Rhodes only had to show his people The Grid to convince them to go through with his plan. He left the four Strikers in the air to bombard the Emal, but nothing slowed them down.

Rhodes used The Grid to measure their progress—and the Ravagers’ progress. Whatever order Kaufman gave to evacuate the platoons, the Ravagers sure took their sweet time before they carried it out.

They could have evacuated the three platoons ten times over before the Ravagers even entered the atmosphere. They hovered overhead for way too long.

“What the hell are they waiting for?” Rhinehart snarled.

“Doomsday, apparently,” Rhodes replied. “It just means our time window will be even tighter.”

“The Emal are almost through,” Thackery pointed out.

Rhodes didn’t answer. He could see on The Grid how close the Emal were to getting through.

“They must have been working on this through the whole campaign,” Coulter remarked.

“I’m sure they have,” Rhodes replied. “The Emal aren’t stupid even if the Legion brass likes to pretend they are.”

“Have you ever seen the Emal pull a maneuver like this, Sir?” Rhinehart asked. “I haven’t.”

“No, nothing like this, but I’ve never faced them in this kind of terrain before. They’re adapting to the conditions.”

He revolved The Grid in a different direction, but just then, a tremor rocked the ground underfoot. The nearby soldiers paused what they were doing to look up the mountain.

Vernick, Turley, and Upshaw stormed down the shelf giving orders to everyone. “Get those Vipers into position!” Vernick snapped. “Assemble the 217th and the 249th on either side of the Gap. Upshaw—take the 278th to that ridge up there. You can fire down at the enemy from above! Get those supply crates out of the way! Clear a path for the Ravagers to land!”

“What do you want us to do, Sir?” Fuentes asked Rhodes.

“You and Thackery fall in with the 278th. Rhinehart, Coulter, and I will go with the 249th. Defend the Gap as best you can. I’ll give you the word when it’s time to pull our maneuver.”

“You’re violating orders,” Coulter pointed out. “You realize that, right? General Kaufman ordered you to stay here with the platoons.”

Rhodes pretended to frown. “Oh, yeah. I guess he did.”

“So….we’re doing it anyway?” Fuentes asked. “I’ve never disobeyed my commander’s order before.”

“You aren’t doing it now because I’m ordering you to carry out this mission,” Rhodes told him. “You and Thackery fall in with the 278th. I’ll tell you if and when to do something else. Don’t think about anything else.”

Rhinehart cracked a big grin. “Yes, Sir.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The battalion split up. Rhodes, Rhinehart, and Coulter crossed the shelf and took their positions with the 249th. Continuous shudders jolted the mountain every few seconds.

Those tremors made the ground shake and the soldiers staggered. In a few minutes, they all got into position and trained their weapons on the Gap between the cliffs.

Rhodes pretended not to see the soldiers adjusting their positions to keep away from him and his two men.

Rhodes found a place near Vernick, Turley, and Stillwell. Rhodes checked The Grid. The Emal were minutes away from breaching the choke point.

The Ravagers descended a little farther toward the ground. Ten of them hovered there, but they didn’t touch down. “What the hell are they waiting for?” Lieutenant Turley growled under his breath.

“Maybe they’re waiting for the Emal to break through so Kaufman has an excuse not to lift us off,” Stillwell suggested.

“Pay attention!” Captain Vernick yelled down the line. Then he lowered his voice and murmured to Rhodes. “How soon before they break through?”

“The Grid says they should be through by now. Don’t ask me what they’re waiting for, either.”

A tense silence fell over the platoons—or it would have been a tense silence. The rumble coming from the mountains and the combined thunder of the Ravagers’ engines set every soldier’s nerves on edge.

Rhodes took that moment to interface with all his people. Thackery and Fuentes crouched in position with the 278th. The four Strikers still flew back and forth bombarding the Emal on the other side of the mountain.

Dusters and Predators came over to help drive the aliens away from the Gap, but it was too late. The Emal had succeeded in boring deep enough into the mountain. No air bombardment could stop what was about to happen.

A steady stream of aliens flowed into and out of that hole. Countless Emal crowded around and blocked anyone from seeing. The opening only showed up on The Grid.

Just then, a dark cluster of Emal moved through the crowd and vanished underground.

“Stand by!” Lauer called through the interface. “They’re making their move!”

“I see it!” Rhodes replied and raised his voice to the soldiers nearest him. “Here it comes! Stand by!”

He barely got the words out before a shivering boom grumbled through the mountain. The cliffs on both sides quaked and then a massive section of the granite hillside imploded.

It buckled in on itself and floated down to the ground in a shower of falling rock and rubble. Dust and smoke billowed up to the sky in the mountain’s place.

No one could see a thing for a minute. “Open fire!” Vernick bellowed before the dust even cleared.

The soldiers opened fire with their Jackhammers and pounded the breach with all their firepower.

“Switch to lasers!” Rhodes ordered.

He and his subordinates swiped lasers back and forth across the dust cloud, but he didn’t see anything at first.

The slightest twinge of doubt crept into his mind. Did he make a mistake? Did the Emal blow this breach for some other reason than to get onto the shelf?

He paused his fire for a few seconds, and right at that moment, a tide of aliens flooded out of the dust cloud to overrun the platoons.

Everyone opened fire twice as fast. Rhodes did the same thing. He, Rhinehart, and Coulter passed their lasers back and forth across the horde.

Two more lasers came from the other side of the Gap where Thackery and Fuentes hunkered down with the 278th, but the Emal used lasers, too.

Dozens of glowing red beams swiped out of the dust cloud and carved into the Legion ranks. No one could keep up with the Emal’s firepower and then the aliens themselves flooded the shelf.

Their eyes gleamed out of the smoke. The cilia around their mouths wavered and jiggled when they moved.

They crawled on their many limbs to clamber over the rubble of fallen rock and slabs. Every limb they didn’t use for climbing held a laser rifle.

The Ravagers were nowhere near the ground—not near enough to land. Now they retreated a little farther into the atmosphere to avoid the enemy lasers.

The Emal were still too busy shooting all the soldiers to pay attention to the ships overhead.

“NOW!!” Rhodes ordered.

He, Rhinehart, and Coulter broke cover, abandoned the platoons, and took off running down the shelf. Thacker and Fuentes caught up with them.

“Let’s go!” Rhodes called to the four Strikers through the interface. “Get down here now!”

End of Chapter 28.