Colin POV

The waiting was the worst part. Rok'gar, Amber, and I busied ourselves preparing the defense in depth of our base. We had written off everything beyond the bones of Monte Carlo itself as too difficult to defend. I recycled a bunch of towers to reclaim their ethereum and set to work programming new ones all around, while Rok'gar evolved new breeds of soldiers and put them out.

Amber fit right in. She picked up some allied mines to help her out and was busy building traps everywhere.

Gambler's influence would be strongest around our monument and decrease from there according to the inverse square law. There was no chance of any enemies arriving within a 100-meter radius of the statue, little chance within 200 meters, and from there on it increased. Anywhere from 400 meters out would be impossible to prevent their coming. So Amber was placing traps as I set up the towers.

I was building interlocking spiral patterns designed to funnel the enemies in without them quite realizing I was doing it. The outer zones would debuff, slowing them. I had spent as much of my budget as I dared on anti-air defenses. Nothing would be able to fly over our walls.

For the first half a day, the work kept me occupied. Then, when I had the bones of my defenses in place and was tweaking the effects and checking on fields of fire, I started to worry. I had not expected to be able to communicate with Sage and the attacking party. Gambler had a hard time talking up a level. He was focused down here to prevent the enemy from trapping him where he was weakest. Until they returned, we wouldn't know how it was going.

I took a break to check with Rok'gar about his modified foot soldiers. We were now to be fighting other miners instead of fragments of the reality engine. Individual miners would likely have a much stronger self-preservation instinct than minions of an enemy fragment. We could take advantage of that. His minions were programmed to work together to isolate and destroy individual enemies. I looked over his troops and approved.

Amber strolled back in, looking pleased with herself. She was more than happy to explain her strategies. "Deep Seeders. One model explodes, sends shrapnel into you. If the shrapnel doesn't kill you right off, it burrows deep in and makes its way toward the vulnerable parts. It's like injecting a virus that will interfere with the ability to respawn." She looked very proud of herself.

“You did good work.”

“Any news from the team?"

I shook my head. "I'm not expecting any just yet. They know what they're doing," I said, more to convince myself than her.

"Uh-huh." She looked me over and gave me a pat on the shoulder. "She'll be all right, Colin."

"Who?"

"Sage, of course. Or did you think I was worried about Rose? I don't blame you. I'm happy for the two of you. Assuming we get out of all this."

"It's not like that," I told her. "We've been trapped here together —“

“For the better part of a year,” Amber interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "The only two humans and all of that." Rok'gar growled. Amber turned to him. "Oh, sorry. I don't mean to be racist or anything. One of my girlfriends on the ship has a thing going with a space elf, which personally, I don't understand. I’d take an orc any day." She looked Rok'gar up and down appreciatively. "But, as far as I can tell, Colin's tastes mostly run to females, so I didn't think there was much chance of him falling for you. But you're lucky." She was talking to me again. "After we get out of this, Williams is going to be so grateful to you for helping keep his sister alive the last year. He'll overlook the whole 'started dating her without his approval' thing."

I tried to find the right words to come down bitingly on Amber but couldn't manage to come up with anything. She laughed at me. "Look at you, with your mouth flopping open like a fish. You really have got it hard, haven't you?"

We were, thankfully, interrupted by a siren. Gambler's voice sounded in my head. "They're coming back!"

I was on high alert. "Prepare!" I shouted and pulled up my own screens to check the status of all of my towers.

A moment later, the square was filled with people. Sam and Alpha came in first, covered in soot and a couple of bloodstains, but laughing as they appeared. Ben, Rose, and Pete followed, and my heart skipped a beat until Sage appeared. She looked alright, but just as soon as she stepped foot in the square, her knees buckled. I was across to her in a flash, helping her back up.

"Sorry," she said, blinking up at me. "The last bomb went off faster than I expected. They were waiting for us and had defenses. That's all we're going to get."

"How many did you hit?"

"We got the first ten, no problem," Sam reported. "And two more partials. They know they've been stung, but they're coming for us."

"Then let's get ready," I said.

Sage was shaking off my arm. "I'm fine now," she told me.

"Anyone need anything? Now's the time," I snapped. Of course, we didn't need to eat, sleep, or relieve ourselves in this place. Still, it was good to remind everyone. "Then we'll get in position."

I spread us out on defense. My team all had their own particular strengths. We'd outfitted them with weapons from Rok'gar's armory. Rok'gar would be stationed back in the center of the base to continue churning out units and directing them. Sam and Pete were our generals, ordering the various unit combinations into battle. Rose and Amber would be sowing chaos all over the battlefield. Rok'gar had made them a pair of cloaks. They could drop smoke shields, turn them invisible, or seemingly triplicate themselves. They donned the cloaks now.

Alpha was our eyes. She had a post in the center of our fortification, elevated so she could see everything, with several scrying devices provided to her by Gambler. Sage and I were supposed to control the towers, turrets, and other fortifications, with Sage ready to pull out her tamed pets to add backup. We were saving Mr. Smokey for a real emergency. The others would be out in the beginning. She and I climbed together to a parapet on the innermost ring of fortifications, where we could see out beyond our walls toward the most likely landing zone.

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"How were the raids?" I asked as we waited, time slipping by, each second seeming interminable.

"It felt so good to strike back and know that they knew we were doing it on purpose," Sage told me. "I don't know what we're going to do next, Colin, but that was worth it."

"We're going to make this one count," I took her hand and squeezed it.

There wasn't anything else I could say. I waited with Sage as the minutes ticked away. I was just starting to feel as though maybe we'd been wrong, maybe they weren't coming when they appeared in front of us. At the same time, our comms channels lit up, the rest of my team reporting enemies spawning in at all sides of our fort.

Hundreds of Galactics appeared in front of me. They looked like the orcs, Talonians, elves, and other assorted species I was expecting. No more of this confused business of masks and capes. The enemies weren't hiding anymore. They were intruding directly on us, their channels merging with ours.

I aimed the first outer ring of towers at the oncoming crowd and fired. Lightning and ice zapped forward in a fierce arc, hitting at least a dozen with the first blow and more with the next. Enemies stumbled and fell, but more took their place. My turrets were firing not fast enough. Already a few had slipped past the outer ring and were pushing inward. The next row of towers shot charged bolts individually. They hit and their victims stumbled, fell, and dissolved in a whirl of sparks, just in time for another to take their place.

As they came for us, I pinpointed what was wrong. There weren't enough of them. Only a few hundred at most.

"Gambler," I queried.

"The Patriarch has not yet made his move," Gambler said. "They may be trying to see if they can defeat us without committing the key."

"Then we'll show them what they get for underestimating us," I snarled and called up my second line of defense. These were a row of buried defensive structures. Now they raised up behind the initial row of towers and filled the air with flame, burning through the enemy forces. I heard screams and shouts as enemies dissolved in a flurry of sparks, sent back to the respawn point.

"Amber, Rose, engage." I got a verbal confirmation from them, as they leapt into action. In addition to all of Amber's hidden traps, she had planted several underground bunkers near the probable respawn locations. The bunkers popped open, and our forces emerged, screaming challenges at the enemies as our minions attacked in swarms.

Rose led one detachment of new units. A cross between berserkers and ninjas, armed with dozens of different kinds of blades and no sense of self-preservation, the black-clad warriors threw themselves forward onto our enemy, dispatching them as quickly as they respawned. Meanwhile, Amber was laying down slowing traps all around the respawn point. As the enemies came in, they were hit by a dozen different debuffs, then slaughtered.

"We're getting a big clump up on the southern wall," Sage reported to me. We had left that respawn point untouched for just this reason.

"When you get critical mass, unleash hell," I said.

"I think we're about there," Sage announced. A moment later, a roar rent the sky as she pulled Mr. Smokey from her pet storage. He appeared in the sky over our heads, screaming and flaming before diving down on the enemies outside our walls.

“Defensive line breach on the west," Sam reported.

"Lead them into the kill slots," I directed.

"Roger." If he followed my orders, he would be allowing the enemy to penetrate deep inside our second line of defense. I wanted all of the victims of the south wall to head for him once they were back up and moving.

"We're close to enough," he called. "Kill slots nearly filled."

"Then drop it," I instructed. I smiled at the screams and wails that rose up. The defenses on the western side had a single-use grinder net planted in the dirt at their feet. On Sam's command, it would have activated, shredding everyone there into mulch, hopefully quite painfully, before they were incapacitated enough to despawn.

"We're being pushed back," Amber reported. "Heavy respawns here in the north."

"Hit 'em with the big boom," I ordered.

We had three large area effect bombs on hand, crafted from stolen ethereum. Amber had one of the three. I could trust her to carry out suicidal orders only when the orders were actually given, unlike Rose, who might very well let it off for her own pleasure.

Seconds later, a great silver mushroom cloud climbed toward the heavens, followed by a rolling boom that washed over me like a wave, pressure making my ears pop. Several of our automated defenses leapt up, looking for the threat. Rose and Amber respawned in the middle of our square.

"Successful," Amber reported. "I think we got at least 80 of them, and that respawn point should be knocked out temporarily until the Dominator network can reestablish the beachhead."

"Good," I growled. "I want you to go to the southern respawn point and look threatening, like you're gonna try the same thing again."

"I don't have any more of the bombs."

"I know that," I told her. "We're trying to get a reaction." She gave me a quick two-finger salute and then hurtled over the walls, racing toward the southern respawn point.

Everything was going well. Our defenses had been breached only where we permitted. Gambler had a kill counter going again for us, and it was already into the hundreds. I braced myself for what was going to come next.

Gambler reported, "Attack against my willpower. I'm getting a huge surge. Willpower dropping rapidly."

"Drop your shields and conserve what you have,” I ordered. "This is it. We all need to prepare."

Gambler did as I said, and a moment later, the sky overhead began to swirl. Clouds formed, whirling and twisting like the eye of a hurricane. The ever-steady purple glow darkened to a deep blue. Then forks of golden lightning stabbed down all around the cloud, striking all around the perimeter of our fortress. Everywhere they struck, they left a black circle three meters or so in diameter and a cloud of smoke.

As the smoke cleared away, figures began to emerge from the black circles. There were dozens of the circles, and each one had a score of people in them. As the attackers stepped out of the circles, more appeared.

"It's the key," Gambler said. "He's used the key."

"Get eyes on the Patriarch," I ordered. It took Gambler a moment to reply.

"He's well in the back. It looks like he's trying to blend in."

"Then let's send in the distraction," I said. "Alpha?”

“I’m ready," she assured me. Alpha had one of our other two ethereum bombs. Now that the enemy knew we had them, I was certain they'd be able to detect the signature. Alpha grabbed Rose, Sam, and Pete, and they surrounded themselves with a protective escort of NPCs emerging through the northern front of our fortress.

"Sage, get ready.” As Alpha and her team fought across the battlefield, Sage looked over the battlements with me. The enemy spotted Alpha's squad and converged on her. Hundreds of bodies looking to surround our people. Rok'gar ordered more troops forward. These were largely riflemen with a high rate of fire but low penetration against the kind of gear the miners were wearing.

Sage let out a gasp as she stood beside me on the battlements looking out across.

"Look," she pointed. I followed her gaze. There were humans on the battlefield, but we'd expected that. There were plenty of Earth folk working for the Galactics as well as alien races that looked more or less human to our eyes.

"It's Shad," she told me. I squinted, and she was right. I could make out his coat and hat even from this distance.

"We need to tell him..."

I shook my head. "We stick to the plan.”

As the shifting tides of battle revealed that the enemy was taking the bait, Sage took a deep breath and nodded. She called Mr. Smokey from the other side of the fort. He flew to us and hovered in the air. She leapt up into the saddle she'd rigged and reached down a hand and helped me up behind her.

"Let's go," I told her, and we lifted into the air.