I had my opening before I even had my feet set on the floor. I fired.

Direct hit. The bright energy from the ion blast enveloped the Hive Soldier’s entire head. As quickly as the light exploded, it was gone. The Hive Soldier remained. Completely intact.

Again and again I fired. Head. Chest. Legs. Nothing worked. It was like I was simply shining a light in their direction.

They should have gone down with the first hit.

“Fuck!”

“New armor!” Ruk shouted. “Blasters won’t work.”

“New armor. New fucking armor.” Dropping my blasters at my feet, I pulled my knives free from their sheaths, one on each thigh.

“Cormac?” Abby’s panicked voice filled my helmet. “Cormac? Are you all right? What’s happening?”

I didn’t dare tell her the truth. Ruk and I were facing off with the strongest fighters the Hive could produce, and we were down at least six to one.

But I had adaptive armor, too. Their blaster shots would hurt, but they wouldn’t take me down. And Ruk? Those ion blasts would do little more than make him angry.

Six to one. I liked those odds.

“Everything is fine, Abby. Our arrival must have triggered a sensor.”

“A Hive sensor?”

“Yes. Stay put. Ruk and I are handling it. I’m turning off my comms. I’ll come get you when it’s over.”

I couldn’t afford to be distracted by her voice at a critical moment. I had to kill these fuckers as quickly as possible and get her out of here before more of them showed up.

Abby

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I paced in front of Enzo’s prison cell. I knew that if I had to, I could release him. I was fairly confident he would protect me. Not one hundred percent, but like ninety-five. That was pretty good.

Stryck, aka Thumper, was still going strong. The thump, thump, thump did absolutely nothing to calm my frazzled nerves. The elevator ride had been bad enough. I’d grabbed onto anything I could find as the freefall to the lower levels had almost buckled my knees. I’d forgotten what it was like riding in that stupid thing. And it was damn near impossible without Cormac there to help hold me up.

“What is happening?” Enzo asked.

I saw no reason not to tell him. “Apparently we triggered some kind of Hive alarm. Cormac says there are twelve of them, and they have some kind of new armor that he’s not too happy about.”

“Free us, Abby. Do it now.”