Rhinehart came back with Coulter. Rhinehart had to wrestle Coulter down into the hollow and pin him against the hillside to hold him in place so Coulter wouldn’t bolt back out into the night.

He sobbed and moaned in terror, tried to break free from Rhinehart’s grip, and jerked in all directions trying to see enemies who weren’t there.

“Is he injured?” Rhodes asked.

“Not that I could tell,” Rhinehart replied. “He tried to fight me off, but he’s too scared even to use his weapons.”

“We have to fall back to the Legion position,” Rhodes decided. “We need to lift off so we can correct these malfunctions. We can’t accomplish anything else down here tonight—and Lauer needs medical attention.”

“The Ero is still on the ground west of the city,” Fisher told him.

“How do you say we get there?” Rhinehart asked. “We can’t fight our way through all that. You, me, Dietz, and Fuentes are the only ones here with working boosters. We couldn’t carry everyone at the same time.”

“No, you’re right, Rhodes replied. “And I wouldn’t feel right about leaving them unprotected, either.”

“One of us could stay,” Fuentes offered. “Or more than one of us could stay….while the other one carries everyone to the Ero.”

“It would be super helpful if we could get one of those Dusters to come and pick us up,” Rhodes remarked.

“One of us could change ourselves into a Duster,” Rhinehart suggested. “I’m the biggest and the strongest. I could do it.”

“Your boosters might not be able to carry everyone.” Rhodes straightened up. “You, me, and Fuentes can combine ourselves into a Duster.” He looked around again. “Coulter, you help us. Coulter—can you hear me?”

Coulter didn’t respond. Rhinehart made a face. “This is stupid. What’s the point of going into battle with these SAMs if they’re going to malfunction at the worst possible time?”

“We just have to get everyone out of here. Let me just check…..”

Rhodes stuck his head up to check that the Emal were all far enough away. They were too busy pushing the platoons into the city streets. None of the Emal gave Battalion 1 a second glance.

“It’s clear,” Rhodes told the others. “Let’s go. We can make the Duster out here…..”

He climbed up the nearest rise. The hollow behind it wasn’t big enough for a Duster.

He got as far as the upper slope. He didn’t even make it to the top before another shot from one of the base ships smashed into him with almighty force.

He hit the ground with a brutal thump. His head swam for a second and he wavered out of consciousness for a minute.

When he came back to his senses, Rhinehart’s face hovered in front of Rhodes’s eyes. Rhinehart yelled in Rhodes’s face, but Rhodes couldn’t hear anything.

Fisher hovered there, too. He kept fizzing out in a tangle of grid lines, glitching, and stuttering from side to side.

He reformed a dozen times, changed back into a random squiggle of lines, and reformed, but only for a few seconds before he glitched again.

In those few seconds when Rhodes could see Fisher clearly, he saw Fisher’s mouth moving. A scratchy sound came out of the image. Rhodes caught random words here and there, but they got lost in the static.

“Fisher…..” Rhodes croaked.

Fisher stuttered sideways and made eye contact with Rhodes for a split second before Fisher’s grid lines scrambled again.

Fisher’s eyebrows raised and his mouth moved rapidly like he was trying desperately to tell Rhodes something important.

“Fisher….” Rhodes stammered again. “Fisher….what’s wrong?”

Rhodes already knew what was wrong. That laser must have damaged Rhodes’s implants. Fisher was malfunctioning.

Cold dread seized Rhodes’s heart. He couldn’t function without Fisher. Rhodes had become dependent on his SAM as a confidante and companion more than anything else.

Rhodes had also become dependent on Fisher’s information. Fisher could access so much more information through The Grid than Rhodes could.

Fisher relieved Rhodes from a hundred responsibilities a day. Fisher’s assessment of every situation had become as valuable or more to Rhodes than his own opinion. He’d come to trust Fisher in ways Rhodes never thought possible.

He had to get Fisher back at all costs, but he couldn’t do that here. Rhodes couldn’t even hear Rhinehart. The damaged interface must be interfering with Rhodes’s hearing, too.

Rhinehart kept pushing his face in front of Rhodes’s eyes and yelling silently. Rhodes read the same desperate panic in Rhinehart’s face. Rhodes wouldn’t be able to do anything without Fisher.

Rhinehart glanced around the hollow and his features hardened. He was the last one still functioning normally—besides Dietz.

Rhinehart pinched his lips, narrowed his eyes, and raised his head to look over the hilltop toward the battle. Rhodes read his expression as plain as day, but Rhodes couldn’t help Rhinehart.

Rhodes’s brain kept fading out. Each blur coincided with Fisher turning back into squiggly tangled grid lines. Both malfunctions cleared at the same time, but each episode only lasted a few seconds before the system glitched out again.

Rhodes hauled himself off the ground with an effort. He tried to speak again, but his brain wouldn’t connect.

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He pointed toward the east. He tried to link one thought to another. The Ero was over there. Then he pointed at Rhinehart and east again.

He wanted Rhinehart to use his boosters to fly over there and get help. Rhodes couldn’t think of any other solution.

He couldn’t manipulate the grid lines well enough to help anyone. He didn’t trust himself to fly anywhere, much less hold a shape long enough to keep the battalion alive.

Rhinehart shook his head, turned away, and said something to Dietz and Fuentes. Rhodes’s thoughts went fuzzy again. He couldn’t think clearly enough to understand what Rhinehart was saying or deciding on behalf of the whole battalion.

It didn’t matter as long as someone took over.

Rhinehart pointed at different people. He ignored Rhodes while Rhinehart gave orders to Dietz and Fuentes. They went through the group rounding everyone up.

Rhinehart slung Lauer’s body over his shoulder. Dietz and Fuentes pulled Oakes, Thackery, and Coulter to their feet.

Fuentes tried to pick up Henshaw and failed. Dietz pushed him out of the way, picked her up himself, and slung Henshaw over his shoulder, too.

Rhinehart, Dietz, and Fuentes herded everyone out of the hollow and headed up the slope. Oakes, Thackery, and Coulter stumbled and fell over a lot. The others had to stop and pick them up.

Rhodes tried to get his brain working well enough to get to his feet. Fuentes came over to him and put out his arm to help Rhodes up.

Rhinehart climbed to the top of the slope carrying Lauer and guiding Oakes in front of him. Rhinehart steered everyone southeast—away from the battle.

Rhodes floundered to his feet, but before he could move, a Viper spiraled out of the atmosphere from somewhere beyond sight. It hammered into the ground twenty yards from Oakes and Rhinehart.

Both men toppled from the impact and the shockwave knocked everyone off their feet.

Rhodes pitched across the ground. He barely hauled his senses into focus long enough to see a Legion Ravager plummeting out of the atmosphere.

Catastrophic laser fire from the Emal base ships pounded the Ravager from the high clouds all the way to the ground.

Those shots deflected off the Ravager’s hull and spiked into the hills surrounding the battalion.

Rhodes tumbled over himself trying to orient his mind. Rhinehart. Rhinehart was the only person who could get everyone out of this.

Rhodes couldn’t stand up under the continuous bombardment. He could barely see straight.

He took advantage of brief flashes of lucidity to crawl out of the hollow to where Rhinehart lay.

Oakes and Lauer sprawled on the grass. Rhodes couldn’t take the time to check on everyone else.

Rhodes rolled Rhinehart over. Most of his facial implants had been smashed in even worse than Lauer’s. Rhinehart didn’t respond. Rhodes couldn’t access the interface to see if Rocky was still online or not.

Rhodes looked up just long enough to check the state of battle. He had to get to the Ero.

He had to get someone—anyone on the Legion side to come and bail out the battalion. They couldn’t survive out here much longer.

In that moment when he raised his head to look around, another ship pelted out of the mayhem. It came from the north—out of the thickest chaos over the battle lines.

Fisher took that moment to fade out into squiggly lines again. When he reformed into his own face, another SAM floated in front of Rhodes’s eyes. It was Rio.

Rio studied Rhodes with deep interest. Rio’s mouth moved, too, but Rhodes couldn’t hear anything.

Rhodes blinked…..and another SAM materialized on The Grid in front of his eyes. He couldn’t concentrate on the battle with all these SAMs getting in his face.

He needed to concentrate on the battle to find a way to get the battalion to the west side of town, but right then, another person stuck his head in front of Rhodes’s eyes. It was Dietz. Rhodes had completely forgotten about him.

Dietz tried to yell at Rhodes, too, but Rhodes couldn’t hear a thing except the confused jumble coming from Fisher.

Without asking permission, Dietz grabbed Rhodes and dragged him out of the hollow by main force.

Rhodes became aware of everyone else in the battalion lying on the ground. Some of them moved. None of them stood up. Dietz was the last man standing.

Rhodes stumbled, but Dietz didn’t let him go. Dietz dragged Rhodes out into the open—right into the path of Emal bombardment.

Rhodes went into another panic thinking Dietz was either trying to kill him or leaving the rest of the battalion behind.

Rhodes’s brain didn’t function well enough to understand until the strange ship touched down in front of him. It was one of the battalion’s Strikers.

Dietz muscled Rhodes to the ship. Rhodes’s limbs didn’t function well enough for him to climb into the cockpit.

Dietz wound up grabbing Rhodes around the ribcage with both arms, lifting him up, and physically dumping him into the seat.

Dietz yanked Rhodes where he wanted Rhodes to go and shoved Rhodes down into the cockpit. Last of all, Dietz seized Rhodes by the face and jammed his head back against the prong that locked him into the seat.

A blast of electric power smashed Rhodes in the head—and his thoughts cleared. The volume switched back on. The tangled grid lines covering Fisher’s face disappeared.

“I’m contacting the other Strikers,” Rio reported. “They’re coming in to collect the rest of the battalion.”

Rhodes sighed in relief. “Thank you so much, Rio. You don’t know how good it is to see you.” He turned to Fisher. “Are you okay, pal? I’m so glad you’re back.”

“I’m okay now, Captain. Your Grid is still malfunctioning, but you’ll be able to fly. You just won’t be able to transform the ship or yourself.”

“I don’t care as long as we get out of here.” Rhodes activated The Grid—or maybe Rio did it for him. “Will we be able to correct the other SAMs’ malfunctions by interfacing with their Strikers?”

“We can only try it,” Rio replied. “Here they come.”

Four more Strikers swooped out of the night. They had to wheel backward to shoot at the Emal before the Strikers came in to land.

Rhodes felt fine now—or fine enough to get the hell out of here.

He scrambled to the ground and helped Dietz load Oakes, Fuentes, Thackery, and Coulter into their ships. The Striker SAMs interfaced with Rhodes so he could give them orders to take everyone back to the Ero.

The rest of the Striker formation hovered over the city trying to fight their way through the bombardment to get near the battalion.

The first four ships blasted into the cloud and disappeared. Rhodes checked the state of battle.

The Emal were still far enough away, but the base ships kept targeting the Strikers to stop them from flying that far behind the enemy line.

The next four had to back across the planes unloading all their firepower on the Emal position.

Even then, the four Strikers could only inch backward one painstaking step at a time before they made it to the hollow.

Two Strikers touched down. The other two stayed airborne to defend what was left of the battalion.

Rhodes and Dietz hauled Henshaw and Lauer to their ships. Neither of them revived when Rhodes locked them into the prongs.

Those two took off and stood guard with Rio while the last two Strikers landed.

Rhodes and Dietz had to work together to drag Rhinehart into the cockpit. He weighed a ton and Dietz wasn’t the biggest guy in the world.

They finally locked Rhinehart in. “Go!” Rhodes told Dietz. “Get on board and get out of here! Get back to the Ero!”

“What about you?” Dietz asked.

“I’m coming right behind you! Go!”

Rhodes pushed Dietz away. He took off running for his Striker, dove into the cockpit, and blasted away with the others.

Rio came back down, picked up Rhodes, and another wave of relief flooded him when he locked in with his SAMs.

“The base ships are targeting the city again,” Fisher reported. “They aren’t targeting the battalion anymore.”

“Why not? Is the Legion putting up any defense?”

“Not an effective one. They’re…..”

At that moment, a different weapon hit Rio from behind. The Striker made it as far as the city’s eastern fringes—right over the Legion position.

Dietz’s Striker, Baron, Rhinehart’s Striker, Zion, and Lauer’s Striker, Elio, flew right in front of Rio.

Rhodes dropped into The Grid to check what the Emal were doing. He didn’t see a thing before what looked like a net of forked lightning hit Rio in the tail.

The blast crackled all around the ship and The Grid shorted out. Rhodes had half a second to see the same net surround the other Strikers. Then everything shut down and he blacked out.

End of Chapter 43.