Harry took a moment to look behind him. The giant was still chasing the truck. The

weapons mounted on the trailer was creating a bow wave of destruction. The others

had made it into the trees under the confusion of the shooting.

He would have to do the same if he could get out of the truck in the nick of time.

He toggled through his menu and called a box to the shotgun seat. He opened it and

set the timer on the sphere inside a cube framework. He hoped five minutes was

enough time for what he was going to do.

“I thought we talked about this, Harry,” said Nick. “You said you’d abide by the ban.”

“Looks like I’m going to lose that money,” said Harry. “Tell Cat she was always the

best friend I could ever want.”

“I forbid this,” said Nick. “I will shoot you myself.”

“I’d love to stay and talk, but I’m bound for glory and my ride’s here,” said Harry. He

set the truck at full power before he opened the door. He dropped out and rolled,

wishing he had thought of protection before he had done such a stupid thing.

Harry picked himself up, glad to still have the Ripper in hand. He raised it and fired

the box out as he ran for the trees. He had his contractors marked on the map and they

were fighting their way up the mountain like him. He had to get a faster means to

catch up to them and get away from the numbers of xenos converging on him.

And he had to get out of the blast radius of the bomb he had set. Once that went

off, the xenos would be the least of his problems.

The kaiju hovered in the air, unsure of what to attack. Then the truck hit the temple

and partially crashed through the wall. The weapons on the back sprayed anything

that was defined as an enemy.

That needed to stop.

“Contractors, run for your lives,” Harry called over the radio. He reloaded on the run.

“You have two minutes before things get dicey.”

“The corvette and bombing run are coming in, Harry,” said Nick.

“Divert them to the next target if you can,” said Harry. He shot the box of ammo out

again and then used the rifle as a club to clear one enemy out of his way that was

trying to hold on to dear life. “I lost track of time.”

“You need armor and shields,” said Nick. “You need it now.”

Harry toggled the menu as he threw the Ripper at an enemy in the darkness. He

summoned something called a personal protection bubble. He held the thing close and

pulled the ripcord on the side. He dove into a shallow gully as a blue forcefield

surrounded him.

The world turned white. He was falling and not quite sure where gravity had gone.

He dropped the bubble generator as it caught fire. The field slowly died as he hit a

tree. That saved him from getting a broken rib from impact. Then he realized the tree

was falling over. He waited and then dropped off when he was close to the ground.

A crater was what left of the temple. He limped away from the cleared zone. He had

to keep moving. More xenos would come in to replace the ones he had destroyed. He

hoped the others were doing better than he was.

“You’re still alive,” said Nick. “Why am I not surprised? A review board is going

to crawl up inside me for this. You know that, right? You know that you weren’t

supposed to use that thing ever again. We talked about it.”

“I will answer any question posed by a review board if I live through the next few

hours,” said Harry. “Right now, I have to catch up with the others and get everyone

off this planet before everyone is dead. If the fighters were able to strike one of the

other temples, then we are two for three and I can live with that at the moment.”

“They missed,” said Nick. “The enemy is flooding the air along their flight path.

Junior can’t give them enough cover and the corvette was engaged by a star whale

before it could even hit atmosphere.”

“I need something with speed so I can catch up with the others,” said Harry. “Then

we need to reach Xin and Hei if Milla hasn’t done that by now.”

“Can you ride a bike?,” asked Nick.

“Not really,” said Harry. “What about one of those hoverboards?”

“All right,” said Nick. “You may have stunned the enemy right now, but they are

bound to try to catch up to you and the others.”

“I hope one of them has an idea on what we can do to get up the mountain faster than

walking,” said Harry. He toggled through his menu and found what he was looking

for under the simple vehicles screen. He ordered one and ripped it out of the delivery

box as he jogged uphill toward his group.

“Harry,” said John. “We just got a flash. Are you okay down there?”

“I’m okay, John,” said Harry. He kickstarted the board and glided up the mountain.

He drew his pistol as he went. “I’m a little separated from the main group. I’m trying

to catch up with them.”

“You better hurry,” said John. “Xenos are starting to flood back into the area.”

“I think I see the others up ahead,” said Harry. “Keep sending the ships. They are a

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

distraction from us when they come through fast enough.”

“We are dropping sun guns like you did on Wallens,” said John. “They are carving

the enemy up, but they are getting torn down almost as fast.”

“Keep doing that too,” said Harry. “Anything you guys can do is a big help.”

The contractor leaned back to slow the hoverboard. He took aim with his pistol. He

fired seven rounds of multishot into the trees ahead of him. He thought he killed at

least two of the hunting party outright, but he could see other xenos in the woods

ahead.

He reloaded with his last ready magazine and aimed uphill. He summoned one of his

hives and dropped it so it came to rest against a broken tree. All he had to do was wait

and his mobile army would start accumulating in the trees and start hunting his

enemies for him.

The familiar sound of Yema’s rifle swept the enemy away from in front of him. He

waited to make sure nothing else came at him while he was looking around. He

pushed the board forward to see if he had caught up with his group.

The contractors had grouped in a circle. They were a little bloody, covered with ash,

and Howitz’s mech had a dent in it. They looked at him like he was a demon.

“You should be dead,” said Har. “Why aren’t you?”

“Luck,” said Harry. “Can you guys keep moving? More xenos are coming in to find

us.”

“We had some minor injuries, but everything has been patched the best we can,” said

Detrac. “That was something. The wind pushed a ton of trees into the enemy chasing

us. If Har hadn’t rigged up a double wall, most of us would be hurt worse than what

we were.”

“All right,” said Harry. “I am hoping to get to where we can see Xin and Hei before

the xenos catch up with us again. We can send all of you home from there.”

“What about you, Harry?,” asked Yema.

“Once I got you guys safe and away from here,” said Harry. “I plan to use Junior to

help keep that region of the planet clear until I get reinforcements.”

“You could retreat and let someone else take over,” said Yema.

“I can’t win the retirement money if I do that,” said Harry. “Is there a quick way to

get up to where we want to go?”

“There’s a cliff under fire from below that we could use if we could keep the grunts

from shooting at us,” said Howitz. “I am sure my machine can climb the face and pull

you up after me.”

“We can let John handle that,” Harry said. “Maybe arrange for some short flights

so we can get up to the top while John is doing his thing.”

“The bombing is not going so well,” said Har.

“I know, but they are killing a ton of enemies with every run,” said Harry. “We need

them to hit some place specific for us on the next run and then they can go back to

random targets.”

Tracers lit up the night. Then particle beams reminiscent of Harry’s bees lit various

targets between the contractors and what looked like a cave in the cliff. The group

stood below and across a small chasm. Large stones hit and bounced down the

mountain.

“Back up and we’ll build some cover so we can hold in position,” said Harry. “I’m

going to throw some hives and things down to help as our security until we figure out

what we’re doing.”

“We need a massive bombing raid to overcome the air resistance,” said Detrac.

“I agree with you a hundred percent,” said Harry. “All right. There are some fallen

trees. We can use them as the backstop for our dugout. We need some better walls

and some guns.”

“I have some deployable cover,” said Har. “I can throw that down and use a force

wall on the inside for extra protection.”

“We can set traps to catch the xenos unawares,” said Detrac. “We need to set them

outside our perimeter.”

“Go ahead,” said Harry. “We won’t have long before we are back to knifepoint

again.”

“Understood,” said Detrac. He and Yema headed down the forest line.

Howitz dug into the ground with his mech. He sank below the level of the dugout

until only the armor’s head and shoulders remaining in view. He climbed out of the

armor and wiped his face with one of his hands.

“I need to camouflage that before xenos come up here and see it,” said Howitz. “It

was everything I dreamed when I first thought about what a contractor could do.”

“How did you get that dent in the armor?,” said Harry. He summoned a pile of hives

at his feet. He rolled them down the mountain side so they would be the first line of

defense against any of the monsters trying to rush his team.

“We ran into a small titan and he bashed me,” said Howitz. He indicated the motion

with the movement of his hand. “Then we concentrated power on it and blew it down

the mountain right before whatever you did down there.”

“I set myself up for a review and possible court martial,” said Harry. “I think I can do

a cover like Har so we can cover the rest of your beast. Then all we can do is wait.

Maybe they will think we’re dead if they can’t sense where we are.”

“Once we start moving, they will know we’re still here,” said Howitz.

“That part won’t matter,” said Harry. “We just have to get across the cliff and get

them out of there, and then we can retreat to an area where we can’t be touched.”

“I see the point in that,” said Howitz.

“Milla?,” asked Harry. He hoped she was monitoring the local radio, or he was going

to have to ask Nick to connect him.

“I am here, Beekeeper,” said tiny alien. “I see that you are vying with me to take

my title as the demon of death.”

“Not really,” said Harry. “I have already killed more enemies than hippos in heat.

How is the gate extraction going?”

“I am still a thousand points shy,” said Milla. “I hope to have them tomorrow when

the sun comes up. We’re resting as they try to root us out of this cave. Any time they

try to climb the cliff, Xin’s birds cut them off the rock. He loses a few to combat, but

I think we can maintain this for days before we have to change the strategy.”

“Tell them we’re hunkered down below you,” said Harry. “I am going to try to

arrange a distraction, and then we’re coming over.”

“How long?,” asked Milla.

“I don’t know,” said Harry. “I am going to ask the Jordan to try to bomb the guys

below us so our group can hook up with your group. Then we can get everyone

off the mountain.”

“We won’t have a firebase,” said Milla.

“Already built the start of one,” said Harry. “Once I am done with you guys, I plan

to use that as the start of the counter-invasion.”

“Do you really think you can?,” said Milla.

“I don’t see why not,” said Harry. “I have to talk to John and see if I can put the end

of this into place. Then we can see what we can do once we don’t have to rescue

people.”

“I would have had the points if I had not used stealth mode like you asked,” said

Milla.

“Relieving the Chinese was more important than killing the enemy,” said Harry.

“But now that we are almost able to extract them, the tide is going the other way.”

“I understand,” said Milla. “I have still amassed more points on this one trip than any

other. That more than justifies the strategy.”

“I’ll talk to you after I know something for sure,” said Harry. “Just ignore any

explosions and particle streams from our side of the gulf. We are trapping around our

fort.”

“I understand,” said Milla.

“John?,” asked Harry. “Are you there?”

“We’re here, Harry,” said John. “What’s the situation?”

“We have to cross a space between where we are and where the Chinese are,” said

Harry. “Milla came down the stealthy route and is in there with them. She doesn’t

have points for a gate. We need to cross that gap but they are going to be shooting

at us. We need a distraction from you if you can put it together.”

“We’ll need time to build,” said John. “Can you hold on?”

“Give us an estimate when you have something together,” said Harry. “Right now,

we’re trying to hunker down and not attract attention.”

“I’ll call you back,” said John.