.

Rhodes bent down to roll Lauer onto his back. More lasers from the base ships blasted over Rhodes’s head.

He ducked to avoid them and heard screaming somewhere out of sight. The interface failed again. Koenig, Van, and Keon disappeared.

Rhodes leaned over Lauer. The shot that knocked him out crushed his facial implants. The eyepiece attached to his mechanical eye yawned into a ragged socket with wires and torn metal fragments hanging out of it.

Rhodes tried one last time. “Wild—can you hear me?!”

Wild kept jerking from left to right and back again. “They’re flanking from the south. They’re flanking from the south. They’re flanking from the south.”

Rhodes gave it up and cast a desperate glance at The Grid. Fuentes, Henshaw, and Thackery were all down. Dietz and Rhinehart stood over them fighting off the Emal still swarming the area.

The Emal didn’t swarm as thickly as they did before. The platoons’ assault distracted the Emal back to the main battlefront. They withdrew—partially.

They didn’t seem too interested in Lauer and Oakes. Rhodes had to take this chance.

He grabbed Lauer by the wrist and pulled him off the ground. Rhodes stayed in his giant alien form, but he stopped glowing so the Emal wouldn’t see him—or they wouldn’t be able to see him as well.

He stormed over to Oakes and picked him up, too. This alien form gave Rhodes plenty of arms to carry both men and still keep shooting at the enemy.

“Bring them here and follow me!” he yelled to Dietz and Rhinehart. “Fall back!”

Rhinehart and Dietz looked around. The battalion couldn’t fall back to the Legion position. Too many Emal, platoons, and explosions blocked any retreat in that direction.

Rhodes threw caution to the wind and headed in the only direction left for him to go—west behind the Emal line.

More Emal flooded eastward to join the attack against the platoons. The two armies locked on the planes with all the remaining Emal heading that way.

They abandoned the battalion and left a clear path for Rhodes to lead his people out of danger.

End of Chapter 41