“Headquarters section, get your weapons!” Aguilar yelled to her assembled command team, as she gathered up her gear. “We will add our reserve strength to first platoon, and assist them with another push.”

The eager looking Rangers didn’t move, but waited for her, since they had prepared for exactly that order several minutes earlier. Everybody who knew the captain had been expecting something similar.

“Let’s go,” she called.

Five senior Rangers, excluding the medical team, who already had their hands full tending to the dozens of casualties, jumped and leaped across the boulders, risking themselves as targets to move faster. The fact that they didn’t draw a single spike demonstrated how carefully the drones had hidden themselves among the rocks of the valley.

When they reached third platoon’s position, Aguilar beckoned to the exhausted-looking Lieutenant Akane.

“Got another squad for you, Minako. Point us where you need us.”

Akane nodded gratefully, and pointed down the line. “Uh… yes ma’am—I need to slot you in between first platoon and my machine-gun section. If we want to advance, that’s where a gap will open.”

“You got it,” Aguilar responded.

The Lieutenant gestured toward the boulders ahead. “We think there’s a couple ducked down in there by that big egg-shaped rock. You’ll want to maneuver around it up the slope, but watch yourself, they could be literally anywhere out there.”

“Right, thanks for the head’s up.”

There was a loud roar as the Shrike jet passed low overhead, and Aguilar silently thanked the pilot for the desperate attempt. The Rangers cheered as the aircraft shot back up into the sky, even as they knew it wouldn’t help.

When the captain and the rest of her headquarters section were in position, the Rangers began climbing forward through the boulders. In the beginning, they had used grenades on almost every nook and cranny, but now had begun to run low, and had little more they could use other than their rifles.

Aguilar dashed forward through an apparently empty gap, turned, and saw a drone that had been crouching underneath an overhang, not more than a few yards from third platoon’s starting position. They had all walked straight past it.

It reached out an arm, pointing towards the unsuspecting first sergeant. Aguilar’s rifle snapped up and she hammered the trigger, pumping bullets into the thing’s torso until it dropped dead. The sergeant whirled around in surprise.

Realizing what had happened, she flashed a smile at the captain. Aguilar winked back, but her sergeant twitched and dropped flat on her back, as a spike buried itself in her ribs. An explosion of gunfire followed, as nearby Rangers scrambled to shoot the drones that had emerged from a deep crevasse hidden behind another wide boulder.

Aguilar tried to move again, her executive officer now close behind, but as soon as she stepped out, a spike struck her in the arm. The force of the impact spun her around as she stumbled and tripped, collapsing into the dirt. She looked up and watched, aghast, as her XO fired a burst of rounds, then took a spike in the shoulder and collapsed.

Another drone stomped forward, and Aguilar switched her rifle to her left arm, firing as best she could. Though they had felled several drones, the entire headquarters team had themselves become casualties within minutes of moving off, and Aguilar could tell from several additional screams that they weren’t the only ones.

She pulled herself upright against a large rock, reached over and grabbed the unconscious XO’s suit strap, dragging her into cover. Understanding dawned on Aguilar, together with a sensation that gravity had tripled in strength.

The drones had developed a simple strategy. Once the orbital barrage had started, they had rushed towards the Ranger positions, using the boulders and jagged terrain as cover, never revealing themselves, but getting as close as possible to lie in wait where the fire support wouldn’t dare strike.

From where she sat, the captain could see a maximum of twelve yards in front of her where a new maze of rocks awaited them, and who knew how many more drones. When she looked back, she saw they had advanced no more than twenty yards.

They had four hundred left to go until they reached the crashed dropship. They wouldn’t make it.

At the crash site, the enemy had proven bolder, sending animal and human drones forward after each gap in the bombing. Helvet snipers had also taken potshots at them from somewhere in the valley, until the Raider snipers had identified and neutralized them.

Their human enemy, Cara realized, now saw the valley as a death trap. To escape, they needed to pass the weak point in the Task Force’s defense; the downed dropship.

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It had also become clear that the very boulders that kept them hidden also provided excellent protection against the destruction of the kinetic blasts. While the impacts looked devastating, anything that had a few reasonably large chunks of rock between itself and the impact point would remain dazed, but unharmed. Fortunately for Cara, the two other PJs were excellent shooters, and for the time being, were able to keep their attackers at bay.

She looked down at Christie, still holding onto her friend. Rose had surprisingly managed to regain consciousness, though she was fading fast. Her skin was pale white, contrasting with the vibrant red soaking through the used bandages that were stacked in piles next to her.

Nothing that Cara did could stop the bleeding—it was beyond the nanite’s ability to heal.

“I should never have let you come on the dropship,” Christie sobbed as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I should have turned you into the crew to put you in the brig.”

“Then you’d be dead,” Rose managed to say, though she could only breathe the words. “How would I live with that?”

“Who cares?” Christie wiped her eyes. “Why do you always have to be so stubborn?”

“I love you Chris—you and Kayla and Thandi. You’re my best friends.”

“I love you too, Rose.”

There was a long moment of silence, broken only by Christie’s sniffing.

“You’re okay. You’ll be okay,” Rose whispered, before she passed out again.

Her pulse eventually slowed and stopped. Christie called to Cara in desperation, but there was nothing that the medic could do. To start chest compressions on a damaged heart was an exercise in brutal futility. Cara held her fingers on Rose’s neck to confirm her pulse had stopped, then closed her eyelids, and covered the body with a sheet.

Christie held onto her friend’s hand. Eventually, her tears stopped, her eyes also lifeless as she turned her head to the horizon and stared at nothing.

“Banshee, this is Valkyrie,” Cara called, mentally preparing herself.

“Yes, Valkyrie.”

“I now have one KIA,” she finished.

Throughout the night and morning, as the battle had raged, the radio had been filled with messages back and forth between the task force’s various elements as they coordinated their fight. When Cara put out her call, they stopped. For the first time since the Raider teams had arrived the previous night, total silence reigned over the valley. It lasted a full minute.

While Kayla planned her move towards the transformation chambers, Weslan continued to work on the program. She looked around as he hissed in frustration.

“What’s the problem?” she asked, hoping that it was nothing major.

Weslan shook his head. “I’m getting messages in the alien language—I have no idea what they’re saying.”

“Well, did you program the changes you wanted?”

“I think so, but now I need to figure out how to override the current program on the chambers themselves. I’m just trying different things here, but I’m pretty sure that forward control panel next to Rayker is going to indicate something if I succeed.”

Kayla glanced back towards the chambers, then ducked back down as she saw that one of the soldiers was staring at the booth, a curious expression on his face.

“Um… That may have already happened,” she said.

“Oh.”

They heard Rayker shout a series of orders, which were mercifully drowned out by the growing sounds of gunfire. The Ranger squad, fighting successfully against the Helvet soldiers, was pushing them back to the lab. Kayla moved to the entrance to the observation booth and checked outside, freezing when she saw movement in the nearby shadows.

The figures drew closer, and with relief she recognized the familiar Ranger camouflage—Thandi, Ray and Bibi had quietly worked their way around through the base to rejoin the lonely pair.

The soldiers with Rayker were now splitting up, some moving to fight the Rangers, others heading for the control booth. Kayla gestured frantically to the watching Thandi, that she wanted them to open fire immediately, distracting the approaching Helvets. Thandi stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, then, when she understood what was happening, jumped up and shot one of the soldiers dead.

On the podium, Rayker whirled around. “They’re trying to reach the control computer,” she yelled. “Throw grenades—I don’t care. Don’t let them change the program!”

Inside the booth, Kayla nudged Weslan. “Once you’re finished, uh… go someplace else. Good luck.”

“Kayla wait, don’t—”

But he was too late. She darted back out into the hall, ducking past machinery and out of sight of the soldiers.

The Rangers kept up a steady stream of accurate fire and were able to keep the Helvets from advancing on the booth, even as the rest of the squad continued to advance from the other side of the hall. Rayker snarled with frustration as she turned to Reed.

“Again, I have to make up for the weakness of you and your men! Wait here by the control, and be ready to activate it,” she ordered, then raced down towards the booth, moving with incredible speed.

“Witch lady, moving across your three,” Bibi yelled to Thandi.

Thandi cursed and tossed a grenade at the bank of machines Rayker had ducked behind. She aimed a volley of fire in her direction, and whenever Rayker moved, bullets sparked off the metal around her, though it wasn’t enough to keep her pinned. Slowly but surely, she closed on the booth.

Kayla, meanwhile, squirmed her way through the cables around the back of the transformation chambers as she carefully approached the podium. She saw Reed taking cover several yards away with his back to her, watching the unfolding battle. He twitched his head this way and that, probably watching for the unexpected. Kayla moved as slowly and carefully as she could, hugging the shadows, desperate not to be seen until the last moment.

Weslan cowered back as bullets ripped through the observation booth window, showering him with glass. In a moment, Rayker had reached the shattered window and was about to leap inside when Thandi sprinted forward, her weapon blazing on full auto. Rayker ducked around the side of the booth, while Thandi tossed away her empty rifle, drawing her pistol. She fired at the corner of the structure—anything to keep the dangerous woman at bay.

Reed was distracted, focused on Rayker’s progress, and Kayla seized her opportunity. Leaping up from cover, she dashed the last few yards towards him as he whirled around with a shout. Kayla crashed him to the floor, punching him hard as she dared in the head.

Hoping she hadn’t just killed her potential drone; she bundled his body inside one of the open chambers and slammed the door shut. As she looked up, her eyes met the helpless gaze of the prisoner in the first chamber.