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“Could their dropships land on the planet?” Amana’s voice was shaking.

Jace thought of what had happened in his little hometown of Sunrise with just a dozen dropships compared to what eleven Hives could bring to Haseon’s surface.

Typhon put a comforting hand on his sister’s shoulder. “The planetary defense systems will protect us.”

Jace’s mind touched the broken and under powered systems that controlled the entire planet. “No, no, they won’t.”

Even Khoth seemed to pale at his words. Everyone stared at him with a kind of sublime horror. Khoth’s father performed that gage gesture and closed his eyes as if in prayer. He had reached out to Khoth and grasped his son’s arm.

“But I can fix that,” Jace realized. His head shot up. Pain had his seeing stars, but he pressed on, “Take me to the main control room.”

Typhon nodded and pushed another button on the lift even as the doors were already opening. It zipped up another floor or two before opening again. Khoth had to practically carry Jace out of the lift. Leaving the labyrinth hadn’t helped. Now that every system on the planet was on red alert he could feel every problem with them. Every empty power cell. Every cut line. Every system that needed updating. The labyrinth had shielded him from the full impact of those systems’ needs. But no longer.

“What is wrong with the Pilot?!” Amana cried. “He needs a doctor--”

“No, no, Gehenna and I need to get--to get to your control room. Please, now,” Jace got out.

Right! Jace, I can plug in and you can use me to access all of the systems, Gehenna cried.

Khoth lifted Jace into his arms and carried him, running down a hallway that was just a blur of auras. He shut his eyes and concentrated on the broken systems. While he could access everything remotely easily with the Osiris’ assistance that was cut off right now, he needed to work through Gehenna this time.

A door whooshed open. Jace felt the air on his face. He heard dozens of voices in the control room speaking to the ships above Haseon’s skies. Gehenna rolled by, causing some commotion as she literally ran a man off his seat to expose a port. She plugged in with a solid thunk.

We have access, Jace! It’s all yours! Gehenna offered.

And Jace let out a sigh as he saw the entire network spread out before him like one giant, planet-sized schematic.

“What is he doing?” Amana asked.

“Accessing the planet’s defense grid,” Jace answered without opening his eyes.

He hit those systems first. He was able to access the cameras on the satellites right below the battle. The Osiris was in the thick of the action. It’s shields were being pummeled, but thought it had not yet had a chance to refuel, the enemies’ fire was doing the job. One of its massive forward guns glowed a hot purple before a beam exploded from the end and shot straight towards the nearest Hive. It cut the bottom of the Hive off. The bottom floated free and Jace focused in to see countless Khul bodies floating into space.

Good.

But the gun that had done so much damage was on cool down. Jace knew from his earlier research that without the refueling, the gun would take ten Earth minutes to recharge. A lot could happen in 10 minutes. In fact, a lot had already happened.

Of the dozen Colossus-class ships that High Commander Staed had arrayed against them, already one was inoperative while two more were greatly injured. But the Thylacine-class fighters were not surrounding those ships to take them out piece by piece. No, they were attacking the grid, which was already down to 10% power in some parts.

Gehenna, we need to get the grid powered fully up and functional! Jace warned.

I can reroute power from non-essential services, Gehenna said as she showed him the lines that could be turned from their current purpose to power the grid.

Jace started to move within the system, cleaning out bugs, sweeping away patch code, and bringing the machines that powered not only the shields, but other military defenses the Thaf’ell had no idea about, back online after thousands of years.

These were built to last, he thought with satisfaction.

The power started to flow up to the shields and spread over the planet slowly but surely. Just like the Moturin Compound, the shields had been at 30% to begin with, an electric blue. Now they were a thin yellow as they dropped dangerously low.

Ooh! Jace, do you see this weapon?! Gehenna sounded thrilled.

It was a massive gun located beneath one of the old sports stadiums.

I do. I’ve already started to warm it up. One blast can disintegrate a Hive, he said. Shields first, though.

The thin yellow shields suddenly flooded blue.

“This is incredible!” An unfamiliar voice cried. “The shields are increasing in power! They should be decreasing. I don’t understand this!”