More came. They seemed to never end, and Skyler started to hear colonists on the line reloading. “Conserve ammo!” he barked, doubting anyone could hear him. He could barely hear himself.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, the flow of enemies trickled and stopped. The forest went silent, save for the few colonists who had the wits to reload in the lull. The carnage before their wedge was absolute. Skyler guessed at least forty in the dirt and leaves before them. Someone off to the left hacked, then vomited, a horrible sound to hear coming from within an environment suit. The colonist backed away from the line and sought help from the backup squad to get his helmet off. Another person on the front line, somewhere right of Skyler, let out a laugh born of adrenaline and fear.

“We did it!” someone shouted.

Others began to cheer, to congratulate one another.

“Shut up,” Skyler hissed. “Keep quiet!”

They weren’t listening, though. People began to high-five, to hug.

Idiots!

The black-clad subhuman slipped out of the cloud like a ghost. It made no sound at all, and moved with a cold ruthlessness that chilled Skyler to the bone.

The armored creature was among the colonists before they even realized it. It swiped at the nearest person with a flat hand, the speed of the attack a blur. Skyler saw the poor man’s suit and neck tear open, as if sliced by a knife. The man fell dead, the creature already on its next victim.

Someone screamed. Skyler heard a gunshot and he cried out for restraint. The black-clad sub was in their midst, and shooting at it would only put their own people at risk. His call went unheeded, though. People panicked, firing wildly. All the while the dark enemy slashed and punched. In the space of a second, three more colonists fell.

A bullet finally found the enemy. Skyler saw a spark fly from the being’s chest as the round ricocheted off. No penetration then, but the subhuman did recoil, almost fell. It seemed surprised, and Skyler saw its “eyes” flare with red light. In that moment of respite, the colonists closest to the creature, the ones still alive, leapt or crawled away in terror. They retreated toward the tower, and he felt a pang of relief to see Tania moving with them.

Other colonists sensed the opening and began to barrage the creature. Skyler joined in, and the monster bucked and shrank under the fire. Then it turned and raced back into the cloud.

It’s vulnerable, Skyler found himself thinking.

Another scream arose from the crowd of colonists, a shriek of terror that stopped as abruptly as it started. The noise came from the left, and Skyler spun in that direction in time to see one of the colonists topple over and a black shape recede into the cloud.

“More than one!” Pablo shouted. He fired blind into the cloud where the subhuman had vanished. Others did the same.

Two, at least, Skyler thought. And they’re using the cloud for cover now. “They’ll pick us to pieces!” he yelled over the sporadic crackle of gunfire. “Retreat to the tower, away from the cloud!”

Everyone, even Ana, fell back at the command. Many turned and ran, but some walked backward, their weapons still trained on the edge of the unnatural cloud, Skyler among them.

Five people remained at their original positions, motionless lumps in the dirt.

A new wedge formed, and Skyler fell into line next to Tania. Her face was pale despite her dark complexion. Her eyes were wide and unblinking. She held the pistol in two shaking hands.

For a long minute no one spoke. All guns were trained on the shrouded forest, and the bodies that lay in the shifting border of the cloud. Parakeets and macaws began to settle back into the dense canopy above, chattering as if nothing had happened.

The cloud shifted and pulsed. It pulled in and then pushed back out, with no rhythm that Skyler could discern. At one point, the thick haze sucked inward a significant distance, enough to reveal the shadowy forms of two more red-lit aura towers off to either side of the first one they’d spotted.

Skyler heard murmurs of fear from the group, and focused back on the scene of the battle. In the retreated haze, two humanoid forms stood. Dark shadows within the cloud, like blurred photographs. Skyler’s finger tensed on the trigger of his gun by pure instinct, but before he could shoot—before anyone could—the cloud pulsed outward again, and the beings were gone.

“They’re staying close to that murk,” Vanessa said.

Skyler raised his own voice. “Everyone reload, prepare to concentrate fire.” He had started to double-check his own weapon, when Tania spoke up.

“No,” she said. “Belay that.”

He turned his head slowly until their eyes met. “What?”

Tania’s wide-eyed gaze remained on the cloud where the two creatures had stood. “It isn’t wise to continue this.”

“We’re hurting them,” he said. “We should press the attack.”

Tania’s lips tightened. She shook her head. “We leave, Skyler,” she said sharply. “We’re outmatched by these creatures, physically and tactically. We need to rethink this. A better plan.”

With a shift in the breeze the cloud receded again. The two dark shapes at the cloud’s edge remained there, unmoving, watching. Waiting, Skyler thought. He had to remind himself that inside they were subhumans. Unless the Builders’ altar had rewired their brains somehow, the creatures would still move and act in primal, predictable fashion. Not that he’d ever seen subhumans just stand around like this, biding their time. But if these two were constrained to the area of the cloud …

“Everyone stand down,” he said. A silence fell over the colonists. Then Skyler raised his gun.

“What are you doing?” Tania asked.

In answer, Skyler lined up his holo-sight on the chest of one enemy and fired a single round.

The creature stumbled backward a step, one arm flailing about for balance. The other sub dropped to a crouch, moved left a step, then right. When the one Skyler had shot recovered, both of the augmented subhumans moved back farther into the cloud until their forms vanished.

If that had been a grenade, Skyler thought, eyeing Ana’s weapon. We can beat them.

“They’re stuck in the circle,” someone said. “Just like us in the aura.”

“Leave them alone, then,” Tania said. “Skyler, this is too risky. I won’t have it.”

Skyler walked to her and leaned in close. He lowered his voice. “We can’t ignore this place forever, not if you want to explore that ship. Not if you want those towers back.”

She remained steadfast. “For almost three months we’ve ignored it. A little more time to develop a plan and revise our arsenal can’t hurt. The colony can survive without the towers.”

“Can I speak with you?” Skyler asked her.

He led her by the arm a short distance, until they stood by the aura tower parked at the rally point. Once the colonists were out of earshot, Skyler stopped and turned Tania to face him.

“The violence here,” he said, “it’s unspeakable, I know. But Tania, if we wait it will only be worse. We should press the attack, now, before more of these advanced subhumans are created.”

She shook her head.

Skyler went on, undeterred. “You saw it recoil from that bullet. They’re not invincible. Plus they’re trapped. Ana has grenades, we can dart in, dart out—”

“No,” Tania said. “No. This site is off-limits for now. We need a better approach. To continue now would only result in more losses on our side. The dead from your battle with Gabriel are still being mourned.”

“My battle with Gabriel?”

Her eyes flared. “You initiated the combat. We were coming down to negotiate.”

“Right. By sacrificing me. Never mind that your sneak-attack aircraft had already failed.”

“So your life is worth more than those who died that night?”

He barked a laugh. “You tell me! You’re the one dealing in human fucking resources.”

Tania slapped him across the cheek. Not hard, but enough that it stung. Her hand immediately shot to cover her own mouth, as if she’d surprised even herself by the action. “I’m sorry,” she said in a meek voice from behind her cupped hand.

“Hell,” Skyler said as he rubbed at his jaw. “I probably deserved it.”

The scientist steadied herself. A vein in her neck pulsed with anger, frustration. “We’ve been through this already, Skyler, and I apologized. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Just forget it,” he said. “It’s in the past.”

Tania’s lips parted, as if she wanted to say something more, but she relented.

A frosty silence followed, and Skyler decided he’d lost this battle. “Retreat it is, then. Do me a favor, though? Monitor this place. When we do come back, and we will, I’d like to know the situation before we arrive.”

Tania turned back toward the cloud with a grudging nod to Skyler. “If you want to find the equipment to signal back to camp, set it up, and maintain it, I’ll make sure we have people keeping an eye on it.”

Skyler sensed she wouldn’t give any more ground than that, but he pressed his luck anyway. “I’d recommend clearing the trees around here, too.”

“Why? The creatures don’t seem to be moving beyond the circle of towers.”

“Maybe they just haven’t figured out how to move the red towers yet.”

Tania’s gaze whipped back toward the cloud. She hadn’t considered that.

“Anyway,” Skyler went on, “I’m less worried about the ones inside, and more worried about new subhumans entering this place. If the ship in there is slowly converting them into these augmented versions …”

“… and there’s a steady supply,” Tania whispered, “we may never break through to explore that ship.”

“Exactly,” Skyler said. “One way or another, Tania, it’s going to be a battle. You’re just delaying the inevitable.”

Tania stared at him, looking every bit the woman he’d fled Hawaii with. A mix of terror and determination, like two warring armies behind her eyes. “I just … I can’t, Skyler. Not so soon. We’ve lost so many already.”

He stared back at her for a long moment, hoping she might swing in her opinion. The idea of taking on the creatures within that haze didn’t appeal to him much, in truth, but he knew the odds might never be better. When Tania’s expression remained steadfast, he gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Fine,” he said. “We retreat. Do me one last favor, though.”

She squinted at him, waiting.

“Get Karl to show you how to handle that gun.”

Chapter 27

Belém, Brazil

8.MAY.2283

THE MISSING AIRCRAFT was found the next day.

A team of scientists came across it while making the trek along Water Road out to the reservoir, and within an hour Skyler arrived to survey the scene.

Bodies littered the ground, each hidden under a blanket of flies. Clouds of the plump black insects took flight when he swung his rifle at them, only to return before he’d completed the swing.

Rivers of ants flowed in from the rainforest floor, their targets being the undersides of the corpses where the flies could not reach.

The revolting smell forced Skyler to tie a bandanna around his face, and even that did little to quell the nausea he felt. Belém, like all cities on Earth save Darwin, was littered with the skeletons of early SUBS victims, so many that the sight of them hardly registered anymore. Rotten flesh was a different matter.

He decided the bodies could wait. They weren’t going anywhere; at least the bones weren’t. The aircraft that rested nearby was much more interesting. As he walked toward it, he felt his right hand twitch at the thought of holding a flight stick again.

Any hope of getting the vehicle airborne vanished as he came closer. A massive hole had been punched into the canopy. “Bird strike?” he wondered aloud. The cause didn’t make any difference—no one alive had the knowledge or equipment to repair such a thing. No one he knew of, anyway.

The rear of the craft lay open, and his boots crunched on an unnoticed line of ants as he ascended into the belly of the vehicle. Skyler knew then that more horror awaited inside. He soldiered on, intent to know what had happened here, and found his answers within the cockpit.

No bird had punctured the window. He found the pilot lying on the floor between the two seats. Ants flowed into his open mouth, which gaped far wider than any human could achieve. Something had pulled the poor man’s jaw open so savagely that the bottom portion had come unhinged.

Skyler gagged, and stumbled from the morbid scene. Outside he emptied his stomach into the dirt and staggered away.

“Only those black-clad subs could have done this,” he told Tania and Karl via radio.

“So they aren’t confined to that cloud,” Karl noted.

Skyler took a swig of cool water from his canteen, swished, and spat it out. “They certainly appeared to be yesterday.”

“Perhaps,” Tania said, “the red towers are what confines them, not the cloud. This attack happened a week ago, before the towers lit up and encircled the cloud.”

“Good point,” Skyler said. “Still, all the more reason to make sure that cloud is monitored twenty-four/seven.”

“Agreed,” Karl said.

Skyler said goodbye and clicked off. He ventured back into the aircraft once, decided nothing within was valuable enough to keep him there, and left. He paused only long enough to close the rear door. Outside, he instructed the scientists who’d found the site to burn the bodies that littered the ground, then return the next day and recover any weapons left behind by the flames. “The guns won’t be reliable,” Skyler told them, “so toss the lot in the river. I’d rather nobody picked one up and tried to use it only to have it fail when actually needed.”