The lander launched over ridgeline after ridgeline, briefly airborne each time. The engine screamed under overload. Smoke curled into the cabin. Something—more than one something—came loose and clattered away behind him.
Wyatt didn’t slow.
The valley wasn’t far. The old lander carried him back just before it finally died.
Gunfire was still going when he arrived.
From a distance he saw a knot of enemy robots surrounding the convoy, firing hard. Big Blue, Eisen, and the others were pinned behind the carriages, returning fire when they could—but the incoming rounds were too dense. One carriage was burning, the metal coughing up dark smoke.
Wyatt didn’t know if anyone was down. He didn’t wait to find out.
He drew his two-dimensional blade and hard-locked every hostile position in the valley.
The dying lander’s roar made half the enemy squad swivel their weapons toward it. Rounds tore into the chassis. Sparks exploded outward. The moment the lander hit the ground it shattered into a few broken chunks—
And only then did they realize the cockpit had been empty.
A few enemies hesitated. A few saw the blur.
Before anyone could bring a rifle to bear, two Exilers were cut cleanly in half.
A third Exiler ignited its arm-blade—
Its arm and head separated from its torso and went sailing.
Before the head even hit the dirt, Wyatt was ten meters away, cutting down his sixth target.
Now the whole squad turned their guns on him. The ones close enough lit blades and rushed, trying to force him into a small kill box.
Wyatt didn’t retreat.
He drove straight into the densest pocket.
Three Exilers hit him first: one he cut, one he took, one he shot through the optic. The hijacked unit absorbed incoming fire for him, a temporary shield.
From behind that shield, Wyatt fired again. Two more hostiles fell.
Then four grenade launchers boomed in sequence.
The unit shielding Wyatt shredded into scrap. But the last grenade landed inside the enemy cluster, not on him.
That was the opening Big Blue needed.
The moment Wyatt hit from behind, the convoy surged up and out of cover. Big Blue charged first, heavy rifle roaring, drum turning as he lobbed grenade after grenade into the tightest groups.
Eisen vaulted onto the roof of a carriage and dropped an Exiler that had been lining up on Wyatt. It was his first kill. Starling clenched her jaw and emptied a magazine into an Exiler’s back at close range. Minks leaned out a window with a rocket tube and blasted the nearest Bloodthirster off its feet—then toppled backward from the recoil.
Meanwhile, Wyatt kept converting units. One after another, they turned their rifles on their former allies.
The enemy formation collapsed into confusion. Friend and foe blurred. Gunfire turned wild.
That confusion accelerated their termination.
In less than two minutes, every attacker was down.
“Everyone—status?” Wyatt asked, already scanning for movement.
“You came back in time,” Big Blue said, breathless. “We’re all alive.”
Eisen ran a hand over fresh scoring on his armor. “Another thirty seconds and I’m not sure I’d be saying that.”
Minks pointed up. “My units are gone.”
Wyatt looked. Three bodies lay sprawled on the roofline. Of Minks’ four combat robots, only one remained upright—and it was sparking, smoking, and swaying like it might fall any second.
“It’s fine,” Wyatt said, glancing at the new units behind him. “We’ve replacements.”
He’d converted six robots during the fight. Three had already died shielding him. Two Exilers and a Bloodthirster were still mostly intact.
Starling pulled Linneya down from the carriage. Linneya flashed Wyatt a shaky little victory sign.
Only then did Wyatt loosen his grip on the world. Linneya wasn’t hurt. But her cheeks were streaked with tears, and the carriage behind her was peppered with bullet holes.
“You okay?” he asked quietly. “Did that scare you?”
Linneya forced a smile. “No. You were all here. I wasn’t scared.”
“She really held it together,” Starling said. “Still—how did you know?”
“I heard the gunfire,” Wyatt said. Then, immediately: “How did they find you?”
“That’s what I don’t get,” Big Blue said. “They came from behind. Like they knew our exact position.”
“Behind…?” Wyatt started—
“Bad news!” Dorian shouted from the rear.
Everyone ran.
The damaged carriage was the worst possible one.
The water bay.
An armor-piercing round had ripped a hole through the side. The main tank was split nearly in two. The stored water—tens of tons—had already drained out into the dirt.
“Our water’s gone,” Dorian said, voice hollow.
Starling went rigid. “No water means… no. We can’t—”
“How much do we’ve left?” Wyatt asked.
“The grow bay has about four liters,” Minks said quickly.
“The canteens in the sleeping compartment,” Eisen added. “Maybe two liters total.”
“Enough for ten days?” Wyatt asked.
“Barely,” Starling said. “If we ration.”
“Only if we stop growing,” Minks said. “No irrigation.”
“I can drink less,” Linneya said quickly. “I can make it twenty days.”
“No,” Eisen said at once. “Dehydration will make your condition worse.”
Wyatt made the call. “We stop growing. Harvest every ripe orange bean now. We’ve to reach Edean within ten days.”
Minks nodded, calculating. “Six days to get out of the Budalawa Mountains. That leaves three days to find the ‘airfield.’ It’s tight, but possible.”
“Then let’s move,” Big Blue said. “If another enemy squad—”
Wyatt froze.
Big Blue was right. Another squad would be lethal.
He swept the battlefield again, counting what they’d just killed.
Forty-seven hostiles. Mostly Exilers. Bloodthirsters next. Only a few Firecallers.
And not a single Shade.
Not a single CBG.
That absence was a message.
Wyatt jacked into the nearest converted unit’s database and ripped through its mission log.
Big Blue noticed the change in him. “What is it?”
Wyatt didn’t answer until he’d finished reading.
“They’re survivors,” he said at last. “From that downed cruiser. Tower Clan shot them out of the sky. They were headed for Sunset Harbor Base to request help.”
“Then why did they come here?” Minks asked.
“Because they ran into our Hyena scout first,” Wyatt said. “Then they found our wheel tracks.”
Starling’s eyes widened. “Oh… god. That’s how.”
Dorian jogged behind the convoy and stared at the ground. “We leave tracks?”
“We didn’t at first,” Minks said, angry at himself. “The ground was hard. The last few days we hit sand and gravel. You can see it if you look. I should’ve warned you.”
“And there’s more,” Wyatt said. “They had a CBG with them.”
Big Blue snapped his head up. “Yes. I saw it first. Then the shooting started. Where is it?”
“Stop looking,” Wyatt said, eyes on the northwest. “It never joined the fight.”
He pointed. “It has the Hyena’s head. It’s running for Sunset Harbor Base. Give it two days and these mountains will be crawling with search teams. They might even seal the coastline.”
He didn’t need to add the last part, but he did anyway, voice low.
“If I were Phantom Forge, that’s exactly what I’d do.”
Starling sagged against the bullet-riddled carriage wall, face drained of color.
“So our plan,” she said, “Phantom Forge already knows everything.”