Gabriel leapt back as a FUD battling a Monkey Cat slammed into the ground where he’d been standing. Thick honey-colored blood smeared across the pavement as the FUD’s sharp claws raked across the Monkey Cat’s back. It snapped at its front leg, ripping it off with a squelch of shredded flesh and sinew.
Alvarez covered him as he got to his feet, reloading the moment Gabriel was upright. He’d taken Zoe’s gun and was doing his best to make it count, but the horde of aliens only seemed to swell, coming closer with every bullet fired. There were five of them left upright, six if you counted Beaumont, but he was down an arm and firing pot shots with a handgun that might as well have been loaded with bubbles.
They were trapped, and the aliens knew it. They’d turned their attention to each other, content to let the humans fester until the winners finally killed them off. Gabriel’s hackles rose with the sickening sense of claustrophobia. Every opening he found was quickly closed. Their only hope was to retreat into the tunnels, but he had no idea what shape they were in. Phin had disappeared into the darkness and hadn’t returned. Forall Gabriel knew, the Metro had collapsed further in, and they couldn’t risk being boxed in like that.
One of Alvarez’s men that Gabriel only vaguely recognized had tried climbing the collapsed rubble, but the chunks were too big to scale, and getting up high had made him a clear target for the Handler’s weapons. Staying low was the only reason the Handlers and Drones hadn’t picked them off. They couldn’t risk hitting their own troops.
Movement caught his eye, and he turned to see Phin emerging from the Metro carrying Tommy. The young man was clearly unconscious, slumped in Phin’s arms. Phin caught his eye and made a quick sign with his hand under Tommy’s knees.
The mission is go.
Judd must be down in the tunnel, ready to throw the switch. They could still do this. He looked down at the street. Just beyond his boots, the metal grid still lined the street, primed and ready to shock. Everything in this narrow stretch of street would die.
Including them.
If they let up their suppression fire for even a moment, the aliens would be on them. And if they made a run for the tunnel or even one of the intact buildings, the aliens might follow. If they got to Judd or the switch before it was live, the mission would fail. All those deaths would have been for nothing.
Alvarez stopped firing and turned to Beaumont. Without hesitation, he grabbed the slim man and threw him into the Metro station behind Phin, his blonde hair disappearing down the stairs.
“Lennox!” he screamed, his voice raw. His right side was badly burned, and his eyes shone with pain. “Fry these sons of bitches!”
Gabriel shook his head. “You’re in the strike zone!”
“Fuck you!” he took three shots, striking a FUD in its eye. “I’ll see you in hell!”
Glass and metal crunched under his boots as he waffled with indecision. He couldn’t look away from Alvarez’s face. Half of it was raw and pink, smeared with blood and dirt. White teeth flashed as he snarled, never taking a step back even as the enemy advanced.
His hands felt numb around the stock of his weapon, cold sweat prickling down his back. If he did this, he would be killing them. All of them. These people who had believed in his plan. In him. They’d trusted that he could get them home.
Just like the young soldiers he’d led to war only to bring them home in a box.
Just like the soldier in his office with the dead eyes.
Shaking his head, he looked around desperately. There must be another way. He could do this. He could save them. There was something…
Gabriel couldn’t save them.
But he could die with them.
He took one step onto the street, the metal grid scraping the bottom of his boots. Gabriel refused to have another soul on his conscience. He would die beside his team, gun in hand.
Gabriel pictured Blake’s green eyes and pouty lips, that one stubborn curl he liked to twirl around his finger. He wanted that to be his last memory.
Looking over his shoulder, he made eye contact with Phin. Inhaling, he got ready to shout the order when a concussive blast struck him from behind. It was so loud that even the aliens slowed in their fighting, attention turned to the sound.
A soft glow burned from the middle of the rubble. So small, Gabriel thought it was sunlight glinting off glass, but then it grew, faster than he could conceive. It looked like magma burbling out of an active volcano, so hot it was melting the rockaround it before bubbling free and spilling down the crevices. Steam hissed, and Gabriel could feel the intense heat even from where he was standing.
Thick chunks of concrete and steel beams melted like candle wax as the glow burned white hot. Rock burnt to ash. The wall started to sag as the rubble under it melted. Sunlight from the other side streamed through the steam.
An exit.
“Run!” Gabriel screamed, turning his back on the exit and laying down suppression fire. Taking advantage of the alien’s distraction, he kept an eye on both as his men scrambled over the cooler pieces of crumbled building. Alvarez hopped in before him. Gabriel backed up so close he could feel the steam on his back. Then a hand grabbed his shoulder.
Gabriel’s feet had barely left the metal grid when he screamed, “Throw the switch!”
For an agonizing moment, nothing happened. The aliens advanced, maws agape and claws tearing through the asphalt. Handler fire echoed through the narrow streets, followed closely by the quickerrat-a-tat-tatof Drone guns.
And then it stopped.
