The distinct tingly creepy feeling of a breeder clawing at the edges of my mind.
‘Kit Steele…’they taunted, and dizziness washed over me. I yanked off my helmet.
Nope. I wasn’t letting this happen again. I wouldn’t be controlled. Pulling on all my strength and training that Master Aki had taught me, I created a forcefield of psychic protection around me. I pulled the walls up over my mind, but before I did I felt something. Something bad.
“They’re coming,” I blurted aloud. Because for that split second I’d connected with the breeder hive mind, I’d seen it. A hundred of them were making their way here now. They’d slaughter us all.
Chandler snapped her head in my direction. “Who?”
My heart started to race. They were close. They’d been waiting for this. “The breeders. An army of them. I’m opening it back up. Abort mission.”
Everyone on the army team frowned as if they were disappointed I was about to abort the mission over a “feeling,” but my team gave me a solid nod. Ronnie, Maxine, Nox, and Brisk knew that when I aborted a mission it was because there was no other way.
Turning, I held my palms out, I began to feel for those edges. When I started to mentally tease them apart, something stopped me and bile rose in my throat as panic fully seized me.
I calmed my breathing, ignoring Ronnie’s question of what was wrong, and tried again. Instead of feeling like I was peeling a layer of gauze back, it felt like I was scratching steel.
The breeders had locked me in.
Fuck.
I spun. “We’re trapped. They are keeping me from opening it. We need to shelter in and prepare for an assault. Now.”
If I’d said that to civilians, there would be questions, there would be scrambling, and fumbling, and lots of “What do we do?” Not this team. The moment those words left my lips they exploded into perfect synchronization. Chandler’s team started pulling plasma bricks from the Humvee and setting the perimeter, while Nox ran about twenty feet out and started burying explosives. I’d said shelter in and they didn’t question me. They didn’t ask ”Why don’t we try to drive with the Humvee and outrun them?” I was a commander and they were taking my word as an order and I appreciated that.
Looking up, I saw the breeders on the horizon , running fast. Like a group of leopards, they galloped over rocky surfaces and tree pods. Weighed-down Humvees would never outrun those powerful beings. Not when they could drop acid rain and God knows what else on us. We needed to stand our ground and fight.
Nox didn’t have time to deeply bury the explosives, so they sat half in and out of the dirt, but it was better than nothing.
“Perimeter set to blow!” Nox shouted, and made his way back to the plasma brick camp that had been set up. I slipped inside and Chandler turned them on, creating a dome of protection around our small group of ten, including Dawn, who barely fit inside.
“Will this hold them?” Chandler asked me.
I swallowed hard, remembering how that one breeder had slammed her body against the shield when I’d been stuck in a cave.
“No.” There was no way it would hold against this many.
She seemed to accept that.
“How can we help you regain your ability to open the portal? If you could, we could get behind them and drive them through and into our world. If what you say is true, they would all burn up.”
“It is true!” Ronnie snapped.
Chandler looked down for a moment in a submissive gesture. “I’m sorry, but I’m trained to only believe what I can see.”
I could respect that. “It’s hard to put into words. It’s a mental gift. They are all overpowering me, keeping me from opening it. There is nothing that physically can be done.”
We were sitting ducks and they were almost to us.
Something crossed Chandler’s face. “But if we can take down their numbers, their control over your power lessens?”
Technically yes, but that sounded like it would take a lot of casualties. Master Aki had said the same thing, that if I culled their numbers I might be able to collapse their world.
“Yes, but it wouldn’t be without loss,” I told her.
“Triggering explosives in 5… 4…” Nox cut through our chatter, and I snapped up to see the first line of breeders coming up on his planted devices.
Chandler spoke over Nox’s countdown: “I have a mission to find out if these things can be killed as you say. If that means we risk our lives to complete our mission, then so be it.”
